Rewarding behavior

The saga continues. When we last left off our hero was disconnected after a long hold. A second call yielded an AT&T customer service representative who clarified matters somewhat: we are "old" AT&T customers, and the iPhone plans only apply to customers of the "new" AT&T. Unfortunately, none of their literature, online or printed, says anything about this. Are there so few people who stay with cell service for so long? I mean, the phone works, we don't have trouble with the coverage, and the price is competitive, so why would we bother to switch? Anyway, I had to leave home to take our new dog to obedience class, so that's how it stood.

After obedience class, where we learned all about the importance of consistency and rewarding desired behaviors, I stopped by an AT&T store. The guy there wanted us to switch to a new rate plan and pay $80 for a new phone for my wife (our old phone won't work with their new network, he said). I pointed to their own literature and challenged him to find where it indicated that the rates didn't apply to long-time customers. He called AT&T customer service, and I got nowhere with the person on the phone. I did get a number to call to ask for a supervisor and, with much screaming and yelling and walking out of the store telling everyone around to avoid AT&T, I headed home.

At home, I get through, get a supervisor, and get irate. She puts me on hold so she can talk to her supervisor. At this point, I'm reminded of the experience of buying a car, at the point in the negotiations when the salesman shakes his head and says he'll talk to his manager and see what he can do. Of course, this is all theater: they spend some time talking about the weather or baseball and, after a suitable interval, he comes back and the dance continues.

Same thing here. The AT&T rep finally agrees to a "special plan" that they usually don't use, but which will work with the iPhone. The plan will cost the same as our old one, plus $20 for the iPhone data plan. She also will get my wife a new phone, with bluetooth sync capability with Macs, for free. And I can activate the iPhone once the new phone arrives, which may not be until Thursday because of the Independence Day holiday.

So, after much fuss and bad feelings, I finally get pretty much what I expected to get in the first place, and AT&T has rewarded me for my irate behavior. Which I hate.

Topics: iPhone.

More on my AT&T adventure

More than an hour and a half later, I spoke with one AT&T representative who assured me that my phone was activated but, when she couldn't call me on it, decided that it was an iPhone problem. She gave me a phone number for an iPhone help line, which also turns out to be an AT&T number. The folks at that number couldn't help me; they transferred me to someplace else within AT&T -- a place they couldn't give me a direct number to. Now, after waiting on hold for a half hour, I got disconnected.

Topics: iPhone.

AT&T: not ready for success

Yes, that's right, I bought an iPhone last night. I didn't need to wait all day, just showed up at around 6:30 and waited less than an hour. But even strong, though not insanely crazy, demand for the new device is apparently too much for AT&T. There was apparently something about my AT&T account (I'm a current AT&T customer) that requires attention by a human being there. But, when I call AT&T at their iPhone activation line, all I get is a message (sounding like a recording on a cheap answering machine) that says that, due to high call volume, I can't be helped right now and should call back. Did AT&T just have no idea how many phones might be sold? Or do they prioritize existing customers below new ones? Oh well, patience is a virtue.

Topics: iPhone.

Sympathy pains

Here's a quote for you:

I didn't see it coming, but I sure felt it roll over my head. It feels really strange to have a truck run over your head.

This from a bicyclist who suffered only a concussion (his helmet was flattened). When I read that quote out loud, my daughter said, "That story you read made my head hurt." Amen.

This is math?

Follow the link to a Kirkland Courier Reporter article on a math class in a suburban school district located near where I live. In a typical "reform math" class, fifth graders spend time inventing their own ways to solve the "problem of the day": 55 x 20. Their teacher waxes poetic about the superiority of this approach over "memorization of formulas". No mention of the fact that solving 55 x 20 is not important enough to spend that much time on. And that this time might be better spent on inherently more interesting things, like why multiplication works, the structure of number systems, etc. And that this is, at best, a fourth grade math problem.

Meanwhile, the students either lose the possibility of future careers in science or engineering, or their parents tutor them, or their parents spend money on math tutors for them (a booming business in Washington state). And then their parents join Where's the Math? to pressure school district officials to inject sanity and rigor back into K-12 math education.

"the spectre raised by new research conducted by Microsoft"

Always interesting to read an article that contains such a quote.

Free information

Google has just released an experimental telephone information service (AKA "411" in the US). Not only can you ask for a business' phone number, you can request that the information be sent to your mobile phone by text message. Will phone companies respond by reducing their extortionate rates for information?

Cause and effect

Some articles in the latest round of debate over the future of the computing profession:

• An InformationWeek article on how the Senate bill to almost double the number of H-1B visas has risen from the dead.
• News flash: women are leaving the profession and it will take special measures by universities to get them back.

Which is cause and which is effect? Decreasing numbers of students interested in computing? Unpleasant working conditions, compared to other professions, many of which having less onerous coursework? Increasing immigration and outsourcing preventing salaries from increasing? Likely, this involves at least one feedback loop; I am concerned that the feedback will make matters worse, not better.

1000 miles for Earth Day

I must admit that I started commuting to work by bicycle for health and family logistics reasons, but there's a certain symbolic significance of the fact that, due to a ride I went on with the Cascade Bicycle Club yesterday, I have clocked over a thousand miles since September -- just in time for Earth Day. Besides all of the gasoline I haven't burned, there's also the second car we haven't bought. My next goal: 2,000 miles by this September.

Women and the computing profession

The title above links to yet another article, this time from The New York Times, on the decreasing number of women entering the profession. If you've been reading articles like this, you'll likely detect the slow evolution of the message to include more assertions that demand for graduates is much higher than is perceived. All of the hard data I've seen supports the assertion that demand for computer professionals is higher now than at the peak of the dot-com boom.

One curious item, on page two, is the note that the University of Washington, Seattle "never had a programming requirement." Perhaps what was meant was for freshman admission? Because the introductory CS sequence, 142 and 143 (and the equivalent courses for transfer students) are pretty typical intro to programming classes.

Update: Here's a link the UW Seattle CSE department's "Why Choose CSE?" web site mentioned in the article.

Is Microsoft Dead?

I can remember moving to the Seattle area in 1997 and being advised that Sun, Apple, IBM, and the various Linux concerns were all dead; they just didn't know it. Microsoft had won, and that's all there was to it. Is Paul Graham's essay about Microsoft similarly accurate? I would say that you ignore Mr. Graham at your own risk. He has also written a follow-up, Cliff's Notes version in which he emphasizes that what he means is that software startups no longer need worry about Microsoft. And this in turn reminded me of software startup proposals in the early to mid '90s, in which the mere rumor that Microsoft would do something even vaguely similar was enough to eliminate any chance of financial backing. You just couldn't compete with Microsoft. These days, the issue isn't whether one can compete successfully with Microsoft, but rather that Microsoft is no longer a credible source of new ideas. The best they can do (as Mr. Graham says) is buy them. And, sometimes, even that doesn't help.

Neuroschool 2007

This looks like an interesting experience for students interested in between experiment and theory in neuroscience.

A Gentleman's C: I hate traveling.

Over at A Gentleman's C, the Angry Professor seems to be channeling me.

Bill Gates eats his cake

Bill Gates was in Washington today to testify in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. In his testimony (PDF), he said:

A top priority must be to reverse our dismal high school graduation rates – with a target of doubling the number of young people who graduate from high school ready for college, career, and life – and to place a major emphasis on encouraging careers in math and science.

He also said:

College and graduate students are simply not obtaining science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (“STEM”) degrees in sufficient numbers to meet demand. The number of undergraduate engineering degrees awarded in the United States fell by about 17 percent between 1985 and 2004.

Unfortunately, he then goes on to say:

...the terrible shortfall in our visa supply for the highly skilled stems not from security concerns, but from visa policies that have not been updated in over a decade and a half... I personally witness the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft. Under the current system, the number of H1-B visas available runs out faster and faster each year... Barring high-skilled immigrants from entry to the U.S., and forcing the ones that are here to leave because they cannot obtain a visa, ultimately forces U.S. employers to shift development work and other critical projects offshore.

So, on the one hand, Bill Gates wants more Americans to seek technology careers. On the other hand, he wants the ability to hire more immigrants. From a potential student's point of view, these seem contradictory goals, the latter reducing the attractiveness of such careers by decreasing pay and security and therefore decreasing the number of students who might want to major in technology fields. From Bill's point of view, they are entirely consistent: increase the supply of labor to drive down its cost. (Boy, I hate sounding like Lou Dobbs.)

Oh, and in case you thought Bill's point of view was purely that of a disinterested philanthropist, he also lobbied for tax breaks for his and similar companies.

Topics: technology careers, politics.

Gee, Officer Krupke...

Computer Science is misunderstood. See the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette article linked from the title. Is it really the case that all we need to do is win the hearts and minds of parents? Whatever happened to teen rebelliousness?