Quantum Forest logs are written by Luis A. Apiolaza in Christchurch, New Zealand and powered by TextPattern.

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In the process of moving
Published Saturday January 13, 2007 · Permalink

In the next three weeks I am moving houses both in the real, physical, meat-space sense and in the hosting sense. Concerning the former, if I know you and you need my new home address just shoot me an email to Luis DOT Apiolaza AT canterbury DOT ac DOT nz (just replace DOT with . and AT with @). Concerning the latter, after five years I am changing hosting company. Nothing really wrong with my current company, but I am consolidating all my sites under a single host, which should make life easier and cheaper.

If this site disappear for a while or there are a few missing files or broken links, do not worry. Really, I mean it. It will back, beaming bits from a slightly different part of the planet.

I have already moved the wiki part of this site to its new location. Now I only need to move this blog and the IUFRO subdomain.

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Bric-a-brac
Published Saturday October 7, 2006 · Permalink

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Mental chaos
Published Monday September 11, 2006 · Permalink

Eleven of September again, but I am not thinking of 2001—which was terrible, I agree—but of 1973. I always stop for a minute to remember as an old political campaign said: without hate, without fear, without violence. I was six and still remember.

I am preparing lectures, really busy. I took the students after more than a semester and most of them appear to be clueless. I am going over a general review, again, because they have to learn. Always listening to energetic music when preparing lectures or running analyses. This time is Rammstein’s ‘Sehnsucht’. But, anyway, I also like to go back a few years and Yes’s ‘Close to the Edge’ (yes, from 1972) is now coming from the headphones.

I start writing most of the ideas in Writeroom and then copy the lot to TeXShop. Packages included in the document preamble for the notes: 

%! program = pdflatex
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{pslatex}
\usepackage{amsbsy}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{a4paper}

Although the Statistics course uses Mendenhall & Sincich’s ‘Regression Analysis’ as the basic text, I am using quite a few other references:

In addition I am also preparing grant applications, so if you try to contact me please be understanding: I will not read my email (or act upon any emails) until Wednesday next week (around September 20th).

Moved to King Crimson’s ‘Discipline’. Now listening ‘Elephant talk’...Talk is ony talk…

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Armchair comparative linguistics
Published Tuesday July 25, 2006 · Permalink

I started working with a Spanish speaker Ph.D. student. One of the topics of conversation is the (always long) list of things that do not make sense in English if taken in a literal way. For example:

Of course any language has a fair share of inconsistencies, strange turns of phrase or grammatical weirdness. Some classic Spanish cultural issues:

The latter example puts the locus of control on the object not the person, so there is an issue of personal responsability (or lack of it). This used to be a big difference, but English is catching up if not through language but via the legal system. Think of ‘tort law’ and ‘frivolous lawsuits’.

Just another day in language’s terra nulla.

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Dell New Zealand's poor service
Published Friday July 21, 2006 · Permalink

As I mentioned in my previous post, I ordered a 20” monitor from Dell New Zealand. The price was good (NZD 749), so I just took the plunge. After over two weeks of waiting I sent them an email and—given that I did not get a reply—gave them a phone call.

The phone call was plagued with noise, echo and stuttering sound. That together with the forced pseudo American accent gave away that there was something suspicious about the call centre. Just to confirm my suspicions I asked ‘where is your call centre located?’ Answer: Malaysia.

According to customer service, a courier did go to my office, nobody was there so he left a card. This would be the first time that a courier notice disappears from my post, because I never found any card. I then asked them to deliver it tomorrow, but Dell could not because it was too little time in advance. I said that I could contact the courier and pick it up myself. Well, customer service did not have a phone number—or even the name of the company—delivering the monitor. Hardly surprising if I was dealing with someone in Malaysia. They could not provide me with a delivery time for next week either, so I was supossed to patiently wait the whole day (between 9am and 5pm) for the courier. It sucks and I am seriously thinking about asking for a refund.

After my phone call I finally received an email from my first contact with customer service:

We apologize for the delay in delivery and attention. Kindly advise if you have not received the order.

Should you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Once again thank you for your feedback and it is indeed a great pleasure serving you.

Have a pleasant day!

How about ‘canned answer’ to describe their reply? It sucks3.

PS 2006-07-21: I received a couple of phone calls from Dell, again with an incredibly bad sound quality. Customer service informed me that they have been again a day ago delivering the screen and that nobody was there to receive it. I asked her to read the delivery address: the street was correct, but with the wrong number.

PS 2006-07-22: I received an email from Dell in reply to one of my complaints:

I sincerely apologized for the experience that you had been through. Proper coaching has been done on the agent for further improvement.

and later

I had asked one of my senior agents to contact you in regards to the re-delivery of the order. Apparently, the order has went futile and thus, we need to re-arrange another delivery for you.

Yes, my order has went futile.

PS 2006-07-24: Still waiting. I have left two messages in the 0800 number I was given to contact the ‘senior agent’, because nobody answered the phone.

I am not alone in my trouble: a search for ‘Dell customer service problem’ returns about 2.8 million hits in Yahoo and 19.9 million hits in Google.

PS 2006-07-30: Dell sent the order to the University Warehouse rather than the School of Forestry. Of course nobody knew about me in the warehouse, so the order was rejected. Finally Dell gave me the name and phone number of the courier, who informed me that they sent the monitor back to Dell. I then called back Dell to cancel my order. Now, I am just waiting to get my money back in my credit card. One month lost due to Dell NZ.

PS 2006-08-01: I received a call from Dell, saying that they would credit my card after I returned the monitor. I patiently explained that it was physically impossible to return something that I have never received. Are these guys smoking pot?

PS 2006-08-02: Another call from ‘someone organising the refund but not working for Dell’ (how can that be?) that wanted to confirm the address of delivery and if I knew a ‘Paul’ who could have received the monitor. No Pauls and I want my money back immediately.

Better I continue listening to Neon Meate Dream of A Octafish. by Captain Beefheart. It makes a lot more sense than Dell.

PS 2006-08-06: Today my internet banking statement showed that Dell credited back my card. In summary, I lent the cost of the monitor to Dell for one month (on top of my time writing emails and calling them on the phone) interest free. Result: I will never buy a Dell product (or recommend them) for the rest of my life.

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