In which there’s a sendlog.
When mail is transferred from server to server across the net, this is what it looks like when the servers talk to each other. More or less.
LOG: MAIN
< = root@server.bmi.net U=root P=local S=381
[root@server ~]#delivering 1Raxum-0002J0-Cc
Connecting to blahmail.goblinbox.com [66.240.255.128]:25 ... connected
SMTP<< 220 fc8255128.aspadmin.net ESMTP
SMTP>> EHLO server.bmi.net
SMTP< < 250-fc8255128.aspadmin.net
250-AUTH=LOGIN CRAM-MD5 PLAIN
250-AUTH LOGIN CRAM-MD5 PLAIN
250-STARTTLS
250-PIPELINING
250 8BITMIME
SMTP>> STARTTLS
SMTP< < 220 ready for tls
SMTP>> EHLO server.bmi.net
SMTP< < 250-fc8255128.aspadmin.net
250-AUTH=LOGIN CRAM-MD5 PLAIN
250-AUTH LOGIN CRAM-MD5 PLAIN
250-PIPELINING
250 8BITMIME
SMTP>> MAIL FROM:
SMTP>> RCPT TO:
SMTP>> DATA
SMTP< < 250 ok
SMTP<< 250 ok
SMTP<< 354 go ahead
SMTP>> writing message and terminating "."
SMTP< < 250 ok 1323903521 qp 8064
SMTP>> QUIT
LOG: MAIN
=> sender@goblinbox.com R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp H=blahmail.goblinbox.com [66.240.255.128] X=TLSv1:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:256
LOG: MAIN
Completed
In which you experience part of my day.
Phone rings.
I answer, “Technical support. May I help you?”
A person immediately starts a harangue. She does not identify herself. She opens with, “Your message is wrong, because I live in Dayton and my Internet is down!” and ends with “There’s nothin’ comin’ on here at all!” and I’m pretty sure I can hear her gesturing at her monitor over the phone.
While she’s speaking I grab her number from the HUD, search my database for her account, discover her account type, verify the account isn’t suspended for non-pay, and quickly check the Radius logs and run the MNPP tool. I now know two things: her DSL is up and she doesn’t know how to communicate.
At all. Because she’s been talking the entire time and still hasn’t identified herself or made any sense. I’m not even clear on what it is that isn’t working.
“—and I know something’s wrong ’cause it only has two bars!” she finishes up, triumphantly.
“You have DSL,” I say, knowing that she’ll think it’s a non-sequiteur. (I can see from her account that she doesn’t have a wireless router, so her bars comment is completely irrelevant.)
“And it’s just not doin’ nothin’,” she says, “it won’t ever load your web page.” Ah-hah! Bingo. By this comment, I am able to infer that she’s running Internet Explorer 8 and that bmi.net is her homepage. I am able to do this because I’m a goddamned genius, and because it’s my job to guess what the lusers are talking about and to solve problems with hardly any clues whatsoever.
I am Sherlock fucking Holmes, people!
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In which Charlie just ups and gives me a whole entire box of old cameras.
So this happened yesterday:
That’s four Polaroids! And a Kodak! And three packs of Spectra! OMFG!
In which I accidentally buy a Kindle Fire.
I did not need a new device. My Kindle 3 (the model now known as the “Kindle Keyboard”) isn’t even a year old yet, and it works just fine. After I sprung (sprang?) for the expensive but elegant and cleverly-designed OEM leather cover with the built-in light, I could even read in the dark. It’s eminently portable, wireless, holds 1500 books, and I’d hacked it to display custom screen savers. It did not need to be replaced.
It’s just that I have a job now, and therefore there was money in my account on the day my clicking finger went ahead and decided for me. And now I have the Kindle Fire!
The Fire is a seriously great deal for two hundred bucks. The hardware is really nice for such a low price point — I hear they’re being sold at a loss (Amazon’s favorite market-cornering trick, see: the entire ebook industry). The device is fast, responsive, and has very nice screen resolution. It’s many, many times more elegant than that knock-off tablet I had briefly last year.
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In which there’s a post of no interest to anyone who does not wear acrylic nails.
Sunday I went to my favorite nail salon, LT Nails, over on Issacs street, for a fill.
“A fill” is the procedure in which, after your nails have been growing out for two or three weeks, they “fill” the part closest to the cuticle with new acrylic. Accomplishing this requires polish remover, a Dremel, two kinds of filing and buffering devices, an anti-fungal, and new acrylic, which is applied with a paint brush.
The guy who did my nails observed a discoloration about the size of the tip of a ball point pen on my left thumbnail. This is interesting, because my acrylic nails are fairly discolored due to the fact that I’ve had them on for quite awhile and they age; even though you get fresh acrylic every couple of weeks, the stuff on the tips is always many weeks old, and becomes stained by contact with food and heat. This tiny little dot of discoloration concerned him enough that he just went right ahead and removed the entire acrylic overcoat from my nail, and then tried for a while to buff the discoloration off my very thin natural nail.
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In which I’m not looking forward to the upcoming Even Greater Depression.
1. Fox News lies regularly, and this behavior isn’t even illegal.
The country is fractured, and it’s partialy because news reportage is terribly damaged. The people who watch one station honestly believe the people who watch another station are insane because they can’t agree on “the facts.”
Well, it turns out that the news isn’t required to tell the truth, nor to give equal time to opposing views. In fact, it’s actually okay to knowingly lie on a news program:
This means that Fox, for example, can say anything it wants, without restraint, regardless of its truthfulness or accuracy, and sell this product as “news”:
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In which I am baffled by many of the people I speak with.
As you may be aware, I’m back in tech support. If you read my tweets you may occasionally get the idea that I don’t like it, but I do!
I’ve been doing it off and on for a dozen years, and I actually do enjoy solving people’s connectivity problems. I enjoy the process of figuring out what customers are trying to say, and helping them get their problems fixed. I love the Internet, and I love helping people get online.
However.
The majority of the people I talk to absolutely baffle me. I have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about (they literally expect me to understand phrases like, “it won’t do that thing it used to,” whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean in English), and I have no idea why individuals who can’t do even the most basic computing tasks–like copy and paste, shut their machines down properly, or even read–want to get online in the first place.
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In which I get to play with tools.
My awesome job not only came complete with a window office, a title, and a space heater, it also came with TOOLS.
I have custody of the freakin’ tool bag. It lives in my office. I do not have to ask to borrow a Phillips head. This makes me happy. Here are many of its components unceremoniously dumped on the floor:
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VSCO
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4 random books from my Library!
