Huffman Coding

I get a handful of these e-mails each year. This guy didn’t give up until it was too late.

Original e-mail:

From: Sundarram V. Paravastu [mailto:pvsundarram@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 12:31 PM
Subject: need help

Air Conditioners and Computers are similar in some ways. Both are
useless when you open ‘Windows’.

My response:

Paravastu,

Ken

His response:

ken,
the thing is i dont know java properly and also dont have enough time for me to learn and then code. got to submit my assignment tomorrow. it will be of great help to
me if u give the code of the decoder.
thanx anyway

My second response:

Can you give me the e-mail address of your professor? I’d like to verify that this is okay with him.

Him:

ken,
i ll get screwed if u tell this to my prof.
i am basically a C programmer thats why i am asking ur help
i dont know much about java
i am planning to learn java but its a bit too late now

Me:

Somehow I doubt your professor gave you this assignment just today.
It appears your decision to procrastinate not learn Java has you screwed already.

Him:

i have to submit this assignment tomorrow and i dont kno a thing abt java
i would really appreciate if u give the code

Me:

You are asking a total stranger to help you cheat.

Him:

come on ken
u are just helping a needy student
and where does this word cheat fit in

Me:

I assume by the word “needy” you mean “lazy.”
You want to pass off my code as your own.
How can that not be considered cheating?

Him:

ken,
i wont tell that its totally my code
i will tell him that i fixed many bugs in code and that code is under gpl
will have ur name on the file
and this is not cheating
are u really a opensource programmer
if u r a opensource programmer may be u should share ur program with the community.

Me (after a google search):

The point of open source code is not for one person to do the homework for many.
The point of college is to learn a profession, not to learn how to search google and e-mail.

It would be a lie to tell your professor that you fixed many bugs in my code.
And with absolutely no Java experience, I find it offensive that you would claim to correct me.
I have contacted the professors at Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering.

Him:

what have you done
you could have just turned me down
you have literally screwed me
how could you that
i am screwed

I’ve had my Vonage Voice-Over-IP phone service for 150 days.

How do I know? The rebate spreadsheet that I keep indicates that it took 147 for the last of the three Vonage rebates to arrive in the mail.

So how many mail-in offers have you seen that said you should “Allow 21 weeks for delivery.” It is a personal rebate best. Er, rather, worst.

That beats the three rebates checks that came in the mail today: two hard drive rebates (96 days) and a Listerine rebate (114 days).

In addition to the one everyone’s been giving to, this week I also wrote a check to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, another worthy charity. While it helps that I bike and he does too, the reason I give is that it is the right thing to do. And if he sends me another yellow wristband or a hat, that’s okay too.

More than a year ago, Chris bought purple and white Adoption=Love wristbands for the family. She promptly squirreled them away never to be worn.

Nowadays you can get just about any color wristband to support the cause of your choice. Chris even received a black and blue wristband from her boss, an orthopaedic trauma surgeon, last year. Get it? Black and Blue. Orthopaedic Trauma! Those surgeons are such cut ups.

My buddy Lance was once asked what he thought of those other colored, laser-etched silicone wristbands. He thought it was okay as long as they supported other non-profit causes. He wasn’t keen on people selling them just to make a buck. I kinda agree.

Well at the checkout stand of my local grocer’s this night, they were selling “Collect-A-Band” wristbands. Ten silicone wristbands in assorted colors for $4.99. They didn’t say anything and not a penny went to charity. And one of the ten was that famous yellow color.

So instead of spending a whopping buck to support real cancer research, you can now spend $5 and make up ten worthy causes that you can pretend to support. Fallen arches, Heartbreak of Psoriasis, … your options are only limited by your principles.

Just when I thought I had seen the worst hate in America…

21-year-old Specialist Edward Myers gave his life for America. At the Grace Evangelical Church funeral, a group had the gall to picket with signs:

God Hates America (held by a young girl)
God Hates You
Thank God for IEDs

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a protestor, indicated the soldier was in hell now.

Ug. Unbelievable.

You know, when I read this three weeks ago, I thought it was funny.

I no longer find it as humorous.

This is a picture of

Kids Fluoride Rinse.
Drug Mart Brand.
Alcohol Free.
Grape Flavor.

Childproof mouthwash for kids

With a childproof cap.

10 minutes ago, I had to explain how to open it to Marissa and Katie. Anyone see a problem here?

Ah, I found an air-conditioned library. The first three days of GOBA I’ve been without air conditioning and out of cell phone range.

Last year the GOBA route was hilly and scenic. This year it is flat and corn field after corn field. Today, an optional day, there was a change of scenery: We tooled by Marbled Head, Lakeside, and Catawba Island. Very nice.

The only hiccup this week so far was the lack of food at the lunch stop on Monday. Food is provided by local non-profits, with hints from the organizers as to the type of items we like.

The organizers also inform the locals as to when the riders will be riding through town. The riders start the ride anywhere from 6:30am to 9:30am. (To avoid the heat of the day, I tend to be among the early bunch.) This means “lunchtime” on the road is anywhere between 8am and about noon. Despite lots of warning as this timeframe, the church ladies are frequently taken aback by sweaty guys expecting to be fed lunch at 8am.

The Monday food provider apparently showed up at 9am. Way late. Several dozen sweaty, smelly riders went hungry. I was one of them.

After several contacts with their customer service and a couple of expired deadlines, my Sprint PCS rebate check finally came yesterday. W00t!

In celebration, everyone who stops by my office this week with will qualify a free soft drink. (Allow 8 weeks for delivery.)

Because I know the life of my readership is so incomplete without hearing about my hassles with rebates, I though I’d post my sixth message on the topic.

When I last prodded Sprint PCS about my cell phone rebate, they promised that they would mail me the $150 rebate within 30 days. Since that was more than 30 days ago, I e-mailed them again. It has like pulling teeth with them. They now tell me that I should wait another 20 days. We are approaching 60 days total without reimbursement.

Speaking of that 60 days, one of the conditions of getting the phone rebate was that I had to sign up for their useless and overpriced “Vision” web package. This wasn’t a problem because they only required that I sign up for it (there was no minimum contract length) and it was free to try for the first two months. As I expected, I barely used the service: I think I looked up a movie time once at a restaurant because I was too lazy to go to the car and grab the newspaper. So with my free period coming to an end, I called to cancel it.

Canceling was pretty painless, but right after the customer service guy did what I asked, he offered me the roadside assistance package instead free for two months for being a good customer. When I asked him whether this would be another service I would have to remember to cancel within 60 days, he fessed up and admitted I would have to. I pulled the plug right then and there on the temporarily free add ons. (Besides, I have roadside assistance through my car manufacturer and my wife has AAA. The former is free and the latter is cheaper than Sprint’s package.)

I’m sure Sprint does this so they can make a mint off of customers who are too lazy or unsuspecting to call up and cancel. I think it is sad that a customer has to stay on top the relationship with a utility company to avoid getting taken.

After I switched from SBC to Vonage for my landline phone service, I immediately started getting flyers from SBC for cheaper phone service if I switched back. Perhaps if I had been offered these rates (still more expensive than Vonage) earlier then I might not have left them. But again, why bother charging all your customers the same fair rate when you can make a mint by charging your unsuspecting customers more.

And now the SBC telemarketers are calling in an attempt to get me back. They are using up my monthly Vonage minutes in the process. It is a winning combination: charge more for your service and annoy me when I leave.

Much to my chagrin, Chris cancelled cable service two months ago. Bye, bye Daily Show. (We still have broadband, thank $DEITY.) When she called in March, the Time Warner customer service guy offered to lower our bill by $9 a month if she kept cable. While that would have tempted me, it was no dice with Chris. (We now have only five broadcast network channels, three of them staticky.)

Yet another case of charging the customer extra until he’s onto you.

Vonage rocks. I now have access to detailed activity of my phone calls:

To: info@hallmarkmortgageservices.com
Subject: Unsolicited telephone call

Ken Huffman