Chapter XXIV. In which I am revealed as a cranky old man.

Wow.

Just now, I was down in the house getting a snack. The phone rang, and it was a young woman from a polling company. She had political questions about local and state issues, but focused mostly on local issues. I'm always happy to answer pollsters, so I was game, but we quickly ran into trouble. She spoke English well, but she was functionally illiterate. She could not read, pronounce, or understand many words in the questions she asked me. That's never happened to me before.

This was a poll about local politics, and she could not pronounce "Sonoma" (the name of the county in which I reside). She did not understand and could not pronounce the word "agriculture." I had to explain to her that it meant "farming." She then mispronounced "vineyards."

So at that point, I had to ask, "All right, where are you right now?", because I could not imagine that she had ever been anywhere near Sonoma County. We then had this exchange:

Her: "What?"

Me: "Where are you speaking from?"

Her: "I'm in my office."

Me: "No, I mean, what city are you sitting in? What city is your office physically located?"

Her: "I don't know."

Me (incredulously): "You don't know?"

Her: "No."

Me: "I'm concerned for your welfare, and that you might be having a severe medical problem. Can I speak to your supervisor?"

Her: "Sure. Thank you for your time." (Hangs up).

A tale of three reboots

Yesterday, Dori and I had to reboot our PCs three times each.

My story: I had an old Dell Pentium III machine around here with Windows 98 on it, which was just gathering dust. So I pulled it out and installed Ubuntu Linux on it (I'm thinking that we might want some Firefox in Linux screenshots for the forthcoming Sixth Edition of our JavaScript VQS). I downloaded the Ubuntu disk image and burned it to a CD, then stuck it in the Dell.

Took me a while to figure out how to get the Dell to boot from the Ubuntu CD (on the Mac, you just hold down the C key when you power up; on the PC, I had to do some idiocy with the BIOS), but after that, it was pretty painless. Ubuntu first let me play with it from the CD, and when I decided that I liked it enough to keep it, I double-clicked the Install icon on the desktop. About 30 minutes later, I had a dual-boot system; Ubuntu partioned the PC's hard disk with a minimum of fuss, and if I need Windows 98, I can still get to it with no problems. I had to reboot the PC once to get it to start up from the Ubuntu CD; once when the Linux install was done; and once after I added a bunch of automatically-suggested updates. But then I was completely up and running on Linux.

[As an aside, this is such a huge difference from the last time I tried to install Linux on any machine, I can't tell you. I've tried to install Linux probably three times over the years, and each time I just gave up because it was not designed to be done by anyone without an EE degree. As far as I'm concerned, this is the first Linux that I can see unskilled users installing and using. And performance on the 733 MHz P3 is just fine, if not especially zippy. And of course, Ubuntu, like all Linux distributions, is completely free to download, install, and use.]

Dori's story: Yesterday, she upgraded to IE7 beta 3 from IE7 beta 2. First, she had to uninstall IE7 beta 2 and reboot. Then she was required (three times) to download and install the Are You Running Genuine Windows, You Fucking Pirate? Are You? Huh?! Huh!? tool, then it required two more reboots to get the damn browser installed and running. And then she discovered that IE7 does not support the CSS2 pseudo-element that she wanted to use. Because you know, the whole point of creating IE7, besides filling in some of the security trenches in the browser, was to get it to do a decent job of supporting CSS. Except, you know, for the parts you actually want to use.

So there you have it: Three reboots to get Ubuntu installed yesterday. In return, I got a whole new OS, with disk partitioning and tons of included applications like a Web browser and Open Office and everything. For Dori, three reboots to install an upgraded beta version of a Web browser that still doesn't do what she wants, plus multiple annoying admonishments from crap anti-piracy software. Who made their customers happy?

In brightest day, in blackest night...

In honor of Superman Returns opening:

Your results:
You are Green Lantern

Green Lantern 75% Spider-Man 70% Batman 50% Robin 47% Iron Man 45% The Flash 45% Superman 40% Catwoman 40% Supergirl 38% Hulk 35% Wonder Woman 33%

Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

Safari JavaScript Debugger!

From Surfin' Safari, Introducing Drosera:

I would like to introduce a new addition to the WebKit open source tools—a JavaScript debugger. Drosera, named after the largest genera of bug eating plants, lets you attach and debug JavaScript for any WebKit application—not just Safari.

Damn, I'm almost tempted to start downloading the nightly builds. I want this, now. I sure hopes it ships before Leopard.