Anyway, the card I was going to cancel was my points accumulating card (I'm not mentioning any brand names for security reasons) because the points take forever to accumulate and they are a bit of a hassle to use. My other card offers cash back which, despite being equally pathetic in terms of reward, is far simpler to understand. But when I called the company to bail they offered me a $50 dollar credit to stay. At first I said "no, cancel it anyway," but then after I'd hung up I realized that I had just said no to $50! What am I stupid. So I called right back and got reinstated. As long as I call to cancel again before April (when the annual fee is due) I'll be $50 richer for wanting to cancel my card. If only I could do that with my Hydro bill.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
What am I rich? How not to cancel your credit card
I just called my credit card company to cancel my card. I have two credit cards and I really only need one because I've decided to start paying cash for stuff again. Although credit card companies offer (pathetic) incentives to users they rip-off merchants big-time (not to mention consumers who carry a balance). I'm not really cool with that since most of the places I shop are local and I don't want them to have to pay commission on the sales they make to me.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Most Recent Letter
Here's a letter of mine that was published in today's Winnipeg Free Press:
It is discrimination
Re: Shocked by editorial, Feb. 2.
I take exception to the letter written by David Waldie wherein he comments that there is nothing wrong with holding views against homosexuals. Whether you are hiding behind your religion or some other standard, the fact is that discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation is just plain wrong.
While I dispute Waldie's assertion that a large proportion of Canadians are anti-homosexual, I am not sure that it matters so much, even if it is true. At one time a majority of Canadians held views against people of different races, but as we know today, those people were wrong. Similarly, those who cling to some ancient notion about Adam and Eve are misguided and doing their religion and our world a disservice. Dr. Kamelia Elias may be entitled to hold her beliefs but the newspaper's editors are entirely in the right to condemn those opinions.
It is discrimination
Re: Shocked by editorial, Feb. 2.
I take exception to the letter written by David Waldie wherein he comments that there is nothing wrong with holding views against homosexuals. Whether you are hiding behind your religion or some other standard, the fact is that discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation is just plain wrong.
While I dispute Waldie's assertion that a large proportion of Canadians are anti-homosexual, I am not sure that it matters so much, even if it is true. At one time a majority of Canadians held views against people of different races, but as we know today, those people were wrong. Similarly, those who cling to some ancient notion about Adam and Eve are misguided and doing their religion and our world a disservice. Dr. Kamelia Elias may be entitled to hold her beliefs but the newspaper's editors are entirely in the right to condemn those opinions.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Why I Hate Using Google
Back when the Internet was a baby there were dozens of search engines vying for your business. They weren't all very good, some of them were quite useful for specific things but absolutely useless for everything else. Then came Google. Google is like Coca-Cola in a world with no Pepsi. You've got your RC Cola (Yahoo!) and your PC Cola (MSN) but no-one is really putting up too much competition, which is too bad because Google often sucks!
What I hate most is that does not make it easy to specify that you would like to search for something based on the date it was published on the Internet. Of course you can do this by going to "Advanced Settings" yada, yada, but still this is cumbersome and not very precise. A lot of things I want to search have to do with fairly recent technology an/or news. For example if I want to quickly figure out how to do something with the latest version of iTunes and I type in my query expecting the search engine to understand that information from 2004 is useless I am SOL.
What I would like is for there to be an easy expression I could type in (for ex. "After July 2008") or a graphical interface that is not buried deep within the settings. Of course Google does not want to give me the power to rank my own searches because this will effect their advertising business, which is another thing that annoys me. I don't search for stuff on the Internet as a consumer, I search as a person looking for information. Google began as a project that was dedicated to providing relevance over commercialism but quickly devolved when $$$ was mentioned. I want a search engine that is not looking to make a fast buck on links I never click. Actually I don't care if they appear at the top in a box, goodie for them, I'd even be willing to be submitted to a five second text ad if I could get the results the way I wanted them.
What if, and I know this is crazy, but what if you could get search results in columns like you do when you search for something on your computer. Then you could click on the grouping that was the most useful to you such as: Last Posted, Relevance (to keywords), number of hits, source (i.e. what is the root URL where this page is found). The person who develops a search engine and/or browser with this kind of capability will be the person who kills Google's half-assed search engine once and for all. If I knew anything about programing I'd do it myself, but I'm just a shlub who has to use these dam machines.
What I hate most is that does not make it easy to specify that you would like to search for something based on the date it was published on the Internet. Of course you can do this by going to "Advanced Settings" yada, yada, but still this is cumbersome and not very precise. A lot of things I want to search have to do with fairly recent technology an/or news. For example if I want to quickly figure out how to do something with the latest version of iTunes and I type in my query expecting the search engine to understand that information from 2004 is useless I am SOL.
What I would like is for there to be an easy expression I could type in (for ex. "After July 2008") or a graphical interface that is not buried deep within the settings. Of course Google does not want to give me the power to rank my own searches because this will effect their advertising business, which is another thing that annoys me. I don't search for stuff on the Internet as a consumer, I search as a person looking for information. Google began as a project that was dedicated to providing relevance over commercialism but quickly devolved when $$$ was mentioned. I want a search engine that is not looking to make a fast buck on links I never click. Actually I don't care if they appear at the top in a box, goodie for them, I'd even be willing to be submitted to a five second text ad if I could get the results the way I wanted them.
What if, and I know this is crazy, but what if you could get search results in columns like you do when you search for something on your computer. Then you could click on the grouping that was the most useful to you such as: Last Posted, Relevance (to keywords), number of hits, source (i.e. what is the root URL where this page is found). The person who develops a search engine and/or browser with this kind of capability will be the person who kills Google's half-assed search engine once and for all. If I knew anything about programing I'd do it myself, but I'm just a shlub who has to use these dam machines.
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