Category: Commentary
This is part 2 of my “Electric Car” series. I knew I wanted an electric car this time. The obvious choice was a Tesla Model 3, almost universally praised for its driving dynamics, range, software, and purchase experience. But you know what? I don’t want a Tesla. And a car, for me, is more than […]
A long time ago, I abandoned AT&T for the crimson-tinted waters of Comcast. They offered faster service, and they didn’t directly try to hoist a fraudulent contract on me. However, AT&T came around about a year ago with an offer a nerd can’t resist. Symmetrical, uncapped, 1 Gbps residential fiber-to-the-home. No strings attached. No requirements […]
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Lies, damn lies, and AT&T reps
This comment by a FB friend on my post about leaving AT&T made me think. That wasn’t the first time I heard lies from AT&T reps, especially retention reps. If I have to guess, the basic explanation of why this happens is pretty obvious. (Warning: complete speculation forthcoming). Retention reps are paid to retain customers. […]
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AT&T doesn’t get it
I’ve been a pretty happy AT&T customer for many years. They’ve never been the cheapest (some MVNO, as of this writing), they’ve never been famous for their network (Verizon, probably), but for me they worked reliably day after day after day. Billing was arcane, but reasonably predictable. As long as I didn’t have to meddle […]
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The OMICS group strikes again
The OMICS group is still trolling for scientists to join their high-quality events. The latest is an invitation to Cosmetology 2014, a “Dermatology” conference where all of the speakers are cosmetics and hair salon CEOs. I’m sure I could come speak to them. After all, they probably want to hear me talk about academic metrics, […]
The predatory publishers on Beall’s List keep looking for scientists to spam. The newest tactic is a beauty – just connect to people on LinkedIn. I got the request this morning. I took a screenshot from my phone. Yes, “OMICS Publishing Group” is featured on Beall’s List. They send me a lot of spam. As […]
I can honestly say that I’ve never thought of myself as a flower. Perhaps that’s why an invitation to join the editorial board of a journal in “the bouquet of STM JOURNALS” [sic] doesn’t really speak to me. Or perhaps it’s because STM is on Beall’s list, and their invitation doesn’t quite ring true. It […]
This is the state of my Lync problem as of today. Yes, I changed the background. The rest looks the same. Bounce, bounce, login, crash. I never stopped to think about this before, but if you’re Microsoft, people obviously blame you for everything wrong with their computer. Dodgy hardware crashes Windows? Microsoft sucks! A pirated […]
These last few days I’ve had a few unpleasant run-ins with support for different companies. These were not the result of mean people, but of uncaring and somewhat incompetent companies. Today I’ll be mocking the software titan, Microsoft. I use Microsoft Lync a lot at work. It’s a good IM solution, and used to work […]