I am writing today to let television networks and individuals know that I have been repeatedly forced to remove some of my favorite TV channels from my DirecTV guide/favorites list. No, it's not because I don't like or watch the programming. Well, maybe some. :) But usually, the problem is quite different. I watch them all the time. However, the removal is part of a protest statement I am sending to DirecTV...As unsuccessful and pointless as it seems to be.
Recently DirecTV began adding one line advertisements to their TV channels guide. Now while the TV Guide channel makes money this way because they don't have commercials, DirecTV has no excuse for this behavior as we all pay good money for our service. They are colorful one line ads that encourage users to click on them to go to other channels, purchase movies or services, play their games or find information they deem worthy of promoting. Shortly after they started popping up we called customer service and asked that they be removed. We were told that there is no option to do so and the ads and their frequency is solely at the discretion of their corporate office. We told them that such things would be considered when our service contract is up.
Much like recent choices by Sony, it seems commonplace now for companies to force users to endure advertisements on computers, gaming systems or even their television guide in spite of the fact that those items or services are paid for with good money. Am I against tasteful advertising? No. In fact I have tons of applications containing ads on my Blackberry, but the programs were all free, so that's fair.
As a tinkerer it didn't take me long to figure out that the ads are attached to popular programming channels. I found that if I deleted the channel immediately following the advertisement from my list, sure enough the channel was gone, but also the ad attached was gone as well. This has saved me many an ad and annoyance as I flip through my list. Early on the channels were of little to no consideration for me, but now they've figured that out and started attaching to popular networks. I was very sad to see G4TV, GSN, SpikeTV and many others go. Now I don't watch the removed channels during their downtime because it is inconvenient to do so. Without the guide, switching to the channels would be random and pointless unless I knew something I wanted to watch happened to be on.
Since these channels are a meaningful loss to me, using my new technique, and the fact that this travesty is continuing, I decided to write and voice my opinion on the issue. I don't know if there is a compensation to the broadcast companies for adding the ads attached to the channels they use or not, but if there isn't...they are all loosing views and really getting ripped off!
Some feel as though I am being nitpicky. And perhaps rightly so. But I am tired of these situations arising from already huge corporations trying to bulk up their bottom line at the expense of their customers. I feel as though complacency is what got us to this point in the first place. So, if you feel as strongly about corporations continuing to take advantage and tactlessly advertise as I do, than please feel free to post this wherever you'd like or send it to whomever you'd like! Thanks.
David
Friday, July 2, 2010
Followups on Sony PlayStation3 and IQ Credit Union
I just realized that I never bothered to post follow-ups to these topics and I had useful information to provide. Well, at least for the PlayStation 3. For anyone as disturbed by their firmware update flooding your system with forced advertisements from the store, there is a solution. It's actually a rather easy one. Disable the Internet connection in the connections setting. This will prevent the system from downloading the ads. You may have noticed their commercials trying to get you to turn the connection on. This is, amongst other things, one of the many reasons. Unfortunately, it is still set to do all kinds of annoying things like override your auto-run capabilities so it can force you to look at the store on first startup, but you will find that after a shutdown, the store items list is all blank. Hope this helps someone!
Today I can happily say that I am done with IQ Credit Union. Huzzah! After the banking laws were changed here in 2010 IQ was no longer able to impose unreasonable late fees for payment that had in fact been made. And with a kudos to the government from me, I might add. Not something I do very often, I assure you. However, I tried to keep to my self made promise to pay them off quickly and be done with it. And even though it took me longer than I'd hoped, I am finally all done. Thanks to all who were supportive and understanding of their unfair practices!
David
Today I can happily say that I am done with IQ Credit Union. Huzzah! After the banking laws were changed here in 2010 IQ was no longer able to impose unreasonable late fees for payment that had in fact been made. And with a kudos to the government from me, I might add. Not something I do very often, I assure you. However, I tried to keep to my self made promise to pay them off quickly and be done with it. And even though it took me longer than I'd hoped, I am finally all done. Thanks to all who were supportive and understanding of their unfair practices!
David
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Science Still Precludes the Possibility of God
I told myself that the next post I made would be a positive one. I spend much of my time being negative and it can sometimes bum me out. But every time I think about something important enough to express, it tends to be a rant rather than an accolade. As a result I have passed by many opportunities to write, but not this time.
In the past I have spent, and still can spend far too much time watching television. Recently I have enjoyed a trend of watching educational or religious programming rather than less constructive shows. However, I have noticed a nagging trend that is becoming quite prominent, especially on the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel. That is, of course, that scientists and/or atheists are continuing, and even stepping up, their campaign to convince a good portion of people on the planet Earth just how mistaken they all are.
Exactly what portion is it? The portion of us that are religious, that is. Well, there is no practical way to ever know exactly. Many have speculated over the years. Some site remarkably high examples and yet others are much more conservative. There are many polls and studies on just this subject matter and a search of Google yields millions of results. Atheist sites claim that as many as 50% of the world are atheist or at least agnostic. While yet others say that the number of religious, or at least those that believe in some sort of God or higher power are much higher. The claims are in the area of 70%-85% of the world population. In the US the numbers are claimed to be even higher, in the area of 90%-95%, many of those being some form of Christian.
What really bothers me is that these programs are intentionally and extremely deceptive. I'd even go as far as saying that many of them are just plain evil! They deliberately brand programming ads and titles to appear to truly ask relevant questions about a universal spirit, higher form of existence, historical prophets or the history of the Bible. But when you go ahead and watch, you instead find that it is actually a completely one sided study about disproving all of these things. Sure they keep throwing you a bone insinuating the information shows both sides of the story, especially right before each commercial break, but then they come back to continue showing us just how uninformed and wrong we all are. They show us weak evidence that specific stories in the Bible couldn't have been real historical events. Or now, Morgan Freeman, who ironically chose to play the character of God in the movies "Bruce Almighty" and "Evan Almighty," with his new show that does the very same thing. His ads and shows claim to delve into the creation of the universe and God, but what it really does is show us in many different ways the opinion of how science has supposedly proven the likelihood of God existing as being slim to none.
Of course, science freely admits that we are learning new things every day and proving previously theories highly accepted to be true as wrong. But there is no hard evidence that God or Heaven do not exist. No evidence that says unequivocally that Jesus did not walk on this Earth, perform miracles and died for all our sins should we choose to accept that gift. In fact, a renowned scientist Carl Sagan said how it is arrogant for hard atheists to assert that Goes does not exist, as the statement is by definition a belief and not a fact. They are making a claim of knowledge when, in fact, they have no proof whatsoever.
Science and religion are supposedly not supposed to fight each other and yet they seem to always take up absolute and opposing positions. Yet in spite of the fact that so many do believe in one form or another, it would seem that everyone creating television programs and programming are all somehow atheistic by nature. I guess it is high time for me to throw away my Morgan Freeman movies, remove offending TV channels from my favorites list and read my Bible a little more!
In the past I have spent, and still can spend far too much time watching television. Recently I have enjoyed a trend of watching educational or religious programming rather than less constructive shows. However, I have noticed a nagging trend that is becoming quite prominent, especially on the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel. That is, of course, that scientists and/or atheists are continuing, and even stepping up, their campaign to convince a good portion of people on the planet Earth just how mistaken they all are.
Exactly what portion is it? The portion of us that are religious, that is. Well, there is no practical way to ever know exactly. Many have speculated over the years. Some site remarkably high examples and yet others are much more conservative. There are many polls and studies on just this subject matter and a search of Google yields millions of results. Atheist sites claim that as many as 50% of the world are atheist or at least agnostic. While yet others say that the number of religious, or at least those that believe in some sort of God or higher power are much higher. The claims are in the area of 70%-85% of the world population. In the US the numbers are claimed to be even higher, in the area of 90%-95%, many of those being some form of Christian.
What really bothers me is that these programs are intentionally and extremely deceptive. I'd even go as far as saying that many of them are just plain evil! They deliberately brand programming ads and titles to appear to truly ask relevant questions about a universal spirit, higher form of existence, historical prophets or the history of the Bible. But when you go ahead and watch, you instead find that it is actually a completely one sided study about disproving all of these things. Sure they keep throwing you a bone insinuating the information shows both sides of the story, especially right before each commercial break, but then they come back to continue showing us just how uninformed and wrong we all are. They show us weak evidence that specific stories in the Bible couldn't have been real historical events. Or now, Morgan Freeman, who ironically chose to play the character of God in the movies "Bruce Almighty" and "Evan Almighty," with his new show that does the very same thing. His ads and shows claim to delve into the creation of the universe and God, but what it really does is show us in many different ways the opinion of how science has supposedly proven the likelihood of God existing as being slim to none.
Of course, science freely admits that we are learning new things every day and proving previously theories highly accepted to be true as wrong. But there is no hard evidence that God or Heaven do not exist. No evidence that says unequivocally that Jesus did not walk on this Earth, perform miracles and died for all our sins should we choose to accept that gift. In fact, a renowned scientist Carl Sagan said how it is arrogant for hard atheists to assert that Goes does not exist, as the statement is by definition a belief and not a fact. They are making a claim of knowledge when, in fact, they have no proof whatsoever.
Science and religion are supposedly not supposed to fight each other and yet they seem to always take up absolute and opposing positions. Yet in spite of the fact that so many do believe in one form or another, it would seem that everyone creating television programs and programming are all somehow atheistic by nature. I guess it is high time for me to throw away my Morgan Freeman movies, remove offending TV channels from my favorites list and read my Bible a little more!
Friday, December 4, 2009
How Many Hackers Does It Take To Change A Lightbulb
Although I have never mentioned it before, I consider myself to be a decent programmer. I personally like Visual Basic the best, but I'm sure there are lots of others who would argue for another favorite. Remember Assembly...boy I do! :) While I don't have the advantage of a professor or colleagues to collaborate with on projects, I do well with the Internet to help me through the rough patches.
A long time ago I wrote a simple Microsoft Access database that held basic customer information, originally for my father no less. However, he never really wanted to use it. Eventually, I updated it for a friend, to contain quite a lot of information for customers, even with continuous fields for notes, location information and more. Having finished it I realized the potential of this tool and even the opportunity for continued improvement of the database structure and its interface. After all, not many people have a copy of Access lying around outside of a corporate environment. So needless to say I embarked on a two year project that brought my database and its application front end to new proud heights. Not only was the database extremely useful for the Real Estate world, but even for anyone who desired to track customers and virtually any kind of information pertaining to them.
Now we all know that there are hackers out there. I even have a bit of respect for some who do that sort of thing. Everyone knows that the harder big companies like Micro$oft try to prevent such things; the harder hackers try to succeed in breaking the application. Eventually, someone always succeeds. And so it is with most protected information like DVD movies, MP3 music and many other things. No big surprise. But, I never would have imagined that a program written by a small poor family in the middle of nowhere in North Idaho would be cracked. Mind you, I imagine it wasn't hard. Being precluded from the available financing to paste in a complex prepackaged encoded registration system, I was forced to do what poor people usually do and wrote in my own mathematical registration code. For someone on their own, that knows nothing about encryption or complex algorithms, I thought it was pretty clever actually.
But after putting the application onto CNet systems website, I quickly found out how mistaken I was. Mind you I feel very violated and truly sad, because not only did our family desperately need the money, but I assumed that we'd make some sort of profit from all of the time spent on this project. Instead I found out that the only people interested in the application were those who could get it for free. Yes, how proud I was. Hundreds of downloads...but not one genuine attempt to actually register and pay for its use. In a way I feel honored that my program was important enough to hack...kind of. But mostly I just don't get it. I really don't. I find myself wondering do they have absolutely nothing better to do than to dash the dreams of fixed income families around the world, or was there something else?
I had made plans to first purchase the newest, latest and greatest 2008 version of Visual Basic Professional to allow for the continued development of the application and its deployment package. I was planning on adding a new complex module that would have allowed for the tracking of merchandise and detailed customer orders along with several fixes and improvements to the existing structure and layout. But now, I see just how very pointless that endeavor would be. So I have removed the application from our web site and requested that CNet do the same before I draw more negative attention to our family. Never to try again, for sure! It is a hard lesson learned. And as my good friend Mark knows, finding individual jobs or contracts on the Internet for custom application programming, small or large, is like 600 starving sharks circling one single, all be it juicy, person. Often people in the US have no hope of obtaining most contracts as we simply can't afford to outbid someone from another country where money can go further.
So, my family has shifted focus from public Internet ventures and programming to things more tangible and local. But like most things, establishing a reputation or relationship with a company, or making money or extra income on your own in general, just takes time. I do certainly wish we had more money, and I know many of us out there could use some. For that matter I don't know a single one of us who couldn't use some extra time in any given day!
So to all the people who stole my application and happily use it for free...shame on you and thanks for nothing! And to the hackers who chose my program for some reason, do try and think twice before you dash the dreams of yet another person just trying to survive. Not everyone out there is an evil corporation with plenty of money and resources to spare. Or whatever other lame justifications you have for your dishonorable actions.
As a Christian, I know that God will take care of us no matter what happens. And those who would try to interfere with that will pay their own hefty price when the time comes. And so I ask that you all pray for us. That I move on, that we can continue to somehow pay all the bills and that we all be protected from those who would do us harm as this world gets more and more messed up! Finally, if you have actually read all the way thought these thoughts and rantings to the end, thank you. ;)
A long time ago I wrote a simple Microsoft Access database that held basic customer information, originally for my father no less. However, he never really wanted to use it. Eventually, I updated it for a friend, to contain quite a lot of information for customers, even with continuous fields for notes, location information and more. Having finished it I realized the potential of this tool and even the opportunity for continued improvement of the database structure and its interface. After all, not many people have a copy of Access lying around outside of a corporate environment. So needless to say I embarked on a two year project that brought my database and its application front end to new proud heights. Not only was the database extremely useful for the Real Estate world, but even for anyone who desired to track customers and virtually any kind of information pertaining to them.
Now we all know that there are hackers out there. I even have a bit of respect for some who do that sort of thing. Everyone knows that the harder big companies like Micro$oft try to prevent such things; the harder hackers try to succeed in breaking the application. Eventually, someone always succeeds. And so it is with most protected information like DVD movies, MP3 music and many other things. No big surprise. But, I never would have imagined that a program written by a small poor family in the middle of nowhere in North Idaho would be cracked. Mind you, I imagine it wasn't hard. Being precluded from the available financing to paste in a complex prepackaged encoded registration system, I was forced to do what poor people usually do and wrote in my own mathematical registration code. For someone on their own, that knows nothing about encryption or complex algorithms, I thought it was pretty clever actually.
But after putting the application onto CNet systems website, I quickly found out how mistaken I was. Mind you I feel very violated and truly sad, because not only did our family desperately need the money, but I assumed that we'd make some sort of profit from all of the time spent on this project. Instead I found out that the only people interested in the application were those who could get it for free. Yes, how proud I was. Hundreds of downloads...but not one genuine attempt to actually register and pay for its use. In a way I feel honored that my program was important enough to hack...kind of. But mostly I just don't get it. I really don't. I find myself wondering do they have absolutely nothing better to do than to dash the dreams of fixed income families around the world, or was there something else?
I had made plans to first purchase the newest, latest and greatest 2008 version of Visual Basic Professional to allow for the continued development of the application and its deployment package. I was planning on adding a new complex module that would have allowed for the tracking of merchandise and detailed customer orders along with several fixes and improvements to the existing structure and layout. But now, I see just how very pointless that endeavor would be. So I have removed the application from our web site and requested that CNet do the same before I draw more negative attention to our family. Never to try again, for sure! It is a hard lesson learned. And as my good friend Mark knows, finding individual jobs or contracts on the Internet for custom application programming, small or large, is like 600 starving sharks circling one single, all be it juicy, person. Often people in the US have no hope of obtaining most contracts as we simply can't afford to outbid someone from another country where money can go further.
So, my family has shifted focus from public Internet ventures and programming to things more tangible and local. But like most things, establishing a reputation or relationship with a company, or making money or extra income on your own in general, just takes time. I do certainly wish we had more money, and I know many of us out there could use some. For that matter I don't know a single one of us who couldn't use some extra time in any given day!
So to all the people who stole my application and happily use it for free...shame on you and thanks for nothing! And to the hackers who chose my program for some reason, do try and think twice before you dash the dreams of yet another person just trying to survive. Not everyone out there is an evil corporation with plenty of money and resources to spare. Or whatever other lame justifications you have for your dishonorable actions.
As a Christian, I know that God will take care of us no matter what happens. And those who would try to interfere with that will pay their own hefty price when the time comes. And so I ask that you all pray for us. That I move on, that we can continue to somehow pay all the bills and that we all be protected from those who would do us harm as this world gets more and more messed up! Finally, if you have actually read all the way thought these thoughts and rantings to the end, thank you. ;)
Monday, September 14, 2009
All you vampires out there can just bite me.
As we all know well, Hollywood has essentially drilled into the ground just about every imaginable concept available from super heroes, warlike settings and yes even dark mystical creatures, powers and myths. Some movies even creatively blend combinations of these themes and settings in strange and unexpected ways. But I believe that the concept used, reworked and used yet again to the point of madness is vampirism. Although I have to admit a close second would be movies supporting Wiccan type beliefs. From warlocks and witches to wizards and elves, people practicing alchemy or magic and rituals for the sake of unnatural powers seems to be an almost irresistible appeal. These things seem to cry out evil and doom. Yet no matter how many movies and books come out with these common themes, it seems that there is no one out there that can ever get enough of it.
But the idea of the gift of immortality is at the very top of the list. Don't get me wrong. I myself happen to love so many of these stories myself. Having taken a step back it seems that I should be ashamed to feel so. My favorite has to be the Blade trilogy. I don't know what it is about that character for sure, but I just love it. I couldn't even count how many times I have watched those films and even wished I could sample such a world. I am also very fond of the Underworld movies. Although I think the latest one wasn't nearly as good as the first two. Of current focus though are the Twilight stories. I myself don't really read much and didn't care for the first movie. But I've seen people in drones essentially worshiping the very notion of these stories. An odd twist on the classic take of Vampires and Lycans. Not to mention the online games, the new TV series 'Vampire Diaries,' and even role playing clubs and events.
But the idea of the gift of immortality is at the very top of the list. Don't get me wrong. I myself happen to love so many of these stories myself. Having taken a step back it seems that I should be ashamed to feel so. My favorite has to be the Blade trilogy. I don't know what it is about that character for sure, but I just love it. I couldn't even count how many times I have watched those films and even wished I could sample such a world. I am also very fond of the Underworld movies. Although I think the latest one wasn't nearly as good as the first two. Of current focus though are the Twilight stories. I myself don't really read much and didn't care for the first movie. But I've seen people in drones essentially worshiping the very notion of these stories. An odd twist on the classic take of Vampires and Lycans. Not to mention the online games, the new TV series 'Vampire Diaries,' and even role playing clubs and events.
As I sit in my home spending most of my time alone looking out at the lake I can often feel lonely and useless. I was given permanent disability status in 2006. I am permanently retired from my work with computers and technology that I loved very much. I suffer at much too young an age the early onset of spinal stenosis and fibromyalgia amongst a long list of other issues mostly stemming from a violent automobile accident some time ago. I spend much of my time here on the Internet with my trusty and faithful Dell laptop. But I also spend far too much time watching television and movies as well. Many hobbies have been laid aside and projects unfinished for the pain that the activities provoke. So for me, the appeal comes not only in the thought of immortality but the sheer concept of unyielding, everlasting health.
I've seen very dear friends and good Christians essentially bowing down to these concepts in worship. I have watched people salivating at the very possibility that the stories are possibly true. Melissa, my lovely wife, is very fond of the latest Twilight news. Fighting and kicking on the local library web site trying to get a reservation on the latest books and such. This is disturbing for me. Not only for myself, but for the many others who seem to be unyieldingly captivated by these things. I am far from the picture of a good Seventh Day Christian. Surely I have no right to judge anyone or anything save my own failings. Furthermore, I truly would not ever be the one to cast the first stone. Nor should I desire to. But I would encourage all who I know, and even anyone who is patient enough to read my wordy ramblings, to take a step back and think about such things. To realize that in all truth, these fables are probably nothing more than stories based on lost distorted events. And to fixate on them can be dangerous and even damning.
Anyone familiar with the long history and origin of such stories finds that all the way back in the beginning there was Judas Iscariot one of the 12 apostles of Christ. An interpretation of events as such, Judas supposedly hung himself and died acting on guilt for having betrayed Jesus by turning him in to the Roman authorities which lead to his crucifixion. However, Judas was resurrected undead as a punishment for his betrayal. As such he became the first vampire sometimes referred to as Dracula or Drake, as Blade Trinity would have us believe. Cursed to roam the world for all eternity until the end of days living off of the blood of others like a leach, Judas infected others as he roamed creating a new race called vampires. And while most died or were killed as a result of the fateful meeting, a select few survived to join the ranks.
If vampires really did exist, you would think that my Facebook friends list alone would find at least one or two in existence. If not, maybe there is even the possibility of such a person stumbling upon my blog. People living in secret all around the world, existing only during the night hours, so much like me. You'd think that even in a small town like Sandpoint, there'd be a few here and there. Oh, for the chance that I'd be healed... For the chance that I would have power beyond my current means... Truly I say, bite me already! But alas, reality sets in and I am forced to realize that such thoughts, such desires are incompatible with my love for the Lord. For all that God has done for me and in my life. I am truly and eternally grateful. For all of the pain that I have received thus far in life is trumped only by the amount of blessings I have also received. Truly important things like my amazing and loving wife Melissa. So on this day I pray, that I would choose to watch a little more of the religious television available to me, and maybe, a little less of those captivating action packed movies in my library.
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