Monthly Archives: August 2005

New Orleans II

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As if the immediate effects of flooding and debris weren’t bad enough, think about the fact that every single building in the entire city will need to be inspected for damage, since every building has been touched by flooding and hurricane winds. Authorities are saying that it could take as much as four months just to pump the water out of the city. I can’t even imagine this. A city this large, just wiped off the map, with all of the residents being forced to relocate. The Superdome refugees are supposed to be relocated – to Houston. Just think about that for a second – the easiest plan for everyone was to move 20,000+ refugees in busses across state lines.

Then think about the survivors. Months will pass before they can come back, and who knows what has happened to their possessions and homes, and it’s almost certain that they will be unemployed since most businesses will have been destroyed as well.

On the news last night, the reported that automakers have announced a 90-day grace period for residents of NO on their car payments. Now, that’s great, and it’s good they’re thinking of it… but imagine how quickly 90 days will pass when you’re unemployed and homeless. Plus, most of those people, I’m sure, lost their cars in the storm.

Imagine a disaster so complete that it’s easier just to go to another city and start again from scratch, with nothing. It certainly puts any difficulties that Annie and I have experienced into perspective, and makes me thankful for what we have.

New Orleans

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I’ve been spending a lot of time flipping through the news channels watching the coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and I’m absolutely stunned at how bad things are, and the fact that they’re getting worse by the minute. I’m going to talk to Annie about whether we can scrounge together some money to donate to the Red Cross. In the meantime, the Wikipedia page about the effect on New Orleans is a good reference page, which is getting updated on a frequent basis.

update: Sweet, Annie and I were able to donate $100 on our credit card.

Archives Project

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The Archives Project is underway! My goal was to get this all done and written up by the five-year anniversary, but obviously I missed that. Still, I figure it counts as long as I get it done this year. Anyways, here’s what I’m talking about.

My goal is to do a nice writeup of my involvement on the internet for my about page, but to do it right, I wanted some screenshots of my early websites. So I’m busy pulling together a complete archive of my major sites, and all their designs. Plus, if I lay the groundwork now, then I can keep the archive going easily whenever I redesign a site.

So if you’re interested in this kind of thing, check out the Archives Project at spaceninja.com/archives/ to see what I have so far.

Still to come: archives of my previous blog designs, and kmorg, as well as the nice writeup I mentioned above, and a good splash page and table of contents for the archives project itself.

Triumphant Return! …of sorts.

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Inspired by the recent reanimation of Isometric, I’ve put Hammerspace back online, and you can find it at its new permanent home, hammer.spaceninja.com.

In the long run, I’m planning on changing the setup so that it would be easier for me to post new strips and keep the older ones organized. For now, I’ve just uploaded the old site as it existed in my last archive. Enjoy!

Qwest vs. Comcast

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I sat down the other day to call Qwest and Comcast to find out what my options are for internet access. I was expecting to find that DSL would be a little cheaper, but that cable would be able to be installed more quickly. My primary concern at the moment is cost, but installation speed is a close second. I was surprised to find no real advantage to either one.

I called Comcast, and the girl on the phone was extremely helpful (which has been true of most of the people I’ve spoken with at Comcast). She answered all my questions and gave me any bit of information I might need, as well as letting me know about some options I didn’t know were available which saved me some money.

She knew I was about to call Qwest to compare pricing and she said “I’m pretty sure you’ll find it’s a little cheaper for DSL, but I really think you’ll be happier with us…” and then she sweetened the deal by giving me the installation kit for free and knocking $10/month off my bill for the first three months. I asked about this, and it turns out Comcast gives their operators some leeway to give some free stuff to customers to motivate them to stick with their services if they’re thinking about leaving.

It boiled down to about $45 per month with Comcast. That’s $10 cheaper than normal because I’m going to have normal cable services as well. The installation fee was only about $10, the modem/install kit was free, and she knocked $10 per month off my bill, so for the first three months I’ll only be paying about $35, and back to $45 after that. Also, they could get someone out to install the cable on the day we move in, so that’s nice.

Then I called Qwest (actually, I called the company that would be my ISP, DSL Northwest, who I’ve used before, and are pretty good). Maybe I just got a guy who doesn’t normally run the phones, but it was like pulling teeth to get any information out of this guy. He told me that it’s $51 per month for stand-alone DSL services (nice that I don’t have to get a phone line anymore), with a $20 installation fee. He was unclear on whether or not Qwest would also charge me an installation fee. Finally, he said that they could have DSL installed in 5 days, which is a dramatic change from the 2-3 weeks Qwest took last time I got hooked up (which was, admittedly, four years ago). He seemed to be in a hurry to get me off the phone, so I did, but I felt like it was a toss-up.

Both Comcast and Qwest are within $5 of each other, and both could get my services hooked up by our move-in date. Neither one had an outrageous installation fee, and neither one required a phone line. In the end, I chose Comcast simply because I’ve generally had good service with them (the phone calls are a good example, but we also had Comcast internet in Washington), and I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with Qwest. I know it’s a silly thing to base this choice on, but with no clear advantage to one over the other, why not base it on the fact that Comcast actively wants me as a customer, and was making offers to get me, while Qwest didn’t even want to answer my questions?