The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

EF6 "The default RetryManager has not been set" problem

Aw, buggre alle this for a Larke.

I'm all in favor of upgrades, but for Foucault's sake, don't break things. I'm trying to upgrade a .NET project to Entity Framework 6, and I want to smack the developers.

Under previous versions, you could set the retry manager through configuration. This was really helpful for unit testing, when you might want to change the configuration and have the application block load a transient fault handler automatically.

With Entity Framework 6 (EF6 — yes, this is blatant SEO), you have to set up the default transient fault handler in code:

[TestFixtureSetUp]
public void TestFixtureSetup()
{
	var strategy = new FixedInterval("fixed", 10, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(3));
	var strategies = new List { strategy };
	var manager = new RetryManager(strategies, "fixed");
	RetryManager.SetDefault(manager);
}

I mean, really? With EF6, you've got to put this code in every unit test sequence in your solution. Basically, that means you need to put it in every unit test file. Before, it had its own defaults.

Despite being all in favor of upgrades, I do get impatient when (a) the upgrade breaks existing code and (b) the entity performing the upgrade is one of the wealthiest entities in the history of business.

All right, then. Bring on the copy pasta...

Favorite morning of the year

Since we moved the end of Daylight Saving Time to the first week of November, sunrises at the end of October are later than those in mid-December. Yesterday's sunrise was the latest sunrise in a year, and will be the latest until 2016. (The sunrise on 6 November 2010 was the latest until 2021, so it really could be worse.)

In Chicago this morning, the sun rose at 6:26, the same time it rose on September 12th. It won't rise this early again until March 3rd—but then a week later we shift the clocks again so we get another 6:26 sunrise on April 6th.

National Geographic had not one but two articles on DST this weekend. Any conclusions? Some people don't like it and others do. The only conclusion I draw from reading both is whether DST benefits you depends on a lot of factors, geography preponderating.

I still don't know why we moved the fall switch from end of October to beginning of November in 2007. We want daylight for Hallowe'en? I really, really hate getting up before dawn, which wouldn't happen before Thanksgiving if we still used the pre-1986 (1st Sunday in October) rules; even the 1986-2006 regime (4th Sunday in October) would minimize it. Europe, including the UK, change their clocks the last Sunday in September and the last Sunday in March. That seems to work best for northern, cool climates—like Chicago. Maybe Illinois should go its own way, then?

Toronto: looks like Chicago, but has Detroit politicians

Sometimes, Canadians and Americans seem so much alike. The problem becomes trying to determine which Americans and Canadians you mean.

Exhibit: Police in Toronto have recovered a video they allege shows mayor Rob Ford smoking crack. (Ford's lawyer said it was pot—even though weed may also be illegal in Ontario.)

A friend who lives there just sent me new polling data that shows Canadians have a sense of humor:

A new poll released Friday shows Mayor Rob Ford’s approval rating has actually climbed since the announcement by Police Chief Bill Blair that a highly reported video does exist.

The Forum Research poll taken on Thursday shows that Mayor Ford’s approval rating has climbed slightly, sitting at 44 percent.

[Poll spokesperson Lorne Bozinoff added,] “We asked if he should resign or not, a large majority, 60 percent said yes.”

The poll also revealed that a staggering 98 percent of the people polled had heard about the alleged crack video.

No word from the pollsters whether people approve of Ford strictly for entertainment value.

Saturday morning on NPR

...brings us Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!, the NPR news quiz hosted by actor and playwright Peter Sagal. Last week, one of the panelists presented an extended joke about Poland. Never mind that the panelist is probably of Polish descent; the piece annoyed the Polish consulate:

Peter Grosz, an actor and TV writer who has appeared as a panelist and guest host on "Wait Wait," offered a supposed news item referencing a joke asking how many Poles it takes to screw in a light bulb.

Host Peter Sagal revealed the light bulb tale wasn't true, but instead another item about road-crossing chickens was the real news. Listeners later called "Wait Wait" and the Polish Consulate to complain that the joke was in poor taste.

In a letter to Danforth, Paulina Kapuscinska, consul general of the Republic of Poland in Chicago, said the joke played up false stereotypes of Poles and Poland. It presented National Public Radio, which distributes the show, as "promoters of prejudice," and such jokes "are some of the most unsophisticated of jokes, which offend the intellect of NPR listeners," Kapuscinska wrote.

[Show producer Mike] Danforth replied with an apology, which the Polish Consulate posted on its website Thursday.

"I can't disagree with your judgment that the content of our October 26th show was unsophisticated and insulting to the intellect of NPR listeners. I'm afraid just about everything we do on 'Wait Wait' offends the intellect of the NPR audience," Danforth wrote.

People. Please. Danforth is right; it's a comedy show. The volume of Jewish jokes that Jewish host Sagal tells every week should have been sufficient notice that maybe, just maybe, they might make fun of other stereotypes. Get over it.

Virgin's new safety video

Gulliver harrumphs:

For this observer, it's too long (around 90 seconds longer than Air New Zealand's "Bare essentials", for example) and actually quite annoying. Also, I don't think it does a particularly good job of fulfilling its primary purpose, which is to explain the safety-related features of the plane. With all the pizzazz and robot rappers, passengers will end up watching the dancing and admiring the production values, without actually digesting the message. It tries so hard to entertain the many flyers who are over-familiar with safety videos that it fails to explain clearly and simply to new flyers what they can expect. To top it all, Virgin America will have to change various scenes in the next few months now that the Federal Aviation Administration has decided to allow the operation of electronic devices on planes from departure gate to landing gate.

Well, fine, but you have to admire their spunk.

What if Politico covered the Civil War?

This was one of the funniest things I've read in a while:

PLAY-BOOK FACTS OF LIFE: If the president can convince the public that he emancipated slaves simply to preserve the union, the story will blow over. If it emerges that he actually issued the proclamation because he believes involuntary bondage is an immoral affront to human dignity, we could be looking at months of hearings.

NEW BATTLEGROUND POLL: Lincoln’s negatives are “through the roof” in Va., N.C., S.C., Ga., Miss., Ala., Louisiana, Ark., Tenn. PLAY-BOOK TRUTH BOMB: Lincoln is not going to improve these numbers if he refuses to press the flesh. A playbooker telegraphs: “I don’t know what happened to the gregarious guy we saw in 1860. Jeff Davis hasn’t been invited to the White House for cocktails once since Abe became president!”

It perfectly hits the, ah, policy-light priorities of Politico. I wonder if Schaffer will do more of these?

Glow-in-the-dark bike path from the UK

This rocks:

The so-called "Starpath" is a type of solar-enhanced liquid and aggregate made by Pro-Teq Surfacing, a company headquartered southwest of London near the awesomely titled town of Staines-upon-Thames. It's in the prototype phase, with a test path running 460 feet in a Cambridge park called Christ's Pieces. (The British and their delightful names!) The material works by absorbing UV rays during the day and later releasing them as topaz light. In a weird feature, it can somehow adjust its brightness levels similar to the screen of an iPhone; the path gets dimmer on pitch-black nights "almost like it has a mind of its own," says Pro-Teq's owner, Hamish Scott.

Pro-Teq is hoping that governments will embrace its self-aware, supernatural-looking pathway for its energy-saving elements and the ease in which it goes down. The installation is fairly quick (the Cambridge job took about 4 hours), and because it's a resurfacing technique doesn't involve the burdensome disassembly and disposal of existing pathways. "The main bulk of the U.K. path network is tarmac, where perhaps it's coming toward the end of its useful life," says Pro-Teq pitchman Neil Blackmore in the below video. "We can rejuvenate it with our system, creating not only a practical but a decorative finish that's certainly with the Starpath also very, very unique."

From the company's press release:

This product has recently been sprayed onto the existing pathway that runs through Christ’s Pieces open space, Cambridge between the city centre and the Grafton Centre, and is used by pedestrians and cyclists during the day and night.

The Cambridge pathway measures 150 square metres, took only 30 minutes to spray the material on, and the surface was ready for use less than four hours after the job commenced. This short installation time allowed minimal disruption to the public.

Bike hike to Cambridge, anyone?

Customer service that can't think for itself

I just received an alert on a credit card I used to share with an ex. The account, which is in her name since we split, has a small balance for the first time in 6 years.

There are two possibilities here, which should be obvious:

1. My ex does not know I still receive alerts on her credit card.

2. My ex does not know the card is active again.

Regardless of which is true (and they both may be), she needs to know about it. Given that (2) could expose her to liability for fraud, so does the card issuer.

So I called Bank of America to point out these twin possibilities, and after arguing with their phone system for five minutes, finally got to speak with an agent. I cannot say the conversation went well. After I explained the situation, I said, "so you should let her know about this."

"Is Miss ---- there with you?"

"What? No, we haven't seen each other in years, which is why this is so odd."

"OK, but without her authorization I can't give out account information."

"I don't want any account information. You need to tell her that I am getting account information by email, and that an account I thought we closed in 2007 is active again."

"OK, she is getting the alerts too, so I will make a note on the account for when she calls in next time."

"She may not be getting the alerts, if she has a new email address. Look, I'm talking about potential fraud here, you need to call her today."

"OK, we will call her and let her know."

Look, I understand that some aspects of technology security are too esoteric for most people, and I'm sorry there wasn't a Customer Service script for this. But some flaw in B of A's systems allowed personal financial data to leak to someone who shouldn't have it (me), in such a way that the account owner (my ex) doesn't know about the leak. I'm trying to help you here.

Also, I'm posting these details here on the off-chance they don't let her know and that she ever reads this blog. So, if this post applies to you, I did what I could. And you may want to switch to a less-moronic card provider.

The usability of HealthCare.gov

Jakob Nielsen's company has written a detailed analysis of how the Federal Health Exchange screwed up usability:

The HealthCare.gov team has suffered what most web professionals fear most: launching a broken web application. This is particularly harrowing given the visibility of the website in question. The serious technical and data issues have been covered extensively in the media, so we won’t rehash those. Instead, in this article we focus on how to improve the account setup process. This is a user experience issue, but fixing it will also alleviate the site's capacity problems.

Account Set-up Usability is Mission Critical

Account setup is users’ first taste of a service. A suboptimal account setup can spawn 3 problems:

  • Increased service cost: When people can’t self-service online and you have no competitors, they call you. Call-center interaction is more expensive than web self-service. In 2008, Forrester estimated call-center calls to cost $5.50 per call versus 10 cents for a user who self-services online.
  • Increased cognitive strain: The instructions for creating usernames and password in this flow (which we address further along in this article) require a great deal of concentration, and if users don’t understand the instructions, they will need to keep creating usernames and passwords until they are accepted.
  • Halo Effect: Account setup is the first in a series of web-based interactions that users will need to conduct on HealthCare.gov. A poor experience with this first step will impact how people feel not only about subsequent interactions with the site, but how they feel about the service in general and the Affordable Care Act as a whole.

The discussion around our office hinges on two things other than usability: first, give us $2 million (of the $400 million they actually spent) and we'll build a much better site. Second, the biggest problems come from the insurance companies on the back end. Users don't care about that; they just want to get health insurance. As Krugman says, though, there really wasn't a way to get the insurance companies out of the equation, and that, more than anything, is the foundation of all these other problems.

Dark mornings

The week between when we used to switch back to Standard Time and when we do so now (since 2007) makes me want to stay in bed.

This morning sunrise happened at 7:18 and will slouch out to 7:25 on Saturday morning. It's the latest sunrise we'll have for three years, and it's 45 minutes after I usually get up in the morning.

I know a lot of people prefer more light in the afternoon. I don't care, really. Sunday the sun sets at 16:42; but it rises at 6:26, and gives me another month before the sun rises after 7 again. Then, of course, there's the slog from December 2nd to February 4th...but what can you do?

Just having a moan. You can ignore this post.