and didn’t recognize myself.

One of the supposed amenities of the building where I rent was that a good portion of the building is blanketed by Wi-Fi from a company called Natural Wireless. I figured it was a gimmick at the time I read about it but it turned out to be a really nice perk.

When I moved in, I picked up signal from their AP and I immediately signed up for their service, since a geek without internet service is rendered powerless like Spiderman without his spidey suit. I figured I’d only keep the service until I got a “real” internet service provider (DSL from Verizon or cable from Time Warner; Speakeasy was in the running at one point, but then they were picked up by Best Buy, and I hate that chain more than I hate consumer ISPs).

The day after I signed up, some Natural Wireless guys came to install an access point in my apartment so that I would get a better signal. For a returnable deposit, they also gave me a wireless bridge so that I could connect my networking gear to their network. At first this seemed like a good idea, but there was no encryption between the wireless bridge and the AP, making all of my traffic in the open.

I returned the bridge soon thereafter and lived with the wireless service for a while, re-intending to subscribe to Time Warner’s service, albeit at a higher price.

Then I had an afternoon of annoying phone calls with Time Warner (first they couldn’t locate my apartment number in their system, despite my neighbors being listed; then, they told me I could not get the promotional (better) price and no installation fee, costing me lots of money I don’t think I should have to pay and requiring a week’s wait).

I emailed Natural Wireless with a proposal to install a switch between their network and their AP, and then connecting my own router directly to the switch. I had indicated I was prepared to pay for the additional connectivity.

Ralph responded to me very quickly; not only did they accept my proposal, but were willing to lend me some equipment to do it, and could do the install on the next business day. Best of all: they aren’t charging me anything additional. Even better: Ralph must have picked up on the fact that I’m a geek, dispensed with the customer service-speak, and used acronym-heavy lingo. I really appreciate when customer service reps can speak to the level of their customer.

So now, I have a true and verified 3Mbps down and 3Mbps up, for $26 per month, no contract, and most importantly, no dealing with incompetency at the big ISPs. I’m even thinking of upgrading to their bigger plans ($30/mo for 5Mbps up/down, $45/mo for 10Mbps up/down), because of that last point.

Kudos to Natural Wireless. They’ve made this customer happy.

Some humorous things I’ve seen around the web lately.

Random statistic:

But what about the other 6% of young people? Spawns of the hellbeast, must be.

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You mean software vendors distribute patches to existing installs?

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This is from the website of a new condo building being built in my neighborhood.

“Where SoHo meets Tribeca” ? You must mean Canal St, but don’t want to make people think of Chinatown or hellish traffic.

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Wow. Who ever would have thought?

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For whatever reason, when I visited this website, my mind made an unconscious decision as to what kind of robot I was interested in…

While I’m not an NRA member, friends know that I am the proud owner of two of these babies. It seems some other people have had a similar interest in extremely-non-lethal weapons.

I’ve seen this a million times before and could see it another million times before I get bored. A little parkour action for your evening.

The New York Times published an article, “Long Reviled, Merit Pay Gains Among Teachers” which describes several initiatives to pay teachers based on the improvement of their students.

I find myself disagreeing with those who believe teachers should be paid this way. In thinking about all of the best teachers in my life, those who actually made a difference, whether they were teaching exactly what they were supposed to or not, probably would not have benefitted from having me or many of my peers in a class. What they offered us was definitely not anything measurable by standardized tests. They offered us knowledge and wisdom that was most certainly beyond the scope of any curriculum that any state committee could develop.

I highly disagree with using standardized tests in general. While I have tended to score fairly well on many of them, I realize that so many people who did not are denied opportunities they might have had without this movement toward standardization (a topic of a future rant, perhaps). Let measurement play a role in areas where measurement is legitimate and accurate; don’t force it into areas that it does not apply. Passion and enthusiasm cannot be expressed as a number. Keep standardized tests away from killing off the good teachers. They are the some of the only people that make people like me want to be educated.

I think these state legislatures should instead toy with killing off or heavily reducing tenure for any teacher below higher education. I’ve always found competition is a great motivator for success.

I got excited when I read this because the New York Law School is my neighbor.

At noon Pacific time today (June 18), members of the Peer-to-Patent project team will discuss the project on the New York Law School’s Democracy Island in Second Life.

(emphasis mine)

Sadly, I’m not geeky enough to have an avatar in Second Life.

We will return to regularly scheduled programming shortly.