A gripe. since it's a rather warm day in the Lehigh Valley:

I decided to fly out of this airport because the fare was actually rather reasonable for where I am heading. Naturally. since the TSA is rather out of control with the whole liquids on a plane thing you can't bring a drink with you through security.

Whatever.

What bugs me is that I then needed to purchase one once inside the "secure" area of the airport.

How much does a 20 oz. Gatorade cost at 7-11 or Wawa? $1.50? $1.60?

At this airport. it costs $2.39 plus tax.

Don't tell me I can't bring my own and then use that to your advantage.

If I ever did that to my customers. I wouldn't have any left to speak of. Incompatible technology aside. this is a freaking GATORADE. Not exactly something that could be considered dangerous by any measure.

When. dear God. will the TSA realize that the security theater is not accomplishing any of the goals it was created to achieve?

Shame on you LVIA (and every other airport) for taking advantage of the flying public. This isn't the free market - it's a monopoly.

The brain trust at the Inquirer (philly.com...now no longer worthy of direct linking) has decided to start dropping flash ads in as an overlay to the pages you're trying to read. basically the equivalent of a popup without the new window.

I hate this. Most of the time it's damn near impossible to pick out the icon to close it.

Suuuuure....just ruin my reading experience so you can make a few extra bucks. I'll just switch over to Google News completely if you really don't want my eyeballs on your site.

Yikes..looks like Microsoft is going to effectively cripple HTML-based e-newsletters received by people using Outlook 2007. They are switching the rendering engine from IE6 (lousy) to Microsoft Word (craptacular).

A nice rundown of how nasty this is can be found here:

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/2007/01/microsoft_takes_email_design_b.html

Read it and (more than likely) weep. Considering the penetration of the Outlook bloatware. this is going to impact our mass email capabilities quite severely.

I just went over my wireless bill. You have to do this every few months to see what new plans are available and find any possible way to hammer that bill down. Naturally they're not going to notify you of any "improvements" they make to their offerings. even though I've been a customer since 1997.

So I went to Cingular's website.

My current plan had me set up with 5MB of mobile internet access for $20/mo. and 50 text messages for $5/mo. On their site I found a 200 message + 5MB package for $20/mo. Simple swap...drop the two old ones and add this one. Their web interface seems to allow me to do this. but of course it throws some weird error. So I hop on their "live chat" feature.

Dear god. The chat app is a java applet. Simply AWFUL. It looks like garbage in Firefox. the popup window it's running in is clearly set to poll because it refreshes every few seconds. Plus. once I send a message the textarea I put it in doesn't clear itself out. AND they were too lazy to pick up my keypress of "ENTER" to send the message text. WTF.

Come on Cingular...you're making PLENTY of cash...Adobe would (i'm sure) be happy to hook you up with Flash Media Server and about 1 hour of developer time to build a nice. socket-based Flash client to do this.

Better user experience. less frustration. and theoretically cost savings and happier customers. Get a clue!

Anyway. the rep was fast and friendly. Never had a problem with their people. Change was made and I continued looking around.

Last gripe of the day (I hope): I can't change rate plans without losing the 3000+ rollover minutes I've accumulated. You cheap bastards! Advertise that we can keep our minutes and then don't actually let me do so...even if my needs change.

For all of your stupidity. your network has been good for me so you'll keep me...for now...

...from the Democrats. the alleged "opposition" party:

• a commitment to undo the military commissions act. the one that stripped us all of habeas corpus rights
• a commitment to undo the 'Patriot' Act. one of the more egregious violations of civil liberties we've ever seen
• a plan to win or disengage from Iraq
• a plan to handle North Korea and Iran
• a commitment to stop the "lock out" of the minority party from any say in the governing process
• word on whether or not they will take up campaign finance reform

I'm sure I'll think of more. but do I dare think they'll care what I think after I cast my ballot tomorrow? Of course not.

...when you're trying to get a pardon under cover of darkness.

Dangerously powerful moron seeks pardons for acts committed against humanity in violation of the Geneva Convention in a time of "war" on "terror" that seems to be causing more of both.

I just got done reading an article by Charles Krauthammer and had a couple follow up thoughts. I suppose that's what blogs are for. so i'm taking the liberty of using mine. Maybe someone else out there has another point of view. Just thinking out loud...

First. go read the article.

Good.

Now that you have. maybe you'll see why I could think that maybe in the Western press' rush to cave to the mob we're committing a higher crime.

Condescention.

We don't get in the faces of those who would scream for the murder of the Pope over words...WORDS...because we don't think they'd comprehend just what is wrong with that reaction. It's like we view the Muslim world as a bunch of 2 year olds.

Instead we shrink into the corner. asking the supposedly "infalliable" representative of God to apologize. By "we" I actually mean the press and anyone with a microphone. Most commonfolk could give a damn...except to look to the east with a quizzical look as if to say "WTF is wrong with those people?"

Do we do it because those rioting. flag-burning (not that there's anything wrong with that) Muslims wouldn't respond to a rational response and act accordingly? You know...like human beings instead of animals? I know it's bad and i'm a horrible person for painting an entire religion based on the brush wielded by the extremists...but where's the outrage? As a Christian i'm equally offended by Pat Robertson and other hate-mongerers. But the key difference is this:

Today's Christians call these false Christians out when they go off the deep end. I see no similar call from the Islamic leadership. the greater family of believers or most notably ALL PEOPLE of the world when the riots start over a comment made by a funny looking old man in a white robe. I doubt i'll have a Catholic calling for my assassination because of that last line. God forbid you say something goofy about Mohammed.

We're being more condescending towards Muslims by not working out our differences man to man. Instead. we engage them in two ways at the same time. neither of which is going to EVER be effective:

1) back down and refuse to call them out on their childish. immature behavior

and

2) pick up the sword and force democracy on a people that don't have a clue as to what that really means

A rational man would be secure enough in his own personal beliefs to not resort to violence unless absolutely necessary. Is it really the case that as long as the middle east remains woefully undereducated we will be stuck with only these two options?

Yes. Because belief is inherently irrational.

John Mayer is right:

I'm an engineer. I believe (and will defend) in the things that can be proven. I have additional beliefs (religious) that I will not feel compelled to defend in words because they cannot be proven -- so what is the point in fighting to convince someone else you are right? You believe what you believe and i'll believe what I want to believe - right up to the point that my beliefs infringe on the life or liberty of another person. Then it's my job to STFU.

Let the personal be personal. let the public be public...and where they cross let's come to an agreement of the people. Not this passionate. irrational and neverending quest for one true religion. It'll never happen. so let's just figure out how to get along. ok?

Don't let them win.

He's right.

You. sir. have no CLUE what you're talking about.

So kindly shut up on the issue of net-neutrality. You got your overpriced and un-needed bridge. Clearly you have no grasp on reality and need a time out. Go sit in ANWR for a while. at least until the oil companies come in.

I read the Signal vs. Noise blog run by the 37 signals guys. It's a good read most of the time. Sometimes they come off a little too religious for my liking (Simple! Fast! No spec! Get Real!). leaving me with little hope that they could take on a real "enterprise" project. By "enterprise" I mean massive. integrated. stuck working with old data. "legacy" bad choices and nasty data formats.

All of the things they seem to work on are new code. Of course it's going to be fast and work well! you're not dealing with the cruft of decisions made long ago!

So when i read an article like Computer Project Awash in Red Ink. I naturally think of them first. What would they do?

My next thought is "geez...Oracle really screwed the pooch on that one." then I think "wow. Philly can't manage it's way out of a paper bag."

$18 million. I bet (and this isn't just hyperbole) that you could get two or three teams of 3 developers each to focus on a particular module of the system and have a functional effort done within a year. What's the max cost on that? 9 developers. let's consider the cost of them being there at $150.000 each. total cost to Philly under $1.5 million. Round up to 2 so it sounds like a real budget and let the hiring process begin.

Instead. Oracle goes and tries to rig one of their off the shelf products to match the requirements and fails miserably. Then. using the same folks who made that decision. they decide to write their own. That fails too. Big shock!

Attention people who make decisions about IT investments:

Just because the company you're hiring to do work for you has a big name doesn't mean they're smart -- it means you are going to overpay for substandard work!

There are plenty of talented companies in the greater Philadelphia area who would have willingly jumped in on this. People who do outstanding work for many. many other clients. The big firms charge exorbitant rates (>$200/hr and up to $400 in some cases!) for the work being done by employees fresh out of college. How is that working in the best interests of your client?

In the era of SOA and web services. having your technology chief say something like this:

"Neff. as well as then-City Finance Director Janice Davis. pushed for Oracle because the firm also was going to be revamping the computer systems of several other city departments. Neff and Davis thought it made sense that the systems all be compatible."

...should be a fireable offense.

Thousands of technology professionals in the region would have shouted you down for using that as your decision basis. Maybe there should be an external technology oversight board to make sure these kinds of decisions are never made again.