Category Archives: Rage

Awful Books

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Reading the Steve Jobs biography is primarily a monumental headache. I’m filled with regret for buying that book. Every time I open it up I get angry. Great blazes of rage and all I want to do is throw it away, I want to stop reading it. But I can’t. It’s my curse that once I start a book I have to finish it, even if I’d rather pound my band into a bloody pulp with a sledgehammer instead of open it one more time.

It’s uniquely an awful book. It is the first and last time I’m going to read anything written by Isaacson. I need a quiet place where I can suffer through this awfulness. The only thing I really wish was that it was a paper book and not an ebook that way I could throw it in the backyard, douse it with gasoline and let the hateful thing burn.

I really have to renew my library card and get to borrowing this dreck. At least that way when these awful books manifest I can get rid of them without having to waste precious money on this printed crap.

Can you hear me now?

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It all comes down to trusting the infrastructure. When you can’t trust the infrastructure anymore then it feels as though you are standing in an hourglass and the sand is running out beneath your feet.

This is how I felt after embarrassing myself towards a vendor by the name of eSpatial. I was asked by a coworker to investigate this vendor for geolocating alumni at work. I started their 14 day free trial and uploaded some data, nothing I thought that was too onerous, 250,000 US Postal Addresses. After some back and forth I learned that the trial account only can accept 10,000 addresses, but nowhere was that stated in the trial offer, that there was a limit. On January 12th I sent a link to an eSpatial rep so that they could create a demo account for me and show me what their company could do.

I waited until January 20th and then I wrote an email. I told them that I didn’t like being left in the dark for eight days when it should take them at most an afternoon to load my data and show me what their software could do. Then I got back an email telling me that they tried to email me and tried to call me to no avail. This is when I discovered that the infrastructure at work really isn’t working out for me. Apparently the messages just didn’t arrive. I checked all throughout “Webmail Plus” to no avail and I even checked the “PureMessage” spam system and the messages weren’t in there either. It’s as if the email wasn’t even delivered. Then the fellow from eSpatial told me that he tried to call me and the call never got through. I suspect that my setting my work phone to failover to my cell phone may be to blame on that one. I would put money behind the notion that international incoming calls will not be forwarded by the switches at Western to another line, instead they will simply be dropped. I have my phone set up that way because I absolutely detest voicemail and so I want incoming calls that are inbound to WMU to ring there first and then move on and ring my iPhone. There is a solution for that bit as well, and it involves turning my back on my work phone as well.

So how do I correct this? I can’t trust my work email any longer – I’m losing messages and making a fool of myself. I can’t live with doubt that the infrastructure works, and get anything done, so I have to compensate. The best way to compensate is to leave WMU behind when it comes to this infrastructure. My work phone number is now meaningless. My work email account is now meaningless. So everyone should strike those from their records and use a different number from now on, because I cannot trust that the infrastructure provided by my employer works properly.

I have to turn to Google at this point to provide the infrastructure that I need to do my work properly. Ironic if anyone has known me over the past few years that I’m turning to Google for infrastructure, after all, it was my crazy-eyed ranting that implored my workplace to use Google for their infrastructure but fell on deaf ears. So I’ll do it myself. The accounts and phone numbers will still be technically valid and reachable, but I’d rather people not use them. Instead, please use these instead:

Phone: 269-216-4597

Email: andymchugh75@gmail.com

If you have my personal gmail account, feel free to use that, as I trust gmail.com with my email, but no others.

I hate doubt and I will not accept it in my life.

Winter Driving

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Winter has finally arrived in Southwest Michigan. We received a really good few inches of snow last night and finally the world appears now as it always should have. There are of course some issues which I would like to share, mostly as a matter of public education, but also to honor St. Whinge’s Day which was yesterday1.

First, Good Morning Michigan! I hope you rested well and are ready to take on the challenges of WINTER DRIVING because from what I can see, you aren’t. The most important rule that you have all collectively forgotten is PROPER FOLLOWING DISTANCE. Remember, for each multiple of 10 miles per hour of your speed you should put that car length distance between you and the car in front of you. So if you are going 10, you put 1 car length in front of you, 20 – 2, 30 – 3, and so forth. When it snows? Double that number! So at 10 you put 2 car lengths in front of you, 20 – 4, 30 – 6. See? It isn’t that hard to do! Now why oh why would you put so much space in front of your car? I’ll tell you. Not only is the ground you are traversing now lack any traction at all, but snow changes how your tires and transmission move your vehicle! Not only can’t you start properly but you can’t stop! Oh and something else, you or I might accidentally slide backwards so keep your front bumper in mind, okay?

Second, and this comes down to not risking your stupid worthless lives, but DO NOT MAKE RIGHT ON REDS IN FRONT OF ONCOMING TRAFFIC! Yes, it seems safe, there may be room for your vehicle to fit in the flow and you might think it’s safe, but what if someone is coming downhill and hits ice? Their brakes will be meaningless and your impatience will be rewarded with a T-bone collision! Just don’t do it! Cities in the north ought to pass new traffic laws outlawing the “Right on Red” maneuver when ground traction is compromised.

Third, please for the love of all that is holy, if you are driving on bald tires please have them replaced! I understand that times are hard and money is tight, but when water comes out of the sky in a solid and stays that way, your tires, especially your driving tires really have to have tread on them! If you have non-driving tires that have tread but your driving ones do not, go and have your tires rotated properly. It costs very little and is an acceptable compromise. If you have four bald tires, at least buy two new ones with really kickass tread on them. Think of climbing the hills. If you have bald tires and you are on the roads, we will mock you!

I’m sure there will be more to whinge about as the season progresses. The one thing you can always count on is human stupidity and impatience. What’s the most meaningful proverb of the season? Haste makes waste.

  1. St. Whinge’s Day is a fictional holiday for whinging, or complaining in a whiney fashion. It was coined as far as I know by David Malki at Wondermark.  ↩

Eight Ball

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I’ve about had it with gasoline companies. The prices change daily and nobody is very clear as to why that has to be. I suspect it has more to do with price fixing, gouging, and generally being nasty to the public than it has with supply and demand.

When prices are this variable, to say nothing of being this high, I start to think about ways I can manage my money when it comes to buying fuel. I often times will drive on an empty tank using the range metric from the cars computer as a gauge to determine when I should buy fuel or not. Last night while driving home from the gym it struck me. I allocate $40 a week to gasoline in my budget and I can make it from week to week quite well on that money. Instead of buying fuel in one $40 transaction which today would only really get me three quarters of a full tank from empty I have decided that I am going to buy gasoline in $8 increments. That gives me five opportunities to fuel until I hit my budget cap. So, the last time I fueled, which was last night, I bought $8 worth of gasoline. That won me about 100 miles in the range metric, but since I refuel around 30 miles on that metric it’s actually about 70 miles. Of course the metric is based on a LOT of highway driving so the minute I go back to city driving the MPG will drop through the floor and this mythical 70 miles worth of gasoline per stop will actually turn out to be around 30-40 miles.

With this plan, I don’t have to feel like I got gypped by the variability in gasoline prices. I don’t care about credit card transaction fees on small purchases hurting the vendor. I lack sympathy for the devil.

Multiple iOS Ringtone Surprise

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Apple’s provision for Ringtones and Alerts on their iOS devices leaves quite a lot to be desired. I bought a handful of alert tones from the iTunes store and thought I could place them on my iPhone and my iPad. Turns out that unless you have your devices synced completely to the iTunes Library, something I never do, you are pretty much out of luck. If you want to get ringtones or alert tones on your other devices, you have to buy them multiple times! This is very shortsighted of Apple and I won’t play that game. That being said, I have bought enough ringtones to make me happy for what I need on my iPhone, so it’s not like I’ll ever go back to the ringtones again for more.

For those out there with multiple iOS devices, watch out. Apple only sort of loves you, they also kind of hate you too.

DC Comics – Comixology App

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Several months ago DC and Comixology rolled out a day-and-date program for their comic books. I was, initially at least, really excited for the development and I was ready to leave paper-based comic books in the past. The Comixology app was upgraded and I was ready to rock and roll with the new system. I had my Comixology app all up-to-date, called DC Comics running on my iPad.

The app was pretty to see at first, and as I used it I quickly found my initial pleasure quickly evaporating before my eyes. The first hit was the frequent app jettisoning. In the iOS Operating System when an application does something unplanned, illegal, or encounters some other fault on the platform it will crash, pushing the user back to the app selection interface. This fault is called a jettison, and I learned that fact from another iOS app that was chock-full of these jettisons. Beyond the functional failures of the app lie all the design issues with the user experience that I have a problem with.

I spent a long time comparing the old way I used to get comics to what the Comixology app would suggest is the new way. In the old way, with paper comics I would head out on Wednesday afternoon to the local comicbook store where my pull list was on-file there, after walking in the staff would greet me and get my pre-compiled list of comic books. I would then be able to sort through my pile, but it was almost always just a silly formality and so I would walk up with my pile of comics and the checkout would mostly just be the staff pressing a button, all my books on my list getting tallied up and then a total. I’d pay, then take my comics to lunch with Scott and we’d read and eat and talk about what DC or Marvel were up to. All in all, it worked out very well.

For the past few years, ever since I bought my first iPod Touch I considered how awesome it would be to have a device much bigger than the touch but nearly as thin, and I called it the iPod Touch XL. On this device I could read my comics on the display. Years rolled on by and Apple had introduced the iPad. I was in line that April morning when they had it for sale and I bought my iPad without any hesitation. I finally had the device that I wanted all along.

Zoom forward to a few weeks ago, after Comixology released “DC Comics” updated app, featuring the new art for DC’s “New 52” program. I was so happy, at least at first, and I moved forward. I didn’t renew my club card at my local comic book shop, and I stopped buying paper comics there. I was moving to the digital world. I opened up the DC app, and after several jettisons later I had connected my Comixology store username to the app and connected my Apple ID to the app as well. Apple takes a 30% cut of all in-app sales and the sales themselves are mediated through the App Store. So I browsed through the DC Comics app and started to pick out a host of Issue #1’s for titles I knew I would likely enjoy. I knew I wanted “New Guardians” along with Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Superman, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Superboy, Batman and Robin, Detective Comics, Justice League and Justice League International. I also noticed that DC was going to publish a new series based on the Red Lantern component of the Green Lantern universe and that was another thing that attracted my eye. So I started to buy comics in-app. It was certainly a smooth process, tap on the comic image that I wanted, then tap to purchase, enter in my Apple ID and the app would begin to download the comic book I wanted. Using the Comixology app to actually read the comics was never a problem for me. I quite enjoy the frame-by-frame lead-through embedded in the comic books that I download, but right after that I started noticing issues.

The problems were annoying and frustrating. The apps instability was the first thing I noticed. While paging through a Superman comic book the app would jettison. This was merely an inconvenience because I could restart the app and pick up where I left off. But then I started to notice some real problems. I would read my comics while on the treadmill at the gym, and I’d use the gym’s free wifi. As I stood there walking away on the treadmill I tapped in vain on the “DC Comics” Comixology app looking for “New Guardians #1” because I knew from earlier in that day that DC had released it, because I saw it on the shelf at the local comic book store. While I stopped buying, Scott did not, so every Wednesday I can see what books should be in the “DC Comics” app around 2pm later that day. It took me half and hour to find the “New Guardians #1” issue. The way that the app is organized, you have your comics and you have “The Store”. This is a structure that I’m comfortable with, however the way it’s designed, it doesn’t live up to even it’s own structure. For each comic book that I wanted to read, I plowed manually through the app and set alarms, as the “set alert” button was on each titles purchase screen. This button does nothing.

So my frustration comes from what I think the app should do and what the app fails to do. As I described to Scott earlier tonight, Comixology went miles to produce a shiny app that looks great. All I want is for them to give me just 5 more inches, they’ve gone miles, why not just a little touch more? I started to compare the app to the local comic book store. At the store I had a pull-list, a pile of comics were waiting for me to pick up, all I had to do was plunk down payment and that would be that. The app doesn’t tell me when a new edition of one of my comics is available, as that “set alert” button DOES NOTHING. So when I start the DC Comics app I have to slog through the store trying to find the issues I want, and trying to keep in mind what issues I own and what issues are unbought and whether or not I still want to read that particular comic book. Now along with this irritating app comes at the same time several comics from DC where the quality has gone down the toilet. I tried a lot of comics and found that I didn’t like many of them, Batwoman and Batgirl were both irritating, spending more time being stupid than being the female version of Batman. I also really don’t like the new Robin, which is Batman’s apparent son Damien Wayne. Yeah I understand the story, but I don’t like the character. So I got angry. Angry at the app because I couldn’t easily get the comics I wanted, angry that the “Alert” button was meaningless and angry at DC for selling me crap.

I stopped buying comics in paper at the local comic book store. I have also not returned to the DC Comics app. I have comics that I bought that are unread in that app and I don’t really care one way or another. Perhaps on some quiet snowy day I’ll slog through the damn thing and polish what I bought off. Mostly I’m dissapointed and sad. I don’t think what I had in mind is too difficult to pull off in iOS and the fact that Comixology so deeply overhauled their entire comic book app on iOS, and left such functionality out really boggles my mind.

So what would I want to see? Scott asked this of me after I was done railing against the Comixology app. I don’t want paper comic books, I want virtual ones on my iPad. I know that for sure. What I want is to open up the DC Comics app on any given Wednesday around 3pm or so and be presented with a list of all the comic books that I am following, all listed nicely with a checkbox next to each that is by default on, and a nice big friendly button marked “Purchase Comics”. I tap the button, enter in my Apple ID password and the app automatically downloads all the comics I want to read. I’d also want the app to link these purchases serially so when I’m done reading Green Lantern, the next one up, say Detective Comics is the next, ready to read with a tap of a button. I want to be able to start the DC Comics app, start with one comic book and then tap my way through my entire comics purchase serially. So what is it that I’m after?

  • I’d like to be able to define a pull-list in the DC Comics app.
  • I’d like the “Alert Me” button removed, or better yet, HAVE IT DO SOMETHING and throw notifications through Notification Center “DC Comics – Superman #3 is now available.”
  • I’d like it more, if after I start the app, that it presents me with a list of comics that I haven’t bought yet, but own their predecessors with a clear way to “turn them on” or “turn them off” and buy them in one single transaction.
  • I’d like to see “My Comics” extended with links into “The Store” so that when I tap on “Adventure Comics” that the app has enough wits to show me all the issues of that title that I haven’t bought. I want to continue reading the stories, and this is the most convenient way to my mind on how to arrange that.

What I don’t want to do is slog my ass through “The Store” searching in vain in the “Day and Date Release” comics list which never really has the comics I’m looking for. Instead I have to either search on the title explicitly or I have to search for the “New 52” story arc section and rifle through that section. It’s really quite an unpleasant experience to be swiping through lists of comics you don’t care about only to discover that the comic book you really really wanted, in this case, “New Guardians #1” was released two weeks ago and you never knew because it wasn’t in the “Day and Date” release list. You sizzle when you go to “The Store” and verify that “Alert Me” is indeed on, and then you get even more angry when you realize that the stupid thing doesn’t do anything at all. It doesn’t alert anyone. It doesn’t fire off Notifications, it doesn’t do anything but toggle on and toggle off.

But I’m not an iOS Developer and I don’t work for Comixology. I’m just one lonely angry customer with a list of ideas and I don’t think my tiny angry voice amounts to very much in the great analysis when it’s all tallied up. Comixology will continue to sell comic books with their Jettison-a-palooza app with all it’s do nothing options and intentionally labyrinthine store that forces you to swipe past comic books you will never ever buy because you have absolutely zero interest. I will never buy Batwing. I don’t care for Bats in Africa. Moving on…

And that’s what drives me the most crazy. It’s like this great app was only half-designed. That there are entire sections that feel like it should be in there. Functionality that when you discover it’s absence you crinkle up your eyes and wonder “What the hell were they thinking?” To go so far, to create such a slick app and then leave the most consumer-friendly (and most comic-book-store analogue) features totally absent boggles the mind. The lack of all of these features seems terribly absurd, and of course begs the thought that if it’s so half-baked, perhaps it’s designed to fail. Designed to piss people off so much, to irritate them so thuroughly that they’d rather slog their behinds back to their local comic book store and set up those pull lists again and go back to hauling dead trees around.

So I don’t use the app. I complained on Twitter, mostly as an explanation of why I’m leaving comic books for good. I am no longer really a customer, I used to be, I so much want to be, but I don’t want to go to my local comic book shop anymore, and I don’t want to use DC Comics anymore because it’s so unhelpful. I’ve got money and I might have interest and what really grinds my gears is that I’m fine with 90% of the app beyond the parts I really don’t like. The things that irritate me upset me enough to sour the entire experience. I’m so angry at wasting time hunting and pecking for comic books that I have blown out time I could have spent ACTUALLY READING THEM with trying to navigate through a store I don’t really like. And the biggest rub of all? What I ask out of Comixology and the DC Comics app in particular doesn’t strike me as being a monumentally difficult thing to arrange. The app knows I have a Comixology account, it knows I have an Apple ID. I have to assume there is room in iCloud for apps to store arrays of data. Why not enable the customer to create pull-lists and then adjust the app so it’s as helpful as Alfred? Batman would never put up with this crap. 🙂

So this entire blog post is half me railing against technology that has failed me and a response to someone on Twitter who wants to know why I’m leaving comic books. I could put up with junky content from DC in hopes that it gets better, but I really can’t put up with that app. That’s really what it comes down to. Such a shame. What would change my tune?

Alfred. He would change my tune. Alfred in DC Comics app. That’s really all there is to it.

Pure Michigan

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“Michigan Legislature Moves To Ban Domestic Partner Benefits”

I live in Michigan. I am a gay man. This bill is proof that the state in which I live in regards me as unequal under the law. Everyone else can be married and share benefits but this will not be the case for me and my partner of FOURTEEN years. We are excluded from equality with everyone else in this state.

If this bill passes and becomes law, I know that I for one will never forgive any born-and-bred Michigan resident for their inaction on this heinously bad bill. It will become a statement of fact that people like me are less than other Michigan residents. Who I am, what I am, and who I love will be the basis on which the state agrees that my rights do not matter.

I am not personally seeking to share “Domestic Partner Benefits” with my partner, but this bill, if it becomes law, sets a precedent that gay people are second-class citizens within the borders of Michigan. If this bill passes and becomes law then I will have no choice but to begin looking at migration away from Michigan. This is of course not really a threat as I have for a very long time been considering leaving this state for good and returning to New York.

Funny that my birth state respects my rights and my equality more than my adopted state does. It’s clear to me now, even without this bill being passed into law, just what the surrounding Michiganders feel when it comes to people like me. I am not seeking your permission to lead my life how I see fit to lead it, the only thing I really ask for is to honor equality under the law. With a vote of 27 to 9, it is clear to me that the people of this state, through their state representatives behavior and choices think of me as unequal.

You are free to take this bill, if it becomes law and use it to look down upon my kind, it is a free country after all. But know this, that people like me have measured you as classless hateful bigots. What we say when we refer to you all will not be pleasant or complimentary. That is the nature of discrimination, the majority that suppresses the minority are on display as the slovenly bigots that they truly are. I can only hope that when you look into the mirror that you can stand what you see staring back at you. We will see you for what you are. It’s not pretty.

Senate Bill 1867 Sections 1031 and 1032

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Sometimes cleverness is a valuable trait and sometimes it’s just more bullshit. In this case, I revise my earlier statement about the ACLU claiming that S.1253 could lead to the indefinite incarceration of US Citizens in light that the actual bill has been resubmitted and altered as S.1867. It would have been helpful to know that this bill was what the ACLU was carrying on about and not S.1253.

So what is the problem with S.1867. Section 1031 LACKS the paragraph that S.1253 Section 1031 had. In both bills, 1032 still has it’s prohibition however the difference is quite upsetting.

According to OpenCongress.org the bill is still being considered by the Senate. It is important to clear up the confusion between these two bills. It appears that S.1253 is dead and S.1867 is moving forward.

Now that the confusion has cleared up, the ACLU was correct to raise an alarm for S.1867, but not for S.1253. These bill numbers are important!

Senate Bill 1253 Sections 1031 and 1032

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I caught myself in a mistake that I’m trying to correct. I accidentally shared a link to a web article that states that Senate Bill 1253 (Also apparently Senate Bill 1867) which is called the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 has two sections which have everyone really bent out of shape, including me, erroneously, until I READ THE BILL.

Section 1031 has most peoples attention, the bill text excerpt online lacks a vital section that exists in the raw material of the bill itself. For this I blame THOMAS at the Library of Congress for omitting it.

Section 1031’s Prohibition

20 (d) CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATION ON APPLICA-
21 BILITY TO UNITED STATES PERSONS.—The authority to
22 detain a person under this section does not extend to the
23 detention of citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United
24 States on the basis of conduct taking place within the
1 United States except to the extent permitted by the Con-
2 stitution of the United States.

Last I checked the only exception that I can reason out is the set of laws established by the US Constitution. I have lived quite well under those old laws and I don’t see how this text has ANY wriggle room to do what the ACLU claims it does.

Section 1032’s Prohibition

(b) REQUIREMENT INAPPLICABLE TO UNITED
12 STATES CITIZENS.—The requirement to detain a person
13 in military custody under this section does not extend to
14 citizens of the United States.

This one is utterly inescapable. It’s printed in BLACK AND WHITE. I can’t for the life of me see how either section would enable the government to indefinitely incarcerate any US Citizen at all. Such a thing would be a gross violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, to say nothing of violating the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution!

After reading this blog, which pretty much states what I see as a gross display of fear-mongering by the ACLU and adherence to the bombastic bullshit claims that this bill somehow puts our civil liberties at risk. The text is clear for both sections, if you read the text itself!

I did a cursory search on Google for the phrase S.1253 and there are just too many sites all repeating the same bombastic bullshit. Claiming that the ACLU knows, or that Lindsey Graham said this or that, but nobody can show me in the text where the proof of their argument lies. I have read the bill and those two paragraphs, for both sections seem to me to be perfectly acceptable when it comes to protecting my civil liberties as a US Citizen.

If I am right, that means that the ACLU is guilty of misleading the public and engaging in misinformation. If that is the case, I can’t trust anything else they say because if they lied once, what proof could there possibly be that they are honest about anything else? They put their necks on the line over this bill. Frankly, just the fact that I doubt the ACLU’s veracity on this subject makes me reject everything else they say – but when it comes to the court of public opinion, if they are caught, it could ruin their credibility.

iOS Newsstand

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On my way to Grand Rapids with Scott I decided to investigate the new Newsstand feature in iOS 5. I had downloaded three magazines, Comic Heroes, Men’s Fitness, and Mac Format. I opened Newsstand and started to look through the issues I downloaded. I was under the impression that I had at least a free sample.

Boy was I wrong! These “Free” issues were just stub-apps with more prices and a place to subscribe. This fails to reflect the way people usually buy magazines at brick and mortar stores. You can open up a magazine and browse before buying. Can’t do that in iOS!

So it’s a gyp. A bait-and-switch and now it’s tarnished what piddling interest I had in those aforementioned magazines. It’s also tarnished the Newsstand über-app as well. It’s really just a trap. It baits you with free and then thumbs its nose at you with a crass subscription ask or a expensive per-issue price.

It’s simple enough to ignore Newsstand completely now. I had piddling interest in magazines anyways. All the content, really good, fresh, relevant content is on Flipboard or Google Reader, or hell, even Safari! Better yet, those options have a great price tag, free.