Poojan (Wagh) Blog

Got this via email:

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that a proposed class action settlement has been preliminarily approved by the court in Rhonda Dupler v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, No. 06-CV-03141 (JFB) (ETB) (United States District Court, Eastern District of New York). The lawsuit challenges Costco�s practice of deeming the 12-month term of memberships that are renewed after their expiration as having commenced on the expiration date, rather than on the date they are renewed. The lawsuit alleges that this practice is unlawful and deprives Costco members of a portion of the membership period for which they paid a renewal fee. Costco denies all claims and liability stated in the lawsuit.

Wow! They’ve got some nerve. Maybe I shouldn’t have bugged my friends over the last 4 years about how cool a CostCo membership is.

I really wish this song were on my iPod right now:

I especially like the “Lenny Bruce’s bug eyes” with the roaring drums/guitar in the background. (At least that’s how I remember it.)

Update 11:19 PM

Called ESBI who connected me to “Email Discounts LLC”. They said that “my wife”
signed up for their service using Yahoo email account. I informed them that she does not have a account. They said they canceled the
account. I voluntarily gave them my gmail account for confirmation of cancellation–I figure Google is pretty good about spam–but maybe that’s what their really after.
They said that all charges (including taxes) would be reimbursed and no further
charges would occur because the account was canceled. We’ll see.

Original Post

My monthly bill from AT&T was unusually high this month. My father-in-law (who works for AT&T) warned me about this.

In the bill, I find a section under the heading “Enhanced Services Billing, Inc.” with a logo:

ESBI Logo

(account information)

Below this, the following is written:

Important Information

This portion of your AT&T bill is provided as a service
to the above company. Please review all charges
carefully – they may include those of a service
provider not shown on a previous bill. Unpaid accounts
may be subject to collection action. Other services may also be
restricted if not paid. If you have questions about any
of the charges appearing on this page, please call the
number shown above.

The bills themselves are:

EMAIL DISCOUNTS, LLC #
					For billing questions call 1-800-410-5781
		4			-01			03-20							EMAIL DISCOUNTS, LLC MONTHLY FEE																																														14.95

Rest assured they were not authorized.

Further research on the web indicates that ESBI is associated with fraudulent charges on numerous telephone bills (see the comments). Guess I’ll have to call them tomorrow to get my money back.

It amazes me that in a time when households are watching every dime, no one is doing anything about this fraud.

This is a quick one. I thought I’d get to sleep early. I thought I’d wake up tomorrow at 5:00 and hit the day right.

Instead, I’m fiddle-futzing with my router. Finally, after going through a myriad of combinations wondering why the latest (which should be the best, right?) firmware won’t work, I find the following:

Confessions of a Would-Be Theologian: Warning on Linksys WRT110 Firmware.

Son of a bitch!

I asked a coworker of mine what he thought about open source software. He said he “didn’t get it”. I should point out at this point that the said coworker leans to the left. He viewed the open-source movement as communistic, and questioned why software should be free.

I view things a bit differently. Indeed, I agree that the idea that software should be free is communistic. However, I also think that open-source software fills a unique function in a capitalist society.

Read the rest of this entry »

I learned a lesson over the last two months. It starts with off-site backup software for my computer, and ends in me spending money.

I’ve been trying to get the most out of my DreamHost account—or really, I’ve been trying to recoup the $10/month I pay for them by trying to save the $5-$7/month I pay for JungleDisk/S3. When I write it, it seems silly: the $10/month I pay to DreamHost is well worth it. They do web hosting very well.

Similarly, JungleDisk has a very good backup solution on Amazon S3’s service. Namely, the backups are:

• Off-Site
• Encrypted
• Past versions (modified/deleted files stay around for a specified time)
• Set and forget (their Windows client does the backups every night)

Nonetheless, when DreamHost announced 50GB of personal backup space with each account, I thought, “I’m getting screwed.” I promptly began a search for backup software which supported SFTP (DH’s only access at the time was FTP/SFTP) and had all the features listed above.

The end result is that I found that I discovered a universal constant called Time-Dollar Product (TDP). Every time I try to save or reduce money (dollars), I end up spending a great deal more in time. The two seem inversely proportional. Consequently, it seems like the product of time and money is constant; when one goes down, I spend more of the other.

Most people will want to stop here. The technically inclined will want to continue.

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I’m using BLVD Status to track incoming (and outgoing traffic) to my circuit design blog. They allow me to track what web searches result in links to my blogs. One curious thing about this service is that these searches do not seem to be just the searches that end up my blog, but all searches that lead to all sites that are running BLVD Status.

So, when I noticed that someone did a google search for “svn cadence”, and then I realized it was me while I was at work, I got a bunch of queries that people had done from work. The term visitor below is really my employer’s web proxy that originated the search. Note that this includes many people and is non comprehensive (it is biased sub-set of searches done at my employer). Here they are:

Keywords used by this visitor	Date / Time used
1 619-269-0041	9.8.08 7:27:47 PM
2 breakdance kid	8.26.08 4:38:00 PM
3 crazy japanese news	8.25.08 6:39:54 PM
4 crazy japanese news	8.25.08 6:21:05 PM
5 gazebo arizona	8.22.08 8:55:08 AM
6 tracking downloads with google analytics	8.22.08 11:20:04 AM
7 automatic cat litter box	8.21.08 10:33:36 PM
8 hong kong stuck in park bench	8.20.08 3:06:45 PM
9 can I sue insurance third party insurance company for higher rates	8.20.08 10:15:15 AM
10 iPaq H3650	8.18.08 7:55:39 PM
11 steven covey	8.18.08 4:01:45 PM
12 steven covey	8.18.08 4:01:24 PM
13 antec notebook cooler portable	8.15.08 3:30:14 PM
14 how do gays recruit	11.7.08 4:38:28 PM
15 the story of FBI agent John Connely	11.6.08 4:06:41 PM
16 the story of FBI agent John Connely	11.6.08 4:05:29 PM
17 svn cadence	11.21.08 7:54:16 PM
18 iphone yelp vs yellow pages	11.19.08 3:22:53 PM
19 disneyland california	11.18.08 4:29:21 PM
20 download pics from orkut	10.9.08 7:32:41 PM
21 google browser adobe flash plug in	10.24.08 1:20:14 PM
22 the biggest loser sponsors	10.10.08 11:15:35 AM

No: there’s really not any useful information there, except that someone seems to be homophobic (although the resulting links do not). I guess the moral is to be careful what you do at work.

I’ve accepted a position elsewhere. My last day of employment at Motorola will be Nov. 21^st. Before I get into where I’m going, I’d like to reflect on / point out a few things with embedded humor:

• I’m not dissatisfied with my position at Motorola. Indeed, I am in an ideal environment for someone who both likes to invent and innovate, and likes to see things ship. The role in which I found/positioned myself allowed me to investigate some really new technology, without the ridiculous schedules that plague market-reactive engineering environments. At the same time, the stuff we made actually gets shipped, tested, and developed further. It impacts customers.
• I have learned how to present and explain things to external customers that aren’t up to speed with the daily tasks of the project. I’m still not great at it, but I am comfortable doing it–and I’m better at it due to mentoring by some amazing communicators.
• I’ve learned a lot about making decisions and plans (strategy). It is always the case (and always going to be) that we can’t do everything. Figuring out what not to work on can be as essential as figuring out what to work on. It’s important to have some criteria guiding these decisions. Goal-setting is important to decision-making. You don’t have to write down the goals, but have them.
• I’ve learned that it’s always better to be pleasant and kind about technical disagreements. Okay, all disagreements. Even to the people that bug you. They usually think they’re helping. Sometimes, the other guy/gal is right. Okay, more than sometimes. It’s very easy to think that what you’re doing is optimal, because you’ve already laid out the plan and can’t see the other alternatives. An open mind is essential.
• At the same time, don’t spend time arguing with others if you’ve convinced yourself. There’s always going to be things you could do better. Accept that what you do won’t be perfect–and other people will point it out, but it wasn’t their decision to make, was it? You’re in charge for a reason. Take ownership of what you do, and you will do it better. Get someone else to write the project report, though.
• The most important thing is the business. We’re not here to have fun. We’re here to make money for the company. Almost all the time, you can have both. Question if what you’re doing is what is best for the customer/department/business. You may have to do some things that aren’t fun, but most of the time, success will follow–and that’s always fun.
• I have had the honor of being a member of very passionate groups that are doing amazing things with technology. These amazing things don’t get realized all of a sudden on a glorious day. The problems are so complex that one ends up solving very small problems for a long period of time to get incrementally closer to the goal. It’s hard work, and believing in the goal is helpful. Having a management team (and customer) that understands the labor of research is essential. Celebrating small advancements (for example, as feedback to your peers) makes for good teams.

I’m not leaving because things are bad at Motorola. In fact, it is the focus on technological work that makes me want to expand into more areas of technology. If I wasn’t happy at Motorola, I would probably be getting my MBA and be considering business instead. To all executive recruiters: I am not ruling the MBA out.

Where am I going? To a private hedge fund in Chicago. Why? Because:

• I want a change. I want to learn something new. I want to broaden my knowledge.
• I like the environment. Working in the financial industry is good. Working with technology is good. However, it’s more important to me that the firm invests in their employees. They’re willing to hire a person–okay, it’s me–because they think he’s smart. I like their attitude toward people.
• The people I know at the firm are some of the most ethical and just people I know.
• This opportunity isn’t going to come around again.
• Free lunch.

Will I be a financial analyst? No.

Will I have stock tips? No.

What will I be doing? I don’t know: stuff. Smart stuff. Mostly software initially.

Is this change necessary? Absolutely not. However, there’s no reason to wait until change is necessary to develop and grow. If you–well, not you specifically–embrace change on your terms, rather than the terms of your environment, you get to pick how you develop, and you get to pick your strengths. There’s a school of thought that states that evolution picks convenient solutions, not optimal solutions.

I sincerely plan to stay in touch with the people I’ve met at Motorola and continue to keep up with my friends from Freescale. This blog is a good way to contact me (see voicemail page to the left). Or, consider subscribing (RSS/Atom or Email).

My kids can’t get enough of this:
Where The Hell Is Matt?

To be honest, neither can I. IMHO, It’s better to view them chronologically: Dancing 2005 (in the lower right), then Dancing 2006, then Dancing 2008. Props to Stride Gum.

For me, the problem isn’t so much attention, it’s SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). There’s just too much noise in Twitter to make out any signal. And that’s why it’s not worth following while you work.

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