In a previous post, Best Buy gave me $50 when I found a video card that I bought from them cheaper somewhere else.

Now, I noticed they started selling the 19 inch LCD monitor I bought $20 cheaper than what I paid for it.

So guess what? I headed on back to BB to get my $20. Hey, money is money. $20 paid for half of the dinner my wife and I went to immediately after leaving the store. I wonder how many other price match opportunities I have missed over the years. I mean, I hardly ever check the price of something I already bought. I will definitely start doing that for larger purchases.

It's been about 4 months since I sponsored a child through World Vision, and 3 months since I've written about it. If you've been thinking about child sponsorship, I feel a need to let you know ahead of time what you're getting into.

Anyways, after carefully writing a letter back to Namthip, I went out and purchased some cute stickers to include in the envelope to her. World Vision doesn't let you send anything to your child except what can fit in a standard letter envelope (and not cash), so the options are quite limited.

I realize there is a good reason for this. As I said in my first post about World Vision, sending extravagant gifts would do more harm than good to the child, her siblings, and even her neighbourhood friends.

So I sent the letter and stickers, and apparently she got them all and loved them. I received a letter back from her recently (actually, written by her sister) thanking me for them and telling me a bit more about Namthip and her family. I don't want to bother her by writing every month, forcing her to write a response, but I will write often.

So, I am here to say that sponsorship has so far been very rewarding to me personally. Your mileage may vary, of course.

World Vision, on the other hand, is an interesting organization the deal with. First, I find that they are constantly sending me mail. Well, OK, I can see some of it is necessary (like the child's letters, tax receipts, etc.) Some of it is interesting to me (updates on their tsunami relief efforts, with a request for tsunami donations.) And some of it is downright begging for money (sponsor another child, or we have a special need here). Fine, I can accept all that. I hope they get a good discount on stamps is all I can say.

(Warning, rant ahead.)

Well, today I got another letter from them. Get this - they are raising my monthly sponsorship donation by $2 per month, effective July 1st. Don't misunderstand me. They are not asking me to give more (they do that often enough), they are telling me they will start deducting more from my account unless I call them to stop it.

In Canada, we had an incident with the big cable companies where they starting adding channels to people's cable packages without their explicit permission. It started as a free 3 month preview given to all subscribers, but they then started charging for those channels once the trial period expired unless you phone them to cancel it. It's called “negative billing” - if you don't decline this automatic addition to your monthly bill, it means you accept it. It's a back-door way to sell you something, relying mostly on the lazyness of the general population.

Now, as far as the increase in World Vision's monthly donation is concerned, $2 a month is not going to bankrupt me. But I have been a sponsor for all of 4 months, and they are already poised to automatically take more out of my account. Do they do this to everyone? Wait until you've been on board a couple of months, received a couple of letters from your child, and then BAM! the rate goes up? This seems like the sales tactic of a sleazy used car salesman, and not a Christian charity. (Apologies to all non-sleazy car salesmen!)

If I had been a sponsor for 2 years, and they wanted to increase the rate to match inflation (or whatever), I wouldn't feel so bad. But raising the rate 8% after 4 months is a lousy way to start a long term relationship with donors to your charity.

Looking at their web site, it looks like they are raising the monthly donation amount for new sponsors as well. That makes me feel a little better. But their letter to me did not say that. In fact, their letter specifically says how the increase is needed to fight HIV/AIDS in Namthip's community. To drive home the personal nature of this request, they use her name 4 times in the letter, refer to her indirectly 5 times, mention my name several times... making it seem like I am the only person receiving a letter increasing the rate.

As an example of the terrible selling job they did on this automatic (except if specifically declined) increase, here's a sample from the letter:

“Many sponsors tell us it is more convenient for them if World Vision simply begins deducting the new rate from their bank withdrawal or credit card payment plan.“ --- Really? People tell you they prefer that you help yourself to their bank account without asking them first?

And, even though it looks like this increase is for everyone and not just me, I still feel a bit ticked about this negative billing. It is sleazy. Maybe it's necessary, but I didn't expect it. I didn't see it coming. I honestly expected the current monthly rate would continue at this level, forever. They should have been more clear up front how these increases work, and whoever wrote the letter should change careers.

Instead of trying to personalize this rate increase, World Vision should have depersonalized it. Tell me World Vision is raising it's rates for the first time in X years. Tell me that costs increase year after year per child, and that sponsors will have to give just a little bit more to get back to break-even. Tell me that it is going to be impossible for you to meet the needs of the currently sponsored children out there unless you raise the rate across the board. Make me feel like this is normal, and it happens from time to time. They could take a lesson on how to do this from the phone or cable company.

I think I might call them tomorrow and make a minor complaint about the wording of the letter. Hey, I love being a sponsor. I don't mind giving more. But World Vision will have to make a little better effort to save money, and be more business-like with their rate increases.

Can you imagine if the phone company wrote you a letter talking about how there has been some bad weather recently in your town, and equipment needs replacing close to your home. How your phone line is older than other homes, and is getting more expensive for them to maintain? That wouldn't happen. They would say that, effective on July 1st, the cost of basic service is going up from $21.50 to $22.20. In addition, call answer and call display are each going up $0.15 more per month. There, they just got $1 per month out of me, without personalizing it. It's not difficult to do, yeesh!

(End rant. Sorry about that.)

Yesterday, as a friend and I were walking into a local fast-food place for lunch, we saw someone begging for spare change on the sidewalk. As we approached, he said to us, “Would you mind getting me something to eat? I haven't eaten in 3 or 4 days.” So I said, “Sure. What would you like?” “A small burger and a drink.” was the reply.

This is something I have always thought about doing. In the neighbourhood where I work, street begging is quite common (so much for the clean reputation of Canada, eh?). I sometimes think about picking up some food for someone instead of just handing out money. I am leery about freely handing out money to street beggars for a number of reasons, which I will get into some other time.

So, after being asked nicely for some food, I purchased an extra meal and brought it out to him. “Here you go, man.”

And what was the response? Was he overjoyed? Grateful? Content even? Well, in a word, no.

“Did you buy me the poutine?” was the first words out of his mouth. “Huh?”, I said, “No you just asked for the burger and drink.” “Can I get $2 for the streetcar?” “No.” “Can I get $1 for a coffee?” “No.”

And that's when I left.

So, that will teach me I guess. Maybe I expected too much? I certainly was not expecting this guy to worship me or anything. A simple “thanks” and nothing else would have been enough. Actually, if all he did was open the bag and start eating his food without even looking at me, I would understand. But though greed and outright ungratefulness, this one guy has put me off directly helping the homeless for a while. He acted like I just stole his lunch, instead of giving him one.

Am I acting unchartiable by expecting some acknowledgement? Maybe. But my sympathy towards people “less fortunate” has been eroded a bit more, and that is not a good feeling for me.

There is a lively debate going on in the open-source community, and it comes down to the morality of reverse engineering software.

What happened is that Linux kernel development was using a closed-source (commercial) tool for their source code control application (SCM) called BitKeeper. Linus Torvalds has said that BitKeeper was far and away better than any free source code control application, including CVS.

The creator of BitKeeper gave Linux developers a free (web based I think) way of getting to the Linux source code, and everyone was happy. Well, everybody except for one person.

That person decided to try and reverse engineer the protocol so that he could develop his own way of getting stuff out of the source code server without using a BitKeeper client. When asked to stop, he wouldn't. And so the owner of BitKeeper revoked the license for all of Linux. So basically, this is a case of “looking a gift horse in the mouth“. Or “one bad apple ruining the whole bunch“. There are many cliches that could apply here.

Commercial software developers have a right to try to make a profit. They also have the right to set the terms of a license. And they have the right to revoke that license if those terms are violated. Noone can dispute these rights.

But do “hackers” have the right to try and break the secret algorithms in commercial programs? Is reverse-engineering ever immoral or wrong? Since software is all virtual and not physical, let's look at some real-world examples of reverse engineering and see if there is a parallel...

Technically speaking, reverse-engineering is the process of figuring out how something works. In this example, BitKeeper was being reverse engineered so that the hacker could create his own client without using the (free) one provided by BitKeeper. It's an odd reason, I know.

A real world example would be if you opened up a phone handset to figure out how it worked, and then built your own handset to plug into your phone so you would not have to use the original one that came with it. There is probably not anything wrong with doing this to a telephone if you wish, because there is nothing secret about the way a telephone handset communicated with the phone base. Also, you clearly own the phone, and there is a concept in law (I think) that says that if you own something, you can do anything you want with it (including using a phone as a doorstop instead of as a phone). You do not own software - software is licensed - so this analogy does not apply.

But what if you refused to use the bank's ATM machine, and instead reverse-engineered how it communicated with the bank's central servers so that you can develop your own ATM machine? Is that right or wrong? Clearly it is wrong - because the bank owns both the ATM machine and the servers. Clearly there are several things wrong with this, not the least of which is that it takes away some important levels of security embedded in the ATM machine itself.

And if the bank takes the ATM machine away from the people reverse-engineering it, whose fault is it? The bank, or the people trying to break their communication protocol?

Man, I tell ya. I'm getting old. How old? I'm so old, that when I hear something in the news that my government does that I don't like, I write an email to my MP to complain about it. For my American friends, a Member of Parliament (MP) is equivalent to a Congressman in the U.S.

These emails are never angry - just my thoughtful opinions on the issue. I figure if an MP is “on the fence“, a bunch of supportive emails will help decide the issue. If a politician thinks his popularity is dipping and he might not get reelected, and he gets 200 emails from his constituents opposing some issue, he might just vote against it to save his skin. If you don't speak up, you won't be heard. 

I have sent emails of all levels of government, from my city councillor, to the mayor, to the Premier, to the Prime Minister. When a recent health issue was in the news, I sent emails to some of the top managers in the Health department. I have no shame when it comes to finding someone to hear my complaint.

I rarely get a response. But when I do, it's always interesting. Today's response takes the cake, though.

An assistant to my MP writes me an email back, asking for my postal address, so my MP can mail me a letter with his response.

Ugh.

The next beta version of Visual Studio 2005 (with Team System) is now up on MSDN for those with access.

I was lucky to get a preview build of Beta 2 just over a month ago since I am writing a book for Manning on it. All I can say is that it has been an extremely smooth experience installing it and playing with it over the past month or so. Almost everything works. A few hiccups here and there, but that is to be expected in Beta software, especially since I have it configured in a non-standard way. (I have seen a couple of things with the MS Project integration that needs more finish.)

So, don't just stand there. Go out, get it, install it, and play!

Last week's Apprentice showed a task where some of the final 6 candidates could work all night without sleep, and some could not. At least two absolutely insisted on stopping work at 2am to get 6-7 hours rest.

I find I am able to go without rest some nights. Normally, I can sleep “all day” - I consider 10 hours a good night's sleep, and typically get 6 hours during the week. But when I am writing, and have to get a chapter done by tomorrow, I can go all night and it doesn't seem to affect me much the next day.

Some times I wonder, “why do we even NEED to sleep?” What is going on while we sleep that our body cannot do without. One web site says that missing one night's sleep makes us cranky, missing two nights of sleep reduces our ability to think clearly, and missing 5 nights of sleep will cause us to hallucinate. Clearly, sleep is necessary to the human body. But why?

Another web site says that scientists currently believe that, of all the organs in the human body, only the brain “needs” sleep. That is, we don't go to sleep because we're physically tired (our muscles need a break) - we can sit down and watch TV and get just as much physical rest.

So why is it? Scientists don't really know, but the best theory so far is that the neurons in our brain need to slow down in order to be replenished with energy. Just like a battery that needs to be recharged overnight to be fresh the next morning.

"If we accept the premise that all animals sleep, then it looks like there's something special about neurons, about basic energy requirements. Neurons are among the cells that have highest energy requirements. Our brain, 1 or 2% of our total bodily weight, uses up 20% of our energy; so the brain is the most energy-demanding organ we have," O'Hara explains. He concludes that energy usage is one very possible function of sleep. Neurons require this loss of consciousness to slow down just enough so they can replenish themselves for normal functioning. "It's hard to get solid data to support that, but no data I know of refutes the idea."