I was fortunate enough to play with a Nexus One just after Christmas, and as I tweeted then, “#wantwantwant”.  But reading through the Google Terms of Sale and talking to the contracts department at TMO, I realize that this adventure is far more screwed up than the usual handset subsidy.

Many of us hoped that Google would start to disrupt the subsidy system by selling the phone unlocked and at cost, forcing the carriers to adapt through the pressure that their customers and potential customers could apply. Google didn’t do that, for whatever reason.

OK. I’ve been with T-Mobile for 10 years and have not upgraded my phones at every opportunity, so they’ll take care of me, right? Sorry, Google’s agreement with TMO and their Terms of Sale won’t allow that. T-Mobile has no flexibility to set rate plans or offer discounts because Google controls the phone (except for returns, which are handled by HTC for N * $45 where N is the number of things you screwed up according to the Terms of Sale).

So T-Mobile’s customers are screwed; pay anything less than full price and you must change your plan to an overpriced individual plan before you’re allowed to touch the Google phone. Otherwise, pay $530 or piss off.

I choose to piss off. Maybe I’ll get another Crackberry.

How does this ridiculously restrictive game benefit Google?  They’ve done nothing disruptive, they’ve made it painful to buy the phone, they’ve prevented their partner from doing anything to reduce the pain. And they promise to bill their customers $350 if they try to game the system to make the process end as it should have started (whether TMO pays the subsidy to Google or not).

OK, the evil carrier must have messed it up! Wait, how does it help retention to tell your customers that they can’t have the handset they want unless they throw away the plan they’re used to using and pay more money for less service?

I guess HTC will sell a lot of handsets. I don’t think they screwed up the buying experience though. They would sell even more if customers could buy what they want.

So who benefits from this?

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I used the podcasts from this site to learn enough French to get around. I paid for the PDFs also, and found that they REALLY helped me by giving me a foundation written vocabulary. You may have observed that written and spoken French are only vaguely related, but after a few of these lessons with the corresponding PDFs, you’ll start to see the relationship more clearly.

The language and culture are very big on formality; sil vous plait means literally ‘if you please’. How long has that been out of fashion in English? That’s also a big hint about the culture. Being more formal that you would in a similar context at home will serve you well. I think this is where a lot of the ‘snooty Parisian’ stereotypes came from; we just aren’t formal enough and they are genuinely offended. Say bonjour to the proprietor when you walk into a store, and au revoir when you leave. Struggle with whatever French you’ve absorbed before asking them to speak english. I’ve met very few snooty Parisians since I changed my behavior in this way. Waiters are another story entirely, in general. They hate everyone.

By all means have a couple of French meals, but eat ethnic food to save money. People who work at the ethnic restaurants are generally friendlier than the ones at more traditional French restaurants. There is a Turkish restaurant that we LOVE called Yeliz at 41 rue de Clignancourt, near Metro Anvers. Great for lunch after hiking up to Sacre Cour for the most amazing views of the city.

Walking east from Les Halles on Rambuteau there are lots of little bistros and cafes with all kinds of food. Turn right when you get to Rue Vielle du Temple and you’re heading into the old Jewish quarter. Take a left on Passage des Singes (“monkey alley”) and you’ll soon see the best falafel place in Paris on the left. This is 15-20 minutes by foot from Les Halles, a major transit center for Metro and RER.

For French cuisine, I have a few places where I’m more comfortable. This is not to say these are the only places to eat, but be more cautious in the Marais, for example, because they tend to get more tourists who don’t know what to expect, and many restaurants make their money by providing less value than they should. Cafés are pretty much the same all over, I’m only talking about sit-down-and-be-served places.

The cafés and bistros at Rue de Bourg Tibourg and Rue de Rivoli are very attractive but I don’t know them well. Worth checking out. While you’re there, go to 30 Rue du Bourg Tibourg, a tea shop called Mariage Freres. If you like Earl Grey, try their French Blue. It is the best Earl Grey I’ve ever had.

If you walk past St. Eustache, just northwest of Les Halles, you’ll see a couple streets that are full of perfectly great restaurants. In fact, most of the restaurants to the immediate north of Les Halles are worth checking out. If you’re up for a longer Metro ride, go to the Juares Metro stop and eat at the Juares Café right at the Metro exit. Lunch, not dinner; the neighborhood is a little risky after dark.

A good French lunch will be about 12-14 Euro, and will include a drink (boisson), the main course (plat), and dessert (or some combination of three things). Entree means ‘appetizer’, the main dish is the plat. Dinner will get you about the same main course for 5-10 Euro more. We eat our big meals at lunch time.

Coffee, beer and wine are often cheaper inside than on the sidewalk; don’t be surprised by prices other
than what’s posted if you’re at a sidewalk table. If there’s a lot of foot traffic past your sidewalk table, or a great view, make sure you ask how much your coffee will cost at that table.

The Marmottan museum is amazing, and no one knows about it. Monet’s son donated Claude Monet’s art collection to them to start the museum. It’s in an incredible house in an incredible neighborhood, full of incredible art. Yes, you have to see the Louvre and Musee D’Orsay but then go see Marmottan. And then St. Chappelle. Some museums have metal detectors at the door. Leave your Bowie knife at the hotel and be polite, and you won’t have any problems.

Walking, driving, and taking the Metro give you VERY different views of the city. Buy ‘un carnet’ (block of 10) of Metro tickets to save a little and to be prepared for the inevitable next ride. While in the train station, stop at one of the many bookstores and get a small map book. Some have landmarks, street market schedules, Metro and RER stops, etc. Look at several before you choose. I have one that shows streets, Metro and busses as well as markets and landmarks. It’s a little fat, but very easy to navigate. Don’t bother looking for an english-language version. I haven’t found one that was worth the paper it’s printed on, and it won’t make any difference anyway. Because, y’know, the street names are all in French!

Go to Angelina for hot chocolate, across from Tuilerie (that’s also the name of the Metro stop) at 226 Rue de Rivoli. A couple blocks toward the Champs Elysee is an english bookstore, WH Smith. Tuilerie is a great park also. Visit the kids’ playground and imagine it in the US; I maintain that we’d have lawyers 6 deep around the fence waiting for kids to fall.

Super-touristy stuff: you can get to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, and the view from the Eiffel Tower is great. At 10 every night the lights on the Eiffel Tower flash. It’s really spectacular. There are often rallies at Place de la Bastille and Place de la Republique. You might want to find out what they’re about before you start taking pictures. French tourists go to these places for the history.

My French friends warned me about going to the Sacre Cour area on weekends because of the pickpockets. We did it anyway (hey, I never said I was clever), and there are clearly a lot more people looking for unsuspecting prey. If you enjoy crowds and people-watching and need some tourist junk for gifts, go to Rue de Steinkerque but make sure your valuables are secure. If you don’t need the junk, walk up to Sacre Cour for the exercize and the views. And keep your hand on your wallet.

Rue des Martyrs south of Boulevard de Clichy is very quaint and there are some excellent places to get a quick bite to eat. It has been called the ‘most authentic Paris street’ which I don’t really get, but it is a nice place to walk and browse.

You may note that I haven’t said anything about hotels. That because we don’t stay in hotels. We rent apartments, usually through NY Habitat. When you have an apartment you can stock up on food you like, such as canard mousse au porto. Mmmm. If you can cook, look for a Picard store. Really, trust me on this. We always get a place with an internet connection so I don’t have to schlep my laptop over to the Columbus Café on Rue Vielle du Temple for espresso and a muffin (try the jasmine banana muffin!) for their fast, free wireless internet.

This is far from comprehensive, and it fits the way my family likes to travel. If you want to shop on Faubourg St Honoré and eat only the best food, this won’t help you much.

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There seem to be a number of factors that are holdiing up mass adoption. There are no IPv6 devices or services that are really compelling (the carrots are moldy), and overhyping the imminent exhaustion of IPv4 addresses isn’t helping (your noodle-like stick doesn’t scare me). Then there are the inconveniences; my broadband router can only be managed via IPv4, the docs for my firewall mention IPv6 but they’re pretty difficult to decipher, and my colo’s IPv6 implementation doesn’t use TSP and as such, it’s tricky (for someone who is just getting started with IPv6).

There are sure a lot of addresses in the IPv6 space, though. 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 addresses per /64. I’ll take two, please.

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An old mentor told me years ago that in life and in electrical engineering, nothing but negative feedback works. A system with no feedback can’t do anything useful, and a system with positive feedback generates runaway output. But negative feedback allows systems to respond to the consequences of their outputs.

A person who receives no feedback (because of isolation or through willful ignorance) misses the correlation between their actions and the associated consequences, and therefore can’t learn to regulate their actions.

Someone who gets only positive feedback (think ‘self esteem movement’) pays more attention to repeating the actions that earned them praise, and none to stopping actions that may be harmful. Positive feedback focuses their attention away from the things that need to change.

We view things that are negative as ‘bad’, and that’s not always wrong. Change can be hard, especially for us oldsters. I’ve always done it this way and it has gotten me this far. Why should I change now? Because it doesn’t work any more.

Sometimes it take a few failures for me to see that something needs to change. As long as I’m paying attention, though, I know I’ll get the whacks I need.

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