The Worst Error Message in the World, Part II

The other day I wanted to set up my new printer on my Debian box, which uses the CUPS printing system. Supposedly this is pretty easy. I downloaded a PPD file from Brother and used the CUPS web interface to add the printer. It saw the printer already so it was just a matter of going through a few wizard screens, right? Not so much:

Bad device-uri "socket://10.0.0.3"!

OK, so I googled around a bit, looked in the readme, and you can do this using the command-line interface too. The program "lpinfo" shows all the visible printers, including "socket://10.0.0.3" which matches the IP address of the printer. I then use "lpadmin" to add the printer. Easy, right? Not so much:

lpadmin: Bad device-uri "socket://10.0.0.3"!

CUPS has a log. Maybe it has useful information on what's going wrong? Not so much:

CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer client-error-not-possible: Bad device-uri "socket://10.0.0.3"!

Two hours of screwing around later, including verifying that I can ping the printer and even telnet to it on all the right ports, I give up and decide to try removing and reinstalling the package. There's too many dependencies for this, so I settle for reconfiguring it. And guess what? CUPS on Debian has a notion of "backend programs" that can be turned off. It is not mentioned in the README. And "socket" was turned off.

So if you have this problem, try:

dpkg-reconfigure cups

and ensure that your desired printing interfaces are active.

Filed as Debian bug #599660.

Neighbor Fail Double-Header

In Minneapolis, if you put bogus stuff out with your trash, you get one of these orange tags complaining about it. One of our neighbors attempted to submit some concrete pavers for trash collection, which are bogus. They received both this orange tag as well as a blue one. I didn't look closely and didn't see what the blue one was about, though, it seemed to be the same at a casual glance.

About a month ago, I complained about water pouring out of the ground in front of a different neighbor's house. Long story short (Erin queried not one but two city councillors), apparently it's the neighbor's problem, not the city's, even though somehow it's related to when the city turned off a water main???

Anyway, this is our slacker neighbor, who hasn't shoveled his driveway once in two years, almost never mows his lawn, and has ten-foot weed trees growing next to his house. So I was unsurprised when it wasn't until Monday when people came by and started working (and turned off our water at a different time than the door hanger said they would, but that's a different story). But now Erin's told by the city councillor's office that something went wrong and they're not coming back for another two weeks! Yeeesh.

Public Works Fail

This stream of water is emerging from the ground in front of my neighbor's house, since Friday at least which is when I noticed it. We called 311 and they told us that they'd "bid it out". It seems strange to me that the city does not have a crew of people on-call for these sorts of emergency repairs.

I wonder if Tim has any water in his house.

Project 100, #107.

Zappos.com Doesn't Understand or Doesn't Care that Your Address Is Private? (Updated: No, They Just Communicate Badly)

(Important update 4/26/09. See below.)

Zappos.com has a neat new real-time visualization of orders and their locations (http://www.zappos.com/map/#). Publishing locations of orders seems like a big privacy problem to me; I contacted them using their online form about the issue. Both my note and their completely useless/clueless reply are below.

Complaint:

Hi,

I was just looking at your visualization of orders at http://www.zappos.com/map/#. It's an extremely cool visualization.

However, I have a concern: Addresses and locations are private data. If you're not adding a fuzz factor or taking other steps to protect your customers' privacy, then you are committing a quite severe privacy violation and need to take down the visualization immediately.

If you are adding a fuzz factor, you need to add information to the visualization clearly explaining how you are protecting said private data, to avoid worrying your customers.

Thank you!

Reid

Reply:

Hello Reid,

Thank you for contacting the Zappos.com Customer Loyalty Team.

Here at Zappos, our customers are our first priority. We work hard to preserve the trust that we build with our customers.

Zappos.com respects your privacy and wants to protect your personal information. Please know that Zappos.com does not share or sell any of our customers' information.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please let me know.

Reid, I hope this information was helpful to you and we look forward assisting you again in the future!

We are constantly striving to improve our service. If there is anything more we can do for you or if we could improve your experience, please do not hesitate to let us know. We are always here for you - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We are a service company that just happens to sell...shoes, bags, clothing, and accessories. 1-800-ZAPPOS-1 (1-800-927-7671) or 702-943-7677.

Thank you for shopping with us,

Lauren S.
Customer Loyalty Representative
Zappos.com
Powered by Service!
The Web's Most Popular Shoe Store!
Phone: Toll-free 1-800-ZAPPOS-1 (927-7671)
e-mail: cs@zappos.com
http://www.zappos.com

---

Update 4/27/09:

I received another e-mail from Zappo's customer service on the 20th, as follows, emphasis mine:

Hello Reid,

I hope you are having a good day. I wanted to contact you in regards to your concern over our new order map program. Zappos.com is a service based company that genuinely cares about our customers and would never reveal information that would affect their privacy. We do not reveal any details in the map beyond the zip code of the purchase and what item was purchased. This can be a great trend-finding tool to help our customers in their shopping. If you click on the picture of the product, it will take you to the page for that item on our site. All of our customer's identifying information, including name or specific address, is kept private and only used for the purpose of their orders.

I apologize for any confusion with this new program. If you have any further questions or concerns at all, please do not hesitate to contact us back. We want you to be assured that we care about our customer's privacy. Please also see our Privacy Policy:

http://www.zappos.com/privacy.zhtml

I hope this helps to clear things up for you. Again, please call or e-mail us any time if we can be of any additional assistance.

So, it appears that while Zappos is rather clueless about communicating it (there still isn't any indication of the granularity of locations on the visualization), they aren't committing the gross privacy violation I was originally concerned about.

Tropicana Packaging Fail

I find this carton of Tropicana orange juice garish and unappealing, and way too corporate. You can almost see the suits and smarmy attitudes oozing out. Shouldn't there be a picture of, oh, an orange instead of this over-Photoshopped image of a trendy glass full of orange colored liquid?

Note that the cap is shaped like -- how clever -- an orange! Gaaaah.

Here's an idea, PepsiCo: Focus on providing us wholesome and ethically produced food, and forget the marketing bullshit.

Project 100, #58.

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Side note: Turns out that the guy who designed this package is the same guy who designed Pepsi's craptastic new logo.

Hulk Hogan's Pastamania

Part of my commute takes me through a neighborhood that's a bit run down (those buildings in the background are housing projects, but the neighborhood isn't really all that dangerous). One of the truly baffling parts of my world is this red "Hulk Hogan's Pastamania" awning, attached to the side of a building. There's not even a window under it. Huh?

I did a little Googling in preparation for this post, and it turns out that Hulk Hogan's Pastamania was an insane business venture by Mr. Hogan (yes, the wrestler) -- canned pasta, and a restaurant at the Mall of America. I assume that this awning came from that restaurant... but God knows why it's attached to this empty wall.

There's strange activity afoot at this building. The city came by and disconnected the gas and (I think) water, and then tons of furniture and other junk appeared in the snow in front of it. There's workmen here and there. I wonder if they're going to tear it down?

I might try again on this shot. I thought the snow on the awning would add interest, but I think it actually just makes it hard to read. It actually fell off between my trip in and my trip out a few hours later, but I didn't take any more photos (doh).

Project 100, #16.

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Edit 2/3: Here's another photo:

Sarah Palin? Really? Mr. McCain, Can I Please Have Some of What You Are Smoking?

Turns out the Republican VP pick is Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska for the past 21 months.

Er... huh?

Reasons that Palin is a good pick:

1. She's a woman.
2. She's an interesting and unexpected pick.
   
3. She locks up Alaska for McCain: it was a stretch for Obama anyway, it's a small state, and it's typically ignored by Presidential campaigns.

Reasons that Palin is a completely stupid pick:

1. Hillary Clinton, a woman with great credibility on women's issues, beloved by millions of women across the country, will tear her a new one and can do so without accusations of sexism. In other words: she was clearly chosen in order to appeal to women. It's obvious pandering at best and idiocy at worst.
   
2. She is strongly pro-life anti-choice. Female swing voters are mostly pro-choice.
3. Alaska has 3 electoral votes.
4. She's the target of an ethics investigation demanded by the Republican legislature in a state where the Republican Party is in serious trouble due to widespread ethical problems.
5. She endorsed Barack Obama's energy plan.
6. She is a creationist, and the Republican Party is already taking heat for being anti-science.
   
7. Joe Biden wipes the floor with her in any comparison and will crush her in the VP debate.
   
8. She recently dissed the office of VP.
9. She might not have been thoroughly vetted.
   
10. Even without all of that, Palin is a completely stupid pick because she eliminates McCain's best argument against Obama, and one of the few effective ones: that he is too young and inexperienced to be President. Palin is younger and less experienced than Obama. Less than two years ago, what was her job? Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population 6,715.
    

Frankly, I think that McCain had picked Mitt Romney, but then when the houses thing came up, since the Romneys are even more disgustingly rich than the McCains, he was forced to abandon that plan.