A little while ago I instituted a cron script that sets entry_allow_comments=2 for entries older than 14 days. Well, until the site’s rebuilt, you people don’t know that you can’t comment until after you try to “post” the comment. I just added a script by “tima” that will rebuild the site every day: mt-rebuild.
I’ve written a few times about Chelsee’s in the blog, from before we had Bellsouth. I went back today to check it out; I felt a little guilty about not going more often because it’s so close.
What’s gotten better since 2003/2004: the espresso is drinkable now. Their hours are lots longer. The giant TV was on mute.
What’s not gotten better: their Internet goes down regularly. They do not play any music. They have noisy “toys” (e.g. dancing easter rabbit that sings at ca. 90db) that make everyone stare. There is no insulation so everything echoes like nobody’s business. They do not have free filtered water. They do not have a process for making suggestions and reviewing their responses to suggestions. There is very little seating.
Several people today were saying that they only go there because there is free internet. IMHO having interrupted internet is worse than not having internet. You have to think of wireless access like any other tech service: you need a certain degree of uptime or your users will rise against you.
Constructively implementing suggestions is the key. The best implementation of a suggestion box that I’ve seen was at Helios in Raleigh. They have a scrapbook where they put short responses to all suggestions. That is how Helios went from “ok” to AWESOME in less than a year.
Not having a process for suggestions is better than having a process that ignores suggestions. You have to understand that suggestions will be very negative at first, and improve over time as you implement the suggestions and show that you are trying to make your patrons happy.
Since I have my own headphones and don’t need internet access I will probably be going back to Helios… unless the espresso starts tasting like sour yogurt again.
Ur-: primitive, the first. For example, “Ur-Hamlet”. It’s like saying “archetypal.”
au pair (via google): a young foreigner who lives with a family in return for doing light housework. This was not in the OED–or rather, I couldn’t find it under “au” or “pair” in the OED.
We have an open position for a “Parallel Systems Computing Technician I” person at Wake Forest. My understanding is that this is really a system administrator job, only you report to the cluster guy. Check it out (if you can navigate through HR’s voodoo web page that prevents direct links) at wakejobs.wfu.edu.