Author Archives: brad

iTunes is up to two million songs. Excellent. This is such a good sign for the future of electronically devlired music. Buck a song. I’ve been saying that since 1998, when Desktop Joe corrupted me with my first MP3 download.

I’m probably the last person in the country to pick up on this story, but I found it fascinating. Newsweek: Enter Jayson Blair, as if on cue. While at Maryland, a school from which he never graduated, Blair interned for both The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. He was not a popular guy, and had a reputation for trafficking in nasty gossip, stealing story ideas and sucking up to superiors so he could get credit for work he didn’t do.

History of the Internet. My favorite event is 1976: Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe develops Ethernet, later to be replaced by SodiumPentatholNet.

For Bill: How to Fake a Hard Day at the Office (in light of your George Costanza comments the other day).

Mary Jo Foley: …until Microsoft lets Longhorn out of the corral, Panther will rule the desktop OS jungle…

Apparently the MPA is cracking down on lyric sites. That sucks. I can’t tell you how many song I learned by visiting OLGA while I was in college (while I was supposed to be reading Thomas More, usually). Slashdot discussion here.

Phil Keaggy gets my vote for the greatest guitar player alive today, if not of all time. I got to see him play last night for the first time in about a dozen years. He was inspiring and amazing. I don’t know how he gets a guitar to make the sounds he does. Last night was the Ultimate Guitar Jam 2 at Grace Brethren Church in Lititz. Somewhere between 120 and 130 guitarists gathered on stage before Phil Keaggy came out and schooled us all.

And Phil Keaggy will be at the Saddleback Worship Conference and Festival in July, so I get to see him play again soon.

Hmm. Canadian politics may be more interesting than I originally thought.

OK, Bill wants to know what a typical day in tech support is like. Here’s a little exchange I took the time to write down today, so I wouldn’t forget it. The “her” in this story is someone whose name I can’t reveal for professional reasons, but I will say that she uses a PowerBook 3400, and, in fact, has gone through several of them. We don’t know what she does to the machines, but they die in her presence. She has been a constant source of funny, but heartbreaking, tech support stories.

Here’s the text of the work order we received yesterday:

Her laptop is shutting itself off and not coming back on.

She received a new power brick for her 3400 just last week, and we were wondering if she had killed this one (she has killed several power bricks by plugging them into dimmers; yes, I’m serious). So I pay her a visit, and this is our conversation.

Her: Can you put in a request for me to get a new laptop? This one is older than everyone else’s.

Me: Well, it’s not up to me; it all depends on the budget.

Her: Yes, but you can put in a request for me to get a new one?

Me: It’s not up to me.

Her: Then who determines-

Me: Dave.

Her: Can you put in a request with Dave for me to get a new laptop?

Me: I’ll say something to him.

Her: And he’ll make sure I get one.

Me: Just contact Dave.

Her: Because this computer is older than everyone else’s.

Me: Yes.

Her: You can see by looking at it that it’s much older than everyone else’s. I’ve had this for three years, which is before everyone else got theirs. They got new ones after that.

Me: Yes, but they started out with even older ones. We’re on a five year replacement plan.

Her: I’ve had this computer for five years, at least.

[pause]

Her: I’ve had this computer for six years.

Me: Well, at any rate, it’s fine now.

Her: What was wrong with it?

Me: I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. I plugged the power cable in tightly, since it wasn’t plugged in all the way. Then it fired right up.

Her: No, that couldn’t have been it. I’ve had that in and out several times trying to get it to work. But it just shut down on me. On Tuesday. And the screen was dark in the morning.

Me: Well, it’s OK now.

Her: It couldn’t have been the power charge. And that’s a new power charge. Was the screen bright when you turned it on?

Me: It still is. It’s on now. It’s working fine.

Her: Thank you.

Me: Sure thing. [mumbles and leaves]

We Found a Baby Bunny!”

The lawn mower is against me. Ran out of gas about 75% of the way through mowing. No problem; that’s pretty standard, actually. So I fill the tank with gas, and the mower refuses to start up again.

Dang!

Now, as I’m sure Mike will attest in the comments, I’m way better with a database engine than I am with an internal combustion engine. I’m not sure where to start, so I kind of putz around with it for a while.

No help. The mower won’t start.

My neighbor Bob, who is an attorney, is a very nice fellow, and offers to let me borrow his mower tonight and whenever else I may need it. Very neighborly. I take him up on his offer, because I just want to get the lawn mowed by this time (it was very much overdue).

At this point, Jen is secretly hoping that our mower is dead. She hates it. I don’t know why, but she and the mower don’t get along. She has told me several times that she would be happy to do the mowing if we had a “decent” mower.

I finish up the yard with Bob’s mower, which falls apart as I’m almost done. One of the knobs on the adjustable handle falls off. So I complete the job, simultaneously mowing and holding Bob’s mower together, trying to think of some way to fix it. I find the knob in the grass, and eventually the bolt that holds it in place as well. At the very least, I can return Bob’s mower intact.

My father-in-law arrives with his chainsaw to help us remove some bushes (no one trusts me with the chainsaw; this is wise of everyone). He offers to look at the mower. Cool, I think. If anybody can fix it, it’s Clair. Clair is equal parts MacGyver, Wozniak, Vila, and Dilbert.

Clair can’t fix it, at least not without some more tools. But I don’t think he thinks he can fix it, because he starts giving us buying advice, at which point Jen is thrilled.

And quite frankly, I’d be OK with a new mower, too. If Jen did the mowing, that would be cool. Not that I mind doing it; it’s just hard to find time while the sun’s shining.

Evan: But I think that’s because chickens aren’t so big. There’s nothing as funny as a good quote with no context.

Anybody else tired of seeing these “confidentiality” messages at the bottoms of people’s emails? Here’s a typical one. Let’s look at it.

Unless expressly stated otherwise, this message (and any attachment(s)
thereto) is confidential and may be privileged.

Already, things are falling apart. Email is technologically public in nature. If the information is that sensitive that you feel a disclaimer is warranted, you may want to think about a different transport, or at least using PGP.

It is intended for the addressee(s) only.

No kidding, Sherlock. The ironic part is that this particular message was lifted from a message to a mailing list!

If you are not an addressee, any disclosure or copying of the contents of this e-mail or any action taken (or not taken) in reliance on it is strictly prohibited.

So, if you screw up, I have to cover your butt? I would, because I’m a nice person, but don’t tell me I’m strictly prohibited from doing something with this message.

If you are not an addressee, please inform sender immediately and delete this message from your system.

Uh, yeah, I’ll get right on that.