Yale’s digitizing collection and some quick math

Posted on June 8, 2011 by admin (Royce)

Yale recently announced they are going to scan and post very high res images of their “collections of art, natural history, books, and maps, as well as photos, audio, and video documenting people, places, and events that form part of Yale’s institutional identity and contribution to scholarship”.

There’s 250,000 images out there already to start with, but there are 12,000,000 items left to scan. (And all of this is supposedly coming from only ONE of their museum collections!)

Assuming they’re going to scan 15 pieces an hour on a high-end scanner, that means it’s going to take 800,000 hours to scan 12 million pieces.

Scanning 15 pieces an hour for 8 hours a day straight will take 100,000 days.

100,000 days divided by 365 days in a year would make it a 273 year job… for for one person.

Add 99 more people scanning at the same rate and the entire 12 million piece archive can be done in 2.7 years.

That is a LOT of artwork left to scan.

The main search window for the Yale collection is here. A sample list view of what is already online is here.

Cannot start the download because the file is missing or invalid – iPad fix

Posted on June 2, 2011 by admin (Royce)

If you’re subscribing to a Conde Nast magazine and are downloading copies to your iPad, there’s a small bug to watch out for.

After consecutively downloading 6 issues in any Conde Nast magazine app (New Yorker, Wired, etc), you will get a “ERROR DURING DOWNLOAD : Cannot start the download because the file is missing or invalid.”

Restart the iPad and you can download more issues. (Closing and re-opening the app doesn’t fix it.)

Hopefully the next Conde Nast magazine app release will fix this (or increase the cache/timeout).

Wall Street Journal – Final South Texas delivery resolution

Posted on June 1, 2011 by admin (Royce)

I just got an email from the the Senior Manager of Customer Care at The Wall Street Journal this morning.

The solution to that delivery problem I’ve been having?

“Dear Subscriber,

I am writing to inform you about changes in our production and delivery operations that will impact the delivery of your Journal subscription.

At Dow Jones and Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we work very hard to provide our customers with the highest quality delivery service. However, recent changes in transportation logistics have made it impossible to continue delivering your Monday – Saturday Journal on the day of publication. Effective for the issue date of June 9, 2011, your weekday Journal subscription will be delivered by carrier or by the United States Postal Service, as it is today, but one day after publication date. ”

Well, shit.

Getting the newspaper in the mail? And assuming they mail it immediately on the day of production, that’s still going to take 3 or 4 days after the publication date to get here.

I wanted the newspaper on the same day it was printed. That’s why I skipped out on the Washington Post and the New York Times postal mail delivery and chose The Wall Street Journal home delivery. After all, old news is… well, old news.

The email also had a link to a 30 day subscription to WSJ online, but if I wanted that format, I would’ve signed up for it on my Kindle.

So that’s the end of it. The only “real” newspaper’s delivery in deeeep south Texas is now kaput.

The fact I can’t get a real newspaper delivered every day to my home address tells me three things…

#1: Transportation logistics? That’s the reason the newspaper quit this area? There’s no internet-and-print option to a local newspaper printer? They’re still delivering newspapers on trucks? I’m going to feel pretty rotten if I was the only reason some poor semi truck driver had to come all the way down to the Texas valley!

Which brings me to…

#2: There’s a wide open market down here for a company that will print and deliver “real” newspapers. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times and (shudder) USA TODAY are newspapers I’ve read before that are completely unavailable down here in the Texas valley. The local rag is a sad joke, and maybe a “city hub” newspaper printer could sell and distribute a bundle of the top 5 papers to the local schools, libraries, bookstores, etc.

#3: I may need to move since no major newspaper delivers to the area I live in. That’s a pretty big “WARNING! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!” sign right there.

Seriously, thanks for trying Wall Street Journal. It was great while it lasted. I’ll get your print edition again. Someday.

No Wall Street Journal for 26 consecutive issues!

Posted on June 1, 2011 by admin (Royce)

Just a quick status update on the original Wall Street Journal delivery article. As of May 2nd, I haven’t received one single newspaper. That’s 26 consecutive Wall Street Journals I’ve missed because of “production issues”. (I get M-Sat only. Sundays were never an option and there was no Memorial Day delivery.)

Every damn time I call customer service I am told I will be credited the issue, and the missed issue will be delivered with tomorrow’s paper. The “urgent matter” is also escalated to the regional distributor for kicks.

I’m tired of paying for something I haven’t received. I’ll keep posting these updates going until this mess is resolved.

Texas valley subscribers beware! Delivery of the Wall Street Journal is not reliable!

TIL Verizon sets up 4G LTE passwords the old school way

Posted on May 27, 2011 by admin (Royce)

Yesterday I got a Verizon 4G LTE mobile hotspot, and so far it has totally smoked the Sprint and AT&T devices I used before.

It’s an idiot proof device with one power button. Turn it on, wait for the blinky light to go solid, and you’re online. Easy! It is also very fast. Much faster than Sprint and AT&T’s service down here!

So today I went to verizon.com site and was setting up an account to keep track of my data usage. After I keyed in the mobile hotspot’s phone number, the site said it was going to send a text message to my device with a temporary login password.

Sending a text message to a mobile hotspot? A device with no LCD monitor? Wait, what?

An email that appeared as soon as I hit SUBMIT confirmed that “A temporary password from Verizon Wireless has been sent to your cell phone with number XXXX”.

Just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything, I logged in to my mobile hotspot directly and checked the logs and under every sub-menu. Nothing.

I called Verizon tech support and they said sending a temporary password to my device wasn’t possible since it was so new. However they would send me a password… through postal mail… so I could complete my setup.

Um… how about emailing it to me? SMS it to the primary phone number? Authenticate my ownership through the device’s MAC address? Confirm the sim card number and device ID over the phone and issue me a new password right there and then?

The technical support was very professional, answered my bandwidth question, and answered the phone fast, so I have no complaints at all about them. As a matter of fact, Verizon has been a five star experience so far, and I don’t rate much of anything five stars. But this old school throwback has me slightly surprised.

No Wall Street Journal for 22 days. Major fail continues.

Posted on May 26, 2011 by admin (Royce)

Just a quick status update on the original Wall Street Journal delivery article. As of May 2nd, I haven’t received one single newspaper. That’s 22 Wall Street Journals I’ve missed because of “production issues”. (I get M-Sat only. Sundays were never an option.)

I’m tired of paying for something I haven’t received. I’ll keep the updates going until this mess is resolved.

Texas valley subscribers beware! Delivery of the Wall Street Journal is not reliable!

No Wall Street Journal for 21 days. Major fail continues.

Posted on May 25, 2011 by admin (Royce)

Just a quick status update on the original Wall Street Journal delivery article. As of May 2nd, I haven’t received one single newspaper. That’s 21 Wall Street Journals I’ve missed because of “production issues”. (I get M-Sat only. Sundays were never an option.)

Today I was actually told something different! That my account was in “severe” status. Wow. Maybe if I keep it up I’ll get to “critical” and then maybe “terminal”!

I’m tired of paying for something I haven’t received. I’ll keep the updates going until this mess is resolved.

Texas valley subscribers beware! Delivery of the Wall Street Journal is not reliable!

No more RT Tuesdays!

Posted on May 24, 2011 by admin (Royce)

I’ve decided to stop re-tweeting everything on Thursdays. It’s taking up too much blog space where “real” articles should go, and it’s easy enough to follow me on twitter.

No Wall Street Journal for 20 days? Major fail.

Posted on May 24, 2011 by admin (Royce)

I was totally geeked out when I got my subscription to the Wall Street Journal started back in August. I enjoyed the daily paper with my morning coffee and was hoping this was the start of getting other “big hitters” like the New York Times and the Washington Post down here in the Texas valley as well.

What’s that guy in the Simpsons always say? Not Homer, but the bully kid… oh yeah! “HA-HA!!!”

As of May 2nd, I haven’t received one single newspaper. That’s 20 Wall Street Journals I’ve missed because of “production issues”. (I get M-Sat only. Sundays were never an option.)

Every day I call it in, file it online, and send a direct email to Wall Street Journal customer service. I’m using three different venues in the vain hope one of those departments can actually do something about it.

Every single day, the 1-800 customer service number had the same old excuse. I can quote verbatim what I’m always told…

“Hello Mr Eddington. It seems there was a production problem in your area. We will escalate this to the regional distributor in your area and urgent copy the regional manager. We will also credit your account for the missed issue. Tomorrow you will get a copy of today’s paper with the most recent edition. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

At this rate, they’re going to need a dump truck to deliver all the back issues they owe me.

The email reply is about the same.

“Thank you for subscribing to The Wall Street Journal. We are writing to follow-up on your recent complaint regarding your Journal newspaper delivery. We would like to again apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. There is no need to respond if the issue has been resolved and you are pleased with the way your concerns were addressed.”

The only links in the email are to the 1-800 number I listed above or to the same address that just sent me the auto-response.

Fun.

I’m not sure if the regional distributor has a sudden case of “don’t give a damn-itis”, if the Wall Street Journal drew a line across Texas and said “nothing below that line gets a newspaper anymore!”, or if there’s just not enough material after the local crap gets printed for a real newspaper to get run on.

I’m tired of paying for something I haven’t received. Fortunately, I have a blog to post my rants on. Hmmm…. what should I end with? Ah! How about…

Texas valley subscribers beware! The Wall Street Journal delivery isn’t reliable!

Let’s see what happens form here.