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When tech goes wrong
#25261 03/06/13 05:37 AM
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tacit Offline OP
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I am on TV right now. Or, at least, I think I am. And I don't know, because Comcast is the most miserable tech company I've ever had to deal with.

Err, actually the second most miserable, but only by a nose.

Some time ago, i got contacted by producers from the Oprah Winfrey network. They were shooting a segment of "Our America" about polyamory. I pointed them to some friends of mine, who hey liked so much they set up a camera crew in their house for weeks. Talked to me and one of my partners and... Anyway, I was curious to see how it all turned out.

The show was set to air today, something I didn't realize 'til this afternoon. So my sweetie and I decided we'd get cable; apparently, OWN isn't available on basic cable and we'd have to get the "cable plus" package.

Which requires a digital cable box.

No sweat We got it and plugged it in. Went through a lengthy process on Comcast's miserable Web site to "activate" the box. Web site said "OK, now activating your cable box, please wait 45 minutes."

Which is a little weird; in 45 minutes, Russian organized crime can infect 250,000 American PCs with malware, so taking 45 minutes to program a cable box seems inefficient. But whatever.

Then the Web site said "Success! Your cable box has been activated."

It lied.

Connect the box to the TV, nothing. Okay, bad cable maybe? Go outside the house, in the rain, diddle with the cable connection. Nothing. Replace the cable. Nothing. Run a known-good cable through the window into the house. Still nada.

Take the cable connector out of the wall. Looks good. Replace the cable that came with the cable box, the one that goes from the wall to the box. Still nada.

Call tech support. "No problem, we'll reset your cable box. Should take ten minutes."

10 minutes later, I'm 10 minutes older but no closer to working cable. Nothing.

Move the cable box around the house in a bizarre game of whack-a-cable-outlet. Nothing works anywhere. (Seriously, who uses cable any more anyway?)

OWN is not available streaming over the Internet; presumably, Oprah, who is, like, the richest woman in he world or something, isn't getting enough fees to allow Net streaming.

Okay, back on the phone with tech support. "We can't see your cable box."

Uh...

Okay, fine Move it to a different cable outlet. "We still can't see it. You're on a TV show, you say? About polyamory? What's that?"

The inevitable "what is polyamory?" conversation over, we start playing this whack-a-cable-outlet game again. No matter where we go, the tech says "I sill can't ping your cable box."

Go back online to Comcast's miserable activation page on Comcast's miserable Web site. "You have 1 cable device (1 not activated)."

Apparently, it will tell you "activation successful" even if the device in question is disconnected, turned off, shot repeatedly with a 12-gauge, and buried in a lead-lined box outside of Roswell, New Mexico beneath a crumpled-up ball of aluminum foil and two empty cans of baked beans. When the Web site says "activation successful," that doesn't mean that the activation was successful, you see...it simply means that enough time has passed that the Comcast central Babbage engine should have been able to align the gears and pulleys to the right configuration to activate the box.

Still on the phone with the tech this whole time. She's being really patient (and curious), but nothing works.

Finally, I yank the cable out of the cable modem, which we know works on account of I was able to communicate through the web-net on the Internet-tubes to the Babbage engine that runs Comcast's Net-site, and plug it straight into the cable box.

"Oh," chirps the tech, "your cable box is defective."

Which might have explained why when my sweetie picked it up from the Comcast Worker's Dormitory, Public Relations Orifice, and Meat Processing Plant the person-unit behind the counter mentioned casually as if in passing that she'd plug the box in and make sure the blinkenlights came on because "we've had a bunch of bad boxes lately."

So after four plus hours of work, we were unable to see the show. We had several friends over who were also on the program, because, like, who has cable nowadays anyway?

If you could even begin to feel one one-hundredth of the depth of my frustration and rage at Comcast right now, your monitor would catch fire.


Photo gallery, all about me, and more: www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Re: When tech goes wrong
tacit #25263 03/06/13 06:59 AM
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Bummer! frown


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: When tech goes wrong
tacit #25264 03/06/13 10:25 AM
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What's polyamory?

laugh


iMac (19,1, 3.1 GHz i5, 12.7.4, 40 Gb RAM); MacBook Air (1.8 Ghz, 8 Gb RAM, 10.14.6, 256 Gb SSD) Vodafone router and Devolo Wi-Fi Extender, Canon TS8351 printer/scanner.
Re: When tech goes wrong
tacit #25266 03/06/13 03:47 PM
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FYI, the Oprah Winfrey Network is available via DirecTV satellite so you aren't limited just to cable.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: When tech goes wrong
freelance #25268 03/06/13 04:28 PM
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Originally Posted By: freelance
What's polyamory?

laugh
More fun than Pollyanna. grin


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: When tech goes wrong
jchuzi #25272 03/06/13 07:18 PM
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tacit Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: jchuzi
Originally Posted By: freelance
What's polyamory?

laugh
More fun than Pollyanna. grin


Snerk. It is! smile


Photo gallery, all about me, and more: www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Re: When tech goes wrong
tacit #25273 03/06/13 08:05 PM
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If anyone finds a link, YouTube or such, to the Tacit segment, please post.

TIA


Harv
27" i7 iMac (10.13.6), iPhone Xs Max (12.1)

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: When tech goes wrong
Pendragon #25276 03/07/13 05:04 AM
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tacit Offline OP
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I found a segment that has me and several of my friends in it! I'm on the right in the purple button-up shirt.

http://www.oprah.com/own-our-america-lis...iscussion-Video


Photo gallery, all about me, and more: www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Re: When tech goes wrong
tacit #25279 03/07/13 09:29 AM
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Thanks, Tacit. Quite interesting, and, a bit of learning occurred.


Harv
27" i7 iMac (10.13.6), iPhone Xs Max (12.1)

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: When tech goes wrong
tacit #25280 03/07/13 04:16 PM
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cool. thanks for sharing.


MacBook 2.4 Ghz · 4 Gb ram · 10.7.5
stuff I'm interested in
iPhone 4s 7.0.2
Re: When tech goes wrong
tacit #25323 03/10/13 08:08 PM
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Relying on any service to be set up on schedule is a bad bet.


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: When tech goes wrong
Virtual1 #25326 03/10/13 09:26 PM
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tacit Offline OP
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Finally got the cable working yesterday, after scheduling a tech to come out to the house. (That itself was a disaster--Comcast scheduled the tech, then the web said the call had been canceled, then the tech showed up an hour early, then three hours later a different tech showed up...)

Anyway, it turns out the "defective" cable box was fine.

When we got cable Internet, the tech installed a cable TV trap on our line to keep us from pirating cable, but forgot to log that he'd done so. And the cable box we were given was actually logged in Comcast's Babbage engine as being assigned to someone else. Between those two things, trying to get cable working in one day was a non-starter.


Photo gallery, all about me, and more: www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

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