Glass Houses ...

It seems angry posts about Telstra are a habit of mine ... one I intend to break ... after this one.

I went for a browse yesterday to see what had happened in the the world. I came across a number of news sites who had posted articles about the recent trend of smartphone wielders becoming ruder.

I read a couple of them, obviously I was bored and killing time. Keywords in the articles titles were "phone", "users",  and "rudeness". Google indexes the whole page peoples, the same keywords don't have to be in every title to get picked up, let me just say one word ... synonym - actually two words ... synonym and vocabulary, but this is a gripe about Telstra, journalistic institutions will have to wait their turn. Here are a couple of the articles, one posted by the International Business Times and another from Adelaide Now. Well unsurprisingly they were all reporting on the same survey. I assume that Telstra, who did the survey, ran around telling everyone who might pay attention that they'd done the survey and sheep being sheep...

I'm not going to discuss the points raised by the survey, all the articles practically state them all verbatim. The crux of the articles (and the survey) is that peoples practice of decent and proper behaviour are waning as they are using their phones in place of being polite or appropriate.

Here's the thing. Ignore the fact that social behaviour changes, ignore the fact that the world only gets busier and being cautiously polite to everyone you encounter can be quite taxing on your available time - regardless of whether you should be polite in a specific situation or not. Ignore the fact that this is a topic which has been discussed over and over again - and through its many iterations has not really introduced any new insights to the debate, but rather - these days, is a vent for people to whine - miserably - about societies faults. One can argue either way, but I find it interesting that the source of this survey is a company like Telstra.

Telstra! Telstra are telling us that we are becoming impolite.

In my opinion, the Telco's are the second most intrusive telemarketers that exist in Australia, second only to the electricity services companies. In my mind Telstra are the worst within the Telcos. That might be my prejudice, but its also my blog, so - whatever.
I come home every night and I've missed at least 5 phone calls. Since I don't use my home phone much, those calls are either my mother, my sister, or someone is trying to sell me something. Easily ninety percent of my phone calls are the latter.

Complaining about telemarketers is like slinging mud back at your aggressor, the topic is abused as much as the debate on social niceties, I'm not saying it isn't. However lets look at this situation. As the world regurgitates the word "rudeness", lets consider its definition. Rudeness is a construct that defines the correctness of an interaction in comparison to what is considered appropriate by the greater majority. Therefore one could also define it as being an acceptable level of politeness compared to what people expect.

This is where I am tickled by this survey. If we only consider the way in which telemarketing plagues us and that Telstra is an active, even agressive participant in such activities. Are they not rude? Privitisation laws have been introduced that, to my understanding, should ban companies from calling me up when I've ask them not to. Despite my efforts to be listed as a person that doesn't want to be contacted by telemarters, these calls are still the majority of the calls I receive. Caveats are always found that allow my phone to be rung by a telemarketer, despite my preference ... talk about rudeness!

Tactics evolve. These days the phone call begins with a deliberate avoidance of the caller identifying his actual purpose. The calls are now initiated by the caller congratulating me because I'm about to have my services bill lessoned. If I ask if I have to change service providers, I'm told that I don't, until I pursue that line of questioning and find that specific argument that requires the telemarketer to admit that "My bill will come from a different company". Further, when I tell them I'm not interested, they insist.
I'm told that all I am doing is not getting a cheaper bill (implying my foolishness), I'm told that the service - phone line, electricity, whatever is coming from the same provider (no shit), but the bill will be from a different company. That is exactly what I asked in the first place. In polite society we call that blatant lie. A lie - kinda rude, yes? I insist that I'm not interested and I try to end the conversation, but tactics evolve. Knowing where I'm heading, the telemarketers ignore your requests and continue to try and sell you their product of the day - is that not rude. Then, when they realise that a sale will not be made, time is money, and it is quicker to just hang up on your ear, then go through the niceties of cleanly ending the conversation...

Telstra actively take part in telemarketing. Telemarketing is an activity that the greater majority are subjected to. The greater majority therefore expect that type of behaviour as a social norm. Therefore it is reasonable to argue that the definition of rudeness is altered in its absolute sense because of the affects of telemarketing on society and Telstra are one of the most active participants in Telemarketing.

Telemarketing is a blasé experience that we endure, but then Telstra publish their results on their survey about rudeness ... What a load of shit. Kettle!

Die Telstra - Painfully

Oh . . . My . . . God. You know the phrase "Shit Happens"? My entrant in to common speech is "At least your not being fucked over by Telstra". Not as catchy, I know, but I would reckon it will travel well - we may not know they're out there but I'm pretty fucking sure that the martians are up in the sky cursing Telstra's inaction about something. Inaction - the word I come back to time and time again when dealing with Telstra.
This time, my third major head-on with Telstra. After 3 years of majorly bloated Telstra bills - because I had no other option for internet (well Optus - the other lack of choice option - and I'm considering it) I spat the dummy, again, contacted Telstra and asked them to sort me out with a discrete phone line, upgrading from the pair gained line I have now (a topology that doesn't work with ADSL). The was last October, its now August and I'm still a Telstra customer.
The October interaction. . . was made on the request of the telco ombudsman who required a recent complaint to act on. That interaction went back and forth via email, until December and in all of that time, the only thing that happened was:- I was passed to a new, who knows - department maybe, with some new person writing "Hi. I'm blahDeBlah, I understand that you want to connect to Bigpond ADSL, but you've already got Telstra Cable. Are you sure you want to change, Telstra Cable is much Faster?". (expletive, expletive, expletive). My request was simple - if not impolite. I asked for a discrete ADSL compatible residential connection that would allow me to cease using any Telstra Services (Internet/phone/mobile). "I understand that you want to connect to Bigpond ADSL, but you've already got Telstra Cable" -- What is hard about this ?
In point of fact, I didn't want Bigpond ADSL, nor do I want the Bigpond cable I currently have. I don't want the unannounced maintenance downtime, the a..maz..ing..ly over priced bills, the ridiculously over priced and unique (the other ISPs don't charge $35 for disconnect/reconnect) penalty charges. I don't want to deal with the company whose subcontractors come to my house saying that they are being lied to by Telstra re: maintenence and downtime in areas, and they thought that my appraisal of the situation was more correct then the infomation Telstra gave them. What about any of this sounds like a "service" to you? In fact, I really don't have a kind thing to say about Telstra - honestly, not a single thing, I just hope that the company collapses/folds whatever, I don't care, but the sooner the better - I think I might host a party.
A couple of weeks ago I referred Telstra back to my request - from nine months earlier - All I got was an automated message apologising that they hadn't responded within two days. About 2 weeks later, I called them and asked them if they would do anything about the request and I my request was given to a complaints department with a promise that it would be acted on within 10 days - and surprise, they did
Telstra called me and offered the following process --

• I was to recieve an additional phone line (fee waved) that would not be pair gained. But I was told that "this might not fix the problem"
• After the additional line was installed, I was to contact my chosen ISP and apply for ADSL
• If the ADSL request was successful, I was to them have my original primary phone line disconnected

. . . and today was the day. At 8am a very nice man knocked on my door to install the additional line. He came inside, and started plugging things in to my phone line, and as we chatted, I pointed out to him that I was intending to use the line for ADSL - he looked up at me and immediately said that this line would not be able to support ADSL -- WHAT!!!!
As it turns out, not only do I have a pair gained phoneline currently, but the connection from the exchange to my local junction box didn't support it, this was do to the multiplexer that was installed at the junction box. So -

1. This starts to stink of the same archaic crap that had me complain to the ombudsman twice previously (in short, the Telstras ad said "coming soon to your home", 10 years later I complained about it not being available yet, and then again 13 years later -- and got no where)
2. How is this possible? Everytime I speak with either a Telstra linesman or a Subcontracting linesman, they have the knowledge in their head about the situation in my area- They tell me exactly what I want to know, what I need to know, without hesitation.

9 months folks. Telstra - WTF !! What- you don't have any infrastructure maps anywhere that you can refer to? You couldn't take my f'ing request and call the local linesman for my area and ask the question? Really - I have to orchestrate every single step of what should be Telstra's internal process Telstra- honestly, they can not do anything competently, or even at all.
Whilst speaking with the linesman, he explained that the "RIM" setup that connects my line was a single optical fibre to my local junction, but the multiplexer device that is installed at that point wouldn't transmit the ADSL signal. This makes me ask - "If this is optical, then it is a recent multiplexer, not the same 30+ year old copper setup" (that crippled my connection at my previous address - the excuse there being that I was rural area with an old setup - I was Metro, but that that's a different story, in this story I'm 15km from Melbourne's CBD). The "liney" said that this "RIM" setup was about 10 years old, one of the earlier optical roll-outs. "About 10 years? Wasn't ADSL in being used at that time", I mentioned. To this he agreed. Telstra - obsoleting communications by design.
This is not  the whole story, but the parts I've missed still add up to the very same thing. Telstra provides access to allow people to be Telstra customers.
I don't believe I'm asking for anything outrageous, I want one thing. To not have to use Telstra for communications. The deregulation in ~'92 guarrenteed this, and Telstra does their damnedest to make this impossible. Telstra sux folks - at least some things never change

If your not Australian, Martian and have never lived at either place, then you might not have any idea about the subject matter of my rant. Lack of knowledge will not gain you sympathy. Don't even think about puffing your chest out and declaring in your best foreign accent, "My countries Telco is more terrible than yours" - Mate bring it on. My countries telco will chew you up spit you out as competently as they do nothing else. I'm just kidding - "chew you up and spit you out" - come on, way too much action the the company of inaction.

Is the internet laborious ?

I left my phone at home on Thursday. As the passage of time feeds my insatiable need for a mobile phone that is, frankly, nuts- I'm now using a Nokia N900. It has whistles and bells- definately. Using its browser is outstanding compared to my last phone (Nokia N82), which I thought was pretty swank at the time. But this phone - It connects to all of my socials crap (Twitter, MSN, gchat, skype, etc) all of the time. I take a photo, and the phone records the GPS coordinates along with the photo*. and I can immediantly send that - or a video for that matter - to anyone via the afore mentioned social mechanisms or MMS. I can verify information at anytime from any location - pretty much ANY information.
So there I was, driving home from work after leaving my phone at home. I barely noticed the fact at work, having made the realisaion during the drive there. I had my laptop with me, so I had tunes and podcasts - and there was definately work, at ... work. However, once I'd jumped in the car to head home, the phones absence was felt. Do I just play with my phone when driving on the way home? Well I could start a discussion about that by saying that I stop at alot of lights on the way home, but for the sake of simplicity, lets just say I'm chauffeured by a man called jeeves, in a stretch magic carpet with tinted windows (Radio might have temporarily departed from embellishing when it manifests the visuals within a story - but I'm all for it). I imagine I had at least 20 occassions to use my phone on the way home. Songs, GPS to avoid traffic or to see if there was a new secret route I could discover, but no, no phone.
What was interesting was, despite my obvious substance addition (substance being little packets of data), my inner being had a different opinion of the situation. I expect like me, you remember a time when you were doing something naughty or taboo, something that you were committing to do - despite knowing that someone somewhere disapproved:-  and it made you feel just, delightfully wicked? A part of me, irking with the adjustment of my missing appendage was basking in the moment.
A naughty - for lack of a better word - sensation spread through me as I realised:- I couldn't be contacted, even in an emergency. I couldn't get any news, not even directions**, I couldn't see what anyone had tweeted. With my current phone, the blogging interfaces are quite usuable, qwerty keyboard, etc - I could have written this blog entry on it*** from anywhere, except I didn't have my phone with me. For the first time in a very long time, I was alone.
Isn't it strange to feel this way. I didn't have a mobile phone until I was (thinking about it) about 20 years old- wow 14 years ago (am not!). Now, its not that I do all of these wonderful things all of the time, but I do some of them and normally I could do them all of them, at my whim. (Beep Beep, I just got a message). I suppose, the phone has become a safety net, for example, I know that if someone had an emergency, that I could be contacted at any time. That certainly what happens when I'm on call - 1 week of 1am calls, 4am SMSs - ROCK!.
As the old man floats above the soil in the clearing, up some impossibly long mountain path- his wispy hair and beard blowing in the wind. This depiction has not adopted a mobile phone in its modern telling - and I don't think its going to. I have deep and meaningful's with my self all the time- why I'm always crying at home (joke), but the situation of having no chance of distraction or interruption was no longer familiar. As a consequence of this, now rare situation I was in, I found myself in introspection.
In today's age of endless distractions and toys, I wonder if I might try to separate myself form the technology more often. I didn't have any revelations whilst I was isolated from the world, but the moment was definitely cathartic. It is an experience that I think I have missed. I'm not going to go on a rant (too late) about the evils of the new world - after all once I got home, I found my phone, connected every internet capable device to the rest of the world and cried in the beauty of it all (joke  again- boys don't cry, Robert Smith) - but I do envy the ease in which some people claim to be able to switch everything off and be alone.
I think that once a fortnight, I might actually leave my mobile at home and just be. This new world that I fully endorse, is a change in lifestyle, but it is also an incredible distraction... to... anything anytime - and I think that there is an alternative to that life. I intend to experience that alternative and with a bit of luck I might be able to slot it in twice monthly, on a Monday etween 9am and 5:38pm, not including my lunch break :)

* GPS coords. in the photo - Its very cool, I've never liked that whole sit down session you have after going snap happy, writing the photo's "Situation" on the back. No compaints there
** I find GPS' boing factor interesting, news has been around for ages, before mobile phones we had pagers which had news feeds. GPS however has come in done its thing and everyone has gone "Yep!".
I think it is now far more widely used then people wirelessly getting news - maybe not socials
*** The N900 qwerty keyboard is good. But I must try and hook up my bluetooth keyboard, because yes I have on of those as well.

!! Car Games !! Car Games !!

Okay I've been meaning to post this one for a while now. I've been doing a fair it of driving in the last 6months to a year. Most importantly (I expect), I've had company. There fore car games!! car games!!

The first one, I kind of did at the start by my self, but with someone else to do it with the process gets so much more formalised.

Game One: The TLA game
This game is an I.T. geek game. :-D. The main part of the game is to come across car and recognise Three Letter Acronyms in the license plate number. Having said that, the game kind of .. expanded. The easiest thing to do is to show you how to score.

Scoring
There are two scoring planes, the real plane and the imaginary plane... You can get 1-5 points in wach plane.

Scoring in the Real Plane

1. A non-I.T. related acronym is a single point (like VCR)


2. A non-I.T. related word is worth 2 points (like PEN, TOO, CAT, BAT, RAT)


3. An I.T. related acronym is worth 3 points (i.e. PPP - Point to Point Protocol)


4. An I.T. related word is 4 point (TUX, FAN, ALT are all fine)


5. A car with the Letters 'TLA' (being the name of the game scores 5 real points)
   

Scoring in the Imaginary Plane

1. An acronym spelt backwards is 1 point


2. A word spelt backwards is 2 points


3. An I.T. abreviation like CTL or TAB or INT (control, tabulate, interrupt) is 3 imaginary points


4. A -- I've forgotten i'll get back to ya


5. The Letters 'TLA' backwards (ALT) can either be 5 imaginary points, or 4 real points (being the I.T. word ALT)

Game Two: The Vowel game
This game is not in the geek only realm as the first was. So naturally I suck at it. This game is scored by inserting vowels in to a license plate that you come across to make words, or common phases that everyone else in the car agrees with is a common phrase.
You can insert consanants as well but at the cose of 1 point per consanant.

Scoring

Each vowel that you have to introduce in to the license plate number is 1 point

Each consanant that you have to introduce in to the license plate number is -1 point

Existing letters in the numer plate are not scored

Thats it My car games blog !!

Cheat is the Ladybug of Knowledge Base programs

Cheat
It was one of the things I wanted to do by the time I was 30. I started 1^1/2 weeks after I turned 30, close enugh as far as I'm concerned, I was more worried that it would nerver happen and it did. Tell me you say? The suspense is killing me you say? Well. . . . I started my first sourceforge project!!! Oo yeah!
I'm going to skip the conversation (albeit more a speech, passage or ravings if you will) about whether or not this is really exciting. I can create a usefull thing people find out about it start using it and I just gave them a free present. I like that, I've used enough free software, I'd like to be part of the overall thing not just the receiving end. (Okay maybe I wont skip it)

I could have contributed to an existing proect etc. etc. etc. but a friend at work came to me, wanting to install a cost free knowledge base program and he'd not found anything that was really impressive (or particuarly easy to install either, grrr). I did some more searching for these things and found more programs but only one was in the realm of flexible and feature full. So since I was past my dead line and really, I don't think it'll be the hardest thing out there to write, I made the call. That night registered the project to sorceforge.

CHEAT stands for Comprehensive Heirarchical Environment for Answering Things. I've created the prototype database, I've done a very quick and nasty home page, and now I'm painfully trying to sortout how to drive CVS. I've always avioded CVS as my attempts to understand it have always been feeble. I managed to upload things to it but unfortunately I uploaded the parent directory rather than the directory I really wanted up there. one day I'll write some code :-)

Has anyone heard from Abe lately?

Yay!! My Blog still exists.

Damn, so much has happened since I last blogged. Yes you could say that that because its been 9 months since my last blog entry, but yeah - well - also stuffs happened. I'm actually a it surpirsed that blogger.com didn't ditch Bloggy Hell due to in activity, I will swear to do better in the future

I Got A Job

Firstly, and I guess most profoundly. The job interview I was going to in my last blog, I got the job!! Once again I go to work in my school uniform (or a suit in lamens terms), I attend meetings (long, long meetings), click on stuff, go 'tap' 'tap' 'ENTER' 'ENTER', attend meetings a week after the first and cover exactly the same agenda after everyone left the last meeting and actioned there own agenda anyway- Which puts an interesting spin on the bosses who love those moto's like 'There's no "I" in "Team"' (nor is there one in 'Stuff off!'). So yes back in the I.T. game, well at least it pays.. it better pay!!

In truth, I like the job well enough. I like the dudes I work with, I like the building and working in the city again. I like coffee breaks and one hour lunchs (round a bouts :-)).
I ride to work now. Absolute pissa, I got home on one the first weeks I started riding and got a wonderful hit of euphoria when I found my petrol tank still read full. Bloody ROCK!

Girlfriend

Also the job also has to earn a credit for introducing me to the beautiful Katherine. A girl who just goes through life making me smile. . . I find it very agreeable (hi kat :-D).

Bike Stuff

What else, well bike stuff. Yes I ride to work now. 5 days rain/hail/shine (shine was more fun, winter kind of sucks a bit). I'm getting so used to riding that I'm usually caining down the road at 34 km/hr (kool eh?). Thats my usual speed, but then I live in the western suburbs and that lack of any hill ANY WHERE helps with the speed.
I've also entered in the 'bay in a day' ride. A couple of guys at work made noises about it and now there's at least 6 of us. All quite cool. 210km's though, something tells me to have enough money for a train ticket

Anyhow, Saturday is calling, I've just gotten my SMS to haul arse to brunch, so catch ya. Hope your out there really :-) (you know I don't care really -- Right?)

Abe

Why should I hate Monday's

Okay, Hi folks
It is Monday night, I had the day off, cleaned the house and (for most of the day) generally bummed around. Why was this cool? Because Summer showed itself today, the weather was gorgeous, nice wind, blah blah blah. I also had a phone interview with a potential job I've applied for- this all went well and I'm going in for a real interview -- one day. Office Job, Back in the role of a tap tap ENTER ENTER person. Yes, yes. You could raise the point (and in quotation marks for that extra literality- yes its a word) "didn't you in your last blog, bag the shit out of these office jobs and declare how nice it was doing this other crap". And if you were to raise such a point sure, I'd have to concede in its truth. BUT! jobs with inconsistent hours and shit pay are fun for a while, but I came to understand something important.
If your going to give 40 hours of your life over to someone EVERY week- Do it for as much money as possible and try to ignore the experience as much as possible.

So that was my Monday, short of a few if the less exciting bits (I did pat a nice pussy brow as well). Hope yours was as rewarding
Cya

P.S. The link has nothing to do with anything re: this entry. I stumbled across it a while ago and I'm strangely addicted to it :-)