Who can sleep with a view like this?
Who can sleep with a view like this?
There’s controversy in the Rails community about a presentation by Matt Aimonetti called CouchDB: Perform Like A PR0N Star. Some discussions and repercussions:
The most disturbing comments, to me, are the folks who insist that those offended by the presentation have “no sense of humor”, and that Matt and DHH and whoever are just being edgy. (Conversely, I think we can all agree that when Giles Bowkett is the sensitive voice of reason, we have some soul-searching to do.)
Folks, it’s not about being “edgy”. Ricky Gervais is edgy (by American standards, but probably not UK). Sacha Baron Cohen is edgy; so much that I can’t even stand to watch his show, despite being fully aware how brilliantly edgy he is.
Inappropriate isn’t edgy. Inappropriate is trying to be edgy—and missing. Edgy is brave. Mimicking edgy is lazy, boring and awkward. Saying “fuck” doesn’t make you edgy, and hasn’t since Lenny Bruce got arrested for it. Saying “fuck” on a slide may have been edgy briefly—right up to the millisecond after DHH did it—at which point it took the standard swan dive from edgy to meme to cliche.
I think, as programmers, we’d like to believe that there is a Logically Consistent Set Of Rules to define “conventional” and “edgy”, and that we can logically prove that we are edgy-but-appropriate. (See all the “you can see this on TV” comments, and Matt’s original my wife’s a woman and she liked it reaction.) That’s not how it works. Sorry, Aspies.
Here’s the thing: Business presentations aren’t performance art. The rules are different. “Edgy”, in the artistic sense of “breaking social mores to foster introspection”, is not what you want in a presentation. We’re not attending them to have our gender stereotypes challenged; we’re attending them because we’re technophiles. And, frankly, you ain’t a performance artist.
For many of us, we’re at work. It’s about context. And yes, that context includes the country you’re in; behavior that’s appropriate in France is not necessarily so in America, and vice versa (as I discovered when undressing for a massage in Brides Les Bains). Dig:
Early Sarah Bernhardt: Edgy. Titling your mainstream play the “Vagina Monologues”: Edgy. Roseanne Barr farting through the national anthem: Inappropriate. Explaining object deconstructors by calling them “abortionists”: Very inappropriate.
Naming your gay rights group “Queer Nation”: Edgy. Making a mainstream feature film about gay cowboys in love? Very edgy. Naming a movie prop the Orgasmatron: Neither edgy nor inappropriate. Naming your Asterisk distro the Orgasmatron? Inappropriate. Naming your token-ring network the Computer-Oriented Collective Kernel? Very inappropriate.
Doing standup comedy about “black people and white people sure are different”: No longer edgy. Daniel “fried chicken” Tosh: Edgy. Carlos Mencia: Edgy. Illustrating red-black trees with whooping, scalping, feathered red nodes, and gang-sign-flashing, watermelon-eating black nodes? Inappropriate.
Broadway nudity in “Hair”, 1968: Edgy. TV nudity on “NYPD Blue”, 1993: Very edgy. Programmer nudity in a presentation about thin/thick clients, 2009: Inappropriate. (And again, my deep apologies to the entire Louisville branch office for that incident.)
Jew making a movie about a Broadway musical about the Nazis: Edgy. Goy making a heartwarming, slapstick comedy feature about Nazi death camps? Very edgy. Presentation discussing the Final Solution to scaling problems: Inappropriate. Presentation discussing the Final Solution to JDate’s scaling problems: VERY inappropriate.
Giving any of these presentations at conferences? Inappropriate. Filming yourself doing so? Inappropriate, unless you’re Sacha Baron Cohen, in which case: edgy. Jewish, too.
Dig?
If you don’t get it—instinctively—don’t try it. If you’re not Ricky Gervais, you’re David Brent.
There’s controversy in the Rails community about a presentation by Matt Aimonetti called CouchDB: Perform Like A PR0N Star. Some discussions and repercussions:
The most disturbing comments, to me, are the folks who insist that those offended by the presentation have “no sense of humor”, and that Matt and DHH and whoever are just being edgy. (Conversely, I think we can all agree that when Giles Bowkett is the sensitive voice of reason, we have some soul-searching to do.)
Folks, it’s not about being “edgy”. Ricky Gervais is edgy (by American standards, but probably not UK). Sacha Baron Cohen is edgy; so much that I can’t even stand to watch his show, despite being fully aware how brilliantly edgy he is.
Inappropriate isn’t edgy. Inappropriate is trying to be edgy—and missing. Edgy is brave. Mimicking edgy is lazy, boring and awkward. Saying “fuck” doesn’t make you edgy, and hasn’t since Lenny Bruce got arrested for it. Saying “fuck” on a slide may have been edgy briefly—right up to the millisecond after DHH did it—at which point it took the standard swan dive from edgy to meme to cliche.
I think, as programmers, we’d like to believe that there is a Logically Consistent Set Of Rules to define “conventional” and “edgy”, and that we can logically prove that we are edgy-but-appropriate. (See all the “you can see this on TV” comments, and Matt’s original my wife’s a woman and she liked it reaction.) That’s not how it works. Sorry, Aspies.
Here’s the thing: Business presentations aren’t performance art. The rules are different. “Edgy”, in the artistic sense of “breaking social mores to foster introspection”, is not what you want in a presentation. We’re not attending them to have our gender stereotypes challenged; we’re attending them because we’re technophiles. And, frankly, you ain’t a performance artist.
For many of us, we’re at work. It’s about context. And yes, that context includes the country you’re in; behavior that’s appropriate in France is not necessarily so in America, and vice versa (as I discovered when undressing for a massage in Brides Les Bains). Dig:
Early Sarah Bernhardt: Edgy. Titling your mainstream play the “Vagina Monologues”: Edgy. Roseanne Barr farting through the national anthem: Inappropriate. Explaining object deconstructors by calling them “abortionists”: Very inappropriate.
Naming your gay rights group “Queer Nation”: Edgy. Making a mainstream feature film about gay cowboys in love? Very edgy. Naming a movie prop the Orgasmatron: Neither edgy nor inappropriate. Naming your Asterisk distro the Orgasmatron? Inappropriate. Naming your token-ring network the Computer-Oriented Collective Kernel? Very inappropriate.
Doing standup comedy about “black people and white people sure are different”: No longer edgy. Daniel “fried chicken” Tosh: Edgy. Carlos Mencia: Edgy. Illustrating red-black trees with whooping, scalping, feathered red nodes, and gang-sign-flashing, watermelon-eating black nodes? Inappropriate.
Broadway nudity in “Hair”, 1968: Edgy. TV nudity on “NYPD Blue”, 1993: Very edgy. Programmer nudity in a presentation about thin/thick clients, 2009: Inappropriate. (And again, my deep apologies to the entire Louisville branch office for that incident.)
Jew making a movie about a Broadway musical about the Nazis: Edgy. Goy making a heartwarming, slapstick comedy feature about Nazi death camps? Very edgy. Presentation discussing the Final Solution to scaling problems: Inappropriate. Presentation discussing the Final Solution to JDate’s scaling problems: VERY inappropriate.
Giving any of these presentations at conferences? Inappropriate. Filming yourself doing so? Inappropriate, unless you’re Sacha Baron Cohen, in which case: edgy. Jewish, too.
Dig?
If you don’t get it—instinctively—don’t try it. If you’re not Ricky Gervais, you’re David Brent.
Like every generation before us, Gen-X thought we were the “beginning of the rest of humanity”. Sadly, no; we’re just old. How do I know?
It’s not that all our friends having kids, or most of our doctors and CEOs are younger than us. It’s that it’s now cliché to not only mock Twitter, but to mock mocking Twitter. We’re out of material. I mean, even Jon Stewart’s out of material. It’s that bad.
It’s straight out of a “Clay Christensen” book. What we’re seeing is disruptive innovation. If there’s
that’s disruption. Of course we don’t get it—we’re the old guard now.
We instinctively believe that the world we grew up in was static. Things were the way they were, and we were the first generation to change it. Sure, obviously, at some point in ancient history there were no cars, and no indoor plumbing, and there was racism and violence and endemic corruption and imperialism. But We Don’t Do That Anymore in modern times. Right?
I’m not talking about divorce rates and company careers with pensions. Or about “Where are the flying cars I was promised?” I’m talking basic, fundamental assumptions that despite the chaotic origins of the Earth, times were Different Now.
Show of hands: Who here grew up assuming that the United States mainland was impenetrable by foreigners, short of an all-out nuclear war with Russia?
Who grew up assuming that our government, society, and superpower status were a permanent fixture in the world?
Who thought that capitalism had long since put idealistic socialism to bed? That we’d finally solved the business cycle, that depressions were gone and recessions were blips?
Who assumed that progress was always forward? That most of us learn from the past, were capable of learning from the past? Were capable of cognitive learning and rational thought at all?
We’re not. Humans aren’t rational creatures; we’re rationalizing creatures. We’re mammals with language skills. We certainly stand on the shoulders of our ancestral giants, and books and databases and the Implicit Web play a huge part in helping us move forward. Without them, we’d be a collective Clive Wearing. But I’m fairly certain we lose more knowledge every day than we retain. Sometimes, it’s steam engine time, and the ideas stick. Sometimes they don’t.
I no longer remember my point—which is, precisely, my point. What we know, we forget; what we don’t forget we dilute; what we don’t dilute becomes fallacious. The world drifts, and our mental maps don’t. That cognitive dissonance you feel: It’s the disruptive innovation.
Therefore, as I’ve rigorously proven: We must accept Twitter.
Like every generation before us, Gen-X thought we were the “beginning of the rest of humanity”. Sadly, no; we’re just old. How do I know?
It’s not that all our friends having kids, or most of our doctors and CEOs are younger than us. It’s that it’s now cliché to not only mock Twitter, but to mock mocking Twitter. We’re out of material. I mean, even Jon Stewart’s out of material. It’s that bad.
It’s straight out of a “Clay Christensen” book. What we’re seeing is disruptive innovation. If there’s
that’s disruption. Of course we don’t get it—we’re the old guard now.
We instinctively believe that the world we grew up in was static. Things were the way they were, and we were the first generation to change it. Sure, obviously, at some point in ancient history there were no cars, and no indoor plumbing, and there was racism and violence and endemic corruption and imperialism. But We Don’t Do That Anymore in modern times. Right?
I’m not talking about divorce rates and company careers with pensions. Or about “Where are the flying cars I was promised?” I’m talking basic, fundamental assumptions that despite the chaotic origins of the Earth, times were Different Now.
Show of hands: Who here grew up assuming that the United States mainland was impenetrable by foreigners, short of an all-out nuclear war with Russia?
Who grew up assuming that our government, society, and superpower status were a permanent fixture in the world?
Who thought that capitalism had long since put idealistic socialism to bed? That we’d finally solved the business cycle, that depressions were gone and recessions were blips?
Who assumed that progress was always forward? That most of us learn from the past, were capable of learning from the past? Were capable of cognitive learning and rational thought at all?
We’re not. Humans aren’t rational creatures; we’re rationalizing creatures. We’re mammals with language skills. We certainly stand on the shoulders of our ancestral giants, and books and databases and the Implicit Web play a huge part in helping us move forward. Without them, we’d be a collective Clive Wearing. But I’m fairly certain we lose more knowledge every day than we retain. Sometimes, it’s steam engine time, and the ideas stick. Sometimes they don’t.
I no longer remember my point—which is, precisely, my point. What we know, we forget; what we don’t forget we dilute; what we don’t dilute becomes fallacious. The world drifts, and our mental maps don’t. That cognitive dissonance you feel: It’s the disruptive innovation.
Therefore, as I’ve rigorously proven: We must accept Twitter.
Life’s too complex to predict.
Life’s too complex to predict.
Proverb 4a: Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results, is the definition of insanity.
Proverb 4b: You can’t cross the same river twice.
These are in direct conflict. If two situations are never the same, how can you know if you’re really “doing the same thing”? Time is one of the variables, and it moves steadily forward. If you repeat an action two seconds later, it’s not the same action.
(Don’t believe me? Compare these two timelines.
12:00:00 “Heads up!”
12:00:02 ::toss keys::
12:00:00 ::toss keys::
12:00:02 “Heads up!”
Big difference.)
We try things randomly, and through operant conditioning, we learn which ones work and which ones don’t. And then we stop trying the ones that don’t. But what didn’t work last year might work today.
There’s no easy way around that. If we try every possibility every time, we’ll never get anything done. But life’s too complex to predict, so neither can we know in advance which ones will work.
Best we can do: TATFT. Know why something worked before. Figure out how those rules can be generalized. Use thought experiments to devise lightweight tests or heuristics that will help you know when the rules have changed.
The best way to choose a new alarm clock is to buy three, try them, and return the worst two. Why? Because I live across the street from Best Buy, so the cost1 of a return trip is lower than the cost of doing consumer research. If I move somewhere else, the rules change.
1 Not just the financial cost. Time, effort, annoyance, distraction, they all count.
Proverb 4a: Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results, is the definition of insanity.
Proverb 4b: You can’t cross the same river twice.
These are in direct conflict. If two situations are never the same, how can you know if you’re really “doing the same thing”? Time is one of the variables, and it moves steadily forward. If you repeat an action two seconds later, it’s not the same action.
(Don’t believe me? Compare these two timelines.
12:00:00 “Heads up!”
12:00:02 ::toss keys::
12:00:00 ::toss keys::
12:00:02 “Heads up!”
Big difference.)
We try things randomly, and through operant conditioning, we learn which ones work and which ones don’t. And then we stop trying the ones that don’t. But what didn’t work last year might work today.
There’s no easy way around that. If we try every possibility every time, we’ll never get anything done. But life’s too complex to predict, so neither can we know in advance which ones will work.
Best we can do: TATFT. Know why something worked before. Figure out how those rules can be generalized. Use thought experiments to devise lightweight tests or heuristics that will help you know when the rules have changed.
The best way to choose a new alarm clock is to buy three, try them, and return the worst two. Why? Because I live across the street from Best Buy, so the cost1 of a return trip is lower than the cost of doing consumer research. If I move somewhere else, the rules change.
1 Not just the financial cost. Time, effort, annoyance, distraction, they all count.
You can be concise, or you can be precise, but you can’t be both.
Or, more precisely: You can usually explain most concepts in a way that is clear, intuitive, and overly general, or you can explain that same concept by stating its core principles, and then using specific examples, counterexamples, boundary conditions, and qualifications to define many, but certainly not all, of its contours, to the extent that most people will apprehend a general sense of the concept, even if they aren’t fully capable of understanding all its nuances.
See what I mean?
I’m going to be concise.
You can be concise, or you can be precise, but you can’t be both.
Or, more precisely: You can usually explain most concepts in a way that is clear, intuitive, and overly general, or you can explain that same concept by stating its core principles, and then using specific examples, counterexamples, boundary conditions, and qualifications to define many, but certainly not all, of its contours, to the extent that most people will apprehend a general sense of the concept, even if they aren’t fully capable of understanding all its nuances.
See what I mean?
I’m going to be concise.
The more we learn about the brain, the more we discover that we’re not as in charge as we think we are. First, we act; second, we decide that we were going to have acted. We’re not rational creatures; we’re rationalizing creatures. We’re mammals with language skills.
You can see this in the classic split-brain studies. They showed different pictures to each hemisphere of the brain, and asked the subject to point to related objects. The left hemisphere saw a chicken foot, and the left-hemisphere hand pointed to a chicken. The right hemisphere saw a winter scene, and the right-hemisphere hand pointed to a shovel. No surprises there.
Then they asked the subject why he pointed to the shovel. To verbalize the answer, he had to use his left hemisphere – which had no idea why he pointed to a shovel. So it made something up! He answered: “I’d use the shovel to clean out the chicken house”. Perfectly rational..ized.
Other studies show that, if we try to pinpoint the exact moment we made a decision, it’s after our motor cortexes already started firing. Perfectly rationalized.
Does that mean we have no free will, or that thinking is pointless? I don’t think so. But it means that behavioral conditioning might “teach” us better than cognitive explanations would.
Equally important: It means that I have to stop being mad at people who aren’t being rational. Why should they be?
Then again, why should I assume that cognitively understanding this will change my own behavior?
The more we learn about the brain, the more we discover that we’re not as in charge as we think we are. First, we act; second, we decide that we were going to have acted. We’re not rational creatures; we’re rationalizing creatures. We’re mammals with language skills.
You can see this in the classic split-brain studies. They showed different pictures to each hemisphere of the brain, and asked the subject to point to related objects. The left hemisphere saw a chicken foot, and the left-hemisphere hand pointed to a chicken. The right hemisphere saw a winter scene, and the right-hemisphere hand pointed to a shovel. No surprises there.
Then they asked the subject why he pointed to the shovel. To verbalize the answer, he had to use his left hemisphere – which had no idea why he pointed to a shovel. So it made something up! He answered: “I’d use the shovel to clean out the chicken house”. Perfectly rational..ized.
Other studies show that, if we try to pinpoint the exact moment we made a decision, it’s after our motor cortexes already started firing. Perfectly rationalized.
Does that mean we have no free will, or that thinking is pointless? I don’t think so. But it means that behavioral conditioning might “teach” us better than cognitive explanations would.
Equally important: It means that I have to stop being mad at people who aren’t being rational. Why should they be?
Then again, why should I assume that cognitively understanding this will change my own behavior?
I’m going to be wrong. Frequently. If I can be right more so than I’m wrong, I win anyway.
I’m going to be wrong. Frequently. If I can be right more so than I’m wrong, I win anyway.
Everyone knows the old saying: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
For every novice question on a mailing list, you’ll find three experts answering, “Google it!” The wisest expert will even include a pre-formed search phrase. “Try googling ‘how to fish.’”
The old saying’s wrong.
Here’s why: The answers are archived. Every mailing list and IRC chat log is, itself, being parsed and ranked by search engines like Google. And guess what ends up polluting the top search results for “how to fish”?
“Try googling ‘how to fish.’”
This is the Law of Emergent Fish:
1. When somebody asks a technical question, someone else will answer with “Google it.”
2. The original question would, absent this law, be the best Google-juice for the answer.
3. Therefore: The shortest answer containing the original question will garner the most Google-juice per word.
4. Answers are newer than the questions they answer.
5. Newer content gets ranked higher than older content.
6. Therefore: Over time, the least useful answers will emerge at the top of the search results—which makes them not only useless, but harmful.
7. Corollary: Any answer containing an actual link to a Google search will end up linking to itself. (e.g. “Why don’t you try searching for Law of Emergent Fish?”)
Everyone knows the old saying: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
For every novice question on a mailing list, you’ll find three experts answering, “Google it!” The wisest expert will even include a pre-formed search phrase. “Try googling ‘how to fish.’”
The old saying’s wrong.
Here’s why: The answers are archived. Every mailing list and IRC chat log is, itself, being parsed and ranked by search engines like Google. And guess what ends up polluting the top search results for “how to fish”?
“Try googling ‘how to fish.’”
This is the Law of Emergent Fish:
1. When somebody asks a technical question, someone else will answer with “Google it.”
2. The original question would, absent this law, be the best Google-juice for the answer.
3. Therefore: The shortest answer containing the original question will garner the most Google-juice per word.
4. Answers are newer than the questions they answer.
5. Newer content gets ranked higher than older content.
6. Therefore: Over time, the least useful answers will emerge at the top of the search results—which makes them not only useless, but harmful.
7. Corollary: Any answer containing an actual link to a Google search will end up linking to itself. (e.g. “Why don’t you try searching for Law of Emergent Fish?”)
The Walt Disney Corporation declared today that Pluto is no longer a dog, downgrading its status to a two-dimensional cartoon character.
via Tom Keane
The Walt Disney Corporation declared today that Pluto is no longer a dog, downgrading its status to a two-dimensional cartoon character.
via Tom Keane
After reading about Luke Redpath’s helper for testing rails views with Hpricot, a new HTML parser, I knew it was just the thing to test the Radiant behaviors I was developing. Instead of trying to regex-match the output, I could use simple syntax like
assert element('li').should_contain('Jay-Test')So, by mixing two parts hpricot_test_helper with one part behavior_render_test_helper, I came up with hp_behavior_render_test_helper.
UPDATE 2009-04-29: Due to an apparent bug in Typo’s atom-feed builder, plus the fact that this can’t possibly be useful anymore, I’ve relegated the code to a gist:
http://gist.github.com/104100
Usage is a little different than the original helper. With Rails, you’re testing the output of a given controller and action; with Radiant, you’re testing the output of a specific tag, and you need to tell Radiant to render that tag. I often find that I want to make multiple assertions on a given Radius tag, so instead of including it with each assertion, use it like so:
http://gist.github.com/104103
Enjoy.
After reading about Luke Redpath’s helper for testing rails views with Hpricot, a new HTML parser, I knew it was just the thing to test the Radiant behaviors I was developing. Instead of trying to regex-match the output, I could use simple syntax like
assert element('li').should_contain('Jay-Test')So, by mixing two parts hpricot_test_helper with one part behavior_render_test_helper, I came up with hp_behavior_render_test_helper.
UPDATE 2009-04-29: Due to an apparent bug in Typo’s atom-feed builder, plus the fact that this can’t possibly be useful anymore, I’ve relegated the code to a gist:
http://gist.github.com/104100
Usage is a little different than the original helper. With Rails, you’re testing the output of a given controller and action; with Radiant, you’re testing the output of a specific tag, and you need to tell Radiant to render that tag. I often find that I want to make multiple assertions on a given Radius tag, so instead of including it with each assertion, use it like so:
http://gist.github.com/104103
Enjoy.
CAMBRIDGE — Susan Hockfield, MIT’s president, vowed to re-examine the way that MIT’s scientists interact after allegations of bullying and cliqueishness surfaced.
Hockfield was shocked to discover this level of bitterness, she said. “These are supposed to be adults. I just don’t get what’s going on in their brains,” said the neuroscientist. According to Hockfield, department leaders frequently act out, throwing tantrums and disrupting classes. “They’re totally mental,” she exclaimed. But the researchers had complaints of their own. “This is a competitive field. How else does she expect us to act?” asked a senior neuropsychiatrist. “If she wants change, she’ll have to lay out specific rules of engagement. We can’t read her mind.”CAMBRIDGE — Susan Hockfield, MIT’s president, vowed to re-examine the way that MIT’s scientists interact after allegations of bullying and cliqueishness surfaced.
Hockfield was shocked to discover this level of bitterness, she said. “These are supposed to be adults. I just don’t get what’s going on in their brains,” said the neuroscientist. According to Hockfield, department leaders frequently act out, throwing tantrums and disrupting classes. “They’re totally mental,” she exclaimed. But the researchers had complaints of their own. “This is a competitive field. How else does she expect us to act?” asked a senior neuropsychiatrist. “If she wants change, she’ll have to lay out specific rules of engagement. We can’t read her mind.”I went downstairs to get some breakfast this morning, and heard an unusual amount of honking for the hour. A quick peek down the road showed the cause: A tractor-trailer had double-parked on Devonshire Place. He didn’t seem to be making a delivery; the trailer was closed, and the driver was just sitting in the tractor, with a vacant stare.
That wouldn’t be so unusual; trailers often have to double-park in Boston. What’s unusual is that, not counting the parking spaces, Devonshire’s only about as wide as, say, a tractor-trailer. Also, it’s a major southbound route.
What can I say? Maybe it was time for his nap.
I went downstairs to get some breakfast this morning, and heard an unusual amount of honking for the hour. A quick peek down the road showed the cause: A tractor-trailer had double-parked on Devonshire Place. He didn’t seem to be making a delivery; the trailer was closed, and the driver was just sitting in the tractor, with a vacant stare.
That wouldn’t be so unusual; trailers often have to double-park in Boston. What’s unusual is that, not counting the parking spaces, Devonshire’s only about as wide as, say, a tractor-trailer. Also, it’s a major southbound route.
What can I say? Maybe it was time for his nap.
I never posted an ending to this tale, and that’s unfair to the folks at Jack Daniels Motors. If you’re going to write a complaint blog, you have a responsibility to cover the story well, and I dropped the ball.
Back at the beginning of the year, the CFO of the Jack Daniels staff contacted me. Jack Daniels himself had been reading the blog, and wanted to settle the issue. We agreed to split the cost of the tires, and they agreed to give me a free top-to-bottom inspection the next time I was in their area, which I expected would be early spring, as well as installing the S6 steering-wheel logo and making me a new coded key. In exchange, I would post an update to the site.
Spring came and went, I swung by New York but with no time to call JD, and the rest of my life took precedence. I never collected on the offer, and at this point I don’t intend to – if Jack Daniels wishes, they can donate my $700 to the charity of their choice, and I’ll blog about it here.
But let the record show: It took a little prodding, but in the end, Jack Daniels was willing to stand behind their sale. Audi of America, on the other hand, never responded to my letters to their executives, nor to my A.G. complaint.
Lesson learned: The Audi dealership network is a loose association of affiliates, not a centrally managed group. Even when buying a certified preowned vehicle, It’s always best to buy at a dealer close enough that you won’t mind returning for service. I would still hold AoA responsible for their brand promise, but demanding responsibility is different than expecting it. I no longer expect it. And that’s sad.
I never posted an ending to this tale, and that’s unfair to the folks at Jack Daniels Motors. If you’re going to write a complaint blog, you have a responsibility to cover the story well, and I dropped the ball.
Back at the beginning of the year, the CFO of the Jack Daniels staff contacted me. Jack Daniels himself had been reading the blog, and wanted to settle the issue. We agreed to split the cost of the tires, and they agreed to give me a free top-to-bottom inspection the next time I was in their area, which I expected would be early spring, as well as installing the S6 steering-wheel logo and making me a new coded key. In exchange, I would post an update to the site.
Spring came and went, I swung by New York but with no time to call JD, and the rest of my life took precedence. I never collected on the offer, and at this point I don’t intend to – if Jack Daniels wishes, they can donate my $700 to the charity of their choice, and I’ll blog about it here.
But let the record show: It took a little prodding, but in the end, Jack Daniels was willing to stand behind their sale. Audi of America, on the other hand, never responded to my letters to their executives, nor to my A.G. complaint.
Lesson learned: The Audi dealership network is a loose association of affiliates, not a centrally managed group. Even when buying a certified preowned vehicle, It’s always best to buy at a dealer close enough that you won’t mind returning for service. I would still hold AoA responsible for their brand promise, but demanding responsibility is different than expecting it. I no longer expect it. And that’s sad.
I don’t think anyone reading this blog wants to buy a house, but this might help Google out. So: I’m selling a carriage house in Wellesley, MA, near Boston, MA, convenient to the South End, Back Bay, Financial District, Cambridge, Somerville, Natick, and Framingham.
I don’t think anyone reading this blog wants to buy a house, but this might help Google out. So: I’m selling a carriage house in Wellesley, MA, near Boston, MA, convenient to the South End, Back Bay, Financial District, Cambridge, Somerville, Natick, and Framingham.
In the past few years, knowledge of the Nigerian “419 scammers” has become commonplace, and it’s not too unusual to see someone scamming the scammers. However, this one truly takes the cake: The guy convinced the scammer to send him wood carvings of cartoon characters and a Commdore 64 in exchange for a promised donation. And the scammer even has a sense of humor about it:
Link via BoingBoing
In the past few years, knowledge of the Nigerian “419 scammers” has become commonplace, and it’s not too unusual to see someone scamming the scammers. However, this one truly takes the cake: The guy convinced the scammer to send him wood carvings of cartoon characters and a Commdore 64 in exchange for a promised donation. And the scammer even has a sense of humor about it:
Link via BoingBoing
I was at the CVS across the street, standing behind a guy in a bright blue basketball top who was clearly causing the cashier some difficulty. “No, no, not a return, I paid you already – just give me the cash back from the drawer.” He was high-strung and in a real hurry. “Here, here, never mind, let me give you the money. Just give me back my change… no, no, wait, here, I have three tens and two fives. Give me back two 20s.” And so on. You know the drill. So do I, so I called 911.
They weren’t too interested, as I wasn’t an injured party, and once he left the store, the operator asked “So the police are no longer needed?” Yes, idiot, they’re needed, because there’s a guy walking around Downtown Crossing pulling a scam on all the shops, and he’s real easy to pick out of the crowd. Thanks. Bye.
As I leave, I see him walking down the street, so on a hunch, I check in on the stores next door. Why, yes, there was a guy in here. Yes, we were just counting our drawer. Did you lose money too?
There’s a cop across the street, so I flag him down and point the guy out. Last I see, he’s questioning the guy and his friend. I tell him about Foot Locker, he says he’ll take care of it, and 10 minutes later I see a cop car with its lights on leaving the area. I hope it’s him.
And it’s all because I watched The Grifters.
I was at the CVS across the street, standing behind a guy in a bright blue basketball top who was clearly causing the cashier some difficulty. “No, no, not a return, I paid you already – just give me the cash back from the drawer.” He was high-strung and in a real hurry. “Here, here, never mind, let me give you the money. Just give me back my change… no, no, wait, here, I have three tens and two fives. Give me back two 20s.” And so on. You know the drill. So do I, so I called 911.
They weren’t too interested, as I wasn’t an injured party, and once he left the store, the operator asked “So the police are no longer needed?” Yes, idiot, they’re needed, because there’s a guy walking around Downtown Crossing pulling a scam on all the shops, and he’s real easy to pick out of the crowd. Thanks. Bye.
As I leave, I see him walking down the street, so on a hunch, I check in on the stores next door. Why, yes, there was a guy in here. Yes, we were just counting our drawer. Did you lose money too?
There’s a cop across the street, so I flag him down and point the guy out. Last I see, he’s questioning the guy and his friend. I tell him about Foot Locker, he says he’ll take care of it, and 10 minutes later I see a cop car with its lights on leaving the area. I hope it’s him.
And it’s all because I watched The Grifters.
I sat down next to a crazy guy on the Orange Line the other day. He didn’t smell, and he wasn’t grizzly, and he didn’t flail his arms. He just sat there and commented on what he saw – but with the voice, pacing and flair of an orator. He narrated with a vocabulary and a form that could have got him a book contract with any publisher he wanted, and one heck of a book tour. But he was crazy. Something like:
“Oh-HO! Light! But lighting requires direct current, not alternating. Direct! Ha. [Spies a couple with a young boy strapped into his stroller] People, I think that if the Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children is to prevail, we must make use of them; what are they if not for this very /situation/ [pronounced in French]? Yes, you’re not kidding anyone, kiddo. Children, babies, and adults! The seat belt unclicks; it is designed for that express purpose! This boy must be set free! It can be done. It was done. One family, in the 1950s—no, ho-ho, in the 1940s—was riding the subway, and did respond to just such an entreaty.”
I wish I’d tried to speak to him, and find out who he once was. But I was feeling ashamed by the glares of the surrounding commuters, as if he were a bad person for being ill, and I too would become a nuisance by meeting him briefly in his world. Yet, I’d bet, if he had any, they’d buy his castille soap.
I sat down next to a crazy guy on the Orange Line the other day. He didn’t smell, and he wasn’t grizzly, and he didn’t flail his arms. He just sat there and commented on what he saw – but with the voice, pacing and flair of an orator. He narrated with a vocabulary and a form that could have got him a book contract with any publisher he wanted, and one heck of a book tour. But he was crazy. Something like:
“Oh-HO! Light! But lighting requires direct current, not alternating. Direct! Ha. [Spies a couple with a young boy strapped into his stroller] People, I think that if the Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children is to prevail, we must make use of them; what are they if not for this very /situation/ [pronounced in French]? Yes, you’re not kidding anyone, kiddo. Children, babies, and adults! The seat belt unclicks; it is designed for that express purpose! This boy must be set free! It can be done. It was done. One family, in the 1950s—no, ho-ho, in the 1940s—was riding the subway, and did respond to just such an entreaty.”
I wish I’d tried to speak to him, and find out who he once was. But I was feeling ashamed by the glares of the surrounding commuters, as if he were a bad person for being ill, and I too would become a nuisance by meeting him briefly in his world. Yet, I’d bet, if he had any, they’d buy his castille soap.
Who can sleep with a view like this?
Who can sleep with a view like this?
Parents now see significance of Hess truck, chemistry set, My First Boxcutter
Parents now see significance of Hess truck, chemistry set, My First Boxcutter
Like many Americans, I now read my newspapers on the Internet. Six years after leaving D.C., my “home” paper is still the Washington Post; it’s free, it’s national, and while it’s sometimes painfully liberal (even for me!), I know what to expect.
But in order to fit their headlines into the tiny three-column front-page format, they have to do some shortening. A lot of shortening. Four words, maybe five if they’re short. They’re not headlines anymore; sometimes they’re not even coherent. For a day or two, I was convinced that the editors had been replaced by some type of automated thesaurus, so bad was the misuse of pseudo-synonyms. It gets better, because throughout the day, someone’s constantly tweaking the headlines—whether for fit or meaning, I don’t know, but they don’t always succeed.
And sometimes, that gets pretty funny.
The rules: The “headblips” are real. The subheads are fictional. Unless otherwise cited, they are from today’s Washington Post.
Like many Americans, I now read my newspapers on the Internet. Six years after leaving D.C., my “home” paper is still the Washington Post; it’s free, it’s national, and while it’s sometimes painfully liberal (even for me!), I know what to expect.
But in order to fit their headlines into the tiny three-column front-page format, they have to do some shortening. A lot of shortening. Four words, maybe five if they’re short. They’re not headlines anymore; sometimes they’re not even coherent. For a day or two, I was convinced that the editors had been replaced by some type of automated thesaurus, so bad was the misuse of pseudo-synonyms. It gets better, because throughout the day, someone’s constantly tweaking the headlines—whether for fit or meaning, I don’t know, but they don’t always succeed.
And sometimes, that gets pretty funny.
The rules: The “headblips” are real. The subheads are fictional. Unless otherwise cited, they are from today’s Washington Post.
Like many Americans, I now read my newspapers on the Internet. Six years after leaving D.C., my “home” paper is still the Washington Post; it’s free, it’s national, and while it’s sometimes painfully liberal (even for me!), I know what to expect.
But in order to fit their headlines into the tiny three-column front-page format, they have to do some shortening. A lot of shortening. Four words, maybe five if they’re short. They’re not headlines anymore; sometimes they’re not even coherent. For a day or two, I was convinced that the editors had been replaced by some type of automated thesaurus, so bad was the misuse of pseudo-synonyms.
And sometimes, that gets pretty funny.
Like many Americans, I now read my newspapers on the Internet. Six years after leaving D.C., my “home” paper is still the Washington Post; it’s free, it’s national, and while it’s sometimes painfully liberal (even for me!), I know what to expect.
But in order to fit their headlines into the tiny three-column front-page format, they have to do some shortening. A lot of shortening. Four words, maybe five if they’re short. They’re not headlines anymore; sometimes they’re not even coherent. For a day or two, I was convinced that the editors had been replaced by some type of automated thesaurus, so bad was the misuse of pseudo-synonyms.
And sometimes, that gets pretty funny.
I took Amtrak to New York this week for Passover, and spent much of the trip gazing out the window at life on the wrong side of the tracks. On the outskirts of Bridgeport, CT, there is a small club called the Pleasant Moments Cafe, which is what you think it is. They’ve got a sign out front that says:
OVER 50
DANCERS WEEKLY
It took me a few horrified minutes to realize that that was in fact one sentence, and not two.
I took Amtrak to New York this week for Passover, and spent much of the trip gazing out the window at life on the wrong side of the tracks. On the outskirts of Bridgeport, CT, there is a small club called the Pleasant Moments Cafe, which is what you think it is. They’ve got a sign out front that says:
OVER 50
DANCERS WEEKLY
It took me a few horrified minutes to realize that that was in fact one sentence, and not two.
As far as I can tell from the lease, they’re pretty strict on “no holes in the wall”, so not only can’t I hang art, but I can’t put up utility hooks, elfa closet systems, etc. And I’m really big on hooks and mounting and such. I’m going to talk to the leasing office about that, but I saw the lease agent in the elevator this morning and she had her hands full with a whole group of visitors from MIT Sloan, so not a good day to ask those sort of questions. I was excited to find a whole collection of magnetic kitchen organizers at Container Store yesterday, but came home to find that, apparently, that backboard is aluminum, not steel. Sigh.
The much bigger downside is that, being an older apartment, it’s not “wired”. We do have high-speed Internet in the building through Comcast or Verizon, but there’s no Ethernet in the walls or anything like that for local-area networks; there’s only one cable jack in the living room. In fact, the bedroom serving as my office has no phone or cable jack at all!
No problem, I thought – I’ll set up a wireless network. Went to CompUSA, bought a router and adapter, came home and set it up. Everything works great. Except, sometimes, when it totally goes off the air. Not just bogs down – disappears. (It does bog down, too.) And this is no ordinary 802.11g setup. No, this is atomic-age super-double-MIMO-with-strawberries, Linksys’s SRX400, which according to the packaging, not only eats interference for breakfast, but reprocesses and repackages it into small hazelnut truffles.
The problem, I suspect, is that I’m sitting here in a building full of wired-to-the-hilt yuppies, and surrounded by financial-district offices. I can see 30 wireless networks from here, and those are just the ones that aren’t running in stealth mode. Add in cordless phones, microwave ovens, etc., and it’s a wonder that I even need to heat up my breakfast.
I’m going to try an 802.11a network, since that’s a less crowded band. But I may have to set up a wired network, and that won’t be pretty. Literally. The way the apartment’s laid out, I’m going to have to string wire straight across the floor (or up and over doorways), and I’ll never be able to shut any of my doors.
Good thing I don’t depend on the Internet much.
As far as I can tell from the lease, they’re pretty strict on “no holes in the wall”, so not only can’t I hang art, but I can’t put up utility hooks, elfa closet systems, etc. And I’m really big on hooks and mounting and such. I’m going to talk to the leasing office about that, but I saw the lease agent in the elevator this morning and she had her hands full with a whole group of visitors from MIT Sloan, so not a good day to ask those sort of questions. I was excited to find a whole collection of magnetic kitchen organizers at Container Store yesterday, but came home to find that, apparently, that backboard is aluminum, not steel. Sigh.
The much bigger downside is that, being an older apartment, it’s not “wired”. We do have high-speed Internet in the building through Comcast or Verizon, but there’s no Ethernet in the walls or anything like that for local-area networks; there’s only one cable jack in the living room. In fact, the bedroom serving as my office has no phone or cable jack at all!
No problem, I thought – I’ll set up a wireless network. Went to CompUSA, bought a router and adapter, came home and set it up. Everything works great. Except, sometimes, when it totally goes off the air. Not just bogs down – disappears. (It does bog down, too.) And this is no ordinary 802.11g setup. No, this is atomic-age super-double-MIMO-with-strawberries, Linksys’s SRX400, which according to the packaging, not only eats interference for breakfast, but reprocesses and repackages it into small hazelnut truffles.
The problem, I suspect, is that I’m sitting here in a building full of wired-to-the-hilt yuppies, and surrounded by financial-district offices. I can see 30 wireless networks from here, and those are just the ones that aren’t running in stealth mode. Add in cordless phones, microwave ovens, etc., and it’s a wonder that I even need to heat up my breakfast.
I’m going to try an 802.11a network, since that’s a less crowded band. But I may have to set up a wired network, and that won’t be pretty. Literally. The way the apartment’s laid out, I’m going to have to string wire straight across the floor (or up and over doorways), and I’ll never be able to shut any of my doors.
Good thing I don’t depend on the Internet much.
So, as anyone who actually reads this so-called blog knows, I’ve left the suburbs for the lights of the Small City. I’m writing this from the 24th floor of the Devonshire apartments in Boston, which, I have to say, are pretty darn sweet, considering I lucked upon them by, er, luck. Granite counters, stainless appliances, new kitchen and bath fixtures, multiple thermostats, new carpeting, and six, count em, SIX closets.
This was one of only three two-bedroom apartments in the Greater Berklee Area that had laundry and A/C and would allow cats, and the rent for this 1000-square-foot flat is actually comparable to the other two, since utilities are included and there’s no fee. But, instead of being tucked into a mother-in-law apartment, I’ve got a 90-degree view that runs from the North End, continues past the Mercantile Mall and the Long Wharf, takes in the airport and East Boston, and finishes up with a bunch of pretty buildings I can’t yet identify except for the State Street Bank. Some pictures below the cut!
So, as anyone who actually reads this so-called blog knows, I’ve left the suburbs for the lights of the Small City. I’m writing this from the 24th floor of the Devonshire apartments in Boston, which, I have to say, are pretty darn sweet, considering I lucked upon them by, er, luck. Granite counters, stainless appliances, new kitchen and bath fixtures, multiple thermostats, new carpeting, and six, count em, SIX closets.
This was one of only three two-bedroom apartments in the Greater Berklee Area that had laundry and A/C and would allow cats, and the rent for this 1000-square-foot flat is actually comparable to the other two, since utilities are included and there’s no fee. But, instead of being tucked into a mother-in-law apartment, I’ve got a 90-degree view that runs from the North End, continues past the Mercantile Mall and the Long Wharf, takes in the airport and East Boston, and finishes up with a bunch of pretty buildings I can’t yet identify except for the State Street Bank. Some pictures below the cut!
I never thought of myself as a hi-rise guy, but I’m not feeling quite as cooped up as I thought I would – probably because it’s a quick elevator ride to the ground floor, where I’ve got a Starbucks, Emack and Bolio’s, a great bakery/cafe/caterer, and Bruegger’s bagels within a block. A few blocks farther and I’ve got all of Downtown Crossing (Subway!) and the huge variety at Quincy Market, which may just be the world’s best vegetarian food court.
The cats were quite freaked out at first, having never ridden an elevator. They spent the first few days wondering when the veterinarian was going to come out of one of the doors, but they’ve finally figured out that it’s home. Indy has even started looking out the window, though Pewter refuses.
Googling for some lyrics, I came across the LiveJournal of qwantz, who has come up with what he calls the best format for music EVER. I have to agree. The formula: Turn any pop song into outline form.
Just one example out of a thread filled with hundreds (credit to vitoverde):
Googling for some lyrics, I came across the LiveJournal of qwantz, who has come up with what he calls the best format for music EVER. I have to agree. The formula: Turn any pop song into outline form.
Just one example out of a thread filled with hundreds (credit to vitoverde):
Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza, is starting his own Florida town—Ave Maria—and implied that he would be banning birth control and porn in the city. Now he’s trying to clarify. “There are a lot of misconceptions,” he told the Associated Press.
Well, sure. That’s what happens when you ban birth control.
Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza, is starting his own Florida town—Ave Maria—and implied that he would be banning birth control and porn in the city. Now he’s trying to clarify. “There are a lot of misconceptions,” he told the Associated Press.
Well, sure. That’s what happens when you ban birth control.
I’m a pretty skeptical guy; I don’t believe in homeopathy, astrology, or premonitions, and I read James Randi on a regular basis (though his vitriol impedes his ability to convince the faithful). And while I’ve heard of the birthday paradox before, I never quite extended the analogy the way Thomas Gilovich does in How We Know What Isn’t So.
Here’s the paradox: In a group of 23 people, there’s a 50% chance that two will share the same birthday. And if the group has 60 or more, the chances grow to 99%.
I’m a pretty skeptical guy; I don’t believe in homeopathy, astrology, or premonitions, and I read James Randi on a regular basis (though his vitriol impedes his ability to convince the faithful). And while I’ve heard of the birthday paradox before, I never quite extended the analogy the way Thomas Gilovich does in How We Know What Isn’t So.
Here’s the paradox: In a group of 23 people, there’s a 50% chance that two will share the same birthday. And if the group has 60 or more, the chances grow to 99%.
That’s it. (It’s not really a paradox; just a counter-intuitive fact.) How can that be? If there are 23 people, and the odds of any given birthday are 1/365…
Ah, but we didn’t ask the probability of Bob and Alice sharing a birthday; that would indeed be low. But because we’re asking about any two people, you’re looking at the sum of the probabilities of each pair sharing a birthday – and with 23 people, there are 253 possible pairs.
Now shift gears. Carol has an odd dream about Donna, her old college roommate. That day, Donna calls her! What are the odds of such a coincidence?
Well, the odds of Carol dreaming about Donna (of all the people she could have dreamed of), and of Donna then choosing to look up Carol (of all her other old college friends) on that day (of all other days to start reminiscing) are quite low. But, as with the birthday paradox, that’s not actually the question you’re asking!
What you’re asking is: What are the odds that something would happen to Carol today that would seem uncoincidental enough to convince you of her ability to dream predictively? That opens up a lot of possibilities. She might have dreamed of a plane crash, or of a crime being committed, or of meeting someone new, and something somewhere in her life or the newspaper might have happened which matches one of her dreams. And the dream and event might not have happened on the same day; if Carol dreamed of a plane crash Monday, and a jet crashed on Thursday, you’d probably still be spooked.
In fact, since the story’s being told to you, we might ask the probability that anyone you know might have encountered a coincidence in the past few days. Pretty high, eh?
Real-life example from the book: Luis Alvarez, a physicist, read a newspaper article that began a series of musings, which eventually led him to think of an old college friend. When he got to the obituary section, he discovered that this old friend had died. Strange coincidence!
Alvarez set out to calculate the rough probability of such a thing happening. Factoring in the number of people the average person knows, how often people think of their old acquaintances, etc., and calculated that “the probability of thinking of an acquaintance roughly five minutes before learning of that person’s death is roughly 3 × 10 ^ -5.” That means that in the United States alone, it happens ten times a day. Rare, but certainly not unexplainable.
Neat stuff.
Every few weeks, I see a truck labelled “Graffiti Busters” at City Hall next to the Government Center T stop. This is a volunteer service, run by the city, that tries to eliminate this blight on our cityscape, this self-adulating, cultish vandalism put there by thugs who fancy themselves artists.
But it’s not working. City Hall is still there.
Every few weeks, I see a truck labelled “Graffiti Busters” at City Hall next to the Government Center T stop. This is a volunteer service, run by the city, that tries to eliminate this blight on our cityscape, this self-adulating, cultish vandalism put there by thugs who fancy themselves artists.
But it’s not working. City Hall is still there.
Finally: a drug made for people like me. By people like me.
John Durkin, the Internet sales person at JD, left me a friendly, concerned voicemail last month that I’m only just now getting around to returning. (My computer died, and I could not seem to build a working one. Who do I call for tech support? Four, count’em, four dead components later…) Turns out he’s been out with pneumonia as well.
When I reached him today, he was just heading out to lunch with his department, but we had a nice conversation, and I think, as he put it , that two reasonable people can always come to a resolution. Both John and Ron Dubin, the CFO, would like to reach an agreement on this—and I’d like nothing more than to get some closure, and feel that I made the right choice buying the car from Jack Daniels Motors.
We’ll hopefully talk today or Tuesday. I think there’s hope here.
John Durkin, the Internet sales person at JD, left me a friendly, concerned voicemail last month that I’m only just now getting around to returning. (My computer died, and I could not seem to build a working one. Who do I call for tech support? Four, count’em, four dead components later…) Turns out he’s been out with pneumonia as well.
When I reached him today, he was just heading out to lunch with his department, but we had a nice conversation, and I think, as he put it , that two reasonable people can always come to a resolution. Both John and Ron Dubin, the CFO, would like to reach an agreement on this—and I’d like nothing more than to get some closure, and feel that I made the right choice buying the car from Jack Daniels Motors.
We’ll hopefully talk today or Tuesday. I think there’s hope here.
We can’t become an outcome-based democracy. Even in a time of war, you have to follow the process because that’s what a democracy is all about.
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Face the Nation (via the WP)
Who’dathunk I’d be quoting a Republican from South Carolina about governance?
We can’t become an outcome-based democracy. Even in a time of war, you have to follow the process because that’s what a democracy is all about.
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Face the Nation (via the WP)
Who’dathunk I’d be quoting a Republican from South Carolina about governance?
If you thought there was no innovation left in e-commerce, you thought wrong. I just ordered a nice ski jacket from Moosejaw. Not only did they ship quickly, but instead of the usual, boring boilerplate e-mails, I get updates like this:
Your Order Tracking and Order Summary Information is below. We recommend printing this information and mounting it into a mahogany frame for a foyer or living room. If you don’t have a printer they’re very easy to steal from a friend and bring back later, just something to keep in mind.
Now that’s fun shopping.
If you thought there was no innovation left in e-commerce, you thought wrong. I just ordered a nice ski jacket from Moosejaw. Not only did they ship quickly, but instead of the usual, boring boilerplate e-mails, I get updates like this:
Your Order Tracking and Order Summary Information is below. We recommend printing this information and mounting it into a mahogany frame for a foyer or living room. If you don’t have a printer they’re very easy to steal from a friend and bring back later, just something to keep in mind.
Now that’s fun shopping.
infosnacking: checking e-mail, Googling sports scores, shopping online and surfing the latest headlines. It’s the Webster’s New World College Dictionary Word of 2005.
Via Adweek
infosnacking: checking e-mail, Googling sports scores, shopping online and surfing the latest headlines. It’s the Webster’s New World College Dictionary Word of 2005.
Via Adweek
I want the president to look across the country and find the best man, woman or minority that he can find…
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Trent Lott. (via the Daily Dish)
I want the president to look across the country and find the best man, woman or minority that he can find…
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Trent Lott. (via the Daily Dish)
You could walk into a store and grab a product at random and it would look more like an abominable snowman than this toy does.
From bubblegumfink via boingboing
You could walk into a store and grab a product at random and it would look more like an abominable snowman than this toy does.
From bubblegumfink via boingboing
Amy called back today. She exchanged voicemails with Frank, who reiterated that Jack Daniels would not address my complaint any further. And that’s all that Audi Customer Advocacy can do. She suggested that if I want to complain about Audi’s corporate policies, I write to their VP, Johan De Nysschen. I decided to write to the Michigan AG instead, since Audi’s making false representations (according to their own customer advocates). The complaint, #cp26ev390y, is below the break.
Of course, this site is about Jack Daniels Motors, not just Audi of America. So what now? Jack Daniels sold me a car in unsafe condition and sent me on a 300-mile drive home. They refuse to return my phone calls; they refuse even to get me my replacement key unless I drive back to New Jersey! And I’m now officially out of standard customer escalation options.
There are a number of options, both publicity-wise and legally. I have a few ideas, but I welcome suggestions.
Amy called back today. She exchanged voicemails with Frank, who reiterated that Jack Daniels would not address my complaint any further. And that’s all that Audi Customer Advocacy can do. She suggested that if I want to complain about Audi’s corporate policies, I write to their VP, Johan De Nysschen. I decided to write to the Michigan AG instead, since Audi’s making false representations (according to their own customer advocates). The complaint, #cp26ev390y, is below the break.
Of course, this site is about Jack Daniels Motors, not just Audi of America. So what now? Jack Daniels sold me a car in unsafe condition and sent me on a 300-mile drive home. They refuse to return my phone calls; they refuse even to get me my replacement key unless I drive back to New Jersey! And I’m now officially out of standard customer escalation options.
There are a number of options, both publicity-wise and legally. I have a few ideas, but I welcome suggestions.
I am a full-time Massachusetts resident. On 1/28/05, I purchased an Audi S6 from Jack Daniels Motors of Fairlawn, NJ. This was manufactured and distributed by Audi of America in Rochester Hills, MI. The purchase was based in large part on representations made by Audi of America (“Audi”), in written materials and on their web site, about their Certified Pre-Owned warranty program (“CPO”). The car is represented as possessing an Audi CPO warranty, yet it does not meet the manufacturer’s qualifications for such certification, due to missing and damaged parts, nor does it have proper, complete CPO paperwork. Audi represents this as a “factory-backed” warranty, but refuses to back it, saying it is a matter between the dealer and me. I would like Audi to reimburse me for, or replace, the missing and damaged parts, or arrange for same, and perform a proper CPO inspection, or arrange for same.
The car’s CPO inspection was performed by Jack Daniels Motors on 12/17/04. According to that inspection sheet:
1. The left front mat is checked off as OK.
2. The steering wheel is checked off as OK.
3. The tires have no flat spots, no cuts, no cracks, they all match, and they are approved by Audi.
4. There is an “all keys?” line item, and neither “Yes” nor “No” is checked.
5. The three signature lines are left blank.
In reality:
1. The left front mat was missing. When I pointed this out, the dealer attempted to dismiss it, then attempted to replace it, but failed to find a matching mat.
2. The steering wheel has a hole where the S6 logo should be.
3. After bargaining with the dealer for winter tires and wheels, they put the existing 17" wheels with summer tires in the trunk, and put on a set of winter tires and wheels that were of mismatched type, of mismatched rotational bearing (three left tires, one right tire), two of which had sidewall flaws rendering them unsafe to drive. This car has mechanical, full-time all-wheel-drive, making such tire mismatches even more of a safety hazard.
The dealer put the car on the road with these tires, with no disclosure of their known flaws to me, and did not recertify the car. Additionally, the wheels were mismatched, had cracked and broken hubcaps, and were out of round, and could not be straightened. Within a few days of buying this car, I had to buy four new tires and wheels.
4. The second, immobilizer ignition key was missing. The dealer will not replace it unless I return to New Jersey to have them program it; they refuse to send it to another dealer.
According to Audi’s own standards, and by Audi’s own admission (phone conversation with Nahed Bouteldja, Audi Supervisor, on 9/20/05), this car should not have been certified in that condition. Certification is a condition for Audi’s CPO program, according to Bret Lupher, Audi Team Assistant (phone conversation, 9/13/05).
I attempted to have the dealer correct these problems, but after working with me for a few days, they simply stopped returning my phone calls. (For details, see my web site, http://www.jack-daniels-motors-sucks.com.)
I then began working through Audi’s customer advocacy program. However, they are not empowered to do anything at all for the customer other than contact the dealership. They are specifically not authorized or tasked with having Audi themselves address the problem. In fact, there appears to be no actual Audi customer relations department in the traditional sense, only this advocacy program. The only way to even complain to Audi is by letter to their executive management.
I first spoke with Audi representative Willy Moore (again, detailed at the web site). He contacted Jack Daniels, and was eventually told that they would not address my issues. I asked for a supervisor, and spoke to Bret Lupher (phone conversation, 9/13/05). Bret informed me that Audi’s policy is that they have no involvement in any issues with the car that existed before it is sold; the CPO covers only items that break after sale. They do certify the car for the dealer, but they rely on the dealer to actually perform the certification, and address any issues or flaws affecting certification. Audi explicitly does not warrant their certification to the customer, according to Bret; it’s all up to the dealer.
I found this confusing, because Audi’s materials state that “There’s no better illustration of our attention to detail than our 300+ Point Inspection process. No other manufacturer puts its Certified pre-owned cars through a tougher, or more encompassing, examination—an examination every Audi has to ace in order to qualify as Certified pre-owned.” (http://www.audiusa.com/certified_why/0,5777,100,00.html) In other words, Audi themselves certifies that the car has not only passed, but ACED a 300-point inspection before they qualify it. Even Bret said that, reading this copy, he would believe that the previous sentence is true.
Yet this car, as sold, did not pass, they qualified it anyway, and they refuse to address the issues, again claiming it’s between the dealer and consumer. As to the marketing materials, when asked if he, reading the materials as written, would believe that Audi themselves warranted the car, Bret answered “Yes, but that’s not the reality of the situation.” Again, to emphasize: Audi’s own representative believes their marketing representations are false and misleading.
I later escalated to his supervisor, Nahed, who agreed to contact Jack Daniels again. She referred the call to Amy, who exchanged voicemails with the dealer, who reiterated their refusal to make any accommodations.
All I want from Audi is the following:
1. $1400 to reimburse for my wheels and tires.
2. A replacement S6 logo for the steering wheel.
3. My immobilizer key sent to Bernardi, my local Audi dealer.
4. A new CPO inspection by my local Audi dealer—I no longer trust that the original inspection was done properly.
Additionally, I feel you should check into their certification process and claims, since clearly their representations don’t match their policies.
Thanks for your time. I will be happy to provide specific paperwork upon request.
I post enough complaints in this section, so it’s time for a cheer: Cisco tech support rocks.
I bought a new Pix-501 firewall yesterday. I previously had a cheapo consumer Linksys BEFSR11, and I haven’t done any serious network configuration since 1992. It’s become more complex, apparently.
So I installed the firewall, and it mostly worked, but I couldn’t make outbound web requests. Called tech support, filed a “network down” ticket, and within a few minutes, got a delightful callback from Ciel P. She walked me through setting up the Pix to grant her access, then proceeded to ssh into it, configure my network for me, and call me back 10 minutes later to tell me it was done and verify that it worked. She then sent a followup e-mail, detailing what had changed. Plus, she was friendly, funny, and knowledgeable. What more can you ask for?
I post enough complaints in this section, so it’s time for a cheer: Cisco tech support rocks.
I bought a new Pix-501 firewall yesterday. I previously had a cheapo consumer Linksys BEFSR11, and I haven’t done any serious network configuration since 1992. It’s become more complex, apparently.
So I installed the firewall, and it mostly worked, but I couldn’t make outbound web requests. Called tech support, filed a “network down” ticket, and within a few minutes, got a delightful callback from Ciel P. She walked me through setting up the Pix to grant her access, then proceeded to ssh into it, configure my network for me, and call me back 10 minutes later to tell me it was done and verify that it worked. She then sent a followup e-mail, detailing what had changed. Plus, she was friendly, funny, and knowledgeable. What more can you ask for?
Amy from Audi called today; Nahed had referred my case to her. Apparently, my case finally got the executive attention it deserves, and they’re not taking any prisoners this time. See what a little blogging can do? You’ll never guess what Audi of America has in store for Jack Daniels Motors. In fact, Amy called to let me know that the first step has been taken, a step that cannot be reversed, a step of such monumental import that it fills me with tears and pride to know it was done on my behalf:
+She left Frank a voicemail.+
OK. To be fair, she did promise that she would try Frank every day this time, or even twice daily, rather than once a week. Her plan is to be “tenacious.” And she did promise that, if necessary, she would be able to escalate past the dealer to the regional manager. But she has to give them another “opportunity” first.
Amy from Audi called today; Nahed had referred my case to her. Apparently, my case finally got the executive attention it deserves, and they’re not taking any prisoners this time. See what a little blogging can do? You’ll never guess what Audi of America has in store for Jack Daniels Motors. In fact, Amy called to let me know that the first step has been taken, a step that cannot be reversed, a step of such monumental import that it fills me with tears and pride to know it was done on my behalf:
+She left Frank a voicemail.+
OK. To be fair, she did promise that she would try Frank every day this time, or even twice daily, rather than once a week. Her plan is to be “tenacious.” And she did promise that, if necessary, she would be able to escalate past the dealer to the regional manager. But she has to give them another “opportunity” first.
I got a call today from Bret’s supervisor, Nahed B. She was supposed to call me last Thursday, between 2 and 3pm; she says that she called my cell phone, and got a message that it had been disconnected. Well, yes, if you call the cell phone I used to have in Virginia five years ago, you’re going to find that. (Pause) “Okay. I am sorry about that.” By the way, I’m now recording these calls (legally, with notice), so from here on in, anything in quotes is verbatim.
She was much more sympathetic than Bret had been. She agreed that the car should not have been certified until the keys were found, and was astounded at the dealer’s lack of response: “You shouldn’t be getting this treatment from a dealership!” she exclaimed several times. On that, we agree.
She was also interested to know that, so far as I know, Jack Daniels has not disputed that the tires were bad. They’ve only declined to help me.
That’s the good part. The bad part is that, despite the sympathy and righteous indignation she felt for me, she didn’t sound authorized to actually do anything more than Bret could. All she can do is call the dealer and advocate on my behalf. But it’s too early to re-argue that point; she still thinks she can get somewhere with Jack Daniels Motors. Well, she can try.
I told her what my expected resolution was. At least, I tried to tell her, but she was more interested in getting off the phone. Nonetheless, I believe I managed to present these terms:
In other words, I have now significantly, though temporarily, lowered my demands for resolution. And she’s going to call me back in 24-48 hours. Let’s see if this honey catches a fly.
I got a call today from Bret’s supervisor, Nahed B. She was supposed to call me last Thursday, between 2 and 3pm; she says that she called my cell phone, and got a message that it had been disconnected. Well, yes, if you call the cell phone I used to have in Virginia five years ago, you’re going to find that. (Pause) “Okay. I am sorry about that.” By the way, I’m now recording these calls (legally, with notice), so from here on in, anything in quotes is verbatim.
She was much more sympathetic than Bret had been. She agreed that the car should not have been certified until the keys were found, and was astounded at the dealer’s lack of response: “You shouldn’t be getting this treatment from a dealership!” she exclaimed several times. On that, we agree.
She was also interested to know that, so far as I know, Jack Daniels has not disputed that the tires were bad. They’ve only declined to help me.
That’s the good part. The bad part is that, despite the sympathy and righteous indignation she felt for me, she didn’t sound authorized to actually do anything more than Bret could. All she can do is call the dealer and advocate on my behalf. But it’s too early to re-argue that point; she still thinks she can get somewhere with Jack Daniels Motors. Well, she can try.
I told her what my expected resolution was. At least, I tried to tell her, but she was more interested in getting off the phone. Nonetheless, I believe I managed to present these terms:
In other words, I have now significantly, though temporarily, lowered my demands for resolution. And she’s going to call me back in 24-48 hours. Let’s see if this honey catches a fly.
Wow… I just checked out Jack Daniels’s reviews at http://1.8t.org, an Audi/VW dealer rating site.
There are 576 American and Canadian Audi and VW dealers listed there. Each review can give anywhere from -2 to +2 points to a dealer. Jack Daniels Motors has 41 reviews totalling -21 points.
This puts them in 564th place.
Let’s ponder that. Most review sites are going to have more complaints than praise, because irate customers want to tell everyone they know. But presumably that bias affects all car dealers equally. Yet out of nearly 600 dealers reviewed on 1.8t…
There are only 12 dealers in North America worse than Jack Daniels Motors.
Can I pick ’em, or what?
Wow… I just checked out Jack Daniels’s reviews at http://1.8t.org, an Audi/VW dealer rating site.
There are 576 American and Canadian Audi and VW dealers listed there. Each review can give anywhere from -2 to +2 points to a dealer. Jack Daniels Motors has 41 reviews totalling -21 points.
This puts them in 564th place.
Let’s ponder that. Most review sites are going to have more complaints than praise, because irate customers want to tell everyone they know. But presumably that bias affects all car dealers equally. Yet out of nearly 600 dealers reviewed on 1.8t…
There are only 12 dealers in North America worse than Jack Daniels Motors.
Can I pick ’em, or what?
Got Jack Daniels Motors horror stories of your own, buying or servicing your Audi, VW, or Porsche? Post a comment here!
Got Jack Daniels Motors horror stories of your own, buying or servicing your Audi, VW, or Porsche? Post a comment here!
Attention, all Boston women on JDate: Here are some things you should know.
Attention, all Boston women on JDate: Here are some things you should know.
…in which Jack Daniels Motors sells me an unsafe car, refuses to fix it, and Audi says their web site is a lie
On January 29, 2005, I purchased a 2003 Audi S6 from Jack Daniels Motors, Inc. of Fair Lawn, NJ, aka Jack Daniels Audi. You can read about my purchase experience here; it was not astounding, but certainly not the worst dealer experience I’ve had. But it was about to start seriously sucking.
In a nutshell, they sold me a car that was supposedly an Audi Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) Vehicle. But even after their sales staff ran around replacing some missing parts, there were a few problems with it:
Luckily, I had insisted on getting a copy of the CPO inspection report. Let’s compare. According to the report, dated 12/17/04:
I’d been looking at another CPO’d S6 in the area. It was in great condition, and it had all-weather tires, which, since I live in Boston, are an absolute requirement for me, living in Boston. Jack Daniels’s Audi had summer tires on it.
So John Durkin, the salesperson, passed me to Frank Debia, the sales manager, who promised that he would, on a Friday night, find me 16" wheels and winter tires so I could safely drive back from New Jersey.
Now I’m assuming he meant usable tires. Tires worth selling. Tires fit for a particular purpose—driving. And if you assume that too, then you have to agree that Frank lied. And he was speaking for Jack Daniels. So Jack Daniels Motors lied too, if you follow my line of thinking.
You see, he did find four winter tires. Great brand, too: Dunlop. Three of them were Dunlop M2s. The fourth was a Dunlop Wintersport.
Did you hear that skidding, grinding noise? That wasn’t the plot; that was the Audi Quattro all-wheel-drive system trying to deal with different types of tires.
Oh, also, three of the tires were left-side tires. My car only has two left wheels. Hey, there’s that skidding noise again.
And, of course, they did not re-CPO the tires.
…in which Jack Daniels Motors sells me an unsafe car, refuses to fix it, and Audi says their web site is a lie
On January 29, 2005, I purchased a 2003 Audi S6 from Jack Daniels Motors, Inc. of Fair Lawn, NJ, aka Jack Daniels Audi. You can read about my purchase experience here; it was not astounding, but certainly not the worst dealer experience I’ve had. But it was about to start seriously sucking.
In a nutshell, they sold me a car that was supposedly an Audi Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) Vehicle. But even after their sales staff ran around replacing some missing parts, there were a few problems with it:
Luckily, I had insisted on getting a copy of the CPO inspection report. Let’s compare. According to the report, dated 12/17/04:
I’d been looking at another CPO’d S6 in the area. It was in great condition, and it had all-weather tires, which, since I live in Boston, are an absolute requirement for me, living in Boston. Jack Daniels’s Audi had summer tires on it.
So John Durkin, the salesperson, passed me to Frank Debia, the sales manager, who promised that he would, on a Friday night, find me 16" wheels and winter tires so I could safely drive back from New Jersey.
Now I’m assuming he meant usable tires. Tires worth selling. Tires fit for a particular purpose—driving. And if you assume that too, then you have to agree that Frank lied. And he was speaking for Jack Daniels. So Jack Daniels Motors lied too, if you follow my line of thinking.
You see, he did find four winter tires. Great brand, too: Dunlop. Three of them were Dunlop M2s. The fourth was a Dunlop Wintersport.
Did you hear that skidding, grinding noise? That wasn’t the plot; that was the Audi Quattro all-wheel-drive system trying to deal with different types of tires.
Oh, also, three of the tires were left-side tires. My car only has two left wheels. Hey, there’s that skidding noise again.
And, of course, they did not re-CPO the tires.
Well, I’m no tire expert, but I noticed the mismatched tires right on the lot. And at first, they said: Hey, what do you want? It’s a used car! (I kid you not.) And I said, I want four good tires that match! Well, they couldn’t do that on a Saturday morning, so I agreed to take a set of winter mats in exchange for the one M2 tire I thought I’d have to buy to make a complete set. They agreed to send them to me. (They did, though they sent the wrong ones first.)
So I brought the car to Newton Rim and Wheel Works. Great guys. I asked for a fourth M2. They said, you don’t want that. I said, why? They said, because two of your other tires are bad too. One’s got a sidewall bubble. One’s got a sidewall crack. Oh, and all the rims are bent. Hey, there’s that skidding noise again.
I called Frank. Frank said “Oh, they’re just trying to sell you tires. Get a second opinion.” So I did, from Direct Tire. Good guys. They said the same thing. Tires no good. Wheels no good.
I called Frank back, and left him a message on Friday, February 4. Told him that I now had spent $1400 on new wheels and winter tires. I offered to split the cost. He called later, asked again about how much I’d spent, talked about how much the Winterforce cost him, and how much it’d cost him to ship it to me, said he’d see what he could do for me.
That was the last time he called me. Frank Caputo didn’t do anything at all for me. Frank Debia lied. Jack Daniels lied.
After a few weeks went by, with no return calls, I started getting annoyed. Started calling Frank every day. Not nasty messages, just insistent. You know, like the guy who doesn’t realize you broke up with him. “Hey, how’s it going? Uh, haven’t heard from you in a while. So, hey, how about those tires, eh? I’d sure love to hear from you. I think I left my sweater there.”
Nothing.
So I called Jack Daniels. Not the dealer; the man. He’s real; I met him. Nice guy, friendly. But I think he dumped me too. ‘Cause he didn’t call back either.
So I called Audi. The third level of hell.
I called Audi Customer Relations. The CPO is Audi-backed; surely Audi can do something. Luckily, I quickly got hold of Willy Moore. Willy is, I believe, a genetic clone of Ned Flanders—which is an amazing feat, considering Ned’s drawn in pen.
Willy promised to call Jack Daniels Motors to get the whole story. I assumed that this was the first step of problem solving. I was mistaken. That was the entire protocol. Audi: We dial the phone for you.
Except Frank dumped him too. And Jack. They didn’t call him. So Willy kept leaving me messages every few days for a month. (This is paraphrased, as are any other quotes, of course.)
“Hi, this is Willy Moore, from Audi Customer Relations. I just wanted you to let you know of our progress to date; I haven’t heard back from the dealership yet. I’m confident we can get this resolution process going. I’ll try them again, and give you an update on the status no later than Wednesday.”
“Hi, it’s Willy Moore from Audi. I wanted to fill you in on the progress so far. I still haven’t been able to get a hold of Frank. I’m hopeful we’ll be able to have the dealership address your issues. I’ll give you an update on the status no later than Tuesday.”
“Hi, it’s Willy Moore, from Audi. I still haven’t heard back from Frank, so I’m going to leave a message for Jack Daniels. I’ll give you an update on the status no later than Wednesday.”
“Hi, it’s Willy Moore, from Audi. I haven’t heard back, so I’m going to try Frank again. This is obviously taking longer than we’d hoped, so I’m going to call you less often, so I don’t fill up your machine with status updates. I’ll leave you a message no later than next Wednesday.”
As I say, this went on for over a month. If this were a movie, Willy’s messages would have become shorter, blunter, and more frustrated as the month went by. But it isn’t, and they didn’t. Willy’s a say-it-with-a-smile-and-mean-it kinda guy. Hi-diddly-o.
Well, finally, I got a call from Willy telling me that he had spoken to the dealership! Breathlessly, I called back. Willy was busy, but another woman was happy to fill me in.
“Mr. Moore spoke with the dealership. They’re not going to address the tire issue, but they’ll be happy to replace the key for you next time you’re in New Jersey.”
OK. Obviously, that’s not an acceptable answer. So what do we do now?
“I’m sorry?”
Well, I’ve filed a complaint, you’ve heard my side, and now you’ve heard the dealer’s side. Clearly, they’ve sold me a car in unsafe condition, never mind living up to the CPO. What do we do now?
“Sir, we’re not empowered to fix your car for you. Let me explain the process: We advocate for the customer.”
Meaning what?
“Meaning we contact the dealership on your behalf.”
So, all you can do is call the dealer?
“That’s right.”
Couldn’t I call the dealer myself?
“Certainly, but we can act as advocates.”
Wow. That’s helpful. Let me speak to a supervisor. Yes, I understand one isn’t available. Please have one call me.
(Three weeks of phone tag ensue.)
Today, I finally got a hold of Bret Lupher, a supervisor. Only they call them “Team Assistants”. So you’re not a supervisor? “No, I am a supervisor.” Oh, is that just their politically-correct team-speak modern phrase for supervisor? “Well… I’m not going to get into that.” He didn’t sound too happy about it either.
Bret’s like Willy, only with less smile and worse diction. But he’s honest.
Bret explained that I had now experienced the full depth of the Audi Customer Advocacy program. Step 1: I had complained. Step 2: They had talked to the dealer. Step 3: They called me back.
He elaborated a bit. It turns out that, when a dealer wants to sell a CPO car, they do an inspection, and fax it to Audi. If anything’s wrong with the car, they let Audi know. And, once Audi has agreed that the car meets CPO standards, the dealer agrees to take responsibility for fixing it. If anything’s been wrong with my car since the day I bought it, it’s a “sales issue”, not a “warranty issue”. And Audi doesn’t have any say about them.
What do you mean, you don’t have any say? It’s an Audi warranty. Audi made me the promise. It’s Audi’s certification. The certification clearly shows the keys were not accounted for, and the dealer changed the tires after getting that certification. The certification shows the floor mat present, but obviously they lied. The car you certified isn’t the one I bought, the one I bought doesn’t meet the checklist, and the dealer is your franchisee!
“Franchisee is the key word. Audi has no ownership stake, no enforcement mechanism.”
But that’s a problem between Audi and the dealer! Audi’s represented to me, the customer, that this car meets their standards. And I want Audi to take care of fixing it.
“Audi’s not going to pay some local dealer to fix what the selling dealer won’t. If the selling dealer is willing to go through that trouble, that’s certainly an option for them.”
So Audi makes me a promise, and the best they can do is give the dealer an option to keep it? I’m not going to go to New Jersey to get a key.
“Yes, sir, I realize that the dealer’s in New Jersey, and you’re in Massachusetts. Were you aware of that situation when you bought the car?” That’s pretty much a direct quote. Smartass.
The conversation went back and forth, but you get the idea: Audi takes absolutely no responsibility for the car, despite the CPO. The dealer certifies, not Audi. The dealer would make reparations, not Audi. It’s all about the dealer. And they can’t control the dealer. But then I realized something:
Wait a minute. Audi makes me a promise in their own marketing materials. On the web site. Do you have the web site in front of you? Go ahead, load it, I’ll wait. (I can be a smartass too.)
Now, read me what it says about the warranty.
“There’s no better illustration of our attention to detail than our 300+ Point Inspection process. No other manufacturer puts its Certified pre-owned cars through a tougher, or more encompassing, examination—an examination every Audi has to ace in order to qualify as Certified pre-owned.” (Read it here)
Now, Bret, if you read that, wouldn’t you say that Audi, the manufacturer, not the dealer, is making a promise? Audi, the manufacturer, is putting their cars through a certification process? That if I buy this certified, pre-owned S6, it has been certified by Audi to have not only passed, but aced a 300-point inspection? Not knowing what you know as an employee, but your opinion as a reasonable person?
(Pause) “Yes, I would. That’s my opinion. But that’s not the reality of the situation…”
Whoa! Hold on! Are you saying that a reasonable person would believe, from Audi’s own web site, that Audi makes a promise—but that this isn’t the truth?
(Long pause) “Yes.”
Okay. You’re going to want to remember that, because that’s going to be really important when you take the stand and testify against your own employer. You’re sure you’re going to remember that?
“In fact, I’m going to write it into the case notes.”
Great. Audi lies; so says Audi. Now have your supervisor call me.
Bret’s supervisor did, in fact, call Wednesday—the very next day. Sadly, I was leaving the house as she called, so we agreed that she would call Thursday between 2pm and 3pm. She did not. She continuously, repeatedly failed to call on Friday.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, I’m not asking for much. I’m just a simple country chicken. I just want to be made whole. I can forget the floor mat; I bought my own custom-embroidered set from Stratmosphere. All I want from Audi is:
At some companies, that’s called “goodwill”. At Audi, that’s called “impossible”.
Stay tuned.
If you want to link to this, use my snazzy new URL: http://www.jack-daniels-motors-sucks.com.
Revised 9/13 23:00: Clarified some language, fixed typos, explained why I want a new CPO.
Revised 9/17/05 02:50: Added new URL, call from supervisor, clarified conversation with Frank.
Revised 9/27/05: Frank’s last name is Debia, not Caputo.
Courtesy of Mom
If there is no self,
whose arthritis is this?
Be here now.
Be someplace else later.
Is that so complicated?
Drink tea and nourish life.
With the first sip… joy.
With the second… satisfaction.
With the third, peace.
With the fourth, a danish.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Your luggage is another story.
Accept misfortune as a blessing.
Do not wish for perfect health or a life without problems.
What would you talk about?
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single “oy.”
There is no escaping karma.
In a previous life, you never called,
you never wrote, you never visited.
And whose fault was that?
Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkes.
The Tao does not speak.
The Tao does not blame.
The Tao does not take sides.
The Tao has no expectations.
The Tao demands nothing of others.
The Tao is not Jewish.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Forget this and attaining Enlightenment
will be the least of your problems.
Let your mind be as a floating cloud.
Let your stillness be as the wooded glen.
And sit up straight. You’ll never meet the
Buddha with such rounded shoulders.
To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance,
do the following: Get rid of the motorcycle.
What were you thinking?
Be aware of your body.
Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical sensation
is a symptom of a terminal illness.
The Torah says,“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
The Buddha says there is no “self.”
So, maybe you are off the hook.
The Buddha taught that one should practice loving
kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you
to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?
Though only your skin, sinews, and bones remain,
though your blood and flesh dry up and wither away,
yet shall you meditate and not stir
until you have attained full Enlightenment.
But, first, a little nosh.
Courtesy of Mom
If there is no self,
whose arthritis is this?
Be here now.
Be someplace else later.
Is that so complicated?
Drink tea and nourish life.
With the first sip… joy.
With the second… satisfaction.
With the third, peace.
With the fourth, a danish.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Your luggage is another story.
Accept misfortune as a blessing.
Do not wish for perfect health or a life without problems.
What would you talk about?
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single “oy.”
There is no escaping karma.
In a previous life, you never called,
you never wrote, you never visited.
And whose fault was that?
Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkes.
The Tao does not speak.
The Tao does not blame.
The Tao does not take sides.
The Tao has no expectations.
The Tao demands nothing of others.
The Tao is not Jewish.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Forget this and attaining Enlightenment
will be the least of your problems.
Let your mind be as a floating cloud.
Let your stillness be as the wooded glen.
And sit up straight. You’ll never meet the
Buddha with such rounded shoulders.
To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance,
do the following: Get rid of the motorcycle.
What were you thinking?
Be aware of your body.
Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical sensation
is a symptom of a terminal illness.
The Torah says,“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
The Buddha says there is no “self.”
So, maybe you are off the hook.
The Buddha taught that one should practice loving
kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you
to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?
Though only your skin, sinews, and bones remain,
though your blood and flesh dry up and wither away,
yet shall you meditate and not stir
until you have attained full Enlightenment.
But, first, a little nosh.
Sign in the repair shop of a Natick car dealer:
Want to sign up for e-mails about upcoming specials while getting serviced?
Sign in the repair shop of a Natick car dealer:
Want to sign up for e-mails about upcoming specials while getting serviced?
Michael ‘The Interdictor’ Barnett is a data-center crisis manager in the heart of New Orleans who’s been keeping the world updated via his LiveJournal. He’s also ex-Special Forces, and has run a tight ship, securing the building, patrolling the area, obtaining supplies.
This morning, the 82nd Airborne saw the lights on, and came up to investigate. Which means that the formerly-barricaded emergency exit was now open and unguarded, in a city where people are being killed for their bicycles. They claimed they found it that way.
So, naturally, he requested their assistance in sweeping the building to ensure that nobody else was present. The 27-floor building. With no elevators.
Ten thumbs up and a simultaneous hat tip to Mike! Patrolling is one thing. Breaking in, and lying about it to a citzen, is quite another.
Michael ‘The Interdictor’ Barnett is a data-center crisis manager in the heart of New Orleans who’s been keeping the world updated via his LiveJournal. He’s also ex-Special Forces, and has run a tight ship, securing the building, patrolling the area, obtaining supplies.
This morning, the 82nd Airborne saw the lights on, and came up to investigate. Which means that the formerly-barricaded emergency exit was now open and unguarded, in a city where people are being killed for their bicycles. They claimed they found it that way.
So, naturally, he requested their assistance in sweeping the building to ensure that nobody else was present. The 27-floor building. With no elevators.
Ten thumbs up and a simultaneous hat tip to Mike! Patrolling is one thing. Breaking in, and lying about it to a citzen, is quite another.
Alexander Chappell, a Clarkson University senior, died Saturday after trying to cliff-dive into Lake Bonaparte. There’s a low cliff there, where people can dive into deep water. But Chappell tried diving off a much higher cliff, 80 to 100 feet up, which was farther back from the water.
Chappell’s major? Mechanical engineering.
Alexander Chappell, a Clarkson University senior, died Saturday after trying to cliff-dive into Lake Bonaparte. There’s a low cliff there, where people can dive into deep water. But Chappell tried diving off a much higher cliff, 80 to 100 feet up, which was farther back from the water.
Chappell’s major? Mechanical engineering.
OK. It’s really simple. Really.
Did the New Orleans and Louisiana governments completely screw up? Of course. But come on, man. They’re from Louisiana. This is the state where “Governor” is just a stepping stone on the career path to “felon”. Of course they can’t handle the biggest hurricane to hit us in modern times.
But was it the federal government’s job to step in and fix things? Unequivocably, absolutely, yes. But don’t take my word for it; I’m a big-government Democrat. Take the word of the Republican-created, Republican-run Department of Homeland Security, from their own catastrophic incident master National Response Plan, which reads like, well, a guide to exactly what should have been done—but wasn’t.
Let’s cover a few common right-wing claims:
Claim: It’s not the federal government’s responsibility to deal with a hurricane. In fact, it’s unconstitutional for them to do so!"
A catastrophic incident, as defined by the NRP, is any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption…All catastrophic incidents are Incidents of National Significance…
Recognizing that Federal and/or national resources are required to augment overwhelmed State, local, and tribal response efforts, the NRPCIA establishes protocols to preidentify and rapidly deploy key essential resources (e.g., medical teams, urban search and rescue teams, transportable shelters, medical and equipment caches, etc.) that are expected to be urgently needed/required to save lives and contain incidents…
Claim: Louisiana didn’t ask for help quickly enough; the feds had to wait for the state.
Federal support must be provided in a timely manner to save lives, prevent human suffering, and mitigate severe damage. This may require mobilizing and deploying assets before they are requested via normal NRP protocols…
Notification and full coordination with States occur, but the coordination process should not delay or impede the rapid mobilization and deployment of critical Federal resources.
In fact, in the checklist for “What to do in a catastrophe”, coordinating with state and locals is dead last. Steps 1, 2, and 3 are to get every federal resource out there.
Claim: It took a few days to figure out what the (constantly-changing) situation was on the ground.
A detailed and credible common operating picture may not be achievable for 24 to 48 hours (or longer) after the incident. As a result, response activities must begin without the benefit of a detailed or complete situation and critical needs assessment…
Unless it can be credibly established that a mobilizing Federal resource identified in the NRP-CIS is not needed at the catastrophic incident venue, that resource deploys.
Claim: The government didn’t drop the ball, because there was nothing they could do.
There are 15 Emergency Support Function resources identified. Transportation, Communications, Search and Rescue, Public Safety, you get the idea. Everything NOLA needed is right there. And, according to the ERP, they should all be sent. And they should all be sent immediately.
So… What could the government have done? Everything it says it’s supposed to do. That’s all.
Any questions?
OK. It’s really simple. Really.
Did the New Orleans and Louisiana governments completely screw up? Of course. But come on, man. They’re from Louisiana. This is the state where “Governor” is just a stepping stone on the career path to “felon”. Of course they can’t handle the biggest hurricane to hit us in modern times.
But was it the federal government’s job to step in and fix things? Unequivocably, absolutely, yes. But don’t take my word for it; I’m a big-government Democrat. Take the word of the Republican-created, Republican-run Department of Homeland Security, from their own catastrophic incident master National Response Plan, which reads like, well, a guide to exactly what should have been done—but wasn’t.
Let’s cover a few common right-wing claims:
Claim: It’s not the federal government’s responsibility to deal with a hurricane. In fact, it’s unconstitutional for them to do so!"
A catastrophic incident, as defined by the NRP, is any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption…All catastrophic incidents are Incidents of National Significance…
Recognizing that Federal and/or national resources are required to augment overwhelmed State, local, and tribal response efforts, the NRPCIA establishes protocols to preidentify and rapidly deploy key essential resources (e.g., medical teams, urban search and rescue teams, transportable shelters, medical and equipment caches, etc.) that are expected to be urgently needed/required to save lives and contain incidents…
Claim: Louisiana didn’t ask for help quickly enough; the feds had to wait for the state.
Federal support must be provided in a timely manner to save lives, prevent human suffering, and mitigate severe damage. This may require mobilizing and deploying assets before they are requested via normal NRP protocols…
Notification and full coordination with States occur, but the coordination process should not delay or impede the rapid mobilization and deployment of critical Federal resources.
In fact, in the checklist for “What to do in a catastrophe”, coordinating with state and locals is dead last. Steps 1, 2, and 3 are to get every federal resource out there.
Claim: It took a few days to figure out what the (constantly-changing) situation was on the ground.
A detailed and credible common operating picture may not be achievable for 24 to 48 hours (or longer) after the incident. As a result, response activities must begin without the benefit of a detailed or complete situation and critical needs assessment…
Unless it can be credibly established that a mobilizing Federal resource identified in the NRP-CIS is not needed at the catastrophic incident venue, that resource deploys.
Claim: The government didn’t drop the ball, because there was nothing they could do.
There are 15 Emergency Support Function resources identified. Transportation, Communications, Search and Rescue, Public Safety, you get the idea. Everything NOLA needed is right there. And, according to the ERP, they should all be sent. And they should all be sent immediately.
So… What could the government have done? Everything it says it’s supposed to do. That’s all.
Any questions?
Today’s Washington Post Style Invitational entries are a cut above. The contest: Using only words found in the Constitution, come up with additional proposed amendments. The winners:
Third runner-up: No person of excessive tonnage shall remove his jersey at a public event. (Pam Sweeney, Germantown)
Second runner-up: Congress shall make no laws that direct people to work out with weights and engage in regular body training. We the People are no longer into the exercise thing. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)
First runner-up, the winner of the Snake Wine containing a whole snake: No persons shall in all cases be given what they do desire but, upon trial, at times may be informed that they shall receive that for which they be needful. — M. Jagger (Russell Beland, Springfield)
And the winner of the Inker: Those persons resident in the District are second-class, inferior citizens. But they have the right to death, taxes and post offices. (Marty McCullen, Gettysburg, Pa.)
As always, the runners-up are every bit as good. Read them.
Today’s Washington Post Style Invitational entries are a cut above. The contest: Using only words found in the Constitution, come up with additional proposed amendments. The winners:
Third runner-up: No person of excessive tonnage shall remove his jersey at a public event. (Pam Sweeney, Germantown)
Second runner-up: Congress shall make no laws that direct people to work out with weights and engage in regular body training. We the People are no longer into the exercise thing. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)
First runner-up, the winner of the Snake Wine containing a whole snake: No persons shall in all cases be given what they do desire but, upon trial, at times may be informed that they shall receive that for which they be needful. — M. Jagger (Russell Beland, Springfield)
And the winner of the Inker: Those persons resident in the District are second-class, inferior citizens. But they have the right to death, taxes and post offices. (Marty McCullen, Gettysburg, Pa.)
As always, the runners-up are every bit as good. Read them.
A guy I know just sent me the ubiquitous “boycott ExxonMobil” chain letter. (I won’t call him a friend, because anyone who sends me chain letters is no friend of mine.) Now, this isn’t that don’t-buy-gas for a day letter, no, because that would be stupid. Even this chain letter knows that.
No, this one suggests we use the power of geometric growth to fuel our non-fueling: Just send the letter to 10 people, and buy gas anywhere but ExxonMobil. Then send it to their friends, and so on, and so on, and not only are we all using the same shampoo, but:
If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it….. THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
What upsets me is not that the premise is horribly flawed to anyone with half a brain (that is to say, anyone not living in Boston): What upsets me is that the author takes a perfectly good idea, and squanders it by not carrying through on the vision. Why on earth are we stopping at three hundred million?
Why on earth, indeed. All we have to do is take it two steps further, and we’ve got this e-mail going to THIRTY BILLION PEOPLE. That’s FIVE TIMES the population of the Earth. Do you know what that means?
OK, I’ll spell it out for you geniuses. How many CEOs of ExxonMobil are there? Right. One. And we know the population of the Earth: Six billion. So the odds of any one person being the CEO of ExxonMobil is 1 in 6 billion.
Now. We just sent our chain letter to 30 billion people, but that’s more people than actually exist. Which means that all six billion people have BETTER than 100% odds of receiving this letter. INCLUDING THE CEO!
Did you catch that? The CEO of ExxonMobil has ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE better odds at receiving the chain letter than he does of EXISTING AT ALL! That means that the CEO of ExxonMobil will be PART OF THE CHAIN! I repeat…
+THE CEO OF EXXONMOBIL WILL BE BOYCOTTING HIS OWN STATIONS!!!!+
Once that happens, all we have to do is call a few TV stations, broadcast that on the news, and he’ll HAVE to lower the price. I know a few freelance reporters I can call. I’m sure some of you do too.
Let’s get cracking.
A guy I know just sent me the ubiquitous “boycott ExxonMobil” chain letter. (I won’t call him a friend, because anyone who sends me chain letters is no friend of mine.) Now, this isn’t that don’t-buy-gas for a day letter, no, because that would be stupid. Even this chain letter knows that.
No, this one suggests we use the power of geometric growth to fuel our non-fueling: Just send the letter to 10 people, and buy gas anywhere but ExxonMobil. Then send it to their friends, and so on, and so on, and not only are we all using the same shampoo, but:
If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it….. THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
What upsets me is not that the premise is horribly flawed to anyone with half a brain (that is to say, anyone not living in Boston): What upsets me is that the author takes a perfectly good idea, and squanders it by not carrying through on the vision. Why on earth are we stopping at three hundred million?
Why on earth, indeed. All we have to do is take it two steps further, and we’ve got this e-mail going to THIRTY BILLION PEOPLE. That’s FIVE TIMES the population of the Earth. Do you know what that means?
OK, I’ll spell it out for you geniuses. How many CEOs of ExxonMobil are there? Right. One. And we know the population of the Earth: Six billion. So the odds of any one person being the CEO of ExxonMobil is 1 in 6 billion.
Now. We just sent our chain letter to 30 billion people, but that’s more people than actually exist. Which means that all six billion people have BETTER than 100% odds of receiving this letter. INCLUDING THE CEO!
Did you catch that? The CEO of ExxonMobil has ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE better odds at receiving the chain letter than he does of EXISTING AT ALL! That means that the CEO of ExxonMobil will be PART OF THE CHAIN! I repeat…
+THE CEO OF EXXONMOBIL WILL BE BOYCOTTING HIS OWN STATIONS!!!!+
Once that happens, all we have to do is call a few TV stations, broadcast that on the news, and he’ll HAVE to lower the price. I know a few freelance reporters I can call. I’m sure some of you do too.
Let’s get cracking.