antipaucity

At various stages in my career, I have traveled extensively - yet never even thought of “gaming” the expense reproting system the way it has been recently reported by CNN.

Being terminated over charging a movie to your room? Seems harsh (getting the $9.95 back from the employee would seem to be easier) – but breaking the rule is breaking the rule.

Being terminated over buying gum? Ok, so I WOULD terminate somebody over that … but I hate the stuff

But it’s repulsive, revolting, and wrong
chewing and chewing all day long
The way that a cow does*

There are a host of ways listed in the article – that I find truly shocking – to cheat on expense reports: blank receipts? buying gifts and then selling them on eBay? double-billing? Wow. The sheer effort taken by some people to cheat is astonishing!

Where I work now has a corporate credit card issued to every traveling employee. The only time we submit non-AmEx charges is if a place doesn’t accept AmEx: it’s just way easier to use the corporate card than it is to try to give all the supporting documentation of a personal card. Plus, there’s the benefit that it’s not my personal limit that is being affected if a customer delays in paying a bill.

Everyone that works where I do now also follows the expense guidelines we have – don’t exceed the IRS per diem rate for your region (on average). If you want to eat someplace nice for dinner – that’s fine. Just eat someplace less expensive the next day. Sticking within the rules isn’t that hard … so why would you want to try to evade them and end up with employment history issues like termination on your record?

It’s not news that the Itanium processor is doomed in its current incarnations. Microsoft has dropped support, as has Red Hat – meaning only HP supports it with an active platform in the US (with HPUX).

The Itanim should have been Intel’s chance to totally walk away with the processor market – but they blew it by totally breaking x86 compatibility, and not in a good way: their bungle allowed AMD to develop the x86-64 extensions that are now ubiquitous – even on Intel’s own processors (though they call them EMD64).

With the multi-core industry in full swing, Intel has a chance to make the Itanium relevant once again – package it along side x86-64 cores in a new CPU, a la IBM’s Cell processor.

With Microsoft now looking to branch Windows onto ARM with Windows 8, the x86 architecture is no longer the only [major] game in town.

If Intel were to co-package the Itanium and x86 cores on one chip, or at least in one package, they could start to reap the benefits of both worlds – keep the high-end, “mission critical” market they have that lives on HPUX (though “mission critical” and “HPUX” don’t jive in my head), and bring into that realm the x86 world.

Hey, it’s a thought.

A friend of mine recently pointed me at the newspaper-associated blog of a “recent Appalachian State University graduate and now a freelance reporter for The Charlotte Observer”.

Ms Penland seems like a nice person – but her writing is not at all what I would expect for a blog associated with a newspaper – it is far more like a personal journal of a teenager than a professional blog of a reporter.

I’m all for personal voice showing-up in folks’ writing (it certainly does on all of the blogs I follow – and on the ones I write ) – but when you’re writing reviews for a newspaper, it would seem like you’d try to be a bit more … professional in your writing.

Besides the myriad grammar errors (I know – we all have them, but certainly some proofreading should be done to catch things like “was is“), it seems she has a routine dislike for “chains” – and yet visits many. She also refers to her boyfriend in many of her reviews: a perfectly fine thing to do in passing, but she ends up making some of them more about him than about the place they went.

As a “recent graduate”, I wouldn’t necessarily expect Brittany’s writing to be on par with, say, Malcolm Gladwell, but I would expect it to be at the level of, well, a college graduate. (I have seen some collegiate writing that appalled me when I was in school – writing submitted by 4th year English Majors that looked like it was pulled from a 6th grade student’s portfolio: but those folks don’t [typically] get hired by newspapers… do they?)

I hope Ms Penland’s writing improves dramatically through her “freelance” association with the Observer, but I also hope that the Observer doesn’t have too many folks like her writing in association with them: it reflects poorly on their editorial staff and hiring practices if they do.

I rarely have good reason to complain about hotels, restaurants, etc.

This is one of those rare occasions. And it was made worse because my wife had to go through it, too

The following is the message I sent to the general manager of the Fishers IN Staybridge Suites location on Tuesday 19 July 2011 (after sending it to the corporate customer service department):

Our stay at the Staybridge Suites in Fishers IN has been horrible so far.

The facilities have been adequate, but the service has been appalling. Shortly after checking-in on the 18th, my wife was hit in the head by a stray thrown basketball while walking through the parking lot to walk our small dog. While walking our dog, she was also shouted-at by some of the teens staying at the hotel. After reporting this to the front desk, nothing was done – no apology was given, or was any attempt made to control the myriad teens running amok through and around the hotel.

The teen group has been out of control every time we have seen them, except at breakfast: taking-over the pool area, screaming, shouting, horseplaying, throwing basketballs out of the court (and hitting cars), making loud a ruckus after 10p last night in the common area (which could be heard completely down the hall and in every room facing over the great room).

Hotel staff have been unwilling or unable to control the behavior of the teens, and their apparent attempts to contact the chaperons and coaches have gone unheeded: the chaperons have been nowhere to be found (contrary to posted rules), and have done nothing to control the unruly children either.

At 1030p Monday evening, my wife went to the front desk to ask for extra pillows. The front desk lady indicated they would be sent up to our room “shortly”. At midnight, I went down and asked where they were: not only had housekeeping not brought anything up to our room, they had not been contacted even though there is a radio at the desk for such purposes. I waited an addition 12 minutes for someone in housekeeping to find a couple spare pillows and bring them to the desk so I could take them upstairs.

As I mentioned earlier, we are traveling with a small dog (a 2.5 year old Shih Tzu). The pet rules at Staybridge, vs any of the other ICH brands) are excessively stringent. An option is given at check-in as to whether daily housekeeping checks will be done either between 9a and 2p or after 5:30p. We selected the after 5:30p option. At 12:20p today, housekeeping knocked on our door. After being told to “wait just a moment”, they knocked again, and were told again “wait just a moment”. Then they opened the door WITHOUT INDICATING WHO THEY WERE until after the door was partially open. My wife was in the room by herself enjoying a TV show, and this behavior is unacceptable. After being shown that our housekeeping contract shows no one should come before 5:30p, they insisted on attending to the room anyway, and two maids came in, reset the sheets and replaced the towels, then left. If this is the daily housekeeping that is “required” for suites with pets, I shudder to think what “housekeeping” is done typically.

The behavior and attitude of the staff at this location is truly unbelievable for *any* hotel, let alone one in this price range. I travel extensively for business, and stay at hotels 2-4 times per month just for work. This is my first (and I expect my last) experience staying at a Staybridge Suites location. I have stayed at Candlewoods several times in CT and here in IN (just last week down one exit from the Staybridge). Candlewood has always been eagerly attentive to guest needs and requests, has a far more lenient pet policy, and is less expensive than Staybridge. We only selected to stay at a different location this week due to the Candlewood being sold out. We should have stayed the full week on the other side of town at a Candlewood to avoid this horrible experience with Staybridge.

It has been over a year (with hotel stays near weekly for much of that time) since having even a mediocre experience at any hotel – let alone such an egregious example of not caring and not trying on the part of hotel staff – and I am extremely disappointed with the Staybridge in Fishers.

His response to this message was NOT to call me at my cell phone number given on the day of the report (which the manager on duty (a sales coordinator) said he would do prior to my sending of the initial email), but rather to call my room the next morning (Wednesday) – after I had gone to work.

Hello, Mr Miller

My wife called and relayed the conversation you had with her this morning.

We will definitely contact you if anything else comes up and/or we need anything else during our stay.

If you have further questions or need to contact us, please call me at [redacted]

In the intervening days, nothing has been done beyond comp’ing us for the first night’s stay: which is a nice gesture, but doesn’t really do anything for me as this is a business trip (though I am sure my customer will appreciate the discount). The message I sent to Gary Miller today:

Mr Miller

While the noise from the rowdy teens has disappeared (I am guessing from not having seen them the past couple days that they left), housekeeping has been atrocious during our stay. Referring back to my initial email (which you have still not replied to outside of a call to my room on Wednesday morning when I was not available, in contradiction to what Kim Ilagon said you would do by calling my contact number she took down (and that has been on each of the emails I have sent you) or the contact number on my reservation), a “light touch service” is supposed to be mandatory every day in every room, with some form of more extended service if there is a pet in the suite. As you know, Tuesday’s housekeeping visit occurred over 5 hours before they were supposed to come to the room. That service visit was a mere “light touch” – replacing towels, emptying wastebaskets, and straightening the bed.

On Wednesday there was no housekeeping visit at all, and I was forced near the end of the evening to go ask for new towels at the front desk myself. Likewise on Thursday: no housekeeping visit occurred – and we again had to get new towels on our own.

Over the intervening days since Tuesday, the wastebaskets in our room have filled from day-to-day items – with no visit or way of getting housekeeping to take care of the room.

Additional cleanliness problems:

• There is a cup of beer on the windowsill at the end of the hall by room 201 that has been there since before we checked in
• The tray we used to bring breakfast up to our room was set outside our door yesterday – by lunchtime it had not been collected, so we moved it to the windowsill as well; it had still not been picked-up by when I left for work this morning
• Myriad soaked towels were on the floor of the pool last night for over 90 minutes with no one using them or coming to take care of them (my wife and I were swimming by ourselves for that duration)
• Trash bags have been left in stairwells for over a day before being collected

I appreciate the token you gave of comp’ing us for our first night – but as I am traveling on business, that doesn’t really “do anything” for myself or my wife (though my customer will be happy to have saved a night’s cost).

Last night I went to the front desk to ask if it might be possible to do a late checkout, which the staff member told me was not an issue, and wrote down that we would be checking-out at 2p. Today housekeeping came by at about 1215 to do a service on the room, and were surprised my wife was still in the room.

90 minutes later the front desk called my wife asking if we were going to extend our stay – the woman at the front desk had not bothered to read any of the comments/notes left for her from the night before.

Communication at this hotel amongst the staff is atrocious. I have copied this message back to corporate customer service as well (as I did the first message to you).

Contact information for this hotel:

Front desk: 317.577.9500

General Manager: Gary Miller gmiller@imd1.com

Zynga is getting ready to IPO.

They’re the group that does “Farmville” and other games on facebook. The problem with their planned $1B IPO, though, is that they rely completely on facebook’s continued existence to make any of their earnings.

Last year their profits were in the neighborhood of $400M. That’s a lot of dough. But when facebook declines, or folks quit playing games on it, what will happen to the company?

Seems like a LOT of investors could get taken big time on this one – if they hold onto the stock the way you’re “supposed to” – as an investment, and not a short-term gamble.

There have been a variety of stories recently about MacDefender, and the recent [small] wave of malware attacks on Mac OS X systems.

For years, one of the most-touted features of the Mac was its [relative] immunity to malware: the number of viruses, trojans, etc for any edition of the Macintosh is remarkably small: with System 7, it was on the order of scores, not thousands as with DOS/Windows (at the time).

I do not run antivirus software on most of my machines (virtual and physical), because I take a variety of other precautions. The glib statement that Macs are immune to attacks is becoming, sadly, more-publicly-known to be false.

It is interesting to note, though, that this particular attack still relies on poor user understanding, rather than a flaw in the platform itself: it is still up to the user to install this bogus piece of crap, rather than it materializing automagically via a browser plugin, email attachment, etc.

Max Brooks is likely the world’s foremost authority on zombies – how to survive them, what to do if there is an uprising, etc.

In “World War Z – An Oral History of the Zombie War”, he tackles the issue of reporting on what happened by interviews with those who survived. From first-hand accounts from a variety of sources – early spotters, military members, religious leaders – from around the world, Mr Brooks presents a thrilling, chilling, engaging narrative of “The Crisis”: both as it happened, and what we need to do to continue to avert any further repercussions.

I have yet to find another report as balanced and in-depth as Mr Brooks with regards to this horrific chapter in human (and zombie) history.

• Quality of writing: 5/5
• Entertainment value: 5/5
• Historicity: 5/5
• Viscerality: 5/5
• Overall: 5/5

Rodale Press published a collected works book entitled “Producing Your Own Power – How to make Nature’s Energy Sources Work for You” in 1974.

There are a host of now-humorous segments of the text:

“The US government estimates that by 1980 1 percent of our country’s land will be covered with utility companies’ equipment” {viii}. The contiguous US takes up approximately 1.9 billion acres of land. Do utility companies use 19 million acres? That claim is completely preposterous.

“If all mineable fossil resources were made available to us, we would still have energy problems. In a few centuries these would also be exhausted” {ix}. Does the author (Carol Hupping Stoner) of the introduction really believe that in the next few centuries we won’t develop better technologies like we have been for the past thousands of years?

“The average six-room, older house probably costs about $400 to $500 per winter to heat” {282}. Based on current heating and cooling costs, how could anyone have afforded to heat their homes 35 years ago? $500 per winter is half what people I know in NY plan to spend every winter now – with a median income of about $60k; 20 years ago, the median was just above $30k (infoplease.com shows slightly different numbers). So 35 years ago folks were spending >5% of their annual income on heating for the winter? That doesn’t grok well.

Other similar claims are made throughout the book with no direct referential backing – merely stating something that the author of that segment wants you to believe. They may have been true. Or not – without references there is no way of knowing where the data came from in the first place. There is a bibliography, but it is only tagged for each segment – there are not direct footnotes/references in the text itself to the original sources.

From having reread this book recently, I think it’s safe to say that the best part of the book is section 3 – Wood Power {pp103-135}. While many improvements have been made in the intervening decades with wood stoves and fireplaces, the information in this chapter on those two heating techniques is still – overall – solid (one of the recommended designs for a fireplace has a tendency to put an unusual amount of smoke into the room if the fire is not kept roaring-hot, but that’s a discussion for another day). Starting on p127 and continuing for 9 pages to p135 is a good discussion on woodlot management, windbreaks, and calculating wood needs for heating purposes.

Personally, I’d alter the suggested woodlot and windbreak designs to include food-producing trees and shrubs in addition to “merely” windbreaking and fuel-producing varieties. If you have the land to grow it – the overriding presumption of most of this book is that you have land – why not make use of the decorative and functional aspects of, say, apple trees? They can provide some privacy, act as a windbreak, and also supply food: just about can’t beat that three-for-one deal!

• Quality of writing: 2.5/5
• Quality of content:  2/5
• Readability: 4/5
• Overall: 2.5/5

Ars Technica has had a great series of articles recently on virtualization (1 2 3 4 5).

But a statement made in part 5 repeated what has been too-often stated as a benefit of virtualization: the reduction of servers, and associated management tasks -

The benefits of performing a large-scale P2V conversion are pretty clear: server consolidation leading to reduced space and power usage and decreased heat output; easier centralized management; new redundancy and high-availability options (including the ability to restore or clone entire VMs at a time); and the opportunity to rebuild the OS of legacy systems, to just name a few. It is very possible to consolidate even a dozen racks’ worth of servers into a single rack, or just two blade chassises. With gains like that, it is no wonder that virtualization is quickly becoming entrenched in the enterprise.

Virtualization does NOT guarantee reduction of servers and management tasks – it can enable the reduction of physical servers in the infrastructure, but because of the ease of spinning-up a new server for testing, development, or just “because”, virtualization has actually lead to a proliferation of servers on the network when they would not have been previously feasible.

If build time is 10 minutes for a VM (typical in environments I have seen/used), then any time someone needs/wants a new server, it can be ready in a few minutes. That’s amazing. The problem is that when it is no longer needed, it needs to be powered-down and have its assigned resources returned to the pool. Sadly, this rarely happens.

There are indeed tools that can help enable this (I was recently trained on one such tool (and, I think, it’s the single best option for the job)), but out-of-the-box, virtualization doesn’t help anything except to reduce the physical footprint of the data center.

Blaise Pascal, the famous mathematician, philosopher, and part-time theologian, is a fascinating member of history to me.

Several years ago I borrowed a copy of his “Pensées” from a friend, and skimmed it. At the time, I was impressed more with the randomness of the collection than with anything specific he wrote.

A few days ago, I began re-reading the book from the free Kindle edition on my phone.

There are far too many awesome quotes to repost them all here, but I have been heavily highlighting my digital edition for future reference, using in conversation, etc.

Pensées looks like a weird cross between 17th century twittering and a diary – but it’s well-worth the $0.00 investment to have a copy.

• Writing style: 3/5 – not something you “read” so much as “process”
• Concision: 5/5
• Overall: 4.5/5