Bloatware

The goal of a vendor-bloated android device is to update itself. The goal of the android user is to do something useful. These are incompatible goals.

My goal was to have a useful vendor supported device. Foolishly, I tried. I tried to remove vendor bloatware, I disabled software and accounts, I modified configurations. The vendor won.

My tablet became so useless that I was ready to give it to Cyndi, but my tablet knew all my accounts and passwords and to my dismay, would always automatically log me on to anything I had ever looked at, some of which would upset Cyndi (if she only knew how often I visited Zappos, she’d want me to buy her more shoes). I tried all my tricks … but the vendors and sites continued to demand that I return to their embrace and continued to hold my tablet hostage.

The tablet was useless, so I no longer feared damaging it. Which the vendors and app mongers and mobile sites assured me I would certainly do if I installed a clean, non-vendor, commercial free version of android.

But ignoring their sage, self-serving advice, I did it anyway. And it was easy, and it was harder than it should have been. There are many with advice, few with good advice. And the vendor does its best to protect me from myself … well, protect their interests, fuck me the consumer. Install a new bootloader and the vendor says “oh no, you almost hurt yourself here. Let us put back our fine bootloader so you can be assured you can only get software from us.”

But an answer did slowly emerge and after a few bewildered attempts I finally understood … and it was easy.

So I had a nice, clean cyanogenmod installation and a tablet that would boot fairly quickly and be ready for immediate use. I could add and I could REMOVE apps and accounts. I could control it, manage it. Why, it was almost like a real computer.

Then Google took over the tablet, insisting on loading every app Google ever made and automatically logging me on to everything they ever tried to build. Making it useless again.

So I removed Google apps and Google accounts and again had a useful tablet.

Shame on you, Google. I cynically expect this from the hardware vendor and the carriers. But Google knows better (well, parts of Google do). Give users a real choice. And if they choose something you don’t like, then you need to do a better job. Learn from what people want to do and help them do it. Stop imposing.

Anyway, I now have a tablet I can share with Cyndi, but it works so well I probably will keep it for myself.

I need to see

I returned from my morning walk and found Cyndi in the backyard watering plants the irrigation system had just watered. Rather than her normal chipper “How was your walk?”, she said “The power is out. In the bedroom. And living room. The TV is out.”

I’d dimly noticed the TV was off, but I figured that was an effect of Cyndi being in the backyard, not the cause. And it’s important to get the TV working as without MSNBC to rile her, Cyndi turns her energy towards me. I hurried to fix this problem.

A quick look showed the power was off in some rooms, ok in others. I set my iced coffee down and went to the breaker panel in the garage. The breakers all looked ok, none appeared to be tripped. Surprisingly, the breakers are well and accurately labeled so I found a likely breaker and manually set it off and on. Nothing changed. I stared at the panel for a couple minutes and realized every other circuit was working fine and the others seemed wonked. While Cyndi stood nervously on the other side of the garage, waiting for me to cause an explosion or start a fire and as she was telling me what to do and how to do it, I ignored her and reset the panel breaker. Nothing changed but Cyndi reported “The fan is running slow. The lights are dim.”

Well, I’ve been a well trained technician, so naturally I didn’t believe her and checked for myself. The fan was slow, the lights were dim. Ah, a power sag on one of the phases. So I called PNM, punched a few numbers on the phone and the nice lady robot tells me I’m the first to call and they’ll have it fixed by 11am. Nice robot.

A few minutes later I got a call from PNM dispatch. He is well trained and didn’t believe me when I said “we have low voltage on one of the phases” but he asked a few questions and stated “you have a partial outage on one of the phases. I’ll send a truck.”

Around 11am a PNM truck showed up and the two technicians were well trained: they didn’t believe me or dispatch, checked for themselves and found one phase was having problems. They isolated the problem to a 200 foot long underground cable, but with some self-importance informed me “they don’t dig” and called for the “locate and dig” crew.

A couple hours later I returned from my lunch walk as a PNM truck drove up and the three well trained technicians, believing neither me nor the first crew, and looked for themselves and identified the same cable as bad. They de-energized everything and pulled out their cool underground cable fault locater. It looked like a homemade dowsing rod and they divined their way across the road and back, locating the problem very near the neighbor’s power pedestal. “Now we get to dig. It’s what we do best.”. These guys are pretty cool, actually.

They dug pretty quickly as the soil is basically sand. One of them grabbed the troubled cable to stabilize it and it popped off in his hand. This cable is about an inch in diameter and it just broke off with a little wiggle. The bad end was totally corroded, like a very old car battery terminal. A fist sized rock from the hole had a glassy burned section and another rock was crumbly corroded, with a cable carved grove in it about the size of my thumb. When the cable was installed five years ago, someone nicked the cable and it’s been arc’ing and shorting since then, burning and corroding until today it finally gave out. But even basically severed, the corrosion still allowed some current to pass, dropping the voltage only by about 1/3.

Well, as the guys were patching the cable, another utility truck showed up. The water utility had arrived to locate and mark the water pipes, which is a required step before any digging can take place. PNM finished the patch and begin to fill the hole and another utility truck shows up, this with a gas locater. As PNM replaced the power pedestal the sewer locater showed up. And finally as they energize the circuits (and everything is cool), the locater inspector shows up to make sure the locaters had done their job and as PNM tossed their shovels back on their truck, the inspector gave them the go-ahead to dig.

Most fun I’ve had in a while and would have loved to chat more with the crews, but practical Cyndi pointedly hinted it was finally time for my morning shower.

Boulder

I wake, realize something is off and squint at the clock. 5:30. Then I feel Cyndi staring at me. Hmmm, its is two or three hours early for Cyndi to be awake. I smile and Cyndi slowly leans towards me, nuzzles up to my ear and softly whispers “There is a meth lab upstairs.”

Huh?

“Get dressed. We need to get out of here.” I start to query but am told “We’ll talk about it in the car.”

So I get up, shower and find Cyndi is already packed, has her shoes and scarf on and is impatiently waiting for me. Impatiently is a weak description. She allows me to step into my pants but a belt isn’t needed today. My suitcase is already closed and my shoes are handed to me as she opens the door and exits.

We had just checked in a few hours ago and I had thought she’d object to the cops parked in the lot, apparently surveilling the bowling alley next door but Cyndi thought the cops were a sign of security. I usually think cops in a motel parking lot indicate a presence of hookers but was disappointed to see none as we drove in. The room was clean, quiet, the neighborhood suburban, boring.

In the car I ask and Cyndi explains “I heard a metal scraping upstairs. Like a barrel dragged across the floor. A meth lab. At one am and I didn’t sleep a wink after that.” Well, I heard that scraping too but I ascribed it to the elevator near our room, not a meth lab. Household explosions are meth labs, as we learned from our year in Paradise. We had heard the same thing but had imagined differently. My imagination allowed me to sleep well. And even while troubled, a kind Cyndi also allowed me to sleep well, at least for a few hours.

Women. Men.

So we found ourselves in the local Starbucks even before the early commuters, sipping our giant iced drinks (Cyndi tea, me coffee) and watching staff trying politely (then less politely) to get the guy sleeping on the couch next to us to wake up and leave. He did sit up, put his feet on the floor and managed to keep his eyelids in an upright if not conscious position. As the line of commuters began to get longer, we peed and left, with the sleeper still sitting upright. After a bit of aimlessness, we found ourselves again drinking coffee, this time in a breakfast spot on Pearl St that specialized in gluten free chocolate chip pancakes. We admired and flattered the staff’s tattoos while waiting for stores to open. The book stores, actually.

Which is why we were visiting Boulder and why I Women and Men’ed. I’ve been looking for a copy for a bit but it’s out of print and while it’s held in high regard, hardly anyone purchased it when released 25 years ago and now copies are hard to find and expensive (and most purported readers are probably still trying to finish it). I found a copy through Amazon for $61,000. Plus postage. I don’t have $61,000 but I do have sense (har har har, I crack myself up).

The Boulder Bookstore is pretty nice, with a good selection of used books, but nothing at all by McElroy. The pretty tattooed girl with pink and mauve hair at the check out helped me fill out a form and Akesha did a booksellers search for me and found a copy somewhere for $115, which is a pretty good discount from $61,000 but still too high.

So after a loop through the foothills and around the Flat Irons, and after some random enjoyment in Denver, we returned to Santa Fe, well burdened with other interesting finds (but jeez, we forgot to stop at a pot store, dumb us) and had a gorgeous view of the Spanish Peaks and in general a nice view to the west (and deadly dull to the east).

And, continuing my hunt, I finally found an affordable copy for only $65. I’m happy, but it is the hunt, not the trophy, that is ultimately satisfying.

Late Spring

We've had some spring rain, which seems unusual but quite welcome. The local plants certainly are enjoying the moisture and pleasant temperatures. Faster than seems possible, new shoots, entire plants show up over night. And blossoms everywhere. Generally small, brightly colored flowers to attract the few insects buzzing about.

I took a few pictures while walking the Atalya Mountain trail in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos. The trail is one of the more popular in the area but even so, it has only a hiker or two per mile.

Hedgehog cactus

Cholla blossom

Apache Plume

Yucca and a footpath

Obligatory picture of thistle and barbed wire. I think this may be border of the National Forest.

Or it could just be an old fence.

 

Lots of little blue flowers of differing kinds.

And other colors too.

See, here are some yellow ones

Should be a good year for prickly pear fruit

My Summer Plans

Cyndi handed me a fat envelop with an oh-no-don't-blame-me look. “Jury Summons” jumped out at me.

I've been called for jury duty several times in several states. A day on-call here, a week there. Never served on a jury but I have had to show up and wait hours not to be called. Annoying civic duty.

I opened the envelop to see when I, Paul, was so necessary to justice and why the envelop was so fat. Well, it was fat because they managed to say extremely little with far too many words. But the upshot was that I am on stand by for 90 days this summer.

90. Days.

90 days to call in to see if I'm needed and if not, I can do whatever I want that day. Whoo fucking Hoo.

They included a dot-com address for more information (dot-com? Is this a for-profit court system?). There I found not much more information. A lame FAQ (“Why did you pick me? Why didn't you pick my cousin?”), a list of what I cannot bring to the court (a long list), a dress code (“comfortable but dignified. We suggest you dress in layers as the temperature in the courthouse can vary greatly throughout the day”). And the happy detail that I will get paid for my time. $6.25 per hour, which is less than even the Republican minimum wage. But actually I won't get that either, as the state ran out of money. Seems the Republican legislature and our Republican Hopeful Governess Photo-Op voted to get-tough-on-crime but failed to fund this toughness.

Included in the envelop was a required juror questionnaire. One page, 35 open ended questions, and it looked like it had been faxed several times. I was not re-assured by the assurance that the required unnecessary personal information would be held in the strictest confidence by the court. Questions were something like “Have you ever testified in a court case and if so, what were the circumstances”, giving me about this much room to reply. The form was consistent: it gave 4 point, 10em spaces for responses to questions like “current and previous addresses”, “current and previous employers”, “current and previous spouses”. The beginnings of a haiku came to mind: “perfunctory // under-paid functionary // ...”

I was to return this questionnaire by mail, but they didn't include an envelop or the postage. As the FAQ explained “We can't afford to pay the postage on the materials we require you to mail us.”

Can't wait. Maybe I can complete the haiku during testimony.