Author: jeff

Figuring out the mystery of T-Zones(tm)

I’m convinced that cellular phone companies keep dark basement cubicles full of evil marketing gnomes whose sole job is dreaming up ways to confuse and frustrate customers.

I thought it’d be cool to use my phone for browsing those new fangled web pages designed for mobile, and to be able to check my email. Having no idea how to go about this, I dug into the incredibly twisted world of marketing lingo, misdirection, and bad technological practices of T-Mobile.

Part 1: T-Zones(tm) Means Fun!

First, I went to the T-Mobile website and looked at their Services & Accessories page. Something called T-Zones(tm) is featured in a large box. What is it?

“The place to buy services—on your phone or on the Web. Check out all the fun and useful things available at t-zones.”

Okay. It has an icon that says “Web & Apps,” which sounds promising. Except… in a smaller box separate from T-Zones(tm), there’s also a list of “Other Services” that includes “Internet & E-mail Services.” What’s the difference? Well, obviously, T-Zones(tm) is “fun and useful” (trademarks will do that sometimes) whereas the other service isn’t.

Fine, I’ll bite. What does T-Zones(tm) Web & Apps give me?

E-mail on the go
Keep in touch while you’re out of the house. E-mail service lets you use your phone or other T-Mobile device to access personal e-mail from a variety of common providers so you’re never out of the loop.
[…]
Choose when and where you Web
Just $5.99 per month gives you unlimited access to mobile Web destinations and great capabilities—like reading, editing, and sending e-mail directly from your phone.

Sounds good, aside from the minor fact that web is not a verb. But how is it different from Internet & E-Mail Services? Well, the latter seems to be only for BlackBerry, Sidekick, and Smartphones. I consider my phone to be pretty snazzy, but I don’t know if it’s a Smartphone. How can I tell?

Luckily, there’s an FAQ on the side that tries to help out with this. Sort of.

Do I need a special phone to get Internet access?
Most phones can display text-only Internet by using T-MobileWeb service. To find a phone with a full Web browser, go to the Phones page and check the T-Mobile Internet check box.

Holy crap, that’s confusing. Checking off the T-Mobile Internet box doesn’t really show me Internet-capable phones, it shows phones with a FULL Web browser. “Most” phones are already capable of text-only Internet. Thanks for making that crystal clear!

Part 2: Wrestling with the phone

It would appear, then, that T-Zones(tm) is the right choice for my Nokia 6086. Which, incidentally, is NOT a Smartphone, after all. I do want “unlimited access to mobile Web destinations.” And if T-Zones(tm) makes it fun and useful, so much the better.

Frankly, the T-Zones(tm) menu item has always scared me. I didn’t know what it did, and it terrified me to think that I might click something by accident and discover a $1000 charge on my next bill. But this time, I clicked it. It brought up a little screen that sort of resembled a web page. I could navigate, just like using a regular web browser on a PC, to a screen that let me turn on T-Zones(tm) service for $5.99/month.

I suddenly understood. The T-Zones(tm) item is a simple mostly-text web browser. That’s all.

Which suits me fine. I can get the basic information I want, and I don’t really need the bells and whistles of a fancier phone with better browsing capabilities. On the other hand, I want to make the most of what the device can do. Googling around, I found that there’s a better browser, Opera Mini, that’s available for this phone. Why not try it out?

I transferred it successfully, but when I ran it, it showed the message: “Application access set to not allowed.”

It reminds me of that old passive voice trick, “War has been declared.” By whom, damnit?! Just who is it exactly who won’t allow this application to run? I want some answers.

Part 3: The mystery of T-Zones(tm) solved

Under the Option menu for the Opera Mini application, there’s an item called “App. access.” It’s what you’d use to grant permission to use the network. That’s a pretty good idea, since you don’t want applications secretly doing undesirable things on your phone. They’re written in Java, using a mobile API that has a strong security model built-in.

But on my phone, “App. access” is greyed out, disabled.

More Googling revealed that so-called unbranded Nokia 6086 phones let you adjust this setting, and Opera Mini works on them. But T-Mobile’s phones have that option deliberately disabled. Other users have reported this same problem with other applications that use the network as well.

So I can’t give Opera Mini permission to use the network, because the phone’s software has been crippled (a sadly un-P.C. word choice that’s stuck). By who? T-Mobile, that’s who.

What does this tell us about T-Zones(tm)? From what I can tell, and I might be wrong, both T-Zones(tm) and the more expensive Total Internet plan give you unlimited web access. The phones make the difference: lower-end consumers are forced to use the stock browser on crippled phones, while the more expensive service and application options are offered to users with high-end phones. This, in spite of the fact that your humble little phone might very well be capable of running applications that access the web. Definitely not very fun or useful.

It’d be like selling 2 models of Ferrari with the exact same engine, but one is capped at 50mph in the systems software. It’s capable of going faster, but it’s limited for no reason other than to encourage you to buy the faster, more expensive one. Which also happens to have a sunroof.

It’s fair to pay for a service, like network usage. It’s fair to pay for a device. But it’s bad business and bad technology to artificially disable goods simply to differentiate a product line. I don’t know how other T-Mobile customers feel, or if most of them even know about this aspect of their business, but to me, it’s downright insulting.

Pimping Python’s property()

A basic tenet of object oriented coding is encapsulation: expose the interface but hide the implementation.

Seductress that it is, Python makes it very tempting to violate this principle. Since all members of an object are public, it’s easy to access and modify them from outside. For example:

class Person:
    def __init__(self):
        self.age = None
jeff = Person()
jeff.age = 5 # maturity

Compare this with Java, where you can make a member private, and use “getters” and “setters”:

class Person {
    private int age;
    public int getAge() {
        return this.age;
    }
    public void setAge(int age) {
        this.age = age;
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Person jeff = new Person();
        jeff.setAge(5);
    }
}

The Java version has better encapsulation. If you decide later to change “age” to, say, a float, a string(!), or if you move it into another internally linked object, it’s no big deal. Just change the body of the getAge() and setAge() methods to do the typecasting or make the extra call, and you won’t need to change any other code. The implementation changes; the interface stays the same.

Of course, you could write getters and setters in Python, too, but you can’t enforce their use (data members are public, remember?). A better way is to do some magic using __getattr__ and __setattr__, although that could get messy, especially if you have a lot of names to intercept.

This has been bothering me for a while. Then I recently discovered the built-in function property(), which lets you rewrite the example above as follows:

class Person(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self._age = None
    def get_age(self):
        return self._age
    def set_age(self, value):
        self._age = value
    def del_age(self):
        del self._age
    age = property(get_age, set_age, del_age)
jeff = Person()
jeff.age = 5

Sweeeet. From the outside, nothing seems different: it still appears that you’re getting and setting age directly, just as before. But property() calls get_age and set_age transparently, giving you a layer that effectively provides encapsulation, even though you can’t tell from the outside. After all, that’s the whole point of encapsulation: you shouldn’t be able to tell from the outside.

In fact, this is actually better than how Java does it. A first version of Person might very well have age as a member which its users directly modify: this is intuitive and effortless, both conceptually and syntactically. Only later might you need to bring property() into the picture, as the object’s internals change or grow more complex. And that’s how it should be: more lines of code and more complexity only when you need it.

(Of course, you still can’t hide data members, but this still goes a long way towards better, though not complete, encapsulation.)

I can’t remember ever seeing property() mentioned anywhere in tutorials or introductory docs (it’s in the reference for built-in functions) That’s especially odd considering that one of Python’s strengths is its powerful object features. It would make sense to talk about this in the context of encapsulation. Plus I wonder how widespread the use of property() is in real world code.

Stuff like this is why I love Python.

Update: Some good comments over at reddit.

Thoughts at the Beginning of Something New (well, sort of new)

A few months ago, I decided not to finish my PhD in literature, and instead return to my prior career as a programmer. It was a huge decision. Since then, I’ve been freelancing and job hunting, with varying degrees of effort and success.

My biggest concern was to avoid repeating my experiences in the Bay Area dot-coms. Ah, those days of youthful innocence! Back then, getting paid to write code seemed like the most incredible thing ever. What more could you want? Needless to say, I burnt out quickly. The industry and people were insane, code quality was subordinate to unreasonable deadlines, and most important of all, I didn’t feel invested in the project ideas I worked on.

dilbert2666700071126.gif

I’ve learned that mission is very important to me. It’s why I’ve enjoyed grad school and and teaching, and why I’ve been good at them: I could get behind what I was doing. When I left, it was because I decided the profession and the current market weren’t right for me, not because I stopped believing in education, literature, and critical thinking.

So this time around, I’ve sent out resumes very selectively. Sadly, finding interesting companies was harder than I expected. And the companies I did want to work for had stringent requirements for certain credentials. Over time, my standards fell. I interviewed at a company working on mobile phone and web integration, and they made me an attractive offer. Though it wasn’t perfect, there were many good things about it, and I could see myself there for the next few years.

Then I got an email out of the blue. A friend had mentioned me to Crosscut, “a guide to local and Northwest news, a place to report and discuss local news, and a platform for new tools to convey local news.” They’re a group of established journalists thinking creatively about using the web while maintaining high standards of quality for regional coverage. Wow, I thought. New technology + socially important writing. Cool.

I’ll be starting a part-time position there next week.

Oh, there are aspects of the job that could be better. But it felt right to sign on to a project that I thought was worthy and important, even if I’m not making an insanely high salary or using the absolute coolest technology (read: python). How serendipitous that Giles Bowkett (whose blog I read regularly) should write today about “The Job I Want Next“: “Alternating between work and art was a mistake. I want to address my artistic interests in a consistent, dedicated way, and that includes programming.”

I’d like to keep as many of my interests consistently in my life as well, instead of jumping back and forth. It’s a good way to guarantee waking up each morning excited about the day. Sadly, it’s not easy to achieve. But I feel like I’m getting a little bit closer to it.

Mashup: Google Maps + Amazon Reviews

Saturday morning I woke up with a rather odd idea: to create a mashup of google maps and Amazon book reviews. I was mildly surprised to discover it hadn’t been done yet. Here’s the result of spending a chunk of the weekend writing it in python (11/15 Update: should now work in Safari, Firefox2, and IE6):

http://mapreviews.codefork.com

It didn’t take long to write, since I’d recently been investigating the google maps API for a friend, and I’d also been doing bits of Amazon integration for a project. The biggest pain was dealing with the 1 call per second per IP address rate limiting mechanism of Amazon’s ECS API: the service returns error codes if you exceed the limit. So the application is pretty slow, especially if others are also using it.

But if you’re patient, it’s fun to watch the map markers gradually pop up. It’s also fun to look up a book with strong political leanings, and see how the ratings are distributed geographically. For example, you can look at The Communist Manifesto by Marx, and Bill O’Reilly’s Culture Warrior (*shudder*). Data for both are cached, so they should load very fast.

The Uses of Torture

Discussions about torture in the public sphere seem like a classic case of people talking past one another. Military and government officials assert that torture is justified because it’s effective, an argument that the mainstream left refuses to directly engage with. In typical self-righteous fashion, lefties go for the moral, ethical, and legal arguments against the use of torture.

And I agree that torture is unethical. But I think it’s worth asking, is torture really that effective?! The very possibility of a “yes” makes the question offensive to most people, but it’s actually a pretty interesting one to ponder. I think the answer depends on what it’s supposed to be effective for.

It seems pretty stupid to torture someone to get information. I don’t have reports, statistics, or historical evidence to back this up. It just seems like common sense: push a human being right up to their threshold of withstandable pain and the brink of insanity, and you know, they might get a little disoriented. I wouldn’t bet my life on the names, dates or locations screamed out by someone in an oxygen-deprived state trying to avoid death by drowning. That’s just me. Maybe the military has different standards for information quality.

If torture doesn’t work, is it good for anything else? Sure, lots of things!

It’s good for putting the fear of God in your darker-skinned enemies. It’s good for quenching the populist thirst for revenge. It’s good for creating jobs for private security contractors while people back home can barely scrape by. In short, it’s good for distracting Americans from the real political and economic problems of the day. Problems that will impact ordinary people’s lives much more directly than any crazed terrorist ever will.