antinomian.com

Taking care of some business at my Mom’s place this Christmas, I am finally helping her get into the 21st century with some 1.5 Mbps (hopefully) DSL service from AT&T / SBC / Yahoo. It’s pretty l’trocious, but after having negotiated the minefield that is AOL customer support during the switch, I feel confident in saying that it is approximately 2^64 times better than her current situation. A few “choice” words I have for AOL:

1. What in the Jesus Tittyfucking Christ is up with the PFC format that your emails are archived in? If you actually set out to create the most impenetrable and frustrating file format in the history of the world then my hat is off to you sick fucks. But if that was not your intention, then you can at least take pride in having perpetrated the largest cock-up in the recorded history of technology
2. How is it that your publicly accessible website actually renders *better* in Firefox than the same layout does in your own god-damn stand-alone application? I know my mom isn’t running at the *highest* resolution possible, but there’s really no excuse why the headline “Sweet Suri takes after Tom!” needs to be truncated to “Sweet Suri takes…” when you’ve got roughly 8 square inches of white space available on the same screen. Maybe you stopped working on the client software when you realized that 90% of users were just minimizing it after dial-up and running IE or Firefox instead.
3. Just because you say “Connected at 48000 bps” doesn’t make it true. I knew 28000 bps. 28000 bps was a good friend of mine. And AOL, your 48000 bps is no 28000 bps. The last time I connected to the internet this slowly my modem was seated in an ISA slot
4. With regards to #3. In light of your shitty bitrate, mabye you could have less than 8 cycling banner ads on each page? And why is there a banner ad on the fricking “Account Settings” and “Customer Support” pages? Do you really feel that that is an appropriate moment for targeted selling?

Well, there is more I could say, but I’ll call it a night. But before I go, here is a word of advice for anybody who might have to set up an SBC / AT&T DSL account for their folks in the future. So, SBC uses this clown-shoes tech called PPP over Ethernet to authenticate connections for some reason. I guess the idea is that by requiring a login to access the DSL, they could cut down on bandwidth “splitting” i.e. the installation and use of routers and WiFi networks and etc. Or at least… that *used* to be the idea, since they now apparently condone this type of behavior. But anyway, the crummy part of PPPoE is that you can’t just plug the modem in between the wall and the router and let it rip. Nope… You have to “register” an SBC Global account first and config the router firmware to login with this info. And according to the guys at customer support, the only way to do this registration is with this handy CD-ROM that they’ll send you, along with the modem. Well, that sucks, because I’m not even going to be here when the modem arrives, and I’d really like to make sure that everything is set up correctly *before* I travel back to the other side of the continent. Anyway, long story short, there is a workaround for this, and I’ll let you in on the secret. So apparently SBC decided that Flash would be the best platform to deliver whatever abomination of an installer they wanted to inflict on people. But somebody must have been horrifically unclear on the concept of cross-platform compatibility, because they locked the installer into using Flash 5. What’s more they locked it so hard that if you already have a version of Flash *higher* than 5 at the time of installation, you have to manually uninstall it first so that the installer can “auto-upgrade” you to the “correct” version. OMFG. I don’t even know *how* to engineer software that half-assedly. But anyway, since apparently this whole upgrade/downgrade rigamarole won’t even work at *all* on a Mac, they offer the poor, blighted souls running *that* operating system a “lo-fi shortcut” installation process. If you’ll take the time to read this FAQ you’ll notice that there’s a link to this page which allows you to handle the entire PPPoE registration process via the web (IE only, of course). So, based on my rough working knowledge of the internets, I decided to go to that site on my PC and lo and behold, I was able to register for an SBC Global account in a matter of minutes, without even having to see their hateful CD-ROM. So yeah… Hope all this ranting helps somebody out someday. Now let us never speak of consumer ISPs again.

The “example” terms below the search box on Found’s website, have me wondering… When is the “dog” going to show up?

There was a thing on the web awhile ago where they asked a bunch of scientists and writers and futurists and so on what they considered to be their “most dangerous” idea. Here are some collected results. It got me to thinking about how the very idea of “a dangerous idea” has probably changed a lot throughout history. Time was you could say something like “The Earth orbits the Sun” and get killed over it. And while I’m definitely glad that we’ve gotten past that type of dogmatic rigidity as a civilization (parts anyhow) it’s also kind of troubling that it is so much harder to come up with a truly “revolutionary” thought these days. I mean, you can take the kind of ironic approach and say that the most dangerous ideas are the ones that various cultures and religions claim to hold most dear, but fail to truly embody (free speech, equality, charity, etc.) but depending on how seriously you take that type of inquiry, you’ll probably end up bored or frustrated or both.

So what’s my most dangerous idea? Well, I can’t claim to have come up with it on my own, but I didn’t see it represented in the collection linked above, so I suppose it’s worth including here. Basically it’s as follows:

It’s well documented that the rich are getting richer, and how you choose to frame this fact will necessarily color your opinion on the matter (”Of course they are… so is everyone!” vs. “Yes but the distribution of wealth seems to be weighted *heavily* in favor of the richest 1% so what’s that about?”). As for myself, I try not to make a moral judgment on the issue, but I’m rather curious as to exactly *why* things are progressing this way, and I think it’s mainly because of the way our economy handles surplus production. Since modern technology has made an individual worker probably hundreds of times more efficient than his counterpart of 100 or even 50 years ago, it stands to reason that work must be “easier” for him, and that the amount of “leisure time” we have now absolutely demolishes what our ancestors were used to.

But is this really the case? When unionization and protest shortened the workday to it’s present 8-ish hours, industrial output and corporate profit continued rising, thanks to increased productivity, so why has the the standard shift not been further reduced, as productivity has continued to increase? (And more importantly, where are the profits created by this increased productivity going?)

Well, the profit part of the equation is pretty easy. Since salaries have not kept pace with the increasing rate of productivity, the profits are “trickling up” to business owners, which is a big part of why the distribution of wealth is so top-heavy. And while it’s not a absolute and total fuck-over, thanks to redistributive methods like the stock market and IRAs and so forth, it’s still pretty much a one way street in terms of cashflow.

So the real question then is why there hasn’t been an adjustment in the 8-hour day, and why (by extension) are so many people dying (not literally) of boredom at work, while still adequately fulfilling the requirements of their position? My theory is that it’s largely a socio-political question, rather than a purely economic one. Throughout history, it has been proven that the more free time people have, the more likely they are to get pissed (in every sense of the word) and cause trouble. The 8-hour day has proven to strike a fairly effective balance between pissing people off through overwork and keeping them occupied enough to prevent what we’ll refer to nicely as “unrest.”

In other words, you are at work right now so that you are implicitly *not* at a bar talking about the war in Iraq, and taxes and the prison system and all the other things that could really benefit from some serious conversation.

Ok, so that’s my “dangerous” idea. It’s largely cribbed from socialism I know, and also from guys like Bertrand Russell, and many more. So you can feel free to respond with a haughty “Well, Duh!” if you like. I promise I won’t mind. =)

(nb: This post was prompted by an article I read about Best Buy’s corporate offices abandoning the mandatory 8-hour day, in favor of what they’re calling a “Results Only Work Environment,” which has actually improved productivity by as much as 35% in some departments. It remains to be seen whether the employees eventually grow so drunk on their newfound freedom that they foment a revolution and turn the electronics retailer into a nationwide hippie commune. Only time will tell.)

I am putting this list together to remind me what it means to be at work. My job involves a lot of asking and telling (Some people call it “Communication” but I think they’re just being unnecessarily obtuse). Please feel free to add more in the comments. Thanks!

1. Just let me know if you need any more info. Thanks!
2. Your browser may have cached an old version of the page.
3. We’re making some good progress here. (note: it is implied in this sentence that you [the recipient] are not actually going to *see* any of this progress just yet.)
4. Let me know what you think.
5. If you check the instruction manual… (from kara)
6. I’m flattered that you want to have my babies, but unfortunately I have been asked to refrain from reproducing by the US Department of the Treasury. It is their studied opinion (and I have to agree with them on this) that any offspring I produce would most likely upset the balance of the economy with their super-human feats of physical and mental prowess. Please accept this signed photograph in lieu of the sperm sample and/or sexual congress that you requested. Best wishes!”

Walking down Telegraph today and I smelled a familiar smell… Could it be!? Yep, it seems Chipotle has opened a new location there, as of this week. I was reminded of Chipotle’s arrival in Evanston several years ago and my first thought was… “Oh man… these Berkeley kids are so pwned, and they don’t even know it yet.” Seriously man… Chipotle can be hell of addictive. But maybe California kids develop a slightly higher tolerance for burritos during their childhood. It remains to be proven. I do however stand by my assertion that anybody who wants to open a Buona Beef and/or Pita Inn location out here would make an absolute, insane killing.