What Are YOU Looking At?

I elected to file my Federal taxes online this year...and keep getting messages from the software company that produced the online product that --I-- did not include the proper signature form that must be mailed in...the only problem is that there never was any signature-form in my printouts to sign.

This sort of error in a product --I-- paid for is the kind of annoyance that sends SOME unbalanced minds on murderous rampages.

I am NOT one of those people. I use language to express my ire, not bullets.

But I fear that this "little programming error" may cost this company dearly. Again, --I-- don't express myself with violence, but other unbalanced minds --do--.

Also, rather than linking to the proper form, I must wade through endless words that NEVER get me to a place to fill out said form...there are instructions for doing it using the OFFLINE version of the software (which even after a vast amount of money spent, I DON'T HAVE)...but NO way to even see the form needed in the ONLINE version.

Again I fear that this innocent "disconnect" between advertised performance and actual performance of the product may result in horrific consequences for the staff of this company.

People in the U.S. are extremely anxious about dealing with the Federal agency that processes their taxes...and this in a year when big promised refunds are dependent on correct filing...if the company does not take pains to rectify the problem, I anticipate bloody results. I'd speak with them directly to warn them, but appropriate contact-information is curiously missing, too. Maybe this company is trying to off its own staff. :(

Addendum 10:20 a.m. PDT:
I concede the possibility that I may have done something to errantly strike the correct form from my printouts, but all the more reason that the company should be aware that IF the same mistake is made by the wrong person, making that form easily accessible after-the-fact may be a project worthy of pursuit before the 2009 tax-season gets underway. As Robert McNamara (Dylan Baker) tells an admiral in Roger Donaldson's 13 Days: "what if they make the same mistake I just made?"

Death by Technicality

I know that hospitals are fueled by mounds of paperwork, but needing some arbitrary piece of paperwork for bureaucratic reasons should NEVER be a reason for deferring service to someone with chronic and significant neural damage. Enter the multi-part Medicare system.

Relapsing-remitting MS is known for its unpredictable and episodic behavior. There are few drugs to modify the disease's course (drugs called immunomodulators curiously enough) and they are not noticeably effective except when taken on a regular basis.

But drug and dental coverage are NOT normally included even in basic Medicare...to get those supposedly "unexpected" costs covered requires additional paperwork.

One of those pieces of paper is a proof-of-income letter, which is a notoriously elusive document from the Social Security Administration.

I know various agencies are under-the-gun to perform, but letting people with widely-documented neural damage slip through the cracks because of missing "paper" is just ridiculous...

The very company that I myself voluntarily assisted in testing a new drug formulation is holding up my medication because of a "proof-of-income" letter that I requested from Social Security MONTHS ago...it all just makes me want to shoot myself in the head. I'm NOT a freeloader...I paid 3/4 of a million dollars into Social Security before I turned 40.

And now I see the real goal of the people of the world...bleed their fellow citizens to death with the most ridiculous bureaucracy to pay for botched domestic AND foreign policy. Makes me glad I never graduated from a University, because they're in the business of bleeding citizens to death for money, too. :(

Correction March 28:
When I'm angry, I have a habit of skipping over important words, and this is why I don't recommend being BOTH writer and editor simultaneously. I didn't actually pay 3/4 of a million dollars into Social Security...I paid Social Security taxes on that amount.

My point was that I haven't been collecting Social Security without having paid a fair amount into the system. I don't expect more...just that my contribution to American society not be downplayed by the junior staffs of various companies.

Subreferencing Hell

I've just about had it with the smarmy holier-than-thou attitude of companies that SAY they offer help, but really don't.

The companies-in-question say things like "Just Do X", and when you do X, the stated action DOES NOT OCCUR.

I've worked in enough transnational companies to know that this is usually the result of a disconnect between the companies' sales department and their programming staff...what we used to refer to as "Missed Expectations" in the Big-6 consulting world.

But muffing needed paperwork for a federal Tax return, and then couching information on reconciling the problem in page-after-page of inaccurate double-talk is a recipe for corporate failure...trust me.

It's already hard enough being accused of evasion for just having MS, let alone being patronized with diversionary gobbledegook by a multi-billion-dollar company when THEIR PRODUCT FAILS TO PERFORM AS ANTICIPATED...but I barely overcame the urge to initiate a Federal review of this particular company's US operating practices, because I know it's a legitimate business with internal problems, and not merely a foreign company attempting to evade the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

But now that this company's oversight has threatened to invalidate my Federal Tax Return, while obscuring information that would allow timely rectification of the problem, I'm inclined to report them to the FTC.

But true to my personal feelings about keeping specific names out of my ire, this company shall remain nameless here...but I reserve my own opinions in the matter.

Coned

Original Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/P.S. Teixeira (Center for Astrophysics)

I cropped a section out of a photo of the Cone Nebula, and after some pondering I realized that the section I had selected showed a formation that strongly resembled a rose.

No this isn't a plot for The Da Vinci Code, Part II...this is an actual section of the sky seen by hundreds of astronomers...I just happened to see it's "Rose-Ness", or Rosiness, of it. ;)

Anyway, this is an example of genuinely unintentional recognition of the facts after-the-fact. ;) Maybe it's the artist in me, but I didn't even notice this formation until perhaps a month after I cropped and enlarged the section.

This phenomenon is why I rarely take even eyewitness testimony at face-value...yes, the human mind seems incredibly artistic with reality itself.

How the information is presented by the witness can literally alter a person's perception of what was actually observed.

All I'm doing is pointing out that just having observed something often isn't good enough to have instantly gleaned all the facts of a situation, and the very act of trying to remember what REALLY HAPPENED can itself skew a person's own perception of what happened.

So the question remains, was this rose formation TRULY there before I saw it?

--mattergy

Addendum April 4
Every once-in-a-while, I go back and check my references (since I DO have brain-damage) if I'm uncertain later about the origin of original photos...the photo shown is actually my cropped version of the Spitzer Telescope image of the Snowflake Cluster segment of the Cone Nebula (the whole group formally called NGC 2264--The Cone Nebula and The Christmas Tree Cluster), rotated 90-degrees counter-clockwise, and enlarged, so I wasn't in error, I just realized that my reference to the current APOD image of the entire Cone Nebula was confusing.

Klutzenbrot

Original Image courtesy Wikipedia

I guess I have a fairly unique perspective on just about everything. But there are some things that get me chuckling, and I'm unable to stop. Today I receieved a targeted-ad for a GPS (Global Positioning System) mobile-locator device...and I'm still chuckling.

Ostensibly this would be a useful device for the REAL globe-trekkers of the world (hehe), but my particular circumstance tends to dampen my interest in rock-climbing in the Swiss-Alps...

I, for a moment, saw myself touring the bergstrasse with my stainless-steel cane, but then the vision of tripping off of an embankment due to a misappropriated step with my more-disabled leg made me laugh out-loud.

American Klutzenbrot (sic) for sure. ;)

So I probably WON'T be investing in a GPS soon!..(in case I've become phantasmagorically obtuse about my desire, or lack thereof to purchase a GPS.)

For now, just knowing what street I'm on usually works...street-names are cleverly marked [in American English, or American-(insert language)] with 4-inch letters at every intersection.

I usually know where I am. ;)

Dodging the Neural Rush-Hour

I keep getting annoying e-mails from Microsoft's Corporate Sales Department urging me to attend a seminar/learning event. Nothing about the sales materials or the seminar itself (or the valuable tech-info one might acquire there) is annoying...

AND their desktop publishing staff is clearly proficient enough (probably loathing this whole effort, a bit),

but the primary reason a person might NOT attend is because of the location...doing so would mean clogging the already stressed Silicon Valley traffic for the techies this seminar might REALLY aid.

And let me tell you that there is no stress your PC will ever endure like the screwdriver of a traffic-frustrated PC-maintenance guy or gal.

...attending a seminar in Santa Clara, CA in the middle of a workday is a good way to get physically injured...although there are some incredibly talented Bay Area drivers en route...even the most talented drivers can't fix an organizational conundrum.

And being already too disabled to even take the bus there (yes, I COULD have taken the bus there, VTA #180 from the EAST-BAY, I think) but as I said, I'm now too disabled to handle EVERYTHING ELSE, namely the aforementioned STRESSED-OUT drivers who will wind up with me in the exact same place.

Talk about a mess...that's a BRAIN-MESS-waiting-to-happen for ME should I have risked the relative safety of the Internet for a LIVE conference...

This decision also has the benefit of helping REAL TECHS have some extra time to prepare for the event ;). Thinking like a computer would be much simpler, if the NON-TECHNICAL people around Silicon Valley weren't so stressed-out all of the time ;)

BRAINMAIL

Email really IS a more PHYSICALLY-EFFICIENT method of communication...NOWADAYS.

It wasn't always that way... the laying (or stringing-up) of the communications cables themselves was often hazardous work beyond what MOST people would pursue for themselves, at least between "sensible" jobs.

But the ability to "neurally" connect ideas over vast distances IS the mechanism which a genuinely large-scale being might employ, or at least rely on, for His/Her/It's Survival.

Unless of course the being is Immortal.

And with little effort, I'm sure even a 12-year-old could prove that semaphores via TCP/IP are NOT the fibers intelligence of which immortal beings are created.

Even the most technologically-bereft of the world use ordinary Shortwave transmissions to communicate over such vast distances.

Coding and decoding is just a bit less graphical than the picture-rich (and glyph-rich) environments to which Western Techies are accustomed.

Yet, does the name Samuel Morse ring a bell?