Fracking-NIMBY

You know all that controversy about fracking to retrieve oil and natural gas from shale deposits?   It's a process where drillers pump chemicals, water, and sand into underground deposits to break up the rock and force gas to the surface to be collected.

Fracking has come to suburbia.   This 12/27/11 Marketplace story explains that because many States have no laws either authorizing municipalities to regulate drilling within their boundaries or banning such regulation, companies are now installing drilling rigs in residential neighborhoods.  Suburban sub-divisions!

According to the story, "companies only need to maintain a set-back of 150 feet when putting up rigs near homes. It's the minimum clearance needed to avoid damage -- in case the rig tips over."   

I suspect that the rig tipping over is the least concern of most homeowners, considering the largely unknown side-effects of the chemicals used and the impact on the environment (e.g., underground water supplies).   How would you like a derrick 150 feet from your house?  That would probably be a great, big, NIMBY.

Fanboy?

I largely abandoned the world of Windows about 5 years ago when I bought a MacBook laptop computer after a nearly new Compaq laptop had it's fourth or fifth hardware failure. Hard drive, optical drive, and several other components managed to break on that not inexpensive Compaq in less than 2 years. We had similar problems with my wife's Dell desktop, and had to deal with Dell's reluctance to stand behind it's product warranty. As an avid computer user for a few decades (dating back to the Commodore 64), I had lots of experience with the Windows/PC "it's not our problem" method of dealing with computer malfunctions. Either the hardware manufacturer (Compaq, Dell, whatever) blamed the erratic behavior on a Windows glitch, or Windows insisted that the problem was rooted in hardware issues. Frustrating, tiresome, and remarkably unfulfilling.

So I bought a Mac. The transition was surprisingly easy and for the very few Windows programs I needed to use (my genealogy program mainly) I could still run it in a Windows virtual machine. When problems occurred, Apple seemed to just fix things, rather than try to blame the problems on another company. Of course, since Apple produced both the hardware and operating system, it had only itself to blame, and what's the point of that?

So the point of this post is that while I have thoroughly enjoyed my Mac, my iPod, and most recently, my iPhone, I don't consider myself an Apple "fanboy."   The term is sometimes used to describe people who are utterly devoted to Apple and its products, even in the face of evidence that they are merely bits of plastic and metal.

Yesterday, I bought a $99 device called an Airport Express.  This thing is amazing. The device is tiny, about 3 x 4 inches and plugs directly into a power outlet. It has three ports, or connections, for USB, ethernet, or audio output. It performs a ridiculous number of functions, from serving as a wi-fi hotspot, hosting a USB printer or external hard drive on a home network, to my purpose and the reason for my rapture.  You can travel with it and use it, for example, in a hotel that offers a wired connection for internet, but not wireless.   Plug in the Airport Express to the wired connection and you have your own wireless network.

We listen to a lot of internet radio. There are thousands and thousands of internet radio stations, mostly free, for any type of music you can think of, from Jazz to electronica to classical (one of our favorites is Radio Paradise). For a long time, we used a desktop computer (the afore-mentioned Dell) to receive the signal and route it to our home stereo system via wires in the wall and attic. During that time, we've had to endure repeated hiccups and failures as the computer froze, spontaneously rebooted, or issues with the wires connecting the computer to the stereo.

The Airport Express connects to our existing home wi-fi network, and uses a $3.99 cable from its audio jack to the stereo amplifier. Now comes the really cool part. Any computer on the home network which runs iTunes can stream music to the Airport Express and therefore, to the stereo. No wires needed. And it works out of the box. Even the windows computer can send internet radio to the stereo with iTunes. And since iTunes is aware of our collection of 7500+ song files, iTunes can also stream them to the stereo. It was so easy to set up and run, it was surprising even to someone predisposed to Apple products. The stuff "just works."

But wait. There's more. Apple also offers a free iPhone app. You know, "there's an app for that." There's an app for this. The iPhone app offers the ability for you to control iTunes from your phone. So if the stereo is in the other side of the house, and you're in the family room listening to music, and the phone rings, you can use the iPhone "Remote" app to pause the music, lower the volume, or just stop the playback. And you can 'link' the iPhone app to any computer connected to your home network that is running iTunes. You can control music or internet radio from any of these computers using your iPhone. It is very slick and "just works."

I just may be an Apple fanboy now. I don't think I've been this excited about a computer since my Commodore 64.

The End of The World?

As a lifelong "baby boomer," I've been accustomed to the notion of "forever young."   Generally, this relates to the idea that inside my body is a young person, personified by me as, say, a 21 year old.   Or maybe 19 year old.   Somewhere around there.   For decades, I've taken in the world around me filtered by my forever-21 eyes.


Something awful has happened.   Recently, an acquaintance has been diagnosed with a form of leukemia and will need some type of bone marrow transplant, and while awful, that's not the point of my post.   A local drive began to sign up people for the bone marrow registry.  You take a swab of your mouth, it's tested for compatibility and if you match someone, you have the opportunity to donate possibly life-saving bone marrow.  I decided to do the testing.


Unfortunately, none of the drive publicity pointed out a flaw in my plan, a most unexpected flaw.   I'm too old.   How could it be that I am too "old" to participate in a bone marrow registry?   How could it be that I am too "old" for anything?   I still crawl around on the floor to play with my grandchildren.   I still ride my bicycle regularly.   What's this too "old" crap?  Sure, I've been an AARP member since they started recruiting 50 year olds, but what's that got to do with it?


Some bureaucrat in the bone marrow registry hierarchy has decided that potential donors must be between 18 and 60 years old.   I'm 2 years late.   I have no idea why 62 year olds are not qualified to donate bone marrow, but the realization that I am too old for anything is truly alarming.  
It must be the end of the world, at least as I know it.  And I'm not so sure I feel fine.

Corporate America Listens?

I am pretty skeptical about most corporate decisions and believe they are generally made in the company's interest, not customers.   So I am less than sympathetic to corporate interests when faced with a choice between them and people.  A lot of companies spend a lot of time and energy these days collecting "surveys" from customers, but it's never clear that anything is actually done with most of it.  Many times you can tell from the way survey questions are presented that the company 1) wants certain responses, 2) isn't really interested in honest feedback, and 3) simply wants customers to feel like their opinions matter.   Some politicians have adopted the same practice to "find out" what voters want.   In reality, these surveys simply tell voters what the politician thinks is the "right way."


I recently was startled to discover a company actually listened to its customers and even reversed a decision the company had previously made.  And, to my knowledge, this wasn't a result of a poll, but of actual feedback received from customers.  


A month or so ago, I received a notification from Discover Card, informing me that they were discontinuing Discover's Secure On-line Account Numbers.   Owners of a Discover Card could log into the Discovercard.com website and generate a credit card number that could be used for a web purchase anywhere Discover cards could be used.   The advantage of this system is that the vendor never sees your real card number so there's no chance of your account being stolen or compromised and the generated account number can only be used once.   So a website that wants you to "sign up" for a recurring service (when all you want is to buy something one time) can't process subsequent purchases against the generated number; it just won't work.   


So for whatever reason, Discover decided to drop this program.   I had used it for almost all online purchasing the past couple of years, so I wasn't happy to receive this news.   I sent Discover an email in which I said that the On-line Account Numbers were the main reason I used the account at all, so I wouldn't be using my Discover Card much in the future.  I figured they'd get the email and hit the delete button.


I was wrong.   A few days ago, I received an email from Discover which announced that they had decided to reinstate the program:

We recently announced the decision to discontinue the Secure Online Account Number feature.
Since then, we've heard customers like you tell us how much they love the added control of usingSecure Online Account Numbers for their online purchases.
Based on the feedback we've decided to reinstate this feature. Beginning today you will once again be able to generate secure online account numbers for online purchases.
We appreciate your loyalty and your feedback. Thank you for using Discover card.

I have to admit I am stunned by the notion that a large financial corporation pays any attention to customer comments.  Even more surprising is that they actually reversed a publicly announced decision, apparently due to those customer comments.    Kudos to Discover Card's management.


At least one piece of corporate America listened.  Who woulda thunk?