No, really.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Chicago RiotFest 2014 Friday line up

Friday

Must See

JANE'S ADDICTION
RISE AGAINST
SLAYER
THE MURDER CITY DEVILS
WOUNDS

Really Want to See

ALL
GOGOL BORDELLO
GWAR
NOFX
OF MICE & MEN
PLAGUE VENDOR
PUSSY RIOT (PANEL W/ NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA & MASHA ALEKHINA)
RADKEY
STIFF LITTLE FINGERS
THE OFFSPRING

Want to See

CLUTCH
RED CITY RADIO
WE CAME AS ROMANS

Sure, would be good to see

BABY BABY
CIRCA SURVIVE
FAILURE
PITY SEX
SENSES FAIL
SOMOS
TITLE FIGHT

Any live music is good music!

BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS
EMAROSA
MASTODON
PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH
THE HOTELIER

Except this band

FROM INDIAN LAKES

Friday, March 14, 2014

Belkin router F6D4230-4 v1 not letting Facebook app connect

Last week I started having problems with Facebook on both my Nexus 7 tablet and my Nexus phone when connected to my Wi-Fi router.
I haven't been able to find a solution on Google, and restarting my devices, router and modern hasn't helped.
Symptoms (both are intermittent, but 'more often than not':

Facebook groups often won't load. Click the group link and it goes back to news feed.
Facebook notification list won't load. Clocks for a while and then says 'Couldn't fetch notifications'

however

Facebook news feed loads and refreshes fine.
Facebook chat works fine.

The kicker is that the symptoms are very similar in both the app and the mobile chrome web page from the tablet and phone. The second kicker is that on my computer, also connected via Wi-Fi and running chrome, Facebook works perfectly.

My phone not on Wi-Fi works fine. My tablet connected to my phone hot spot works fine.

Since the devices work fine not on Wi-Fi, I'm assuming they are working correctly. Since the computer works fine on Wi-Fi, and the devices worked fine on it last week, I'm assuming the Wi-Fi set up is correct. I'm at a loss.

My set up:

modern is a Top Global MB8000 wired to the router
router is an aging Belkin F6D4230-4 v1000 with disabled security. Toggling the firewall off doesn't help. Putting the tablet int he router's DMZ doesn't help

My guess is that the app uses different network connections than the web site, and those connections are intermittently getting whacked (technical term) by the router. Current workaround is to use the MB8000's Wi-Fi instead of the router for the mobile devices.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Sociobiomorphism

Sociobiomorphism exists on the 'web, but only on this blog. Feel free to cite this for any research you're doing.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Refinance from Hell

In October I went to do a home refinance with my current lender, Nationstar Mortgage. The rate was 4.5%, a significant savings over my current rate. At closing the paperwork was a little messed up, but the big problem was that although they set my signing date for the end of the month, they set the actual date for the refi to occur on the 4th day of the next month. This was a problem for me because, coming out of an FHA loan, all interest for the month is paid on the first day. So I'd have ended up paying $1700 for that. On top of that, the adjusted origination charge (read that as, very roughly, "how much you pay to get this loan rate") was another $1700 I'd have to pay. In addition, rates had gone down a bit since I started the process, something my lender neglected to tell me.

When you refinance you're given a 3-day grace period to rescind the agreement. So I rescinded. I gave Nationstar a chance to get me a better rate but they "couldn't", so I ended up getting a different loan quote from Crown Mortgage, at 4.125% and an adjusted origination charge of (-$1800). That's right, they'd pay me. When I let Nationstar know this, they suddenly could get me a better rate, but I declined.

Since I'm writing about it here, you know it screwed up more. Crown couldn't get the payoff amount request to go through at Nationstar, so I had to call. Only to find out that Nationstar never processed the recission. It took weeks to settle this, and by that time mortgage rates rose, and loan costs rose. A 4.125% loan now costs me 0.25% of my loan instead of paying me. Sigh. So now, in order to get a better cost, I'm getting a higher rate. I'm getting a 4.5% loan again, but this time the adjusted origination charge is ($-1700). Hopefully at the end of this month.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Just a wireless fire

TL;DR: unplug your car charger if your car outlet is 'always on'.

So my lovely wife is on her way to take her physics board exams this morning, a pretty high-stress affair. About 3 miles from our house, smoke starts pouring out of the wireless charger that's plugged into the cigarette lighter port of the car. She panics; the car stops on a blind curve. A good Samaritan helps her get the car started again and move it out of the road after more than a few cars slam on their brakes to avoid smashing into her.

Turns out the problem was the automobile phone charger.. in particular, the problem is the melting circuitry in the charger itself, that I discovered when I took the thing apart.

I'm scared to think what would've happened if the fire started while the car was unattended, or even worse, plugged into a socket in the rear of the car.

I contacted the manufacturer who was apologetic, and offered a top-of-the-line replacement. They said they had not received any complaints about this model before.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Conexis flex spending is an absolutely ridiculous amount of work

Once again, I'm dealing with trying to justify expenditures from my flexible spending account. Five months ago. At a place called "CENTRAL BILLING OFFICE" in Charlottesville VA. My investigator rates are way higher than the $10 a year I'm saving by using flexible spending pre-tax. It took 4 emails to get a phone number to call the place, and two transfers to get help logging in. It seems like 50% of my flex spending expenditures have to be justified months after they've happened. Why is this so hard?