Categories
Technology

More UnBox

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The reason Amazon’s Unbox connects to the internet to uninstall is that everyone’s local objects are mirrored at Amazon. To disable an account, it has to be disabled both at Amazon and on the PC.

The only problem is, the uninstall disables the validation of the PC as the first part of the uninstall process, and if it doesn’t go through clean, you can’t run the app, reinstall the app, or uninstall the application. The computer is permanently ‘tainted’ as not validated.

The only response I had from Amazon is:

I am sorry to hear that you are dissatisfied with the Amazon Unbox
service. The uninstall process should proceed without issue.

To uninstall application, follow these steps:

1. Close any open applications that may be running on your computer.
2. Open the Control Panel and double-click the Add or Remove Programs
icon.
3. Locate “Amazon Unbox” in the installed programs list and click the
“Uninstall” button.

If you still can’t uninstall the software, please try these options to
make sure your uninstall goes more smoothly.

First, please confirm that you are logged in with an account with
administrative privileges.

Next, please follow these steps.

1) Press the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keys on your keyboard at the same time.
2) Choose “Task Manager” from the Windows Security window.
3) In the Windows Task Manager, click on the “Processes” tab.
4) Look for these programs in the list of running processes:
ADVWindowsClientApp.exe, ADVWindowsClientService.exe, and
ADVWindowsClientSystemTray.exe.
5) End Task on these three services.
6) Open the Control Panel and double-click the Add or Remove Programs
icon.
7) Locate “Amazon Unbox” in the installed programs list and click the
“Uninstall” button.

Assuming that ending these processes does not allow you to uninstall
you can try these optional steps and try the uninstall again after
each. After taking the following optional steps please be sure that
the aforementioned processes are still not showing up in the Task Manager.

You may want to confirm that the following directories on your PC are
empty.
– “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Amazon\Amazon
Digital Video\Data”
– “C:\WINDOWS\Temp\Amazon Digital Video”

You can also check if there are multiple copies of the installer in
your Task Manager. If there is an instance running please end the task
on this. The process name should end in “msi.” If there are multiple
instances of this installer and you can not end task on these because
they are locked by the system or if the previous steps do not work,
you may have to consult a local PC technician to assist you further.

Aside from being intimidating to a non-tech, these instructions are inaccurate. By closing down the Amazon client you break the uninstall process; it has to connect to the Amazon site in order to disable the account’s mirrored data store. Even with connection, if the change is committed at the remote site, but not the local site, then the PC never validates to complete the uninstall.

The need to synchronize between two data sources and the problems associated with this not happening, is what led to two-phase commit in database systems: all updates are synchronized and a failure at one point is a failure at all points and the change is rolled back across the board. This has been around as a fundamental understanding of technology since the 1960’s! And Amazon violated it. Absolutely unbelievable.

Amazon, in its rush to paint itself a Web 2.0 company, has put out a Bad Product. Not just a bad product, a Bad Product: one that defines the company and undermines confidence in its technical proficiency. I had originally thought about trying some of its services such as S3. Now, I don’t trust the company’s quality controls and engineering practices enough to incorporate a dependency on it for anything I create.

This is symptomatic of the Myth of Web 2.0–that innovation transcends consistency, and an IT department should be able to handle late changes in requirements, be flexible and agile. To hell with agility: the only -ity I want is reliability. Perhaps Jeff Bezos needs to attend fewer Web 2.0 conferences, and spend more time at home, creating stuff that doesn’t break.

Excuse me while I go manually dig this piece of crap out of my system.

Categories
People

On dealing with griefers

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Griefer. It’s a new word. A griefer is a person like Jason Fortuny, who posed as a woman and put out an extremely suggestive sex wanted ad at Craigslist and then published all the results–including actual names, emails, photos, and other contact information of the men who responded. I’ve always thought the term for this type of person is ‘passive aggressive loser with a desperate need for attention rather than respect’, but I’m not up on the social software scene.

Dare Obasanjo asks:

Different services resort to different mechanisms to prevent griefers, however most of them are preventive. There is little that is or can be done once the malicious act has been committed by the ‘griefer’. Given that I work with the teams that produce services that can be harmed by griefers as part of my day job (e.g. Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Expo) this worries me. What can sites like CraigsList do to prevent people like Jason Fortuny from turning people away from their service because they fear having a negative experience? My gut feel is that Craig Newmark would go a long way in reassuring users of the service if they stepped in and took [legal] action against “griefers”. Users feel a lot safer about using the service if they know that someone is looking out for their well-being if something bad happens. Consider it the social software equivalent of a “money back guarantee”.

What do you think?

What do I think? I think people should get a cat.

Barring this excellent advice, I think we have to expect people to use a reasonable level of common sense. Many of the people who responded to this ad were thinking with body parts other than their brains.

I also think that Craiglist should feature this story prominantly, without names of all parties, like the skull and cross bones on the poison bottle.

And then I think we should consign Jason Fortuny to the obscurity he richly deserves.

Categories
People

On dealing with griefers

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Griefer. It’s a new word. A griefer is a person like Jason Fortuny, who posed as a woman and put out an extremely suggestive sex wanted ad at Craigslist and then published all the results–including actual names, emails, photos, and other contact information of the men who responded. I’ve always thought the term for this type of person is ‘passive aggressive loser with a desperate need for attention rather than respect’, but I’m not up on the social software scene.

Dare Obasanjo asks:

Different services resort to different mechanisms to prevent griefers, however most of them are preventive. There is little that is or can be done once the malicious act has been committed by the ‘griefer’. Given that I work with the teams that produce services that can be harmed by griefers as part of my day job (e.g. Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Expo) this worries me. What can sites like CraigsList do to prevent people like Jason Fortuny from turning people away from their service because they fear having a negative experience? My gut feel is that Craig Newmark would go a long way in reassuring users of the service if they stepped in and took [legal] action against “griefers”. Users feel a lot safer about using the service if they know that someone is looking out for their well-being if something bad happens. Consider it the social software equivalent of a “money back guarantee”.

What do you think?

What do I think? I think people should get a cat.

Barring this excellent advice, I think we have to expect people to use a reasonable level of common sense. Many of the people who responded to this ad were thinking with body parts other than their brains.

I also think that Craiglist should feature this story prominantly, without names of all parties, like the skull and cross bones on the poison bottle.

And then I think we should consign Jason Fortuny to the obscurity he richly deserves.

Categories
Weblogging

Science blogs

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I can strongly recommend subscribing to the Science Blogs. I have never seen such an interesting mix of material come out of one place before.

From today’s reading:

Monkeys are not Mozart Fans from Mixing Memory.

Nerd Music from PZ.

(The juxtaposition of both of the above was purely by accident.)

The Top Ten Black and White Science Fiction Movies from the Cheerful Oncologist. I agree with most, except after watching Gojira, it wins over the American version HANDS DOWN. I also would swap out some of the movies for a few of my own. (Hmm, feel a post coming on.)

Just what every child needs from Respectful Insolence. I imagine that Sword of Truth jammies are big in the Springfield, Missouri area.

This just barely scratches the surface. I would call Science Blogs a Must Subscribe site.

Categories
Stuff

Gojira

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I recently received two new DVDs: This Island Earth and the original Godzilla, Gojira as it was released to a Japanese audience in 1954.

Gojira comes in a two DVD set with the original Japanese film and the Americanized Godzilla with Raymand Burr. There’s also a small booklet with background information, all in a surprisingly nice case.

I had not watched Gojira before, but from my experiences with other Japanese films where there has been an original and a ‘Americanized’ version, I expected differences. I was amazed, though, in how much of the original movie was lost in the American version.

Gojira was made in a post-war Japan still reeling from the shock of extensive firebombing and having not one but two atom bombs dropped on it. We look at Pearl Harbor and talk horror. The bombings in Japan destroyed not ships in harbor but entire cities: from smallest child to oldest woman. Not just lives, but entire familes and their history destroyed in a land that revered both.

The movie was as much warning against war and such weapons of war, as it was a ‘monster’ film. In a way, the true monster in this film is war, represented metaphorically as Godzilla: the dark beast that walks the land destroying and burning all in its wake.

All of this was lost in the American remake. All of it cut out. I watched the original Gojira, and then the modified Godzilla, and cringed at how badly the film was edited–Raymond Burr added in to provide a clean, non-guilt inducing narrative to cover that ripped from the original.

In the effort to sanitize the film for American audience, much of the brilliance of the film was also lost. In the original, the director managed to create a sense of nemises of the monster, enough so that when it did appear, it became quite easy to ignore the lack of ‘special effects’. This is true science fiction mastery: less a reliance on CGI than on talent and story telling, skill with camera and interaction of characters.

In Godzilla, Burr’s presence tended to disrupt this flow, and kill the suspense. It was like watching a safari being held in a zoo. The fakery at which the original characters were ‘seen’ to be talking with Burr, when they were originally talking with others, becomes even more glaringly odd when you watch the two films, one right after the other.

I grew up with Godzilla and it was a beloved film. It still holds a special place in my heart for its role played, but I would have rather had the original all along. Thankfully future generations won’t have to settle for less.

On a scale of one to five, with five being exceptional, I give Gojira a five and Godzilla a two, for old times sake.

I read the booklet that came with the Gojira/Godzilla twin DVD set and found that it was the director’s original intention of equating Godzilla with war, or at least, nuclear destruction. The director, Ishiro Honda, wrote:

If Godzilla had been a dinosaur or some other animal, he would have been killed with one cannonball. But if he were equal to an atomic bomb, we wouldn’t know what to do. So I took the characteristics of an atomic bomb and applied them to Godzilla.

I also found a bit of history new to me. The opening of Gojira features a fishing boat subjected to a blinding white light and in the next scene we see it on fire. In the movie, this is caused by the awakening of Godzilla. In reality, this was inspired by an actual event: the nuclear contamination of the fishing boat The Lucky Dragon.

This Japanese fishing boat was plying the waters around Marshall Island in spring of 1954, when the crew noticed a sudden light in the west and then a huge multi-colored ball of light that exploded into the sky. Ash fell down from the skies, which the crew gathered for souvenirs. By the end of the day, the crew was ill with radiation poisoning from being too close to a nuclear weapons test in the Bikini atoll. One crewman eventually died, and several suffered long term effects–in addition to others in the Marshall Island who also suffered such effects.

No one knew this testing was going to occur because the US kept such tests secret. It created a huge diplomatic incident.

Eventually the US compensated the Japanese government and the families of the impacted fisherman. While the negotiations were underway, out of worry about fallout, the government had all fish destroyed and none allowed to be sold in markets, decimating the fishing industry in Japan.

Several months later, when Gojira opened to movie theaters, it must have been a shock to see that opener–fact blending in with fiction, as it does uncomfortably throughout this film. I’ve always known Godzilla was one of the most important science fiction movies. I didn’t realize until watching Gojira and reading more of its story that we should drop the ‘science fiction’.

Returning to the movie as cinema rather than social commentary, what’s especially surprising about the movie is how quickly it was made: about three months. It was, in part, inspired by Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (one of my all time favorites). But the production couldn’t take the time to have the beast managed through claymation, so they invented the concept of a wearable suit–a move which was to follow Godzilla even into modern films.

I strongly recommend if you get this set–and you should get this set–that you read the booklet that accompanies it first before watching Gojira.