Category Archives: Rants

Review: Allstate Drive-Wise – Fail

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I signed up with Allstate’s Drivewise program around a month and a half ago. The incentive is that you can save up to 30% on your insurance.

They mailed out a pair of blue boxes that we are supposed to plug into each of our cars’ OBD-II ports.

The device seems to be based on the Kore telematics GE864-QUAD hardware (from the FCC ID). From looking at the box, I can see the card in question along with the strip antenna on the side and the microcontroller / OBD-II interface on another board. (I would do a teardown, but I don’t want to break the seal — Allstate would get plenty mad at me for that)

Dutifully, we plugged them in.

This is where the fail began.

The OBD-II port is the mandated port for the On-Board Diagnostics. This is the port that the mechanic plugs into to have the car’s computer tell them what’s wrong (typically a sensor is broken or reading out of range).

The port isn’t intended to have something inserted for a long time.

En’s car particularly.

The first drive caused the box to fall off.

This isn’t a problem with the port. This is a problem with the box. The device has no retention mechanism other than the friction of female receptacles for pins.

Like I was saying: this port on the car is meant for intermittent use. If you want to use it for something else it’s the responsibility of the the exception to deal with it.

We taped it up but the tape isn’t awesome at holding back gravity. But more on that later.

Now I get to the heart of my problem with the program: it’s completely simple-minded. It takes into account exactly three things to compute your discount: time of day, braking and time spent over 80 miles per hour. It then occasionally sends a packet back to the mothership over a cellular modem to report back.

I can understand time of day and speeding for the most part. (Of course if you’re out west, the limit is close to 80 anyway… but it doesn’t know where you are) But braking is programming you for the wrong behavior.

What I found myself doing to avoid triggering the device is carrying too much speed through turns. Even the way it measures acceleration is defective — it’s the car’s reported speed. (i.e. if you have low traction and need to spin up your tires to get moving it might think you went from 0-30 in a second (no, I’m not in a Formula 1 car). Ditto for braking if your car chooses to report speed like that.)

I understand what they are trying to do… but to have a report you get well after the fact that says “You broke hard a week ago” isn’t a way to build or reinforce the behavior you want — it just seems random.

Then on Friday I got this email:

Please Call Us About Your Drive WiseSM Device

This communication refers to this vehicle and this device:

2004 BMW 330CI xxxxxxxxxx

Dear George Burgyan,

We’re writing to let you know that the data coming from your Allstate Drive WiseSM telematics device suggests that the device has been removed for a lengthy period of time and then reconnected.

We’d like to ask for your assistance to help us address this situation. If your car has been in for service, please let us know by simply replying to this message, or give us a call at 877-431-7670. If we don’t hear from you, we may contact you to try to help understand the cause of the disconnection.

Please remember that your enrollment in the Allstate Drive Wise program requires that your device remain continuously installed. We do make allowances for brief removals of the device so that mechanics or emissions-control personnel can access the diagnostic port in your vehicle. Unfortunately, the amount of time your device has been removed exceeded this grace period.

Thank you for your assistance, we hope to hear from you shortly.
Allstate Drive WiseSM Customer Team

This was the last straw.

This thing is a poorly engineered turd. I’m beta testing this thing and they are giving me a lecture that I unplugged it. No, you idiot, the damn thing you gave me doesn’t stay plugged in. Not only that but the program is actively making me a less safe driver.

Epic fail.

Long term goals

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We all have them… or at least should have them.

Last year I wrote about one: Dakar.

Sure, I had a set-back with the whole leg breaking thing. There’s nothing I can do about that at this point. The river of time has flowed past that little meander.

I think I have to redouble my efforts though. Not just think about the goal in an abstract perspective. It’s easy to lose sight of where you really want to go. I know because in the past year I had many, many, distractions. Each of those made me lose focus on what I wanted to really do.

It’s hard to hold reality up to the harsh light though.

In looking around at where I am I’m forced to look at everything. Risks, rewards, the whole lot.

I’m not going to be an idiot about this and say that just because I so want to do something and work really hard I’ll make it to the end. No. I know I’m not made of money and this thing is going to require a small pile of cash to pull off. Risks will have to be taken. I’ll have to think of things like sponsorship. I need to build up enough cushion to take a month or two of a sabbatical.

Then there’s the other perspective. This is f*cking selfish. How is this making the world a better place?

I have to keep reminding myself that we, as a society, didn’t get to where we are by slavishly maintaining the status quo.

The fight for salvation

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We just watched 60 Minutes from Christmas. It was the episode on Mt. Athos.

I’ve very rarely seen such selfishness.

They lock themselves up and pray for their own salvation.

They fight for salvation. Their own salvation.

It is covered by gold. It seems the opposite of what they are preaching.

“We prepare for death each day.” We are buying our ticket by working here.

Isn’t the purpose to make the world a better place? Not just one’s self?

Mitsubishi DLP TV = Piece of Crap

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The TV we have sitting in front of me right now, a 65″ Mitsubishi DLP TV has developed not one, but two problems in the past month.

It’s less than three years old and the light engine (the DLP guts of the TV) has developed two distinct problems.

First, and this has been going on for around a month or so, the TV has a flicker that starts to exhibit itself on the upper-right corner. It’s a here one minute, gone the next type of deal.

While we were just watching some shows it now has a stuck pixel.

White.

All the time. Drawing your eye to it.

W. T. F. ?

Internet searches lead me to think this is a $1000 problem. A new TV is around the same price. A TV with a warranty.

Our previous set, a rear projection CRT lasted at least 10 years and has been to Iraq and back since we purchased it and from the latest reports it’s still working.

What a piece of crap this new one is. It has too many moving parts and things to fail. There’s the lamp (which is a consumable), the color wheel and the bazillion mirrors that is the heart of the DLP.

With a large consumer durable goods item like this I think of it like a car or appliance. When you buy a modern car you have the expectation that with a bit of care it will last you a good long time. You expect that the engine and the rest of the drive train will last. Same thing with this TV. I expect – or at least have the expectation that it should last 5-7 years.

It didn’t.

Next TV = LED-lit LCD. It’ll be showing up on Tuesday.

In all my time in using LCD “things” (laptops, monitors, TVs, etc.) I’ve never seen this type of behavior. I’m willing to pay more for this. I’m willing to pay more for something that isn’t going to piss me off.

Traditions

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Everyone has traditions. Most people hold those traditions dear this time of year.

You grow up with Christmas (I’m using me as an example — if you celebrate anything else, feel free to substitute the holiday of your choosing) being done in a certain way each year. Every year you do the same things in the same order, because that’s just what you do.

Traditions are a product of the time. The fact that I went to my grandparents’ house to eat dinner every year probably had a lot more to do with the fact that they were next door for much of my life. The Christmas tree was brought by the angels on Christmas eve — it just sprang up by magic.

That’s me.

If we didn’t live next to my grandparents or they weren’t around then I guess a different tradition would have happened to me.

En did different things growing up.

When we got married there was the conundrum: who’s traditions will win out?

We tried to do some strange combination of doing everything from both sides and that caused nothing but heartache all around.

Then we settled into our own tradition. It’s a mix of mine and En’s plus what we ourselves bring to the mix.

- = -

We don’t have kids though. Kids bring a new angle to the picture.

The tradition they will remember is whatever you do. You can’t treat them like puppets and force them into whatever tradition you had before. Traditions, like I was saying before, are a product of the time. That time has passed. The circumstances that led to whatever traditions you had have changed — people move or leave our lives somehow, the world changes, kids are born, you change.

Recognize that you are in a different time and place. Recognize that you are not the center of the universe. Realize that those around you bring their own traditions.

Much of the holidays are for the kids. What you do now has to not be about upholding what you had growing up, but what they will look back on and smile.

DRM

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This is a followup to yesterday’s post.

I just purchased a pirated version of the Audi service manual since I couldn’t find a download for it.

I’m OK with that.

I wish the seller on eBay buys himself a case of beer or something.

I’m looking at the fucking piece of shit CD-ROM on my desk here and want nothing more than to smash it to bits since it’s useless.

I paid good money for it.

I won’t pay good money for encumbered content like that again.

It’s one thing to spend a buck or two to “rent” a video online. You watch it. You eat your popcorn. You’re happy. A fair exchange of value seemed to have taken place.

Not this time.

And not again.

I’d rather pirate this content than to “buy” it. I put buy in quotes because I didn’t buy a god damned thing. I transferred money and got nothing to show for it other than a penny’s worth of plastic.

The next time I need something like this… I guess the well has been poisoned by these idiots.

Like I said yesterday — fuck Bentley Publishers.

Rant: Audi Service Manual

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A goodly while back (think around 2003 or so) I purchased a service manual for my 2002 Audi A6 from Bentley Publishers.

2003 is a long time ago in terms of software. We’re quickly getting to the bits on the DVD being a decade old.

Now I want to install some hardware for work — some GPS devices. Additionally I’d like to be able to hook up some radio gear as well. To do this I need to get a good source of power in the trunk — ideally I’d have both switched and unswitched power to the tune of 20-30A in the trunk. (The GPS from Sage Quest will draw perhaps 50mA, but if I get a ham radio rig in there I might be drawing 25A with a 100W transmitter so I want to make sure I’m ready.

So I go to install it in my normal Windows 7 VM.

FAIL.

It’s still trying to install IE5.

W. T. F. ?

Therein lies the problem: information ages.

If I have, for instance, a negative from my camera (you know, pre-digital) then that is going to be readable as long as the plastic backing is around and the pigments last. If I’m talking about black and white film that’s even more durable — the “black” of the negative is simply oxidized silver. That’s not going anywhere fast. (Color films are generally based on organic molecules and are a lot easier to degrade)

In my case right now I’m stuck with a manual that is worse than paper. I have a disc of bits that I can’t readily use. As time passes it’ll be harder and harder to use them in the first place. Right now I’m installing a VM with XP, but how long is that going to be around?

Compared to my car?

Just put the damn thing in a bunch of PDFs and be fucking done with it.

PDFs are at least a standard of sorts. Even in the future I’ll be able to look at one. Things like those (JPEGs, GIFs, etc.) while not immediately obvious how to parse are common enough that they are nearly as durable as the media they live on.

I have faith that in 100 years I’ll be able to (ok, not me, but we) read and display a JPEG. It might not be the easiest thing to do, but I’m sure it’ll be possible and generally easy.

The fucking Audi manual?

Not a chance in hell.

Bank Security Fail

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I was sitting upstairs at the computer when my phone rang.

“Hello, this is Jeff and this is going to sound really strange.”
“Go on.. ?”
“I think I have your checks.”
“… ?  Uhh… huh?”

He goes on to tell me that the checks he’s gotten from his brokerage — TD Ameritrade — have some of my checks bound into the same book. Not just that but three of his check books he’s gotten from them have other folks from Solon’s checks in them as well.

I thanked him and went to get my checkbook.

I called him back.

“Yeah, this is George — you called five minutes ago. I have your checks in my checkbook.”

Someone at the printing company way really asleep at the wheel. The above picture is what I saw half-way through the check book.

That is what it should look like for the most part.

You can tell the binding is not even on the mis-bound ones and they’re stuck in there upside down. Odd.

I’m just happy that Jeff is an honest fellow!

So I called up TD Ameritrade and spoke to Tim last night. He assured me that someone will get back to me today.

Today has come and gone and no one has yet reached back out to me. They’ve sent me the instructions on how to get the iPhone app… but they didn’t talk me me about the security issue.

Fail.

Freedom to Be

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This is going to be a rant of the highest order (though not business related). If you want to skip it, do so now. You have been warned.

My niece is almost three. She’s cool. (Yeah, if you’re reading this in the far future — I’m the first one to say that… just sayin’) She’s a boisterous girl that knows what she wants to do. She doesn’t just sit and wait for stuff to happen, she gets them to happen. She’s a character.

My mother-in-law-in-law seems to disagree.

She made the statement that my niece is not going to play socker or other sports, she’s going to play the piano.

W. T. F. ?

If she wants to play sports, play sports. If you want to do things that aren’t girly, do them. If you want to do “girly” things, do it.

To limit what you can and can’t do is an idiotic statement. If she wants to ride dirt-bikes I’ll be the first in line to get her one. If she wants to shoot guns, I’ll teach her how to do so safely. Computers: check. Photography: check. If she wants to play with Barbies, I’m out of my league, but En will no doubt step up. Smile (Ok, I’m sure I can manage if I wanted to, but it’s not my forte) If she wants to play the piano (as opposed to being forced) then awesome! The key though is that every person is different.

To limit that artificially is damn near a crime — especially in kids.

Limits are for losers.

My niece isn’t a loser.

Occupy Wall Street – My perceptions

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I want to lead things out by saying this isn’t a research piece, more of a op-ed.

I’ve been reading and listening to reports about the various “Occupy” protests around the country. Through all this I’ve formed some opinions on them.

Obviously, the occupy protests are riffing off the revolutions that occurred in Africa and the Middle East — the Arab Spring.

But there’s a key difference: demands.

The Arab Spring protests were looking for very concrete change. They wanted the dictatorial (some were called democracies… umm, yeah…) regimes to relinquish power. The goal of the protesters was very clear.

Contrast that with the OWC protests, where to me they come off like a bunch of whiny brats pissing and moaning about their situation in life.

At the beginning of the protests reporters were trying to ferret out what they were protesting. The answer I heard from the Boston crew was “we’re not sure yet, we are forming a committee to figure it out.”

WTF?

I’ve heard various things from the 99%:

  1. The Wall Street bankers were rewarded for failing, why can’t we get that?
  2. I can’t find a job
  3. I have student loan debt that I think is too high
  4. We need more schools / School should be free

I’m sure that everyone there has their own list of demands. From a tiny bit of Googling I’ve found some absurd ones too:

  1. Outlaw credit reporting agencies
  2. Immediate debt forgiveness for everything
  3. Guaranteed living wage even if you’re not working

I’m sorry, but this borders on idiotic.

If you want to effect change in this representative democracy of ours you should vote for someone who shares your world-view. If you can’t find that person, go and run yourself. You have established that you have a critical mass of people that share your views, now organize and get elected.

If you don’t know what you’re protesting for, what are you doing? If you don’t have a job, look for one. If you do then go to the office and work and get your paycheck. If you took out loans that you can’t afford now, well, I guess you have to eat more ramen because you knew you would have to repay it when you signed the dotted line.

It just reminds me of a few lines from Shakespeare:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

I’m sorry if I sound jaded… but this just feels like a lot of sound and fury to me.

From everything I’ve seen thus far though, they just seem like a bunch of communists pissing and moaning that they’re not happy.

The world doesn’t guarantee you happiness. Nor should it.

We are based on the pursuit of happiness.

Go and pursue.

I’ll end it with a step back from the brink though: it may be a marketing problem. I’m sitting here, a liberal-ish libertarian and I’m calling them all out. Wouldn’t I be someone that would agree with these liberal (non-)demands? Stop shouting and come up with a cogent argument already.