Well, lookee here...the Internet is up today. Comcast worked the kinks out of the wire and today, lo and behold, the little electrons are running through it as slick as if the cable had been RotoRouted.
I think RotoRouted is a verb. Anyway you know what I mean.
Comcast had no idea what the problem was, or even if there was a problem. The techie on the other end of the phone said there weren't any outages and everything was fine (oh yeah, says you) but what I learned from previous encounters with Comcast is that the customer service people, despite what's on their screens, have no idea at all what's going on in the field. And the field and the customer service people don't talk, much less get along. Customer service will just tell you to unplug the modem, count to fifteen, then plug it in again. Oh yeah, reboot the computer. That might work. It's all pretty lame.
Yesterday we couldn't log on, couldn't print, couldn't do much of anything except look at files stored on our disk. Vacation pictures can get a little worn after awhile. Which got me to thinking--agai--about how much we depend on the Internet and technology in general for the day to day doings of our lives.
It's bone-breaking cold out there. I wonder what the temp is. I'll just hit that little button that brings up the local weather and...doh!
Look up a book I heard about. Shop for shirts. Look for a replacement part for the blender. Get my homework for class. Apply for a job. Check my bank balance (kinda important when you're low on funds and you have to write some checks.) Research the two artists I have to interview this weekend. Network with colleagues to further my job search. Send some people who said they'd be my references an email letting them know potential employers will be calling them and I need the work so please don't tell them I'm an axe murderer. These are just some of the things I wanted to do yesterday and for which I needed the Internet.
Trivial and important, we depend/rely/count on/stake our lives on technology and the providers. And the thing about it is, when the Internet goes down, we always say the same thing, It always craps out at the absolute wrong time. That's because, now, there's no good time for the Internet to go down. That's how much we've come to depend on it.
We use the Internet to support vital parts of our lives like our jobs and our work. We use it for the not-so-vital but just as important personal aspects like keeping in touch with our friends and family.
The last time I blogged about this topic Universal Hub picked up Action Bob and I got slammed by the geeky little audience there because I was "whining"--their word, not mine--that Sue needed the Internet to find a location when she went out on the Hotline. The comments came fast and hard. Don't be an idiot and rely on Comcast for something as vital as your job. (Just accept mediocrity.) Get a GPS. (Invest in even more technology.) Get a map. (Get off the technology wagon immediately.) Get a life. (I'm not sure what that angry diatribe was about, considering it came from people who had no lives themselves except to use the Internet to post long-winded diatribes.)
I'll say it once, and I'll keep saying it. The service providers today, particularly ISPs but also cell phones and cable television, don't seem to realize or care that their services are more vital and important to us than they ever have been. And I'm not talking about the importance of watching the Super Bowl or American Idol. I'm talking about the dissemination of information in a democracy.
My cell phone provider, ATT, but it was Cingular at the time, actually ran an advertising campaign once that said, We have less dropped calls than the other guys." You're not supposed to have any dropped calls at all. What if a brain surgeon worked on that principle? I have fewer slip-ups than the other docs? And Comcast and ATT and all the rest aren't doing brain surgery.
I guess thank God for that.
Showing posts with label the Internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Internet. Show all posts
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
When the Internet is about life and death...forget Comcast
It's one thing when your Internet connection is down and you can't shop on eBay. It's quite another when it affects a life and death situation. And it's maddening when you're dealing with Comcast.
Sue works for the state of Massachusetts in child protection. There are times when she'll get a call in the middle of the night and she has to go to an emergency. By emergency, I mean a 911 call where she'll meet the police and there could be alcohol, drugs, and guns involved. When this happens, the first thing she does is map Google the location where she has to go. As you can guess, most of these emergencies don't take place in the best of neighborhoods-- neighborhoods where you don't want to be driving around in the middle of the night asking for directions. Also, if she doesn't pull the location off the Internet, she has to drive to the local police department and get directions, which amounts to a significant loss of response time.
So try explaining this to Comcast.
Friday night that's exactly what happened. She got a call and when she Googled the Internet was down. A woman had been severely beaten and there were four children involved. The situation was so dangerous that at one point the responding officer considered drawing his firearm.
Today is Tuesday, and after about five lengthy phone calls to Comcast's customer service center in South Texas (Loredo) and after guarantees that the service would be fixed in 24 hours, we have is occasional uptime with the Internet that is obvious isn't a result of any work on Comcast's part. Even after I explained that lives were at risk.
All we kept getting were a lot of I'm sorries and I understand your frustration, responses that the customer service reps are taught to say.
What's worse is that the technicians in the Boston area lied about their response. I was told on Saturday night by a supervisor in Loredo that a technician would be at the house between noon and 4 o'clock. It's a Saturday on Labor Day weekend. Sue and I had things to do but we cancelled everything to be at the apartment when the technician arrived. No technician arrived and later than night during the number of phone calls I had with Loredo they said the technician posted that they called us and no one answered. No one called. My phone logs all my calls, both incoming and outgoing, and no one called from Comcast.
During one conversation with Loredo, a customer service rep told me that the Boston center said not to escalate the problem unless the situation changes. In other words, even though I clearly explained a number of times that this could be considered a life and death situation, the Boston office clearly didn't think so.
Unbelievable.
What Comcast, and I suspect other Internet providers don't understand is the nature of the Internet. Forget Sue's need for it, it is completely entwined in the fabric of people's lives.
Sue and I don't have a television. We get almost all of our news from the Internet. We follow the presidential elections on the Internet. We streamed Obama's speech the other night.
The Internet, for most of us, has replaced the post office, the bank, the telephone company--just about every service you can think of. We email and IM instead of writing letters. It's how we keep in touch. The old AT&T company never let phone connections go down. I can barely think of a time going without phone service unless under emergencies like the Blizzard of '78. The post office delivered mail through rain and sleet and snow. That's the attitude Comcast should take, but they don't.
And I am so opposed to government intervention into anything, but rather than worry about what Roger Clemens shot into his hiney, shouldn't Congress worry more about the business practices of something like Comcast and how it is negatively affecting our lives? There is a side of degregulation that is a wonderful thing. But there is also a part of it that allows organizations (financial institutions and communication companies come to mind) to engage in shoddy and unethical business practices.
Sue works for the state of Massachusetts in child protection. There are times when she'll get a call in the middle of the night and she has to go to an emergency. By emergency, I mean a 911 call where she'll meet the police and there could be alcohol, drugs, and guns involved. When this happens, the first thing she does is map Google the location where she has to go. As you can guess, most of these emergencies don't take place in the best of neighborhoods-- neighborhoods where you don't want to be driving around in the middle of the night asking for directions. Also, if she doesn't pull the location off the Internet, she has to drive to the local police department and get directions, which amounts to a significant loss of response time.
So try explaining this to Comcast.
Friday night that's exactly what happened. She got a call and when she Googled the Internet was down. A woman had been severely beaten and there were four children involved. The situation was so dangerous that at one point the responding officer considered drawing his firearm.
Today is Tuesday, and after about five lengthy phone calls to Comcast's customer service center in South Texas (Loredo) and after guarantees that the service would be fixed in 24 hours, we have is occasional uptime with the Internet that is obvious isn't a result of any work on Comcast's part. Even after I explained that lives were at risk.
All we kept getting were a lot of I'm sorries and I understand your frustration, responses that the customer service reps are taught to say.
What's worse is that the technicians in the Boston area lied about their response. I was told on Saturday night by a supervisor in Loredo that a technician would be at the house between noon and 4 o'clock. It's a Saturday on Labor Day weekend. Sue and I had things to do but we cancelled everything to be at the apartment when the technician arrived. No technician arrived and later than night during the number of phone calls I had with Loredo they said the technician posted that they called us and no one answered. No one called. My phone logs all my calls, both incoming and outgoing, and no one called from Comcast.
During one conversation with Loredo, a customer service rep told me that the Boston center said not to escalate the problem unless the situation changes. In other words, even though I clearly explained a number of times that this could be considered a life and death situation, the Boston office clearly didn't think so.
Unbelievable.
What Comcast, and I suspect other Internet providers don't understand is the nature of the Internet. Forget Sue's need for it, it is completely entwined in the fabric of people's lives.
Sue and I don't have a television. We get almost all of our news from the Internet. We follow the presidential elections on the Internet. We streamed Obama's speech the other night.
The Internet, for most of us, has replaced the post office, the bank, the telephone company--just about every service you can think of. We email and IM instead of writing letters. It's how we keep in touch. The old AT&T company never let phone connections go down. I can barely think of a time going without phone service unless under emergencies like the Blizzard of '78. The post office delivered mail through rain and sleet and snow. That's the attitude Comcast should take, but they don't.
And I am so opposed to government intervention into anything, but rather than worry about what Roger Clemens shot into his hiney, shouldn't Congress worry more about the business practices of something like Comcast and how it is negatively affecting our lives? There is a side of degregulation that is a wonderful thing. But there is also a part of it that allows organizations (financial institutions and communication companies come to mind) to engage in shoddy and unethical business practices.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Internet is changing who we are
The Internet continues to fascinate me. I truly believe it not only is changing how we live and work, it’s changing us on the inside. It’s changing who we are, and it’s getting closer to our souls. Don’t believe me, huh? No, I haven’t been drinking again.
First, understand when I say it’s getting closer to our souls that I don’t mean that’s a bad thing. It’s not like primitive people thinking a camera steals their souls, but they were on the right track, weren’t they? No, we want to get closer to our souls. We want to shed this skin, this shell, this body here. Jesus Christ understood this. JC would have been a way-cool Internet user.
Here’s the deal. The Internet…technology overall…is rewiring us. It’s hotwiring new stuff inside us. When you put your debit card in an ATM, and touch the key to do a transaction, there is a certain amount of time, only a few seconds, that we expect that transaction to take. And we all know how long that time is. That bit of time period is hotwired inside us. And if, after touching that button, those gears don’t start whirring and money doesn’t start dropping within those few seconds, we get tense. We all know about that. But if there is an emotion that we feel, in this case the anxiety of not getting our dough, and because we feel an emotion that means there’s something going on inside us.
When we’re showing pictures of our vacations, we’ll say, here’s the house we stayed in, here’s Linda on the beach, here’s the mountain we climbed. This is so everyday for us that we don’t even notice it anymore. But those pictures aren’t a house or Linda on the beach or a mountain. They’re two-dimensional pieces of paper with ink on them. They’re really old pieces of technology, and they have changed something inside us to the point were our language reflects what’s going on inside us (language is just a reflection of our thoughts, the thought has to come first before there can be language.)
When emotions and language come into play, that means there’s something going on inside.
First, understand when I say it’s getting closer to our souls that I don’t mean that’s a bad thing. It’s not like primitive people thinking a camera steals their souls, but they were on the right track, weren’t they? No, we want to get closer to our souls. We want to shed this skin, this shell, this body here. Jesus Christ understood this. JC would have been a way-cool Internet user.
Here’s the deal. The Internet…technology overall…is rewiring us. It’s hotwiring new stuff inside us. When you put your debit card in an ATM, and touch the key to do a transaction, there is a certain amount of time, only a few seconds, that we expect that transaction to take. And we all know how long that time is. That bit of time period is hotwired inside us. And if, after touching that button, those gears don’t start whirring and money doesn’t start dropping within those few seconds, we get tense. We all know about that. But if there is an emotion that we feel, in this case the anxiety of not getting our dough, and because we feel an emotion that means there’s something going on inside us.
When we’re showing pictures of our vacations, we’ll say, here’s the house we stayed in, here’s Linda on the beach, here’s the mountain we climbed. This is so everyday for us that we don’t even notice it anymore. But those pictures aren’t a house or Linda on the beach or a mountain. They’re two-dimensional pieces of paper with ink on them. They’re really old pieces of technology, and they have changed something inside us to the point were our language reflects what’s going on inside us (language is just a reflection of our thoughts, the thought has to come first before there can be language.)
When emotions and language come into play, that means there’s something going on inside.
Monday, February 5, 2007
What's the big deal about downloading music?
Today's big find:
http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/
This was in today’s Globe’s Sidekick. Great site with lots of archived concerts. Right now I’m listening to a Stevie Ray Vaughan concert from April 15, 1984 in Austin, Texas. I also did some impulse buying this morning when I first logged on to the site. Bought a poster from a concert on June 5, 1989 with the Cowboy Junkies and Lucinda Williams. Now if you scroll down just a bit and glance just to your left, you will see a partial list of some of my favorite music, and while it’s in no particular order, you will notice the first two artists are those very same that played together 17 years ago or so. The poster’s gonna look nice, framed and all, hung here in my cube on the 12th floor overlooking Cosi’s.
It’s the new paradigm for music. Everybody’s downloading and taking it for free, or so people who have been living off the music industry cash cow are complaining. That would be the fat cats in the suits at Sony and BMG and wherever, and the musicians, too, although the musicians still aren't making out like the execs. There’s money to be made, it’s just that the business model changed. Sorry, it changed for all of us. You just gotta deal with it, or die.
I see nothing wrong with downloading music for free. Here’s why. It’s been the way of the world for writers for all time. Say I wrote a book, and let’s say you actually bought the hardback for full price. And you read it and thought it was great. What would you do? You would tell your friends. But they wouldn’t go out and buy my book and read it. They’d borrow yours. Or Xerox it. It’s just like downloading for free, right? Or your friend would go to the library. Either way, I still wouldn’t make any money on sales. Those are my words and my thoughts. My talent and artistic ability is being showcased. But you don’t have any problem not compensating me.
The Internet was a long time coming and music execs should have seen this day sneaking up on them. But they didn’t. They were too busy counting their money instead of keeping their eyes on the business. They were rich, not smart. There’s a difference, although some people don’t get that. They figure if someone is rich that that person is smart, too. Rich and smart don’t necessarily go hand in hand. Greedy and rich do. But rich and smart? No.
So, now all the rich folks are crying foul, instead of figuring out that the way to make money is off the one-offs: ticket sales (if they keep them reasonable, instead of gouging prices to make up for the loss in CD sales), t-shirts, DVDs, posters, and all that.
The world changes. Get over. Change or die.
http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/
This was in today’s Globe’s Sidekick. Great site with lots of archived concerts. Right now I’m listening to a Stevie Ray Vaughan concert from April 15, 1984 in Austin, Texas. I also did some impulse buying this morning when I first logged on to the site. Bought a poster from a concert on June 5, 1989 with the Cowboy Junkies and Lucinda Williams. Now if you scroll down just a bit and glance just to your left, you will see a partial list of some of my favorite music, and while it’s in no particular order, you will notice the first two artists are those very same that played together 17 years ago or so. The poster’s gonna look nice, framed and all, hung here in my cube on the 12th floor overlooking Cosi’s.
It’s the new paradigm for music. Everybody’s downloading and taking it for free, or so people who have been living off the music industry cash cow are complaining. That would be the fat cats in the suits at Sony and BMG and wherever, and the musicians, too, although the musicians still aren't making out like the execs. There’s money to be made, it’s just that the business model changed. Sorry, it changed for all of us. You just gotta deal with it, or die.
I see nothing wrong with downloading music for free. Here’s why. It’s been the way of the world for writers for all time. Say I wrote a book, and let’s say you actually bought the hardback for full price. And you read it and thought it was great. What would you do? You would tell your friends. But they wouldn’t go out and buy my book and read it. They’d borrow yours. Or Xerox it. It’s just like downloading for free, right? Or your friend would go to the library. Either way, I still wouldn’t make any money on sales. Those are my words and my thoughts. My talent and artistic ability is being showcased. But you don’t have any problem not compensating me.
The Internet was a long time coming and music execs should have seen this day sneaking up on them. But they didn’t. They were too busy counting their money instead of keeping their eyes on the business. They were rich, not smart. There’s a difference, although some people don’t get that. They figure if someone is rich that that person is smart, too. Rich and smart don’t necessarily go hand in hand. Greedy and rich do. But rich and smart? No.
So, now all the rich folks are crying foul, instead of figuring out that the way to make money is off the one-offs: ticket sales (if they keep them reasonable, instead of gouging prices to make up for the loss in CD sales), t-shirts, DVDs, posters, and all that.
The world changes. Get over. Change or die.
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