You want customer service? Go f*#& yourself. How's that?

First let me start by saying that flicman's post helped spark today's rant.

Telecoms, car insurance companies, and potentially worst of all, health insurance companies - these businesses hide behind their size in order to make it nearly impossible to speak to anyone with any sort of accountability. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "I'm sorry sir, there's nothing I can do" followed up by some sort of line about company policy. That, and it's complete bullshit. They're not sorry at all. And neither are their supervisors, or their supervisors' supervisors. They want you to think that no one short of the god-damned CEO can make any sort of real decisions, and even then not without approval of the board and majority stock holders. Bullshit. My health insurance company has decided to throw back hundreds of dollars of physical therapy bills to me that they decided not to pay - and this is after I've already paid my share - but no one, not a single useless person I've talked to, has any helpful information to give me about why this is, or how I can go about arguing these additional charges. But as useless as these customer service reps are, it's not necessarily their fault. Most times the companies are structured that way to intentionally make it nearly impossible to argue or change anything the consumer disagrees with.

I recently talked with AT&T (formerly SBC) about an incomprehensible phone and internet bill that had miraculously nearly doubled last month, and while the rep was very friendly and helpful, informed me that he has a much more complete version of my bill, and that customers aren't allowed to get a copy of that easy-to-understand summary. Is that not one of the more devious and screwed up things in customer service? I mean, I'm a phucking physicist and I couldn't make sense of a goddamn telephone and internet bill, even once the charges were explained to me. Without talking to the rep with the complete bill and account history, there was no way I could be sure about the reason certain charges were included in the bill, or even what months they were for, in some cases. Intentional obfuscation in billing and customer service pisses me off to no end.

Unfortunately, it's not just large companies that manage to make a joke out of customer service. I have had my motorcycle at a mechanic's shop - arguably the best motorcycle mechanic in Houston - for nearly four weeks for minor repairs and paint, and have yet to receive a single call from them. I've initiated every instance of contact, often days after I was promised a call or some sort of information about cost, delays, and paint colors. Obviously when someone who's working for your money promises to call back, it seems that it would be a good business practice to actually do it. But what the hell, once someone has information on you and can threaten your credit or withhold your property, basic manners and good business practices go out the window. And for years, in companies big and small, I've seen no evidence to disprove that customer service is dead.

...Eternally Wars

Like the signature on an apocalyptic love letter, the message that the Bush administration has been driving into the psyche of the American public is that the "War on Terror" is an ongoing battle that justifies any government action deemed necessary to guarantee the safety of American citizens around the globe. Don't do anything that could possibly compromise any of those "protective" measures, either - and of course don't question them - or you're personally threatening American lives. I see so many inherent problems in this line of thinking that I just don't know where to start. Fear-inciting governments? Gross abuses of power? Multiple intelligence leaks? Irresponsible blame-shifting? The devaluation of non-American lives? So I'll start with what incited today's rant, instead.

Friday's New York Times story (similarly in the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal) disclosed a secret CIA program operating since shortly after 9/11/2001 that collects confidential financial records and data maintained by a Belgian cooperative said to be a nerve center for international banking. Needless to say, Bush and other supporters of Big Brother government are righteously pissed, with Representative King (R-NY) calling for criminal investigations of the NY and LA Times as well as the WSJ. While of course the administration claims that everything that they're doing is simply for the good of the American public and entirely legal, you have to question why, exactly, officials directly involved in the exposed programs would have strong enough discomfort about the programs' legality and oversight to take such risks as talking with the media. I know that mainstream media is all about generating hype and controversy, but there's got to be a lot of truth in this story for everyone to be so upset about it.

This brings me to the first point that everyone's talking about, so I'll just touch on it briefly. What constitutes irresponsible reporting, and how does the public's right to know - a basic tenet of democracy and effectively freedom of speech - measure up to the government's power's and responsibility to defend the public from threats? All I'm going to say is that in my opinion, a public isn't worth defending that would gladly forefit it's rights of information to support that safety. While I'd rather be the farmer than the sheep, I'd rather still we all were famers with no sheep to sheer, and full knowledge of all the wolves and other threats that surround and infuse us. That's a bit corny, but you get the idea.

On to the appropriately-placed second point. This Swift story is the second exposure of questionable (to put it euphemistically) practices by intelligence and security agencies under the auspices of finding and tracking terrorists and their organizations. Of course these methods aren't going to work as well if everyone knows about them, but I highly doubt that they then become entirely useless. More importantly, what was viewed by many of the nearly 20 unnamed officials to speak with the NY Times as an initially necessary yet temporary measure after 9/11 has turned into a permanent practice, even though its implementation was based partly on the president's emergency economic powers. Is the U.S. still in a time of emergency? I don’t think so. You must have a strange definition of the word if you think we are. Are we still under threat? Of course. Have there been two years since the inception of our nation that there hasn’t been a threat of some sort or another? No.

The question is, then, how much of a threat is the country under, and does it warrant the kind of sugar-coated gross abuses of power that the government sells as doctrine every chance it gets? The culture of fear that has been shoved down our throats since 9/11 has now just become a part of our daily diet. Yes, yes, of course there’s a horrible omnipresent terrorist threat that will kill us all if our big brother government doesn’t use all it’s available powers (and some formerly illegal ones, but he said they’re legal now so it’s okay) to protect us – but only if we’re supportive American citizens. We’ve heard it all a million times before. Now shut up and let me get back to watching American Idol. Do whatever you need to do – just don’t interrupt me.

(The whole Ameri-centric-ness-ocity-ism-ness of the majority of public statements also really bugs me, but as I’ve already tried to cram about 5 essays worth of topics into one increasingly lengthy rant, I’ll have to get to it later.)

So, before I prematurely wrap up this unfortunately long rant, let me find my way back to the title. All this fear-based governance has been with us so long already, that it’s becoming a bore. While that usually spells the end of a movement for the increasingly ADHD American public, it seems that the practices will continue, unfortunately. All that’s going to change is the fervor and frequency of the fear-based battle cry of justification. What has me thinking about all this is the number of times you hear the President and his administration saying that we’re at war. Most of the time, the topic is terrorism, but the war they reference is in Iraq. The “War on Terror” is a war just as much as the “War on Drugs” is a war. Calling it a war is almost comically arrogant. Which one is deadlier? Illegal drugs have killed so many more people than terrorists, yet no president has ever even asked for emergency powers during that war. Based on the Bush administration, Reagan should have been exercising emergency executive privileges in order to protect American lives from the unprecedented threat of illegal drugs. Is this “war” on terror that much different? It’s just as futile, just as unending, and is being approached in a manner that is just as stupid as the “war” on drugs. It’s not going to end, especially if the current administration and the prevailing right-wing power base have anything to say about it. War is good for those in power, and as long as we continue to sit on our butts and accept everything we’re fed, It’ll be

Eternally Wars,
AJ

U.S. Decency Standards - What the F@&!!

In a blatant attempt to boost waning support from the religious and conservative right, the Bush administration has taken another big step down the increasingly steep slope to decidedly undemocratic media censorship. Welcome to Iran, ladies and gentlemen. While increasing fines for indecent material on the few completely regulated sections of the media spectrum might not seem like such a big deal - and it may not be at the moment - it portends a scary future where comedy sketches about Jesus killing Santa Clause are fined into oblivion. This is a post that I started last week, but never had the time to finish. You get the general, though incomplete, idea, and I've got many, many other things to rant about.

Another Photoshop Project

While this one doesn't look as drastically different as the first two, (see a comparison) it was certainly a lot more complicated. It seems I'm learning a thing or two, as well, though I'd still call it a hack job by some standards.

Beginning Photoshop

So like most of you, I'm sure, I have a bunch of pictures that I've taken that didn't turn out exactly the way I'd planned for one reason or another. Maybe the colors didn't come out as vibrantly as they seemed originally, or the background is way too dark or the foreground is washed out. Things like this seem to ruin a good portion of my pictures - granted, I use my little 2MP ghetto digicam - and I'm always a little disappointed when a picture I've set up and actually thought about before snapping comes out looking like crap. So, you get the idea. Here are a couple of my first quick attempts at photoshop-alterations to my crappy little digicam pics. More to follow, I hope, with improvements.

Gay Marriage

I tend to disagree with most things Lou Dobbs says - he can really be a pompous windbag - but at least the main idea of this cnn article gets it right, even if he never even mentions that the idea itself is just a bad one. I mean, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is horrible in even the best of times - it doesn't take other, more "important" issues to make it wrong. It just is. Period. The mere idea of writing fear- and ignorance-based discrimination into our Constitution is insulting to the ideals and individuals that have driven progress over the last two hundred thirty years, and changed our country from a slave-holding colony run by rich male landowners, to a nominally equality-based democracy with the power to change the world. I, for one, am against letting elected officials use that power to undo over two hundred years of social and idealogical progress for their own archaic, personal belief - be it in morality dictated by a higher power or the innate right of those with power to impose their will on the world.

To give credit to Dobbs, though, the main idea of his article is that any wedge issue, gay marriage in this case, is just insulting to the american public when there's so much more going on that might actually be resolved. Wedge issues, even important ones like this, are basically only ever used as tools of political maneuvering. I mean, no one expects this to get the 2/3 vote. No one. Forget that it's a bad idea to begin with, it's just a huge waste of time.

Obligatory Post

Now, I'm fully aware of just how arbitrary our current calendar system is, but it's still kinda cool to point out that today is 6/6/6. I mean, just because some dead guy decided to graduate the passage of the sun around the earth (everything was geocentric back then) into more than five months guarantees that we'll have 6/6/6 at least once a century. But what if a month was 73 days long instead? Arbitrary choice? Yes! But at least each month has the same number of days. Also, there'd never be a sixth month, and so we'd never get to glibly note the passage of 6/6/6, no matter what century. Gotta love arbitrary gradations.

200+ horsepower on 2 wheels

... seems a little out of my league. Okay, a lot out of my league. I hardly ever put the 120+ horsepower of my bike to use, and it's a hell of lot heavier than this Ducati. With a US MSRP of $65,000, I don't think I'll have to worry about that any time soon, though. Egads, that makes me want to go to a track day.

Really want to rant

... but I'm too tired at the moment. In the meantime, get a taste of some similar feelings by reading this wonderful rant. Those who are easily offended, fiercely southern, extremely right wing, or have no sense of humor (funny how those tend to go together) should probably abstain. Or sod off. I don't really care.

Sailing, camping, riding, and broken bikes - Austin

An event-filled weekend road-trip started Friday with a 180 mile ride up 290 with Chris (proud owner of a sweet Ducati 750 Monster) to Lake Travis just outside Austin. April and her dad had a two-day sailing race from the Austin Yacht Club, and a whole group of people went along and made it a fun two days of camping and hanging out on the lake. About 30 miles from Austin, though, the weekend took a decidedly bad turn before it even got started when a guy in a pickup knocked my bike over in a Dairy Queen parking lot. I have no idea how he did't see it, but at least he was helpful and nice, and paid for the minimum repairs it needed to be road-worthy so I could at least finish the trip to Austin. Even though the damage doesn't show up so well in the pics, it'll probably be about a grand in repairs when I can get it into a shop, so he gave me his insurance information and a sincere apology. It certainly made me feel better - what would I have done if he were a complete jerk, or just simply left the scene? The left turn signal was ripped off, front air intake broken, fairing bent and cracked, windscreen support bent, windscreen split, mirrors bent, and one sticking straight up in the air. I could have ridden it, but pieces were literally falling off. It's nice he paid for the immediate repairs and was so helpful about everything. Still, my bike was (and still is) all kinds of messed up and it's just going to be a headache getting the insurance crap all sorted out.

But back to the weekend. Friday night was too hot to get much sleep (at least for an insomniac like me) and left me too tired Saturday to get down to Devil's backbone (about halfway to San Antonio - not insignificant on my quite-uncomfortable sportbike seat) where the roads seem custom made for motorcycles. So Chris and I explored some of the roads between Friday's and Saturday's camp grounds, and found that Lime Creek road is one fo the best in the area. Take a close look at the local map to get an idea of just how insanely winding that road is, with its multiple 15mph curves and fantastic hills. Egads, I want to live in Austin!

Saturday night brought a pretty good storm, soaking a bunch of stuff in the tents thanks to the crazy changes in the wind's direction. At one point I thought the stakes weren't going to hold the wind was so strong. So after another near-sleepless night in the tent and looking at nearly 200 miles back to Houston that evening, the day's ride was a modest 60 mile round-trip to marble falls along 1431 - another great road if there's no traffic. All in all, the weekend was a good time, and I'd do it again, though with a couple of key changes. April and her dad came in 2nd both days, so there's a good chance that they won the overall race, though we're not sure. I'll be sure to update about getting my bike fixed, and post some pics of the weekend soon.

Social and Science Update

Egads, it's been another long while since I've updated this thing. At least it's not completely defunct yet, I suppose. So this weekend was just about completely full of fun. I actually don't know if the laws of phunsics allows for a higher concentration of joviality. The highlights were a 250 mile ride up past Navasota with Chris on Saturday, a bar-hopping night out that evening for Christina's birthday with a bunch of BioEs, and a big 'ol grill and chill event around the pool with many of the same people (and many other people as well) as the previous evening. Sunday's grilling event saw nearly 25 burgers, pounds of chicken and other meats, various veggies, and two or so cases of beer consumed in the four plus hours that people mingled. The grilling and chilling groups pretty much stayed by their respective areas, with the un-heated jacuzzi providing a base for most with bathing suits, except for the rare emergence prompted by the sultry scents wafting off the grills. (We actually had 2 going simultaneously by the end.) It was a complete success, if I do say so myself, though I'll probably do things a little differently next time - and not for another month or so I'd wager.

In other news, this month's issue of National Geographic Magazine has a decent-sized article on nanotechnology. This is pretty cool since it's what I study, but made even better (for me, at least) by the fact that it focuses a lot of attention to work done here at Rice University. There are a bunch of faculty and a few grad students mentioned, and my work on nanocars is even mentioned briefly, with one of my images appearing thumbnail-sized in a little blurb. So please allow me a moment to be excited that my name even appears in print in National Geographic - albeit as a photo-credit in really tiny print at the bottom of the page - before pointing out that no one ever reads those names. Next step - getting my name in full-sized text.

Research Update

Things are going so incredibly slowly in my research efforts, mainly due to my dosing valve. Basically I have to get some rather fragile (can't sublimate) molecules onto a surface from a solution, but I want to keep the surface as clean as possible in the meantime. For this, I want to deposit the molecules in a high vacuum environment. What I've been doing up to this point is to use a valve with a tiny orifice that is electronically actuated and capable of fully opening and closing in fewer than 5 miliseconds. This has succeeded so far in keeping my substrate much cleaner than when depositing in air. The problem now is that the valve isn't closing properly after I dose the solution. What this means is two-fold. First, the pressure in the prep chamber is much higher than is should be, getting the surface dirty and basically negating the benefits of using the valve in the first place. Second, if the pressure doesn't get back down to low enough pressures, I can't put my sample back into the UHV chamber to scan, meaning I have a brand new sample that I can't get to the microscope. AAARGH!! Like a steering wheel in a pirate's pants, it's drivin' me nuts. Pretty soon I'm going to have to go back to depositing in air and looking for a cleaner solvent. Of course, we've ordered a new valve that won't get here for another 5 weeks, but if it's not working now, why should a new one work any longer than this one did? Basically I have to devise a completely new way of depositing these molecules (nanocars, dimers, and a ton of other molecules the Tour lab has synthesized) in a high vacuum environment. It would be helpful to have a proper prep chamber, but we're talking over a hundred grand, easily, and probably a month's work to attach an entirely new section to the UHV chamber. All this means I'm getting really skeptical about my ability to get enough quality data to graduate in a year. Horseshit. I'm just going to have to work my ass off.

Emily's Graduated!

Congratulations to my little sister, who, I must add, is finished with school at least an entire year before her big brother!

It was great to see everyone this weekend - Mom, Joel, sister, bro and his girlfriend - for a family get-together in Syracuse, albeit a very short one. There was lots of driving and little sleeping, but it was all for the best, since I haven't seen everyone since December, and don't know when I'll see everyone together again, at least till next December (I hope.) I can't believe that my little baby sister is all grown up, going out into the real world to find her place of prominence. I know she'll do fantastically at whatever she decides to do, but I'm not without a little brotherly concern for all the changes and challenges she's about to come up against. Knowing her, though, she'll breeze through them all and make my worries look absolutely silly in hindsight. Congratulations, Emily, and good luck in LA!

I miss you, Dad. Same today as every day, just more pronounced. Six years seems like a day, sometimes.

Another day older

Heck, another year older, if you think people only age when their birthdays come around. No specific milestone this year, no nice, convenient numbers involved, (last year I turned 25 (5*5) on 5/5/5 - how cool is that) but it sure was nice weather this morning. Nothing out of the ordinary today, just a normal work day, but I'll probably go out with a few friends tonight - starting at Valhalla around 8 and probably moving to Volcano and maybe Brian O'neal's after that. If that's anywhere near you, come on out and help me celebrate another year in the life of me!

Weekend Ride

I finally got out of the city for a decent weekend ride again. I don't think I've done that in over a year! Even though it was only about 200 miles, it was still a good time. I really need to do that more often.

Jonah and I didn't start til nearly noon, so I was worried about the heat. Luckily, it was incredibly comfortable riding weather till the last half of the ride back, when even 80mph winds couldn't keep me cool. The map shows our approximate route, since at that scale the smaller roads aren't visible on the map. Green is for gas stops and blue is where we had lunch in Montgomery. I can't believe the difference that highway driving makes for my gas mileage. Even with the last fifteen miles being in the city, I got about 50% better mileage out of the last half of the ride than I normally do in day-to-day riding.

We detoured along a new road to test it out, but it ended up about 8 miles of gravel after the first half mile of pavement. Bad news for bikes. Even so, it was fun, if a little nerve-wracking, and we made it the entire day without any incidents.

As usual, click on the pics for larger versions.

Not dead yet

Though yesterday I thought I would come close. I had some sort of flu or virus and ended up losing six pounds over 24 hours. For those who know me, that's a pretty big deal. I mean, I'm worried about lost brain matter at the moment, because I really don't have many other places to lose the weight. Chop off a foot, maybe, because that's about an equivalent amount.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better today, but still really weak and annoyed. I hate being sick, and Houston seems to have made it a much more regular occurrence than anywhere else I've lived. Damn dirty city and it's abhorrent air quality.

Haven't updated in a week

... and I don't know why, really. Lots has been going on, but I'm not really in a mood to recap. Let me just make this a promise to blog about the new things that are happening, then. And a recommendation to go see Thank You for Smoking. It was really good - entertaining and still made you think - and while I'm just about as anti-big tobacco as you can get, I can honestly say I don't think it was over the top in either direction.

So I'll try to blog about some more interesting stuff from now on. Lots is happening, though I'm beginning to wonder what to share and what to keep to myself, since I probably know most of the readers here, and certainly most of the regular readers. Site Meter is good for that, though it's still a guessing game.

Plaques for ridiculous things

This morning I got to read a letter originally sent to the principle investigator of my research project (Nanocars,(.pdf) as I've mentioned before) from the publishers of my first paper, the American Chemical Society, or just ACS. Among more than thirty other journals, they also publish the journal Nano Letters, where we submitted our paper in October. Apparently that article was downloaded more times in the two months it was available in 2005 than any other article in any other ACS publication for that entire year! Now that's just ridiculous. And so is the fact that I got a plaque because of that. Still, it's kindof cool, partly because I haven't gotten a plaque for anything in yearly 4 years, and partly because now there's something to hang on the walls in my office. Click on the pic for a higher-resolution image.

Good Weekend

Sunday was a great day. Went to an Aeros game with a bunch of people from BioE. The game itself was really great - down to the last 16 seconds in sudden death overtime and the home team won! It's obviously minor-league (not that I could even stay upright on ice-skates) but still a bunch of fun, especially with a rowdy crowd insulting the other team. I hope the goalie couldn't hear everything, or else has developed a very thick skin to that sort of thing, which he undoubtedly has. Still - funny as hell. A bit of pizza afterwards at Two Rows was a good time, as well.

Yesterday and today involves writing and revising a rough draft of another paper I'm putting together for publication. I'll get back in the lab eventually, I swear.