the P.Pole

We’re going to do some math today, and crunch some numbers to explain my experience with the iPhone 4 so far. We’ll be doing some statistics—I wouldn’t say this is really my area of expertise relative to some of my colleagues, but I should know enough well enough to string together a coherent argument.

We first identify the study population (say, all iPhone 4′s in Canada) and parameters for attributes we are interested in (we will need θ to be the proportion of these iPhone 4′s which are faulty/defective pieces of lemonware—in other words, the chance that you will receive a catastrophic failure of an iPhone).

We start by assuming that the parameter θ has a certain reasonable value (like 0.001, which says, on average, we think 1 in 1000 iPhone 4′s are defective in the study population). You should note that any numbers here are just guesses I’m making for illustration’s sake. Nowhere am I claiming these values or figures are real or confirmed or even remotely representative of the actual failure rates. Don’t sue me, Apple. Your legal expenses will be greater than everything you’d get bankrupting me.

Anyway, say this is the case. Continue reading

Disclaimer: I obviously think this lady is a giant ignoramus so I most definitely do not agree with anything she is saying here. This is an exposition and assassination of her character, not a show of support. Get your hatorade on her, not me.

Here’s a follow-up email response I got from Sabrina Killingsworth at theplayerscove after I had tried to make nice and tell her that bigotry is wrong (emphasis mine):

Done Ebay 10 years. Dealt with HUNDREDS of Canadians as well as thousands of buyers across the globe.

Without hatefulness I can declare from sheer experience, The dumbest questions, dumbest answers, most problems,

Most time wasted, most stupid senseless complaints, lowest feedback, most issues of “buyer didn’t read auction description,

in general, came from Canadians. It got so bad,

I even ruled out shipping to Canada all together a few months.

My ex husband works overseas and has Canadians working for him as well as other nationalities.

He happen to have made the SAME experiences over the past 3 years.

Coincidence?

I have since actually tried to figure out why that is so and how it is possible and entire country is by average

Less bright then other folks and came to some conclusions:

Canadians are incredibly naïve, that can often lead to “dumb questions”

Canada was the country where England shipped all its criminals to and I actually suspect they may have also sent all their insane,

Especially since many criminals do have mental issues. Those that came voluntary were hill billies and country men

Not having started on the high end of intelligence either.

Even though done possibly secretly, England has produced a nation that had an uneven start.

Canadians may have had an incest problem in their early history as the country was large with relatively few people in it.

Same thing happened In Germany’s Bavaria where people lived in tiny mountain communities for centuries and nobody in

Germany argues that they are (on average) about as bright as a 10 watt light bulb.

So you see, I have actually wasted some thought on this over the years……

[end of first email]

Oh and I do whole heartedly agree with you concerning Americans being ignorant…

Love this country but yes of course, there are many things in American thinking that are “off” to an outsider.

“Police of the world and God to all” is what we used to call them in Germany already 20 years ago…

However, I actually truly based my opinions about Canadians on NOTHING but personal experience with plenty of

Data and control groups…..

[end of second email]

Cool example I will never forget:

I charged a Canadian lady international shipping ( a bit lower then for other countries but more then US shipping)

She got very upset and wrote me among other bright things :

“Am I the only one thinking of Canada as part of the US?”

[end of third email]

Yeah, seriously. I always wonder how people can be so obviously ignorant and still blind to it all. How is it these people get together and reproduce?!

Notes:

1. I’m not sure, but I think she was talking about Australia with respect to the criminals.
2. I wonder if she thinks that Canada, with such a huge proportion of the population being first or second generation immigrants, is still filled with people who are the products of incest.
3. Does anyone else find it ironic that this lady from Texas is telling me Canadians are descendants of hill-billies?
4. When Americans have stupid ideas, it just appears a little “off” to outsiders,  but when foreigners have stupid ideas, it is because they are the products of incest, criminal-babies, and hill-billy spawn.

Note: Before reading, it’s important to know that I had a beef with an ebay seller with the broken seal on a small jar of paint when it arrived at my door. I would have easily accepted an “Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Nothing wrong with that.” response as enough to trust their word and assume the paint would be safe to use on my expensive Zippos. However, this lady denied the very existence of any such seal (essentially calling me a liar or a raving lunatic), and went on a bitching-streak about the insignificance of my concerns and “OMG you disputed something and now my reputation with Paypal/ebay is ruined, you’re a terrible person” which I really question the validity of. This is a record and a testament to the kinds of people that really are out there (and how vindictive I can be).

Long and short of this story:

• theplayerscove has a great feedback history
• they shipped me an opened/unsealed pot of paint
• apparently this is standard practice and nothing unusual
• Sabrina Killingsworth is either incompetent with ebay’s auto-responder system, or is cheating it with her “I’m not here but I actually am if you try to get your money back”
• she denied the existence of all problems without evidence or consideration
• I have photographs and logs of the entire exchange

The full exchange and logs are after the cut. Will be lengthy and probably boring for most, but might be fun for those who like to read about examples of extremely stupid people saying excruciatingly stupid things and acting ridiculously childishly.

Continue reading

I have received my brand-spanking-new iPhone 4 via FedEx (after they delayed the delivery by 3 days, and then sent it from Mississauga to Vancouver, and then back to the GTA to delay it one extra day). I also preemptively made a case for it out of a Moleskine notebook. Pretty impressive that the damned things fit together so snugly, considering I never had the iPhone with me while cutting, and based pretty much everything off of estimates and measurements from Wikipedia. I made another time-lapse video of the cutting process, and normal recordings for the unboxing and fitting of Ulrich (my phone) in his handmade crib.

Notes: The original audio track was supposed to be Kaela Kimura’s “Level 42″ but because the folks at Columbia Music are dicks sticklers about people promoting their artists on their behalf for free illegal use of their “property” they wouldn’t let me use it on YouTube and the audio got nuked. I then used an audio-swap feature of YouTube’s to substitute a pre-licensed song (the “I’m Feeling Lucky” automatic song finder gave me Finger Eleven’s “Paralyzer” after two tries).

I hope you enjoy the video, without the original, nicely cut and faded audio. Thanks be to Karen for helping me with the cutting of the pages, and Amy for her genius idea on how to bind and seal the pages together. Oh, and thanks be to Columbia Music, just for being the kind of company they are. Please, continue to set this kind of precedent for all those in the music industry and do for your artists what only you can do, and I’m almost sure you will have a flourishing business model on your hands. That, or crash and burn like the bags of fecal matter in airplanes low on fuel that you so desperately wish to resemble.

Hate for petty and childish business models aside, I’m loving the phone and loved making the case. I have indeed been able to replicate the attenuation problem (to crush the dreams of all those who were hoping some magical fix had been implemented in the second batch of iPhones), but it seems that it is only an issue in inherently weak-signaled places, and I do think the reception overall is actually better on the iPhone 4. For example, I get 3 bars that will drop to none or 1 when applying the death-grip to Ulrich from within my condo. As a reference, I normally get zero/no reception at all with my previous handset in the same spot. This proves that attenuation is still a problem. However, the fact that the phone even gets any reception in that spot at all indicates that the antennae actually performs better if not being cheated.

I have been mulling the thought over in my head the past few days, and so far I’m still leaning towards my realization that I am not fit to be a student. I am not good at it. This does not mean I don’t do well for myself as one (I do decently and this is not false humility), I just don’t find it particularly engaging. I also don’t share the same sense of motivation as my peers for doing exceptionally well either.

To explain the image, I like building things. I very much enjoy designing badass stuff. I love the process of taking a bunch of raw materials, and infusing myself into them through work and application such that they take on form and function worth more than the sum of the parts. Contrast this affection with my falling out with “school” and all it stands for and you have a perfectly good reason to post a shot of my dear Phoebe’s nude body.

Back in high school (and even before), I played the role of a student rather readily and even enthusiastically. I enjoyed all my subjects and had great rapport with my teachers barring Olsheski the Unfit and to a much lesser extent, Quejada the Exiguous). I picked up  new information and facts, relationships and theories easily enough, and applied them as well as I could be expected to. And this was all fine and dandy, if not for the subject matter itself, then for the thrill of competition. Continue reading

Disclaimer: Before all the Modern Warfare 1 fans and Bad Company 2 fans hate on me for liking Modern Warfare 2, might I clarify that:

1. I never bought Modern Warfare 1, so this game isn’t a rehash cash-grab to me.
2. I own and enjoy Bad Company 2 too.

So I’ve been getting some rave reviews from other players that I happen upon randomly in Infinity Ward’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″. Half the people that play with me and contact me end up sending me friend requests, and the other half send me messages telling me how much they hate my funky fresh style, like this one:

danger close noob tube camping and oma means your a noob
- mbrooker91, spelling is terribad, but true to the message

doesn’t that mean you just went 0 and 6 with a noob?
- me the Awesome, my response to him

Note: For the record, I remember bombing this specific guy once as he ran right across the area in front of me, twice more when he was feebly hiding behind a dumpster in the distance, once as he was running straight at me down a tunnel, once when he tried to sneak up on me behind some barrels, and he ate a claymore in the face. I’m also pretty sure I called a precision airstrike right on his head, and shot him with a few howitzers out of an AC130 gunship. So, I mean, I can understand why he’d be pissed. I’d be angry too if I sucked that hard.

Bite me, mbrooker91.

Conclusion

I’m putting this at the start, so people who aren’t inclined to read the whole damn rant (there’s plenty of stuff that only matters to you if you play Modern Warfare 2) can still get my point. You can skip the rest of this rant if you don’t like reading about detailed nerdy stuff, but here are the main points:

• Haters gonna hate
• Some people are average at video games
• Some people are better than average at video games because they manipulate the game mechanics to do some neat/badass stuff
• Some average players hate on these players because their methods are difficult to play against with  illogical criticisms
• My opinion: tough luck, bitches—the scoreboard says it all
• I for one am not self-loathing enough to tell the guy who just killed me six times in a row that he sucks and doesn’t know how to play
• Some people are frustrated with sucking, as they should be, and take it out on the good players just looking to get some frags in
• If you don’t like losing, try getting better, playing differently, buying another game, blaming the developers, or smashing your controller into your face, but don’t come whining to me about your terrible skills
• Oh, and note that I don’t consider myself a pro at the game, but I just think it’s dumb to criticize other players on their styles—especially if they are kicking your ass, apparently

From the conclusion at the end of this post:

Point of the story is, don’t bitch about some guy who is creaming you just because he’s doing it with only one or two (really simple) tricks. Quality players adapt and change when things don’t seem to work. Stubborn/persistent players try the same thing again and again (usually to no avail), and little bitches cry and whine about how unfair the world is.

What a mbrooker91 looks like in real life.

This is true in life as well, from both points of view. For one, it’s just good sense to put forethought, critical thinking, and contingencies into your plans. Alternatively, when something doesn’t go your way, you can either avoid it, overcome the obstacle, stupidly attack it the same way every time, or lay down and die, bitching about it all way down.

Continue reading

Of paper and of money.

I have yet to encounter an instance where a book I buy this term is actually still used by the same course the next term (regardless of what some WLU professors will tell you). This means there’s pretty much no resale value, and you’re stuck with a $100+ book per course, per term, that cannot be resold and generally won’t be looked at again anyway. If you are lucky enough to find someone willing to take on an older edition (i.e. someone who sees through the thin veil that says the course is completely incompatible with its materials 4 months prior), then you may not share the same concerns as most students.

Already people are struggling to pay just for tuition, but having course materials costing almost as much as half of your tuition some terms, you have to start wondering just how hard publishers have to lobby their books. In this respect, I have much respect for the University of Waterloo course coordinators (at least for my courses). So far, I’ve yet to encounter any course the requires a book costing more than $100 that wasn’t:

• also available for free and legally through an online version
• not mandatory

The “How to Design Programs” book for the PLT Scheme courses fits this description.

The only text that “breaks” this mold is the “Calculus: Early Transcendentals” used in first-year. The book was something like $120, but considering that it was used in both first and second Calculus and proved useful in the third Calculus course, this book cost maybe about $40 amortized per course.

All other courses so far have been based loosely on cheap books (around $20 – $60) and generally have not been mandatory. This is largely why I have actually failed to purchase any course packages, textbooks, or otherwise shameless cash-grabs after first term of first year. Sure some course notes are helpful, but it’s proven that people generally learn better and remember more when actually writing, with pen and paper, during lectures. This is what I do.

What’s better yet, the course I’m taking at the University of Waterloo offer their course notes online, for free, in eco-friendly PDF format for download by any student. This is way more efficient that telling students to find and buy an actual book. Plus, the university itself has full control over what content and terminology gets included and used, rather than being forced to adopt the terms and pick and choose from the content included by the publishers of the textbooks. This is good, if you believe your course coordinator genuinely knows more about the course than a random collection of people out there writing books to maybe fit your course, along with many other courses out there.

I can’t prove whether this happens, but I seriously wouldn’t put it past the fine business folk at WLU, or maybe any other university. I think it happens something like a lobbyist agreement. Some textbook company decides to “make a deal” with a university or a high-ranking person at the university, in exchange for promotion of that company’s books. Suddenly the newest edition (not being sold in the used book store) is mandatory in a core course, and they must be brought to class (as proof of purchase?) for “participation marks”. I get it, we need them for class activities, but then sharing a book between people would be fine. It’s not.

It’s apparently an act of academic and legal misconduct at WLU if you do not pay $30 for the course package for Organizational Behaviour, containing a whopping five (yes, countable on one hand) pages of white paper with some printing and “more materials to come later in the course”. It’s also illegal to photocopy those pages to split the ultra-low cost of $6 per sheet of paper between classmates. They never did come later in the course (sparing maybe four to five more single sheets), and of course I never paid for this sham. At what point do we start putting the intentions of the institutions we are customers of in doubt? I am told our professors are genuinely interested in our success—and I believe this for the most part. I just have to doubt whether the universities themselves or the people running them actually care about academia, knowledge, teaching, and improving society through their business, or if they are just here to make a quick buck off of their quality professors and trusting students? Cowardice and greed.

I’m sorry, I’d rather take a 10% hit to my grades rather than be coerced into buying a book I can readily substitute with free PDF alternative texts—plus, I want to sleep easy at night knowing I wasn’t being manipulated into paying for whatever “agreements” were made behind closed doors. I’m perfectly willing to earn participation marks by participating, but if you make my ability to do so contingent on whether I’ve got $140 lying around to feed your under-the-table agreements, you can bite me. Losing a few marks here and there because of poor course design, I can live with. I just wonder why I have to.

If my marks are reflective of my learning during a course, then what the fuck does my wallet have to do with it? I’m already paying for the teaching and marking staff, and upkeep of your buildings and even development of new facilities I won’t get to use, so why are you making me pay for books when the same knowledge could easily be captured more concisely and precisely by our own professors for our own courses? So I can hope to get above 90%? Dickless.

WLU: take a note from Dan Wolczuk and his course notes for Calculus III, or just about any other course at UW. They are always excellent, professionally made, and free to students who just want to learn things.**

Basically, I don’t think it’s fair to handicap students who see through the shitty business model of the university by docking 10% off the top. This favors the rich (and/or just naive) over the average and grades will reflect this—sure, no amount of 10% participation marks will turn a C student into an A student, but it doesn’t need to if your C’s can become B’s and your A’s drop to B’s.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that actual textbooks use a huge amount of paper, toxic inks, and non-renewable energies to produce and ship? They are also a pain in the ass to store and distribute (given the rate at which they expire and become obsolete). I’d take PDF over paper any day.

** The closest thing from WLU that I have seen is the Business 111 and 121 course notes, and to be honest, the books were huge and filled with useful stuff. However, these books cost ~$70 (one per term), weren’t available in PDF format, and were filled with information more or less identical to the previous “editions”. The only major changes came with the numbers in questions, making them—surprise surprise—useless for in-class discussions, activities, and getting that 10% participation mark.