Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

Last night after all my Thanksgiving guests had left, I ended up watching a program on the History Channel about UFOs and what may happen if an alien intelligence ever decided to visit us. I’m a bit of a space junkie and I have my own ideas about extraterrestrial intelligence. I understand the hurdles of interstellar travel and the extent of technology required for such undertakings.

I think it’s safe to say that any visitors to the Earth would be much more technologically and scientifically mature than we are. In the grand scheme of things, 10,000 years isn’t even a snap of the fingers, and, considering the almost exponential scientific and technological progress of the western world over the last century, imagine what a similar, dedicated extraterrestrial society could accomplish in 10,000 years’ time. It’s literally unimaginable. If another technological civilization is just a proverbial blink of an eye older than we are, then it’s likely they’re more advanced than we are as well.

The show I was watching last night backed up that idea to an extent. Witnesses reported craft that hung silently in the air, made right-angle turns while moving, shot away from them at tremendous speeds, all seemingly in disregard for the laws physics, or at least the well-being of passengers, as we know them. These witnesses painted a picture of spacecraft that are not to be messed with. Extraterrestrial intelligences seem to visit the Earth, originating from presumably astronomical distances, in small, zippy, maneuverable craft that seem to challenge reality… Except for one mistake the aliens seem to regularly make…

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WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

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Target has probably taken this page down by now, but here it is captured for those of you who missed it:

Yes, add it to your wish list.

Here’s the full page for those who care.

My friend Todd has generously provided colo space and bandwidth for the server that provides you aaronadams.net. He’s out of the country at the moment and had some new racks coming in that needed to be set up, so I volunteered to help him out, along with two of his employees, Mike and Brian. We decided it would be fun to make a time-lapse movie of our racks being built. Read more to learn about the setup and download the movie.

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In this and other iterations of my blog, I’ve written about the kinds of responses I’ve gotten from Apple when it comes to warranty repairs or similar kinds of service. I mention it not because Apple offers something others don’t, but because they’re so good at it, at least in my experience.

Here’s the latest example. Yesterday afternoon, I discovered the left earbud in the set that came with my iPod, which I purchased 18 months ago, was dead. At about 3:30 PM, I went to the Apple support site and requested a replacement set as part of the iPod AppleCare I purchased last year. This morning at 8:51 AM, the DHL delivery person arrived at my door with the replacements. I’m pretty impressed by that.

Some reader of this entry is thinking, “That’s no big deal. Company X did the same for me when I needed a replacement part. So what?” That’s all fine and dandy Ñ I’m not asserting that Apple is the only company able to respond so quickly. I feel compelled to point this out because there are so many bad service departments, so many companies that do an awful job of dealing with customers (Volkswagen enters my mind), so many companies that are a serious pain in the ass to deal with. Unhappily, those companies seem to be the norm. Good experiences are more rare, and when one happens, I’m happy to point it out.