Return to Gray Area

I was going to rewrite a fantasy novel I first wrote in college. Really, I had every intention. I started and everything. The problem was the tone; it was completely off what I wanted it to be, and that was for lack of rereading the source material first. So that project is on hold.

Instead, I recently decided to redo a short story I wrote several years ago, because I wanted to put it in a longer format. The story is called Gray Area; the title is a double entendre. The original short story has a very conversational narrative tone, in which the main character tells the reader—as if he’s telling the story to someone he just met in a bar—about his alien abduction and escape, and how the situation evolved and deteriorated from there.

I’m relatively happy with the story, but I didn’t feel it was publication-ready. Like Both Sides of the Door, it felt like I was jumping from plot point to plot point too quickly. In short fiction maybe that’s a good thing, but the story was robbed of some drama and reflection that way. And reflection is the name of the game, here, because one of my main goals with the story was for readers to step back from it when they were done and have a good “Hmm” over it.

Let me put it this way. At one time I was planning to release my shorts in a collection. I thought it would be interesting to put a quote in front of each one. This is the quote I wanted to use for Gray Area:

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they’d never expect it.

—Jack Handey

In the context of the traditional Grays, I found something positive in that quote.

The new story—whether it will be a novella or a short novel I have not yet determined, but so far it’s sliding into novel territory—is split into two parts. It alternates between present tense, in which the main character is telling his story to a reporter, and past tense, the flashback of what happened. If this style was good enough for Frederik Pohl in Gateway, it’s good enough for me.

Here’s a rough excerpt.

Zoo day 2013

Today, I finally had a long-delayed zoo day. It was long-delayed by the weather, which sucked up until just recently. As it turned out my wife was able to come along on this one, and both my parents went with us (and ended up treating us). Today was an indescribably perfect day, in the mid-70s and sunny, excellent for a zoo excursion.

The Rosamond Gifford Zoo is under heavy construction, so that their outdoor walkway, normally a loop, is closed off at one end, forcing you to trek all the way back. Still, it’s a nice walk. The red pandas weren’t out, but the Siberian tigers and the snow leopards were quite active, as were the fisher and lynx and a couple of gray wolves—one white and one brown, actually. The elephants seem to really enjoy their new outdoor exhibit, which is huge and grassy. The penguins were in good form; it was nice of them to be so active both in and out of the water, inasmuch as they were at the far end of that trail. (I do wish though that the dark “animal adaptations” exhibit area didn’t smell so strongly of urine, which I’m pretty sure is the ocelot’s fault.) The meerkats were as great as ever.

After the zoo my parents took us to lunch in the mall, which I still always think of as the Carousel even though it’s now officially called Destiny USA. Good food, good company.

Back at home, I watched the next episode of Farscape I had queued up on Amazon Prime: “Look at the Princess”, parts 1-3. Yep, a three-parter, and one of my favorites of the series. We enjoyed the nice air coming in the windows, except when our neighbors did laundry with strongly scented detergents (frell you, Tide) or sprayed what seemed to be industrial-strength mosquito repellant.

I made cheese hot dogs on the grill for dinner. Oscar Meyer used to have good cheese dogs, but they now suck, having given over to using too much turkey and covering it up with strong spices whereas before (in the ’80s and ’90s) they were mild. These were Hofmann hot dogs, a local favorite; they make cheese dogs that are sometimes difficult to find. Of course with the nice weather springing on us suddenly, I had to trek all over the place for hot dog buns, because Wegmans was sold out. We added lots of shredded cheddar to our hot dogs, because that’s how we roll.

After dinner, we went out to the Big Dip. Sadly they are not yet serving soft strawberry; the girl at the counter said it might be as long as June or July. (It’s usually mid-May, and probably will be again; but I like to ask because it helps move things along.) I did have a black forest sundae, though, with chocolate ice cream. That included brownies (with M&Ms, I’m pretty sure), cherry topping, and hot fudge. We brought our sundaes home and watched The Big Bang Theory.

Suffice it to say it was a great day. Spring madness is somewhat abated. And we have a whole week of this gorgeous weather ahead of us.

Yes, this is me being extremely positive. I’ll find something to rant about soon enough.

Not so much proof

I like to read up on science reporting when I can, and that’s what made an article about more proof for general relativity catch my eye. You see, I’m a longtime Einstein skeptic. Bear with me, because I know iconoclasm always has a tendency to come off a little like the ravings of a crackpot.

At a pretty fundamental level, the idea that photons always travel at exactly the speed of light is, well, stupid. That’s not to say it couldn’t be true, but it’s outlandish and I think there are perfectly sensible explanations that work better. I understand the math behind the concepts of time dilation, length dilation, etc., but there’s really nothing about those equations that’s incompatible with merely describing what people would observe from another vantage point. Furthermore, the clock paradox makes no kind of sense whatsoever. The idea of photons being emitted at the speed of light is a lot more sensible.

Still, there are a lot of supposed proofs of Einstein’s theory, or at least experiments and data supporting it. Atomic clocks run slower in space, which our GPS system actually depends on—but I think this is of a piece with all other proofs, in that when you get down to cases, every single system of measurement we have is based on forces that propagate at the speed of light. The theory predicted the correct orbit of Mercury, but the mere fact of gravity propagating at light speed (rather than instantaneously) does the same. The theory predicted light is bent by gravity, which is the subject of the article, and in fact it is; but there are other perfectly sound explanations for such a phenomenon, as I will explain.

There’s one other wrinkle to consider, which the article in question even mentions:

Scientists expect that Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which is already incompatible with quantum physics, would at some point no longer hold true in extreme conditions.

Here’s the problem: Every time quantum physics goes up against general relativity head to head, quantum physics wins. I’ve never heard of an exception. Physicists know that at some point, one or the other, or both, has to break. When we know which one will break and how, we’ll be closer to a unified theory. In the meantime, though, general relativity is accepted as darn near gospel.

The article basically says that gravitational lensing has held up under scrutiny under extreme conditions around a pulsar. Light is bent by gravity, which makes perfect sense if gravity is merely a function of space being warped by mass. But light being bent by gravity is not incompatible with Newtonian physics, depending on how you view the math.

Gravity is merely a force between two objects, and according to current theory—which I frankly suspect is incomplete—it’s proportional to the mass of both objects and decreases with distance. I think the law of gravity is incomplete based on the same data that suggests dark matter and dark energy are real things. The fact that we haven’t really found dark matter, let alone that we can’t pin down the gravitational constant to more than a few decimal places, suggests maybe there’s a better explanation and the formula we have needs modification. But that’s a subject for another discussion.

Assume the law of gravity as we know it is perfectly fine, and there is dark matter and all that to shore up the holes. It’s not an unreasonable assumption, barring better information. So with a photon having no mass, there’s no force, hence no gravity; hence light should travel in a straight line, right? Nope.

The equation for gravitational force is F = Gm₁m₂/d². The formula for how that relates to acceleration is F = ma. But if the photon’s mass is zero, that’s 0 = 0 and it’s a pretty meaningless equation. It makes more sense, therefore, to look at acceleration caused by gravity, rather than gravitational force, which would be a = Gm/d², m being the mass of the other object. The zeroes effectively can cancel out, and the photon is moved by gravitational attraction from another object but not vice-versa. Conservation of momentum isn’t broken because the photon has no mass.

Alternately, it’s possible that the photon does have mass, but it’s so infinitesimal that even our most sensitive measurements can’t read it. Nonzero mass of any size would mean the force of gravity was nonzero, and then the math works just fine. Given that photons carry energy, and E=mc² is still sound as far as I know, it does seem like a photon should have mass. Apparently the idea that the mass of a photon is zero isn’t really all that set in stone.

Either way, you don’t need Einstein. So seeing predictions of gravitational lensing hold up proves nothing. All it really proves is that photons are bent by gravity—it tells us nothing of why. Theorists were trying to see whether gravitational lensing works the same in extreme conditions or not. It’s still valid research because if it didn’t hold up it would tell us something interesting, but the fact that it works just as predicted doesn’t mean Einstein’s answer is the only one.

Update: A different article referring to the same study suggests this is less about lensing than about gravity waves. Noted, though I don’t think it steps on the point: Many things predicted by general relativity are explainable by other means.

Baked bacon experiment

I’ve read about how baking your bacon is easier because it cleans up nicely and it gives you a nice texture. These are things I found very interesting and wanted to confirm for myself, so the other night I did so. Having some bacon in the freezer, I thawed out the package in cold water for a while, then I popped the bacon in the oven at 400°.

All the recipes I’ve read online agree on using a temperature around 400°, and placing the bacon on a crumpled-then-uncrumpled sheet of foil on a cookie sheet, not letting the pieces touch. Some suggest putting the bacon in a cold oven, others preheating. I tried the cold oven method, which recommended cooking for 17 to 20 minutes. In my case, I went about 21 because it wasn’t done at 20; it might not have thawed quite enough, though.

A quick review of the results:

• The baking method is pretty terrible for cooking up an entire package, because only eight slices fit on the sheet. I had five left over. Because I had thawed this bacon, it had to be cooked right away. I ended up also trying a microwave experiment; it did not go well.
• The flavor of the bacon was lacking. I have no idea if that’s because it was frozen for three months, or because it was baked. Specifically, the bacon tasted too smoky, much too smoky for the brand as I’m used to tasting it. (This was Oscar Meyer thick cut.) My gut says it’s probably a little of both. I suspect frying brings out the saltiness better.
• The texture of the bacon was just fine. I felt some of the pieces came out feeling a little thinner than they should have, but otherwise it was just as good as pan-fried. For the most part, the pieces came out very straight this way too, not as twisty as you get from pushing them around a pan.
• Cleanup was, in fact, very easy. This might be a very good method for doing a few strips of bacon when I want something to quickly throw on a burger.

The verdict: This is something I will definitely try again, if only for convenience. Being able to make a few pieces of bacon with minimal mess means I don’t have to make a whole package at once (if it’s not frozen) and can spread that out over a few days instead. I would like to know, though, whether it was the freezing or the baking that threw off the flavor, and that I’ll only learn from repeated experiments. At the end of the day, the flavor matters more than anything else.

Bad science reporting: Wonder algae

Articles like this one get my dander up. It’s gushing about how algae can solve all the world’s problems by producing nanocellulose, a wonder material. My problem isn’t with the idea of the material or producing it via algae. It’s that the article is so glowing when all this is is yet another in a long, long, long long long string of articles talking about potential.

I have high hopes for algae. If it can be harnessed, farmed, kept from mutating too much so its production remains steady, then it may well do wonders for us like producing synthetic fuels and petrochemicals, and yes, even nanocellulose. But the article isn’t telling us anything truly new about what algae can do or even whether it’s commercially feasible yet. The truth is we don’t have answers for this.

The article suggests this algae farming would be “cheap”, but doesn’t specify how; in fact if you read the details, the scientists are only beginning to explore the methods involved in farming algae, and may have figured out one piece of the puzzle. So what’s this “cheap” crap? They don’t know! They have no idea what the costs of production and refinement will be, how much output they’ll get, or even what the market will bear for their wonder product. Algae may be efficient at churning this out, but it may simply be too costly to farm. Or, it could be everything they hope.

Look at how alternative fuels have fared in articles like this one. I’ve seen dozens of reports of new methods for improving solar cell efficiency, none of which have come to fruition yet—largely, I think, because many of the breakthroughs are theoretical and also not shared among different parties (I think some of them could be used in concert for huge improvements)—but also because some of these breakthroughs involve materials that are too expensive to work with in bulk or at economically competitive prices. A solar cell with 30% efficiency would be leaps and bounds better than one with 10% efficiency, but if it cost ten times as much nobody would buy it.

Ethanol has fared little better. Now anyone who understands the first thing about the science involved knows that corn ethanol is a joke, and we’re throwing our time and money away by pursuing it. But cellulose ethanol might, just might, have some potential. I’ve seen articles talking about wonderful new processes for breaking it down so it can be converted to ethanol—and then that’s the last I’ve heard of them. And these were in companies that were further along in their development than the algae guys. One clue I knew most of them would fail: Many of those articles claimed that they could compete with gasoline at $2/gal. prices, but that’s still twice as much as gasoline has any right to cost; and that was a few years ago, when that’s all it did cost. Ethanol from cellulose might still be on our horizon, but there’s really no meaningful commercial development yet.

The point is here, it’s great for science to keep pushing new frontiers and I hope this algae thing pays out, but articles like this one are a farce, and should be treated as such. Let’s keep the enthusiasm going without all the unwarranted grandiosity, okay?

But there is something worse than bad science reporting: bad science comprehension. Take a look at the comments section.

Am I the only one that gets a BAAAAD feeling when I read “Nano” anything? I just read a novel about about an engineered nano product that got away from the scientists and turned into something that dissolved EVERYTHING it came in contact with, dirt, trees, skin, cloth, metal, glass etc. The book referenced several things that I that I thought were science fiction but then I looked them up and they were really going on right now. Of course I am still trying to figure out how your voice goes thru a phone so maybe I need more education. But the more I learn, the scarier it gets.

Nanobots, which are the subject of Michael Crichton’s sci-fi novel Prey, which I must also stress is fiction, are a completely different concept from nanoscale material science. In fact pretty much all nanotechnology at this point is material science. We’re nowhere near creating nanobots, and if we ever did they would never have the capabilities of Crichton’s infamous “gray goo”. What we are near creating are better batteries, water filters, construction materials, cloth, computer processors, televisions, and medical devices, just to name a few applications.

What kills me is this idiot feels justified in using the phrase “the more I learn” when they clearly don’t know the first thing about the subject; if they did, they wouldn’t be fixating on the prefix “nano” and linking two things that had nothing to do with each other. This is literally as stupid as claiming geology and geometry are the same thing. But even if they had just stuck to the nebulous term “nanotechnology”, they’d still be way out of their depth because they’re listening only to alarmist shrieking and doomsday scenarios out of books.

Sometimes I wonder which is dumber, science reporting or the vast majority of its inattentive consumers. There’s a huge difference between yapping about a subject you read about in a book once, and putting in even a little effort to truly learn about it. Let’s end on a happy note and all just go watch Vsauce for a while; I apologize in advance for getting you addicted to their videos, if you weren’t already.

Zoo day rules

Every spring at the first opportunity, I take a zoo day.

I’ve been doing this for a long time now. Syracuse has a great zoo, the Burnet Park Zoo. Now it’s actually called the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park, but nobody from Syracuse calls it that. For probably a quarter century now I’ve been going along with my mother, sometimes my wife if she’s off work (though only since I’ve known her, obviously), sometimes my sister, and usually some of our extended family. The whole point of a zoo day is to enjoy the nice weather, relax, and just make a nice day of it.

There are rules to this:

1. It must be a weekday. Weekends do not count. They’re more crowded, lack of school field trips notwithstanding, plus it’s just using up a day of the weekend instead of taking a day off. If you’re not taking a day off, you’re doing it wrong. (Yes, you can go to the zoo on the weekends too. It’s just not in the spirit of the zoo day.) This tradition started as homeschool field trips, but it’s morphed beyond that.
2. It must be a nice day. Bare minimum requirements: Mostly sunny, 68° or higher. Sunny and 70° or higher is preferred. Wind is acceptable. If it’s not a nice day then you’re not getting outside to enjoy nice weather, you’re just plain going to the zoo and wishing the weather was better. Not as much fun.
3. It must be the first available opportunity. If the weather turns unexpectedly nice before you can do anything about it, that’s different, but usually you have some advance warning. In Syracuse, zoo weather comes in the second week of April about half the time. This year is one of the unfortunate exceptions.

To do the zoo, you need to watch the weather like a hawk as soon as the month of April rolls in. Syracuse has a three-day forecast horizon, which is sometimes generously stretched as far as a week if conditions aren’t changing too much. Even then, sudden turns are not unusual. As the day approaches you’ll usually see two days lining up that appear to have nice weather, one slightly better than the other, and that’s usually the target zoo day.

For planning, you have to see the day coming a week ahead, and mark it down as tentative—conditions will change. It may be that the lesser of the two nice days starts to shape up better, so the target will shift. Plans remain tentative right up until 24-48 hours before the day, at which point you need to commit.  This works out better if a longer stretch of good weather is in the cards, which sometimes happens.

Get to the zoo early. 10:00 or so is fine. It used to be a great place to eat lunch, but if I’m being honest their café isn’t nearly as good as when it was a Burger King. The best way to go about this is to choose to do the indoor or outdoor section first, break for lunch, then do the rest. The outdoor section is a long walkway; it’s usually warmer in the afternoon, but that can be a nice thing. Take advantage of refreshments along the way; it’s part of the experience.

The zoo closes at 4:00. Whenever you wrap up, you’ll have plenty of the day left to go home and sit around with the people you went with, playing games and having cold drinks while remarking how warm it is and gosh, isn’t that a nice change. These are excellent days for grilling and/or salt potatoes. And if you’re not tempted to stop for ice cream on the way home, it had better be because you’re too thirsty.

Next to Christmas, this is the high point of my year.

Scam alert: Phony Microsoft call from India

This morning I had an unexpected surprise. The phone rang, and the number wasn’t one I recognized, but neither did it say “out of area”. I’d offer some of the caller ID details but I don’t think they’re important to the story; if you get this call it could be from anywhere and say anything. It did not say “Microsoft” or any variation thereof, which for the purposes of this story is the only important thing.

Already this phone call started on an adversarial bent. It interrupted me, and since the call wasn’t local it obviously wasn’t a wrong number. When I get long distance calls it’s pretty much always a telemarketer, more so if I don’t recognize any of the caller ID info. Most often these groups are just calling to solicit for a charity, unaware of my Not One Thin Dime rule when it comes to telemarketers. Heck, just this weekend we got a call from Children’s Wish Foundation International (they’re one of the few who identify themselves) and for the first time ever I had the brains to let it go to the machine without picking up. It’s a good cause but it will never see any of my money because of the way they seek donations; there are similar charities that don’t blast me with phone calls.

I digress. When I answered the call I got a person who I originally thought was a woman but soon decided must be a man with a higher voice than I’m used to. His accent was thickly Indian, but mostly understandable; he lost me when he got a little into gobbledygook, as I’ll explain. The following is heavily paraphrased.

Me: Hello?

James: Hello. This is Microsoft calling, and my name is James. How are you today, sir?

Me: Okay.

I was already suspicious at this point. Why would Microsoft be calling me? The number didn’t identify itself as coming from them, and unless they’re aware of my long-term goal of nuking Redmond (after evacuating it of course), I don’t see why they’d want to spark a dialogue. After all, I’m in no position yet to accept supplicants. Also, if this guy’s name is James, mine is Molly.

James: We are calling today because our servers have reported that your computer is freezing and experiencing frequent problems.

The BS alarm, already pulsing red, exploded at this point. Oh, where do I begin? Well, let’s start with what I told him.

Me: (interrupting) I’m sorry, that doesn’t make sense. My computer doesn’t know my phone number.

James: I understand that, sir, but our technical research department has investigated and came up with your number. The frobnicated spin tannicle indicates an infestation of malware, spyware, and impacted iglomitis.

I’m exaggerating a bit. I tuned him out a little at this point, but he did say something about malware. My brain was playing catch-up, still trying to get into the conversation from where it had been before the call. I imagine this is where most gullible people get caught, at least the ones who don’t fall for the initial line right out of the box. I should add that my computer hasn’t been experiencing any more problems than it ever is. If this was intended to induce panic it failed utterly; it reminded me more of those dumb commercials trying to sell me software I don’t need to speed up my PC. In fact, it’s pretty likely that’s what he wanted to sell me, but I never gave him the chance.

Me: How would your company even get that far, seeing as my Windows software isn’t even registered under this phone number?

Fun fact: My computer is kind of old. It predates my marriage, and therefore was purchased and registered with a different address and phone number. Another fun fact: I turned off the error reporting service years ago, and have had to periodically turn it off again (after various updates reinstated it) since. The error reporting service is a disaster, and it also makes programming a million times more difficult. So if Microsoft did get any reports, they didn’t come from me. At this stage of the call it did not occur to me that he could be calling about my wife’s computer, but too many alarm bells were going off already; I didn’t even consider that possibility until after the call, though it wouldn’t have mattered.

James: Sir, I understand, but look, Microsoft is the creator of Windows, correct?

Me: Okay…

James: Our technical research has definitely determined your computer is dangerously frimsnagulated with malware. I—

Me: Do you even know my name?

The acid test. If there was any truth in what he was saying, he should already have multiple pieces of identifying information with which to confirm the call. At this point he should have either my name or my wife’s, and the version of Windows that supposedly called for help. If Microsoft really did outgoing calls to people in desperate need of computer help, which I never believed for a moment anyway because that’s absurd on its face, then the person making contact should already have a ticket setup with the Windows Genuine Advantage serial number, version number, and other such info. I didn’t ask for all this; the name was enough.

James: Yes, this is Mr. _____, correct?

BOOM. The idiot just maiden-named me. My wife bought the house and setup our phone before we were married, and everything got listed in her maiden name. This is also how I knew, after the call, that “James” was not calling about my wife’s computer either. She didn’t turn off the error reporting service as far as I know, but her computer was purchased under her married name. So James, like all other outbound telemarketers, just has a list of names and phone numbers culled from a public listing. James in fact had no way to know we even had a Windows computer outside of statistical likelihood.

I may have mentioned this on more than one occasion, but I hate spammers. Hate hate hate. When I become a supervillain, it will be legal to hunt them for sport. Phone spammers are worse, and scammers of either variety are worst of all. I don’t really mind people getting honest work in a legitimate outbound call center, with my definition of legitimate being very strict. Call center work is hard, and I have great sympathy for people who do it, having done it myself (inbound) for several years. But James here is participating in a scam, and he’s lying to me outright. So sorry James, when my administration rolls in there’s gonna a wall plaque with your real name on it, and it’s not for employee of the month.

So back to the call. I’m feeling a mix of emotions by now, one of them being satisfaction at having tripped up this doubletalking buttmonkey who thought he could bamboozle me. There’s also a rush of power, knowing I’m the one in charge of this call now. And finally, all the others, which are varying flavors of rage. I’m never rude on the phone, as a rule, so it’s fun when I can completely turn off the filter and let loose. I didn’t swear at him; perhaps I should have, this being one of the times that’s appropriate.

More imaginative paraphrasing here. I’m not sure which of these points I brought up and which I just thought of after the call. I went on for quite a bit, talking over James’ repeated attempts to wrest back control. It’s over, James; as the real company I used to take calls for would say, drop the rope.

Me: No. This is fraud. You don’t have my information. My computer did not call you.

James: But sir—

Me: What you’re telling me is completely false. Microsoft is not calling me because of a freezing computer they couldn’t even know about. They don’t have my current information, so they couldn’t have contacted me even if they wanted to. You are committing fraud. Furthermore, this number is on the Do Not Call list.

This may not strictly be true anymore. I think the number expires after some time, and may need to be reinstated. Still, it’s not like scammers will respect the list to begin with.

James: But the plexinodal—

Me: It’s fraud. You’re just calling people up at random trying to convince them their computer is having problems, and if you continue calling I will report your activity to the FTC.

James: Sir, the methyliso—

Me: I will not be a victim of fraud today. Thank you. (click)

Now I would have gone ahead and reported this to the FTC anyway, but it looks like there’s no need. This scam apparently goes back to 2008, and at the end of 2012 they finally got to doing something about it by suing a number of companies that are using the scam. So they’re actively pursuing these rats, or at least similar rats if not these ones in particular, and since an easy report form didn’t jump out at me from Google I’m comfortable just leaving it at that. Reporting this won’t really add much to the FTC’s investigation anyway. I will, say, though, that their method of using lawsuits rather than the choice I would prefer (a precision commando raid) is disheartening.

Now good people, since you’re reading my blog I trust you have a high degree of common sense. But for those of your associates who are not so blessed, and there are more of them than you think, you should make them review the following clues:

1. Microsoft will never contact you. Even if they ever did, it would be with a bevy full of very specific (and not publicly known) information you could verify against your product registration, and if they called the caller ID would clearly identify them—though only an idiot would trust the caller ID alone; it’s only good for proof against, not proof positive. They’re also far more likely to do such a thing via e-mail because call centers cost more money, even the ones in India, and also the e-mail can make them look more professional whereas getting hit by a guy with a thick accent says “No really, we’re cheap and we don’t care about appearances.” Microsoft has said outright that they don’t make unsolicited phone calls anyway, so right there is your answer.
2. Your computer isn’t calling for help when malware strikes. A lot of malware would rather do its work in peace, undisturbed by any attempts on your part to remove it. The rest just wants to throw ads at you and be a nuisance. It avoids deliberately crashing your other programs, because such a thing could red-flag any smart antivirus software and make it easier to detect. Even if it did cause a crapload of crashes, this is something you’d notice long before it registered as some kind of statistical anomaly at Microsoft HQ.
3. Always press them for information. This applies to every call, every e-mail, every potential scam. If someone claims they’re contacting you over a specific matter, they should have a sea of corroborating details. Microsoft would have had only my name and my old address and phone number, unless they were calling my wife; in neither case did the info match up. Bear in mind a lot of info about you is public. If James had gotten my name or my wife’s right, I would have pushed for info like a serial number, which version of Windows the call was about, etc. Also, I would have flown to Mars for breakfast, because at that point it was obvious he was full of crap. Social engineering scams take advantage of your gullibility: They aren’t prepared for you to ask tough questions.
4. Confirm with another source. Assuming they can convince you of their authenticity well enough, it doesn’t hurt to call the actual company later instead of staying on the phone with the person right now. If a company has a legitimate interest in contacting me, there’s no reason I can’t call their known public line and talk to someone about the issue. This should go without saying, but don’t trust the caller to give you the company’s number. This is especially important when dealing with a government agency like the police: You want to call the police department and talk to someone there, rather than assume the caller is on the level. Real police would appreciate that you were smart about this.

I’m sure others have covered scam prevention better than I ever can, so I’ll let them handle it. In the meantime, here’s some info from Snopes about the scam. It’s not specific to India, so don’t let a lack of accent (or a completely different one) throw you off.

Always use common sense. And please consider supporting my world domination fund, for the good of all mankind; I promise I will never call for donations.