Oscars 2010 Predictions

'Cuz why not?

Picture: Hurt Locker (why fight it?)
Actor: Colin Firth (about time)
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz (such a good bad guy)
Actress: Meryl Streep (doesn't she always win?)
Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick (plucky twist on type who caused the current financial ruin)
Animated: Up (Avatar not eligible?)
Director: Hurt Locker (see #1)
Adapted Screenplay: An Education (voters love sexy smart)
Original Screenplay: Inglorious Bastards (Tarantino goes crazy in such a terrific manner)

What are your predictions? Send them to me at @billsaysthis.

My morning in (small claims) court

To cut to the chase, I don't know the outcome since the commissioner feels the need to review plaintiff's submitted documents.

Last summer I made the poor decision to do some hourly computer work for a person I thought was a friend. To say it turned into a nightmare that is hopefully now going to end is an understatement.

This person initially asked me to show how to use Twitter, Facebook, clean up some old stuff on an existing computer and see why backups were apparently not working. However just before I got to the office the additional request of selecting and setting up a new netbook was added.

Over several weeks I did 25 hours of work, though really we never got to the initial requests as getting a working netbook kept getting in the way. To put this politely, I reached the tolerance limit for working in an increasingly negative environment.

Some weeks later I started getting emails requesting additional help and then a refund of most of the small fee I'd charged. I refused but as the emails (and snarky remarks when we happened to be in the same place) kept coming in, despite my repeated requests to leave me be, I unfortunately got increasingly negative in response.

On a number of occasions this person threatened to sue me. Finally a month or so ago I was served and today was the specified appointment.

Small claims is interesting, and generally a good idea. You don't tie up real courts and require expensive legal assistance to resolve small dollar value claims. There are even volunteer mediators who attempt to get parties to settle without going before the judge.

The process is also informal: the plaintiff makes a statement, the defendant makes a statement, if either side brings a witness those people make statements and each side can make a rebuttal. The judge can ask questions at any point he or she deems fit.

The person suing me brought a thick volume of printouts--amusingly this person was suing their homeowners association as well and gave the judge the wrong set of documents--while I brought none.

What really surprised me is how differently the plaintiff and I recall the events in question. Memory is so subjective! Of course I believe I told the truth and I won't say the plaintiff feels different about their statements. The plaintiff brought a witness, a mutual friend, but I think his testimony helped me as much as it did the plaintiff.

I hope the decision goes in my favor since of course I feel I did nothing wrong. Also, I did some research on the State of California website and couldn't find any legal basis for the plaintiff's claim so there's that too.

posted at 11:10 AM

As 2009 passes to the rear

So 2009 is ending, and more with a petering out than excitement and cheer. I'm in a summing up mood, so here goes.

Sydney: This little puppy has definitely been a high point. He is very 2009, sporting his own albeit not too active Twitter account. Five months old now so probably close to his full growth at about a dozen totally cute pounds. He needs to learn to stop whimpering incessantly to try and get what he wants.

Kachingle: This startup has been another one for the plus column. I really enjoyed spending a few months writing heads-down Rails code and am now in the marketing team, as originally intended. If I got one holiday wish I would use it to get the angel funding round we're actively seeking--if you know anyone looking to invest in a very new, web-oriented revenue system please speak up!

Family: Everyone is in reasonably good health or better. Mom and Dad are enjoying life in the Princeton area, though we didn't get to see them this year due to work and scheduling issues. Joanne, Larry and Jake got a new custom-built house but had to postpone the trip here this coming week as my bro got a last minute work emergency he had to stay and clear. We finally saw most of TS1's siblings the week before last--hope to meet our first grandnephew soon!

House: Put in a new fence back in February but didn't start on the new landscaping. With luck this will get going in February or March. With help from the Big Guy I put in some floor-level venting in the garage, which got us a major reduction in the flood insurance. Obama gave us a hand too, with his mortgage program getting us a 75 basis point rate reduction.

JHTC and Volunteering: Not sure where I'll score this. We had 12 really good monthly events but the board is having serious communication issues that brought me down a lot throughout the year. My planned rewrite of the website in Rails didn't get finished. And 2010 membership renewals are just not happening, sadly. On a positive note I had a couple of meetings at the beautiful new Oshman Family JCC and will be helping as they rebuild their web presence.

Travel: Besides not going to Jersey in June we didn't take a single plane ride or stay in any hotels. For 2010 we have to get to see my folks and are looking for a dog-friendly California resort to use our timeshare week, preferably in the Summer.

I hope you and your loved ones are happy and healthy and become only more so in the new year. L'chaim!

posted at 11:00 AM

You cannot know me

[Haven't posted a new poem in a while...]

You cannot know me
You cannot breach the wall
Of the Universe which
Separates me from you

A camel is more likely to
Sashay through a needle's eye
No words shouted loudly or
Seared into another's skin

Confusion sadly is part and parcel
Questions go unanswered
Philosophical investigations trail
Off unto nothingness and always will

You cannot know me
Men and women, tine after tine
Have spent their lengthy lives
Wasted in contemplation

What can you know?
What do you see and hear?
What are you able to do?
What do you feel deep within?

posted at 3:37 PM

Meet Sydney, our new puppy

Sydney is a two month old Dachshund/Terrier mix, about 8 lbs. so far, who we adopted yesterday at the Silicon Valley Humane Society. They have a beautiful facility in Milpitas and the staff are great. We've signed up for the Puppy 1 training and socialization class starting Tuesday. He's already good about going outside and understands No.

So happy to have this new member of our family!

posted at 11:40 AM

Email Clients: Please join us in the 21st Century

Sorry but I am just fed up. Mail.app, Outlook, Thunderbird, all of them are stuck in the past and the developers need to get their acts together before users collectively hunt them down for silly slapping.

Dear email client developers,

Your software runs on these machines called "computers." Please write your software to use their functionality. Here are three improvements I offer at no charge which, as a programmer, seem not that difficult to implement. Do two and you're my pal, do three and I will buy you dinner.

I should be able to designate a default account from which to send messages on a per contact or per domain basis; messages to co-workers should come from my work account, messages to mailing lists should come from the account subscribed to that list.

Spam is a huge headache. However if I mark a message as not spam I should be able to indicate the sender address should from then on be considered not spam, without adding the sender to my contact list.

In this era of multiple email accounts unified inboxes are great. But many people write rules to get messages sorted to other folders. So how about making it easy to see all unread messages in one place regardless of account and folder?

Feel free to follow up with questions or comments on Twitter.

Your ardent admirer,

Bill

posted at 9:55 AM

US Soccer, FIFA Rankings and the new US Invitational

From SpoFi today one of my compadres commented: "I'm not sure there's a good way to produce rankings for a sport where teams might face each other in competitive games no more often than every four years, and usually much less than that, but I am sure that if there is a way FIFA haven't found it yet."

You have to start with the fact that most games--the competitive ones which count--are against the other countries in the same region. So other than Mexico and with less consistency Costa Rica and Honduras the US do not play too much quality opposition outside of the World Cup. We rack up points against the Cubas, Canadas and Jamaicas towards FIFA's scoring system.

Some people claim that to significantly improve our national team MLS need to switch to a European calendar (with a Scandinavian-style winter break) but MLS has never agreed. Adding teams in Toronto, Seattle, Portland and Vancouver recently make such a change even less likely. MLS promotion/relegation is another popular idea that will go nowhere in our lifetimes.

Instead I think US Soccer should push CONCACAF to put the Gold Cup on a four year schedule like the Euro and then in the vacated year organize a new tournament: the US Invitational.

Invite seven big national teams to play in the USI at our best stadiums. Everyone gets a big payday--just look at the huge attendance at the club friendlies and Gold Cup matches last month--its TV friendly and, for us, gets the US quality regular intercontinental competition.

The tournament would need to avoid being seen as competing with the Confederations Cup, easily done by simply not inviting the other continental association champions. Similar to how the Europa League takes the teams who just missed the Champions League (sort of). Say Argentina, Chile, England, Russia, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Australia.

Does anyone have Sunil Gulati's phone number? This could be up and running in 2013 or 2015 and, having had some organizational experience, I'd be glad to give a helping hand.

posted at 10:31 AM

The Truth About the Health Care Debate

The current Democratic-back health care legislation has induced more rhetoric, emotion and disinformation since the Swift Boat Campaign. A very apt comparison since there's about as much truth in the opposition in both. "Death panels" please! Like a politician would do something so utterly guaranteed to lose votes.

Beyond the baying (of both side, by now, to be sure) are hopefully some truths.

Spending in America on health-related goods and services is growing at a painful rate. Pundits have said we'll soon be a nation of burger flippers and baristas but I think the more accurate forecast is for a nation of doctors, nurses and billing office clerks. And the government bureaucrats who regulate them.

Second, people without health insurance cost the system a lot more than people realize. Under current law hospitals generally must care for someone without concern of his or her ability to pay so the uninsured wait until they're too sick to deal with it themselves and show up at the emergency room.

Who exactly do you think pays to make up for this?

One consequence of this waiting is that uninsured sick people are far more likely to spread any infectious disease. This is the same thing as a sick co-worker showing up because she's "too dedicated." Next week half the office are ill and productivity is shot; plus this effect follows on as the co-workers infect family and others with whom they interact.

Working uninsured people are far more likely to have jobs that pay by the hour and if they can't afford insurance, how can they afford to miss a day's work/pay?

So directly and indirectly allowing nearly 50 million Americans to be uninsured is a mistake, costing the rest of us money and our own health.

Let's not forget about the moral component of the issue. Most of the opposition to the public option seems to be coming from conservative Republicans and these people overwhelmingly self-identify as deeply religious. All of their Bibles (and Torahs and Korans) speak of the need to show compassion, to care for a brother in need.

I'm not claiming that the current bill is a panacea. Written by politicians and lobbyists, that would be impossible and anyway I'm no expert to suggest a better solution.

What I do know is that the current environment, with politicians and pundits making up whatever nasty shit they think is needed to defeat a major Obama initiative regardless of how good or bad it might be for the country, is sad and self-defeating.

Our current culture is like some spreadsheet model where the analyst is trying optimize every variable. Tweak, tweak, a little more extreme here, a little more extreme there. Boom, you have AIG, Lehman and the economic meltdown, where no common sense at all was allowed to intrude. Bam, you have national politics where where every issue must be won or, most aptly, every opponent must be defeated.

Truth? Phhhhhh!

posted at 9:37 AM

EPL starts tomorrow and the fantasy league is on!

As usual SportsFilter is having its own league, plus I put my team in Ives Galarcep's SBI league and Michael Romero's Liverpool fans league.

The players I'm launching with are

Goal: Mark Schwarzer/Fullham

Defense: Bret Hangeland/Fullham, Ryan Shawcross/Stoke City, Maynor Figueroa/Wigan

Midfield: Steven Gerrard (Captain)/Liverpool, Frank Lampard/Chelsea, Dirk Kuyt/Liverpool, Jon Obi Mikel/Chelsea

Forwards: Jozy Altidore/Hull, Fernando Torres/Liverpool, Bobby Zamora/Fullham

Subs: Tomas Sorenson/Stoke City, Phil Neville/Everton, Kamil Zayatte/Hull, Michael Turner/Hull

Note that the fantasy rules limit selections to three players per club, one must select two keepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three strikers, and at least three defenders must be played.

Last year I dropped a few slots to 10th in the SpoFi league, mostly due to not having Cristiano Ronaldo as my captain when most others did but as he's on holiday in Spain this should be less of a problem.

I'm hopeful of recovering my 'Champions League' position of two seasons ago as Stevie, El Nino and Dirk bring goals and gold to Anfield!

posted at 9:21 AM

Wells Fargo #fail

Do you know that Wells Fargo will take any reason to switch retail customers to online only statements?

If there are two people on an account and one chooses online only statements and the other chooses online and paper (the only two options), Wells Fargo will force the account to be online only. Even though the other choose is more inclusive and customer-friendly.
Customer are asked constantly, nearly every time one logs in to their online system, to switch to online only statements. I mean for years on and on. I guess its too much to think that answering a question once, or maybe twice, would be good enough.

Forget about trying to get a straight answer from the customer service reps. I don't blame the individuals, they're only following instructions handed down from on high, but since customers can only speak with the front line reps I guess we're stuck.

posted at 2:15 PM