Lee.org

The Clipper Card website wants to be useful and good… but it isn’t. It has lots of ridiculous text like this which is in alarmingly red print:

When you first set up Autoload, change your Autoload setup or update your Autoload funding source using a credit card, it may take up to 3-5 days for your new Autoload order to take effect. If you use a bank account, it may take 5 to 10 business days.

That could have been said far clearer with 60% fewer words:

Any changes to Autoload may take up to 5 days for credit cards and 10 days for bank accounts to complete.

Despite there being very few functions, it is hard to find what you’re looking for. For example, to turn Autoload on, you go to, straightforwardly enough “Set up Autoload” off the main menu. But to disable Autoload, you go to… ugh, I forget, I wandered the site for 5 minutes looking for the button before finding it. I think it was under “Check card value”

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Ah, but the reason I’m writing. Here is a tidbit I got from Customer Service that isn’t on their website anywhere:

My query:

I have autoload on the card and I have some Clipper Cash. I have noticed that the Clipper Cash never gets used, instead, the card autoloads from my credit card when it gets low. How can I used the Clipper Cash on my card?

And the response:

my paraphrasing:

Autoload supersedes Clipper Cash. You need to disable Autoload to use any Clipper Cash on your card.

Their overly wordy response:

In order to use the Clipper cash on your account, you will need to temporarily disable the BART HVD on your account. BART will not deduct from your e-cash balance as long as your autoload is available on the account. If you disable your HVD, BART will continue to deduct from that until the HVD balance is depleted, and then they will begin deducting from the e-cash balance. Once the e-cash balance on your account has been reduced, you may re-activate the BART HVD autoload.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Clipper Card Customer Service Center at 1-877-878-8883 (TDD/TTY 711 or 1-800-735-2929).

My upcoming Flame Effects class in LA topped BoingBoing.net on October 24th :-). Thanks to Mark Frauenfelder for posting and asking me to bring the class to LA in the first place. (The class)

This class has sold out. If you want to be alerted to future flame effects classes, please drop me an email at Lee at Lee dat org.

Learn several awesome things this weekend. Hang out with a coolio maker crowd in the Bay Area!

It’s 2 things: classes and hanging out between classes with people into learning and making. The format kinda reminds me of a science fiction convention.

Here’s the list of classes go look!
– Learn to Solder
– How to use the Arduino Tinker Kit
– Make a Tin Can 2-String / Intro to Instrument Making
– Sewing Circuits
– Build a Camping Stove
– Marble Roller Coasters
– Basic Electroluminescent Wire Workshop
– Flow-Wand
– An Introduction to Poi Spinning
– Going from Idea to Product for the Small Time Maker
– Beginning Web Development with PHP
– Wet Felted Flower Workshop
– Introduction to PCB Layout
– Fusing Plastic Fabric
– Conductive! Sew a Soft Circuit
– Spontaneous Magic
– The Internet & Computer Networks

Go trick or treating. Get candy. Eat it. Get that sugar buzz! Enjoy life.

Nobody has ever poisoned anybody with candy at Halloween. Really.

Read up:

Poisoned candy turns out to be a Halloween myth

Snopes: Halloween Poisonings (False)

Snopes: Pins and Needles (True but very very very rare)

I’ve been trying to use Google+, I really have. But here are a couple major reasons why it remains is irrelevant to me.

Here is a prime example. A friend of mine wrote on their Google Plus: (I have changed the text slightly to make it unsearchable and won’t post the name)

Sept 24th
After I changed the name on my other Google+ account, I got it back. However the people in my circles had been deleted. And the nickname I specified (in hopes people that knew me by that name could find it) doesn’t show up in my profile. To the extent I use Google+ at all (which looks dubious), it will be with this profile.

Sept 24th followup
Well, all my peeps on the other account mysteriously came back this afternoon. However, I still don’t think it useful to use that one, since no one would recognize me with the name that’s on it.

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Another major issue is that I keep getting Friend requests from people that I don’t believe I know. I’d like to write to them asking “Do I know you?” but there is no way for me to contact these people unless I join their circle and then publicly comment on one of their posts. That’s kinda dumb. Apparently Google+ doesn’t let you communicate one-on-one with people. It is only a one-to-many medium.

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Sifting though high volume vs low volume posters remains just as difficult as with Facebook. Some of my friends blog 3 times a day (“Had eggs for breakfast”), some once a month (“Got a new job”). I need an interface that lets me see the low volume posters!

(image credit)

This took quite a bit more time and effort than originally anticipated. But I’m pretty pleased with it.
Originally mentioned on my blog and on the DNA Lounge blog.

Go visit it this week at DNA Pizza, before nature claims it’s shiny buff job in place of a dark, sinister rusty patina.

Now the sign needs to get lit from behind (not my job), a bird shield added (my job), a little painting (not me), a little natural rust patina (nature’s job), some clearcoating, and total victory is ours.

Thanks go to Michael Kearney (pictured above) and Lou!

Update: this class has sold out! If you want to be alerted to future flame effects classes, please drop me an email at Lee at Lee dat org!

I’ll be teaching an intensive Flame Effects workshop on the weekend of November 5 and 6 2011 in association with Machine Project  in LA. Wanna go? Sign up on the Machine Project website!

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Flame Effects Workshop

Please please please understand that your phone number does not look like this:

415.555.1212

The use of periods in people’s phone number started during the Dot Com boom of 1999. People wanted their phone numbers to look more “internety”. By replacing the parenthesis and dashes with periods, your phone number resembles an IP address. But it isn’t.

It was a cute fad. But now more than ten years later, when you use dots in your phone number, you demonstrate that you do not know the difference between a phone number and IP address. It’s like writing the word “interweb” on your business card. It makes you look dumb.

The accepted ways of writing a phone number are:

(415) 555-1212  or  415-555-1212.

I prefer the latter because it uses fewer characters and the idea of an area code, the thing specified inside the parenthesis, isn’t important for many areas any more. In many urban areas there are overlapping area codes so you must dial all 10 digits. Simply put, a phone number used to be 7 digits long but now it is 10 digits long.  But don’t be distracted by this last point. Just know: don’t use periods in your phone number. It makes you look like a  Luddite.

Be there.

Nemo Gould, Eric Joyner, Mark Galt, Jeremy Mayer, Benjamin Cowden

Very cool event:

Kinetic Steam Works’ annual Roll Out event is coming up! Saturday, November 12th, from Noon to 10PM, come celebrate this autumnal steamy spectacular with us. There will be plenty of cottony cloud soft steam, food, beer/wine, a silent auction, mechanical entertainments mammoth and bijou, craft vendors, and a magnificent musical lineup including Lord Loves A Working Man, Beso Negro, Sour Mash Hug Band, Shovelman and others. Kinetic art and attractions include several wood fired steam engines including all 9-tons of “Hortense,” KSW’s lovingly restored 1923 traction engine, the Pumpkin Guillotine returns, steam powered abominable snow cones, Jon Sarriugarte’s “Serpent Twins,” Justin Gray’s jet-turbine powered “Robot Charlie,” Ben Cowden’s “Gathering” and “A Gentle Tugand,” and much more. We invite you to come on down and celebrate, you’ll be supporting Kinetic Steam Works, a unique nonprofit organization. $10 to $100 sliding scale. Kids under 12 get in free (they must be accompanied by an adult), the family rate is $20. Location Info: 2525 Mandela Parkway, Oakland, CA, 94607.