My job requires that I spend much of my time using touchscreen monitors, which is something of a new experience. Adding to my immersion into the touchscreen world, shortly after starting at Monmark/Soyokaze, I purchased my first Pocket PC which uses a stylus with a touchscreen.

It’s taken quite a bit of getting used to. The first tripping point that I experienced was when I tried to “right-click” on things using my middle finger and it kept acting like I was left-clicking it with my index finger. Obviously, I know that it can’t tell one finger from the other, but I had to rethink my right-clicking ways.

Now I’ve swung in the other direction. I’ve gotten so used to touchscreen that I find myself touching my regular monitors. Just a minute ago I tried pressing on a separate Firefox tab and momentarily got frustrated when it just wouldn’t click.

For a smart guy, I’m kind of dumb sometimes.

Instead of my standard Ghostland post this week, I’m going to do something different. I’ve been working on my novel lately. Though the whole work is not very autobiographical at all, there are various stories and anecdotes that mirror an experience of mine or someone that I know. The following is one that happened to me and some friends. It’s looking like it won’t actually make it into the book, so I figured I would post it here.

The novel centers around a handful of former users of a BBS, which was a place that people got on their computers to talk to other people before the Internet came along. The novel takes place in 2002 and the narrator is recounting a story that took place in 1992. Some of the themes of the novel is socialization, the difficulties of socialization, and the search for community, of which this scene was a part.

—

I was hanging out at Tom’s house playing video games with Tom (Tailfin), Mark (Toad), and Jeff (Okate). As was not infrequently the case, we multi-tasked and someone was on the board most of the time. I was about to take over when a girl with the handle of Bunnyflop sent him an IUM asking him how his day was. “Do you know someone by the name of Bunnyflop?” I asked Tom, whose account was online at the time.

“No. Should I?”

“I don’t know. She just sent you an IUM asked how your day is.”

“Tell her fine. Hey, can you stick on my account for right now. I want to talk to her as soon as I die here. I’ve got one hit-point left.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t sent in my subscription money yet for the month, so I only had an hour a day. Tom was a “silver subscription” account holder, meaning that he got 3 hours a day. Better his time than mine, I figured.

I told Bunnyflop that I was doing fine. I never found out exactly what happened to Tom’s game, but he must have rebounded because he was playing for at least another half-hour while I sat there and chatted with Megan, aka Bunnyflop. Megan was obviously pretty new to the whole BBSing thing and talking on line thing, so I carried the conversation. I’d been on the board six months and I was getting to be very good at first impressions (it was usually maintaining their interest that was the problem). I was on a roll that day. I can’t remember what all I said, but with all humility I can say that I was a comic genius.

“Dude, what are you laughing at?” Tom asked as he kept playing his game.

“Sorry. I’m just on a roll talking to Bunnyflop.”

“Are you still on my account? Does she know that you’re you?”

Oh, crud, I thought. Not only was I using Tom’s account, but I had told her that my name was Tom. I didn’t expect anything to come of this conversation. “Not exactly.”

“Sweet! Keep talking man. And be funnier! My account, my hero points!”

He had a point. I was using his time. If I’d decided to be funny and charming, it was all in his name. Besides that, things were looking somewhat good with Clarissa at the time and I didn’t need this particular fish, so I cold toss it over in his bucket. I viewed it as an opportunity to get some experience being charming and witty, though.

She was also a good conversationalist. She played off me wonderfully. Things were honestly going extremely well when she asked what I was up to the rest of the afternoon.

I explained that I had some friends over and we were playing some video games. We were going to watch anime that afternoon. Was she interested in coming over?

She was interested in coming over. Right now, in fact. She would bring over some movies if we wanted to. She was also an anime fan. When Tom’s character finally died, I told him what was going on. He was elated. It had been a while before he’d found any luck even on the board. I was happy for him, but I also felt a little cheated. After all, this was my kill. It bit to use all that effort scoring for someone else. Besides, if he faltered (and with Tom this was not unlikely) I would get my chance.

It actually wasn’t that big of a surprise when it turned out to be a moot point. I had picked up on the fact that she was probably going to be heavy, but she turned out to merely be a little thick. The problem was that she was hopelessly dull. It’s not that she didn’t contribute to our hanging out. It’s not even that her failure to contribute dragged on the rest of us. It’s that she somehow managed to singlehandedly make all the non-dull in the room simultaneously implode, leaving our pale and gaunt apparitions roaming around vainly searching for non-dull.

We gave her every opportunity to be interesting. We asked her questions, but she never gave a single answer more than a word or two long.

“So where are you going to college?”

“[private religious university].”

“Oh really? Why [private religious university]?”

“Parents.”

“Parents went there or they want you to go there?”

“Both.”

“So you want to go there?”

“I guess.”

“What do you want to major in?”

“Marine biology.”

“[private religious university] has a marine biology major?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you should go to a school that offers the major that you want.”

“Maybe.”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that she had been like this online as well. She mostly played off what I had to say in one or two word responses. In actuality, I had actually projected a non-dull personality on a remarkably, fascinatingly dull vessel of a person.

She didn’t appear to be having any more fun than we were. We realized that we were sort of bombarding her with questions, but it was mostly in an effort just to get her to talk. As a joke, Tom got a flood light and aimed it at her. “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, flinching in the light. She didn’t get the joke, answering as though we’d asked if she knew the capital of Zimbabwe or some other non-offensive, serious question.

We all just looked at each other and realized that we were dealing with something peculiar here. We put in the anime tape, watched the show, and decided that we would rather all just go home than spend any more time with the dull-producing machine. Tom, of course, was the one that couldn’t escape because he already was home. He decided that he had some homework to do.

We all ended up going to my house. Once he was sure that she was gone, Tom joined us.

That night he got a System Message from Bunnyflop. She said that she’d had a great time and that she would like to hang out with us again and maybe watch some more anime. We were stunned and a little mad. We were partly stunned because she’d had a good time when we were sure that she was as uncomfortable as we were. In fact, we’d kind of thought that was why she didn’t say much. We were also partly stunned because it turned out that she could string multiple words together. We were a little mad because if she’d just managed to do that at Tom’s house, everything might have turned out very differently.

Tom never responded and we only saw her online a couple times after that before she stopped logging on.

The AP has an article on groups buying up the domains of the names of their political opponents and putting up critical sites:

inda McCulloch is running for secretary of state in Montana, and a Web site bearing her name makes no mention of why the Democrat is qualified for the job. Instead, it says ‘‘Bad Grades. Bad Candidate.’’

McCulloch’s domain name, www.lindamcculloch.com, was bought by Republicans, which some people are calling ‘‘political cyberfraud.’’ Others say such Web sites are fair and protected under the First Amendment. {…}

McCulloch is unable to do anything about the site, which she used to own and used in her last campaign for state school superintendent. After winning the race, she had stopped paying for the site. It is now owned by the state Republican Party, which bought it earlier this year in advance of the 2008 elections.

‘‘In this day and age of identity theft, taking somebody’s name and using it without their permission seems kind of like going into their house without permission,’’ McCulloch said.

The notion that this is anything remotely comparable to identity theft or fraud is nothing short of ludicrous. A quick visit to not-McCulloch’s site (or not-Bob Keenan’s) and tell me if you think that there is any chance whatsoever of honest confusion.

The questionable journalism of the article aside, it’s an interesting issue.

When Delosa Lt. Governor Steve Moriarty first ran for Insurance Commissioner, he notably did not have a website the entire campaign. I remember reading an article in the paper about how campaign websites were unserious and “pretty useless” (this is the kind of forward-thinking politician that Delosa keeps putting in office). Flash forward to his first run for his current position. On a whim I decided to see what use was being made of his name’s domain. The website actually said something to as juvenile as “Steve Moriarty is a big poo-poo head”. Then below it you said “If you’re running for office, you should hire a firm to help you unless you want your site to be used by your opponents to tar your name. Call our Colosse office at 555-555-5555.” Members of both parties were on their client-list, so it was more that Moriarty was an easy target than part of any political issue.

It was a pretty ingenious trick that eventually made the papers and got the web firm considerable publicity.

Though I don’t plan on running for office, I actually do own my name’s domain. I’m not really doing anything with it and I don’t know that I ever will, but I will never let my dreaded enemies, whoever they are, get a hold of it.

We generally have good service here at Casa de Truman, but it tends to get a little spotty late Saturday night. In fact, it has a habit of going down within an hour or two of midnight in either direction. Every time this happens I freak out. Not because I can’t handle having the Internet down for a short little stretch, but because midnight Saturday night is when cable companies shut off accounts for non-payment. The automatic payment with my cable company is always spotty and I freak out thinking that maybe there’s been another missed payment.

You’d think after this happening week in and week out I’d calm down about it, but you’d be wrong.

I miss the old days when you could be assured of getting at least an automated phone call before anything gets shut off.

trumwill: I take it you heard about Robert Jordan?

quenkyle: Yeah. I expected as much, though.

trumwill: I never did get around to starting the Wheels of Time series. I wanted to know for sure that it would have some sort of ending.

quenkyle: Ironically it’s more likely that it’s going to be finished now that he’s dead.

trumwill: But if he’s dead, they may or may not hire someone else to finish it.

quenkyle: If Jordan were immortal, the chances that he’d end the series were still not good.

trumwill: I see.

quenkyle: I tried reading the 10th book in the series… 3 times. I couldn’t get past 1/4 of it before being bored to tears. It doesn’t bother me as much as other people… I got to read through 9 all at once without waiting, but he was definitely losing it. Most readers don’t give a rat’s arse about the history of the golden earring a random pirate was wearing on his right ear, and the political ramifications of his doing so. I’d much rather, I dunno… learn more about the *main freaking characters*.

trumwill: My ex boss said that the phone book has fewer characters and more plot than Jordan’s later novels.

quenkyle: Well I don’t know about the plot part, but the phone book definitely has less characters.

trumwill: Nonetheless, it’s a shame that he couldn’t finish his work. I can’t imagine putting that much work into something and not completing it.

quenkyle: I think he’s got different problems now.

trumwill: True. Being dead probably sucks more.

When did software update releases get out of control? Was it the Internet that did us in? Was the ability to disseminate a new patch everywhere in the world all at once with relatively minimal fuss get to the heads of software companies and give them the idea that they didn’t really need to have everything right before the release because they can keep shooting out updates as they fix one glitch after another? More likely, I suspect it’s that most of these updates are required because the Internet has made it easier than ever for someone else to access your computer against your will through someone else’s software. It’s probably no coincidence that the worst offenders are web browsers.

Whatever the case, it’s irritating as heck and I wish that they would stop it.

Stop what? Stop all sorts of things, including but not limited to:

• Stop sending me updates every few weeks. If I only use your product that often, that means that every time I use your product I have to go through a long installation procedure. I have a fleet of computers, each containing your software. Do you know what a pain in the posterior it is to have to install the program every time I use it? Offenders include Avant Browser, WinAmp, Firefox (though they’ve gotten better), and DivX. Even though I really like to use Avant Browser from time to time, I am considering deleting from my computer because the updates have made it a hassle to use and they have no opt-out, which brings me to…
• Stop forcing me to upgrade and stop forcing me to hear about it. I don’t want to have to say “No, thanks” every time I open an application and your software asks me if I want to upgrade. Some applications have a nice little check box I can uncheck so that I don’t have to hear about your latest release. Give me that and I can tell the software to shut up so that I can shut up. But astonishingly some software companies, like Avant Browser, don’t see this as desirable, while others, like Firefox 2.0 try to update before you can locate and uncheck the check box (if it even exists). Maybe they can’t understand why I wouldn’t want their latest software patch. Why would I? You didn’t get it right on the first 41 builds, can’t I just wait until I next install it so I can get the fixes on builds 42-86 all at once? The answer is no. Worse yet is when an application will not let me decline updating. One such example is Rhapsody, though I understand that they have to apply new DRMs to appease the record labels and few people are going to volunteer to upgrade to a more crippled version of their software. Firefox 2.0 does this, making it difficult to backtrack to 2.0.3 or 2.0.4. That brings me to…
• Stop releasing software that is inferior to its predecessor. Though Rhapsody has to cripple its software for DRM reasons, they also change the layouts and because I can’t go to previous versions I have no way of going to a previous layout that I liked better. The least they could have done was have a “Classic View” feature. WinAmp has a classic view that I always use. WinAmp used to fall into this category wherein I had to keep a special copy of WinAmp 2.08 because 2.64 was insufferable, but they cut it out. The biggest offender has only started this recently and has nothing to do with DRM. It has to do with software that adds functionality that I don’t need and takes up resources that I do. My Athlon64 4400 with 2GB of RAM and my Athlon64 4000 with 1.25GB of RAM slow down to a near halt when performing certain Java applications through Mozilla Firefox. I can literally watch a video, burn a CD, and transfer files all at the same time, but I can’t run certain Java applications and surf on Firefox at the same time even when doing nothing else. So not only is it taking sometimes minutes to perform the task, but it’s locking up the browser while it’s doing it so I have to twiddle my thumbs or switch to (and reinstall/upgrade) Avant Browser. Speaking of inferior upgrades…
• Stop telling me after an installation that my favorite plug-in isn’t going to work. Firefox did this and I’m still angry about it. Lastly…
• Stop screwing around with how I set up my Start Menu. I am organized with my Start Menu organized in a way that I am not organized with anything else. When updating software they naturally drop it back with the stupid default wherein it’s organized in an arbitrary manner (some have a folder for their company and then a subfolder, others make a folder for each app, some just stick shortcuts to the executables in the main area). I would be more understanding of this if there were no way to find where I put the icons, but with some (Avant Browser… again) if I tell it not to install the icons it will actively go out, find, and delete the icons wherever it is that I’ve put them. If it can find them to remove them, it can find them to know that they aren’t being placed in their insipid directory structure.

So now that I’ve stated what I don’t like, let me tell you what I would like to see: I would like to be able to tell it how often I am willing to update a software package. I would then like to be notified that the updates are ready and I can install them manually or have them reinstall. That way I can set aside half an hour (or more) once a month to be updating software. That way I can schedule it in rather than get a rude awakening when I’m trying to access the durn program.

PS I couldn’t find a way to fit this into the flow of the post, but the worst as far as updating goes is not actually Avant Browser. At least I know what Avant is trying to do. The worst is Adobe Reader, which if opened within a browser will stick the update window behind it. So we can’t see that it is asking us a question about updating the software, but it also doesn’t load the document itself, thus making it appear as though Reader is broken. My employer has lost not insignificant man-hours at work investigating what we thought was a problem with Adobe Reader on a software release but was instead a matter of it finding an update and wanting to update it.

-{Warning: The conversation in this post veers into less than entirely pleasant, bathroom-related terrain}-

quinkyle: Hey, it’s been a while since we had lunch. Would you like to eat lunch this week?

trumwill: I try to have lunch on a daily basis, so I assume that I will eat lunch at least 5 days this week.

quinkyle: How about you and I eat lunch together. Like at the same time and the same restaurant. We can talk while we’re not eating. Is there anything I missed, Mr. Literal?

trumwill: Would we be eating at the same table?

quinkyle: It would make talking a lot easier if we were. And less rude to those around us.

trumwill: Sounds like a deal. Where do you want to eat?

quinkyle: A new Chipotle’s opened up near the town square. How about that?

trumwill: Oh yeah, I saw it. I ate the new Grande Quesodilla instead. That was a mistake.

quinkyle: Uh oh, did you outlay a brown waterfall, Cici’s style? -{ed note: CiCi’s pizza destroys my digestive system}-

trumwill: No, no. This produced very solid waste matter. It was more unpleasant going in than it was coming out.

quinkyle: I really could have gone all day without knowing that. At least the part of the day where I have food in my system that is digesting.

trumwill: You reckon I’m giving said food ideas?

quinkyle: Doubtful. Food can’t read. If it could it would probably be less complaint when directed into the building with the sign that says “Slaughterhouse” over it.

trumwill: True, and I suppose it doesn’t acquire the ability to read in between the slaughterhouse and your digestive tract.

quinkyle: That would be wicked-scary if it did.

trumwill: Indeed.

Even a mysogynist could score pretty high on this test.

You Are 85% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn’t mean you’re a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It’s a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Q: Yesterday afternoon when a coworker was telling you that computer processing chips were about to have a substantial price drop, you complained that of course this would happen only after you needed to replace a series of computer deaths that had ended. Were you being a complete idiot?
A: Yes.

Q: What was that horrible grumbling, whirring, grinding sound coming from Clancy’s computer, Mousse, sporadically over the last few weeks?
A: That was the prolonged death whale of Mousse’s fan.

Q: What was that awful burning smell that consumed the apartment this morning?
A: That was Mousse, possibly dying.

Update: When it rains it pours. I was preparing Yoma for Clancy to replace Mousse and Yoma’s fan started sputtering and emitting that too familiar burnt odor. What are the odds that two fans would go bad within 24 hours of one another?