Cordelya

As summer wanes and autumn nears, I’ve been thinking ahead to consider what sort of gear I might want to enable me to keep doing my walking outdoors, to avoid the Mall and the Treadmill for as long as I can. I’ve browsed the Internet for things that fill the gaps in my collection of winter-specific clothing. I don’t have anything that will cover the lower half of my face that doesn’t fog up my glasses when I breathe (otherwise, a scarf would do, but going bare-faced will not). I need to acquire some base layers (sometimes commonly known as “long underwear”) to wear under my regular clothes. And I need to be more reflective/orange.

Regarding a face covering, I own a plain black balaclava, but I’m hesitant to wear it while walking about in an urban environment. I found this mask that wraps about the lower face and around the back of the head. It has fleece on the inside and windbreaker fabric on the outside, plus a vent to keep moisture buildup to a minimum. Having a separate piece like this will allow me to wear my regular winter hat and I can go into stores without looking suspicious.

I looked at prices for silk base layers and decided that it might be more cost effective to make my own, using Kwik Sew #3455 and stretch silk charmeuse from Dharma Trading. I have some of the charmeuse on hand already, and additional yardage is under $14/yd, which is not bad considering that base layers don’t use much yardage. I can then also dye them any color I want!

I reminded myself earlier today that I should dig out a special reflector I have that my friend Jannika gave me many years ago. It’s shaped like a snowflake and it is of the variety of reflectors that are given to school children in Finland to wear for increased visibility in the dark winters. I also need to acquire a scarf (at least) that is blaze orange. Maybe I’ll get some blaze orange fleece and make myself a few different accessories for when I go walking in the areas around my house during hunting season. I also have some reflective piping and some reflective ribbon, which I purchased intending to make an outfit that is a hybrid of Victorian and Cyber gothic aesthetics (Victorian cut, made of black cotton, with reflective accents). I can always get more of that.

I’ve been temporarily cut off from the Social Internet. My office has 6′ tall cubicles that back up against the walls of the room. Today I dropped my phone between the room wall and the cubicle wall. D’oh! Now I have to figure out how to fish it out. Until I get it back, I’m limited to communicating via this blog.

I got a FitBit pedometer on February 8th. Since I’m working on third shift, I have my time zone set for 12 hours ahead of my real time zone so that my daily counts reset while I’m asleep. This means that while it arrived on the 8th, my data begins on the 9th! Here’s what happened during the first 29 days:

Totals

• 57,446 Calories
• 116.44 Miles
• 268,472 Steps
• 340 Floors
• 722 Minutes of “Very Active” activity*

Averages (per day)

• 1,980 Calories
• 9,257 Steps
• 4.02 Miles
• 11.72 Floors
• 24.9 Minutes of “Very Active” activity*

Least active day: March 7th
Most active day: March 5th

* Regarding “Very Active” activity – the FitBit system categorizes activity into four different levels: Sedentary, Lightly Active, Fairly Active, and Very Active. According to the FitBit forums, this is “graded on a curve”, so that if you’re normally very sedentary, it takes less effort to register “Very Active” activity than it does if you’re regularly active.

Can you help me test a plug-in? I have the Comment-Luv plugin, which includes a link to a commenter’s most recent [public] post in the body of the comment. If you have a blog (or a livejournal or something) and it has public posts, post a comment on this post (the permalink is: http://cordelya.net/2012/01/hey-you-help-me-test-a-plug-in/) and include your blog’s URL in the corresponding field on the comment form. If you are registered and your blog url is listed in your commenter profile before you post a comment, it will even allow you to specify which of your most recent 10 posts to include. The blog post links are even ”DoFollow”, so you get some SEO love from me! (Other links in comments are “NoFollow”.)

You may not see your comment right away… comments are moderated unless you have a previously-approved comment.

I haven’t been able to log in to my Comcast account for well over a year.  I called them today about an unrelated problem with my cableCARD and telephone service. While I had the rep on the phone, I mentioned the fact that I can’t get in to my account. The tech told me my username, and reset my password, which he then told me what the new password was, and I wrote it down.

A little while later, I went and tried to log in to my account. “The username and password entered do not match. Please try again.” was the response. I clicked “Forgot Password”, and was asked a security question (“What is your favorite beverage”). These security questions were initiated in the system after my account with Comcast was initially set up. Since I have not logged in since that time, it would stand to reason that I do not have any security questions set up. I certainly would not have chosen “What is your favorite beverage” as a security question since I don’t have a favorite beverage. I click on the “I can’t remember my answer” link. I am taken to a chat with an analyst. Below is a copy of the transcript. Personal details have been removed and replaced with “[redacted]“. No other alterations were made to the transcript.

CHAT ID: [redacted]
Problem: Attempting to retrieve password. Last time I logged in to the account was prior to when security questions were set up (I think).
Steve > Hello Jacqueline, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Steve. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Jacqueline > My Issue: Attempting to retrieve password. Last time I logged in to the account was prior to when security questions were set up (I think).
Steve > Jacqueline, I understand and I am sorry to know that you are experiencing a problem accessing your Comcast online account. I know how frustrating it is when you have something important to check and you cannot login.
Steve > By the end of this chat I am sure we will have resolved this issue together to your satisfaction.
Steve > Are you trying to pay your bill or are you trying to access your email?
Jacqueline > email
Steve > What username are you using to access your account?
Jacqueline > [redacted]
Steve > For your security, we do not keep your personal passwords in our system, but I can reset the password associated with this user name. Would you like me to reset your password now?
Steve > Jacqueline, before we proceed for security purposes, would you please provide the following information: 1. Full Name of Account Holder 2. Complete Service Address 3. Last 4 digits of SSN 4. Phone number in the account
Jacqueline > 1. Jacqueline Arsenault 2. [redacted] 3. [redacted] 4. [redacted]
Steve > Thank you for the information. Please give me a minute or two while I pull up your account.
Steve > Jacqueline, do you have your account number handy?
Jacqueline > [redacted]
Steve > While waiting why not take a minute and check out Comcast EcoBill? EcoBill allows you the benefit of a paperless billing online and the ability to setup automatic payments. For more information, check out http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FAQListViewer.aspx?topic=Billing&folder=a6555cc4-2d3b-4ccb-bdf7-a281f0a702fd
Steve > Thank you for patiently waiting.
Steve > Jacqueline, I see you have Digital Voice service. In order to protect your account information online, I need to validate one more piece of information. You can either provide your security PIN, or if you don’t have that handy, we can call your homephone for verification of your account if that will be okay.
Jacqueline > I already have paperless billing, thanks.
Jacqueline > My home phone service is currently non-functional. I have a service appointment for [redacted]. The security pin – is that the voicemail access pin, or a security word? (I know both, just don’t know which one you need)
Steve > Jacqueline, are you trying to pay your bill?
Jacqueline > No. I pay my bill via my bank’s bill-pay. I haven’t been able to log in to my comcast account for at least a year. Every time I remember about it, I’m not at home.
Steve > Jacqueline, I would love to assist you resettng your password. However we need to verify your comcast homephonenumber for the verification of your account.
Jacqueline > You asked for my security pin. I’m just not sure what you mean by that.
Steve > The security pin is a four digit pin send to you via mail aftet the installation of the account.
Jacqueline > It is very unlikely that I still have that document. Any papers not kept are usually misplaced. I will try on [redacted], after my phone service gets fixed.
Steve > Jacqueline, I am so sorry about that.
Steve > We need to have these information for the verification of the account. thank you for your patience and understanding on the process.

*sigh*

If you’re here because of the cake pops, here’s some information:

The how-to is here: DIY Cake Pops [RatedByMom.com]

You can reach me using any of the following methods: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Email.

I realized that I did not have the reCaptcha plugin installed, which was resulting in a lot of spammy user registrations. I installed the reCaptcha plugin and deleted all user accounts with no comment activity.

Also new to this site is the CommentLuv plugin. When you post a comment, if you provide your blog’s url, the CommentLuv plugin will visit the url and grab the link and title for your most recent [public] post and append it to your comment. This feature is opt-in – you must check the CommentLuv box in order to enable it. You can see it in action over at The Bloggess [may be NSFW, for lanugage].  As usual, this feature only works if you comment on Cordelya.net. It doesn’t work if you’re commenting on the versions of my posts at LiveJournal or Google Reader. As a reminder, I also never see comments posted at LiveJournal or Google Reader – neither site notifies me about new comments on my posts, and I’m not interested in repeatedly visiting those versions to find out.

You may now use OpenID to post comments to this site.

Site testers/breakers are always welcome, as long as you tell me how it went afterwards!

Here’s a summary of what I did this week. If I missed something, please leave it in a comment!

• I saw “Rango” with Ox and had my fill of nummy theater popcorn
• I’ve been re-reading all of Katie MacAlister’s Dragon novels in anticipation of the next one coming out in May
• I dreamed about the similarities between an octopus and a partly-peeled banana
• I’ve been keeping up on the incredible progress of Patrick the Pit Bull (photo album)
• I discovered a new blog worthy of my Google Reader list: Burgers Here and There (if you haven’t been there yet, you should probably start here)
• I fell for Pinboard.in’s April Fool’s Day prank – they added a Yahoo! logo to their site logo, to make it look as though they’d been acquired by Yahoo. I also enjoyed the April Fool’s shenanigans of ThinkGeek, SparkFun, Hack-a-Day, and Google (I’m sure there are others).
• I worked my last week of Wed-Sat shifts for a while. New schedule begins Monday. If you want to know what it is, you’ll have to ask me privately. It isn’t wise to publicize that kind of information

The Internet Wishlist aggregates ideas and concepts from people across the web regarding products and features people would like to see. My wish is outlined below:

Several years ago, I was a victim of credit card skimming, a form of credit card theft. My card’s information could have been stolen at any of several different locations, on any of several days. Because I cannot pinpoint the exact date and location of the theft, the police really can’t do much about it.

When credit card skimming occurs, it often results in multiple victims (the person stealing the card information does it to many cards over the course of time, usually at a single location, or a few individual locations). If all of those victims were to populate a database with information about the dates and locations of recent transactions, a pattern might emerge showing a likely location where the thefts occurred.

For example, during a street festival, there is increased patronage of restaurants. Many of the restaurants allow patrons to pay using a credit card, and the waiter or waitress takes the card out of the patron’s sight to process the transaction. This is a perfect opportunity to skim cards, especially when it is busy. The patrons come from a wider variety of locations than normal. After each victim’s card is skimmed, they’ll usually see fraudulent charges as early as one to two weeks after the original theft. Each victim files a police report with the police where they live, but depending on how often they eat out, they may not know exactly when or where their card was skimmed. Each victim logs into a nationwide reporting site, and provides the following information:

• Their contact information
• The police report number and jurisdiction where the report was filed (helps prevent contamination with false data)
• The name and address of each establishment where the victim used the card prior to the date the fraudulent charges appeared (system can use slick searching/database to help with addresses)
• The date or date range each valid charge was made.

The collected data can then be used to create maps, which, provided enough data, could show establishments with coinciding transactions on coinciding days. The system could notify victims of possible locations and permit them to print out the pertinent information plus a list of associated police report numbers (provided that each victim authorized the system to share that information) that the victim could then provide to their local police department to assist with the investigation.

Bonus points given if police departments are offered special accounts to allow investigators to receive notifications about incidents in their jurisdiction. The site operators would also need to be prepared to respond to subpoenas for evidence. Measures should be taken to protect user information unless they have opted-in to its release.

Since there are people who ask me every year for a holidays gift wishlist, here it is for 2010:

First choice:

• Donate any amount you like to my favorite charity: Charity Water (link goes to my personal holiday fundraising campaign). Charity Water has one simple goal: to dig wells for communities in developing nations without access to clean water. It costs $5000 to dig one well, and each well serves the entire community. This charity’s overhead costs are paid for by a private donor, so all monies donated via the Charity Water site go toward the costs of digging wells.

Alternates:

• Lamy fountain pen ($25) & Noodler Inks (~$12) – I currently have one pen with a gray body and silver clip, and one with a transparent/clear body and a silver clip. I do not use disposable cartridges, but instead use Noodler‘s bottled ink  in a refillable cartridge (I have blue, bulletproof black, eel black, and blue ghost already).
• Fashion accessories that are Victorian in style. Please see note below on “Steampunk”
• Things that used to be listed here now live at the link on the next bullet.
• There are also some items on my Wishpot list (link). I need to go in and update that list. Hey! That link didn’t work. Now it does…

*Note* While I appreciate the “Steampunk” aesthetic, I am not particularly interested in dressing in things that are steampunk *and* are industrial in nature. This includes things like gears (ok in pocket watches), lab/mad science themes, etc. There are many things for sale out there labeled “Steampunk” that are less steampunk and more elegant gothic Victorian. Elegant = yes. Morbid = yes. Ruffles = yes. Mechanical parts attached to clothing = no.