phik

I’d like to tell you otherwise, but honestly, nothing has happened lately. I don’t have any new stories, facts, or opinions to share with you.

I did realize that I never told you how this little escapade turned out. I guess I didn’t write about it when I filed my appeal on January 28th, or write about it when I was asked to submit a brief by March 7th, or when I petitioned the court for a month extension, or when I finally submitted it on April 7th, or when I was instructed to appear for oral argument on May 6th, or when I received their finding on May 17th. At no point did I write about any of those things.

Let’s cut to the chase.

So there is that. Truth and justice carried the day — although it’s not like I got any of my filing fees back — and then a month later I learned that Massachusetts had suspended my driving license for not paying the fine that three appellate judges decided was invalid. That wily executive branch will try anything; although that error was, on the whole, much less expensive and time consuming to correct than their original.

It’s January 8th, and I’m finished with the holiday cards! My hand is twisted into an arthritic, palsied hook, cramped and permanently disfigured. But all of my best customers and partners will receive my warm wishes for the new year, and that is perhaps what matters. Fortunately, all I need to be able to do any more is answer the telephone, which I can probably manage with my left hand.

Tonight I watched a remarkable 1963 documentary, filmed behind the scenes of the confrontation caused when Alabama governor George Wallace blocked the first two black students from registering at the University of Alabama. Four teams were on location — in the oval office, the Governor’s office, the attorney general’s office, and traveling with the deputy AG — filming with “hand-held” cameras. I’m amazed that such footage exists at all, let alone that a documentary filmmaker was granted such access by all parties at such a time. It is pretty fascinating to see how Kennedy’s plan was formulated and executed. A very clever plan, I thought, to minimize the likelihood of violence, to avoid calling in troops before the need had been demonstrated to the public, and to avoid having the governor actually commit a crime — which would have required them either to arrest Wallace (angering most of the South and any Federalist worth his name), or ignore it (presumably angering civil rights activists, and those who believe that all laws must always be enforced regardless of what’s sensible or pragmatic).

Very clever.

Somewhat to my surprise — not least because until ten minutes ago I didn’t realize that such an award existed — Lustre makes an appearance in the Supercomputing Online “product of the year” poll. Not that we don’t deserve it, you understand, just surprised because we’re not normally invited to these kinds of parties, since I don’t employ a team of people with enormous marketing budgets for buying off the editorial staff of any award-granting organization. Ahem.

As you can see, we’re lagging in the voting somewhat, behind companies that are 5,000, 11,000, and 24,000 times larger than mine (their names all have three letters; no more hints).

Anything you could do about that would be welcome, assuming of course that you deem us deserving. Actually, not “anything”; please don’t stuff the ballot box. I consider it a victory just to be listed (last year, apparently, IBM accounted for four out of nine by themselves).

13h38 EST: The oddly-named MacBook Pro is announced.
13h48 EST: The online store reopens for business.
13h58 EST: Thank you for your order.

February 15th never seemed so far away. I have suffered with a G4 long enough.

I’ve been trying to procure some new Baytech RPC3 telnettable power switches. Well, new to me — eBay is how I do this. They’re usually on the order of 400-600% more expensive new. No kidding!

Last time eBay surprised me good, because what arrived was the RPC3-20NC, which has a 20-amp twist-lock plug (this plug is not standard issue in American, or indeed any, homes). This subtle distinction went curiously unmentioned in the description, probably because they actually wanted the sale. Anyways, I just built a little fire-hazard converter from Home Depot parts — which the lady was not very excited about selling to me, once she knew what I was going to do with them — and it has served me well since that day. It could have been worse, I suppose. It could have been 220v.

This time eBay is failing me more completely; there are no -15NC or -20NC units to be found, and the least expensive new unit I see is $505 (froogle, by the way, finds none). I need three. Does anyone want to recommend a similar unit, available at fire-sale eBay prices, preferably already supported by Powerman? I know I’m asking a lot.

I finally finished reading this 700-page opus about the Federal Reserve, that can probably be summarized roughly with the following quotation:

Like all mortals, [Paul] Volcker was fallible, but his errors were barely noticed. The Federal Reserve chairman, the men and women of his institution, had accomplished the great goal they had set for themselves in 1979. Indeed, they had achieved much more than most people, including themselves, had thought possible. … The triumph was hollow, however, for the nation. Its moral promises to the victims were not kept. For the entire society, its predicted benefits were not realized.

It can be argued — this book was published in 1987, just as Greenspan was taking charge — that in the subsequent 20 years, Volcker’s decisions have been vindicated. I’m not so sure, though.

For one thing, American manufacturing never recovered from the ruinous combination of high interest rates and staggeringly overvalued dollar in the 1980s. Say what you like about creative destruction, but the overwhelming loss of American manufacturing not only sabotaged the blue-collar middle class — the heart of the country — but so hollowed out our domestic industrial capacity as to be an issue of national security.

For another, in hindsight most observers seem to agree that the switch to a monetarist operating method led the Fed to completely misread the economic signals, and unnecessarily tighten credit throughout the mid-80s, choking off the Reagan recovery just when it was getting going. But we’ll never know for sure.

Most of all, I start to wonder if an independent central bank is really the best strategy. I can certainly understand the suggestion that elected politicians can’t be trusted not to manipulate monetary policy simply for electoral advantage. That being said, the current situation puts us in a position where at times, fiscal policy and monetary policy are trying to achieve contradictory objectives. And it allows the Fed and the elected government to point fingers at each other — ultimately, nobody is held accountable.

I’m not so sure that’s worth it.

Did you encounter a problem during your rental car experience? Yes.

Please comment about the problem:

To say that it is difficult to locate the Thrifty drop-off point at PHL would be an understatement. I honestly don’t know how anyone manages to return one of your cars. I would have assumed that most people just abandon them at the side of the road and hope they get stolen, or perhaps set them on fire, because at some point you have been driving around for so long that you don’t care about the consequences any more. I seriously considered both of these options.

When you rent from an airport rental car location, you expect to be able to return there by following the “rental car return” signs at the airport. This is a basic tenet of business travel logic; you can always find your way home, so you don’t need to memorize anything.

In PHL, there are absolutely zero signs at any point directing you to Thrifty. If you cruised through PHL, in fact, you could not be blamed for assuming that Thrifty has gone out of business, or is perhaps not licensed to operate in Pennsylvania. It is so far away from the airport that a normal adult human could never find it unassisted. If I didn’t have a GPS with me, I’d still be driving around asking confused people who don’t rent cars in their own hometown, and haven’t heard of your tiny side-street.

Nobody ever mentioned this at any time during the rental process. “We save money by not being anywhere near the airport,” the agent didn’t say. “Take this map so you know how to get back,” she didn’t add. The rental paperwork doesn’t mention it. There should be an enormous bright orange map in each of your cars, with directions from the real rental car return section — located in the airport — to this distant barren false land.

And don’t think for a moment that finding your building is the end of Bill and Ted’s Rental Adventure. I drove right by the entrance because it was strategically placed behind an informative sign — the first and last sign I would encounter — that reads “Buses Only, No Cars Allowed”

Just to ensure that no part of this rich tapestry is overlooked, permit me to repeat myself. Your bus drivers, who come and go along this route every six minutes, get signs. Your customers don’t. Except for the one sign, which is a lie.

That all being said, sign or no sign, you might ask why a person who is smart enough to dress himself each morning without incurring serious eye injuries can’t figure out how to return a car. This is a fair question, so I will elaborate.

Instead of a clearly marked gate indicating an entrance to a restricted area (I would argue that, for this purpose, a gate is the gold standard) you have a person sitting in a van. This van completely blocks the entrance; although perhaps the secret would be revealed with powerful microscopes, there is no evidence to the naked eye that an entrance even exists.

Because it’s a van, not a gate, there is no reason for me to expect that it is guarding something special. When I want to enter or exit a parking lot, I do not typically drive up to the nearest van, honk my horn, and hope that it exposes a hidden avenue.

After I drove past this “entrance” a few times, I pulled into the “Buses Only” driveway to ask for help. The van moved smoothly aside, divulging its precious secret, and I was greeted by nobody to offer any suggestion about where to put the car, or how to complete the rental.

Having already missed my flight, I will confess that I was not in a great mood, so I parked in what I hope is the most inconvenient place, and then threw the keys down a nearby storm drain.

The last hour of my rental was the worst experience I’ve ever had in a car, including when I almost died in an automobile at age eight.

I hope my feedback is useful.

Why do you feel you did not make the right choice by selecting Thrifty?

See previous answer.

Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve the experience at Thrifty?

See previous answer.