AgPerson

Cyrus seems like a good mailserver and all, but why does it seem to suffer from a complete lack of documentation and user support? When I Google for Cyrus help the same few threads re-appear every single time, and they’re all questions with no answers, or a HOWTO from 1999. I’m sure Cyrus is great, and hey, Apple even uses it in OS X, but come on, where’s the beef? Don’t make me go to Courier, people.

(Not that that will actually happen, as I don’t have time to mess around with something that is working just fine, but the point still stands.)

On the episode of _House_ I watched today, there was talk of “breaking out the rape kit” for a patient. Which made me wonder what, exactly, the “rape kit” consists of. Of course the internet has the answer, and its not pretty. Post-rape, female victims are subject to a number of necessary tests that I can imagine are really emotionally and psychologically uncomfortable in addition to being physically awkward. I mean, it has to be done, but yuck. Not the kind of experience one should be having after such a terrible and traumatic event. And yet, in the interests of the law and catching and prosecuting the perputrator, it pretty much *has* to be done, which, in itself, is sort of another form of forced violation.

The “kit” part refers to a physical kit of sterile equipment (swabs, tweezers, gloves, and the like) and evidence bags, as well as to the instructional procedures accompanying it.

Around this time last year I yearned for a return to the fairness doctrine, which was a policy enforced by the FCC from the 60s through the 80s that required broadcasters to report on issues of interest to the community and to provide equal time to opposing points of view. As I wrote in my previous posting, I believe our current broadcast news environment is saturated with, to put it bluntly, crap. While I can’t really say truthfully that I want a return to three networks and FCC strong-arming, there is some charm in the notion that television is about serving the public, about pursuing the stories we need to hear about, about presenting information in an unbiased way, about news in an age when news was about principles and not profit.

Tonight I attended a Q&A with Newton Minow, a former FCC chairman and all around interesting guy, and I posed to him my question about the fairness doctrine, something that has been floating around in my mind ever since I first learned about it in a class freshman year. Unfortunately, Mr. Minow misunderstood my question, and responded by saying that when AM radio seemed stagnant he opened up the FM spectrum and promoted it, and now FM broadcast is the dominent form of radio.

To some extent that is an answer. As I said, the Fairness Doctrine was created in a time with only a few radio and television networks, and thus very little consumer choice. In today’s world there is much more choice, or at least the illusion of it.

I have said that one of the reasons we cannot return to such a time is because of the diversity of media (used here as the plural for medium) in today’s marketplace. We have TV, radio, satellite TV, satellite radio, cable, the beginnings of broadcast over cellphone networks to our phones, etc. The public interest argument — that the scarce airwaves must be used to serve the public good, because they belong to the public — does not hold true with 85% or more of television consumers use cable or satellite. But tonight Susie pointed out to me — quite rightly — that “choice” in this context is a red herring. Cable companies operate as natural monopolies and give consumers no choice over what channel line-up they can receive. Verizon’s plans for television over their new fiber optic network will be the same way, with one big corporation controlling the content (and charging for it). As long as we have media gatekeepers in the form of monopoly carriers, we can never truly have choice.

Mr. Minow, responding to a question from Susie, stated that cable networks were built on the backs of broadcasters, whose signals continue to be sent over them because of “must carry” provisions in the law. But times change, companies change, and you have to wonder if the networks, who claim to be doing work in the public good but in reality are no subject to virtually no useful* public interest regulation, deserve to keep getting a free ride. Not that kicking them off of cable (or forcing them to pay their way) would necessarily change much, but it might cure one small symptom of the overarching disease.

(*I said useful regulations…I don’t consider obscenity and indecency regulation to be at all useful. Sure, I understand that society can feel the need to restrict certain types of content using the same types of public interest arguments as I’ve made here, and sure I am often an advocate of federal or state regulation to force certain behaviors, but on this one, at least, I would rather the markets decide, and let people simply choose not to watch such things. The argument of intrusiveness, to me, holds no water in this day and age.)

No disrespect meant to my friends and family in the “selilng things” business, but I have serious issues with vendors. I’m finding that frequently the sales folks are un- or mis-informed, unhelpful, and bothersome. On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes they are unhelpful, slow to respond, slow to follow up, slow to get me the information I need, and bothersome. In general they don’t know everything about a system, and often instead of getting me the real answers they give me wrong ones or give me nothing at all.

When I’m tasked with purchasing something, I try to do a lot of research and get a good understanding of the product. I find that marketing brochures are generally very unhelpful once I’ve narrowed my requirements a bit — they are never specific enough, never discuss the features I’m worried about in more than a bullet point. The only useful information, I believe, is actual product manuals, because they, unlike sales literature and white papers and such, can’t overhype a system. Sure, they can say stupid things are features or design choices when clearly they’re flaws in the system, but you know what you’re getting with an instruction manual.

That said, often even the manuals are incomplete, and there is no substitute for just sitting down and playing with the system. The sales people don’t like that one bit. They need to give you a demo. I don’t want demos, I want to tinker. I want to figure out the limits of the system. I want to play. Me, a room, your product. If you believe in the product, you should be okay with this. Why aren’t you?

Anyway, I was tasked with purchasing a videoconferencing system and after a lot of research and talking to vendors and such I ended up with a local company called [on second thought, redacted]. In general they tried to answer my questions correctly and find the relevent experts on staff to give me the info I needed to make an informed purchasing decision. They set me up with an actual videoconference so I could test it, and while I didn’t really get to do much touching of the equipment (sigh) I did get to pound them with question after question after question for almost two hours. So I’ve got to give them a *lot* of credit for that, for putting up with me.

The thing is, the point that finally sold me on this product, even with my reservations, was what came at the end. They were probably a little desperate at this point to make the sale, and saw that I was still concerned about a few aspects of the system. I also said I needed something *fast*. So they offered to setup an arrangement to get us the equipment very quickly and let us evaluate it for 14 days with the expectation that if it worked we would purchase it. I was sold.

I took it back to the office and presented my proposal to the principals, who agreed to give it a go. I talked to the [redacted] folks about a week later, they send me a proposal, and I signed it and faxed it back. I thought we were done.

When I inquired today about where my stuff was, the salesman was confused. In his estimation, by signing the proposal I had agreed to a binding contract, not the previous offer to demo the equipment. They had put in an order for new equipment which was being shipped from the manufacturer, whereas with the other approach they would have been loaning us demo gear. According to him, there was never any “agreement” or “money back guarantee,” as I believed. The proposal he sent me after our extensive meetings was in no way connected to his offer to allow us to test drive the equipment. When I said we were ready to proceed, to him that meant we were buying, and the idea that we wanted to try it just disappeared from his consciousness.

To say that this puts me in an awkward position is something of an understatement.

The invoice is net 30. You better believe they’re not getting their money for at least 14 days.

And did I mention that I don’t like vendors?

I saw _Serenity_ tonight. It was awesome. You should see it. Yes you! I won’t write more now because I want to collect my thoughts and let other people see it, but it was damn good, and I continue to love, adore, and worship Joss Whedon.