While I've largely been quite happy with my MacBook Pro, recently some pesky little gremlins have started to appear (and old ones have persisted):
- If the machine runs out of battery, it shuts off completely, rather than going to sleep (let alone a deep sleep)
- Over the weekend, the laptop spontaneously lost a large chunk of its battery charge in a second (and shut off - see above). Apparently this is a known problem with certain early model batteries (Forum thread)
- … and it keeps on whining when not on full brightness (or when the screen dims)
I gave Apple Support a call tonight, reported the serial number and problem, and the guy refused to acknowledge the problem over the phone, instead telling me to take the computer to an Apple Service Provider and get them to diagnose and fix it. FFS! Apple KNOWS it's a problem, and even has a list of serial numbers affected by (potentially) defective batteries. Ship me a replacement battery, already! I don't have time to hand my computer over to a repair shop and lose it for a week, when my thesis proposal is due in just over that.
Over the past few months, I've been getting a number of calls on the landline from banks (Which Bank?), but instead of someone on the other end asking to speak to "such and such", I'm instead told that all of the operators are currently busy, and that I've been placed into a queue.
There are a few problems with this:
I have no idea who it is you're looking to speak to (etiquette, anyone?)
You're wasting my time
If your operators are currently busy, get them to ring me when they're not!
It's gotten to the point where I hear the message and hang up. If these companies aren't going to provide decent customer service (they shouldn't be ringing anyway) by putting an actual operator on the phone when they call, I don't want to have to deal with them or waste my time WAITING to deal with them!
Over a lunch yesterday, two ex-BITs and I got into a conversation about the differences between some of the major religions. Somehow or other, we thought it would be interesting to look at religion from an OO perspective:
So what's the difference between Judaism and Christianity?
Me: Well, in Judaism the 'Messiah' class is abstract, but it's concrete in Christianity.
*sigh*… we're such geeks.
The irony of looking up the new Sydney Google office with a Google product was not lost on us…
I saw Habana Blues last night. Awesome movie. That is all.
