Category: Computers

The Naked Dream

So I said, “I’ll take my clothes off, if you do.” And I did without waiting for the other to respond.

It was a nebulous, quicksilver dream. My dream doesn’t have markers but that part happened deep into it. To begin, I was visiting a think tank. Don’t think of Rand Corp or anything, think small, barely funded radicals with computers and ideas. They were an interesting group of mostly young men and women who were interested in ideas and data. I have just met them. I’m a visitor. It’s a little awkward. I’m not socially graceful, and neither are they.

I don’t remember much of the conversations. Flashes come back to me, like, “She has the network firewalled to limit exposure to outside events so that our thinking won’t become polluted or maligned.” I said back, “I can connect you to the outside world through my laptop.” This was declined, but we went back and forth about whether I would be able to do what I claimed, the philosophy behind the firewall, and the perceived advantages and disadvantages.

But many conversations were going on with people coming and going. As that conversation rolled, another was taken up about Derrick’s study. Becoming interested in what was being said, I wanted to see Derrick’s study. Then it was mentioned that Derrick — a morose looking white fellow with a mop of dark hair in jeans and a pullover — always did his data collecting in the nude. That’s when I made my offer as part of an effort to cajole the data out of Derrick. Derrick does not take his clothes off. He seems like a downer to be around. The whole group is like that.

Later, I’m nude.

I feel a little self-aware and conspicuous, but nobody is paying my nudity much mind. Someone else is going to share Derrick’s data. We all go down to another room where a slide show is presented. I’m fascinated, but others drift away. New projects are offered and discussed. I’m engaging with others about their projects. Some projects are about diet habits. One in particular, led by a woman, interests me more. I’m enlisted into working on it. About to go out to collect data after volunteering to do that, I joke, “But first I’ll dress.” Standing up, I pull on my pants. Nobody laughs.

Strange group, I think. Fade out.

2

A Failure

I failed yesterday.

I’m one of those optimists who believe they can do anything, if they think, work, and try hard enough. I believe this despite my multiple failures at doing everything that I’ve tried, or coming up short. I’m just a freaking optimist.

Yesterday’s failure involved my wife’s Macbook, specifically her Retina A1398 15″ Retina edition. Her touchpad started malfunctioning. Her cursor would freeze and become unresponsive, or act like a crazy trapped bee. It’s been going on for a month.

I’ve fixed computers before. In my mind, fixing a computer is like replacing the points and plugs in a car. (Remember when cars had points and plugs?) Hell, I said, it might just be a new touchpad is required. Let me buy a new one and try to replace it. It’s only a few dollars.

Sure. Why not?

I ordered and received the part, opened up the Mac, disconnected the power, and attacked the battery. 

I should say, the damn battery.

I’d read stories, but scoffed at those others who tried and failed. I AM MICHAEL, right?

Well, I couldn’t remove that battery, either. Nobody was exaggerating when they noted as Apple glued that sucker in there. It’s a fascinating solution, essentially six packets of different sizes glued into place along the leading edge and behind the touchpad. However, it’s also disturbing because it’s not easy to replace that battery, which means those Macs probably get trashed because their batteries failed and can’t be easily replaced. That means more toxic trash will be put into our environment, even though the computer still works. More depressing is that other manufacturers will probably follow this course because they can design smaller and lighter machines.

So, I failed. I don’t mind. As with every failure, I learned quite a bit. I just can’t worry about failing, or I wouldn’t try anything, right?

The kicker is, after I put the computer back together, her cursor worked fine, and has since that time. We rationalize that it must have been undue pressure on the touchpad, and that I’d relieved and shifted that pressure when I disassembled the computer.

I’m sure this story isn’t over yet.

1

The Walls

Thinking about what I’m doing in my writing and thinking, and writing and posting to understand what I’m thinking and writing.

See, I had to leave my characters behind and scale the walls once again. First I did it while I was walking, but once I glimpsed the territory, I needed to map it out on paper.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the walls. I’ve never heard other writers use the expression as I use it. The walls establish the characters’ limits of knowledge. They’re different for each character — all remember, realize, experience, or know different aspects than others.

Beyond the walls are the other events taking place that will affect the characters. How much is happening and what you, the writer, decides to share, depends on the story you’re telling. For examples, walls are frequently employed in sitcoms. One character establishes some half-ass fact or understanding predicated on misheard or overheard information, or glimpse something and make a wrong assumption, initiating a chain of misguided decisions. We, the audience, knows what’s going on beyond the wall. That sets up the humor.

We see the walls in the Jason Bourne movie franchise, where many walls are employed, torn down, or penetrated. Secrecy, security, dirty histories, and personal agendas establish and maintain the walls.

In this series that I’m writing, I use multiple walls. A huge part of what’s going on is happening beyond the walls. It’s stuff that wasn’t told to the characters or the readers. Now, though, the characters are storming the walls. They’re planning to tear them down, so I need to go see what’s happening on the other side. To get to that point, I pulled out pen and notebook. I resort to this methodology when I’m going my craziest. Pen and paper is less permanent, and more fluid and malleable. Typewritten words on screen or paper demands grammar, punctuation, and spelling be followed from years of conditioning. The notebook and pen shouts, “Scribble fight!” And off I go.

Got my coffee, and in position. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

0

Minor Rant #143

We began having Internet connectivity issues in the beginning of May. It was intermittent, and service typically returned in a few minutes.

We were planning a trip, and busy with those details, so I didn’t call it in. On the day before we left, the outage was a few hours in the morning. Logging in at a coffee shop,  I sent my ISP, Ashland Home Net (AHN) an email through their support website. They said someone would get in touch with me.

They didn’t.

Returning after our vacation last week, we found our connectivity worse. Calling in meant waiting by the phone for return calls and staying home so they can come by and check our systems. But, last Friday, I called it in.

Yes, they could see that we were online but our signal was very weak. This would need to be called into the city IT.

The City of Ashland supports several local ISPs. They do so through a community-owned entity called Ashland Fiber Network (AFN). The city’s support helps reduce the cost, right, and provides an alternative to the big commercialized entities that dominate the field, like Charter, Century Link, Comcast (which all might now be the same company). I use Ashland Home Net to buy local and help defray that cost.

Friday our connection went out in the morning and returned in the afternoon,  apparently on its own. I called AHN for an update before they closed for the day. The agent said a ticket had been opened with the city. The city would call us. They would come by.

They didn’t. 

Our connectivity came and went through the evening.

Saturday found another outage that lasted several hours. Support was called. Messages were left. Nothing was heard back.

Sunday…the same.

Monday.

Internet connectivity was good in the morning. I returned from writing and walking at about 2 PM. My wife said the connection had dropped at noon. I called it in. The same agent that I spoke with on Friday told me, yes, a ticket with the city had been opened. The city will be calling me.

The hours passed…

I called them each hour to remind them my net was still down and that I hadn’t heard from the city. We heard back from an Ashland Home Net at 5:40 PM. Yes, a ticket had been opened with the city. Unfortunately, they were closed for the day. Nothing could be done.

Our connection returned at 6:53, and then left a hour hour later.

It came back again at 8:50, but dropped at 10:20, and didn’t come back.

We had a connection the next morning, Tuesday. Since I didn’t hear from Ashland Home Net or the city, I called AHN  to see what was going on. The agent said the city was backed up. They would get hold of me, but it would probably be another twenty-four hours.

“Really?” I said. “It’s already been ninety-six hours.”

“What?”

“We opened the ticket on Friday.”

“Your records show that the ticket was opened on Monday.”

“No.” I had my notes and referred to them.

“Oh, you’re right,” the agent said. “Okay, I’ll call the city now, and I’ll call you back.”

He did. “The city is sending someone out now.”

The city did. I saw their truck out there. I saw their agent. He went to the side of our house. I waited for him to come to the door.

He didn’t.

I waited for the city to call.

They didn’t.

Our connection was up and remained up, and it has since then. We’ve never heard anything back from the city or Ashland Home Net.

I’m going to give them a call when I get home today. I want to know what the problem was, or is, if it still exists, and what’s been done, or will be done about it.

Then I think I’ll check out other ISPs.

Just in case. Because right now, I’m not too damn pleased with Ashland Home Net, Ashland Fiber Network, and the City of Ashland.

7

A Sign

It’s a sign that things aren’t going well, computer-wise, when you try to reach http://www.isitdownrightnow.com to see if a website is having problems, and you can’t reach it because it’s down.

Amazing how frustrating something like the inability to reach one or two sites makes me.

0

The Password Is

It was a fascinating read about Passwords, with many intriguing links.

First, it shouldn’t surprise anyone, but people wanting to crack passwords study passwords. They buy up databases of stolen passwords, and when possible, link them to their owners, and then use the information they’ve gained to look up the owner on the Internet and social media to learn what they can. They’re not targeting these people to hack them; they’re targeting them to understand demographic patterns.

Second, people continue to use words or personal information as passwords. Cracker programs and applications have databases that automatically look for words first. Match and done, cracked. Naturally, they also look for names.

from Mark Burnett, xato.net, via https://wpengine.com/unmasked/

Third, more scary, but not surprising, is that password crackers are also including the “Leet” (or 1337) methodology so many employ. It isn’t surprising, because it’s commonly known and used (because it’s been around for a long time), so of course anyone trying to crack passwords will include that information in their processing.

Fourth, the thinking behind websites and applications about how password strength and password entropy is weighed varies. Zxcvbn (recognize the pattern?) in a remarkable post compared multiple sites and gave the results for the same passwords. Intriguing.

Returning to the Unmasked article, they also used Full Contact’s Person’s API to go through seventy eight thousand passwords to find rich and famous people. From that, they selected forty passwords that were matched to see if they could be cracked, and how long it took.

Most were too easily unmasked. That’s one thing to remember: if you’re targeted, your password can probably be cracked, but it’ll take time. Thieves typically aren’t targeting most of us because we’re not notable or wealthy. So taking the time to create challenging passwords can help remove you from the list of low hanging fruit. That’s the same reason for frequently changing passwords. Yes, it is all a pain. It’s also why you shouldn’t use the same password — or easy variations — on multiple accounts.

A Github developer, whose password had an entropy of ninety-six, was hardest to crack.

 

 

0

Sneeze

Don’t you hate it when you suddenly sneeze and it ends up all over your computer screen? I could really use tear-aways protective covers on my screen like racing drivers use on their windshields (NASCAR) and visors (Formula 1).

2

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