I’m one of the many who’ve followed pretty much every one of Demonoid’s attempts at rebirth after a shutdown for copyright or other reasons, so when I saw a notice from some very generous members of Demonoid’s community that said they were bringing the service back as Demonoid2 or D2, I was more than a little curious. And more than a little teeny tiny bit skeptical. Apparently, with good reason–for the few minutes it was actually online, it was malware. But, because it amused me anyway, have the email I received in its barely edited entirety (links need fixing, y’know). If you got a similar email and thought about doing the clicky clicky, 1: good on you for not (you didn’t, right?). And 2: it’s deader than dead now, so clicking on it’s safe. Where safe = “This page cannot be displayed”. And now, because I can, the “Welcome to your new Demonoid!!!!!” email.

From: admin@d2-gatekeeper.net
Sent: May 8, 2013 12:25 AM
To: my@email.removed (I hate spam)
Subject: Demonoid rises from the ashes at last

Dear Demonoid Community Member,

We have all read the same news stories: The Demonoid servers shut down and seized in the Ukraine. The Demonoid admin team detained in Mexico. The demonoid.me domain snatched and put up for sale. The Demonoid trackers back online in Hong Kong, but then disappearing.

We all wanted to believe that Demonoid would be resurrected once again; but it seems that these events have spelled the end of Demonoid as we have always known it. We all waited to see if Demonoid would return, though its now clear that this time its really gone.

Now for some good news: The heart and soul of Demonoid lives on! Through an amazing sequence of unlikely events, the data on those Ukrainian servers has made its way into the safe hands of members of our community and has now been re-launched as d2.vu

Invitations to return are being sent out only to existing Demonoid members, which is the reason you have received this email. For the foreseeable future d2.vu will remain a semi-private site and no new invitations to join will be issued until we are certain that the system is stable. To login, click here and authenticate using your old Demonoid username and password.

Demonoid may be gone, but the community lives on at d2! Welcome home!

Sincerely,
admin

I would very much absolutely love to shake this judge’s hand. A judge in Cleveland, in sentencing a woman for driving rather stupidly on the sidewalk to avoid a bus, decided it would be fun to have her advertise her full-blown stupidity. This on top of her having her license suspended for 30 days. So what does he do? For a couple days the next week, he mandates that she spend an hour standing at an intersection holding a stupid sign.

Court records show a Cleveland Municipal Court judge on Monday ordered 32-year-old Shena Hardin to stand at an intersection for two days next week. She will have to wear a sign saying: “Only an idiot drives on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.”

And all the way to my next amusement I’ll have this in my head. All because of a judge with a sense of humour. Who says there’s never any justice?

It’s a little late for best/worst of 2012 lists, but no one ever said I stuck to a schedule. Besides, this one amuses particularly because, well, server admin. So it’s kind of a big deal, if you get me. And also it beats the royal hell out of an entry wherein Amazon tries screwing folks over twice just for fun, which is probably nothing new by this stage. Of course that could also mean I’ll have nothing to write about in a day or two and get back to that one, but hey you’ll have that. As for now, you’ll have the worst passwords of 2012.

Like one of the commenters to that article, I’m very glad–and yeah, okay, a little surprised–that “admin” isn’t on that list. Personally “master” is almost as bad, but considering how many people almost never actually change the default passwords to things, and those default passwords are remarkably insecure as it is, that’s a thing. Equally disturbing is that passwords like “Jesus” actually exist and don’t cause impressive amounts of damage to the folks what use them. My personal favourite on that list is “welcome”. Why? No, as in, why in the hell? As a password, even if it’s an absolutely brainless password, that doesn’t make sense. As in any. As in at all. As in please, just stop doing anything computer right now, and go back to pen and paper. Typewriter, even. It’s safer. Plus I won’t have to fix you later.

Related: If you use a thing I maintain and have a password remotely close to any of these, I’m probably gonna wanna have a conversation with you. Of course by the time I find this out you’ll probably be wanting to have a conversation with me about exactly how it is we’re gonna unbugger the crap somebody who got hold of your password buggered while you were too busy up in the weak sauce–which will make the conversation I want just that much easier to have. I like it when things work that way. Of course I like it even better when the passwords belonging to folks I fix don’t end up on one of these lists, but hey, you can’t have everything. Just remember to leave your user’s license with me when you’re done and we’ll all be fine. Or better yet, just change your bloody password.

What do you get when you take an ISP accused of being a spammer, the organization doing the accusing, the several security organizations defending the accuser, and one hell of an axe to grind? If you answered a wicked nifty cool DDoS attack, you get yourself a cookie. But since I have no cookies, you can settle for vodka. The attack in question started out just aimed at spamhaus, who manages an antispam blacklist for primarily mail trafick to prevent certain types of spam from hitting a mail server (disclosure: it’s one of the 4 I use, and use heavily). When a bunch of organizations jumped in to help Spamhaus minimise that attack, it escalated. The attack ended up aimed at the folks what provide a backbone to the internet (because someone’s going to ask, it’s explained better than I ever could).

The long and short version is, if one of the connections that make up the backbone of the internet ever takes a dive, large chunks of the internet can potentially take that dive right behind it–it happens every once in a great while, usually because somebody cocked up. But sometimes, it can be triggered for any number of reasons. On Wednesday, it was denial of service time.

Now, these things can typically handle a hell of a lot of trafick. They’d have to, considering pretty much any and all internet trafick eventually passes through them to get, well, anywhere. So you’d think they’d be pretty close to difficult to attack. And you’d be right, more or less–the attack from Wednesday measured at, well, about , eh?

So if you were growing an issue or two on Wednesday, it could have been your local technology. It could have been your ISP mucking something up. Or, it very likely could have been that someone really did just try and break the internets. I might actually be somewhat vaguely impressed–if the attempt at calculating that bandwidth bill didn’t just cause my brain to implode. I hope these folks had uncapped connections…

Because I still don’t feel like substance, even if it would appear the things what I was figuring on getting done today aren’t actually going to get done, have a one of these. You can take some comfort in the fact most of the things on that list I can safely say even in my unpaid work as the family geek I’ve never heard. However, my favourite–where favourite equals if I hear it one more time I’m going to break a nearly half finished bottle of vodka over somebody’s head–is one I can safely say I hear way, way too much. It’s also the last one on the list–go figure.

Tech Support: “All right. Now click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “Click ‘OK’?”

Tech Support: “Yes, click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “Click ‘OK’?”

Tech Support: “That’s right. Click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “So I click ‘OK’, right?”

Tech Support: “Right. Click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “I clicked ‘Cancel’.”

Tech Support: “YOU CLICKED ‘CANCEL’?!”

Customer: “That’s what I was supposed to do, right?”

Tech Support: “No, you were supposed to click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “I thought you said to click ‘Cancel’.”

Tech Support: “NO. I said to click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “Oh.”

Tech Support: “Now we have to start over.”

Customer: “Why?”

Tech Support: “Because you clicked ‘Cancel’.”

Customer: “Wasn’t I supposed to click ‘Cancel’?”

Tech Support: “No. Forget that. Let’s start from the top.”

Customer: “Okay.”

(15 minutes later)

Tech Support: “All right. Now, are you ready to click ‘OK’?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Tech Support: “Great. Now click ‘OK’.”

Customer: “I clicked ‘Cancel’.”

And this, right here, is pretty much every tech support call gone wrong in my entire professional and unproffessional career. Except with a few dozen choice explitives under the relative protection of the mute button, copious amounts of coffee, and rather liberal consumption of the afore mentioned vodka upon a return to the apartment and relative safety from, uh, other people. It still got me paid, and in still getting me paid I had a hell of a time finding the ability to care, but reading this now, I find myself amazed I didn’t actually do something regretable–like be completely honest while the offending annoyance was still on the phone. I do have *some* class, on occasion. It’s just not all that frequent an occasion.

That type of call is only topped by a thing I can safely say I’ve only ever, as in ever, received a grand total of once. I was working nights, which is what I spent most of my time working at Dell doing, and I get a call from a customer in Texas. Sweetest person you’re ever gonna talk to, and I can tell she meant well. She just… Well. There’s no polite way to describe it–she could really have used an education in basic common sense before being allowed within 50 feet of a computer. Or at least a basic education in how technology worked. Things like no, ma’am, your computer is not linked to the hive mind.

Tech Support: “How can I help you?”

Customer: “I just wanted to know. Uh, are your computers down?”

Tech Support: “Uh. N.n.n.no. Why would we be down?”

Customer: “Oh, I don’t know. But my system hasn’t come on all day and I was wondering if yall were having problems.”

Tech Support: “Sounds like you might have a pretty major one. You’ve tried turning it on?”

Customer: “Oh, yeah–tried every so often. It just doesn’t do anything but sit there. I hit the button you’re supposed to hit and nothing.”

Tech Support: *about to become an all too well documented statistic* “Do me a favour, alright? Let’s just make sure no one’s walked by and unplugged you here. Make sure the cable from your tower–the thing you need to turn on before your computer will actually do anything–to the wall is secure at both ends. Just in case. It could be that minor.”

Customer. “Oh. Now why didn’t I think to check before calling?” *puts down the phone, rummages for a few minutes, comes back* “Everything’s connected. The chord goes from the computer in behind the desk and to the wall. I even unplugged it and plugged it back in just to be sure, but it still won’t turn on. Was that supposed to reset things?”

Tech Support: *internal, dramatic sigh of relief* “No. But, you did confirm what I suspected. You’ve got a thing here.”

Because the internet of things can come crashing down and take the world of innocent bystander systems with it. Or something. I never quite got my head around exactly how A fit into B, as in at all. I probably should have had her explain that to me a little better, but I was sort of occupied with replacing her power supply and motherboard–and trying to find creative ways to tellher what I was doing without opening myself up to the inevitable questions about that being how Dell monitors things to make sure all the appropriate updates are installed and to make sure no one goes and does nasty things with the internets–or something. I honestly have no idea. I kind of stopped listening to that side of the conversation after she figured I was the guy that fixed all the things so she could get her email, or something. No, ma’am, I promise–I’m just the Dell guy. The Dell guy that happens to be holding your motherboard and power supply hostage until you stop playing 50 questions long enough for me to get info from you, and hand you same, but still just the Dell guy. At least she didn’t make me glad for vodka. Just coffee. Lots, and lots, of coffee. And I’m pretty sure I took my lunch break early that day…

I’ve seen–and, er, been responsible for–some wicked high cell phone bills. Mostly back in the days before unlimited northamerican long distance was a thing. And, uh, once when I moved and subsequently didn’t have internets for a few days. Oops. But it’s pretty safe to say none of my cell phone bills, on their own anyway, ever added up to approximately the amount required to bail out a solar system. Solenne San Jose, on the other hand, could probably do it twice with hers. She was originally told she’d be charged a termination fee for killing her contract before it was supposed to die, but what amounts to a breakdown in communications–and, quite probably, a bit of morons disease on the part of the phone company–meant the US could very easily stop borrowing from China and take out a “please save our asses” loan from Bouygues Telecom. They sorted it out, and the actual bill–after the curing of the afore mentioned morons disease–was at a much more reasonable, if still not entirely proportional, sub-$200 US. Or, in other words, John Q. Citizen’s monthly visa payment. Sorry, France. Looks like you’ll still be taxing the royal begeses outa the moderately wealthy. Oh, and, enter the snicker-worthy. The bill that would save the universe? Yeah, ’twas in France. The things they’ll do for a little budget balancing. Suddenly, the $1000 I legit worked up just doesn’t seem like quite so much fun.

That’s the situation now in a few Florida cities after their governments instituted bylaws against employees smoking even during their off hours. Companies can and are having people sign statements declaring themselves to be free of tobacco for 12 months prior to the application date. Also, in at least one city, employers are authorised to conduct random testing and to fire people who don’t pass that test. No idea how that doesn’t get smacked with a constitutional challenge if nothing else, but you’ll have that. Positive side, for a few: it’s cigarette smoke they’re targetting. So you with the joint? You’re safe–well, local and state laws against that kinda thing pending. Everyone else? tho thorry, thir. But hey–somebody somewhere might just see that as a reason to quit smoking. Or quit their job, but whichever.

I haven’t applied for a job since moving to where I’m living now. Mostly because I’ve been fighting with things of a school related nature, but also because it hasn’t gotten me very far. But at least on days wherein it hasn’t gotten me all that far, it’s usually taken maybe two weeks for someone to tell me to please play again. TD Bank apparently likes building up the suspense factor, I guess?

From: donotreply@td.com
Sent: January 16, 2013 3:40 PM
To: my@email.address (I’m alergic to spam)
Subject: Thank you for your application on TD Opportunities – Full-Time Customer Service Officer

Dear James,

Thank you for your interest in employment opportunities with TD Bank Group.

We received your application for the position of Full-Time Customer Service Officer at TD Bank Group. We wish to advise you that this position has been filled and as such, we will not be proceeding further with your application. Your online profile information will remain available for future reference.

Please continue to visit the Careers/Job Opportunities section of www.td.com to update your personal details, review current job listings and apply for new opportunities.

Thank you for your interest in TD Bank Group and we wish you success in future endeavors.

Human Resources
TD Bank Group

Dear TD Bank Group,

Thank you for letting me know you were at least still considering. I’m sorry to hear that it took you somewhere around 4 months to finally fill this position. I don’t suppose now is the correct time to point out that it would have taken you significantly less time to do so had you just elected to hire me. I won’t be offended, however, at the fact you instead took this long to say no.

Deciding what to pay someone with my level of geek can sometimes be a tiny bit tricky–especially if you’re also trying to figure out how best to avoid paying someone with my level of geek and not, at the same time, shoot yourself in the foot. It’s a bit of a balancing act, made even more so by the fact you must not have had a whole lot of actual, honest to goodness interest in the posting–either that or your automated “thanks for coming out” system is just really, really backlogged. Still, it’s nice to know you’re thinking of me. Perhaps I’ll check in in another 4 months. Here’s hoping you’ve found second gear by then.

Sincerely,
James Homuth

Maybe this is just a thing I never stopped getting used to after living in BC. I have absolutely no idea. But when I think of an all you can eat restaurant, I think two, maybe three helpings and you’re needing a forklift to get you back to your vehicle. I was also fairly active back then, so my definition of a helping was probably different than most. Still, when you go to all you can eat joints around here, you can have your two or three helpings–this time, I mean the more commonly understood definition of the word–and inside of 10 minutes, you’re wondering if you actually did just get finished with supper. It’s more than just me with that complaint–as evidenced by the fact pretty much no one goes to that type of restaurants around here. And it’s more than just an Ontario thing, as evidenced by one restaurant owner’s reaction to two customers trying to solve that problem in Brighton, England. His idea? Call them out for it in front of the rest of his customers, then toss them. The restaurant, a Mongolian BBQ joint, charges $19 a head for an all you can eat buffet, and these two frequented the place for around 2 years. Now, granted, we don’t learn exactly how much these two had eaten, or how much they usually eat when there, but we do learn something vaguely useful. All you can eat doesn’t mean what it used to. We’ll just add that to the list.

When I lived at the other apartment in Ottawa, every so often we’d get calls from nonsensical numbers that couldn’t be called back, blocked or even properly traced. They’d call for one of two reasons. Either to try and sell us tech support (me and the former roommate are both more than capable of our own tech support), or to offer us air duct cleaning service (we lived in an apartment and didn’t actually, uh, *have* air ducts). Oddly enough, our number was on the DNCL (Do Not Call List). Come to find out, we weren’t the only ones with the problem–and two of the companies responsible have been slapped. The smackdown went global, with the US and others joining in the festivities earlier this year. Of course, by now that phone number isn’t even in service and the new one hasn’t been slapped in any lists of that variety, as in ever, but it’d be interesting to see if this actually had any kind of affect. I mean beyond being some wicked little poetic justice if one of those guys was the one what rang me. In the meantime, I think we’ll be keeping our current phone numbers the hell off the DNCL, thankya please. I’m not interested in tech support for my very much not infected machines.

Tega Cay, South Carolina, must be one hell of a boring place to be. Absolutely nowhere halfway decent to throw a barely coherent party. That’s okay, though. Gives the locals an excuse to test their resourcefulness. So one shouldn’t be surprised, then, when a couple kids decide to borrow someone else’s house for their party. And it was going so well, too. The owners didn’t even realize their place had been borrowed. Small problem, though. These kids were apparently never taught. What happens in a borrowed party pad stays in the borrowed party pad. So naturally, the highlights made it to Facebook. And helped to rather, well, bust the borrowers. Pro tip, guys. Maybe next time stick to good old fashion photo albums? Ah well. At least they had the good sense to clean up after themselves.

For pretty much the entire duration of Bush Junior’s presidency, the running joke had to do with who in their right mind would let him anywhere near the launch codes for the US’s nuclear missiles. That was a favourite dig from pretty much anyone who didn’t much care for bush just based on the fact he was a republican, even before he started pulling completely brainless stunts that actually gave people reason to have a major problem and a half with him. As it turns out, that’s kind of the least of the US’s security worries. What people should have been getting twitchy about after all were the guys what were supposed to be actually paying attention to all things nuclear. Maybe if they’d done something a little closer to that, the facilities what house the things would be just slightly more resistent to 82-year-old nuns and their handyman friends. And if you thought that’d send any government official worth his salt out shopping for a new contractor, boy are you in the wrong universe. What they do, instead? Well… uh…

A Department of Energy report (PDF) on the incident found ‘troubling displays of ineptitude in responding to alarms, failures to maintain critical 2 security equipment, over reliance on compensatory measures, misunderstanding of security protocols, poor communications, and weaknesses in contract and resource management.’ The contractors have been put on notice, (PDF), but they still have the contracts.

And that, folks, is national security taken seriously. Although, I guess with all those terrorist children the TSA manages to stop, they can place a little less importance on, you know, securing the shit the terrorists might actually have it in their heads to get after. Yeah, why not? Let’s run with that. Because quite honestly anything else just makes my brain wanna supernova. And I’m gonna need that for later.

I have caffeine. And I have a bit of free time. That means geek entry. If technical things make your brain do melty things, there’s other stuff coming. Or, you can flip through some of what’s already posted. On the other hand, if brain damage is your thing, keep reading (Warning: long post is long). I don’t disappoint.

—————–

Folks who’ve been reading me for a while know this already. But for the new ones, or the ones who haven’t yet found the time to go wandering back through really wicked old entries, a background. I used to work for Dell, back when Dell used to be cool and actually wanna pay me. Naturally, that meant insane amounts of exposure to large doses of the kind of stupid that would be lethal without the proper equipment. Or an international border. whichever was more convenient. The kinds of breakage I had a front row seat to, and the wicked nifty cool shapes my brain had to fold itself into just to figure out 1: how in the 7 levels of hell $person actually ended up breaking their thinggy what I’m being paid to fix, and 2: how in the 7 levels of hell I was going to fix it without a small miracle, copious amounts of caffeine and an IV drip of vodka–only one of which was actually practical while sitting in a call center in the middle of freaking Kanata, made origami look like something your 2-year-old pulled off in his sleep last night–appologies to anyone who’s 2-year-old may or may not have just been mildly offended. I’ve even seen software–and some hardware–who’s manufacturers make an honest attempt to break things by default (see: standards, Microsoft’s lack of). Usually, that kind of is an out-of-the-box flop, though. And usually, I’m the shmuck that gets to appologise to the customer because there really is no way to fix that broken, short of replacing the defective–not something you want to tell someone after they’ve just plunked down $400 for that self same defective. Now, I’m that customer. And Bell Canada gets to play the part of Microsoft.

I do all manner of geeky–and sometimes freaky–things from behind this network. Including helping May with setting up and administering an FTP server. Sometimes, it involves extreme amounts of stress testing. And sometimes, it just involves a simple hey, can someone from outside this network access $service on $port, or do I need to smack me a modem? Up until a few days ago, that was a simple process if you were me. Or, hell, if you were May, who’d tell you herself she’s not quite as technical-minded as I am but she’s kind of busy catching up on posting to her site at the moment. All either May or Myself had to do was pull up a chair and connect. Well, more or less. From behind the network, we could still pull up the external hostname, bounce to it from inside the network, and have it route the connection back to the network on the appropriate port. So basicly, it’s like picking up the landline and dialing your own phone number rather than *98 (or whatever your US equivalent is), and seeing if your voicemail picks up. At some point last week, though, Bell decided to turn off that ability.

I have no idea what the hell they changed, but they apparently pushed an update to the modem we’re using–we’re using Bell’s “Connection Hub”, if you’re curious–that pretty much broke standard networking. Now, if I’m sitting at the machine I’m using right now, behind an otherwise fully functional network, and I try to pull up a service I know is working as expected, I get nowhere. Or, rather, I get somewhere–it still tries to connect to the external hostname. It just times out, as opposed to connecting. Going back to the comparison from earlier, it’s like calling your own phone number, knowing you should be hearing your voicemail, and instead the phone just keeps ringing.

Thinking the modem just developed amnesia–they do that sometimes, I go in and have a look. Sure enough, it ate the settings I’d whipped up to actually allow the public to access things from outside this network. I’d seen this once or twice so was actually kind of expecting a whole other set of issues–amnesia of that variety is usually asign you’ll be soon replacing your modem. So while reimplementing the settings that let things be visible to the greater internet, I was internally preparing to have that conversation with both my ISP and my girlfriend. And only really not looking forward to one of those conversations. so I reminded the modem that yes, in fact, this is a friendly thing, and please to be letting John Q User play with it thanks much. And then I hoped like hell the damn thing wouldn’t forget me 10 minutes after I left the room. I tried connecting externally again, same result. Then we lost internet briefly. Well hell. Here comes 2008 all over again, it looked like. Still, when we came up, I smacked the reboot option–just to cover my ass. And because, hey, if it was 2008 all over again, we’d already lost our settings so what was I hurting? Another reconnection later, and I figure okay, let’s play find the server. Again, dialing my own phone number, expecting to hear my own voicemail, and instead hearing ring ring. Not cool, network. And not the standard performance, either.

Still suspecting the modem might be on its way out, I check again. Nope, all of our settings are there. The modem’s just being a Microsoft product (*). What the blue? So fine. I have access to a server that’s well beyond this network–hint: WTN’s sitting on it. So let’s go see if the service is even visible. Connect to the server, fire up two different FTP clients. Connect from the server, back to the network, to May’s FTP server–the thing I couldn’t reach by the external hostname from the local machine. Doesn’t it work like there’s nothing wrong in the slightest. I can connect, do what I do, then bail. No problem. Alright, next test. C’mere, CanYouSeeMe. Do we exist, at this IP address, and on this port? We do? And you say that more than once? Awesome. So John Q User can play with the thing after all. We just can’t bounce off the hostname anymore. Cute. So why the hell not, and can we fix it?

As it turns out, I don’t actually have an answer for that first question–I’m guessing Bell pushed out an update, but as locked down as that modem is (hint: Google doesn’t turn up any super nifty administrative access levels, a la the modem we had at the old apartment through Rogers), that’s just a guess over here–though that would be the only reason for the modem’s temporary bout of amnesia, assuming it’s not trying to warn us it’s going to fail tomorrow. As to the second question? After about 15 minutes poking around in the thing, it looks as though that has potentially no written all over it. Actually, poking around inside this modem tells me you can’t actually fix, or turn off, much over here–enter breakage the second.

The modem they gave us when we signed up for internets is one of those router combos. Because of the speeds we’re getting and the fact it’s fiber, this is kind of the only modem we can get from Bell–and I’ve not found an equivalent outside of Bell that I can be reasonably confident won’t crap itself in 6 months just on account of the connection expecting too much from the hardware. But so far as router combos go, even the ones provided by the ISP, the thing’s crippled. Problem the first: no bridge mode. As in, at all. At least, not in the sense that you can tell the modem to just be a dumb modem and hook up your own damn router. You can turn off DHCP and wireless access, but that’s about as far as it goes. Why? Part of it’s because, stupidly in my honest, Bell uses this exact same modem for its TV service–not much use to us at the moment, but a trivia type thing I found while poking. So, truely bridge mode would break that in several interesting and not so fun ways. That also means I can’t bypass Bell’s breakage and go buy me a new router–too bad, too, as there are several that’d do the trick quite nicely. But the modem would still be handling the trafick from the router, and playing cop where necessary–or rather, where Bell thinks it necessary, thus defeating the entire purpose of a second, better, more stable router. And problem the second: What access Bell gives you to this modem is, well, basic at best. You can configure wireless network settings, open whatever ports you need (see above for situations wherein that might not be practical), and set up management for dynamic DNS in the event you don’t want to have to fight with a client for doing exactly that (I don’t, personally). And that, right there, is about the extent of your access. Add an exception to the firewall so the router doesn’t block your mystery packet transfer? Not happening. Set it up so specific services aren’t available during certain times of day, or days of week? Not happening.

Rather than having the option of becoming a dumb modem, Bell handed us a dumb router. Then they broke it with an update. Awesome, yeah? And between the two of them, my brain suffered two very significant meltdowns. And I still don’t get to just say screw it and run my own damn router.

(*): The comparison may or may not have had a small something to do with the fact I just got done fighting with Outlook. Maybe. Or was that this morning? Oh well.

Update:

I’m not crazy! This caught someone else too, or at least one other someone else, pushing me just a little bit further towards the theory an update broke it. Awesome job, Microbell. Now when do ya get to fix me?

I’m still catching up on mockery from September. It’s what happens when life tosses me a curve, followed by a fastball, followed closely by a change-up. But, that having been said, I’m not sure if Paula Asher or the judge in her DUI case is the bigger moron. Yes, driving while drunk is idiotic. So is laughing about it on Facebook. Then again, so is ordering someone to delete their Facebook account for laughing about it. She posted this on her Facebook page after being convicted.

“My dumb bass got a DUI and I hit a car…LOL”

For that, the judge ordered her to delete her account. She ignored him, and for that, she got slapped with jail time. In a stupid contest, I’m not entirely sure which one of them would come up a winner–or whether or not winning would imply the winner was more or less stupid than the loser. But, if she’s got a functioning brain cell, she’ll decide to post about her next stupid stunt on Twitter. Judges don’t tend to spy on that quite as closely yet.

Every year, the Macy’s Parade usually has something happen that makes almost as many headlines as the parade itself. This year, well, let’s just say Macy’s played the exception card. The parade usually involves confettie. Usually a particular brand of confettie. This year, it was the police issue type. confidential information, including the social security numbers and bank account info of undercover police officers, all safely and securely shredded, rained down on Macy’s Parade attendees. Natch, Macy’s has no idea how that happened. Most likely neither do the police. But someone, somewhere, is very likely contributing to a tiny little uptick in the US unemployment rate tonight.

Bet you didn’t know you were gambling with your privacy when you went and bought you a rent-to-own computer, did you? Neither did quite a few people who rented from 7 companies who’ve been smacked down for including software that enabled the companies to take pictures of the would-be owners. Those companies had apparently taken pictures of children, people who weren’t fully clothed, and couples having sex. Of course, the companies quickly settled, but I bet the folks who were caught on much too candid camera are now planning to directly purchase their machines from whoever manufacturer of the year is this year. and I bet so are a lot of other folks after this mess. And folks wonder why I both buy direct from the manufacturer where possible and whipe the thing when I get my hands on it. Well, if you didn’t know before, you do now. Hey. It works.

Something else I’m going to need to get used to. When there’s a power issue in Ottawa, this building usually isn’t part of it–well, unless management breaks something but that’s a whole other entry. So neither May nor I knew there was interesting times until we had stuff to do. That stuff to do took us to Algonquin College first, where I’m assuming the problems first showed up–only one of their buildings, conveniently enough the building we needed to go to, was without power. We were still able to do most of what needed doing, so whatever. We escaped the college, and on our way out, the rest of the campus pretty much went dark. Supposedly it was fixed fairly quickly, as when we went to grab supper on the way home, places in that area had power. It turns out Hydro Ottawa, yes *that* Hydro Ottawa of the almost semi-annual bill increase, broke their connection with Ontario’s power grid. And there went a good chunk of Ottawa’s hydro. If I was still living where I was at this time last year, I’d very likely be mocking the power outage from a different perspective. But now I’m curious. aside from the college and probably my old apartment building, how much of Ottawa was in the dark and for how long?

Also this proves something. May and I are not allowed to go anywhere together. Bad things happen. Although, it usually provides material for the site. Okay forget what I just said.

Only after reading a Techdirt article could I come up with a title like that. Of course it may also have something to do with the fact the caffeine isn’t doing what it used to, but we’ll pretend that doesn’t enter the picture. Time Warner is well known for service that ranges anywhere from absolute suck in a bag to honking so damn bad even the government goes cringe. But we learn today that at least there’s no special treatment for cellebrities in TWCLand. How do we learn this? By watching Patrick Stewart try and ultimately give up on getting service through TWC. No, I did not just mistype over here. The guy what played the guy what defeated the borg, at least until Voyager, has been bested by the damned cable company. See? All this time yall have been up for assimilating humanity and you’ve been doing it wrong. No wonder you got your asses kicked. Twice. And yes, we’re ignoring the apparent continuity problem star Trek develops with that storyline–that was Voyager’s one redeeming quality. It also makes very good material for an ultrageekish style post. Which this is not. I just found it mildly overly amusing. And probably only 4 of the people what read this will know why.

The US Transport Security Administration (TSA) loves their naked body scanners. Or being able to feel you up if you don’t feel like letting them scan you. And I love poking at the TSA when one of those tactics rather, um, blows up in their face. But this is kind of a new one. Hell, I wish I’d suggested it.

John Brennan is a resident of Oregon who apparently decided he was tired of the TSA’s escentially wanting to stripsearch folks. Presumedly including him. So as a matter of protest, and I’d argue a rather creative one at that, he gave the TSA exactly what they wanted–himself, naked. The TSA’s answer? Have him arrested for indecent exposure. Turns out that didn’t go very well, though, as the case was tossed for first amendment reasons. And here in security theater free Canada, we call that a win win. John got to be heard, the TSA got a good look at him naked, and I got mockery. Oh yeah, and somebody somewhere got to file it away for this year’s list of dangerously harmless people and things caught by the TSA.

People say the most absolutely randomest of things. Usually at the most oddly weird of times. For anyone who actually knows us, May has a guidedog. Had one for years. Long before she’s met me. I’ve never had one. Haven’t figured I wanted/needed one. what I do has worked since, well, I started doing it. And, well, if it ain’t broke, I don’t necessarily feel up to fixing it (*). And that leads us to a thinggy that just out of nowhere said hello while busing it home.

We’re nearly to our stop, and May goes to get up. I’m staying put temporarily, because there’s a few people between me and where I need to be and well, fighting to get through them on a moving vehicle just doesn’t happen. So the lady across from me decides May’s just the absolute meanest person to walk the planet. She’s supremely concerned about me, and insisting to me that May just got up and walked off with my dog. I actually had to briefly argue with this woman that no, in fact, the dog who’s leash is in May’s hand, who’s at May’s heal on the way off the bus, does not belong to me.

she knew I was blind–I’m going to assume because of the cane, but that’s a guess. Did she, like, completely skip over the fact May was also? Is that what happened? Because May got up and headed for the door, and the cane didn’t come out. Or, uh, something. I honestly have absolutely no idea.

Little known fact for the reader types in and around the Ottawa area. There are quite a few folks who rely on guidedogs. For those that do, they’re awesome–the dog in this conversation is just more awesome than the rest. But not every blind bloke in Ottawa has or wants a dog. Not every blind bloke with a dog in Ottawa takes that dog with them wherever they go–May’s left hers at home a few times and took the cane, just on account of it’s less complicated, sometimes faster, and there’s just some places you don’t need to be taking your dog–like, say, the pet store to get food (talk about your massive source of distraction, and you can’t even really correct for that). And for the love of chese, if one blind bloke gets up and heads for the exit with a dog in tow, chances are pretty good the dog belongs to the blind bloke in question. Especially if they’re with me. Who, again, doesn’t have one. Follow? Awesome. Somebody wanna see that weird bus lady gets this?

(*): I do, on occasion, modify that expression in such a way that it now says “if it ain’t broke, tweek it ’til it is”. But that usually applies to geeky things. And some people’s brains, but you’ll have that.

I’m not completely sure what the Stay Smart Online program is exactly supposed to do for Australians who sign up for it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to end with those citizens’ personal details ending up on a DVD somewhere between here and the postal ether. I’m also pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to end up in the hands of a contractor idiotic enough to 1: back up that information on a DVD and 2: send said DVD through the mail in the first damn place. But, both happened. And now what I’m guessing is supposed to be an attempt at an internet safety system is officially a whole lot less safe. Bright side, because I love a good silver lining: at least the passwords were encripted?

I’ve mocked some pretty off the wall stuff on this thing over the years. Probably more than my fair share. But this, right here, I think takes the cake. A 26-year-old guinness fan decided it wouldn’t be enough to just wait for the warehouse in St. John’s to open, and walk right in to get his hands on whatever he just couldn’t wait to get his hands on. No sir, that just absolutely would not do. The solution? Let’s break in via the window. His just reward? He died there.

I get the expression I’d die for $thing, where $thing is equal to something ultra cool you know you’ll probably not see for a good god damn long while. Like, for instance, a decent phone with Apple’s level of accessibility, but not Apple’s level of paranoid walled-garden-ness. But I always figured that was just an expression. Clearly, I’ve been corrected. But over Guinness-branded whatsits? That almost mocks itself. Almost. Glad I could help.

Occasionally I go through these little once-in-a-while meetup type things. I kind of compare them to a sort of first date type deal, only for employment reasons rather than familial/whatever the hell else is out there. Company catches your eye from across the way, you try not to let them catch you looking until you think you’ve got the nerve. then you go up and introduce yourself. You get to talking, find out you’ve got a few things in common, decide hey, let’s give the dinner thing a try. Pick you up at 3? Awesome. so you go, you do the thing, you say the stuff, and it hopefully doesn’t blow up in your face. From here, it goes one of a few ways. You stick to casual dating–nothing exclusive, you see, you decide eventually that maybe you wanna get a little more on the serious side, or you decide hey, that was fun, but what else ya got? Then you do it all over again with the next one, or multiple ones. and on their end, they’re doing the exact same thing–playing the field, if you will, with a whole bunch of other shmucks probably not too unlike you. It’s the business equivalent to the bar scene, if you’re into that kinda thing. and that’s where this post kind of grows a point of its own.

I’ve stepped back into the dating scene again, at least from an employment viewpoint. Had the dinner date (read: interview) and everything. It looks like it could be promising, right up until she says “I’ll call you”. well crap. and it was going so well. So now, I get to sit around and see if my most recent date wants to see me again. either she’ll call me, or I’ll see her at the same damn bar in a couple days with another guy on her arm and thank caffeine I’ve got a plan B–more on that in another entry. Meanwhile, I learn something I probably should have learned by now. If the job market’s a bar scene, then your average employer’s a freakin’ tease. All the fun and flirting you can handle, but the ride stops real quick when it gets to “your place or mine?”. And, of course, the minute I walk through the door, some dreamy lookin’ thing wants to flirt. Thank christ I’ve got nothing but time. and that plan B.

If ever I have a reason to deal with US immigration in future, can somebody please very politely slap me upside the head with something blunt and heavy? Thanks. They don’t seem to be in possession of a degree of inteligence lately. A 14-year-old girl ran away from home and was later arrested for shoplifting. She fed police a fake name–what 14-year-old hasn’t done that, if they thought it’d keep them from catching shit–and that name just so happened to belong to someone wanted by the Colombian government. So the police handed her over to immigration–who promptly took her fingerprints and, uh, deported her anyway. Her grandmother only found out about it, uh, this year (this happened in 2010). I wonder how long it’ll take them to undo this mess–and how much of its web sensorship practices are playing a part in why no one knew of it until, uh, 2012?

Every so often, I’ll find a reason to slag on some company or another for craptacular customer service. Or amazingly failful equipment that requires I be in direct contact with their craptacular customer service. Time Warner has been stepping up efforts to correct that, and put the customer first, lately. Which, I suppose, made for bad times when one of their employees, while at her desk, had the nerve to die on the spot. Not to let an opportunity to extend amazing customer service go to waste, Time Warner insisted a coworker stop CPR on the woman and get back to taking calls. Now that, right there, is awesome customer focus. See, AT&T? If you took that mentality you might not be dead last in most customer related categories. You might be dead last in a couple others, like, say, employee safety, but hey, them’s small potatoes. Just ask TWC.