Carousel of Hate

I was reminded of my friend Mike when I ran across this article today about Fight Thieving Restaurant Servers With Checksum Tips. Mike has this scheme in mind (correct me if I get this wrong) where you use the cents (at least the last digit) to indicate quality of service and satisfaction. He thought about leaving a little tip guide or perhaps a card pointing them to a web site to explain the different values. This article takes the make your tip mean something to an entirely new geek level. I had never even considered using binary to encode features or ratings! On and by the way there is a cute little cat in the corner of the page if you visit that site!

This article takes it to a new level of making sure you are not being taken advantage of by, dare I say, evil servers who feel that just having brought you a drink entitles them to huge piles of money. An alternate approach is offered by a comment on the site for using palindromes to compute the tip. I would agree that most servers out there are decent people working hard or even working the resraurant as second job because tips can be a decent income according to a friend of mine.

In the past I have been all over the spectrum of tipping from exactly 10% (I remember my grandmother having a tip calculator card she kept in her purse) to 15% for lunch, 20-25% for dinner depending on the quality of restaurant. I also went through the “rounding phase” where I just figured the tip roughly (not the Canadian tip trick like Aaron’s friend Shawn) and then rounded to the next even dollar, and finally today when getting take away I just usually add $2.00 maybe $3.00 depending on the price of the meal.

Overall I am trying to be more aware of tipping and trying to keep cash on hand for tips. After asking one server about tips they indicated that if a tip was left on a credit card not only would the house keep a percentage because of the credit card fees but that percentage was higher than a cash tip so the management felt they deserved more of the server’s money. In tipping with cash I feel like I am letting the server know that they were appreciated.

So as I previously mentioned I have owned a TiVo Series 1 since 15-Jun-2000. I was recently made aware of an upgrade offer, the second such offer I have heard of, to upgrade my existing device and transfer my lifetime service to the new device. When I purchased the device I figured making a one-time payment made more sense than paying them something every month for as long as I could concieveably own the device. Their only key is when yo udo the service transfer you get to pay them $199, which is actually more than I paid to begin with for the lifetime service. But some time ago they realized they could make more money with monthy service so they stopped offering lifetime service.

I ordered my TiVo HD device today and am waiting to have the service transfer completed now. I was told by the nice CSR that transfering my service does not preclude future transfers should the offer be made on a newer device. Hopefully TiVo is happy that an existing user with no forseeable revenue stream is sending some more green their way and will keep making offers in the future. Then again after doing two transfers would I be better making monthly payments to the man? I guess we will have to consider that situation should the time come in the future.

NOT!

My mother received an email last night that contained an attachment called winmail.dat. I have dealt with this before and continue to find it annoying. I am putting a link to a useful article that explains how to deal with this. Feel free send this link to anyone who is sending them to you!

I heard about Prosper yesterday on the radio so I went to the web site today to investigate. It seems like an interesting idea making small loans together with others to reduce risk. I figured the loans would be made by ACH transfer from your bank account to Prosper so I clicked on the frequently asked questions about funds transfer. Here is what I found.

Transfer request is on day 0. Day 0 can vary based on day of week, time of day and holidays.
Funds are withdrawn from your account on day 1
Funds are received and held by prosper on days 2-3
Funds are available to you on day 4

Although we refer to you and other individuals as “lenders”, the loans are being made by Prosper and then sold to you, making you a loan purchaser. The term “lender” is used through the site for the sake of simplicity.

Prosper holds the funds on days 2-3 (which also includes day 1) because all ACH transfers can be canceled or marked failed within a three day period. What do we think Prosper is doing with our funds during this magical three day window? Perhaps they are making interest and increasing their balances and cash flow? They indicate that this waiting period is standard practice and make us feel better by adding that it makes our external bank account more secure.

I am getting more and more baffled today. I was running iChat last night and still this morning. I closed the application and several hours later opened it back up. When I opened it up it took me through the setup interview asking me to put in my account details again and to enable Jabber and Bonjour. Why is my PowerBook acting so strange lately?

Several weeks ago I ran into a problem with my .Mac account and sync. I have my account set to sync Contacts, Bookmarks, Email accounts, Keychains etc. I was on .Mac web mail to send a message. When I tried to use an email address from my contacts it took me to a page that said my Contacts were not synced and would I like to erase them or merge them. I choose merge because that would seem the best option. I sent my email message and went on happy as a lark.

Several days later I was looking at my contacts on my PowerBook and I noticed that something was strange. I had roughly twice the number of contacts that I previously remembered having. Then I started looking around. The data from the contact records had been corrupted. Some of the names were mixed with other phone numbers and email addresses etc. It made no sense how it was all messed up, but at this point I figured I would email .Mac support and expect to go through all 300 entries and put together a complete, de-duplicated set of addresses again. I may have a backup from where I moved from my original PowerBook to the new PowerBook but I do not have the backup drive with me now.

So today I was just working on my blog when a message popped up on the screen.

Now I have only 30 contacts in my address book. Anyone have a thought about this one?

Mike sent me a link today to a web site for a new laundry “system” called dropps. I like the concept of pre-measured pacs to keep from over-use, however I think I would generally under-use my detergent. My one concern is that I tend to so several small loads through out the week when I get home from the gym or especially every day when I am training for a run. Mike suggested I just buy additional kit however I will have to take that into consideration because I hate to buy too many things that are not always used.

I think I will try either the one 2-count Sample Pack or Seven 2-load Travel Packs and report back.

My Brother told me about this commercial for Time Warner Cable where a Verizon FiOS guy shows up to talk about fiber.

I have been a supporter of T-Mobile for many years. I have called T-Mobile to find out if they are planning to carry Sony Ericsson phones again and also when they plan to offer 3G services. Both are generally met with the same response “We do not receive any information about these plans you should look on our web site!”

Today I read that T-Mobile is offering their first 3G handset could this mean they are actually going to upgrade to 3G?

I was just completely taken back by a commercial on television. The new Clear Blue Easy commercial is just a revolting piece of media with the following vulgar quote.

The most sophisticated piece of technology you’ll ever pee on…

Is this the best that we can do for television advertising today?