Insanity Part 2.0

In case anyone was wondering, that song used in the background of the Choke trailer is “Satan Said Dance – Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah.”

The UI for Netflix’s bonus rentals is a little confusing. When you click on “Use a Bonus Rental,” a confirmation loads on the next page telling you that your next rental will ship soon. However, after this page, there is no further confirmation that such a thing is going to happen anywhere else, and it’s impossible to tell if you actually did things right.

This is in contrast to if you report a disc problem or look at your queue after you return a few disks. In those instances, the “At Home” portion of your queue adds or swaps a few lines to say “[Movie Title]: Shipping Soon.” With a Bonus Rental, no line is added until the next day or so, when they actually ship the disk out.

I called to query Netflix about this and they were gracious enough to send me another disk, but now I have an extra disk on top of my requested bonus disk. I don’t mind, but if any Netflix business-folk come across this, I’m not trying to scam your customer service folks – I just couldn’t figure out your Bonus Rental UI!

Is it just me, or does Lewis Black’s new show, “the Root of All Evil” use a laugh track?

It’s not that funny of a show (contrary to the show name, it’s two comedian guests who do most of the talking) to begin with really. What’s more, if you look at the audience in the background while the comedians are delivering their bits, it doesn’t seem like the audience is really reacting all that much. As in, there’s no where near the amount of hooting, hollering, or even laughing compared to what’s playing back on the audio.

Anyone else notice something like that?

Apple Developer Connection – iPhone Dev Center – iPhone Developer Program Details

Start your development today with the free iPhone SDK and the iPhone Dev Center. Apply to the iPhone Developer Program and gain access to test your code on iPhone and distribute your free and commercial applications on the App Store.

The iPhone Developer Program provides you with the ability to develop directly on iPhone or iPod touch. Build, test, and optimize your application to get the best performance possible, exactly as your customers will experience it.

The wording seems pretty clear to me: software iPhone emulator for free SDK members, hardware testing only after you’ve paid to join the iPhone Developer program.

Just noticed that “The Crane Wife” is on sale at Amazon.com MP3 Store.

For those who don’t know, Crane Wife is an awesome album and I recommend it, as I would recommend any other The Decemberists songs.

As for the Amazon MP3 store, I personally prefer iTunes but I appreciate Amazon’s aggressive pricing strategy. I also really don’t like that labels are giving preferential treatment to Amazon (and inhibiting consumer choice) because they carry a huge grudge against iTunes. I don’t like it when consumers are being used as pawns in this fight.

XM Radio Channel Guide for AOL Radio – AOL Music

XM Radio’s standard AOL Radio lineup is back again. During November and December they took off a bunch of channels for all the holiday-themed ones (e.g. XM Holly, etc.) but now things are back to normal. Notably, XM 47 Ethel’s back

For those of you who don’t know, AOL Radio streams various XM Radio channels for free if you’re on Windows or Mac. It’s pretty nice, and can’t beat the price.

Buy.com – Low Price Guarantee

Something I ran into this week while ordering a bluetooth headset: Buy.com’s “Low Price Guarantee” is nearly all but useless. See below:

When requesting a price match, please be aware that prices will be compared on the following criteria:

• Price comparisons include the product price plus shipping & handling charges when calculating the competitor’s total price in comparison to Buy.com’s product price and lowest priced shipping method for that item.
• Our Low Price Guarantee does not apply when you use coupons, rebates, promotional offers, free shipping, or product-bundle pricing on the order.
• Our Low Price Guarantee does not apply to membership pricing.
• Our Low Price Guarantee is limited to up to three (3) of the same product, shipped to the same address.
• The Low Price Guarantee is subject to change at any time.

In short, if you use free shipping on your order, such as their equivalent of Amazon’s super saver shipping, nuts to you if your order pricing changes after it ships! Compare that with Amazon’s policy:

Amazon.com Price Guarantee

Amazon.com’s prices for released items will change from time to time based on a variety of factors. If Amazon.com’s price for an already-released item decreases within 30 days after we ship the item to you, we’ll be glad to refund the difference in price if you contact us. Please click one of the buttons on the right, and be sure to have your order number handy so we can assist you.

This Post-Order Price Guarantee is subject to the following restrictions:

• Applies only to products that have already been released. Products that have not yet been released but that are available for pre-order from Amazon.com are not covered by this guarantee, but do benefit from our Pre-Order Price Protection program (see section above).
• Applies only to items sold by Amazon.com, and not to items (or prices) offered by other sellers on our site.
• Item prices that are affected by a promotion such as “Buy one, get one free” are not eligible.
• The price of an item after rebate is not considered to be the Amazon.com price.

Amazon’s system sounds a lot more reasonable to me. Buy.com’s isn’t a deal breaker, but be aware if/when they run some ridiculous sale one week after you bought an item!

As a reminder, Futurama just came out with their new direct-to-DVD movie, “Futurama – Bender’s Big Score“. For a show that thrived and returned off of DVD sales and good ratings, be sure to throw your consumer vote of support by buying your own copy or legally renting it if you intend on seeing it!

After some perusal of facebook and recalling a conversation with some kids at a Morrison lunch, it’s occurred to me that NCSSM has probably changed quite significantly since I left. Well, I’ve now graduated college, and it’s been 4 years since I’ve had anything to do with the school, so I thought it might be nice to chronicle a couple of random tidbits that popped up in my head such that they may preserved for generations to come. After all, with a 2-year program, institutional memory at NCSSM is rather short.

These have been selected randomly by my head – there is no order. Also, I take no responsibility for the accuracy of the below. I’m pretty sure it’s all right, but I think I added uncertainty in context where appropriate.

• I believe 2001 was the first year of NCSSM’s wireless installation. They were some Cisco AiroNet model, and all ran 802.11b back then. Hunt Hall was/is apparently a bitch to cover with good signal reception.
• We had Internet access 24/7, as far as policy was concerned. It was nice. (psst, current students – don’t like that new rule? organize together and bitch at the administration as a collective. you’re young adults, you should be able to learn how to handle the internet)
• Hunt Hall was completely open – one could walk from one hall to another with impunity. Blocking off of halls with doors didn’t start until 2002-2003. It was nice. (psst, current students – don’t like this? ditto. btw, don’t vandalize the doors, or a level 3 might be waiting for you).
• There were hidden cameras mounted inside smoke detectors inside the “common area” in between halls near the stairwell in Hunt Hall. They’re probably still there. Ever ask yourself why there appear to be 2 or 3 smoke detectors in an enclosed area of 30 sq ft? Yeah.
• Hunt Classroom didn’t exist until late 2001. I’ve no idea if they’ve actually started using it yet – it seemed like it was built without a purpose. It used to be a cool common area, but that was before my time.
• There were no males living in Bryan at any point during my tenure. I think this was a 2003-2004 thing? Sucks for them.
• Living arrangements became so tight in Hunt Hall that in 2001 students actually had to live in converted storage closets for the whole year. These rooms are tiny. You know something’s wrong when your introduction to your housing arrangements include the statement “meets all relevant local, state, and federal codes” or something along those lines. I unfortunately had to endure one of these for junior year. I hear at this point that the storage closets are now a permanent fixture in student housing at NCSSM.
• Oh yeah – RFID ID cards didn’t exist until 2002-2003. Prior to that they were dinky laminated pieces of paper.
• I’m pretty sure there’s always been a rivalry between Hunt and Hill. Hunt was totally better.
• 2nd Hill somehow earned the reputation of being the “gay hall” prior to my arrival and during my first year there. I’m not exactly sure how this happened, aside from the obvious.
1. Fun aside – apparently 2nd hill has become the preppy hall and 1st hill has become the gayer hall? This is secondhand from some…05s? I don’t know.
2. Fun fact – I know there were 3 gays on 3W during 2001-2003. Whether this made 3W one of the gayer halls, I don’t know.
3. Even funner aside – apparently there was some really sketchy incident in Hill a few ears after I left, involving 2 guys getting it on and a small crowd watching. As if that wasn’t bad enough, an SLI walked in. I have no idea if this is true – I heard this from Morrison, so take that as you will. Anyone got any details? The gossipy side of me wants to know.
4. Note to paranoid parents from Google: No, NCSSM is not a bastion of homosexuality, despite what you might have heard otherwise or read in the above paragraph. Your son will not turn gay if he somehow happens to live in Hill – it doesn’t work that way.
• Wyche House, excuse me, Royall Center (pffft), was a dump while we were there. Clearly, no one lived there.
• Happy Half occurred between 10-10:24pm in between Hill and Watts.
• Bryan lobby was nowhere near as ritzy as it is now. It was old and mildly dumpy, which had a certain charm to it, as opposed to the hygienic sheen that it’s got now. It did, however, have a chronic heating problem. As in too much of it.
• There used to be a Unix lab, I swear! I and a few friends were responsible for maintaining it! It used to be located near the entryway to ground Beall in a very cramped and poorly maintained room. After 2003 the lab was evicted to make way for a water heater. I hear this never actually happened.
• American Tobacco dining room. I hope that phrase still means something.
• PFM. I hope that still means something too. To a lesser extent, how much Chartwell’s sucks.
• I think Cosmic Cantina shall forever be a permanent fixture in NCSSM student life.
• Long live the flaming diaper! This cupola business is boring.
• Fuck you Boarman.

IMSA might get all the press, but NCSSM rocked. First of the S&M schools too

OK, it’s late, and I’ve run out of things that I remember. I invite any fellow S&Mers to join me in reminiscing and to write their own blog entry – just give me a link or pingback in the comments so I know where to look. If you’re seeing this on facebook and don’t have a blog, would you mind leaving an entry in the comments on the original blog post instead of facebook’s note? I want this to be google searchable.

The other day, where “other day” qualifies as over 2 months ago, I made a deposit at a Bank of America ATM that was probably the neatest ATM I’ve ever used. I wanted to deposit two checks, but when I walked up to the ATM there were no envelopes to use. Instead, the Durham BofA that I was at had an envelope-free ATM that scans your checks and then asks you confirm the amounts, because it automatically reads out the check amount too. When you’re all done, it prints out a receipt for you with a mini-image of the checks you just scanned in. Yes, the ATM was made by Diebold, but it worked fine. The end result was pretty neat and maybe somewhat quicker once you get past the initial confusion.

So far, the Durham branch was the only one I’ve seen it at. The Ithaca and California ATMs I’ve visited have all been of the old-school variety so far. A Santa Clara Wells Fargo near me has it though, I think.

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