Tampa on the other side of the Bay
Hell yeah I'm going to be back here tonight
Causeway to Clearwater
Very little faith left in Strava rankings. GPS variance may be to blame.
Got some first hand experience in the reliability of Strava rankings this weekend. Might be due to GPS variance but there may be more to it. Data collection and analysis may have something to do with it too. Either way, myself and others know the truth as of this weekends results. I give you exhibit A, a segment known as Riverview KOM. This is the result of my riding partners upload. Notice anything strange?
How did Juan average 21.7 MPH when his max speed on the segment was 19 MPH? Even better… how did these results rank him at 26th when all present on the ride know I chased a slower rider in a forward group to the top of this hill segment, in a brazen attempt to see if I could summit first and then I literally waited at the top of the hill for Juan to get to the top. I stopped and waited. And it wasn’t even recorded as my personal fasted time on that segment by my GPS. So is my Garmin Edge 500 to blame? Or is Juan’s iPhone 4s the culprit? The next questionable segment sheds some light on the blame.
Here is another very odd result of this ride that does in fact decide a KOM. I’m happy, almost proud, Juan got this KOM because it was his first ever but…. there’s another problem. I pulled Juan on this segment. The entire segment and in fact the entire road the segment is part of. His first comment to me upon seeing this KOM was “but you pulled me”. This was so close that I can only attribute the 10th of a second difference to GPS variance because I was indeed in front, and occasionally creating separation up to 2-3 bike lengths that Juan would have to make up. Further segment analysis proves data collection is the likely offender.
Here are the results of this KOM segment shown from Juan’s Strava profile and my own. Notice Juan’s top speed, 44.3 MPH. I assure you we never did 44 MPH on this segment. I’m confident because my bike was in front and my GPS reflects the more accurate 27.5 MPH top speed leaving me to believe it was Juan’s iPhone 4s skewing the results, giving Juan the KOM.
Before jealousy and animosity are presumed please understand while I care if the rankings are correct, I could not care less if they result in accolades for myself. Like I said I’m happier Juan got his first KOM regardless of how it occurred technically than if I got another. However I will no longer put a lot of faith in top Strava rankings separated by a second or two since I now have personal experience and first hand evidence there is some level of GPS reliability or data analysis skewing results.
The official Lucky Bike 100 route is closed until October.
How Windstream Business makes sure they are the WORST in customer service.
You hate Comcast customer service? Think the former Time Warner was evil to do business with? Ha! Amateurs. Windstream Business has engineered a way to make sure there is no direct customer service conduit available. They funnel everything through a single 800 technical support number. That magical number is 1.800.600.5050. If you or ever unfortunate enough to dial this number, plan for suicidal tendencies.
This time I dialed and was greeted with “Thank you for calling Windstream Business” then dead air for a total of 2 minutes and 47 seconds according to the call timer on my phone. Once you finally reach the automated attendant you get four options (verbatim as of the date of this posting):
- “If you are experiencing down or bouncing issue on T1 or DS3 services press 1”
- “an issue with data services such as Internet, Ethernet, MPLS or other managed services press 2”
- “If you are having trouble with POTS or local lines press 3”
- “Experiencing voice relate issues with voice services such as Voice over IP press 4”
Notice none of these options are for customer care or billing. None. They all transfer to “technical support”. Once you get one of these technical support representatives they will be very aggravated they have to handle a billing call because apparently the hand off to “customer care” is a painful process for them. They insist they must stay on the line because the possibility of getting cut off is a good bet. Then you wait 15-20 minutes. Once connected to customer care I voiced my complaint about the lack of number straight to them, having to go through technical support. My customer care representative said “it says for customer care use option 3”. Odd. I played the greeting I dialed into again:
3. “If you are having trouble with POTS or local lines press 3”.
I am not having a problem with POTS or local lines. I have a problem with bills you are sending me for data services that were turned down in April. This has precisely ZERO to do with POTS and local lines.
Windstream cut off some of our business services that we discontinued in April 2016. We are still getting bills for these accounts in August. They are disputing we never formally disconnected the account through our account rep, supposedly a person named Byron Ball. I was insured by “customer care” that my request for Byron Ball to contact us has been escalated. Despite several emails, no Byron Ball. Some at Windstream have told me he doesn’t work their anymore. Now they are telling me he does and will be giving me his bosses information.
Meanwhile they gave me Byron Balls bosses number, Bryon Waters. Now I get to call him and see what the excuses are. Chances I’m going to ever got to speak to Mr. Bryon Waters are damn near zero since all of this is just stonewalling by Windstream. Their goal is to get legally binding contracts signed to initiate billing and then forgo any semblance of customer care or account management.
If anyone thought Windstream might be better at business services than they are residential services, for which they’ve lost lawsuits, think again. This company is the worst in telecom. Do not make the mistake we did and select Windstream or their former Paetec as a carrier. Pay more to AT&T or Time Warner Telcom. They suck too but at least you get someone to talk to about the problems. What Windstream is doing deserves an FCC investigation, except the FCC is padded with government insiders. Another perk of the marriage between government and business. It’s not just residential consumers getting screwed, it’s businesses across America too. These corporations do not discriminate in who they rip off.
Tallest sunflowers I've ever seen.
Hillary Clinton may lose and Democrats will blame everyone but themselves.
More information keeps emerging confirming the DNC’s predetermined coronation of Hillary Clinton as the party’s Presidential nominee. Debbie Shutlz, in all of her arrogance, set forth an agenda to nominate the only Democratic candidate imaginable who may not be able to beat Donald Trump, the other worst Presidential candidate of all time. Party line liberals, the partisans, are doing themselves no favors with the angry, arrogant claims that independents must vote for Clinton because the alternative’s so much worse. Let me be very clear and not mince words: No voter is under any obligation to cast a ballot for a candidate they do not support. <- Now read that again.
The argument put forth from Hillary supporters (notice I did not say from the left as many on the left do not support Clinton) is that “not voting for Hillary is a vote for Trump”. No, not voting for Clinton is a vote not earned by Clinton. It is not equal to a vote for her opposition. That’s called a false equivalency. A lie. The truth is Trump will win because of votes he receives from supporters. Trump’s supporters will turn out, Republican’s vote. They also do not cross party lines easily to “hold their nose” and vote for the party’s opposition. Those in the GOP who do not support Trump will stay home. However we are learning about many Democrats who do plan to cross party lines and vote for Trump. Regardless of this being the result of policy position or in opposition to Clinton, Democrats already want to label any progressive not casting a Clinton vote a “BernieBot” or “Bernie Bro”. Whatever childish accusation makes them feel better. Fact still remains, Clinton hasn’t EARNED their vote. Now go back and read the last two sentences of my first paragraph.
The amusing arrogance of Clinton supporters is doing them no good either. Denial, insult, acting as if it’s some civic duty to vote against a candidate instead of for one. All childish antics akin to crying so they’ll get their way. Instead of presenting details to create support for Clinton their playground behavior amounts to “vote for her or else”! Or else what? Or else we get meltdown right instead of meltdown left? What they are completely failing to understand, what their partisan blinders are not allowing them to see, is that a whole lot of people despise Clinton as much as Trump. Oh no! How could that be? Worse than the perceived doofus, racist, Antichrist? Yes. Clinton is a maniacal liar of centurion proportions already sold to Wall Street interests. A foreign policy failure. Please pursuit all arguments of Republican witch hunts and manufactured crusades. Thinking people realize it’s not all bullshit. The woman’s made mad foreign policy mistakes. She jeopardized national security in “bad judgement… for her convenience”. Who the hell cares who did it before without scrutiny. Several past wrongs by others don’t make her pathetic decisions okay.
We will go through this election and Clinton supporters will emerge flabbergasted that Trump will be sworn in as President instead of the DNC’s anointed one. They will blame independents for not turning out. They will blame their “BernieBots”. They will blame anyone and everything but themselves for not putting forth a suitable candidate. No, that does not mean Bernie Sanders. They had a large pool of qualified Democrats to choose from. Debbie Shultz chose to anoint Hillary Clinton as the DNC’s candidate. “The end of civilization” as Trump’s ghost writer recently put it? Maybe so. Trump could have been averted. Democrats and the Democratic National Committee are responsible for putting forth Hillary Clinton as their Presidential nominee. Not those who do not support her. Own it. Do not blame others for the results of your ongoing bad judgement.
This field…
