Dropboxes are open starting today for ballots for the November 2, 2021 Boston municipal election, and early voting starts today Saturday, so it’s time for me to share my endorsements. My endorsements here closely mirror those from the preliminary election. Local government is important, people. Get out there and vote! For Mayor, Michelle Wu. Wu… Read More: Endorsements in November 2, 2021 Boston municipal election »
On October 15, 2021, I received this email from Hotels.com: Those of you who’ve been reading my blog know that I‘ve been demanding this since June. Even emailing the president of the company didn’t help. After that failed, I filed a complaint with the New York Attorney General’s office. That, too, was fruitless. They forwarded… Read More: Hotels.com refunds illegal New York City hotel occupancy tax after… »
UPDATE [2021-12-22]: With the the recently released update, 5.5.0-59.118, both Wayland and Xorg work on my PC with an Intel graphics controller, and Wayland doesn’t work on my PC with an NVIDIA controller without the proprietary NVIDIA driver, but Xorg does. I did not test whether Wayland or Xorg works with the proprietary NVIDIA controller,… Read More: DisplayLink now working for some hardware for Ubuntu 21.04, 21.10… »
UPDATE [October 14, 2021]: Vanguard has confirmed to me that this issue was caused by a bug in a software update they released to their web site and then fixed a day later. See the end of this blog posting for their response. Executive summary Some time between 6:00am US/Eastern on September 14, 2021 and… Read More: Vanguard bug temporarily rewrites history and dramatically over-reports some account… »
Early voting starts today in Boston for the September 14, 2021 primary election, so it’s time for me to share my endorsements. As usual, I am only endorsing in the races I’m eligible to vote in, but read to the end for four anti-endorsements. Local government is important, people. Get out there and vote! For… Read More: Endorsements in September 14, 2021 Boston primary election »
[This article is obsolete, see the update here.] Earlier, I wrote that the current DisplayLink release for Ubuntu was finally compatible with Ubuntu 21.04 (“Hirsute Hippo”). I’ve since learned that I wasn’t entirely correct. It turns out that if you have a DisplayLink hub plugged into your Ubuntu 21.04 box when you boot it up,… Read More: DisplayLink isn’t *quite* working in Ubuntu 21.04 (Hirsute) »
[October 17, 2021 update here.] July 8, 2021 Adam Jay, PresidentHotels.com5400 LBJ Freeway, Suite 500Dallas, TX 75240 Dear Mr. Jay, On May 5, 2021, I reserved a room through hotels.com for June 20-22 at the Washington Square Hotel in New York City. My confirmation number was [elided]. On June 22, I learned that NYC Mayor… Read More: hotels.com hides taxes and fees, won’t disclose, has terrible customer… »
Great news, y'all. You get two "Why is @Amtrak service so terrible?" stories in one day! How exciting! (See the last installment at https://twitter.com/jikamens/status/1407335005450342403) #TrainTwitter 1/ I'm taking the Acela home tonight, so I figured hey, what the heck, I'll use one of my upgrade coupons to hop into first class and enjoy unbridled Acela… Read More: Another another bad user experience from Amtrak »
It's time for my next installment of "Why is @Amtrak service so terrible? It doesn't need to be this way." Check out the last chapter at https://twitter.com/jikamens/status/1217620947781541889. Today's topic: how to make a pre-trip Covid-19 check form as difficult as possible to fill out. #TrainTwitter 1/ I got a notification on my phone that I… Read More: Yet another bad user experience from Amtrak »
I recently received a shipment of cat food from Petco which, as far as I know, I had not ordered. I did have a “repeat delivery” order scheduled for that variety of cat food, but usually when Petco is about to send you a repeat delivery order they notify you by email to give you… Read More: Petco violates customer privacy, refuses to confirm appropriate steps were… »