PsychicGoldfish Telepathic Transmissions

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

C is for Cookie. That's good enough for me.

Girl Scout Cookies apparently arrive today. At least, there is a box of peanut butter sandwich cookies on the break room table, emblazoned with the Girl Scout logo and various ethnically mixed smiling girls doing outdoorsy things. Why don't I ever remember these things when the order form comes by? I always end up with a box of Thin Mints. And, hey, don't get me wrong, Thin Mints rock. But I always end up eating one or two peanut butter sandwich cookies each year, and wishing I had another box or two full.

This year was no exception. I was fortunate, in that I was able to claim two from the rapidly dwindling supply. And they were good. They're always good. I slowly nibbled on my peanut butter sandwich cookies, trying to make them last. But, inevitably, they were gone. It was only two small cookies, after all.

Then I sat there for another five or ten minutes, making a half-assed effort at editing book specifications (the bane of my existence) and worrying the last of the peanut-buttery goodness from the roof of my mouth with my tongue. Finally, even that was gone, and I was left with nothing but the fond memory, and the wish for more. But, alas, the break room supply was depleted.

So, with heavy heart and fond memories of cookie goodness, I said a silent thanks to my nameless cookie benefactor and got back to work. I grabbed my red pen and bent over the 2" thick stack of laser printed pages.

Then, I spied something out of the corner of my eye. It was a dime-sized crumb of peanut butter cookie, resting demurely atop my spare tire. Joyously, I plucked the delicious morsel from my shirt and popped it in my mouth. I sat for 30 seconds in pure bliss, as this farewell bit of confectionary wonder melted in my mouth. "Goodbye, my fried," it seemed to say as it danced a final waltz with my taste buds. "I'll see you next year!"

I suppose some would say I'm a slob. I'd have to agree. But only the true slob may know the joy of the unexpected last bite of cookie, the hidden morsels secreted on his clothing, waiting for later discovery. Long live the slobs!

Posted at 11:55 AM

Monday, February 16, 2004

As Seen on TV!

If you haven't seen this viral video already, you might want to take a look before the mirror goes down. It's kind of amusing. (It was originally hosted at the Therion Arms website, before the bandwidth costs killed it.) It starts with a Shop at Home Network salesman extolling the virtues of a cheap stainless steel katana. To demonstrate its strength, he smacks it against a wooden table top several times. It breaks in half, and the broken end bounces up and stabs him in the gut. Hilarity ensues.

Therion Arms hosted the video for a week, as a cautionary example about the inferiority of stainless steel display-only swords. And the point is a good one. While stainless is nice for display pieces, because it doesn't rust, it's too brittle for any serious abuse.

But this video is hardly a fair test. The salesman took a sword in a two-handed grip, and slammed the flat of it against the edge of a heavy wooden counter top. I'd be hesitant to do that with any sword, much less one sold for $44.95 on the home shopping network. The guy was just a moron. I consider this evolution in action, not a scathing indictment of the use of stainless steel in display-quality swords.

That being said, I can attest to the fact that these particular swords are crap. I actually bought a pair at a gun show a few years ago, for $10 each. They came in large, cheerfully painted boxes labelled "Hunting Knife," presumably to avoid the tariffs on sharp swords. It was identical, down to the ill-fitting cloth wrapped red and black scabbard. And it was equally fragile, although I put it to a somewhat fairer test. For some reason I cannot now recall, I got it in my head to try to bisect a Coke can with this marvel of the swordsmith's art. So I found a piece of plywood, setup the can on top of it, and wound up for for a mighty overhand slash. This was the result.

I completely missed the can, and struck a solid blow on the plywood instead. With an almost musical chime, the blade snapped in two, forcing me to quickly adopt my famous Cowardly Flamingo defensive stance. (With the left side facing the threat, balance on the right foot. Draw the left knee up such that the thigh protects the vitals. Bring the right forearm across to protect the chest, and the left forearm up to protect the head. Turn face away from threat and squeeze eyes shut. Terrified yelps are optional. It's surprisingly ineffective, and oh so manly.) After indulging in about five minutes of cussing, I located both parts of the sword and examined them closely. Aside from the break itself, the blade was riddled with tiny hairline cracks. The second, unbroken sword turned out to be similarly defective. In short, they are utter crap.

You may ask yourself "Who cares?" And I agree. So I have some shoddy swords that break just like the ones on TV. So what? But, when I saw this film for the first time, I immediately felt the urge to tell everyone about it. I think I've located the core of the Home Shopping phenomenon. It's the "As Seen on TV" syndrome. I own a piece of TV history, by owning a broken cheapass katana just like the one that stabbed that guy on TV. I'm kind of proud of that, in a perverse sort of way.

Posted at 11:53 AM

Sunday, February 15, 2004

Does anyone else think this is a really bad idea? Some folks are trying to come up with a system to analyze your voice stress characteristics to determine when you're upset and frustrated. They want to integrate it into telephone help lines. The idea is design a system to "detect callers' frustration and transfer them to a human operator." Does anyone else think this is a terrifically stupid idea? I mean, aside from the myriad technical problems (such as background noise, accents, differing cultural and personal reactions to stress, etc.) the human factors on both ends will doom it to ultimate failure.

Let's assume, for a moment, that the system is flawless. It's able to determine, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, that a caller screaming things like "Five! Five, dammit!" or "Die you soulless demon from the bowels of hell!" is probably upset with the automated telephone process. It immediately transfers the irate caller to the live operator queue... Where he's told "Your call is important to us. The next operator will be available in twenty five minutes." Is this better for his nerves than navigating the menus system (where he might, incidentally, find an adequate automated solution)? Surely they wouldn't design a system to bump angry callers to the front of the line, would they? Imagine the chaos as calmer customers get bumped further and further back, until they, too, lose their tempers, thus guaranteeing that no call is from a non-frustrated caller.

So then we have a caller bumped into the queue from some random point in the automated menu system. He's already upset, and he's forced to listen to the muzak version of The Captain & Tennille's "Muskrat Love" for ten minutes straight, interrupted by automated assurances of the importance of his call every 45 seconds. Not a significant improvement in the situation, save for the fact that he's now flagged as an irate customer on the operator's screen.

Now, we all know how this works. The average helpline operator would rather peel the skin off his thigh with a Spam key than pick up a call from yet another angry customer. If it's a phone farm, where the employee has no control over what calls he takes, the operator will be forced to answer anyway. Right off the bat, we've got a pissed off caller. We also have a surly phone operator who knows even before he picks up the phone he's going to have to deal with someone who was so angry and upset that he couldn't even deal with the menu system. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. We've all had helpline situations where we finally lost it and got angry with the operator. Did it ever, ever help? No, of course not. It just encouraged the operator to be as sarcastic and unhelpful as possible in return. At least with the blind system, the operator enters the transaction on a neutral footing. (Barring whatever residual resentment he may have for being forced into a job answering phones to begin with.)

But what if it's a small shop, like say the tech support at your local ISP? Forget about it. If the "angry caller" light turns on, you can pretty much guarantee the call will be left on hold until the next ice age. Of course, there's an easy solution. Just don't tell the operator in advance that the system has detected that the next call is from an angry customer... And hope he never finds out that the company has installed this brand new system, but still lets him get blindsided by abusive callers a dozen times a day.

What about the times when there is stiff competition for a limited number of operators, such as lunch hour on a weekday? The guy that loses his temper first jumps immediately to the live operator queue, ahead of other folks that remain calm and run through the menu system as designed. Does this seem fair? Should the system reward jerks with foul mouths and short fuses?

But what happens if the average caller learns that this telephonic mood ring system is installed at his local bank, or credit card company, or utility? We've already seen that any shortcut will be abused. How many times have you or someone you know just tapped the 0 key until a human voice appears? Now, everyone will start out his automated call by screaming obscenities into the handset, in hopes of bypassing the entire system and getting a live operator. Thus, the entire concept is nullified right off the bat, and in a particularly nasty and dehumanizing way. The fastest way to succeed is to yell swear words into your telephone!

All of this is assuming the system is being used as intended. But what if the technology is abused, in the name of progress? I already mentioned the temptation to ignore or abuse callers that trigger the angry caller subroutine. But what if the system itself starts reacting to the caller's frustration? "Please calm down, sir or madame. Your call is important to us. Please answer the question." That would go down well. Or maybe some marketing flack decides it would be a good idea to tie it into something else? "We sense that you are angry. Please take a moment to answer this short survey to tell us how we can improve. Your call will resume when the survey is complete. One a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is worst and 7 is best, how would you rate..." Certainly a hierarchy of operators and response systems would be developed. A new form of tech support would arise. One expressly designed to deal with irate callers, complete with their own condescending and immutable flowcharts, manned by surly operators who deal with nothing but electronically selected irate customers all day long. Use your imagination, and I'm sure you can think of other ways for the system to be abused in the name of dubious progress.

All things considered, I find myself rooting for this particular technology to fail.

Posted at 11:51 AM

Friday, February 06, 2004

Clearly, I am unable to engage rationale thought during certain activities. Sometimes, I operate solely off of pre-recorded macros, whether they're appropriate or not.

For example, yesterday I put money out for the yard guys. This is done in a very simple fashion. Get the money (cash please, no checks), shove it in an envelope, seal the envelope, scribble "Lopez Lawn Service" on the front, and hang it from the existing nail on the front door for pickup the next morning. No problem.

A few days ago, I bought a new box of envelopes. I found the kind with the already-sticky adhesive on it, in order to avoid the foul taste of envelope glue. You just rip off the strip of waxed paper covering the glue, and you're good to go. Simple, right? Couldn't be easier.

Yesterday, armed with a new fangled envelope, I set out to prepare the money for the lawn guys.

##########

Initiate Macro "Leave Money for Lawn Care Service."

Get $25 out of my wallet. Check.

Place it in the envelope. Check.

Seal it. Error! Error! The flap won't stay shut. And I don't taste glue. Analyze: You just licked the strip of wax paper!

Seal it, take two. Laugh at myself. Rip the strip off of the flap. Seal the envelope. Error! Error! The flap of the envelope is now stuck to my tongue. Analyze: You just licked the already-sticky adhesive!

Seal it, take three. Carefully peel the adhesive off of my tongue. Grit teeth and try to remember that, yes, it is already sticky. Fold flap over and press to seal. Check!

Error! Error! Macro interrupted!

Okay. What do I do now? The envelope is sealed. Hold it up to the light. Yes, there's money in there. Two bills. Try to remember if I grabbed a five and a twenty from my wallet, or took two twenties from the back. Error! Error! Memory access failure!

Retrieve wallet. Try to remember how much money I had inside it before starting this mess. Error! Error! Memory access failure!

Sigh in exasperation and rip open the envelope to reveal a twenty and a five. Try to decide if this means I had more money in my wallet than I thought, or less. Give up after convincingly arguing both sides of the debate with myself.

Obtain another envelope. Reinitiate macro.

Get $25. I have $25 dollars in a ruined envelope. Remove from old envelope, place in new. Check.

Seal it. Pause with envelope halfway to my mouth. Sigh again. Rip strip of waxed paper from adhesive. Close flap. Check.

Now we're making progress! Take the envelope to the front door. Punch a hole in the corner with a thumbtack. Press door nail through hole. Find the tape dispenser where I left it, affixed to the combination bulletin/marker board inside the front door expressly for this purpose. Take a strip of tape approximately three inches long, and affix it across the corner of the envelope to prevent it from falling off of nail.

Hang envelope on door. Check.

Close door. Macro "Leave Money for Lawn Care Service" complete.

Error! Error! Analyze: Did you put the name of the lawncare service on the envelope? Open door and examine envelope. The envelope is blank.

Write name of service on envelope. Error! Error! Analyze: Is it "Lopez" or "Gomez?" Memory access failure! Query: Does it matter? Yes. It is bad to get names wrong, and another lawncare service serves this area. Proper name will avoid potential confusion.

Sigh. Slam door. Go to bedroom to find business card. Verify name: "Lopez Brothers Lawn Service." Stomp back to front door. Whip door open. Lunge for door to prevent doorknob from striking wall.

Write name of service on envelope. Error! Error! Analyze: Previous macro "Come Home from Work" required removal of pens from shirt pocket upon entry to domicile.

Growl. Retrieve cheap pen from notepad beside answering machine. Return to door.

Write name of service on envelope. Error! Error! Analyze: Cheap pen will not write sideways. Hold envelope horizontally. Scrawl "Lopez Lawn Service" in childlike block letters as I use my left hand for a writing surface. Flatten envelope back against door. Press tape more securely. Check.

Close door. Return pen to notepad by answering machine.

Macro "Leave Money for Lawn Care Service" complete (with errors).

##########

Today, I'm stealing some conventional lick-to-seal envelopes from the supply room.

Posted at 2:45 PM

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