My Beef with Comcast

Posted on March 19, 2014 by kellyzdude

Wow, has it really been 6 months? I need to update more often. I know, I know, I feel like I say that (to myself at least) every time I update, but there really hasn’t been much happening to write about.

It seems to me that everywhere I look, someone is complaining about Comcast or Verizon and their terrible customer service. I know that “the squeaky wheel gets the most …” blah blah blah, but I’m curious what their ratio of satisfied to unsatisfied customers is. Because really, there are alternatives. Not so much for cable or phone, depending on where you are, but with mobile phones at least there’s really not a whole lot of reason to stick with your current provider if you’re unhappy, and yet somehow these companies remain in business – they must be keeping someone happy.

Now, part of the problem seems to be that people call support for stupid reasons. If your cable goes out at 2am, call support but don’t be too mad if it doesn’t get “fixed” for a couple of hours, because chances are they were doing maintenance while most of their area was asleep. It sucks for those of us that are online at 2am because of our schedules, but we’re statistically few. On the other hand, if it goes out every day at 2am, that’s a good reason to call and start complaining.

My interactions have been minimal. In the last year I have been the owner of a Comcast Account, I have called them twice. The first was a year ago, to set up my account and get online with my purchased modem. The second was today, when I called to upgrade my account to add TV service. Both occasions were relatively quick, I was given the information I needed to make an informed decision (combined with research earlier in the day), and so far I’m happy. They were a little pushy for a couple of addon services that I neither can afford nor have desire for, but their goal is to make money. The tech is coming out to get us set up for TV on Friday and I’ll update if that doesn’t go well.

Am I in the minority? Are there really so few of us that have positive interactions with these large, terrible companies? Really, my only major complaint in this situation is that I had to call to make the change. Comcast’s website knows that there is an active account at my address when I enter it in looking for deals, but then it just tells me there are no deals and that it can’t find my address in the system to make changes to the service. That, to me, is the epitome of frustrating.

In closing, Comcast, please fix your website’s backend so that people like myself don’t have to call to make changes to our service. Let the customer service team know that they did well on at least these two occasions. And if you want to reward me for giving you a good review, you can always lower my bill a few dollars a month. You really don’t have to though, for now I’m a satisfied customer and expect to stay happy until we move to a location that forces us to switch provider.

Quotable Monday: Revolution

Posted on October 31, 2011 by kellyzdude

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Have you ever read the United States Declaration of Independence? It’s an interesting read if you can get through it.

I realize I have clipped a section for my purposes, but I strongly encourage you to read it in it’s entirety for context.

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

As a quick backstory, for the non-Americans (or those who have forgotten), the United States was born of people who migrated from England (among other parts of Europe) and was initially an English Colony. King George III was being somewhat of a douche towards the colonists. After much agony inflicted by the King, they decided to separate, to declare their independence.

They outline their complaints against the King and his government: refusing to approve laws believed to be for the common good, forcing his government into accepting his will, dissolving the government on multiple occasions for refusing to accept his views, for placing armed troops among them [the colonists] and protecting them from trial for any murders they commit, cutting off trade, imposing taxes without consent, depriving the right to a trial by jury, etc, etc.

The point is, at some point, the common belief of the people becomes that the government has long ceased to meet their needs, and that change needs to happen. When the government has long proven it’s unwillingness to listen to the people, then according to the Declaration of Independence, it is the duty of the people to rise up against the government and replace it with a more suitable form.

I’m not suggesting a violent overthrow of the government as it stands, I’m certainly not suggesting that the current system of government is being nearly as oppressive as King George III was all those years ago, but I think the United States is long overdue for a discussion on the purpose of government, the duty of government, what the people want and expect from the government, and then action to create a government that is of the people, by the people, for the people.

After watching what is going on in the Occupy movements, I see a group of people who are wanting to start the discussion, but none of the right people are listening. It’s time they stood down their security forces and listened to what their constituency are peacefully requesting. After all, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – John F. Kennedy

Quotable Monday: Conformity

Posted on October 17, 2011 by kellyzdude

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.” — Albert Einstein

This also references my earlier Quotable Monday entry on blind faith. I always have trouble when I run into people who, when asked questions about things, just speak information they don’t understand.

I ran into this issue on IRC not too long ago, when talking to someone who was making the absolute federal minimum wage of $2.16 (or whatever it is) an hour while driving for a pizza company. When asked about what they made, they referenced Florida as being “under maritime law.” This didn’t make any sense to me, as I assumed that I would have known something along this line a long time ago, and so I went for a talk with my buddy Google.

I confess that in this talk I did learn things – mostly related to the exception to the $7.55/hr federal minimum wage (as it applies to people who normally receive tips in their line of work), but at no point did I find any reference to the State of Florida combined with Maritime Law.

So I challenged the individual, and asked plainly: Is that just what you’ve been told it is? And the answer came back with a resounding “Yes.”

My problem isn’t with people who conform by their own choice, my problem is those who fail to consider the options, or make their decisions without making so much as an attempt to think for themselves. Letting other people think for you is, in my mind, an assault to the freedom of choice that you were given. This also applies to the “non-conformists” who have chosen their path simply because it’s not what other people are doing. Believe it or not, you’ve let other people think for you by rebelling against them.

If you are in the military because you considered your options and it was what you decided to do, that’s awesome. If you are in the military because you were told to, or it was expected of you, and you just accepted it, not so cool. And the same applies to other fields too. It’s totally fine for a feminist to decide to stay home and be a housewife. It doesn’t go against the core principles of feminism which (as I understand them) are about giving women the right to choose. If you’re staying home and being a housewife because you wanted to, go right ahead. If it’s merely because it is the socially accepted thing to do, maybe you should reevaluate what it is you want from life.

I’m not going to apply this to every person in every religion or social setting, I’ll leave that to you to consider.

Quotable Monday: Christianity without Christ

Posted on September 26, 2011 by kellyzdude

“In answer to your inquiry, I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.” — William Booth

This is something that has bothered me for a long time. I think it is one of the things that leaves me questioning my beliefs in “Common Christianity” and puts me outside my circle of friends a lot.

We like the idea that if we say a prayer and ask forgiveness, our sin doesn’t matter anymore. While in a sense this is true, it’s not that simple. It’s not OK to say “Yes, God, I know I did this bad thing, but I’m sorry and I ask you to forgive me,” as we get ready, walk out the door and do whatever it was all over again. It’s not OK to claim Christianity while ignoring the parts of the bible you don’t like, whether it is to love everyone equally, or to give to the poor, or other more controversial things.

It’s OK to accept anyone into the church, but it’s not OK to allow them to serve in ministry when they have sin they refuse to acknowledge or address. It’s OK to teach about the wonder of heaven, but it has to go hand in hand with the risks of the other option.

Security: We’re Doing It Wrong

Posted on August 10, 2011 by kellyzdude

Don’t worry, this won’t be a long post.

I have long been of the belief that we are going about password security all wrong, and XKCD have successfully visualized it. A few months ago I saw an excellent post somewhere (of course, now I can’t find it) about the basic methods used to crack passwords and how to derive a secure but memorable password that will defeat most of them for long enough between change cycles.

Basically it boils down to brute force, and dictionary attacks. There are also hybrids, but they are essentially combinations of the two. Social engineering, while valid, doesn’t really apply to this argument.

With a dictionary attack, a hacker or script kiddie will have a long list of words that may be commonly used for passwords that they will run through attempting to gain access. So if you use a word like “banana” or “elephant” as your password, it probably wouldn’t take long to be compromised.

With a brute force attack, a hacker or script kiddie will use a system that tries to guess your password by cycling through every possibility and hopes that he eventually lands the right one.

More common are hybrid systems which take words or phrases and use them as the core of a brute force attack, making the attack more intelligent, if you will.

The problem is that deriving a good secure password (as we’ve been taught is secure, at least) can result in a password that is difficult to remember. Personal anecdote time. A couple of companies I have worked for in the past had password systems in place that required a password at least 8 characters long, and that had upper and lowercase characters as well as at least one number. It also had to be changed every month, I believe, and it wasn’t possible to use any password that had been used in the last 12 months.

Most people will agree this is a good idea. Passwords should be regularly changed for various reasons, but having those kinds of requirements starts to become silly and LEADS to insecurity. I reached the point where I had to use an insecure password system (though I wouldn’t tell anyone what it actually was) just so that remembering it wouldn’t be an issue.

The other issue arises when someone needs 3 or 4 passwords to go about their daily business (I have 4, that I can think of that I use regularly) but there is no interconnection between the two. Even worse, there may be different requirements for technical or security reasons. “No numbers” or “cannot start with a number” are occasionally issues. This ultimately leads to people writing their passwords down, which is just not a good idea. Whether it’s in a file on your computer, a note in your notebook, or even worse a post-it taped to your desk, keyboard or even monitor, chances are good someone will find it and utilize it.

Simple rule: keep it simple, make it long, use some form of obscurity. Ideally find a password that will suit all the systems you use so you can keep it in sync, and find a way to juggle it around in a way you’ll remember every time that window pops up saying “your password will expire in 12 days, would you like to change it now? Yes, No”

Photos from Winter Jam

Posted on March 20, 2011 by kellyzdude

Here are the photos I took at the Winter Jam concert on Friday night. Below are brief descriptions and military times from my phone of when they were taken. I apologize for the quality of the photos, I used the camera in my phone having (intentionally) left my digital in Harrisonburg.

From what I am told, the crowds started arriving at 3pm, doors opened at 6pm and the show started at 7.

16:51 – Eating Pizza at Lil’ Cucci’s Pizzeria in Daleville, VA. Good pizza, but a bad decision.

18:17 – A sign at the Roanoke Civic Center. This wasn’t for our event, looked like a trade show or something inside.

18:19 – We see the crowds outside. At this point the venue was declared full, and the doors were blocked with no more allowed in.

18:48 – Show starts in ~ 12 minutes, and the line has shrunk. From what I heard, they opened the area behind the stage and allowed another 300 people in, but that wasn’t enough to get us through the doors.

18:56 – They haven’t played inside yet, but the Sidewalk prophets came and gave an acoustic performance for those of us stuck outside. Great guys, great music. They all signed the copy of their CD I bought, and the singer recognized me after the show when I went to get his, having missed it earlier.

18:57 – I took a few photos before my phone battery started saying it was low.

20:31 – This is the first photo I took after getting inside, so we got in at about 8:30pm, an hour and a half late.

20:32 – David Crowder Band is finishing up their set.

20:33 – A slightly better shot, David Crowder Band

20:39 – Crowd blinders came up, this is my view for the first few minutes from behind the stage.

20:48 – This was our seated view behind the stage before moving, this guy was talking about orphans and the sponsoring thereof, I believe.

21:16 – KJ-52 performing while the final details are put on the Kutless set.

21:29 – Kutless!

21:57 – Newsboys entrance. Closest is the guitarist, farther away is the keyboardist, both on platforms above the crowd on the floor.

21:58 – My last photo of the night before I ran out of room on my phone, the Newsboys stage.

Winter Jam 2011, Roanoke

Posted on March 19, 2011 by kellyzdude

It was a Friday, just like any other Friday, except that it involved music. Lots of music, loud music, good music (in my opinion!).

It was a Friday full of disappointment, as well as great enjoyment and miscellaneous good times.

It really started earlier in the week – the band I work with (Chasing Grace) had elected to make a group trip to Roanoke to see the Winter Jam featuring RED, KJ-52, Kutless, David Crowder Band and the Newsboys, among others. The rest of the group were leaving at 1:30, would have got them to Roanoke around 3:30 or 4. However, I accepted an offer to leave at 2 – a decision I now realize was not the wisest – although the question remains how different it would have been.

So we left at 2, and had to pause in Harrisonburg briefly before we got going. We were making good time when it is decided we need to stop and get food – this seems fine, we’ll stop, get food, and eat in the car on the way. No, this is not a good plan, there’s plenty of time, we can sit down and eat and then carry on. Another unwise decision.

Eventually we reach Roanoke and see the Civic Center, where the event was held. Hordes of people surround the building, and my nervous level rises even further. “Don’t worry” I was told, “It seats 10,000” and “I doubt there’ll be 6 or 7 thousand.” He was right, there weren’t 7,000, not even 10,000. However many people the building could seat, there were more people trying to get in, and we were at the back of the queue. For around 2 hours we stood in line after being told that no more could be let in – they promised that as people left they could let just as many people in.

As “consolation” the Sidewalk Prophets came out and did an acoustic set on the sidewalk for us, before having to pack up and run inside to play for the crowds in there. Then after playing inside Jason Castro (of American Idol fame) came out and played for us. He was really cool, being his first tour he was excited to play but felt really nervous being so close to his audience and being able to see and connect so easily. He played a couple of songs and then like the Sidewalk Prophets did, sold CDs and signed along with photos for anyone outside who wanted them.

While waiting in line I met a nice couple from Harrisonburg. They had seen the show in Charleston WV and were just great to be with. We talked a little after spending 45 minutes or an hour standing at the very front of our line – able to touch the door, but not able to open it and walk in.

At around 8:45 – 9 we got in (for free!). I followed them and we ended up behind the stage. The couple (who are remaining nameless!) I came with got in a few minutes later, and they found the rest of our band (in much better seats, and with room for me and the couple I found to join them).

I got in just in time to see the end of the David Crowder Band set – I Saw The Light was amazing. I was a little sad I didn’t get to see the rest of it, but that was fine – I was more disappointed that I didn’t get to see RED play (one of the three I came to see). Out came KJ-52 to do I think two songs before leaving the stage. Then Kutless came out (two of the three) and started with It Is Well before several other songs. Chris August played a song, and Tony Nolan kept going on about things that are now about normal for a Christian event. Finally out came the Newsboys who put on a rocking show.

Michael Tait can not be faulted on a lack of energy, that is one thing that is certain. He was almost constantly moving, either it was around the stage or up and down the catwalk making contact with his fans. He held the hand of a little girl briefly while singing a verse and then kissed it before moving on. Having never really seen the Newsboys before I can’t speak for how much they have changed over time but he definitely did a great job as a frontman, albeit not being Peter Furler.

It seems that the Newsboys a) have too much money and b) have a fascination for moving things. All four of them had platforms that moved in one way or another. Michael Tait had a straight up-and-down platform about 2/3s of the way out the catwalk, the guitarist and the keyboardist both had moving platforms on arms that would allow them to be raised up and moved around over the audience, and the drummer had a tilting/turning platform (readily found on Youtube) used during the finale.

I got three CDs for $5 each (the Newsboys CD was $10, but they did a 2-for-1 deal and I went halves with a friend). Newsboys, Kutless and Sidewalk Prophets – all signed by the band members.

So it was not an altogether bad experience. I met a couple of great people, heard of a couple of great restaurants in Harrisonburg that I’d never heard of, heard 2 of the 3 bands that I’d come to see, and got 3 new CDs that I wanted, all of which were signed by the artists that recorded them. And had a great Pizza in Troutville.

Great Success!

Posted on February 23, 2011 by kellyzdude

Our first items are up on Etsy! Our combined blog appears to be working nicely so far, and I’ve been working on reigning in our budget.

I found an excellent tool for budgeting and setting/meeting financial goals. It’s run by Intuit, the same people responsible for TurboTax, and it’s called Mint. I’ve spent some time over the last few days adding our accounts and loans and such. Today I added two financial goals – paying off the two credit cards (possible by September) and paying off two of our smaller loans (Possible by 2015).

To summarize, this is what it did for us when I first signed up. It asked for some basic information, as all sites do. Then I added our bank accounts, credit cards, and loans all automatically via online banking. Now, that might seem scary, but Mint is a purely read-only system. It makes no attempt to do anything other than look at what you’ve done – in fact with alert systems in place it adds security by allowing SMS messages to be sent when it senses strange things are going on in your accounts.

So now it knows how much money we have in our accounts, how much we owe on loans, most of the loans also show the interest rates, all of our transactions for the last 90 days, and it automatically assigns categories to transactions based on who they were to. I’ve had to manually change some, because not all of our spending at Sheetz is on gas, for example. It also recognizes our income, and assigns budgets to the various spending categories based on that. So we have a budget for gas, a budget for movies and entertainment, for fast food, for restaurants and dining, for saving, etc etc. It gives warnings on things, like the fact that we are currently using 131% of our combined credit card limits. It gives suggestions on alternative products (credit cards, checking accounts, savings accounts) that would save more money or pay more. For a long time I’ve been wanting to keep track of all our transactions and see where our money is going, but I’ve been far too lazy and it requires more organization to make sure we’re in check with what the bank says. Mint does it automatically!

Granted, I’ve been using it for 3 days so my experience isn’t huge, and it does have it’s downsides – e.g. it won’t read our Sallie Mae account (for some unknown reason – I’ve put in a request for them to find out), and because I don’t have online access to either of our auto loans I can’t enter them either. It also poses a security risk by giving your online banking information to one entity, however secure and reputable they may be.

A Range of Updates!

Posted on February 16, 2011 by kellyzdude

So, there are a few new things worth reporting.

Firstly, my performance review at work came in, and I scored a fairly solid 3/5. Not bad, considering I’ve been there just coming up 6 months (was 4 at the end of the 2010 calendar year). I have a few things to work on, but don’t we all?

Also work related, there is a full time position opening on day shift, which I think I will at least apply for. There are several others in the lab that are interested, all of whom have been there longer than I have and so I don’t doubt that they would get it over me. Still, if I don’t try I can’t ever hope to succeed.

I’ve been to Charlottesville a couple of times in the last month or two, and had a great time. I’m sure there must be more, but so far I’ve only found one hobby shop that was where the maps and information on the internet told me it would be (and even then, I’m not sure it’s one of the ones on the list!) It was near Kroger on 29, not marked very visibly but big “Thomas Trains Here” and “Lionel Trains Here” signs in the windows. I have also spent a fair amount of time sitting around near the Amtrak station near down town, as this is where two fairly busy railroads cross. The Norfolk Southern running North-South to Manassas and Lynchburg sees several trains a day. The CSX running North-East-West (the division, leased by the Buckingham Branch Railroad) connects with the NS at Orange to the North, CSX to the East and through Staunton on to Clifton Forge to the West). There is also daily Amtrak traffic (though I’m not usually there early or late enough to see the majority), in the form of the New York to New Orleans train, the New York to Chicago train (three days a week) and the Washington DC to Lynchburg train.

I’ve also found that US-250 is a great alternative to I-64. The interstate cannot be matched for speed at all, but it’s still a great drive over Afton Mountain. At some point I’d like to visit Afton and explore the area a bit more, but for now I’ll settle for having driven past it.

Last but not least, is the model situation. I’m still waiting for my ATX cables to arrive (hopefully they didn’t get lost, or not sent..) so the sections are still leaning up against the wall, same as they were last time I posted. I do have updates, however. A couple of months ago I found that Ollies, a discount store that lives on buyouts and the like, has a fair stock of IHC products. The range isn’t great, a couple of buildings and a few vehicles, a LOT of MoPac RPO cars ($5.99 each, if anyone is looking for some..), but they are CHEAP. I picked up a Factory/Office building kit (constructed over the weekend!), a set of Algoma Central passenger cars (I have plans to model a kind of historic railroad running on a Class I/II when I get around to modeling big), and a few trucks and such. I have a greenhouse which will need some modifications to be realistic enough, and a bunch of “village” accessories which will need some attention before they are considered suitable (by me!).

In the Factory/Office kit were some molded people who I finally got around to painting today. I’m not entirely happy with them overall, but considering I’ve never painted anything in HO before, I’m pretty happy with my first try.

I don’t have any photos to post today, but maybe next time. Trainspotting photos from C’ville will be up on Flickr soonish.

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