Tag: fail Posts

I’ve been using Twitter for a long time now, and the one universal constant in that time period has been the flakiness of the Twitter service. Even today, at least a year after some of these problems started cropping up, you still get the occasional “Fail Whale” when the servers can’t keep up. Some of the other random problems I’ve witnessed lately are: disappearing avatars the inability to upload a new avatar missing background images on profiles flaky service (i.e. the Fail Whale) messages that appear 30 – 60 minutes after they were tweeted Obviously running a service that can handle millions of people is no small effort. I’ve never tried to do it, and I imagine I’d have the same problems (or far worse problems) if I were put into that same situation. What is a bit scary though is that they’ve been working on these issues for over […]

I’m just heading out the door to take my car in to get looked at. There’s nothing wrong mechanically with it, but Mazda called me out of the blue last week and asked me to swing by so they can look at my stereo. Apparently they might have put in the wrong one when I had it replaced about a month ago (which is strange, because it works and fits fine). I suspect there’s some recall they aren’t telling me about. But anyways, they are going to replace the CD player I imagine, and they also offered to detail my car for me in exchange for the hassle. It’s supposed to be a nice sunny day out in Vancouver today (28C I’m told). There really aren’t that many days like this left before the rain hits, so take advantage of them while they last. I was processing a few old […]

Oh, is that right? You mean making crappy vehicles for years and years, and then basically ignoring the whole gas problem might put your company in jeopardy? I guess Ford should have turned the suck-knob down a few notches over the last few years, because apparently they just posted their worst quarter ever. Old Ford Truck, Photo By Steven Eret On Flickr That’s not to say I don’t have friends with Ford vehicles, and the stuff they have seem fairly decent. But compared to vehicles imported from Japan or Europe, North American cars are just built to lower standards. American auto companies have long since trailed behind Japan in important areas such as fuel consumption, thinking that gas would always be a cheap luxury. Take a look at Ford’s main web page. In the “Vehicle Showroom” feature for the Ford brand, six of the vehicles are “cars”, everything else is […]

I quickly stopped by Future Shop on my way home tonight and picked up a brand new power supply for my server at home. They had a really nice (that is, if power supplies can be described as such) $150 one that was on sale for $75, so I went with that. The good news is that my old power supply was basically taxed in terms of connectors, and it would have been impossible to add anything else to it. This new one has an extra 300W of headroom on it, and also 3 more SATA connectors. To be honest, I wasn’t even really sure it was the power supply, but it seemed like a pretty reasonable guess. The good news is I replaced it in about 15 minutes, and as you can see, we’re up and running again. Sorry for the little blip in the service there. If you […]

Most of us have been waiting patiently for Rogers to finally release their data rates for the iPhone 3G that is coming to Canada on July 11th. The good news is that the wait is finally over — Rogers just released full information about their plans. Unfortunately, Rogers completely missed the boat on this one. They had the chance to bring Canada to the forefront of the wireless world, but instead felt compelled to keep us locked up in our draconian past. There are no unlimited data rates for the new plans, and anything approaching 1GB will cost you $100 or more per month (plus, I’m sure, the 9/11 fee and the system access fee, bringing your bill to $120 or more). To be honest, it’s exactly what I expected, but I can’t honestly say I didn’t dare to hope that things might be better. On my recent trip down […]

My mom used to always say that somethings in life seem to happen for a reason. Surprisingly, she’s been right most of my life, and the strangest things sometimes happen to me that end up pushing me down a path that turns out to be a good one. While camping this weekend, my Samsung A880 phone went into a spiral of death, and started complaining about not being able to find service. I figured that I maybe forgot to pay my bill or something stupid, and called up Bell Mobility yesterday. After spending two days on the phone with them, they are all of the opinion that my phone has just gone the way of the Dodo. So, the question right now is just what do I do with myself. I currently have no phone, so I could probably break my contract and be done with it. The iPhone is […]

Please, for the love of god, stop making movies. Whatever magic you used to bring to the table evaporated a long time ago. As you can tell, I saw the new Indiana Jones movie on the weekend. Unfortunately, I didn’t really enjoy it, and found myself looking at my cell phone from time to time to see how much more I had to endure. First, you don’t need CGI gophers to propagate the plot. The first time the camera swung by and I saw them, I almost groaned out loud, seeing the obvious resemblance to the little furry Ewoks that stunk up the screen during Episode VI of Star Wars. And to add insult to injury, he showed those stupid gophers TWO MORE TIMES, as if we somehow needed them in the film. To be honest, George Lucas used to make really good movies. The first two Star Wars films […]

Ever since I was about 18 years of age, I have had a credit card. The main reason, at least at first, was simply to build up a credit rating in case I ever needed a loan (which I ended up requiring when I went to university). Nowadays, I use my visa primarily for work expenses, since I tend to do a lot of traveling with my job. To that end, I probably spend close to $30,000 on my visa a year, a good portion of which comes from plane rides and hotel rooms when I’m on the road. I have no idea what my credit limit is on my visa, but last time I checked (which was a few years ago), there was enough there to buy a small car with I believe. In fact, I generally have to place a call once a year to get them to […]

Tonight was a jam packed night. I left work around 7pm, and then headed down Granville Street, frantically looking for something to eat. I actually walked into Wings, but it was completely full. So eventually I settled on my old-faithful nacho-haven, the Two Parrots. They had a 35 cent wing special on, so I filled up with that. Eventually I ended up at some Spanish place (coincidentally, it’s only one block from my place, and I had never been there) to celebrate Raul’s graduation from UBC with his Ph.D. (congrats dude, well, deserved). Good times. As some of you know, this weekend is New Music West in Vancouver. I actually had a media pass to attend all the functions, but because I’ve been so busy at work, I haven’t had time to go pick it up. Thankfully Miss604 lent me her photographer pass so I could head down and take […]

My dryer at home basically stopped working a few weeks ago, so I’ve been rotating ever-so-slowly through my wardrobe. My landlord was going to come by and take a look at it, but I don’t think he’s been feeling very well lately. So anyways, considering I’m out of clean clothes and I’m out of clean sheets, I decided to take care of it today. So I’m working from home, waiting for a repair guy to come by and fix it up. While I’m at it, I’m going to rant about people who play the lottery. I got no problem that you want to play 6-49 all day, but please make some decisions before you get to the counter. It seems like all I do lately is wait for people to decide whether or not they want the Extra, as if it was some monumental decision that will affect their future […]