Spiderman 3

I saw Spiderman 3 last night. There were parts of it I really loved, and while I can't say I hated anything about it, I was left a little un-fulfilled by the ending.

First of all, The action was great throughout. The actors are all top-notch (I especially like Topher Grace AKA Eric Foreman as the "bad boy" competition for Peter Parker's job as photographer at the Bugle. He did a great job of being just annoying enough that you wanted to punch hsi lights out, while still being likeable enough that... well, let's not go there quite yet. I also thought The Sandman was brilliantly portrayed as another villian who's not really evil - just misunderstood. Of course, the Peter/MJ/Harry trio are all brilliant.

I started thinking about the villians in this film, and one of the things I realized about all of Spidey's foes is that they're not truely evil in the classic comic book villian sense. They're just.... disturbed. All of the villians in the series are not evil people; they're just tragic. First, the Green Goblin loses the government contract that would have saved his company, and he loses his sanity experimenting on himself. Who couldn't sympathize with Doctor Octopus? He loses everything: his career, his wife, even his future.

What I loved is how, in this third installment, the hero himself must face his own internal battle. This time, it's not the struggle to overcome teenage awkwardness, and it's not the challenge of telling the woman you love that you can't be without her. Instead, he's fighting for his very soul. Will he win by being the good man he is, or will he let revenge and hate run his life? It's like the parallel challenges that Anakin and Luke Skywalker faced: one went to the dark side, and the other stayed on the light.

Were there things I didn't like? Yes. Certain parts of the conclusion left me feeling more confused than satisfied, and I could have wished for a very different outcome for another character.

Finally, there were a couple of consistency issues in the film. Consistency problems, whether internal (something happens one way at one point in the movie, but has a very different effect another time) or external (breaking the laws of physics or nature) always bug me in a film.
When watching a scene, the audience has to get sucked in. They have to believe every second of what they're seeing. When a major, glaring violation of the laws of physics happens, it doesn't make me go "wow, look at that!" Instead, it makes me go, "aw jeez. How fake," and the whole scene loses much of its impact (sometime, I'll write about airplanes in space). One such incident was the crane scene early on. A girder smashes right through part of a building... one that should have stopped the girder cold. Those scenes always annoy me, because I know what should happen, and so when something different happens, I can't stay with the scene. It's gone from "oh wow" to "oh fake".

Likewise, the moment of the Sandman's origin is completely implausible, because the security was far too lax for something as significant as what was going on there. They didn't even have a camera on the scene to record the event?

Those kinds of things don't have to be that way. It wouldn't have cost any more money to write the scenes properly and to design an effects sequence that wouldn't break the rules of reality. Yes, I know that a sentient ball of sand is a little implausible, but that's why it's even more important to keep the other laws of nature intact. By keeping the rest of the story completely believable, the writer makes the viewer want to believe that the one thing he sees that seems to break the rules is still real.

Despite that (which is admittedly my pet peeve in action and sci-fi movies), I though this movie stood up well next to its two predecessors. In fact, I'm betting that there will be an S4. I can only imagine what they'll think up for that one.

Programming tidbits

Ever wanted to upload or download files via FTP inside of your own program?

http://www.codeproject.com/vb/net/FtpClient.asp


I found this today, and it works perfectly for a custom project I'm doing. No way was I going to manually download 20,000 images, scale them, and upload the resulting 60,000 files!

A song for you

I'm working on a project. I'm calling it "A Soundtrack In Search of a Game". Here's a sample: Night Visions

The song was composed on Cakewalk Sonar, and played entirely on a Roland MT-32, the classic synth for video game music.

I think I spend too much time shopping on-line.

I heard a truck drive up, so I went outside. It was Fed Ex. As I was signing for the package, The UPS guy pulled in to the driveway.

Don't ask me why, but for just a moment, I felt like a guy whose wife came home and caught him with the girlfriend. :)

How NOT to treat a customer

This is a real transcript of a support request I sent in to EBay. A little background before I get to the message. I have been looking at music and sound equipment. Specifically, I've been looking for keyboards, mixers, and MIDI synthesizers. But when you search for "Mixer" in EBay, you get the stupidest things. For example, some guy is selling Audacity, a free program, for $9.95. Another guy is selling mixer CASES. This is NOT what I'm looking for.

We have a "favorite sellers" list. I thought maybe there was a way to build a "blocked sellers" list, so I can dispense with all these non-sequiters.

So I e-mail customer support. What follows are the messages that went back and forth.

Message #1, from me to EBay:

---

Dear EBay,

I would like to be able to block specific SELLERS when I'm browsing listings. Certain items pop up again and again, and it's often junk that's in the wrong category or only incidentally related to the items I'm looking for. One example: search for "Mixer", and you get more listings for CASES than for the actual mixers. Thrown in there, you get people with auctions for FREE software, and some guy who wants $150 to ship something that should only cost $10 or so to ship.

If I could just filter out these annoying sellers, it would be much easier to find the specific items I'm looking for, rather than having to wade through a bunch of stuff that's irrelevant to my search.

---

Dear <member>, [yes, it shows up like that in my inbox]

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to <issue>.

Tom, you are referring to spoof and spam emails. Those are junk email that want your personal information. If you want you can contact you Internet provider and ask them if they can block those emails. You can also use the Advance Search to look for the items in a specific way.

[Here I cut out the advanced search tutorial]

Advanced Search offers a variety of ways to narrow your search and get more specific results.
Sincerely,
Luis M.

eBay Customer Support

---

Dear Ebay,

Thanks, Luis, but I am NOT writing about spoof e-mails. I'm talking about the number of irrelevent listings when I search for items in EBay.

PLEASE TRY THIS: go to EBay and search for "Mixer". Look at how many items are NOT mixers: mixer cases, "mixer" software, and even totally off the wall stuff like "ear training" software. I want to be able to filter out those sellers so that I don't see their listings.

---

Dear Tom,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to searching for a specific item.

I really apologize for the delay in receiving a response and any inconvenience caused to you because of this.

I understand that you are looking for a "mixer". I will surely assist you with that.

Type "mixer" and under All Categories select "Home & Garden" and then click "Search". You will find all type's of mixer's. [Excuse me? I'm not looking for kitchen appliances.]

However, also use our "Advanced Search".

[cut out the exact same text as the first message]

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.

Sincerely,
Ray R.

eBay Customer Support
_____________________________________________


All I want to know is this. Is anyone there actually listening? Are these messages being read by English speakers? The first rule of customer support is that you have to be able to communicate with the customer. The best customer support experience I've ever had was with a company based in Singapore. They hire Americans, working in the US, to handle customer support. But when I try to talk to a US company, I get someone who doesn't even read English at a 4'th grade level?

That's what's wrong with business in America today.

Viral politics and the National Association of Broadcasters

The credibility of a self-proclaimed consumer advocate group based in Washington DC, and now possibly that of a professor at Georgetown University, has been destroyed by their link to the NAB, a political lobbying group tied to American TV and radio broadcasters.

First, some background. Back in February of this year, Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Raio announced their intention to merge. My guess is that they've done their homework, or they would not have announced the deal - complete with 6-figure penalties if either company pulled out. More is available on Wikipedia and on Wikinews.

Recently, after Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite radio declared their intention to merge, a group calling themselves the Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio released a statement opposing the satellite radio merger. The group claims to be a group of law students who are subscribers to both companies' products and who don't believe a merger would be good for consumers.

For a moment, let's look at a seemingly unrelated situation: the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has been buying advertising space in Washington DC newspapers. The controversial ads are aimed directly at the satellite radio companies, and attempt to "use Karmazin's words against him." A little research in to the NAB's web site shows that the NAB has opposed satellite radio every step of the way: images from the ad campaign and FCC filings are available via the site's search engine. The NAB certainly has the right to oppose satellite radio. Satellite radio poses a threat to the traditional business model that has been in place since the 1930's.

The nasty business comes in when it's discovered that the C3SR is really a front group for the NAB. While not all of the details are clear yet, it does appear that the NAB is providing material support to the C3SR. Read the Orbitcast article here.

To further muddy the waters, edits are starting to crop up on Wikipedia by a user named "Antitrustbust". These edits cite J. Gregory Sidak as a source. As it turns out, he is an antitrust activist and professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Guess where the C3SR is based? That's right: Georgetown.

I don't have a problem with groups that are geunuinely interested in protecting the public welfare. I don't have a problem with groups that attempt to preserve and defend their own industry. But when political lobbying groups are secretly funneling money in to consumer advocacy groups, I get worried. How far will the NAB go? While there may be no legal conflict here, I see an ethical one. When does this go from being a minor ethical breach straight in to outright bribery? Lies? What will the NAB do to protect their domination of the public airwaves?

The issue here is no longer one of monopoly or antitrust. It's about one organization abusing the rights of the American public and our system of law to protect their own business model. Sirius and XM may indeed become a monopoly, but you can always choose not to subscribe. But we rel on broadcast radio every day, and if they kill off their only competition (satellite radio), where does that leave us? It leaves us with a situation that's every bit as real as the one they're fighting against. If the NAB accomplishes its goal of killing satellite radio, then the consumer will be in a position where big media has more power over us than ever. Don't let that happen. Write the NAB at nab@nab.org and let them know how you feel about dishonest practices and "viral politics."

Another happy customer

More than any other single factor, I believe that customer service is the foundation that any company stands on. I believe that good service is even more important than price (within reason) when selecting a vendor.

So, when I have a good experience with a company's support staff, I'm going to post about it here.

I'm going to start with Motorola. I called to get a replacement ear clip for my H500 Bluetooth Headset, and the man I talked to on the phone was very pleasant and helpful. They had several reasons they could have refused warranty service: I bought the headset on EBay and got an OEM pack (it was just a sealed plastic bag; this is how the headsets are delivered when you buy a phone/headset combo), the clip isn't a warranty item, and it was broken because of "excessive mastication." You're not supposed to chew on a Bluetooth headset. (No, it wasn't me. It was my (at the time) 2 year old daughter. The spot she chewed on finally wore through. All I wanted was to buy a replacement clip. I even told the guy: "I don't think it's under warranty," but I checked the order date anyway: April 26, 2006 (it's April 4 today.)

Despite all that, he's sending me a free replacement ear clip at no charge, not even for shipping.

Update 4/11/2007: I got a package in the mail today. They actually sent 3 of the clips for my headset, a gray one, a beige one, and a black one.

Thanks, Motorola!

[More happy support:]

I also dealt with Creative Labs on a number of occasions. Every time I have, I've had great service. My two most recent calls were to get remote controls for a speaker system and a media player. The speaker system came from a pawn shop, and the remote wasn't with it. I didn't expect Creative to stock a 5 year old remote, but they had one. Then I ordered a remote for my Zen Portable Media Center. The guy had to search to find it, but he found one.

In both cases, the rep stayed on the phone long after my issue was handled and talked to me about the company and the products. I felt like a valued customer, not a talking wallet.

What amazes me is that even though CR is based in Singapore, they hire US workers to man phones in the US for US based callers. That makes me feel like they take support seriously, instead of just calling it "overhead" and trying to pay as little as they can get away with for support staff.

My hat is off to Creative Labs.