So the Lappy’s Ethernet port is.. kinda br0ked. It’s not totally fux0red, mind you, just fux0red enough that it can make talking to the home network a bit of a pain in the ass. It usually takes a good four or five minutes of wrangling to ensure the cable has good contact with the connectors inside the port, and/or the connectors themselves have good contact with the Magic Voodoo Bus. I have in the past found the balloon pop-ups in XP to be endlessly annoying (especially the one that pops up every time I start the machine without a wireless connection that says “Wireless connection unavailable” — no shit!), but I have come to have a love-hate relationship with the balloon that says, “A network cable is unplugged.”

The first thing I think is, “Oh, good, I know that when my network requests fail, I’ll know why.” The second thing I think is, “oh, fuck, now I have to mess around with the cabling for a while.”

I had high hopes that this problem involved cabling. Most of my Cat 5 cable in my place is stuff I cut and crimped by hand, so there were thoughts that it might be, um, my own damn fault that I couldn’t get a good connection to the LAN. Maybe the connectors were cracking, or the pins inside flexing, but, alas, no: The cables are just fine (I tested them). It’s the Lappy, and in particular it’s a part of the Lappy that is probably (a) not cheap to fix and (b) not likely to be field-fixable.

One of the dangers of buying a laptop, as I’m sure almost everyone knows, is that it lockes you into a relationship with a vendor. I’ve been hacking too long to have anything but the dimmest possible view of vendors; when I have component-level failures, I want to be able to replace the component with another one, preferably made by someone whose products don’t suck (or which, at least, suck a lot less than the vendor whose product failed). Meaning that if my 3Com NIC decides to pack it in, I can simply swap it out and shove a new one in (probably another 3Com, since I like the damn things so much, and they don’t tend to break, period). Severing the vendor tie was and is one of the most wonderful things about PC ownership.

Arguably it is also the only wonderful thing about PC ownership, since it forces you to take responsibility for the entire machine. If you’re rich or value your time, having a vendor relationship is great because you can get them to take responsibility for your system from start to finish. Machine won’t boot? Here comes field circus. Hard drive craps out? Here comes field circus. I’ve been hacking too long to have anything but the dimmest possible view of field circus guys, too, but it’s tough to explain to some clueless VP (or spouse) that you’re going to toss your new-ish machine into a swamp because fixing it is too much of a pain; far better to have the Man From Maytag tell you you need a new washer than your idiot husband.

Owning a vendorless PC is possible, even preferable. Owning a vendorless laptop is not. While I’m currently on my second Dell (not because the first one broke, mind you, but because I sold it to someone else and used a loyalty incentive to get myself a much nicer machine), I’ve never had to deal with them once I finished shoving money at them at the end of the initial transaction. I tell people who buy laptops to invest in the extended service plan simply because component replacement is hard, and if it fails, it’s going to fail big — I have a friend who is on (I think) her third or fourth Compaq, and I shudder to think what the replacement costs would have been like had she not had the warranty options she does. (I also don’t think she’s likely to buy another Compaq, but that’s neither here nor there.)

But now, with Lappy’s Ethernet port failing, I am about to embark on a trip into the depths of Dell’s customer service department. Will this be fixable easily? Will Lappy have to go on a plane ride? How much is it going to cost me, if anything? How long will I be without Lappy? Will my data be safe? (We’ve reached the point where backup strategies are t-o-u-g-h to implement, so be judicious about it.) How much fighting am I going to have to put up with in order to make this work? I don’t know, and I’m afraid to find out.

This may be why I’m seriously considering door #2, which is to simply go and buy an 802.11g AP and stick that in here instead. Why fix the damn Ethernet port when you can hack your way around it? (Answer: because sometimes you can get Cat 5 connections but can’t get wireless ones. Potential solution: Buy an AP that’s portable enough that you can bring it with you. I know these exist, because I used one in Japan (not that it worked, mind you), but have yet to encounter any in North America. Any tips for me, Lazyweb?)

She told me her name was Cymbeline
I met her at the corner of Church and Queen
She was selling lies and other patined things
I hardly even noticed when she touched my ring

She sold me a camera for a song
A silver instamatic made in Bonn
Careful with my heart, it’s not very strong
She wrote that on the border when I was wrong

She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
Half a mile from Texas, she looked at me and said,
“Everybody loves you when you’re dead.”

I can drive for hours when I’m wrong
She said it like a preacher before the throng
Careful with your life ’cause it’s not very long
We stumble for a moment and then we’re gone

She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
Half a mile from Memphis, she looked at me and said,
“Everybody loves you when you’re dead.”

I think I’ll take her bishop with my queen
The glass is nearly empty and she’s asleep
Somewhere in my mind I think I see her weep
Perhaps I’ll check the silver before I leave

She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
She said that she’s going home
And she won’t be long
Half a mile from Paris, she looked at me and said,
“Everybody loves you when you’re dead.”
–The Wild Strawberries

This guy is totally my hero.

I want off this planet:

CRANFORD: I have been at the bedside of these patients. I know what they die from. I’ve seen them die. And this is all bogus. It’s all just a bunch of crap that you are saying. It’s totally wrong.

DANIELS: Well, with all due respect, Doctor, it sounds like you think that you know what you are talking about, so let’s ask you about that. …

SCARBOROUGH: Hold on a second. Hold on a second. You’re so sure of yourself — respond to this. AP had a report yesterday. They said seven doctors have looked at her. Four said she was in persistent vegetative state. You were one of them, hired by Michael Schiavo to do that. There were three others that looked at her that disagreed. How can you be so absolutely sure that everybody that agrees with you is 100 percent accurate and everybody on the other side is a charlatan?

CRANFORD: Joe, Judge — Judge [George W.] Greer disallowed, didn’t believe what [Dr. William] Maxfield [a doctor selected by Terri Schiavo’s parents] said. You got your numbers wrong. There were eight neurologists saw her. Seven of the eight said she was in a vegetative state. Only one said she wasn’t.

SCARBOROUGH: I am quoting an Associated Press report from yesterday.

CRANFORD: Joe, you’ve got to get your facts straight.

SCARBOROUGH: I have got my facts straight.

CRANFORD: Get your facts straight. You’ve got your facts way off.

I’m sorry, but what the hell is this? A television reporter is telling a neurologist that he sounds like he thinks he knows what he’s talking about. A TV reporter is accusing a physician of not having his facts straight, when the facts in question are trivially easy to determine. A shouting head, one of the most irritating creatures we’ve managed to create in recent years, and someone who has managed to make a career out of impugning everyone who disagrees with him, is wondering how another person can “be so absolutely sure that … everybody on the other side is a charlatan.” And, you know, the one doctor who agrees with Joe is right, and the other seven guys who agree with Cranford — the one dude, he’s the genius; the other seven guys, they’re all wet. Right? Right.

You have got to be kidding me. This is what passes for journalism? No wonder this case is all screwed up from a perception standpoint — we treat it as though each position were an equally valid position, and that it’s just a matter of opinion. I fully expect the next time Buzz Aldrin gets interviewed on TV, he’s going to have to sit next to some jackass who thinks the moon landing was faked:

HACK: So, Dr. Aldrin, it sounds like you think you’re something of an expert on the moon.

ALDRIN: I am an expert on the moon. I’ve been there. I know the other people who went there. You can see my boot print in the lunar dust.

HACK: But how do you explain Bill Kaysing’s claim that you can’t see the stars in the photographs you allegedly took while there? I can see the stars at night on the earth when it’s dark in the sky; it’s dark in the sky on the moon, so why can’t we see the stars?

ALDRIN: Well, Hack, we were on the moon in early lunar morning —

HACK: Wait a minute, but the moon doesn’t have a time of day, because it never changes its face relative to the earth. So it doesn’t turn. It’s suppose —

ALDRIN: Get your facts straight. The moon rotates.

HACK: I don’t think so. I never see the far side of the moon. No one has. Everyone knows that.

[crosstalk]

ALDRIN: [agitated] No, the moon rotates. Like I said, we were out there in full sunlight, and the cameras aren’t sensitive enough — you can’t take a picture of a dim object in full sunlight when you’re also trying to capture objects lit by the —

HACK: Hold on a second. Hold on a second. You’re so sure of this — how is it that you’re so sure of this, when other people — smart people, reasonable people — can talk about this rationally, without getting angry, without punching other people in the nose — how do you respond to these reasonable and measured people who claim that you never went there, and that you and your colleagues were engaged in a massive conspiracy to defraud the United States of billions of dollars and perpetrate a hoax?

ALDRIN: I was there. You weren’t.

HACK: Well, that’s certainly your opinion, Dr. Aldrin, and you’re entitled to it. It is just an opinion, after all. Thank you for your time. Coming up next, why conservatives are persecuted for their beliefs: We talk to oppressed minority Bill O’Reilly about the hardships of being white, rich, and male in American society. And now, a word from Pfizer.

I used to joke that journalism barely rated above lawyering in terms of the popular impression of the profession. I’m starting to think that journalism barely rates above venture capitalism.

(See also: perpetual rant that “opinion” now seems to mean “a baseless statement that should not be criticized on the grounds that it is baseless.”)

NorbiznessThe Left:

After tabulating my hunches, it looks like the 1997-1998 season (#9) is a prime candidate for the first season where the bad significantly outweighed the good. The first three episodes are the Homer in New York, the two Principal Skinners, the screedy “Homer gets a gun” episode, Homer coaching the pee-wee football team (featuring a crossover with the new King of the Hill show)… all terrible. However, this isn’t when Mike Scully took over for Conan O’Brien, a popular theory among people even geekier than I… according to this interview, he started in Season #5 (1993-1994).

This will, no doubt, hearten those of us who feel exactly as Norbizness does, especially in relation to the deplorable 4F19. Read comments for other suggestions, none of which I can really disagree with (except anyone who says that any episode after season 8 was any good; they’re lying sacks of crap smoking high-quality dope).

I probably take the Simpsons too seriously. Probably.

While taxiing around CYVR yesterday afternoon, I happened to see a bunch of JetsGo Fokker F-100s sitting on a faraway corner of the ramp, engines and windshields covered. It seemed sad to see these planes mothballed, the way the boneyard at Davis-Montham seems kind of sad, and a little unfair that the airline biz is so harsh, but then I remembered something I read in the March 14 edition of AvWeb’s newswire:

Jetsgo said its business is no longer viable because it is deeply in debt and its airfares are well below cost. The company blamed intense competition from other carriers, especially WestJet, for its financial woes. Clive Beddoe, CEO of WestJet, told reporters he was not surprised to see Jetsgo fail, because Jetsgo owner Michel Leblanc had told him he would undercut every fare WestJet had until he filled his airplanes.

It’s probably worth noting that JetsGo was Leblanc’s seventh airline.

“Well, I hate to say that that’s not a very good business model that works,” Beddoe said.

Beddoe should be given some kind of award for tact and understatement.

“99% of journalists, and the public at large, think that science is
just one rather boring topic for “Crossfire”-style argumentation,
where there’s one side screaming one set of lies and the other side
screaming another and everyone hates America and/or babies and now
here’s some ads for Matt Damon movies and dick pills. Admittedly, you
have to be a howling retard with all the intellectual curiosity God
gave a Sea Monkey to think this way, but let me introduce you to your
fellow human beings.” —The Poor Man

The application of this point to “discussions” about Terri Schiavo is left as an exercise to the reader.

Hey, remember this?

Remember the browser war between Netscape and Microsoft? Well forget it. The Web browser itself is about to croak. And good riddance. In its place … broader and deeper new interfaces for electronic media are being born. BackWeb and PointCast, propelled by hot young Silicon Valley start-ups. Constellation and Active Desktop, spawned in the engineering labs of the browser kings. And from the content companies, prototypes powered by underlying new technologies – Castanet, ActiveX, and Java.

What they share are ways to move seamlessly between media you steer (interactive) and media that steer you (passive). They promote media that merrily slip across channels, guiding human attention as it skips from desktop screen to phonetop screen to a car windshield. These new interfaces work with existing media, such as TV, yet they also work on hyperlinked text. But most important, they work on the emerging universe of networked media that are spreading across the telecosm.

Use this moment to stop laughing hysterically. Seriously. They said this with a straight face, once upon a time. People thought this was a good idea.

I couldn’t tell you what Castanet was, nor do I care enough to spend the five seconds with Google to look it up. ActiveX has mostly become a security hole, and Java.. well, what can I say about Java that hasn’t been said elsewhere before? Java on the client side will still, in 2005, run a reasonable chance of crashing at least the VM if not the entire browser session; Java on the server side will, in 2005, kinda sorta work, assuming you make it live inside something like Oracle (where it might only crash an instance of the database manager, if you’re lucky).

I think it’s instructive that most of the really bad ideas from the 1990s — push technology, crappy VoD services, entry portals on Web pages — essentially revolved around the idea that you could get a user to allow you to lead him around by the nose. When that turned out not to be true, business models and assumptions that were thought to be manifestly correct ended up being more or less incorrect. That makes me happy, though I’m not sure I could tell you why. It’s also instructive when you realize how fully out of touch those Wired guys really once upon a time, and it makes you kinda wonder why you ever listened to them in the first place.

My transformation into one of the k00l k1dz of the 1nternet continues apace: I signed up for a Gmail account tonight. In my defense, my longstanding ISP of choice is making noise like they want to get rid of my favorite e-mail client (accessed via shell, of course) and I’m not sure they understand that I want them to replace elm and its antiquated mailbox format with mutt and its much nicer maildir mailbox format. Well, let’s be honest: I don’t really care about mailbox format, but they do; elm doesn’t do what they want it to, so they want to get rid of it, and if they’re going to keep me as a customer, I need to have shell access. Which more or less means mutt.

Yes, I know about the Gmail and privacy issues. I know how much webmail sucks. I know all of these things, and then some. But at the time it seemed like a reasonable thing to do, and it seemed like something sensible, and I always have the option of not using it, and… now I have it, and that’s the end of the discussion. So in addition to my half-dozen other e-mail addresses, I’m now also dochazmat@ (you know the rest; if you don’t know the rest, chances are I don’t want to talk to you, because you strike me as a clueless person).

As for why I don’t POP my mail over and keep it locally… well, I have more important/useful things to do with my time than fight with one of: sendmail/qmail/exim/MTA-of-doom. Trust me on this; I don’t get paid to do that crap anymore, and even if I did, I think I’d still outsource the mail management to someone else, because… it’s a real pain in the ass.

Incidentally, I think this is a hilariously useful (and very generous) service. If you’ve got some spare invites kicking around, or you’re looking for one of your own, why not drop in and say hello?

… in Soviet Russia, drink finished you. (Apologies to suppressingfire for stealing his joke, but it was just so damn funny..)