David Pollak's Blog - Personal

Burn your TransLink card

nospam@example.com (David Pollak) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:06:56 -0800

I am outraged at the SF Muni and their adoption of the TransLink card. Soon, there are certain bus lines that will only accept the TransLink card during rush hour... you won't be able to ride the bus except with one of these evil devices.

So, what's my outrage?

I spent most of today trying to obtain a TrankLink card for my kids. I read on the TransLink site that the youth cards had to be obtained in person rather than at the normal retail outlets. So, I took my kids downtown figuring I could buy a card at a Muni station, but no dice. Most of the folks in the Muni stations had no clue. Finally, somebody pointed me to Golden Gate Transit in the Ferry Building, so off we went to the Ferry Building.

We find the right booth to buy the pass. Now, my kids are in kindergarten. There's no question that they are youths and are elegible for youth discounts. In fact, most Muni drivers say, "These kids look too young to pay." My response is, "Muni rules say that 5 year olds pay and we follow rules in our family."

So, I ask for 2 youth passes. The woman behind the counter says, "give me their birth certificates and we'll give you the youth passes." I say, "that's a joke, right? Look at them, do they look anywhere near 16 or 18 or whatever the cutoff age is?" She responds, "Our policy is that we only issue youth cards with a birth certificate."

We've had to show the kids' birth certificates for their social security cards and for entrance to school. We did not have to produce birth certificates for library cards, health insurance, so I'm wondering what is going on here. I ask for a supervisor.

I talk to the supervisor and he tells me, "It is our policy that you need a birth certificate to obtain a youth TransLink card." Me: "Why? Do these kids look like they're too old for the card?" Him: "We bond the birth certificate to the card to avoid fraud." Me: "You what?" Him: "We make sure that the discount card is associated with the person." Me: "So, you're telling me that in order to get a discount, you guys are going to track the movements of my kids throughout the TransLink system? How is this supposed to reduce fraud?" Him: "That's our policy, sir." Me: "Your policy is Orwellian and there's no way I'm letting you associate my kids' public transportation usage with their birth certificate. Instead of trying to buy cards for the kids, I'm going to burn mine."

So, we walk away. The supervisor comes running after me. "Sir, your kids look young enough that they don't need to pay a fair anyway." Me: "First, they have to pay on the SF Muni and we follow the rules so we pay. Second, giving me a 'free-be' today don't mitigate your Big Brother policy of tracking my kids where-abouts." Him: "I'm just trying to be helpful." Me: "If you want to be helpful, go back to your boss and explain to him that this is the United States and we move freely in this country."

My kids asked me why I was cranky. I said, "Because the bad people want to know where you go." Kids: "We're not going anywhere bad, so why don't we want people to know where we've gone?" Me: "It is our right as Americans to come and go as we please. It's our right to be private. But more importantly, historically, once the government starts tracking their citizens, especially their children, they will find a way to use the information against you. It's not that we have anything to hide, it's that any time people want to always know, they are up to no good... they are bad people."

So, we walk through the Ferry Building and I see a guy with an EFF hat. Now, this is San Francisco, so it's not unexpected to see some guy sporting an EFF hat. I go up to him and say, "Are you a member of the EFF? I was one of the first donors to the EFF so don't get freaked." He says, "Yes." I say, "The TransLink folks want my kids' birth certificates in order to get a youth TransLink card and they bond the birth certificate to the card so they track the kid's movement throughout their system." His jaw dropped to the ground. We shared a brief moment of liberal outrage and my kids and I went on our way.

When I got home, I checked the TransLink site. There is no mention of requiring a birth certificate to obtain a youth pass. I called the TransLink customer service line and they did verify that a birth certificate is required.

First, TransLink is hiding the fact that a birth certificate is required. It's not on their public web site although it is mentioned in a press release. Why are they hiding this information? Do they think that if they don't publish it on their web site that somehow it'll make it okay?

Second, TransLink is managed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, but this is not mentioned anywhere on the TransLink web site and is only mentioned once in the TransLink cardholder "license agreement". Why is the MTC hiding?

Third, if the MTC is a governmental body, where was the public hearing and the public comment request relating to requiring a birth certificate and bonding that information to youth passes?

Forth, what great problem are they looking to solve by associating a card with a person? What kind of failures is the current youth (and elderly) pass mechanism (a different colored pass) justify bonding my child's birth certificate to their transit card and track my children's comings and goings?

So, I am outraged. I will burn my TransLink card and until this Orwellian, KGB-esq policy of requiring a birth certificate to get a youth TransLink, I will not in any way participate in the TransLink system. I urge you to do the same.

See Jack Die... a great book

nospam@example.com (David Pollak) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:13:09 -0700

See Jack Die was an awesomely fun read. A few months back, I got a bit of Twitter spam from Nicholas Black (@NicholasBlack60)... author of See Jack Die. I followed him (a rare thing for me to do.) Black tweeted an offer for a PDF review copy of the book. I took him up on it. It took me a month to find the right eReader to read it on (a Kindle DX), then I was off to the races.

I has just finished David Balducci's Simple Genius. It was a less than satisfying book... which seems to be the case for most of Balducci's books... but somehow I can't seem to stop reading them. Balducci's characters are barely one dimensional. The dialog is stilted and the plots are plotless... yet (and this is probably my personality defect), but I can't stop reading them once I've started.

So, I get Black's book, See Jack Die, and I start to read it. It's fun. It's funny. It's a little confusing at first... the main character, Jack, has amnesia and as a reader, I feel his amnesia. During the first part of the book, I really feel like I'm exploring Jack's new-found world with him and trying to make sense of it. Black really drew me in.

Okay... I'm going to take a break and complain a little:

Black needs some Twitter lessons. Yeah, he sucked me in by following me, but his tweets are generally pointless, repetitive and come 3 an hour, 24x7. I stopped following him after 2 days. I'd be interested in Black's tweets about actual writing (e.g., "Put Jack in a bad place... how am I going to get him out?" "Ricky, Ricky, Ricky... I don't think dad's dollars are going to help you with that." "Can't write today... gotta get some transfat into my body.")
The book needs a couple of more editing passes. I found a fair number of type-os. Now, I'm not one to throw too many stones about type-os and grammar checking (just look at some of the reviews of Beginning Scala), but I think Black needs to enlist the community to help him with editing.
Ricky (Jack's best friend) seems to morph over the course of the book to deliver whatever was needed as plot devices... either that or Black has a deeper plan for why Ricky seems to pull so many rabbits out of his hat.

So, those are my complaints about the book. On the good side:

The dialog is really good. It's not quite Robert Parker (the old stuff, not the newer stuff) good, but it's Sanford good.
Bonding over transfat is just plain funny. I can't stop thinking about tard-farmers.
Black kills characters better than anyone else. In fact, he's got a dark, twisted and darned funny way of dealing with death... which is a big part of the book.
The research is really good. It's Jeffrey Deaver good. Lots of interesting facts that Black clearly understands and is able to weave into the plot a lot better than Balducci does with quantum computing (the subject of Simple Genius.)

So, I strongly recommend See Jack Die. Black is right up there with authors like PJ Tracy. He's new. He's got interesting and original ideas. He can write a book that hangs together very well and is very entertaining. I highly recommend that you buy a PDF copy of See Jack Die at Scribd or buy the dead tree version from Amazon. I wish Black a lot of luck and look forward to reading more of his books and more of the See Jack ... series.

Time to install Ubuntu 8.04

nospam@example.com (David Pollak) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:10:42 -0700

Folks, a few months ago, I had a bad experience upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04 and recommended against upgrading.

I have had a bunch of good experiences installing (not upgrading) 8.04 and it seems that ThinkPad T61p support is pretty reasonable, so I am now recommending installation of 8.04. I still think that the upgrade process is a bit suboptimal and suggest that if you can, make backups of the data you want to preserve and do a clean install.

There are still problems with the NVidia drivers (this is not unique to 8.04 and in general, Ubuntu does a better job with "proprietary drivers" than any other Linux distribution I've found.) If you can avoid NVidia cards and buy a system with Intel graphics chips, you'll likely have a better Ubuntu experience. For the kind of work I do, I don't care about super-fast 3D, so the advantages that NVidia (or ATI) have over the Intel chips are near zero.

HotWire: a bunch of lying scammers

nospam@example.com (David Pollak) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:06:49 -0700

So, I need to go to New Jersey today. Rather than renting a car, I'm taking a train from Newark Airport to New Brunswick. I book a hotel on Hot Wire. I book a hotel for "New Brunswick." Not "New Brunswick and surrounding cities and towns." Not "Within 7 miles of New Brunswick." I book a hotel for "New Brunswick." Hot Wire shows me a bunch of options, including hotels in other cities and towns near New Brunswick. I choose the hotel in New Brunswick.

I book the hotel and pay. Then Hot Wire tells me the hotel is in a town 6.3 miles away from New Brunswick. I call their 800 number of explain that I booked a hotel for New Brunswick. "Chris" the customer service rep explains that there's a "map" that shows what "New Brunswick" means to Hot Wire (hint, it's not New Brunswick.)

You know what, I don't give a shit about a map. I give a shit about getting a hotel in the city that Hot Wire promised me a hotel in.

So, I'm disputing the charge. Will I prevail? Maybe... maybe not.

I'm also posting this warning: don't do business with Hot Wire. They are scammers. If they really meant for me to understand that the hotel in New Brunswick was not in New Brunswick, they would have listed the hotel as "New Brunswick or nearby city."

OMG the Netflix Roku box

nospam@example.com (David Pollak) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 18:36:14 -0700

I'm a Netflix subscriber. Netflix is pretty cool. Too bad I'm bad at planning and knowing what my wife and I are going to be in the mood for. We often get movies from Netflix, don't watch them for months and just keep paying our Netflix fees.

A few weeks ago, Netflix announced an Internet player. It's a box that downloads/streams movies from Netflix over our high speed network connection. There are a bunch of movies and TV shows available for the Netflix player (it's not the entire Netflix library.) The box costs $100 (well, it turns out with shipping, handling, cables, tax, and a few other fees, the total cost is more like $150.) There's no additional month charge to use it.

We bought one.

The box arrived. It was wicked small and light. No hard drive. Very few chips visible through the ventilated top. "Is this thing going to work?" I asked myself.

I connected it to the TV, plugged it in. It took about 3 minutes to boot. The process of hooking up to my home wireless network as trivial. The box did a software update and rebooted. There was simple setup process after the reboot to pair the box to my Netflix account.

Then it just worked.

It took about 5 minutes of trial and error we figured out how to add stuff to our "instant" queue (there were a bunch of misses when we started playing stuff to the computer until we discovered the "+" button.)

We added something to the instant queue on the computer. 3 seconds later, the show ("30 Rock, first season") showed up on the player. I pushed "play" and the show started.

OMG... the Netflix Roku box just works. It is easier to set up than an iPod. It works like a charm. The idea of using a PC as the front end rather than having to build a complex UI on the box was brilliant.

So, the Netflix Roku is worth every penny. If you're a Netflix subscriber, it's a no-brainer to get one. If you're not a Netflix subscriber and only occasionally watch stuff on premium channels (like HBO), it's worth the price to dump premium channels and switch to Netflix.

Reprinted from headenergy.com

nospam@example.com (David Pollak) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:22:11 -0800

The following appeared on headenergy.com. I went to look at the post, but headenergy.com was taken down. I found a copy of the post in Google's cache. I don't know if it was taken down because of this post or because of some other reason. However, I think the post contains a good idea. So, I'm reprinting it.

Digg is a site I look at regularly. It has its problems but it does show strong opinion on certain subjects and one of those is the RIAA. Its no secret that the RIAA has built a large amount of hatred among the Internet Savvy and beyong. Their aggresive tactics are becoming common knowledge and there appears to be no limit to how far they will take something. One thing that has been highlighted is a point made by the EFF whereby the idiots over at the big brand police RIAA say that even copying your CD and ripping it on to your IPOD or backing it up is not fair use. As by their usual standards this generates an anger amongst users as you can expect.

Story aside I think its high time that the RIAA is not referenced by its name but rather by its members. The point here is that slagging off the RIAA has no effect and thats how they want it to be. It doesnt matter how many stories, user comments, discussion goes on, the RIAA only exists to take all of the abuse away from the brands it represents. Imagine how much it would hurt someone like Sony if each time a bad article, comment or story reached the masses it had the words representing Sony in the title. Enough of that would force a brand to leave the RIAA group because it was too damaging to their brand name. Consumers have power and all the tools are available to use right there in Digg with its big audience reach. Press the right buttons and those members will jump ship to prevent extremely costly damage to brands that have taken decades to build.

Good places to eat in San Francisco

nospam@example.com (David Pollak) — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 22:34:02 -0800

Here's a list of places I like to eat in San Francisco Cheap:

Naan and Curry on Irving Street. Good, very inexpensive Indian food.
Tasty Curry on 9th Ave (near Irving Street). SImilar in price and good food to Naan and Curry, but different food style.
Yummy Yummy on Irving Street. Best Pho that I've found in San Francisco. Very kid friendly.
AK Meats on Clement. Excellent sandwiches.
Park Chow on 9th Ave. Good food and very kid friendly.

Medium Priced:

Tommy's Mexican on Geary. Take a cab unless you can walk home. Best Margaritas.
Ton Kiang on Geary. Most excellent Dim Sum. Always a long wait at brunch.
Gaspare's on Geary. Really nice pizza, pasta, and Italian feel. It's to the Olive Garden what the real world is to Disneyworld. Kid friendly.
Toraya on Filmore. Excellent sushi, great sushi chefs, wicked fun owner (Frank.)
South Seas Seafood on Irving. Very good family style Chinese food with a focus on sea food. Kid friendly.
Val's in Daly City. Italian. You might see Tony Soprano at the bar.
Piperade Battery @ Green. Excellent Basque style food. Eat at the bar and let the bar tender take care of you.

Expensive:

Boulevard, South of Market. Very good food. Very California food.
Aqua, downtown. The place to go if you've got a date with a blond model turned investment banker.