BELLY BLOG | Sean Quigley

America...Land of Free Speech?

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:12:20 -0400

Student Tazered By Police for Asking Senator Kerry a Question?

I have seen in my time some disturbing images and video on the internet. But I have to say that this video here was one of the most troubling i have ever seen. As you can see the student is asking some very pointed questions to Senator Kerry. I never threatens, swears, or asks an unreasonable question, but the police standing behind him drag him away and eventually tazer him repeatedly.

To all my American friends out there, I ask you. Is the the Land of the Free and the Home of The Brave? Let us consider the great and forward thinking principles on which the United States was created. One of the Key being Freedom of Speech.

I cannot say that this video really surprises me. It seems to be more and more common that people expressing their constitutional rights are being repressed again and again and again. Why is that?

In the western world we have so many rights that others in the world do not have. But with those rights comes a grave responsibility. That responsibility is that when these rights are threatened the only way to stand up to that threat is by demanding that your rights be observed.

While the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, and other western countries are shaken by the possibility of and threat of terrorism I think they should be much more shaken by something else. The loss of freedom.

If we are great in the west it is only because of these freedoms. Let us not forget that and let us stand up and speak truth to power.

SOCIAL WEBSITES AND WEB APPS - OR WHY I CAN'T SAY NO!

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:41:57 -0400

Ok i admit it. I am the sad, sad slave of the internet, and not only the Internet but even more insidiously the social website and web applications. for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about let me say to you now -RUN FRIEND RUN.

These insidious programs and sharing sites are innocently offered as "away to stay in touch with your friends" or "a useful way to keep all your files and e-mails handy no matter where you are". Well let me task this, you makers of digital crack. HAVE YOU NO HUMANITY?

There are two categories to my addiction here. 1. Social websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Digg. and 2. Web applications like Gmail, Deli.ci.ous, and Jiaku.

Lets start with the web application shall we? Oh web apps, so pretty, so beautiful, so precious. Ahem. yes, well. These Web apps come in a variety or uses and flavors but for the my purposes I'm gonna focus on 1.

Gmail, like it's competitors Yahoo and Hotmail, are web based e-mail programs that you can access form anywhere you can access an internet connection. Gmail lets you organize your mail using tags. A tag is a way of identifying information and marking it so you can find it later. You can tag your messages by sender, categories, or anything your imagination can come up with. But Google, makers of gmail and purveyors of web app crack, also provide you with an online calendar, word-processor, spreadsheet, and rss reader. All of these are free to sign up for and use.

One of the useful things about these online e-mail programs is that if your computer crashes and burns all you need to get your e-mail is another computer with access to the internet.

The second category is much more fiendish. The social website. These websites allow you to invite friends and relatives to the website where you can share pictures, send comments and share your favorite music. Facebook is probably the most popular.

Facebook lets you send virtual drinks to your friends, lets you post photos, share movies in common, lets you post photo's, movies and links you find on the internet, and let your friends know the mood your in. You invite friends to your Facebook page through an invite function. You Can be apart of groups that you have in interest in and then invite your friends to join that group. Also there are allot of small applications you can add to your Facebook profile.

DO YOU SEE HOW INSIDIOUS ITS IS

All that being said I will post a list of some of my favorite social websites and Web Apps.

1. Digg

2. Facebook

3. igoogle

4. Pageflakes

5. Pownce

6. Flickr

7. Prototpages

8.Lastfm

9 delicious

10. stumbleupon

These sites are often fun and quite often useful. My favorite site to discover new social websites or web applications is webware. Webware looks at and reviews these apps and sites regularly and is always pointing to the next new thing.

Sympatico - a tale of terrible technical support

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:12:23 -0400

Well I am not happy with Bell Sympatico's terrible technical support! Let me tell you my tale friends . It begins by a call by myself to Bell inquiring about increasing my dsl connection speed. I was helped by a very nice customer service lady who carefully explained all the options to me and then setup the speed package I wanted. Great customer service there.

But wait the plot thickens! Two week later I run a speed test and notice no speed increase in my service. I call Bell and go through the terrible push one for this , push 3 for that and then wait for 5 mins before someone comes on.

I explain to the tech that I had two weeks previously increased my speed package and that I had not seen a difference on the tests I ran. The tech investigated and found that the new speed had not been put on my account yet and would be on within 24hrs. Fine think I and wait for 24hrs.

Next day I check my speed again - thats right, you guessed it - no increase. I call for the third time to technical support. Explain again my situation. Tech runs a test and says the speed change has just taken effect and that it's on now. GREAT !! think I. I ask the tech what speed range I can expect with this new package. I had ordered the 7 meg/sec package and wanted to know. Usually with DSL you get a range from say 5 to 7.

The tech says I should absolutely get 7 megs/sec and that was because my line quality was so good.

I am suspicious of this and ask again- same reply - I should absolutely expect 7 megs/sec. Think that this was too good to be true I ask a third time. Again the tech says that 7 megs/sec is what I should be getting. WOW think I, that is fantastic and go about my merry way.

Next day i run another speed test and guess what - only a slight improvement. I think O.K. this might be my computer I'm on so I test it on two other computers - same results.

So i call back for the 4th time. Tech says I can only expect 3 megs/sec. What say I, I was told 7 megs/sec. No no no says he and I ask to speak with a supervisor. Call gets disconnected.

Next day .So this time I ask to speak with a supervisor. Tech tells me the supervisor is two busy to come to the phone and will call me back. I say no that is not convenient but I will call back tomorrow and that to please leave an open ticket for me. Tech assures me he will.

Day five dawns full of sunshine and promise. Sadly it didn't keep it's promise. I call back, ask if there is an open ticket - no open ticket - ask for a supervisor. Re- explain my problem - was told I would get 7 megs/sec only getting 4.9 to 5.1. HE starts running the same tests everyone else has for the last 4 days, I tell him I have had this result both before and after the speed change - 4.9 to 5.1 megs/sec - and that I am running my speed tests from about 5 different places so i get a broad cross section of testing.

Tech begins to say it might my computer - explain I am using a new I mac and that I have tested the same thing on two other pc's with the same result. Tech then tells me I should only expect around 5 to 6 megs. I then explain to the tech the 7 meg/sec result i was told to expect, the 3 megs/sec by another tech and ask what going on here. Supervisor says he will run some results and call back.

A supervisor does call back but it's someone different. he starts running the same tests and I re explain everything t him. Has do a number of speed tests/downloads. Still getting about 5 megs/sec. This supervisor says I should only expect to get about 6 and that in the future Bell would be upgrading the local lines.

At this point I say all of that is irrelevant. I want to know why I have been told a number of possible speeds to expect? Why no one has told me a consistent result? and why when I test i git the same results again and again and again?

He begins to say the package is only up to 7 megs/sec. I ask to speak ti his supervisor. He say his supervisor would just tell me the same think. I ask for the second time. he says he will run some more tests. i ask for the 3rd time. He says that we will run some tests and then get a supervisor. I say this is the 4th time I am asking to speak to your supervisor and to transfer me immediately. He starts to tall about running some more tests and I say I have now asked you 5 times to speak with a your supervisor and that you consistently refuse to begin an immediate transfer.

I ask for his employee ID an say I will now contact Bell corporate to complain about the in consistent and frustrating service I have received from technical support.

So thats where I am at Now friends, I am about to call Bell Sympatico corporate.

Here is my serious problems with this whole saga.

1. Don't promise something you cannot deliver

2. Do not make the customer run the same series of tests.

3. Do not tell the customer a variety of explanations and results.

4. When a customer asks for a supervisor then transfer the customer to a supervisor.

A little disclaimer on my part. I work as a premium technical support rep for a major American Telecommunication company. I do allot of DSL support. So i know what I am talking about.

To Bell Sympatico. You need to seriously train your overseas workers to give a consistent answers, to not try to offer other explanations once one has been dismissed or refuted and to respond promptly to a customers request. I have had up until this point nothing but very good service. Is that changing now? And for the rest of you out there i would seriously consider and alternative to Bell unless they can correct their technical support responsiveness.

Walmart portable advertising

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:05:48 -0400

While at Walmart this weekend, I know I know...why go to Walmart, I came across a very strange a disturbing site. I was blithely walking toward the snack isle, rice cakes on for 60 cents!, and there in-front of me was a young wall mart employee with a large backpack on his back and something over his head. What was over his head you ask? Well friends it was a video screen.

Yes that s right, not only did the young man have to stock shelves or what ever it is you do while working at Walmart, but he had to wear a backpack with a dvd player in it attached to a pole that went over his head with a 20 inch screen.

I felt like this was the epitome of a Walmart. Employees have to wear the company advertising and cary it around with them.

Sigh.

Is God Good? On religion and Faith and why people feel they need it.

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:25:54 -0400

I've been listening to and reading some of the work of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, both of whom have very strong and negative opinions about people who believe in, and have faith in , God and religion. While I myself have no real belief in God and am certainly a lapsed catholic, I find that both men may have forgotten something intrinsic as to why people believe and practice their religious faith.

Now Hitchins ssayst that religion has caused more evil in the world than anything else, in fact he says "when you see something otherwise surprising to you, such as a good person acting in a wicked manner, very often it is because they believe that they are under divine orders to do so"

Dawkins has some similar opinions, Dawkins talk quite a bit about the the power of reason and that reason rather than faith in God or any other supernatural belief is a serious problem. "The trouble is that God in this sophisticated, physicist's sense bears no resemblance to the God of the Bible or any other religion. If a physicist says God is another name for Planck's constant, or God is a super-string, we should take it as a picturesque metaphorical way of saying that the nature of super-strings or the value of Planck's constant is a profound mystery. It has obviously not the smallest connection with a being capable of forgiving sins, a being who might listen to prayers, who cares about whether or not the Sabbath begins at 5pm or 6pm, whether you wear a veil or have a bit of arm showing; and no connection whatever with a being capable of imposing a death penalty on His son to expiate the sins of the world before and after he was born. "

Now I agree with much of what both of these gents have to say but there is something missing in their arguments. There are two thing's I want to point out.

1. Why do people flock to churches, groups, affiliations, buy books on a new way to enlightenment by the boat load? Its simple really. We go to churches and buy these books out of a fundamental need to belong. Ok you say, go and join your local drama society or 4H club, Well the problem with this is that we are constantly seeking the transcendent - that which goes beyond our common experience - and we want to share this transcendent experience with others around us.

You can imagine the sheer joy a born again christian feels when surrounded by a group of fellow believers experiencing what they believe to be transcendent and you can easily see why they would want to share this with everyone.

We live in the western world where the majority of us live in a diaspora. We do not live with our families in close groups but rather we are spread out across the world and talk to our families on certain holidays or birthdays.

So it is easy to understand why people flock together in these groups that pine for the transcendent. We are very lonely. We often feel cut of from those around us in our own neighborhoods. So the attraction to join is powerful.

2. We live as individuals are in a constant state of conflict between reason and emotionality. It is impossible to for us to be completely logical and reasonable at all times, nor would I personally want to live like that. It would be a grey world.

So allot of people also end up believing in UFO's, God, Bigfoot, etc because they cannot, nor can anyone, constantly live in a state of reason. We seek an explanation to those things that are unexplainable in the most romanticized or unreasoned way. We want to believe there is something beyond our power and ability to compartmentalize and analyze. We want fairies, goblins, little grey aliens, and frankly God. It makes us feel.

I would ask these reasonable men and any other man or woman to consider this when condemning people who have strong religious or faith based beliefs.

I would also ask those with these beliefs to consider that there are allot of us who don't hold to the same beliefs and that does not make us, in a reasonable world, less than or inferior to anyone else.

I would ask those in power within our democracies to remember both of these points and to never forget that you represent the people, not some of them but all of them.

It is in fact a large world. Large enough maybe for us all to exist. Reasonably