I know I promised that the next installment of Naked Eye Astronomy would be about unicorns, but y’all have indulged me so far. Please grant me this one birthday gift. Let me talk about the zodiac today. The zodiac is simply the twelve constellations through which the sun appears to move during the tropical year. Nothing more. Nothing less. I’m going to try not to sound rantish, but you see where this is going.
I sometimes write about astronomy. The stars, planets, comets, asteroids, planetoids, and all things astronomical have fascinated me since I was a child. I watched Apollo 11 land on the moon when I was 6 and the memory is as clear today as it was in 1969. I turned my childhood enthrallment into a hobby, amateur astronomy. I don’t want to put down anyone’s hobby, but astronomy is not astrology. Astronomy is a scientific approach to studying the heavens. Astrology is at best a funny, back page newspaper filler. At worst, astrology is a giant waste of time.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I probably insulted some true believer out there. Someone will probably want to argue/debate the merits of astrology with me. Let me save you the trouble…don’t bother. It’s a crock. A big steaming crock of crap. I wrote an article about that topic a long time ago and I’m kicking myself for not leaning on one point more heavily. I touched on it under the heading “Stuck in the past” in the article, Debunking Astrology: Myth in the Modern Era. What is the one, biggest, glaring, conspicuous reason astrology is so very, very bogus? Stellar drift.
It hit me again today like the blazing sun in my astronomy software, Stellarium. I’m a Sagittarius who was born a Capricorn. Four thousand years of stellar drift have bumped all the astrological signs back one month. The sun won’t even enter Capricornus until the 18th of January 2009. As it is today, as it was on my birthday, the sun is squarely in Sagittarius.
Those moldy Babylonians did a great job mapping out the sky and spinning some fanciful tales, but they didn’t factor in stellar drift. No one since has bothered to adjust the astrological houses. No one bothers to point to all the fancy birth charts and say, “Um…no. The sun is in the wrong house for me to be a Capricorn.”
I’m sorry if that offends someone, but stellar drift is a fact. I don’t care if you believe in God or gods or fate or karma. I don’t care if you think the flying spaghetti monster in the sky directs your daily footsteps. What snaps my garters is when people take something simple like gravity, twist it into some all-encompassing system, and try to relieve their minds of personal responsibility.
Just so we’re clear: 4,000 years ago astronomy helped plant crops. Then some joker got the idea that crop fertility equals human fertility and tried to apply that fancy new calendar to babies. Astronomy is not astrology. Stars are giant fusion reactors and do not control our fates. Planets follow Newtonian laws and not the laws of Marduk.
I was conceived under a “Do Not Disturb” sign and born under a stop sign. So happy birthday to me. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Consider that your annual sacrifice…er…present.
Ah! Morning in America. Why do I feel like I need coffee and lots of it for the next 4 years? The American voter has spoken. “We want change!” is the cry. OK, change this. Make the Federal government more efficient. Cut the fat and excise the bloat.
There is a great piece of artwork called Death & Taxes. It’s a real eye-opener possibly better than your triple-shot, extra-foam, cappuccino. After taking a look, I decided there are a few things that need changing.
Do get health insurance and the tobacco corporations out of each others pockets. Why don’t health insurance companies pay for smoking cessation drugs/programs. I’ve never been able to figure this one out. Smoking costs health insurance companies millions of dollars every year, but they won’t pay for preventative medicine. What kind of pictures are in the vault at Altria headquarters? Some really raunchy stuff from the Humana Xmas party, I assume.
Do away with the Department of Education. Cut my taxes that go to support the DoEd so I can happily pay them to my local schools. No child left behind. Are you kidding me? Washington mandates this junk and doesn’t send near enough money to pay for it. Let the locals handle their own. Besides, I know a kid or two that needs to be left behind or at least dropped off at the vo-tech.
I’m stuck in this blasted hospital for at least one more day while they double check enzyme levels. At least they have some Wi-Fi and my daughter was kind enough to drop off my laptop.
I was really sick of that stupid IV. Waltzing Matilda to the bathroom. Waltzing Matilda to the window. Waltzing Matilda to bed. Argh! The stupid line gets caught on everything. The first thing I asked the doctor today was, “Write an order to have this thing removed!” He put me on solid food and out came the IV.
Now when you haven’t eaten for 3 days, any food will do, even hospital food. But I think the doc lost his mind here. I should have gotten some tea and jello to start, not that chicken-like slab, mashed potatoes, and green beans. And where do they get off giving “bread pudding” with raisins to someone who might be diabetic? Dumbasses.
I first ask the doctor if I could just go home today. He said he really wanted to see how I did on real food first. Then he had the nerve to say, “Do you not have insurance?” WTF? Admitting screwed up, has me down for “no insurance” and this guy wants to keep me one more day? You’d think they’d be rolling me out in a wheel chair at midnight with my hand propped up in the “hail a cap” motion.
Did I mention I hate hospitals? You know I almost died to put myself in here. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Never again. Force of will…what ever it takes. Never again will I be such a dumbass. Hey, we all get one, may two if we’re lucky. I will miss the Demerol though.
I’ve been asked this multiple times during the last few days. The color has changed and the Associated Content pages are gone. It’s pretty simple. It’s a protest. Not that I think I have some influential blog, but I have to walk the talk.
If you saw my post on 30 Aug 2008, you know I’m none too happy with how AC handled their new forum rollout or the forum design itself. I pulled my AC pages including the many tips, I’ve blogged over the last many months. I took the AC orange off as further disassociation. The phrase of the week is “guilt by association.” I ain’t havin’ none. To all who accused me of being an AC cheerleader in the past, this is the real me. True to myself.
To their credit, AC made apologies to their writers/community. They asked how they can make it better. They incorporated a few minor, easily executed changes. I know a re-vamp of the overall navigation design will take some time, but therein lies my trepidation. I’ve seen this before at AC. I’ve seen AC offer many words and platitudes without any follow-through. I’m still in “believe it when I see it” mode.
There are a few bright spots. The staff is a bit more engaged. I say “a bit” because it is no where near the involvement needed to moderate such a forum. The mind-boggling thing is that with all the new sub-forums, all with their ridiculously minute themes, the AC staff itself is dumping most of their posts in the General Forum when the thread topic clearly matches one of the subs. The only reason I can think of is AC knows that everyone goes to the General Forum and no one will see their announcements if they really posted them in the Announcements Forum.
Then there are still the silly AC Connect forums. Previously, we all got along well with one Non-AC Forum and one Just For Fun Forum for a catch-all. Now there are things like Health and Wellness and Pet Lovers. I predicted they would become dump-and-runs for article links of shameless self-promotion and it has already started. The amusing thing about this is one newbie-spammer already figured out that no one was reading the sub-sub-sub forum and reposted his self-promotion in the old Just For Fun forum.
The newly participating AC staffers are trying to post their own starter threads to guide these buried forums, but fighting foo is hard. The aging “last post” timestamps on those forums are telling. Some only have one thread, the sarcastic protest thread I posted on day one, in them. Unfortunately, those forums are there to stay, no matter how or how often they are used.
I’m still hoping they will take all of our feedback and make the navigation easier. The suggestions from the community are almost identical so AC has a template. The only positive feedback I’ve seen was from a couple of people who keep to very few threads. At least AC made following only one or two threads easy. Yea…no wait…that leads to isolationism. People end up only following threads they start or a couple started by their friends. They never get the big picture and miss so much freely-offered information.
In short, hope is still only hope. AC staff participation is still low (I only saw one complaint addressed today, but several new announcements.). Navigation remains impossible. Communication from the staff about the progress is still the sound of one hand clapping. One the upside, I’ve had time to explore some other forums and sites that I’ve been meaning to parse. Let AC deal with the disinformation trolls. They’ve already started coming out of the cracks.
Associated Content made great strides in the two years I’ve been with them. They’ve also made several boneheaded errors. Until now the only one that really got me riled was the damned interlinker. Their latest change has just stolen my joy.
The AC forum was my favorite hang out. Then some genius decided to fix what wasn’t broken. I don’t know who came up with the new design, who sold it to AC, or how they thought it was an improvement, but it’s a complete and total cluster fuck. I don’t say this because I’m resistant to change. This is the opinion of a professional web application developer. Let me break it down:
Usability 1/5
The only reason AC gets 1 out of 5 is because a zero means the site is down. Just being up gives anyone a default 1. The new AC forum is a bunch of folders within folders with no way to navigate between the 4 master forums. There is no tree navigation and at certain points even the header hierarchy links are missing parts of the path. I’ve taken to opening the master forum (well 3 of them at least because “AC Connect” is a useless waste of disc space) in tabs and refreshing from time to time. That’s too much damned work AC! Their solution? A subscription feature that will email me when something changes. Bugger off! I don’t want to wait for email, jump over to my email client, and open the mail to find out someone posted something new. I’m in the forum and I want to see what’s going on while I’m there. Besides, the email that I get is useless. It says “Click here to see,” but there isn’t a hyperlink. It might as well say, “Something is new. Now go try to find out what it is shmuck! AhHaHaHaHa!” I have enough useless shit about cheap Viagra in my inbox. I don’t what more email.
Intuitiveness 0/5
Web applications should be intuitive. A forum user should be able to glance at a forum list and easily find what they need. AC’s new design requires the user to have prior knowledge of the layout (folders within folders) to find what they want. Unless you think exactly like the dumbass who came up with the system, you’ll never find the right thread. The thing makes less sense than the Dewey Decimal system.
Features 0/5
AC included none of the features common to most forums. They have completely ignored the first rule of web design: “People learn how to use the web by surfing other web sites, not yours.” In other words, do things like everyone else so the user knows what to expect. AC has no “what has been posted since my last visit/refresh” feature like every other web site on earth. They don’t have “at a glace what’s new” visual indicators. For this you have to remember the timestamp of the last post from your last visit and do the math in your head.
Community 0/5
Forums, above all, are communities of like-minded users. AC has turned their forum into pigeon holes for simple-minded users. Why the hell do I want to go to the forum of a writer’s web site to discuss my aches and pains? But AC has gracious buried a “Health & Wellness” forum deep in the bowels of the new design. If I want medical advice, I’ll go to WebMD. If I want to talk about writing, I’ll go to AC. Keep it simple AC. This design does not foster the community. It segregates. The design encourages people to stay in one folder. You can’t be all things to all people.
User involvement 0/5
AC steam rolled this new design out without so much as a by-your-leave. The frequent forum folk have been giving AC suggestions for improvement for years. None of of these suggestions were included in the new design. Here they have a steady stream of input from the people using the software and they totally ignore everything, subcontract the design to some DeVry Institute dropout, and force it down the community’s throat. Not even a beta test was done.
Hope for change 0/5
After the rollout, AC asked the users, “TaDa! What do you think?” The overwhelming feedback has been “This sucks. It’s hard to navigate. I can’t find anything. It’s all confusing.” There have been dozens of suggestions made on how to rectify the situation. How high are my hopes that AC will listen? Not high. Given that they didn’t listen to us prior to the change and given that the only response to the current cries was “Give it time. You’ll get used to it.” tells me AC has no real intentions of correcting anything. They obviously spent a lot of time and money on this. There is obviously someone’s job at stake here. Whoever that is has to defend the blasted thing to the bitter end. Yeah, I’m eyeballing you, Darnell. I doubt AC would change at this point if Obama dropped by their Denver headquarters and gave a speech about the importance of change.
Maintainability 0/5
AC has always been a self-moderated forum. Their new design requires way too much overhead. They are going to need several moderators to keep the place clean and the newbies happy. Forum participation by AC employees has never been something they were very willing to do. Without it, the new forum will quickly implode. The experienced AC users who used to answer the bulk of questions are not willing to take the enormous amount of time to do so. My prediction is hundreds of unanswered newbie threads and ensuing user disgust with AC. People will leave in droves.
Overall Score: Cluster Fuck
AC has taken what was a cozy Rick’s Cafe and turned it into TGI Friday’s, only they forgot to install a kitchen or restrooms. So now that I ranted, what could they do to make it better? Simply put it back the way it was and listen to their community. I suspect this design is supposed to align with some bigger marketing plan, but not all parts of a company or site need to fulfill some larger goal. A forum is just a forum. Keep it simple. Keep it clean. There are dozens of constructive suggestions at AC’s disposal. The only problem is these suggestion were left in the AC forum and are next to impossible to find. Even the AC employees haven’t seen half of them and if they have, they’re being damned quiet about it.
On Friday, August 1, 2008, the GOP House minority was calling for a vote to allow new off-shore drilling or at least a debate on the question. Pelosi instead called for an adjournment vote. The vote was 213-212 to adjourn for a 5-week vacation. The CSPAN cameras were turned off, the lights in the House were extinguished, and the GOP staged a sit-in. When Capital police tried to clear the press gallery, GOP Representatives intervened.
Pelosi’s act sets an example for the rest of the nation. We must save energy since we’re not going to look for new sources of oil. What lessons do we learn from Pelosi’s example?
If you don’t like the conversation, just leave.
Don’t like the topic? Think you might lose the argument? Already have your …
I’ve had a draft article about how to get good customer service lying around for months. I did write something similar back in Aug 2006 about calling 800 numbers, but I keep thinking I should rewrite it to include how to write an effective email.
You ask, “Why?” The easy answer is, I’m on the receiving end of many similar emails. Additionally, I see so many rants in the AC forum about Associated Content being unresponsive. I can honestly say, Associated Content has never been unresponsive when I emailed a concern. Does AC love me more than you? No. AC gives priority to clear, concise emails with enough details to address the problem. That’s the kind of email that gets a response.
You don’t have to take my word for it. The following block is straight from the man who handles all of AC’s incoming emails.
1. BE SPECIFIC. If there is one specific article you’re having trouble with, tell us the title. If it’s already published, having a URL of the live content will help IMMENSELY, and will let us fix the issue faster for you. It will also help EVERYONE on the site, as we will be able to move more quickly between issues.
2. Don’t just rant. You would be shocked at how many emails I get on a daily basis that are just rants, which really don’t give any information. “YOU NEED TO PAY ME FOR THIS ARTICLE” does not describe the problem you’re having. We want you to have a positive experience at AC, but if there is an issue that’s keeping you from getting paid, once again, we need specifics.
3. Be nice. Ultimately, we’re all on the same team here. Every day, I remind myself that what’s best for the CP’s is best for AC. We’re not on different teams, we’re not playing against each other. AC is really not trying to “pull one over” on you. Also, the people reviewing your content are educated, they are smart, and they are good at their jobs. Insulting them isn’t going to help anyone do anything. At the end of the day, we are all in this together.
4. One email will do it. If you’re having an issue, you email, and you don’t hear back in 20 minutes, that’s normal. I get more than 200 emails per day, all of which need to be read and answered. Sending multiple emails about the same issue on the same content really slows the process for everyone.
I feel his pain, so let me expound on this just a bit.
5. Include Details. Dates, URLs, and article titles are very important. If needed, use dates to build a time-line of the events. In describing the problem, include the steps that you took which lead there. For example, “I was using the General template to submit an article on May 6th. I pressed buttons 1, 2, 3 and then got a blank page.”
6. Be Concise. Don’t address more than one concern in the email. Get to the point and stay on track. A bullet-point list is easier for the email recipient to scan than a 500-word ranting paragraph.
7. Use the Subject Field. In the subject field of your email, include something that gives a clue about the email’s contents. For example, are you reporting a technical bug with the web site? The subject line should read something like, “Technical Bug With Web Site. Broken URL.”
8. Include Your System Info. If your problem appears technical in any way, include you operating system (OS) and browser specifics. Don’t know what those are? It’s simple. For Microsoft Windows, right-click the My Computer icon and choose Properties. There’s your OS. “MS Windows” isn’t good enough. Include the version number. To get your browser information, select the Help > About menu.
9. Don’t assume things are FUBAR unless they are repeatable. Stuff happens. It doesn’t mean it’s AC’s problem 100% of the time. Try to replicate the problem before firing off an email. It may have just been a temporary network drop. It may have been something you did. Slow down, try it again, and make notes of what you’re doing. This will help if you do end up sending an email.
These are the things to which AC or any site responds. I’ll go out on a limb and say those forum posts about AC’s unresponsiveness are probably the result of failure to adhere to rule number 2 and 4. When you read those, between the lines is, “I fired off an mindless rant with no details and didn’t hear back so I fired off 5 more emails.” I guarantee you, those emails went straight to the trash folder.
These are the tips from the guys who get emails everyday about problems with web sites. You don’t have to take them to heart, but then you don’t have to have your problem resolved either.
Mississippi House Bill 282, currently before the state legislature, would prevent restaurants with more than five seats from serving obese people as determined by the state’s health department. Repeat offenders would be subject to fines or closure. Even the bills sponsor, W.T. Mayhall, Jr. says he knows the bill has less of a chance at survival than a bucket of KFC at a Weight Watchers meeting. He just wants the large, good people of Mississippi to consider their health and thinks this will get the conversation started. After all, Mississippi was just granted the title “fattest state in the nation,” with 62% of its population defined as obese.
My first thought when hearing this story was, “Why would restaurants want to keep out the fatties? They’re your best customers. This is like banning athletes from gyms.” Then there’s the whole problem of determining who is huge enough to face discrimination. Will Mississippi restaurants have to narrow their doors? Will they install the human-size version of the airport carry-on luggage measuring box? I imagine it will have a sign over it which reads, “If your ass is bigger than this, you are not welcome.” I wonder if signs like, “No shirt. No shoes. No Fatties.” are already being printed in the Magnolia state.
As bizarre as all that sounds, the really funny thing I learned while investigating this story is there is a real organization called The Coalition of Fat Rights Activists (COFRA). A group actually proud of their flab…er…glandular problem, who feel fat people face enough discrimination, they need an activist group. I’m no spring chicken, but I’ll stick with, “I could stand to lose a few pounds,” before I swing over the fence to “Fat is beautiful. RascalTM scooters for everyone!”
Here in Alabama, we have an expression for when people make fun of our state, “Thank God there’s Mississippi.” Having Mississippi as our neighbor really lowers the bar and takes all the pressure off.
One of my first articles submitted to Associated Content was a rant about the treatment my wife and I receive at pharmacies (Pharmacist’s Opinions Now Out Weigh Doctor’s Orders, July 2006). As far as the writing goes, I could have done a better job getting my point across. As far as the topic goes, it persist to this day and is getting worse.
My wife called our local Walgreens three days ago to get a refill of her Xanax prescription. She was told that it wouldn’t be refillable until Saturday, 1/26. That was cool. No problem. It’s always good to call ahead and have things waiting.
She called Saturday morning to make sure it was ready. The pharmacist on duty told her it couldn’t be refilled until Sunday, 1/27. Grrrrr! Who died and made you God, Ms. Pharmacist? Why would your people tell us the 26th when you are going to make a personal decision to not fill it until the 27th?
That is my main complaint with the chain pharmacies…no consistent policies. Everything is left up to the whim of the pharmacist on duty. Getting a refill is like playing Russian Roulette. I’ve even had one pharmacist refuse to fill a written prescription at 7AM because he knew he was going off duty at 8AM. The shift change made all the difference and the 8 o’clock guy had no problem counting out the pills.
Knowing the system means you can game the system, though. My wife simply made a phone call to the next Walgreens down the road and they had no problem filling the script on Saturday.
I’m not bashing Walgreens as a whole. Just the inconsistent policies. I regularly go to a particular Walgreens every month for a reoccurring prescription and John, the PharmD, is the nicest guy in the world. The people at the Walgreens where I picked up the Xanax today were very polite, friendly, and quick. But the Walgreens at 7813 Highway 72 W Madison, AL apparently only hires cold, hard bitches who have their own policies about what scripts are valid and when they will fill them.
This isn’t the first time we’ve been treated with complete and utter disdain by the staff at that particular store. So don’t give me any bullshit about “pharmacist are professionals who are trained to look out for your well-being.” This crew at this particular Walgreens is just a customer dis-service nightmare. I vow before the internet gods, I will not set foot in that store again. I’ll drive the extra 6 miles or go across the street to Publix.
Personally, my view on drugs is very Libertarian. Make it all legal and available over the counter. Let Darwin deal with the rest. If you’re so ill informed and stupid to take a fist full of sleeping aids and wake up dead, then the world is free of 23 chromosomes that won’t dumb down the herd. Sure it would put the pharmacist out of a job, but they’re always hiring check-out clerks at Walmart.
Do the expressions we use really make sense? Some expressions, when taken to their logical conclusion, don’t mean what we intend. Some are just flat-out wrong and people continue to use them…wrongly. Other expressions are simply annoying. Maybe I’m over thinking some of these, but hearing these clichés is like having a cheese grater scraped over my ears. We all have peeves and these are some of mine.
Here are a couple of excerpts. If you like these, you’ll love the rest:
Better late than never.
That really depends on what it is. I doubt you would say this to the paramedics if they showed up 4 hours after you called 911. I bet your boss never says this either. Bosses tend to want things now or a least on time.
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
If we didn’t, life would be much more complicated than it is. We make snap judgments and quick decision based on the superficial everyday. If we didn’t have our prejudices, simple things like ordering dinner in a restaurant would take hours while we weighed every entrée’s attributes and compared the balance of herbs in each dish. Looking at the dessert menu would drive us insane. You know you love chocolate, so you can quickly order the double-fudge brownie á la mode and not worry about the other desserts or your cholesterol, apparently.
Self Help Book.
Unless you wrote the book, it’s just regular help. If you are not the author, you are getting help from someone else; therefore you are not helping yourself. I really hate this section of the bookstore, too. Every new-age whack job with a theory about an Oedipus complex or eating disorders has a 150-page tree killer about how crystals can make your poop smell like roses while good writers starve.
Like mom's fridge 
