DIGI: Telecommunications on a geological timescale

One of the things I have learned during my stay in Portugal is that the relationship between paying for a service and actually receiving that service is considerably more philosophical than I had previously imagined. The telecommunications industry, it turns out, offers some particularly interesting examples.

When we moved to Coimbra, I needed home internet and two mobile phone lines. I had been using a prepaid Vodafone SIM purchased at the airport, which worked perfectly well but was not an ideal long-term solution. DIGI, a relatively new telecommunications operator in Portugal, offered an attractive package with fiber internet and two mobile lines for substantially less than the established providers. As someone who appreciates a bargain, I decided to give them a try.

One Saturday, I visited DIGI's physical store in Baixa, Coimbra. The employees were very pleasant and helpful. They checked my address, confirmed that fiber was available in my building, and signed me up for the service. I was told that I would receive an SMS on my Vodafone number to schedule the installation. Everything seemed straightforward, which should probably have raised my suspicions.

I also asked when the two SIM cards would become active. The answer was 72 hours, although, because it was Saturday, those 72 hours would only begin on Monday. Apparently, DIGI's telecommunications infrastructure observes the weekend and does not believe in counting time while its employees are resting. This struck me as peculiar, since activating a SIM card is something mobile operators generally manage in minutes or hours. But I was getting an excellent price, and perhaps DIGI was using a particularly thoughtful activation procedure. Some things simply cannot be rushed, like aging wine, curing cheese, or, apparently, provisioning a mobile telephone number.

Since I had no idea when the fiber installation would take place, I asked whether I could use the mobile lines as hotspots in the meantime. The employees assured me that I could. Excellent. Even if the home internet took a few days, I could continue working. I left the store with two SIM cards and the pleasant feeling that I had just made a financially responsible decision.

On Monday, DIGI sent me an SMS informing me that my internet installation had been delayed. This was extraordinary because nobody had scheduled the installation yet. There was no appointment, no date, no time, and no technician expected at my door. Somehow, DIGI had managed to delay an event that had never been arranged. I was genuinely impressed. Most organizations struggle to keep appointments they have actually made, but DIGI had advanced to the next level of administrative incompetence: failing to meet commitments that did not yet exist.

I found this intriguing. Our perception of time is notoriously unreliable, but DIGI seemed to be operating under a completely different temporal framework. Perhaps the installation existed in some quantum state, simultaneously scheduled and unscheduled, until a technician observed it. Unfortunately, the only observation I had received was that it was already late.

By Thursday, one of the SIM cards had finally become operational. I had a videoconference scheduled and decided to test the mobile hotspot, as the employees had suggested. Unfortunately, the hotspot option was unavailable on my phone. After some unsuccessful attempts to make it work, I gave up and used my old Vodafone SIM instead. Vodafone, despite its considerably less attractive pricing, had the irritating habit of functioning when required.

On Friday, I decided to investigate the second DIGI SIM. This one was even more interesting. It had no mobile data, and my phone indicated that the SIM was not associated with any telephone number. I suspected that the activation process had never actually been completed, a hypothesis that seemed reasonably consistent with the available evidence.

I called customer support and explained the problem. The representative was very polite, but he appeared unwilling to entertain the possibility that DIGI might have failed to activate the SIM. Instead, he embarked on an elaborate diagnostic procedure involving restarting my iPhone, changing settings, removing the SIM, installing it in an Android phone, restarting that phone, changing more settings, and repeating various combinations of these activities.

I complied, partly because I wanted the service to work and partly because I was becoming curious about how far we could take this experiment. The representative seemed convinced that if we restarted enough devices in the correct sequence, the missing telephone number might eventually materialize. After nearly an hour, however, even he appeared to lose faith in the therapeutic properties of rebooting electronics and he transferred me to another representative. I explained the situation, again, including the extensive troubleshooting we had just completed. The second representative immediately began instructing me to restart the phone and check its settings. I asked whether he could see the notes from the previous hour of troubleshooting... He could not.

This was a remarkable discovery. DIGI, a company specializing in telecommunications, apparently lacked a mechanism for communicating information between its own customer service representatives. The first hour of my life had vanished into the corporate equivalent of a black hole and the second representative was fully prepared to spend another hour recreating it.

There is a certain some twisted elegance to this approach. By ensuring that each representative begins with no knowledge of previous interactions, the company can provide every customer with a completely fresh troubleshooting experience. The possibilities are endless. A sufficiently patient customer could spend an entire afternoon restarting the same telephone for different representatives, each approaching the problem with the enthusiasm of someone encountering a smartphone for the first time. 

At this point, I decided that the experiment had produced enough data and I cancelled the contract. Subsequently, I arranged home internet and mobile service through Vodafone. It costs more than DIGI, but the internet works, the mobile lines work, and I can use my phone as a hotspot. These are features I had previously regarded as basic requirements of a telecommunications service. After my experience with DIGI, I have come to appreciate them as premium amenities.

The story might have ended there, a few weeks later I received a charge from DIGI for slightly less than two euros. Apparently, the company believes it provided me with some billable services during our brief relationship. I am not entirely sure which ones. One SIM card eventually activated, another apparently never did, the hotspot did not work when I needed it, the fiber installation was delayed before anyone had scheduled it, and customer support provided an extensive practical demonstration of the limitations of institutional memory.

In fairness, the employees were consistently pleasant. They also provided me with an unexpected education in temporal paradoxes, experimental troubleshooting, and the philosophical distinction between possessing a SIM card and possessing a functioning mobile telephone service. Perhaps the two euros represent tuition.

The whole experience has left me with a newfound appreciation for Vodafone. I have no particular affection for the company and I am certain it has its own impressive collection of institutional absurdities. Nevertheless, it has mastered one essential aspect of telecommunications: when I pay for internet access, I can generally access the internet. I used to think that was the minimum acceptable standard. Apparently, it is a competitive advantage.

This post is sponsored by Vodafone Portugal. 

Portuguese railways: An experiment in human compression

 On Sunday, October 18, I was returning to Coimbra from Galicia by train, boarding in Valença, just across the border from Spain. The journey is supposed to take roughly three and a half hours. I should mention that I am a big fan of trains because they offer considerably more freedom than traveling by car. You can read, watch a movie, sleep, or even get some work done. Indeed, I was planning to spend the journey working on my laptop. Since I am an hourly-paid contractor these days, this meant I could literally get paid while traveling. What could possibly go wrong?

Ordinarily, the regional trains on this route provide the kind of accommodation one might reasonably expect for a journey of this length. Comfortable enough seats, electrical outlets, and some recognition of the fact that passengers may wish to spend several hours sitting down. There is also usually a nice folding table for your laptop. Unfortunately, this time the Portuguese railway operator, CP, had other plans.

The train waiting for us in Valença appeared to be a suburban commuter unit. Imagine a city bus placed on railway tracks, designed to carry people across town, and then imagine being asked to spend three and a half hours in it. The seats were intended for short trips, the accommodation was minimal, and the capacity was clearly inadequate. Still, I had boarded in Valença, so at least I managed to get a seat. As for the absence of a table, well, there is a reason they call it a laptop. I put the computer on my lap and started working. As it turned out, having a seat was a privilege I had seriously underestimated.

As we traveled south, I began to notice, out of the corner of my eye, that more and more passengers were boarding. I was concentrating on my work, so it took me a while to appreciate the scale of the problem. Eventually, the train became increasingly crowded, with people standing everywhere. By the time we reached Barcelos, it was obvious that the train could not accommodate everyone who wanted to board.

This was particularly interesting because CP had been selling tickets for the service. Presumably, there should be some relationship between the number of tickets sold and the capacity of the train provided. These were paying customers, after all, whose desire to travel should hardly have come as a surprise. Somewhere in the planning process, however, someone had apparently decided that the number of passengers had no necessary relationship with the number of people who could fit on the train.

Then things became more interesting. The train backed out of Barcelos station. Why? Nobody seemed entirely sure. We reversed for a while and stopped. At this point, I entertained several theories. Perhaps we had forgotten a passenger. Perhaps the driver had taken a wrong turn. Perhaps CP had discovered that Coimbra was, somehow, in the opposite direction.

Eventually, it became apparent that they were trying to solve the capacity problem by adding another train in Barcelos. This was probably a sensible idea, although it might have been even more sensible to make that decision before the original train became overcrowded. Arranging the additional capacity, however, required an extraordinary amount of time.

There was an additional complication. This was the last train to Coimbra that day. Leaving passengers behind would have been quite an achievement, even by the standards already established. Eventually, we got moving again, and for a brief moment, I thought the situation had been resolved. Then, when we reached Porto, the railway staff instructed us to change trains, and we dutifully complied.

I lost my seat.

Consider the sequence of events. I had boarded in Valença, secured a seat, and spent part of the journey productively working on my laptop. CP then discovered that it had insufficient capacity, interrupted the journey, located another train, and reorganized the passengers. The result was that I found myself standing in another train, unable to continue working. CP had somehow managed to increase the number of available trains while reducing my personal comfort and eliminating my ability to earn money during the journey.

This was quite an accomplishment. I had started the journey seated, with a laptop and a source of income. The railway company had intervened to improve the situation, and I was now standing, holding a laptop that had suddenly become unemployed.

At this point, I considered asking the conductor for a certificate documenting the delay, something that might help with a complaint or compensation claim. The difficulty was locating the conductor. Given the mood of the passengers, I suspected that the conductor had developed a perfectly reasonable interest in remaining somewhere else. I could hardly blame him. He was probably having a considerably worse day than I was, although presumably he was still being paid for it.

I should emphasize that the situation was not the result of a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or a sudden geological event that had severed the railway. This was an ordinary train journey between two Portuguese cities, along an established railway line, with passengers who had purchased tickets. Somehow, CP had managed to turn it into an improvised transportation exercise.

I have spent much of my career studying the brain. One of my research interests is how behavior emerges from neural systems, and how relatively simple processes can produce unexpectedly complicated outcomes. The Portuguese railway system suggests an entirely new line of research. I would particularly like to identify the neural mechanisms involved in selling tickets for a train, providing insufficient capacity, and then appearing genuinely surprised when the passengers turn up.

There may be an Ig Nobel Prize in it.

Portugal: A field report on the difficulty of doing simple things

When we decided to spend a year in Portugal, I had certain expectations. Good food, excellent weather, historical cities, a slower pace of life, and the opportunity for the children to experience living in another country.

I also expected occasional bureaucratic absurdities. After all, I grew up in Spain. Nobody raised on the Iberian Peninsula expects the authorities to make life easy. In Spain, obtaining a document can require presenting another document certifying that you have requested the document needed to request the original document. This is perfectly normal. We have been doing it for centuries.

Portugal, however, has taken things in an interesting direction. After several months in Coimbra, I have come to believe that the Portuguese have developed an almost artistic ability to complicate tasks that nobody had previously considered difficult. Their achievements in architecture, navigation, literature, and gastronomy are undeniable. Their ability to connect a dishwasher to a water supply is more open to debate.

I have been collecting observations and what will follow is my preliminary report.

As outras linguas son irrelevantes

O curioso desta historia é que algo que para min é obvio, resulta absolutamente absurdo ou sinxelamente é irrelevante para unha gran parte da poboación do reino de España. Entre as cales se atopa a cónsul en Chicago.

Vaia por diante que as poucas veces que fun ao consulado o trato foi axeitado e a competencia dos que alí traballan foi salientábel. Por outra banda, fóra diso o trato que teño coa oficina consular é nulo. Onte chegou un email do consulado desexándome bo natal e a verdade é que normalmente tería rematado no lixo virtual se non fose por un detalle. Mirade o correo en cuestión:

Está mirado? Ben. Notades algo raro? Resulta que o cartón de Natal electrónico está en español, o cal é unha opción obvia, e tamén en inglés, que tamén é lóxico dada a localización. Ou pouco máis raro é que tamén estea en francés, ruso, chinés e árabe. Entendo que a idea é ser internacionais o cal desde logo eu non vou criticar porque é boa cousa. O meu problema xurde coas ausencias, as do catalán, o basco e o galego. Supoño que será porque non son linguas españolas...

Feliz Natal!

Cousas que un debe facer cando visita os EUA: disparar

Unha das preguntas máis habituais que me fai a xente en Galiza cando digo que vivo nos EUA é se xa merquei unha pistola. Deixando a un lado as consideracións morais, o certo é que ter unha arma en Chicago é bastante complexo. Na cidade a posesión de pistolas era ilegal até hai moi pouco (cando a corte suprema decretou a lei anticonstitucional) e incluso agora a posesión de armas está extremadamente regulada. En esencia, ademais de ter que rexistrarse coa policía, as armas só poden terse na casa (por exemplo: o garaxe e o alpendre non se consideran parte da casa para efectos da lei), e deben transportarse desmontadas. Por se isto non fose abondo, as tendas de armas son ilegais na cidade de Chicago.

Afortunadamente, existen lugares máis civilizados como Cincinnati (Ohío) onde este tipo de consideración son innecesarias e un pode adicarse a ese fermoso pasatempo que é dispararlle a cousas sen que medien gobernos entrometidos. Así que aproveitando a fin de semana, aí fumos a ver cal é o atractivo do asunto. Como son un home sensíbel, escollín para comezar un clásico cun calibre razoábel, unha Ruger MKIII cal. 22. E como non todo o mundo é coma min, un dos nosos amigos escolleu a nada sensíbel Glock 21. Moi semellante á polivalente Glock 17 en deseño, pero como os 9mm quédanlle pequenos ao redneck medio, os austríacos foron moi listos e sacaron para o mercado americano unha versión 45 ACP... unha semiautomática como deus manda, vaia.

A sensibilidade e a delicadeza feitas pistola: Ruger MKIII

Porque o tamaño (das balas) importa: Glock 21

A pesar do pouco aprezo que lle teñen en Ohío ao nanny state, un ten que seguir unha serie de regras básicas na galería de tiro, a miña norma favorita é sempre tratar unha pistola coma se estivese cargada. Semella que os Borbóns prefiren ignorar esta regra, o cal serve para dar de comer á prensa do corazón e aos historiadores.

Eu sendo sensíbel coa Ruger

Calquera que teña disparado unha espingarda de balíns pode comprender en que consiste o de dispararlle a brancos a diferentes distancias. A MKIII definitivamente ten moito disto en canto a peso e comportamento, até o punto de que a miña pontaría foi bastante boa e a sensación foi de estar a disparar nunha feira. A maior diferenza cunha feira era a Glock 21 no posto do lado que facía un ruído da ostía (mellor descrición posíbel). Pasar da Ruger á Glock foi como pasar de facerlle agarimos a un gatiño a espertar un león dándolle unha patada nos collóns. Facer dous tiros seguidos sen voltar a ter que apuntar é imposíbel, con independencia de canto te amarres á pistola. Desde logo, aqueles que buscan sensación de poder ao disparar unha pistola, deben decantarse pola Glock.

A miña sensibilidade foi ao carallo tras disparar coa Glock

O meco de papel está moi morto despois da miña falla de sensibilidade

Así que xa sabedes, se queredes matar follas de papel (tamén as hai con tipos ameazantes ou zombies), visitade Cincinnati porque disto en Chicago non hai.

O que o ministro de Educación non dixo

Pois o que non dixo foi isto:


"El ministro de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, José Ignacio Wert, ha anunciado este jueves que desarrollará "medidas de puesta en valor de la educación, y ayudas de acción y promoción cultural en el mundo de la educación". Para todo ello, se comprometió a convocar la Comisión Consultiva Nacional de Asuntos Educativos, y ha añadido que el Ministerio "participará activamente en las iniciativas nacionales e internacionales" que se emprendan para considerar a la educación "patrimonio inmaterial"."

E o que dixo foi o seguinte: http://www.europapress.es/cultura/exposiciones-00131/noticia-wert-anuncia-puesta-valor-tauromaquia-20120202111159.html 

En época de crise hai que ter as prioridades claras, home!

Confirmado

Por se alguén tiña algunha dúbida, Mariano Rajoy vai ser o próximo presidente do goberno. Entre unha chea de declaracións de boa vontade e referencias á grandeza de España, mencionou que quere ser presidente de todos os españois. A verdade é que esa é unha declaración que me preocupa por parte dalguén que foi un gran estudante de dereito, ao fin, para ser o presidente de todos os españois, España tería que ser unha república.

Este debe ser o detalle máis irrelevante de todo o discurso, pero prefiro un presidente do goberno que se debe aos seus votantes a un que se debe a algo tan difuso como todos os españois.