According to long running statistics on our health, the leading cause of death in the US is still that winner of all winners, heart disease. Whether that's from heart attacks, stress, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or whatever, I don't really know.
One thing I do know is that my doctors want me to watch what I eat, especially with regard to the sodium content in my food.
Now, I've been doing this for a number of years, and I've been meaning to write about it somewhere, too. Have you ever even looked at the sodium content in your foods, especially the pre-packaged foods you buy at the supermarkets, or the frozen dinners that are quick and easy to pop in the microwave and gulp down while you try desperately to get through that other thing you're doing at the same time?
If not, you really need to start.
Most doctors will tell you that the average person with an average diet should be consuming a daily maximum of around 2300 milligrams of sodium. That's 2.3 grams. A gram is a fraction less than 1/28 of an ounce. That's not a lot.
The number one contributor to the sodium content in most foods is probably salt - sodium chloride. (Another more insidious one is monosodium glutamate, or MSG, which is a sort of salt-sugar "flavor enhancer" that most Chinese restaurants now advertise as not using - it's a recognized carcinogen, and it's in more food than you think.) One would think that saltier food probably has higher sodium, but that's not always true. Some salts taste saltier than others.
Something to consider is the virtual absence of sodium in most natural foods. How many fruits and vegetables do you know of that are naturally salty? No fair counting salt-water fish, which, except for anchovies, you're supposed to rinse in fresh water before preparing to eat.
But let's get back to the major products of our times: prepackaged and frozen foods.
I used to love Swanson frozen chicken dinners. They taste good, contain those great staples of the American diet, corn and mashed potatoes (two high carbohydrate foods and I won't even get into how genetically modified corn has contaminated the entire planetary corn supply, including organics, here), a nice little dessert (more carbohydrates), and the main dish - breaded (carbohydrate), fried chicken. I'd go for the Hungry Man variety because it was bigger and better satisfied my appetite.
This particular meal has 2869mg of sodium in it - way too much. Don't believe me, go look for yourself: http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-swanson-hungry-man-dinner-classic-i115930.
Lest I forget, the chicken breading also contains MSG - one reason it tastes so good, or used to.
Now maybe you don't do Swanson, or chicken, or frozen dinners. Good for you. Chicken is another whole area of worsening bacterial contamination, hormones, failing antibiotics, breeding for large breasts (yes, even in our chickens - no kidding) and savage, unsanitary breeding conditions. Some other time....
But massive doses of sodium are elsewhere, too.
Have you ever seen one of those commercials for Campbell's soups? "Soup - it does a body good!"
I won't dispute that even though I no longer believe it, but it's important to know that one can of Campbell's ordinary condensed soup is at least 2 servings, each of which contains anywhere from 600-900mg of sodium, usually at the higher end. So if you ever enjoyed a whole can of soup (properly diluted with water or milk or both) for a meal, you just consumed most of your RDA of sodium in one 20-oz. mug. Just like that.
To their credit, Campbell's also offers a low-sodium variety - in only a few flavors, but at least their sodium content is about half the "regular" variety. They also do a "Select Harvest" line that is lower yet and comes in mug-sized cans that don't need dilution - 410mg of sodium per serving, 2 servings per can.
Progresso soups tends to be worse - their range is more like 800-1000mg of sodium per serving, two servings per can, undiluted. Except for their low sodium line, which still contains more than half the sodium of the regular line, their soups are potential mugs of heart trouble.
Well, fine, you say, I'll stick to salads and sandwiches.
Check your salad dressings. I like Wishbone's fat-free Chunky Blue Cheese and Kraft fat-free Italian Caesar. In two tablespoons, these contain 280 and 470mg of sodium, respectively. Most full fat dressings are around the same sodium content range. Add that to my salad, and a mug of soup and - whoa - more than half my RDA of sodium, and I haven't even gotten to the sandwich yet!
Ah, the sandwich - two slices of bread (120-180mg of sodium per slice), some mayo (a little more sodium, less if you use mustard instead of mayo, and lower fat, too) and a couple slices of turkey. I happen to like Costco a lot, and their Kirkland brand sliced turkey contains about 460mg of sodium per 2 slice serving. Most sliced turkey you buy contains more like 700-800mg of sodium per slice (take a look next time you buy). You can get lower sodium lunchmeats, but most of them are pressed slabs of plasticky, chewy rubber that tastes roughly like turkey with lots of salt. (Kirkland turkey actually tastes like rel turkey and has a meat texture, as opposed to other options.)
Ham, chicken and (if you're still eating it) beef tend to be higher in sodium, but there are exceptions.
So, an average salad, soup and sandwich lunch runs around 2500mg of sodium, unless you have a really tiny salad, a half-cup of soup and half a sandwich. You still have to figure around 1200mg of sodium - low enough to eat one more, slightly smaller meal for dinner, no breakfast, no snacks, nothing.
How about restaurants? Not the sleazy fast food variety, a classy one, like my two (former) favorites - Cheesecake Factory and Red Lobster. I'm picking on these two because they recently had the courage to publish their nutritional content booklets and deliver them to every table, at least at some of the local stores around here.
I don't really remember the details, except that most every meal they both serve has near or more than the RDA of sodium and close to the same level of just plain calories in each meal. My favorite at the Cheesecake Factory was their Cobb salad, and I loved it until I saw the content - I vaguely remember that the sodium content was around 1600mg and the calorie count was over 2000, but that's from months ago when I used to be able to afford the financial cost of such meals. That doesn't include the salad dressing. When I scanned the menu looking for anything that wasn't over the top in sodium and calories, only a few of the smaller appetizers had little enough to eat as a meal and run home for safety for the next several days.
I use safety loosely here - see above.
By the way, Red Lobster had similar issues with sodium (and calories), and I bet most restaurants do, unless you go to the health food varieties, especially vegetarian and/or vegan. Personally, I've found that most of the latter two overspice their foods, which makes them virtually unpalatable to me. Your mileage may vary.
Before I let the fast food industry off without a detailed mention, I'd like to present some facts from an article I just got in my email this morning, the one that triggered this blog entry. I'll just list the items - they're all for breakfast - along with their sodium and calorie content:
Carl’s Jr Breakfast Burger: 780 calories, 1460mg sodium
McDonald’s Big Breakfast with Hotcakes: 1150 calories, 2260mg sodium
Burger King Biscuits and Sausage Gravy Platter: 680 calories, 2350mg sodium
Burger King Double Croissan’wich with Sausage Egg and Cheese: 680 calories, 1520mg sodium
Hardee’s Double Sausage Egg n’ Cheese Biscuit: 830 calories, 2100mg sodium
Hardee’s Loaded Breakfast Burrito: 760 calories, 1380mg sodium
Hardee’s Low Carb Breakfast Bowl: 620 calories, 1380mg sodium
Jack in the Box Steak and Egg Burrito : 821 calories, 1616mg sodium
Jack in the Box Extreme Sausage Sandwich: 690 calories, 1356mg sodium
Chick-fil-A Sausage Biscuit: 590 calories, 1250mg sodium
Chick-fil-A Chicken Egg and Cheese Bagel on a Sunflower Mutligrain Bagel: 530 calories, 1330mg sodium
(source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/11-scary-fast-food-breakfasts.html)
So what does all this mean?
I'm not into conspiracy theories, but if I were, this would make a good basis for a theory that all the major food production corporations are conspiring to poison us. But that makes no sense - killing off your own consumers?
Of course, it doesn't make sense, but neither does paying your employees so little that they can't even afford to shop in your own store (a la Wal*Mart), or making it illegal for the US government to use its purchasing power to bring down the cost of pharmaceutical products for the elderly (Medicare Part D) or veterans, or anyone, really, so that Big Pharma can maximize their already obscene profits.
It doesn't make sense, but it makes lots of dollars if you see it for what it is: short-sighted short term profit above all other factors bar none, and the way we get ripped off every day by the less than 1% of our society that owns 70+% of everything, including us, most commonly known as the rich and powerful. What do they care if we die in ten or twenty years, impoverished, sick, in pain (or better yet, torture, official US policy these days) and totally at their mercy until then? They're rich and powerful and have their fourteen mansions and yachts and getaways in the Caymans or another tax-sheltered country, and they'll be dead long before we do anything about it, probably from too much sodium.
Unless you can read and are willing to act.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
A Different Perspective
A few years ago, I was one of the privileged members of the upper middle class. I was making a six figure income and my family was on a spending spree that makes the one that took us into bankruptcy in 1999 pale by comparison. Oh, the debts are smaller, more or less, and we still have the house, this month, but the situation is far more grim.
I used to sneer at disabled parking, occasionally taking a space because, after all, I was only going to be there for a few minutes. Other people I know do the same or worse – they cheat by using someone else's disabled parking placard when that person is in a different time zone. After all, if you're not disabled, what's a few feet difference walking to and from the store door? It's usually pretty easy to get away with that stuff, and it doesn't really hurt anyone....
I had good health insurance coverage, through my employer, of course, and a 401k and all the "goodies" that go with being employed in a high-tech job.
Than 2000 rolled around, and my world changed completely.
First, I got into politics. Not just rallies on the street corners, or signing protest petitions, no, I got suckered into party politics. I went in, thinking I could change the whole rotten machinery into something that actually represented people and would work to better our society. I had this vague idea that politics is kind of an ass-kissing game, where the best brown-nosers would wind up at or near the top, and I was sort of right. But I also thought that injecting some personal integrity into the grimy sewage would help clear it up. I supported good, progressive candidates who had integrity and guts, and I spent thousands of dollars that would have been better invested in CDs for my kids' college funds or my own retirement fund.
In 2001, I came down with some kind of groin injury, to this day my doctors and I still don't know what. It was a minor inconvenience that just took me out of the one activity that helped keep me in shape – soccer, which I loved to referee, to help the kids and keep mine involved as well. But the pain never went away, and instead it got much worse. By 2005, I had to have a couple of surgeries in hopes that they would fix the problem, and neither did. On top of that, I now have a chronic medical condition that I won't name, but it comes with a whole slew of other medical problems that almost never go away.
Still, I had a retirement account and a good solid job and was still making the same low six figures I had been getting since 2000.
In August 2006, I injured my right foot and almost lost it to amputation. I had excellent medical care (thanks to the aforementioned great insurance that didn't cost me anything significant, and all before taxes) and made a full recovery.
Except....
While I was off work on disability, I was laid off. I found a new job within two months, but that also ended with a layoff after another five. My medical coverage was better, and cheaper, and I was making a little more money to boot, but that died abruptly.
Still, we spent like maniacs, went on a couple of vacations we couldn't afford and blew my retirement to hell staying alive and covering the costs of my disability. It took me ten months to find another job, this one a contract job with insurance coverage that is, to put it nicely, vomitous – more expensive, lower coverage and crappy service.
During this entire time (since summer 2005) I got the treat of seeing how disabled people are treated in our society, and it amazes me how blind I used to be, and most of you probably still are. I'll cover that in a moment.
My last layoff came on December 31, 2008. Happy New Year, good luck finding another job, get out.
That was almost 16 months ago, and I'm still looking.
I have since discovered how poorly most people are aware of their own surroundings. Mostly in stores, they push carts that are off to the side or heading in another direction, without ever looking, and taking up two to three times the amount of space they need. Even parents with young children along do that, and they are more at risk than the parents.
So what?
So that person in the disabled cart who is trying to maneuver around the speedy pedestrians without tripping them or running into them is barely seen, and usually noticed only with resentful or guilty stares. How do I know? It's usually me. At best, it's awkward for both of us.
One of my disabilities is that I can barely walk any more. It is painful to have to make it from one end of the parking lot to the door unless I can actually park close up. And guess what else? A lot of those "ADA compliant" facilities, oh, say like the convention centers where political parties often meet, have lots of elevators and escalators, but they are still enormous, with walks of half a mile or more between meeting rooms. Even good discount stores, like Costco, which I love, is huge, and I can rarely make it all the way around the store on my feet. It's no fun any more when you can't walk without pain or severe muscle strain.
I have continuously looked for new employment since my last job ended, but thanks to Wall Street and its lovely money pit that Congress keeps throwing money at because it's too big to fail (who could give out millions of dollars in bonuses without all that help from our pockets, via Congress?), employment in my industry is only now beginning to recover, and the vast majority of it is in a newer direction than where it was two years ago. (That's good, but it means I need new skills, too – more money to feed the beast.)
I have exhausted all of my available resources and am "supporting" my family on borrowed money that, if things don't change soon, I won't ever be able to pay back.
My unemployment runs out in six weeks, and it's about 1/3 of what I really need in order to support my family. My creditors, the ones I'm still talking to, are hesitant to renegotiate my loans, even though there are huge (to me, not to Wall Street or the DoD) federal stimulus packages to "encourage" them to do so (because we just can't tell a corporation to be fair to the people they've screwed and ruined in the last two years, now can we? That wouldn't be "free" enterprise!).
When that time comes, I don't really know what I'm going to do, except maybe starve – oh, wait, there are food stamps, except I won't have a place to store any because I won't have a house any more, or insurance, or medicines, or clothes....
See, in our society, our great, free-enterprise democracy, we are all able to shoot for the stars and become anything we want to become. Unless that happens to include just having a decent standard of living, a living wage, guaranteed health care, all those candy-ass "giveaways" that we just don't do here in the US of A (even though we forced Germany and Japan to do them after WWII, and guess who has the stronger economies today), and every other industrialized nation on the planet has those guarantees with more industry, less poverty, less misery and, oh, that's right – less military, less crime and less war (unless we're in there) than we have here.
So what's my point?
I'm not asking for handouts, or pity, or even sympathy. Don't need that.
Here's what I would like to see:
Everyone needs to recognize once and for all that politics is a money pit for us and the grand giveaway to the rich and our politicians (their lackeys) – from us, from huge corporate slush funds and the straight-out corrupt ultra-rich 0.5% who own the rest of us, lock, stock and two burning barrels. Trillions of dollars (literally) go into politics and hedge funds and credit default swaps and the industry of war and killing and imperialism and subjugation of anything non-white, but we only see a pittance of that to help the poor, the uneducated and the elderly in this country, white or not. (I'll do another editorial on the elderly later – how we treat our senior citizens is shamefully contemptible, and that's the good part.) California is no better than anywhere else in this regard, just more expensive (except for Hawaii).
As for me, I program computers and I write. I prefer to write fantasy, but, in the final analysis, is that really any different than political editorialization? (Yes, it is – fantasy adventures are more fun to read, and write, and not usually as depressing.)
If you know anyone who is looking for a C software developer, tell them about me, or just send them my blog or email address and let them know I'm available. If you know an agent looking for a new, unpublished writer of fantasy epics, poke them my way. I can take it from there.
If nothing else, send me your prayers – every little bit helps.
God willing, that will be enough.
I used to sneer at disabled parking, occasionally taking a space because, after all, I was only going to be there for a few minutes. Other people I know do the same or worse – they cheat by using someone else's disabled parking placard when that person is in a different time zone. After all, if you're not disabled, what's a few feet difference walking to and from the store door? It's usually pretty easy to get away with that stuff, and it doesn't really hurt anyone....
I had good health insurance coverage, through my employer, of course, and a 401k and all the "goodies" that go with being employed in a high-tech job.
Than 2000 rolled around, and my world changed completely.
First, I got into politics. Not just rallies on the street corners, or signing protest petitions, no, I got suckered into party politics. I went in, thinking I could change the whole rotten machinery into something that actually represented people and would work to better our society. I had this vague idea that politics is kind of an ass-kissing game, where the best brown-nosers would wind up at or near the top, and I was sort of right. But I also thought that injecting some personal integrity into the grimy sewage would help clear it up. I supported good, progressive candidates who had integrity and guts, and I spent thousands of dollars that would have been better invested in CDs for my kids' college funds or my own retirement fund.
In 2001, I came down with some kind of groin injury, to this day my doctors and I still don't know what. It was a minor inconvenience that just took me out of the one activity that helped keep me in shape – soccer, which I loved to referee, to help the kids and keep mine involved as well. But the pain never went away, and instead it got much worse. By 2005, I had to have a couple of surgeries in hopes that they would fix the problem, and neither did. On top of that, I now have a chronic medical condition that I won't name, but it comes with a whole slew of other medical problems that almost never go away.
Still, I had a retirement account and a good solid job and was still making the same low six figures I had been getting since 2000.
In August 2006, I injured my right foot and almost lost it to amputation. I had excellent medical care (thanks to the aforementioned great insurance that didn't cost me anything significant, and all before taxes) and made a full recovery.
Except....
While I was off work on disability, I was laid off. I found a new job within two months, but that also ended with a layoff after another five. My medical coverage was better, and cheaper, and I was making a little more money to boot, but that died abruptly.
Still, we spent like maniacs, went on a couple of vacations we couldn't afford and blew my retirement to hell staying alive and covering the costs of my disability. It took me ten months to find another job, this one a contract job with insurance coverage that is, to put it nicely, vomitous – more expensive, lower coverage and crappy service.
During this entire time (since summer 2005) I got the treat of seeing how disabled people are treated in our society, and it amazes me how blind I used to be, and most of you probably still are. I'll cover that in a moment.
My last layoff came on December 31, 2008. Happy New Year, good luck finding another job, get out.
That was almost 16 months ago, and I'm still looking.
I have since discovered how poorly most people are aware of their own surroundings. Mostly in stores, they push carts that are off to the side or heading in another direction, without ever looking, and taking up two to three times the amount of space they need. Even parents with young children along do that, and they are more at risk than the parents.
So what?
So that person in the disabled cart who is trying to maneuver around the speedy pedestrians without tripping them or running into them is barely seen, and usually noticed only with resentful or guilty stares. How do I know? It's usually me. At best, it's awkward for both of us.
One of my disabilities is that I can barely walk any more. It is painful to have to make it from one end of the parking lot to the door unless I can actually park close up. And guess what else? A lot of those "ADA compliant" facilities, oh, say like the convention centers where political parties often meet, have lots of elevators and escalators, but they are still enormous, with walks of half a mile or more between meeting rooms. Even good discount stores, like Costco, which I love, is huge, and I can rarely make it all the way around the store on my feet. It's no fun any more when you can't walk without pain or severe muscle strain.
I have continuously looked for new employment since my last job ended, but thanks to Wall Street and its lovely money pit that Congress keeps throwing money at because it's too big to fail (who could give out millions of dollars in bonuses without all that help from our pockets, via Congress?), employment in my industry is only now beginning to recover, and the vast majority of it is in a newer direction than where it was two years ago. (That's good, but it means I need new skills, too – more money to feed the beast.)
I have exhausted all of my available resources and am "supporting" my family on borrowed money that, if things don't change soon, I won't ever be able to pay back.
My unemployment runs out in six weeks, and it's about 1/3 of what I really need in order to support my family. My creditors, the ones I'm still talking to, are hesitant to renegotiate my loans, even though there are huge (to me, not to Wall Street or the DoD) federal stimulus packages to "encourage" them to do so (because we just can't tell a corporation to be fair to the people they've screwed and ruined in the last two years, now can we? That wouldn't be "free" enterprise!).
When that time comes, I don't really know what I'm going to do, except maybe starve – oh, wait, there are food stamps, except I won't have a place to store any because I won't have a house any more, or insurance, or medicines, or clothes....
See, in our society, our great, free-enterprise democracy, we are all able to shoot for the stars and become anything we want to become. Unless that happens to include just having a decent standard of living, a living wage, guaranteed health care, all those candy-ass "giveaways" that we just don't do here in the US of A (even though we forced Germany and Japan to do them after WWII, and guess who has the stronger economies today), and every other industrialized nation on the planet has those guarantees with more industry, less poverty, less misery and, oh, that's right – less military, less crime and less war (unless we're in there) than we have here.
So what's my point?
I'm not asking for handouts, or pity, or even sympathy. Don't need that.
Here's what I would like to see:
Everyone needs to recognize once and for all that politics is a money pit for us and the grand giveaway to the rich and our politicians (their lackeys) – from us, from huge corporate slush funds and the straight-out corrupt ultra-rich 0.5% who own the rest of us, lock, stock and two burning barrels. Trillions of dollars (literally) go into politics and hedge funds and credit default swaps and the industry of war and killing and imperialism and subjugation of anything non-white, but we only see a pittance of that to help the poor, the uneducated and the elderly in this country, white or not. (I'll do another editorial on the elderly later – how we treat our senior citizens is shamefully contemptible, and that's the good part.) California is no better than anywhere else in this regard, just more expensive (except for Hawaii).
As for me, I program computers and I write. I prefer to write fantasy, but, in the final analysis, is that really any different than political editorialization? (Yes, it is – fantasy adventures are more fun to read, and write, and not usually as depressing.)
If you know anyone who is looking for a C software developer, tell them about me, or just send them my blog or email address and let them know I'm available. If you know an agent looking for a new, unpublished writer of fantasy epics, poke them my way. I can take it from there.
If nothing else, send me your prayers – every little bit helps.
God willing, that will be enough.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Hotels.com: Friend or Fraud? You decide....
I was tempted to call this "The Machine Is Still Stacked Against You," but I wanted to make sure that hotels.com featured prominently in the title.
On April 2, 2010, Ruth went up to Berkeley to visit Natasha and see her in a concert that featured her there. So that she would have a place to stay, I made a reservation that same day at the 4-points Sheraton in Emeryville, which is an easy 10-minute drive from the campus. She has stayed there many times before, and I've even been there - it's kind of nice for the money. I made sure that the breakfast was included (an extra $20 for the room, which is already an extra $20 because they don't offer the breakfast unless you get the "bayview" room).
Due to a screw-up with our credit union (I'll get into that at another time), Ruth's card had been canceled without our knowledge. As a result, the Sheraton refused to let her check in.
The following is a transcript of what I went through in my efforts to get a refund for that refused room (which doesn't include a lengthy conversation I had from the credit union with the Sheraton's managers about how we could solve this and get her the room, but the hotel never gave us any reasonable options to keep the room, including the faxed credit card authorization option, which I could have done). The entries are date-time stamped using 24-hour times.
--- transcript begins here ---
4pts Sheraton, Emeryville, 510-547-7888 2010/04/02:
Spoke to Amanda (front desk clerk I think), who says that the room is already paid for and she can't make a change to it because of that. She is getting me a manager.
Manager will call me back on cell – wait, now on hold again waiting for her.
Manager Selma says I have to go through Expedia (I corrected her to hotels.com) to get the refund because the room is already paid for.
Called hotels.com – 800-246-8357
18:02: Did not hear the fellow's name, explained the problem, then silence.
Disconnected at 18:07. Called back – existing, cancel.
18:11: Hector - I explained the situation (twice). He will contact the hotel to verify and I'm on hold till then.
He says Selma refused to refund the charge. I explained that this is not okay with me.
Called Selma back – 18:20.
She says that it is up to hotels.com whether or not to cancel the reservation, and it is their option to issue the refund, and they can work out the details directly with the hotel later on.
Called hotels.com again – existing, cancel.
Ronald -
He understands. He says he needs to call the hotel, and if they are willing to authorize the refund, hotels.com will refund the charge. I'm on hold again @ 18:25.
Ronald says since the general manager of the hotel is out, they can't issue the refund. Hotels.com can cancel the reservation, but it is up to the hotel as to whether or not to issue a refund.
I should call back (hotels.com) on Monday after 2:00pm and see what resolution we can reach depending on the general manager's decision.
I will call back, and hold off on answering hotels.com's email until then.
Called hotels.com Tue, 2010/04/06, 10:35
The lady (didn't catch her name) is checking. Gave me the usual canceled, penalty line; I told her about this being my fourth call and she said she'd call the hotel for me, then disconnected the line.
Called back @10:37.
Andrew – gave him the itinerary # [twice every call!].
Andrew says the refund was authorized – will be issued w/in 24 hours, check with bank over next 3-5 days.
[Whew!]
Called on Tue 2010/04/13, 10:27 [no refund yet]
Other options – gave my itinerary number. Transfer to operator.
Ella answered – asked for itinerary #. Checking; confirmed email addr. Still checking.
Asked if I was expecting $144.99 credit, I said yes; she was checking.
Same old cancellation story. I explained that the hotel refused to give us the room and that hotels.com had said they would call the hotel general manager and get a refund approval, and that Andrew told me it had been approved. I also explained that I was not going to pay for a room I was refused at the hotel's choice and where I had no option.
She says I called them on 4/8 and they told me the hotel refused to give us a refund.
[This is nonsense – I never called on the 8th, or it would be in this log above this call. Why would I call them back when I was told I'd get the refund?]
I explained that I did not make any such call.
She says the call on 4/6 was disconnected before a refund could be authorized and their followup on 4/8 failed. [Interesting story, since the 4/6 call ended amicably, or so I thought, and there was no 4/8 call with me involved at all.]
I pointed out that the hotel refused to give us the room and I was not willing to pay for it.
Ella said she will call the hotel again and see if she can get a refund authorized. I asked her to point out that we are regular guests at the hotel and that they refused us the room at their option, which is not my responsibility.
Ella says the hotel front desk manager, Deborah, is on the other line. She says Deborah wanted to know why the credit card was refused at check-in. I explained that the card had been canceled by the CU without our knowledge, and they would not re-authorize it. Ella said that they would have allowed Ruth to check in with a $200 deposit in lieu of a credit card, and I pointed out that a) she didn't have that kind of money on her and b) the hotel did not offer me that option. Ella said she would check back with Deborah. On hold, again (10:47).
Ella says she passed along to Deborah what I said. She cannot speak on behalf of Selma.
I said that hotels.com told me they would have to talk to the general manager to get the refund and I asked why this was not happening. Ella says they have no notes regarding the general manager at all. I told her what I noted when I spoke to Hector and Selma (see above) and specifically asked that she talk to the hotel general manager.
On hold, then Ella told me that the general manger, Louisa [see below for this one!], is on a business trip this week and not available. I asked if anyone else could do this, and Ella says they (Deborah at the Sheraton) have to talk to Selma.
I explained that my situation was rather desperate and asked if there was anyone at the hotel who could handle this. She said Deborah is the one, but she has to talk to Selma first. Selma will be in around 2:30 and I need to call them (hotels.com) back at 2:45. I said I will.
Called back @ 14:47
Spoke to Jay. He verified email address and did not ask for itinerary number [that's a first].
Will check on previous documentation from agents who handled this call. He says last call in the documentation was on April 2 [way back up on page 1 here]. He went through the same song & dance on cancellations. I explained that I'd spoken to several people since them.
He says someone claims they offered to send me a credit card authorization form for the hotel [I have neither notes nor recollection of any such thing] and that was on 4/2 – the last notes they have. I asked if I could talk to Ella, and he said they can't do that.
I asked to speak to a supervisor and he is looking for one. On hold again.
15:13:
Jay says that the hotel (Selma) offered Ruth options: $100 cash or a fax credit card authorization as alternatives to the credit card. [Note that this conflicts with the previous assertion of $200 cash.] The fax authorization is news to me (I could have done that), & I told him this. He says that Selma also said that Ruth told the hotel she would be back, so they held the room, but she left.
His supervisor (Raquel – his word) has offered a $150 hotel voucher for future reservations. I said I was not satisfied with the offer as I have had voucher promises in the past that were never delivered. He repeated the offer, so I asked how long it would take to get them and he said 4-6 weeks. I wasn't satisfied with this and said so. He said he is going to find a supervisor (again – they were in a meeting before).
15:19 – on hold again.
15:25: Rachel (supervisor) – wants to know how she can help. She summarized the situation (again), then mentioned something about a "no-show."
I asked about that since Ruth was right there, then she retreated back to the standard cancellation policy, have to have a credit card to check in story.
I explained that since we did not get the use of the room or the accompanying breakfast, I wanted a refund. She said that was not possible.
I explained that I know that it is possible because it's all a matter of choices as to what they will or won't do, and this is basic contract law – you cannot take money for nothing in exchange. I pointed out that I know they can make this happen, they have clout with the hotel, they make reservations there all the time and they can do something to make the refund happen. Rachel said she will call the hotel again and see what she can do.
On hold 15:30.
15:36:
Rachel says she spoke to Selma, who claims they offered some options to Ruth, who said she had to go somewhere else and they were waiting for her to come back when I called and canceled the reservation. [Note that I spoke to Selma myself before I canceled the reservation, at her suggestion and with notice to hotels.com that I expected a refund – see above.]
She insisted that they could not provide a refund and offered the $150 voucher instead, and I told her I think she'll be hearing from my attorney and hung up.
Called the Sheraton 15:40
Selma answered and put me on hold.
The next person who answered said that Deborah has left for the day [I should have those hours!], so I asked for another manager. Now I'm on hold waiting for Selma.
Selma says that Expedia (hotels.com) has the option to issue the refund and they can do that, then deal with the hotel later, but they just want to put the blame on the hotel. She says that it's their option.
She says the general manager will be back next week, but she doesn't think the hotel should be involved right now. Michelle Richards is the general manager. I can call and talk to her directly next week. She apologized for not being able to help and I thanked her.
--- end of transcript ---
I am not finished with this yet - I need that money and hotels.com could refund it to me if they wanted to, so I'm not done with them yet.
I'll let you know how this all shakes out when it's over.
On April 2, 2010, Ruth went up to Berkeley to visit Natasha and see her in a concert that featured her there. So that she would have a place to stay, I made a reservation that same day at the 4-points Sheraton in Emeryville, which is an easy 10-minute drive from the campus. She has stayed there many times before, and I've even been there - it's kind of nice for the money. I made sure that the breakfast was included (an extra $20 for the room, which is already an extra $20 because they don't offer the breakfast unless you get the "bayview" room).
Due to a screw-up with our credit union (I'll get into that at another time), Ruth's card had been canceled without our knowledge. As a result, the Sheraton refused to let her check in.
The following is a transcript of what I went through in my efforts to get a refund for that refused room (which doesn't include a lengthy conversation I had from the credit union with the Sheraton's managers about how we could solve this and get her the room, but the hotel never gave us any reasonable options to keep the room, including the faxed credit card authorization option, which I could have done). The entries are date-time stamped using 24-hour times.
--- transcript begins here ---
4pts Sheraton, Emeryville, 510-547-7888 2010/04/02:
Spoke to Amanda (front desk clerk I think), who says that the room is already paid for and she can't make a change to it because of that. She is getting me a manager.
Manager will call me back on cell – wait, now on hold again waiting for her.
Manager Selma says I have to go through Expedia (I corrected her to hotels.com) to get the refund because the room is already paid for.
Called hotels.com – 800-246-8357
18:02: Did not hear the fellow's name, explained the problem, then silence.
Disconnected at 18:07. Called back – existing, cancel.
18:11: Hector - I explained the situation (twice). He will contact the hotel to verify and I'm on hold till then.
He says Selma refused to refund the charge. I explained that this is not okay with me.
Called Selma back – 18:20.
She says that it is up to hotels.com whether or not to cancel the reservation, and it is their option to issue the refund, and they can work out the details directly with the hotel later on.
Called hotels.com again – existing, cancel.
Ronald -
He understands. He says he needs to call the hotel, and if they are willing to authorize the refund, hotels.com will refund the charge. I'm on hold again @ 18:25.
Ronald says since the general manager of the hotel is out, they can't issue the refund. Hotels.com can cancel the reservation, but it is up to the hotel as to whether or not to issue a refund.
I should call back (hotels.com) on Monday after 2:00pm and see what resolution we can reach depending on the general manager's decision.
I will call back, and hold off on answering hotels.com's email until then.
Called hotels.com Tue, 2010/04/06, 10:35
The lady (didn't catch her name) is checking. Gave me the usual canceled, penalty line; I told her about this being my fourth call and she said she'd call the hotel for me, then disconnected the line.
Called back @10:37.
Andrew – gave him the itinerary # [twice every call!].
Andrew says the refund was authorized – will be issued w/in 24 hours, check with bank over next 3-5 days.
[Whew!]
Called on Tue 2010/04/13, 10:27 [no refund yet]
Other options – gave my itinerary number. Transfer to operator.
Ella answered – asked for itinerary #. Checking; confirmed email addr. Still checking.
Asked if I was expecting $144.99 credit, I said yes; she was checking.
Same old cancellation story. I explained that the hotel refused to give us the room and that hotels.com had said they would call the hotel general manager and get a refund approval, and that Andrew told me it had been approved. I also explained that I was not going to pay for a room I was refused at the hotel's choice and where I had no option.
She says I called them on 4/8 and they told me the hotel refused to give us a refund.
[This is nonsense – I never called on the 8th, or it would be in this log above this call. Why would I call them back when I was told I'd get the refund?]
I explained that I did not make any such call.
She says the call on 4/6 was disconnected before a refund could be authorized and their followup on 4/8 failed. [Interesting story, since the 4/6 call ended amicably, or so I thought, and there was no 4/8 call with me involved at all.]
I pointed out that the hotel refused to give us the room and I was not willing to pay for it.
Ella said she will call the hotel again and see if she can get a refund authorized. I asked her to point out that we are regular guests at the hotel and that they refused us the room at their option, which is not my responsibility.
Ella says the hotel front desk manager, Deborah, is on the other line. She says Deborah wanted to know why the credit card was refused at check-in. I explained that the card had been canceled by the CU without our knowledge, and they would not re-authorize it. Ella said that they would have allowed Ruth to check in with a $200 deposit in lieu of a credit card, and I pointed out that a) she didn't have that kind of money on her and b) the hotel did not offer me that option. Ella said she would check back with Deborah. On hold, again (10:47).
Ella says she passed along to Deborah what I said. She cannot speak on behalf of Selma.
I said that hotels.com told me they would have to talk to the general manager to get the refund and I asked why this was not happening. Ella says they have no notes regarding the general manager at all. I told her what I noted when I spoke to Hector and Selma (see above) and specifically asked that she talk to the hotel general manager.
On hold, then Ella told me that the general manger, Louisa [see below for this one!], is on a business trip this week and not available. I asked if anyone else could do this, and Ella says they (Deborah at the Sheraton) have to talk to Selma.
I explained that my situation was rather desperate and asked if there was anyone at the hotel who could handle this. She said Deborah is the one, but she has to talk to Selma first. Selma will be in around 2:30 and I need to call them (hotels.com) back at 2:45. I said I will.
Called back @ 14:47
Spoke to Jay. He verified email address and did not ask for itinerary number [that's a first].
Will check on previous documentation from agents who handled this call. He says last call in the documentation was on April 2 [way back up on page 1 here]. He went through the same song & dance on cancellations. I explained that I'd spoken to several people since them.
He says someone claims they offered to send me a credit card authorization form for the hotel [I have neither notes nor recollection of any such thing] and that was on 4/2 – the last notes they have. I asked if I could talk to Ella, and he said they can't do that.
I asked to speak to a supervisor and he is looking for one. On hold again.
15:13:
Jay says that the hotel (Selma) offered Ruth options: $100 cash or a fax credit card authorization as alternatives to the credit card. [Note that this conflicts with the previous assertion of $200 cash.] The fax authorization is news to me (I could have done that), & I told him this. He says that Selma also said that Ruth told the hotel she would be back, so they held the room, but she left.
His supervisor (Raquel – his word) has offered a $150 hotel voucher for future reservations. I said I was not satisfied with the offer as I have had voucher promises in the past that were never delivered. He repeated the offer, so I asked how long it would take to get them and he said 4-6 weeks. I wasn't satisfied with this and said so. He said he is going to find a supervisor (again – they were in a meeting before).
15:19 – on hold again.
15:25: Rachel (supervisor) – wants to know how she can help. She summarized the situation (again), then mentioned something about a "no-show."
I asked about that since Ruth was right there, then she retreated back to the standard cancellation policy, have to have a credit card to check in story.
I explained that since we did not get the use of the room or the accompanying breakfast, I wanted a refund. She said that was not possible.
I explained that I know that it is possible because it's all a matter of choices as to what they will or won't do, and this is basic contract law – you cannot take money for nothing in exchange. I pointed out that I know they can make this happen, they have clout with the hotel, they make reservations there all the time and they can do something to make the refund happen. Rachel said she will call the hotel again and see what she can do.
On hold 15:30.
15:36:
Rachel says she spoke to Selma, who claims they offered some options to Ruth, who said she had to go somewhere else and they were waiting for her to come back when I called and canceled the reservation. [Note that I spoke to Selma myself before I canceled the reservation, at her suggestion and with notice to hotels.com that I expected a refund – see above.]
She insisted that they could not provide a refund and offered the $150 voucher instead, and I told her I think she'll be hearing from my attorney and hung up.
Called the Sheraton 15:40
Selma answered and put me on hold.
The next person who answered said that Deborah has left for the day [I should have those hours!], so I asked for another manager. Now I'm on hold waiting for Selma.
Selma says that Expedia (hotels.com) has the option to issue the refund and they can do that, then deal with the hotel later, but they just want to put the blame on the hotel. She says that it's their option.
She says the general manager will be back next week, but she doesn't think the hotel should be involved right now. Michelle Richards is the general manager. I can call and talk to her directly next week. She apologized for not being able to help and I thanked her.
--- end of transcript ---
I am not finished with this yet - I need that money and hotels.com could refund it to me if they wanted to, so I'm not done with them yet.
I'll let you know how this all shakes out when it's over.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
More Closed Aspects of OpenDNS
This is a follow-up to my post of Sunday night:
It turns out that this was actually a bug at OpenDNS. According to them, "my network," which happens to be fully dynamic IP, was crossed up with another user's network. As a result, my filters got crossed up with theirs.
They say there's a six step process I need to go through to fix the problem, including downloading software from OpenDNS (which does not support Linux end users, like me) and rebooting. Rebooting a UNIX or Linux machine is not a trivial task, and we don't tend to do it unless something major goes wrong, or the kernel is updated. Changing DNS servers or modifying the connection is not worth a reboot.
I thought it was much easier to switch to a different DNS that doesn't have these problems. Google's DNS works just fine....
It turns out that this was actually a bug at OpenDNS. According to them, "my network," which happens to be fully dynamic IP, was crossed up with another user's network. As a result, my filters got crossed up with theirs.
They say there's a six step process I need to go through to fix the problem, including downloading software from OpenDNS (which does not support Linux end users, like me) and rebooting. Rebooting a UNIX or Linux machine is not a trivial task, and we don't tend to do it unless something major goes wrong, or the kernel is updated. Changing DNS servers or modifying the connection is not worth a reboot.
I thought it was much easier to switch to a different DNS that doesn't have these problems. Google's DNS works just fine....
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Machine Is Stacked Against You
This isn't a complaint as much as it is a report of how our current economic system works against us. I'd like to see it differently, but this is how it looks right now to me.
I've been unemployed for one day short of fifteen months straight now. I used to make a lot of money, and with some help from the family, I managed to spend nearly all of it. All right, all of it, and then some. My savings are gone, my retirement no longer exists and I'm working with the state of California to get me back to work, as well as fielding offers of interest from whoever reads my resume on Dice or wherever else it shows up online. Want one? :-)
One of my goals in my quest for work at this point is to broaden my field, so I'm looking at what the state can offer me in terms of training, just to do that. They have some really great programs available, but the devil is in the details, as they say.
In Orange County, where I live, you can't get a place to live for one person for less than around $1000 per month. That's just a fact of life around here. If you are the sole supporter of a family, the costs are the same, but the expenses are higher. If you happen to "own" a home (i.e., you bought a house and live in it but the house isn't paid off yet), it costs more.
According to information I have, I'm getting the top rate that unemployment pays out - roughly 2/5 of what I actually need to cover all my ongoing bills and expenses, so of course I am cutting corners, borrowing from pretty much anyone who will loan me money, gratefully accepting donations (note the donation button to the right of this post - hint, hint :-), returning CRV redemptible cans and bottles, even the glass ones I used to avoid because they weigh a ton and aren't worth all that much for the weight - pretty much scraping together anything I can to get by.
In its infinite wisdom, Congress was able to get through a nifty little (and I mean that literally) bill called the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or ARRA for short, that creates opportunities for the unemployed to find a way back to work. This includes some money for training if you want to broaden your field of expertise and have a reasonable expectation of being successful in the changed field.
There are some restrictions on the money: to qualify for it, you have to be dead flat broke and yet still be able to support your family on the pittance that you get from unemployment AND go to school to get your new classes completed. For me, this is really quite simple: lose my house and the attendant 60+% of my bills that go with it, along with a huge majority of my personal property that has little or no market value, move in with someone else and hope my unemployment will actually cover our survival needs until I can finish the classes and get back to work.
In other words, in order to benefit from the generosity of our Congress and President, who are amazingly willing to spend Hundreds of Billions of dollars killing people all over the planet, TRILLIONS of dollars to help bail out the richest people on the planet (Wall Street and the too-big-to-fail banks), I need to be below the poverty level of income and still support my family to afford to take advantage of this government "handout."
Isn't that completely upside down?
Doesn't it make more sense to invest TRILLIONS of dollars getting a productive economy back in order, putting people back to work and letting the ultra-rich 0.5% who own the rest of us flounder to find their own way without gouging the taxpayers (which they are NOT) for the next ten generations?
Doesn't it make more sense to stop wasting Hundreds of Billions of dollars manufacturing and using devices whose sole purpose is to obliterate themselves and anyone who happens to be within the blast radius (or live in it later on for millennia to come in the case of radioactive weapons like "depleted uranium" ammunition, which is about as safe as living inside the active part of an X-ray machine) and instead devote even a significant fraction of that amount in genuine living support for tens of millions of citizens who are the fastest growing segment of our population (the unemployed, like me)?
Okay, I guess that last part was complaining. The rest before that was how it works. Just the facts.
I realize that there are other options, and I don't mean leaving the country, which you need a passport to do, and guess what? That costs money, too. Come to think of it, pretty much all the other options also cost money, and credit is a little tight right now because the banks haven't figured out a way to use up all that bailout money before they deign to loan out the pennies that are left to the rest of us, and Exxon-Mobil is making so much profit they don't know what to do with all those billions, either. They've already bought everything they didn't own before....
The middle class, that segment of society that makes it work and which was growing from the late 1930s until the early 2000s, is dying of starvation. The rich like it that way, and the poor - get more numerous. Even given the dark sneaky stuff that the government has been pulling right under our noses and behind our backs during that same time frame, America was strongest when the middle class was growing, and corporations took care of their employees.
Instead of continuing and expanding that power and building ourselves up to be completely indomitable and unassailable, we funded the Germans and the Japanese who "lost" WWII, and they learned the lessons that apparently we did not. Despite all of their weaknesses, they now have the strongest economies in the world, while we have the richest and poorest and are sinking faster than anything or anyone else.
How many times do we really need to learn the lessons of the 1929 depression? Apparently at least one more, because we're spiralling down into that same kind of situation, but many times worse and on a global scale.
The machine is stacked against us. We need to work to reverse this insanity.
I've been unemployed for one day short of fifteen months straight now. I used to make a lot of money, and with some help from the family, I managed to spend nearly all of it. All right, all of it, and then some. My savings are gone, my retirement no longer exists and I'm working with the state of California to get me back to work, as well as fielding offers of interest from whoever reads my resume on Dice or wherever else it shows up online. Want one? :-)
One of my goals in my quest for work at this point is to broaden my field, so I'm looking at what the state can offer me in terms of training, just to do that. They have some really great programs available, but the devil is in the details, as they say.
In Orange County, where I live, you can't get a place to live for one person for less than around $1000 per month. That's just a fact of life around here. If you are the sole supporter of a family, the costs are the same, but the expenses are higher. If you happen to "own" a home (i.e., you bought a house and live in it but the house isn't paid off yet), it costs more.
According to information I have, I'm getting the top rate that unemployment pays out - roughly 2/5 of what I actually need to cover all my ongoing bills and expenses, so of course I am cutting corners, borrowing from pretty much anyone who will loan me money, gratefully accepting donations (note the donation button to the right of this post - hint, hint :-), returning CRV redemptible cans and bottles, even the glass ones I used to avoid because they weigh a ton and aren't worth all that much for the weight - pretty much scraping together anything I can to get by.
In its infinite wisdom, Congress was able to get through a nifty little (and I mean that literally) bill called the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or ARRA for short, that creates opportunities for the unemployed to find a way back to work. This includes some money for training if you want to broaden your field of expertise and have a reasonable expectation of being successful in the changed field.
There are some restrictions on the money: to qualify for it, you have to be dead flat broke and yet still be able to support your family on the pittance that you get from unemployment AND go to school to get your new classes completed. For me, this is really quite simple: lose my house and the attendant 60+% of my bills that go with it, along with a huge majority of my personal property that has little or no market value, move in with someone else and hope my unemployment will actually cover our survival needs until I can finish the classes and get back to work.
In other words, in order to benefit from the generosity of our Congress and President, who are amazingly willing to spend Hundreds of Billions of dollars killing people all over the planet, TRILLIONS of dollars to help bail out the richest people on the planet (Wall Street and the too-big-to-fail banks), I need to be below the poverty level of income and still support my family to afford to take advantage of this government "handout."
Isn't that completely upside down?
Doesn't it make more sense to invest TRILLIONS of dollars getting a productive economy back in order, putting people back to work and letting the ultra-rich 0.5% who own the rest of us flounder to find their own way without gouging the taxpayers (which they are NOT) for the next ten generations?
Doesn't it make more sense to stop wasting Hundreds of Billions of dollars manufacturing and using devices whose sole purpose is to obliterate themselves and anyone who happens to be within the blast radius (or live in it later on for millennia to come in the case of radioactive weapons like "depleted uranium" ammunition, which is about as safe as living inside the active part of an X-ray machine) and instead devote even a significant fraction of that amount in genuine living support for tens of millions of citizens who are the fastest growing segment of our population (the unemployed, like me)?
Okay, I guess that last part was complaining. The rest before that was how it works. Just the facts.
I realize that there are other options, and I don't mean leaving the country, which you need a passport to do, and guess what? That costs money, too. Come to think of it, pretty much all the other options also cost money, and credit is a little tight right now because the banks haven't figured out a way to use up all that bailout money before they deign to loan out the pennies that are left to the rest of us, and Exxon-Mobil is making so much profit they don't know what to do with all those billions, either. They've already bought everything they didn't own before....
The middle class, that segment of society that makes it work and which was growing from the late 1930s until the early 2000s, is dying of starvation. The rich like it that way, and the poor - get more numerous. Even given the dark sneaky stuff that the government has been pulling right under our noses and behind our backs during that same time frame, America was strongest when the middle class was growing, and corporations took care of their employees.
Instead of continuing and expanding that power and building ourselves up to be completely indomitable and unassailable, we funded the Germans and the Japanese who "lost" WWII, and they learned the lessons that apparently we did not. Despite all of their weaknesses, they now have the strongest economies in the world, while we have the richest and poorest and are sinking faster than anything or anyone else.
How many times do we really need to learn the lessons of the 1929 depression? Apparently at least one more, because we're spiralling down into that same kind of situation, but many times worse and on a global scale.
The machine is stacked against us. We need to work to reverse this insanity.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
"Open" DNS Not So Open
I know it's late here (01:46), but I just had a thought and got up to see if anyone won the CA Super Lotto jackpot.
Yes, I know the lottery is a tax for those who can't add. Duh.
But guess what? It's my right, or yours, or anyone's, to be able to go online and see what the current draw results are. I don't usually go to 7/11 this late.
I've been using the OpenDNS name servers for about a year or so now. They're faster than whatever I was using before (probably AT&T's DNS 'cause I have AT&T DSL here). (Yeah, I know about that, too. It's relatively cheap and works well enough for most internet stuff.)
However, this morning, apparently OpenDNS decided that being able to see draw results on a state-sponsored lottery constitutes GAMBLING. That's right, just looking at the results is gambling, even if you a) didn't spend any money on tickets and b) can't buy them online anyway.
Can anyone else spell CENSORSHIP? Isn't that spelled Brother U Lame Loser, Sure Happy It's Thursday?
It's bad enough that the major ISPs are really hot to censor everything we don't feel we should have to pay extra to get access to on the internet. Here is a site that advertises its "openness" in its very name - OpenDNS. You'd think that they don't censor the web, wouldn't you? I sure did.
Not only that, but even classifying the lotto site as "gambling" is inaccurate, to say the least. What else is gambling to these people, looking at a photo of a roulette wheel? Next, we won't be able to access maps to drive through Las Vegas, even if it's just a gas stop the way to Denver (or from Denver to CA, if you're east of here), or check out the resorts in Lake Tahoe (which is a really nice place to visit, even if you don't gamble - the casinos usually have great food and good shows - cheap).
I figured that there had to be another free DNS service out there, so I did a Google search for it, and the first hit up was a blog that had a list of free, fast DNS servers on it, and the really interesting part is that you can use Google as your DNS server. I happen to like Google....
I filed a complaint with OpenDNS right away, of course - that kind of misguided public coercion is just plain wrong on so many levels I lost count immediately.
Then I switched to Google's DNS links and voila! Lotto results are right there.
Unless you like censorship, I recommend you contact OpenDNS and express your concerns, too. They're at www.opendns.com.
As an open source software afficionado and promoter, I am mortally offended at this insult. Shame on "open" anything that censors our access.
Yes, I know the lottery is a tax for those who can't add. Duh.
But guess what? It's my right, or yours, or anyone's, to be able to go online and see what the current draw results are. I don't usually go to 7/11 this late.
I've been using the OpenDNS name servers for about a year or so now. They're faster than whatever I was using before (probably AT&T's DNS 'cause I have AT&T DSL here). (Yeah, I know about that, too. It's relatively cheap and works well enough for most internet stuff.)
However, this morning, apparently OpenDNS decided that being able to see draw results on a state-sponsored lottery constitutes GAMBLING. That's right, just looking at the results is gambling, even if you a) didn't spend any money on tickets and b) can't buy them online anyway.
Can anyone else spell CENSORSHIP? Isn't that spelled Brother U Lame Loser, Sure Happy It's Thursday?
It's bad enough that the major ISPs are really hot to censor everything we don't feel we should have to pay extra to get access to on the internet. Here is a site that advertises its "openness" in its very name - OpenDNS. You'd think that they don't censor the web, wouldn't you? I sure did.
Not only that, but even classifying the lotto site as "gambling" is inaccurate, to say the least. What else is gambling to these people, looking at a photo of a roulette wheel? Next, we won't be able to access maps to drive through Las Vegas, even if it's just a gas stop the way to Denver (or from Denver to CA, if you're east of here), or check out the resorts in Lake Tahoe (which is a really nice place to visit, even if you don't gamble - the casinos usually have great food and good shows - cheap).
I figured that there had to be another free DNS service out there, so I did a Google search for it, and the first hit up was a blog that had a list of free, fast DNS servers on it, and the really interesting part is that you can use Google as your DNS server. I happen to like Google....
I filed a complaint with OpenDNS right away, of course - that kind of misguided public coercion is just plain wrong on so many levels I lost count immediately.
Then I switched to Google's DNS links and voila! Lotto results are right there.
Unless you like censorship, I recommend you contact OpenDNS and express your concerns, too. They're at www.opendns.com.
As an open source software afficionado and promoter, I am mortally offended at this insult. Shame on "open" anything that censors our access.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
More reasons I like Linux
Today I had the dubious pleasure of installing some updates and new software on the one pure Windows machine still around in the house. Also, two nights ago I had another dubious pleasure of backing up another family member's laptop disk drive because the screen died (long story - not really relevant). That machine has Vista on it, but that's really not important.
I used a SATA/IDE-to-USB converter device to do the backup, and other than Windows halting the copies on every file it couldn't quite handle, things went fairly well. I was going to try to put Windows on my Everex laptop (that runs Linux) so this other person could use it (they are Linux-illiterate, despite my best efforts... :-), but the strangest things happened.
I put in the other laptop drive, and even though it tried for about 15-20 minutes, the Windows on-board recovery failed. Now, this should be no surprise because my Everex and their Toshiba are substantially different hardware bases, with different devices and so on, and most laptops come with tailored installations to match the hardware that accompanies them.
Then I put the original disk back in and lo and behold, none of my Windows installation CDs would run. They all got to that first step, "Setup is inspecting your computer for anything that might kill it," (okay, it didn't really say that, but it was the usual Windows Setup prompt), and then the screen went dark and stayed there. I haven't really had the heart to check into why a nice laptop like that, which came with Ubuntu Linux until I installed CentOS (Linux) over it and which runs perfectly, would choke on installing Windows. Truth be told, I don't care, but it's nice to know that my awesome Linux laptop won't even allow Windows to install on it.
More to the point:
Among other things, this desktop I was upgrading had AVG anti-virus on it (which I kind of like - it's free and works well enough) clamoring for an update to the virus definition file, NVidia's Network Access Manager complaining that it was turned off, Windows Automatic Update telling me it had some updates to install (I don't ever let things like that run on their own - too risky IMNSHO) and ZoneAlarm, which I had decided to uninstall.
I told the Windows automatic update to go ahead, update me. I uninstalled ZoneAlarm, which went well, except for two things:
1) Something else went wrong and I got one of those lovely "A program has crashed....Do you want to send a bug report to Microsoft?" windows, for which program I don't know (and they don't say).
2) The ZoneAlarm uninstall wanted me to reboot.
Fine. I told the bug report window to go away, and it did. However, the automatic update hung, hard. It stopped at 32% complete without ever downloading anything.
I admit it, I kind of floundered on this one. I tried running Windows Update manually, but that didn't do so well with the other one hung. I turned off the automatic updates, but that didn't un-hang the hung one. I tried to use the NVidia NAM's anti-hacking-only feature, but that didn't seem to help, so I figured, that's it, it's going and I'll worry about it all after the reboot.
So, since NAM doesn't have an uninstall command or feature, I went to the control panel and started to remove it that way.
That hung the whole machine.
Other than being an annoyance, this wasn't much of a hassle (had to reboot anyway), so I just rebooted the machine with the reset switch. And, to Windows' credit, it came up just fine.
(Yes, I'm running XP SP2 on that box - it does well enough for these purposes.)
NAM was not gone, so I removed it again and that needed another reboot.
Now I'm getting annoyed, and I'll go into that in a little bit, there's not much of the gripe left.
With NAM gone, I went back to a manual Windows Update run, and after a fair length of sitting silent, it finally started actually downloading and installing 23 updates. What they were I don't really know, or care, much. I've been using Windows more or less regularly since 1995 (at work) and 1996 (at home), and I have a fair amount of experience tweaking it using an official XP book and a couple of "Tips and Tricks" books, but I couldn't begin to tell you what update KB234678234 is (I fudged the number, but it could be any of them). All I know is that, without actually going through and reading the descriptions, those 23 updates were "Windows Update" or "Windows Security Update" and maybe an Internet Explorer update - too bland for me.
It was really slow, too. The update took about another 10 minutes, which, for 23 small updates is a LONG time.
Then I had to reboot again.
Well, whoop-dee-do, Mr. Mark, what's yer eff-in problem with that?
If that's all you're used to, then you probably don't know that there's a much better system out there - it's called LINUX.
We've had a flurry of bug fixes and other updates to various parts of the system over the last couple of weeks, including a substantial kernel update. For those of you who don't know it, the kernel is the heart of the OS - it's what makes everything else work. It is also what most Linux people think of as Linux itself - everything else is added on, mostly from the Free Software Foundation, which supports the standard command set that comes with virtually every Linux distribution.
Back to the point, there were ten notices in my deleted email about updates, seven of which were for my current CentOS release (5.4), the last of which was the kernel update.
I'm a command-line kind of person, having been in the business since before graphical user interfaces, like Windows, and as much as the GUIs have made a lot of the computing world easier, there are some things about running computers that just cry for the power and detail of the command line. I believe that systems administration, even for home use, is one of them.
This is not to fault the GUI system updater - it's fine, if you like that sort of thing. As it happens, I learned the command line method first, and it's so simple, clear and informative, I just use it, with pleasure.
For each of those seven updates, all of which included more than one area to be updated except the kernel update, I happily ran the command (yum update, if you're wondering), watched it whip up a fast list of what had an update available and then waited for my typed "y" to proceed, at which point it downloaded each update, ran the transaction checks, updated the modules and finished with a note about success. Quickly.
No reboot required. Technically, I didn't have to reboot after the kernel update, either, but if I wanted the new kernel, then, yes, that was necessary. It hasn't happened in a month or two, so I figured why not.
Actually, I went and read the release notes, and there were enough important security issues fixed that I figured it was worth it.
Rebooting a Linux system is not something to be taken lightly. It's a little more time consuming that a Windows reboot appears to be (the actual settling down of the OS and any run-time apps like your antivirus takes a lot longer than just getting to your desktop), but once I'm logged back in, it's done for the next month or six or however long before I decide to take it down again.
There were no cryptic symbolic names to decode - I know the packages that were updated because they are listed out by name and I've been working in and using UNIX/Linux systems long enough to know most of them by heart. Now, this is as opposed to the Windows updates, which are all named KB#########, or something like that, which means that NO one outside of Microsoft knows what they are without reading the accompanying documentation. In Linux, this is not required.
There's another thing I noticed during the Windows Update I ran. While the updater is downloading and installing the updates, it occupies a normal sized window in the middle of the screen which you can move but not minimize. Since I don't have the add-on to Windows that allows for multiple workspaces (virtual desktop screens) that happens to be a standard feature with both the GNOME and KDE GUIs of Linux, that window just sits there, staring back at me until it is done and tells me to reboot.
Feh.
After rebooting, I went to update the MS Office XP installed on that machine, except that there no longer appears to be an automated Office update process unless you get the Microsoft Update. Ick, no thanks.
So, what did I just say?
I like Linux's simple, convenient update process because it is simple, easy to use, unobtrusive and, unless it involves a kernel change, updates on my desktop without forcing me to reboot.
How could anyone complain about that on top of a cost-free software system for the stand-alone desktop computer?
Not me.
I used a SATA/IDE-to-USB converter device to do the backup, and other than Windows halting the copies on every file it couldn't quite handle, things went fairly well. I was going to try to put Windows on my Everex laptop (that runs Linux) so this other person could use it (they are Linux-illiterate, despite my best efforts... :-), but the strangest things happened.
I put in the other laptop drive, and even though it tried for about 15-20 minutes, the Windows on-board recovery failed. Now, this should be no surprise because my Everex and their Toshiba are substantially different hardware bases, with different devices and so on, and most laptops come with tailored installations to match the hardware that accompanies them.
Then I put the original disk back in and lo and behold, none of my Windows installation CDs would run. They all got to that first step, "Setup is inspecting your computer for anything that might kill it," (okay, it didn't really say that, but it was the usual Windows Setup prompt), and then the screen went dark and stayed there. I haven't really had the heart to check into why a nice laptop like that, which came with Ubuntu Linux until I installed CentOS (Linux) over it and which runs perfectly, would choke on installing Windows. Truth be told, I don't care, but it's nice to know that my awesome Linux laptop won't even allow Windows to install on it.
More to the point:
Among other things, this desktop I was upgrading had AVG anti-virus on it (which I kind of like - it's free and works well enough) clamoring for an update to the virus definition file, NVidia's Network Access Manager complaining that it was turned off, Windows Automatic Update telling me it had some updates to install (I don't ever let things like that run on their own - too risky IMNSHO) and ZoneAlarm, which I had decided to uninstall.
I told the Windows automatic update to go ahead, update me. I uninstalled ZoneAlarm, which went well, except for two things:
1) Something else went wrong and I got one of those lovely "A program has crashed....Do you want to send a bug report to Microsoft?" windows, for which program I don't know (and they don't say).
2) The ZoneAlarm uninstall wanted me to reboot.
Fine. I told the bug report window to go away, and it did. However, the automatic update hung, hard. It stopped at 32% complete without ever downloading anything.
I admit it, I kind of floundered on this one. I tried running Windows Update manually, but that didn't do so well with the other one hung. I turned off the automatic updates, but that didn't un-hang the hung one. I tried to use the NVidia NAM's anti-hacking-only feature, but that didn't seem to help, so I figured, that's it, it's going and I'll worry about it all after the reboot.
So, since NAM doesn't have an uninstall command or feature, I went to the control panel and started to remove it that way.
That hung the whole machine.
Other than being an annoyance, this wasn't much of a hassle (had to reboot anyway), so I just rebooted the machine with the reset switch. And, to Windows' credit, it came up just fine.
(Yes, I'm running XP SP2 on that box - it does well enough for these purposes.)
NAM was not gone, so I removed it again and that needed another reboot.
Now I'm getting annoyed, and I'll go into that in a little bit, there's not much of the gripe left.
With NAM gone, I went back to a manual Windows Update run, and after a fair length of sitting silent, it finally started actually downloading and installing 23 updates. What they were I don't really know, or care, much. I've been using Windows more or less regularly since 1995 (at work) and 1996 (at home), and I have a fair amount of experience tweaking it using an official XP book and a couple of "Tips and Tricks" books, but I couldn't begin to tell you what update KB234678234 is (I fudged the number, but it could be any of them). All I know is that, without actually going through and reading the descriptions, those 23 updates were "Windows Update" or "Windows Security Update" and maybe an Internet Explorer update - too bland for me.
It was really slow, too. The update took about another 10 minutes, which, for 23 small updates is a LONG time.
Then I had to reboot again.
Well, whoop-dee-do, Mr. Mark, what's yer eff-in problem with that?
If that's all you're used to, then you probably don't know that there's a much better system out there - it's called LINUX.
We've had a flurry of bug fixes and other updates to various parts of the system over the last couple of weeks, including a substantial kernel update. For those of you who don't know it, the kernel is the heart of the OS - it's what makes everything else work. It is also what most Linux people think of as Linux itself - everything else is added on, mostly from the Free Software Foundation, which supports the standard command set that comes with virtually every Linux distribution.
Back to the point, there were ten notices in my deleted email about updates, seven of which were for my current CentOS release (5.4), the last of which was the kernel update.
I'm a command-line kind of person, having been in the business since before graphical user interfaces, like Windows, and as much as the GUIs have made a lot of the computing world easier, there are some things about running computers that just cry for the power and detail of the command line. I believe that systems administration, even for home use, is one of them.
This is not to fault the GUI system updater - it's fine, if you like that sort of thing. As it happens, I learned the command line method first, and it's so simple, clear and informative, I just use it, with pleasure.
For each of those seven updates, all of which included more than one area to be updated except the kernel update, I happily ran the command (yum update, if you're wondering), watched it whip up a fast list of what had an update available and then waited for my typed "y" to proceed, at which point it downloaded each update, ran the transaction checks, updated the modules and finished with a note about success. Quickly.
No reboot required. Technically, I didn't have to reboot after the kernel update, either, but if I wanted the new kernel, then, yes, that was necessary. It hasn't happened in a month or two, so I figured why not.
Actually, I went and read the release notes, and there were enough important security issues fixed that I figured it was worth it.
Rebooting a Linux system is not something to be taken lightly. It's a little more time consuming that a Windows reboot appears to be (the actual settling down of the OS and any run-time apps like your antivirus takes a lot longer than just getting to your desktop), but once I'm logged back in, it's done for the next month or six or however long before I decide to take it down again.
There were no cryptic symbolic names to decode - I know the packages that were updated because they are listed out by name and I've been working in and using UNIX/Linux systems long enough to know most of them by heart. Now, this is as opposed to the Windows updates, which are all named KB#########, or something like that, which means that NO one outside of Microsoft knows what they are without reading the accompanying documentation. In Linux, this is not required.
There's another thing I noticed during the Windows Update I ran. While the updater is downloading and installing the updates, it occupies a normal sized window in the middle of the screen which you can move but not minimize. Since I don't have the add-on to Windows that allows for multiple workspaces (virtual desktop screens) that happens to be a standard feature with both the GNOME and KDE GUIs of Linux, that window just sits there, staring back at me until it is done and tells me to reboot.
Feh.
After rebooting, I went to update the MS Office XP installed on that machine, except that there no longer appears to be an automated Office update process unless you get the Microsoft Update. Ick, no thanks.
So, what did I just say?
I like Linux's simple, convenient update process because it is simple, easy to use, unobtrusive and, unless it involves a kernel change, updates on my desktop without forcing me to reboot.
How could anyone complain about that on top of a cost-free software system for the stand-alone desktop computer?
Not me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)