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Sails AbackThis one is for the sailors: here the sails are aback as the Lady Washington tacks. The wind is on the wrong side and they are pressed against the mast and rigging. This almost never happens in a sloop rig, but it brings the bow across the wind in a square rigged boat. Below you can find a description of a square rig tacking maneuver.Being "taken aback" is also an expression meaning unpleasantly surprised. If the wind shifts and takes the sales aback, it is a dangerous situation.-- Don McCullough
As has been mentioned in these parts before, Life Comes at You Fast, whether you're ready or not, it comes. Often it goes, therein lies the sadness of it all.
Hard to believe that our man juvat's sister has traveled to the great beyond, left me sad beyond words. Too much death lately, that's all I'll say.
Raise a glass to Lisa, we'll not see her like again.
In other news ...
My bloody modem/router decided that it had done all it wanted and ceased passing bits to the various devices around the manse. Oh, I could see the wee lights flickering, acting all, "Oh no, Your Grace, we're working, must be your computer that's on the Fritz." Or both cell phones, etc. Bleedin' coincidence that.
I tried to recover things myself, to no avail. Requested a modem reset followed by a "did you try turning it off then back on again?" IT trick. Nope, nope, nope.
Finally gave up and called, (drum roll please), tech support.
A very nice fellow on the subcontinent (India perhaps, could have been Pakistan, after all, his name was Mohammed) proceeded to do the exact same things which I had done.
Again, to no avail.
So an onsite visit was scheduled, some 72 hours hence.
Sigh ...
Facing a long weekend (for I had Monday and Tuesday off) living in the 19th Century, I went to bed, gnashing my teeth and rending my garments. The Missus Herself did ask me to "knock off the wailing, you'll wake the neighbors," which I did, though I was an awful poor sport about it.
Awakening on Monday something struck me, I'm a damned engineer, my company pays me (rather well) to figure out why something is broken. So, applying geometric logic, I did some research. Routers get old, they wear out electronically, five years is a fair lifespan for a router, mine was a right Methuselah in the router community.
So, I says to myself, why wait for tech support to come out Wednesday evening (first available appointment) when I might be able to fix this myself. Solution?
Buy a new frigging router/modem.
So off to the tech store I went and purchased just such a thing.
Now in theory I should be able to hook it up, register it with my ISP and go forth, internet-connected and online.
Nope.
The gatekeepers at my ISP are rather fierce, well, actually, their servers were dead slow. Kept getting the "503" error, which for you non-techies means, "Run along simple peasant, this website is not for thee."
So back to the dreaded tech support.
They were aghast that I had actually had the temerity to purchase my own equipment and not go through them. Once they had stopped whinging and passing me around from office to office (no doubt out of sheer boredom, or perhaps it was spite) I finally got connected with a fellow who seemed awfully sincere and apologetic for his colleagues passing me around like some fat doobie.
One of his colleagues had actually registered my new modem in their system (gotta have the correct ID dontcha know) he proceeded to get me back on the information superhighway.
For which I thanked him profusely and declared him a prince among men, no finer lad exists, etc., etc.
So now I am once again online. As is The Missus Herself, whose sole kudo was "Why did it take so long?"
She would've made a fine flag officer, she would, that one.
Sigh ...
Then there's this ...
The spambots take all the fun out of it, neh?
Back to Waterloo on the morrow.
Why yes, I am dragging it out, why do you ask?
😎
Editor's Note: Yes, yes, Independence Day it is, I have been out of sorts lately. Happy, happy. The day now only reminds me of the death of my Sasha two years ago on the 5th. It's getting old we are, no more the incipient curmudgeon, it's full blown curmudgeon-ness with this old chap.
Ah technology. Usually brings me to my knees and not in a good way. Glad we’re going back to Waterloo on the morrow. I have suspected, not complaining mind you, that you are having a lot of fun bringing this momentous event to life.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have enjoyed bring you my interpretation of that battle.
Delete1. I'm one of your regulars - happy to see you're back up and running.
ReplyDelete2 Why is it necessary to register with one's ISP - why isn't it an automatic process? silly question, I know, but...
Back in the "old" days everyone touted the concept of "plug and play." The idea was that with a common standard, devices would automatically be recognized by a network/machine. Thing is, that "common" standard is open to a lot of interpretation. So you give them the specs for your device, and they sync it to their network.
DeleteOh to have a truly automated process ...
Good to see your quest finally succeeded Sarge. Upon marriage the spousal unit automatically attains flag rank, it's in the bylaws or some such I believe.......... :) Happy Independence Day! Up the British!
ReplyDeleteI think it is a natural law, or something.
DeleteSarge,
ReplyDeleteWhile passing condolences ; I gotta take issue with the idea that "there's too much death". There might be too much for us to process; but taking a step back, we all owe God a death and He comes for us on His terms. It sounds as though Lisa was a good person, living a good life and is mourned by good people ; that's better than can be said for many.
Happy Once and Future Independence Day
Boat Guy
Well said, sir.
DeleteBG - Too much death around me is the point I was trying to convey, philosophy falls far short when one is confronted with reality. Having a number of beings one cares about pass away in a short span is hard.
DeleteJoe - Again, philosophy is one thing, reality quite another.
DeleteI only partially miss my time as the G6 of a medical command. Three brigades and 6 battalions located in Georgia, Wisconsin, and California. I had six personnel to provide conus-wide IT support to those units. Don't even get me started on some of the crap we had to go through when trying to interface systems. Often frustrating but sometimes rewarding and there were times being out in the field was absolutely beautiful. And the contract IT guy who I regarded as one of the very best used to be the bass player for Carpenters! A true Prince of a man.
ReplyDelete-Barry
A good IT person is worth their weight in gold!
Delete"A good IT person is worth their weight in gold!"
DeleteHence we are blessed with this:
John Blackshoe
https://www.army.mil/article/267818
Um, no. The mentally ill should never hold a commission.
Deleteas John Prine succinctly observed in "Dear Abby"; "You are what you are and you ain't what you ain't"
DeleteGood point.
DeleteMaudlin memories today of Fourths gone by. Yet, it's the first holiday in several years I won't be alone. The joy of company is welcome.
ReplyDeleteAnd Boat Guy hits one into the red seat. Once and Future Independence Day Indeed.
I'm glad you got your bits and bytes flowing again. Modern IT security is deadly serious and a weird joke at the same time. Is that a Kafka dream or a Schrödinger's paradox?
If you want to make a computer secure, you don't attach it to the internet. Full stop. The race between those who try to make things secure and those who want to break through that security is never ending. It's like the struggle between offense and defense, it's a seesaw.
DeleteWhen I have computer/internet issues I hand them off to my wife. The words of electronics don't make sense to me and so I get caught up in endless loops, or maybe on a Mobius strip. Example, we changed banks about a year ago. My wife set up the account with herself as the primary (her social security check went into it). I set up the app on my phone, or tried to, got stuck and thought I just cancelled it. But even that partial attempt gave me some sort of account even though I didn't complete, or thought I didn't complete, the process. So when I went to try again, I can only access the account through the online site, not the app. We need to make an appointment sometime and go into the bank (HORRORS!) and get it worked out. Safeway, in it's wisdom, moved its Pharmacy app to its regular shopping app. Now, with two pharmacy accounts on one joint account it is genuinely FUBAR. SWMBO is tempted to just delete our accounts and start over - she tried to set up her pharmacy account on the app, but got the notice that her phone number was associated with another app or account and so she couldn't set up as Safeway was now requiring.
ReplyDeleteAs we get on in years death looms larger for all of us. It's an unescapable part of our fallen and sinful world. And we get grumpy not only because of the awareness of it and it's encroachment on us and out loved ones, but also that niggling that so much of society is moving on and changing in ways that are puzzling to us
I'm fine with computers, after all, it's how I make my pay. But the number of idiots hired to set up company websites and apps is legion. Many of them have only the slightest idea of what they're doing. Just my opinion, but experience tends to support it.
DeleteConcur...every time I see the dreaded words "user friendly" i think, "OK, someone just make something harder for people without a degree in computer science harder to navigate and use."
DeleteUser friendly? Usually is not.
DeleteAh, computers. There's more computer in my hand (my phone -- and more pixels in the display) than most of the ones I worked on, or designed, or built. Moore's Law waits for no one. What we manage to do with them -- and get them to do for us -- is mind-boggling. And the ways they snarl and entangle us are as much human as machine, maybe more. I have a 3x5 card, carefully folded, in my billfold, with a mentally encrypted list of important passwords. Won't help if the problem is electrons. How old is our our router? Hmm. Another chore appears ... oh, that's right, replaced two years ago ... and disappears.
ReplyDeleteThe bandwidth on our cellphones is incredible. We hold in our hands more computing power than the Apollos had on the moon trips.
DeleteAnd we use them to make Tik Tok videos ...
Sigh.
IT related issues are always the bane of my existence due to a combination of lack of patience and having just enough knowledge to think I know what I am doing. It never, ever seems to go well.
ReplyDeleteTo your original point (well stated), do indeed today as tomorrow is not vouchsafed any of us.
I coexist just fine with tech, it's when some bozo changes something for "reasons." Most of which have nothing to do with better tech.
DeleteTech is not for seasoned citizens, especially if even slight changes are required. I spent the last hour trying to get into my Verizon account just to see what might be available to replace my ancient Apple phone, so old that it may have been the one to fall on Isaac Newton. Alas, no luck, password no workee, forgot password reset mocks me and refuses to even finish, and having to switch between cell and desktop to do so is maddening. I'm so old, I still have an actual landline, which works fine for voice comms. So, if the grim reaper comes for my cell phone, he/she/is is welcome to the damn thing.
ReplyDeleteJohn Blackshoe
Landline ++ We were having incoming call problems with it, tech came out. Looked at the feed into the garage, with the dial Princess wall phone plugged into it, and said "OK. Anyone with that hooked up and working ... good dial tone. It may be a while, I'll call a couple of times, if I may?" He did, finally found a fault in a box that had been hit in a multiple vehicle collision a mile away.
DeleteJB - Cellphones are not optimal for doing real computer things (number crunching and the like). Though I have to admit, when I was computer-less on Friday night, I managed to pay all of the bills coming due just using the cellphone. As most people have a cellphone (and many seniors don't have computers, or if they do, don't know how to use them) it seems that that cellphone is pretty good for paying bills. At least I found it so.
Deletehtom - Landline, we got rid of ours some months ago, $50 a month to field annoying spam calls. I don't miss it.
DeleteDid you get an all in one router/modem?
ReplyDeleteIndeed I did, it was the best way to go for me.
DeleteAs a tech world Latter Day Luddite I feel your frustration. Sitting on a shelf is a new router I can't get to work. I may need to read instructions. Online tech support? Hard of hearing, I have a problem listening to someone who, 1. English is a 2nd/3rd/4th language and 2. Talks just slightly slower than an auctioneer.
ReplyDeleteAlways read the instructions, it sucks but the key to getting the damn thing to work is in there.
DeleteThe problem is that manuals are usually written by people intimately acquainted with the installation process and assumes the reader is also. A "change this setting" usually does not reveal where to find it (usually buried four levels deep in some arcane menu). Also, if possible, download a copy of the manual before starting. The printed one that comes with the device often neglects critical details. I recently bought a nice little used digital camera. The accompanying manual was vague (among other thing) about the "set the time/date". The downloaded one told just where in what menu to find that option...
DeleteSometimes the writers of the manuals outwit themselves. I see it all the time.
DeleteDeath isn't bad to an extent. It's unexpected death that is really hard to bear. Yeah, expected death doth sucketh too, but at least you have a chance to prepare and pre-grieve, so to speak. That late-night call, that funny feeling at 3 in the morning, the car with cops or military personnel, all of that is no fun way to find out someone near and dear has passed.
ReplyDeleteBut it's the price we pay for having lived, and for continuing to live.
Bleh.
As to combonculator stuffs, for modems I have internet connection through the local cable company. So when said modems go tango-uniform and can't be resurrected even with the help of John nee Prabhu, I just wheels my way to the cable store that is 5 minutes away (open during the day, of course) and hand them the dead one and receive a brand spanking new-to-me modem. Otherwise it's play the 'we can arrive sometime between 3 to 5 days sometime between 0000 and 2400 hours but we won't tell you and you'd better be there' game.
Fortunately we have a nice 5 disc dvd player, a lot of dvds and lots of books (on computer) so we'll survive a modem death past business hours.
And then play the 'customer service activation' game...
Sigh.
There's always something, isn't there.
Oh yes indeed, there's always something!
DeleteBack on the information superhighway, just in time for the long Fourth of July weekend traffic with everybody going back home! Hahaha.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I crack myself up more than I do anyone else.
I get having your own equipment, but if it breaks, it's their problem right? Might be worth saving yourself a headache.
If it breaks, they schedule an appointment for a tech to come out and verify it's bad. Then you might wait for the ISP to ship you a new one. I'd rather take care of myself. Besides which, they charge about $15/month to lease the box. Insane.
DeleteManuals suffer from the "inside outside" problem, as if the writers speak only C, the programmers only Lisp (none speaking both), and the users speak only COBOL.
ReplyDeleteSums it up nicely.
DeleteImage of the Lady Washington brought to first mind the old song "Rolling Home". On this occasion, as the tune plays out, life does indeed come at us fast.
ReplyDeletes/ Great Guns
Rolling Home
Up aloft amid the rigging
Blows a wild and rushing gale
Filling out each well known sail.
Many thousand miles behind us
Ere we reach our well remembered shore.
Rolling home across the sea
Rolling home to dear old England
Rolling home dear land to thee.
We leave you our best wishes,
We leave your rocky shores.
For we're bound to dear Old England,
To return to you no more.
Fare you well, it is time to say adieu
We shall ne'er forget the hours
That we spent along with you.
Now we are leavin' for give a cheer,
Fare thee well, give three cheers for English beer!
Very nice!
Delete