Another technology slowly fades away.
Yesterday I dropped my membership in three of the five email lists I am subscribed to. I did so for a couple of reasons. First, I'm not reading them very often any more. This is due to the fact that I don't watch my personal email like a hawk any more -- sometimes it can be several days before I get back to it. There is also a volume issue. The CentOS list in particular is very noisy, and it is difficult to stay on top of it, even if all you are doing is deleting threads you don't care about. And frankly, I'm not sure I'm interested in the CentOS list in particular any more; too many questions are bumped as "not CentOS-specific", whatever that means, and there are too many flamewars over nothing.
The second reason is that for computer help and information, I now have two new homes: ServerFault.com and SuperUser.com. Part of the attraction is that both sites use a "reputation" value to show how the rest of the community rates you as a participant. Reputation has to be given by other users. Of course since it's measureable, everyone is jumping in and trying to game the system; however the side effect is that there's quite a strong community already which has a wide knowledgebase. Frequently you can get good (or at least usable) answers to your questions within a couple of hours at most.
This action leaves me with three mailing lists. A low-volume Autism list (oh, and I just remembered, an even lower-volume Autism list), a RedHat Kickstart list that I forgot about yesterday, and a svn-related list I've tried many times to get dropped from. The RedHat list will probably get dropped today, but I'll keep the Autism ones. If I have to, I'll just black-hole the svn-related list in the hopes that its list software is smart enough to drop me when I start bouncing everything back to it.
So goodbye mailing lists.
Between this, dropping my home server, moving my 'blogging and email to Google, and dropping my web hosting, I've sure made a lot of technology changes in the last year.
2009-08-07
2009-08-06
The Hat: Replacement Quest Part III
Thanks to a comment on the RIP Tilley Hat post, I now know what to do.
I've become a facebook 'fan' of Tilley Endurables, and one of the discussions lists precisely what to do:
Score. So now I have to box up and mail The Hat.
They've offered to send back the hat if I want to keep it. On the one hand, it has been with me practically every day for 9 years. On the other hand, it's done.
I'll have to think about this a bit.
I've become a facebook 'fan' of Tilley Endurables, and one of the discussions lists precisely what to do:
For Canadian and International customers, please mail to:
Returns Department: Tilley Endurables
900 Don Mills Road
Toronto ON Canada
M3C 1V6
Score. So now I have to box up and mail The Hat.
They've offered to send back the hat if I want to keep it. On the one hand, it has been with me practically every day for 9 years. On the other hand, it's done.
I'll have to think about this a bit.
The Hat: Replacement Quest Part II
Website feedback sent to Tilley Endurables, with regard to my deceased headgear:
I purchased a hat back in September of 2000 while visiting Skagway Alaska as part of my honeymoon cruise. Since that time the hat has become a key part of my daily wardrobe, whatever the weather; and as Ottawa, Canada is my place of residence, weather indeed the hat has seen. I estimate that there have been fewer than 60 days in the following 8 years 10 months that I have not worn the hat; so while I can hardly claim to have not gotten my money's worth out of it, I feel I must take you up on your guarantee.
Indeed, my hat has sadly reached the end of its life at the hands of a washing machine. Please see http://shove-monkey.blogspot.com/2009/07/rip-tilley-hat.html for the sad evidence of a hat come to the end of its career.
In the interests of obtaining a replacement, I visited a local store, as instructed by the owner's manual for the hat -- right in my sock drawer, where I recall you said it would be -- but sadly they directed me to contact you to make arrangements for an exchange.
I have made a brief perusal of your website but have obviously missed the section where I might find instructions for beginning this process. If you would be so good as to forward me a link or a set of instructions, I would be most appreciative.
Thank you for your time and attention.
2009-08-05
The Hat: Replacement Quest Part I
Today I made my first attempt to get the hat replaced.
We looked on the Tilley Endurables website and noted that the CAA membership office near us happened to be listed as a vendor. The Owners Manual promises that if the hat wears out, one might only present it at a vendor and one would obtain a replacement.
This is actually the second time we've tried this. The first attempt was made on Sunday, but apparently the CAA still respects Sunday as a day of rest for their employees, since the office was closed. Real Life being what it is, today was the next available time to make such a trip.
However when we got there, the staff informed us that they don't do the replacements and advised us to contact Tilley directly. They were not particularly clear on the reason, although when perusing their inventory we noted that my particular style of hat was not available at the time. They admired the build of the hat as much thicker than some of the modern offerings, and appreciated its history.
And Nathan was a popular hit in the office, too. He's such a flirt.
Still, this expedition was ultimately a failure. So the next step will be to contact Tilley directly.
We looked on the Tilley Endurables website and noted that the CAA membership office near us happened to be listed as a vendor. The Owners Manual promises that if the hat wears out, one might only present it at a vendor and one would obtain a replacement.
This is actually the second time we've tried this. The first attempt was made on Sunday, but apparently the CAA still respects Sunday as a day of rest for their employees, since the office was closed. Real Life being what it is, today was the next available time to make such a trip.
However when we got there, the staff informed us that they don't do the replacements and advised us to contact Tilley directly. They were not particularly clear on the reason, although when perusing their inventory we noted that my particular style of hat was not available at the time. They admired the build of the hat as much thicker than some of the modern offerings, and appreciated its history.
And Nathan was a popular hit in the office, too. He's such a flirt.
Still, this expedition was ultimately a failure. So the next step will be to contact Tilley directly.
2009-08-04
Customerizing Criminals
...or maybe the other way around?
Aparrently Scotiabank has a fool-proof program to detect criminals at the door to their branches. It involves a red, octogon-shaped sign stuck prominently to one of the inside front doors:
Crime
Prevention
Program
In Effect
For the safety of
our customers and staff
please remove your
hat, hood, and dark glasses
before entering this building
Your cooperation
is appreciated
That's right, citizens! Scotiabank can now tell if you are a criminal by WHAT YOU WEAR. Feel safe, since criminals would never enter such a facility without such subtle signals displayed, and we all know that peaceful, law-abiding citizens such as yourselves would never choose to dress yourself in such a shameful, shameful manner.
As a customer who's personal style is emphasized by a (now deceased) hat and who's eyes require protection in bright light, I can only assume that this means I am well on my way to a life of crime.
I've seen this in two branches in west Ottawa: the one on March Road north, and the one in Bells Corners.
(...and yes, if you look closely, you can see that I was wearing both my hat and my dark glasses when I took this picture. I can only presume that since I was not also wearing a hood, my intentions were recognizes as non-criminal in nature and I was permitted to conduct my business. After I took the pictures (it took a couple tries before I got a relatively non-blurry example) I half expected to be chased across the parking lot by therental cops diligent branch protection staff, but alas, I escaped.)
Aparrently Scotiabank has a fool-proof program to detect criminals at the door to their branches. It involves a red, octogon-shaped sign stuck prominently to one of the inside front doors:
Crime
Prevention
Program
In Effect
For the safety of
our customers and staff
please remove your
hat, hood, and dark glasses
before entering this building
Your cooperation
is appreciated
That's right, citizens! Scotiabank can now tell if you are a criminal by WHAT YOU WEAR. Feel safe, since criminals would never enter such a facility without such subtle signals displayed, and we all know that peaceful, law-abiding citizens such as yourselves would never choose to dress yourself in such a shameful, shameful manner.
As a customer who's personal style is emphasized by a (now deceased) hat and who's eyes require protection in bright light, I can only assume that this means I am well on my way to a life of crime.
I've seen this in two branches in west Ottawa: the one on March Road north, and the one in Bells Corners.
(...and yes, if you look closely, you can see that I was wearing both my hat and my dark glasses when I took this picture. I can only presume that since I was not also wearing a hood, my intentions were recognizes as non-criminal in nature and I was permitted to conduct my business. After I took the pictures (it took a couple tries before I got a relatively non-blurry example) I half expected to be chased across the parking lot by the
Uh... what?
Today while filling up the car at the gas station, I noticed this curious little icon:
The second picture shows the context of the icon.
It looks like a radar gun of some kind. Or maybe a bar drinks dispenser or a faucet. Or a camera. The circle is red, not green, so whatever it is isn't permitted; but there's no diagonal red slash, so whatever it is isn't prohibited, either.
I wonder what they are trying to tell me.
The second picture shows the context of the icon.
It looks like a radar gun of some kind. Or maybe a bar drinks dispenser or a faucet. Or a camera. The circle is red, not green, so whatever it is isn't permitted; but there's no diagonal red slash, so whatever it is isn't prohibited, either.
I wonder what they are trying to tell me.
Stop Treating RSS Subscribers As Second Class
Know what I hate? Today I hate bloggers who don't blog very nicely for their RSS subscribers.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a specially formatted http link on many web pages that lists some or all of the recent content generated at that website. The idea is that a RSS Reader can poll that link on a regular basis, and then inform the user of that RSS reader that there is new content. This means that the user can get on with the reading without having to manually visit each site.
For people who have a lot of websites that they want to see content from, it is a huge timesaver. I have 187 subscriptions in my Google Reader right now, and it would be prohibitively time-intensive to manually check that many sites. My old method of checking, which was to separate all links by topics and then open each topic into separate tabs once per day and then go through them during the day, would not scale with this many links.
Authors need to realize: RSS subscribers WANT their content.
However. Periodically I get an article in my Google Reader that is clearly incomplete. I'm going to pick on Star Stryder today simply because he's the straw who broke the camel's back. Star Stryder's latest offering ends, in my Reader:
If the images are part of the post, and the images are not attached to the post, then DON'T PUBLISH THE POST YET.
Why?
Because once your article is read, I'm probably not going to see it again if it gets updated because of the way that Google Reader works. I'm not going to keep a history of your posts active in my reader because I have 187 feeds, and keeping that kind of history for 187 feeds becomes unmanageable.
So your article, which is intended to impart some information to me, comes across as a tease: I'm going to have something really cool here but you won't get to see it sucker.
I've seen this maybe half a dozen times this long weekend, and this particular one just tweaked me off.
Please. Don't post until you are ready. Some of your readers won't come back to see what you've done, and if you keep doing it, your readers are going to drop you.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a specially formatted http link on many web pages that lists some or all of the recent content generated at that website. The idea is that a RSS Reader can poll that link on a regular basis, and then inform the user of that RSS reader that there is new content. This means that the user can get on with the reading without having to manually visit each site.
For people who have a lot of websites that they want to see content from, it is a huge timesaver. I have 187 subscriptions in my Google Reader right now, and it would be prohibitively time-intensive to manually check that many sites. My old method of checking, which was to separate all links by topics and then open each topic into separate tabs once per day and then go through them during the day, would not scale with this many links.
Authors need to realize: RSS subscribers WANT their content.
However. Periodically I get an article in my Google Reader that is clearly incomplete. I'm going to pick on Star Stryder today simply because he's the straw who broke the camel's back. Star Stryder's latest offering ends, in my Reader:
But…. well… Let the pictures tell the story. (Not all mine.)Wait, what?
[IMAGES COMING - I'm on a connection that doesn't let me get images uploaded]
If the images are part of the post, and the images are not attached to the post, then DON'T PUBLISH THE POST YET.
Why?
Because once your article is read, I'm probably not going to see it again if it gets updated because of the way that Google Reader works. I'm not going to keep a history of your posts active in my reader because I have 187 feeds, and keeping that kind of history for 187 feeds becomes unmanageable.
So your article, which is intended to impart some information to me, comes across as a tease: I'm going to have something really cool here but you won't get to see it sucker.
I've seen this maybe half a dozen times this long weekend, and this particular one just tweaked me off.
Please. Don't post until you are ready. Some of your readers won't come back to see what you've done, and if you keep doing it, your readers are going to drop you.
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