Technology & Open Thread & Books and Literature Posted by Oaktown Girl, 27 Apr 2007 05:05 pm

Open Thread (#5)

Who has it worse: The poor sap who has to go through Astaroth-only-knows-how-many levels of Dante’s hell trying to reach a real live useful human being at the Help Desk, or the Tech Support person who has to answer the calls?

This Open Thread is dedicated to Loyal Party Patriot “Seattle.” I’m sure she’ll be happy to tell you why!

Video from Bore Me.

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Responses to “Open Thread (#5)”

  1. on 27 Apr 2007 at 6:15 pm 1. The Constructivist said …

    Go now and read this brilliant missive from Chris Clarke (it’s so good I’m even spelling his name right this time). Then, to get back on open thread comment track, check out Life and Times of Big Calabaza for otters, cognitive therapy, and working in HMO receptionist hell. I’m hoping we can get Chris and Claire writing for us one of these days. Please leave comments on posts you like to start the recruitment process!

  2. on 27 Apr 2007 at 7:29 pm 2. Seattle said …

    My favorite human reaction:

    Customer Service Rep: Please describe the problem you’re calling about today.

    Customer (male-ALWAYS male): I don’t have a problem. Your software has the problem. YOU have the problem for creating software that doesn’t interact well with every other piece of software on the market five of which I happen to have on my machine….I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM! I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG. IT’S NOT MY FAULT I CAN’T FIGURE OUT THE SOLUTION AND HAD…TO…ASK…GULP…FOR…help…

  3. on 28 Apr 2007 at 1:13 am 3. peter ramus said …

    Hi, gang! Today I went here:

    And I took a picture of this:

    and a picture of this:

    Even I, who was right there taking that last picture, couldn’t completely put out of my mind the suspicion that some sort of photshop cadge was responsible for Claes Oldenberg’s Pin, but, if memory serves, and it was only this past afternoon, that’s pretty much what things look like from that corner of the garden next to the De Young Museum in San Francisco.

  4. on 28 Apr 2007 at 5:27 am 4. Seattle said …

    5:23am on a Saturday and there has just got to be something essentially wrong in a universe where I am unable to sleep in even ’til 7am on a Saturday morning. Surely I can blame it on some neocon conspiracy? No? Nice pics, Peter. I’m going to go make tea.

  5. on 28 Apr 2007 at 6:11 am 5. ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said …

    Oaktown girl
    She’s been living in her Oaktown world…

    Hiya People,
    Long time no (We Are All Giant Nuclear Fireball Now) Party.

    I did see the Dangeral Perfesser over at Josh’s.

  6. on 28 Apr 2007 at 6:17 am 6. ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said …

    Hi people!

  7. on 28 Apr 2007 at 7:17 am 7. christian h. said …

    5:23am on a Saturday and there has just got to be something essentially wrong in a universe where I am unable to sleep in even ’til 7am on a Saturday morning.

    I hear you.

    My “favorite” helpline: BCIS (formerly known as INS). Talk to three people, get three different answers - if you get through. Kind of upsetting when you are about to leave the country if you have a choice of (1) you won’t be able to reenter (2) you will be able to, but need form 1234-ABC, and to get that you have to first fill out forms I-?? and DS-???, or (3) it won’t be a problem.

  8. on 28 Apr 2007 at 10:09 am 8. Oaktown Girl said …

    Thunder - good to see you! I was afraid someone or something had got ya!

    Seattle - go ahead and blame your thwarted attempt for a Saturday morning sleep-in on the neo-Cons. I’ll bet that giant saftey pin that peter photographed is acutally a neo-Con weapon of mass disruption disguised as modern art.

  9. on 28 Apr 2007 at 2:44 pm 9. hi ho, hi ho said …

    This one’s for Gojira (link to YouTube).

  10. on 28 Apr 2007 at 3:41 pm 10. spyder said …

    There was an absolutely brilliant exchange and interview between Bill Moyers and Jon Stewart last night on PBS. The official video is not up yet but the transcript is available; here (the transcript) are some choice tidbits from it all:

    JON STEWART: After weeks of mock testimony, there you have it, Alberto Gonzales does not know what happened, but he assures you what he doesn’t remember was handled properly.

    END CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

    JON STEWART: And by the way, that was all just — that was a game, and he knew it, and the guys on the committee knew it. And for the President to come out after that and say, “Everything I saw there gave me more confidence in him,” that solidified my notion that, “Oh, it’s because what he expected of Gonzalez was” it’s sort of like, do you remember in GOODFELLAS? When Henry Hill got arrested for the first time and Robert DeNiro met him at the courthouse and Henry Hill was really upset, ’cause he thought Robert DeNiro would be really mad at him. And DeNiro comes up to him and he gives him a $100 and he goes, “You got pinched. We all get pinched, but you did it right, you didn’t say nothing.”

    BILL MOYERS: Gonzales said nothing.

    JON STEWART: Right. And “you went up there and said nothing. You gave them no legal recourse against you, and you made yourself a smart man, a self-made man look like an utter pinhead on national television, and you did it for me.”

    BILL MOYERS: How do you explain that the Washington press corps, by and large, particularly the Sunday shows join the game with them? I mean, you watch those shows

    JON STEWART: They don’t all, I mean…

    BILL MOYERS: No, not all of them do, but there’s a kind of wink-wink questioning going on there. You know, I’ll ask the devil’s advocate…

    JON STEWART: Well, it’s because it’s the Harlem Globetrotters playing the Washington Generals. It’s they’re the only teams playing, and they know they’ve got to play each other every week, and they all have sort of assumed their role. And, I mean, at this point, the government is just you know, blowing the doors off the media. And not everywhere, and I think, this is where you know, a lot of those blog reporters and all of those things are bringing a lot of urgency and a lot of momentum to stories that wouldn’t normally carry any momentum.

    …

    SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Because the architects of failure are ignoring this.

    JON STEWART: If the architects that built the house without any doors or windows don’t admit that that’s the house they built and continue to say: “No, it’s your fault for not being able to see into it,” then I don’t understand how we’re supposed to move forward.

    END CLIP: McCAIN on THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

    JON STEWART: I don’t particularly enjoy those types of interviews, because I have a great respect for Senator McCain, and I hate the idea that our conversation became just two people sort of talking over each other, at one point.

    But I, also, in my head, thought, I would love to do an interview where it’s just sort of de-constructed — the talking points of Iraq — sort of the idea of, is this really the conversation we’re having about this war? That if we don’t defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, they’ll follow us home? That to support the troops means not to question that the surge could work. That, what we’re really seeing in Iraq is not a terrible war, but in fact, just the media’s portrayal of it. So, I wanted to just go through– like, is this really the conversation that we’re going other be having about something as significant as this war?

    JON STEWART: Well, it’s also at the fore now, because the Senate and the House are working on timetables, which by the way, who knows if that’s an issue, either. It’s but it’s again, the conversation that the Senate and the House are having with the President was very similar to the conversation that McCain and I were having, which was two people talking over each other and nobody really addressing the underlying issues of what kind of country do we want to be, moving forward in this? And it’s not about being a pacifist or– suggesting that you can never have a military solution to things. It’s just that, it appears that this is not the smart way to fight this threat.

    BILL MOYERS: Your persistence and his inability to answer without the talking points did get to the truth, that there’s a contradiction to what’s going on in Vietnam in there’s a contradiction. Yeah, exactly, that there’s a contradiction to what’s going on in that war, that they can’t talk about.

    JON STEWART: That’s right. There is a there is an enormous contradiction, and it is readily apparent, if you just walk through simple sort of logic, and simple rational points. But the thing that they don’t realize is that everyone wants them to come from beyond that contradiction so that we can all fix it. Nobody is saying, “We don’t have a problem.” Nobody is saying that, “9/11 didn’t happen.” What they’re saying is, “We’re not a fragile country, trust us to have this conversation, so that we can do this in the right way, in a more effective way.”

    BILL MOYERS: Why aren’t we having that conversation? Well, that’s a very good point, Why is the country not having this conversation, the kind of conversation that requires the politicians who are responsible for the war to be specific to the concerns of the American people. I mean, they do come out and a kind of gauze goes up.

    JON STEWART: Because I don’t think politics is any longer about a conversation with the country. It’s about figuring out how to get to do what you want. The best way to sell the product that you want to put out there, but not necessarily for the products on you know, it– it’s sort of like, when a dishwashing soap you know, they want to make a big splash, so they decide to have more lemon, as though people are gonna be like, “That has been the problem with my dishes! Not enough lemon scent!”

    BILL MOYERS: Well, what is your thinking about why it is as– the war enters its fifth year, and the President has announced - an extension of tours to 15 months, and they’re going to call up the National Guard. And April was the bloodiest month so far since the war started, and there was one day in April that was the bloodiest day. That people have seen they have no way to get the guys in Washington, and Condoleezza Rice, to listen to them. That there seems a detachment emotionally, and politically in this country from what is happening.

    JON STEWART:It’s very hard to feel the difficulties that the military goes through. It’s very hard to feel the difficulties of military families, unless you’re in that environment. And sometimes you have to force yourself to try and put yourself in other people’s sort of shoes and environment to get the sense of that.

    JON STEWART: You know, one of the things that I do think government counts on is that people are busy. And it’s very difficult to mobilize a busy and relatively affluent country, unless it’s over really crucial– you know, foundational issues. That come sort of sort of a tipping point.

    BILL MOYERS: War? War?

    JON STEWART: But war that hasn’t affected us here, in the way that you would imagine a five-year war would affect a country. I think that’s why they’re so really — here’s the disconnect. It’s sort of this odd and I’ve always had this problem with the rationality of it. That the President says, “We are in the fight for a way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. “And, so what I’m going to do is you know, Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children’s children all suffer. So, what I’m gonna do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad.”

    So, there’s a disconnect there between — you’re telling me this is fight of our generation, and you’re going to increase troops by 10 percent. And that’s gonna do it. I’m sure what he would like to do is send 400,000 more troops there, but he can’t, because he doesn’t have them. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft. And the minute you do that, suddenly the country’s not so damn busy anymore. And then they really fight back, and then the whole thing falls apart. So, they have a really delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we’re doing and really examine how it is that they’ve been waging this.

  11. on 28 Apr 2007 at 4:38 pm 11. christian h. said …

    Yeah, it was pretty good as far as it goes. But only that far. I am kind of stunned that we are having this conversation as if, until Bush was elected (or whenever), we had this golden age, when politics wasn’t just a sales job, and the media aggressively questioned the powerful and all that.
    Which is just complete bs, in my opinion. In some ways, Stewart and company - as funny and as right as they are - remind me of Broder. They both yearn for some mythical past that, in fact, never existed. Capitalist democracy has always been show business. This isn’t new - it’s inherent in the concept. The liberal elites don’t even particularly strive to keep it secret (look at Walter Lippmann, for example).

  12. on 28 Apr 2007 at 4:39 pm 12. hi ho, hi ho said …

    Damn! Not bad for a commedian (& a theology student).

  13. on 28 Apr 2007 at 5:18 pm 13. Seattle said …

    Went back to sleep, had nightmares. Or I guess that would be early morning-mares. Damn horses…that’s two mornings in a row. My subconscious is trying to tell me I’m in trouble. Neocons…neocons…

  14. on 28 Apr 2007 at 7:07 pm 14. Oaktown Girl said …

    Seattle - I’m guessing you had the bad dreams because you weren’t able to get back into a deep sleep, which is common in the early morning after you’ve already woken up once.

    Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

    And Speaking of capitalism, I was finally able to find Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream. Now, I need a pint of ice cream like I need a hole in the head. But I wanted to buy it on general principle because as companies go, you could do a hell of a lot worse than Ben and Jerry, plus I like Stephen Colbert…and ice cream.

    That flavor’s been out for weeks (Colbert plugged it on his show well over a month ago, I’m sure), but I hadn’t been able to find it until this week, which I thought was odd, since if it would be a hit anywhere in the country just on its name alone, it would be here in the Bay Area. Maybe it just took a while to get distributed out to the West Coast.

    Anyway, the Minister of Justice has finally and officially sampled the Colbert ice cream. The verdict? Thumbs up! Definitely the best waffle-cone themed ice cream I’ve had, with a surprisingly generous amount of caramel swirl. If you like that sort of thing, I’m sure you’ll like it.

    Oh, and thanks for the links, spyder and hi ho.

  15. on 28 Apr 2007 at 7:15 pm 15. spyder said …

    Capitalist democracy has always been show business. This isn’t new - it’s inherent in the concept. The liberal elites don’t even particularly strive to keep it secret
    Well here is an attempt at restructuring the whole paradigm from the point of view of its operating system (of course i am trying to imagine the tech support for this upgrade):

    Our current version of capitalism—the corporate, globalized version 2.0—is rapidly squandering our shared inheritances. Now, Peter Barnes offers a solution: protect the commons by giving it property rights and strong institutional managers.

    Barnes shows how capitalism—like a computer—is run by an operating system. Our current operating system gives too much power to profit-maximizing corporations that devour our commons and distribute most of their profit to a sliver of the population. And government—which in theory should defend our commons—is all too often a tool of those very corporations.

    Barnes proposes a revised operating system—Capitalism 3.0—that protects the commons while preserving the many strengths of capitalism as we know it. His major innovation is the commons trust—a market-based entity with the power to limit use of scarce commons, charge rent, and pay dividends to everyone.

    Capitalism 3.0 offers a practical alternative to our current flawed economic system. It points the way to a future in which we can retain capitalism’s virtues while mitigating its vices.

  16. on 29 Apr 2007 at 8:34 am 16. spyder said …

    The Ministry of Offense and Defense would like to apologize to Oaktown Girl (and peter ramus should he be inconvenienced as well) for our early morning test failure of an MGF (that’s micro-gas-fireball). We would have prefered to have kept it more towards the toll booths and not in a place that would shut down one of the major traffic arteries of the Bay Area. We can only hope that the associated noise and sound did not keep too many people awake so early in the morning. We will of course blame this on pilot error and write off all damages under some other government’s contract (afterall, Exxon has set that standard so very high).

  17. on 29 Apr 2007 at 8:51 am 17. Seattle said …

    Wow-so that’s what it looks like in real life-not a movie. Yet another attempt to isolate the East Bay from all those liberal elites in “the city”. ; )

  18. on 29 Apr 2007 at 9:06 am 18. peter ramus said …

    Wow, spyder.

    I don’t envy anyone who uses that end of the Bay Bridge regularly. It’s going to be a complete mess for a long, long time. Nasty.

    (Somehow the driver lived. He had bad burns, but managed to hail a taxi and got himself to a hospital)

  19. on 29 Apr 2007 at 10:02 am 19. christian h. said …

    Really lucky it happened early morning on a weekend.

  20. on 29 Apr 2007 at 10:17 am 20. Oaktown Girl said …

    Well folks, regarding MOOAD’s little MGF experiment early this morning, I’ve always said the Minister of Justice does not micro-mangage. But it can safely be said that she is NOT happy that MOOAD chose to perform their test in a place that would so inconvenience her personally. MOOAD Minister spyder and Tribunus Laticlavius christian h will present themselves to the Minister of Justice first thing in the morning on Monday.

    OK, back to first person: this is gonna totally suck. I’m on that exact spot only once or twice a week usually (this past week I had to be there twice). But the spillover onto my usual route to work from people taking “alternate” routes is going to make my daily trip to work a total fucking nightmare. (Sadly, public trans is not an option). There’s an alternate route I can take to avoid the masses using my route for an alternate, but it’s way longer, which means more gas which is the priciest in the lower 48. But I guess I’d use just as much gas sitting in bumper to bumper trying to take my usual route.

    That little MGF experiment also took out the photo I had in my comment up in #14.

    Just for the folks outside the Bay Area, Seattle (#18) is being tongue-in-cheek with her East Bay/San Fran remark.

  21. on 29 Apr 2007 at 1:39 pm 21. JP Stormcrow said …

    Well here is an attempt at restructuring the whole paradigm from the point of view of its operating system

    I do think that there are useful analogies to be made between computing and societal mechanisms (caution is in order however, we are creatures trapped in the mental amber of our particular age, I am sure 120 years ago I would have been enthralled with mechanical models.)

    I do think that he has overstretched a bit in comparing Capitalism to an operating system. For me the OS analogy is best used for specific overall control systems such national gov’ts - as reflected in Alan Kay’s response to a question on the best operating system he had ever seen: The United States Constitution, it has been running for over 200 years and has needed to be rebooted once. (although he did allow that it came close in the 1860’s), and I view the current administration as particularly virulent piece of malware, like a nasty browser hijack program.) However, current operating systems are generally far too “single-threaded” to really reflect anything as complex as a government - so maybe a network of OS’ed computers running under a common set of standards - you know, like connected with tubes or something. (These “restrictive” OS models are reflected in title of the last chapter in Danny Hillis’s book on The Connection Machine: New Computer Architectures and Their Relationship to Physics, or Why Computer Science is No Good.)

    Herb Simon provides some insightful comments in The Sciences of the Artificial - a short but wide-ranging book that I highly recommend.

    .. in a world of bounded rationality there are several ways to magnify the computing capabilities of individual human beings and enhance the possibility of their collective survival and prosperity.

    Although I think one of the strengths of Simon is that he brought the viewpoint of constraints on information and computing power into the economic mix, I suspect that computer science has more to gain from these analogies than the other way around. However, as a species I do not think that we can afford to not pursue any and all reasonable models of societal organization, given the pass that we find ourselves at. Excelsior!

  22. on 29 Apr 2007 at 1:48 pm 22. spyder said …

    Tribunus Laticlavius was last seen in the vicinity of our document shredder, and the Minister of Defense and Offense of MOOAD is busy preparing, by rehearsing his “I don’t recall” and “I don’t recollect” phrasing. The Ministry of Offense and Defense disavows any connection with any and all persons connected in even the slightest way with the incident.

    However we are still collecting as much data as possible for our future researches, especially the wicked witch of the west meltdown scenario. It should be noted that the MacArthur Maze is a relatively new construction following the 1989 Earthquake, and such catastrophic failure of the roadbed is more akin to the contracted rebuilding in Iraq, than a CalTrans project in CA.

    And naturally we express our compassion for the economy and for all those capitalists who will experience some financial hardships.

    “It looks like an accident. The driver himself is in critical but stable condition and no one else seems to be hurt,” he said. “But unquestionably this is going to be one of the most problematic commutes in recent memory.”

    Bay Bridge, around a half mile (0.8 km) from the closed interchange, remained open and was accessible from another highway. The overpass looked as though a slab above had melted onto the highway below near the large Ikea store.

    Engineers were working to determine how much time and cost would be needed for repair. Newsom said he had spoken with the chief of staff of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in efforts to speed up repair of the vital highway.

    The cause of the crash was not known, but the California Highway Patrol said there was no evidence the driver had been using drugs or alcohol.

    Newsom said the accident was a wake-up call about vulnerability from natural and man-made disaster.

    “These unfortunate events are opportunities to remind people that our infrastructure is not where it needs to be,” he said.

    “Obviously it’s going to have an economic impact, a big one,” he continued. “It is going to affect companies, it is going to affect job base and sales.”

  23. on 29 Apr 2007 at 5:55 pm 23. Oaktown Girl said …

    Tribunus Laticlavius was last seen in the vicinity of our document shredder, and the Minister of Defense and Offense of MOOAD is busy preparing, by rehearsing his “I don’t recall” and “I don’t recollect” phrasing.

    Luckily for the People of the WAAGNFNP, the Ministry of Justice is not comprised of the same dupes who sat and listened to Alberto Gonzales’ “I don’t recall” speech last week. We have your confession already (up in #16), and tomorrow we shall have our pound(s) of flesh, but not before Lord Astaroth - Prince of Accusers and Inquisitors - asks a few questions. I’ve got Party Patriot James Killus, who knows a thing or two about GNF’s and engineering, consulting with Lord Astaroth as we speak.

    Dispite the commuter hell, it should be a fun Monday at the MOJ.

  24. on 29 Apr 2007 at 6:24 pm 24. James Killus said …

    There are two alternative scenarios for the MCArthur Maze crash.

    The first, a conspiracy theory, and therefore beloved by all those with loose tethers to reality notes that, as with the World Trade Center, burning gasoline cannot melt steel, including rebar, and so the damage must have been the work of controlled demolition. Expect theories, backed by nerdy engineering professors from second tier state universities to follow.

    The second theory is much more to this author’s tastes. Clearly both this and the previous collapse of the Cyprus Structure are the result of building a freeway on an old Indian Burial Ground, with the usual results. Which tribe is unimportant, nor indeed, is what they were burying, although the nearby location of “Shellmound” offers additional room for speculation.

    Frankly, I can blame Cthulu for almost anything, given enough time. One of my housemates, however, is holding out for Ming the Merciless. This would be a variant of theory #1, however, and has little to recommend it.

    We can discount the much more prosaic explanation that people are seldom at their best in the early morning hours on a weekend.

  25. on 29 Apr 2007 at 7:05 pm 25. hi ho, hi ho said …

    I have sad news to report. I have visisted the one and only original 3Tops and must report that she is decaying — her paint did not do well over the winter — and degraded, someone has painted in her space. I’ve got pictures, but they’re not yet processed.

    I ask: Is there any offense against the WAAGNGNP more grevious than the desecration of 3Tops?

  26. on 29 Apr 2007 at 7:51 pm 26. Oaktown Girl said …

    I ask: Is there any offense against the WAAGNGNP more grevious than the desecration of 3Tops?

    Answer: No.

    Praise Gojira that fabulous Party Patriot Bill Benzon took several pictures of her in her original habitat. (I wonder where he is these days? I sure wish he’d come around again).

    And Praise Astaroth that 3Tops is so much more than just that one spot in the park. She’s mostly been hanging out with us here at the new WAAGNFNP headquarters and playing with the MOOAD Hounds between MOJ Special Project assignments.

  27. on 30 Apr 2007 at 8:46 am 27. spyder said …

    There are two alternative scenarios for the MCArthur Maze crash.
    The first, a conspiracy theory, and therefore beloved by all those with loose tethers to reality notes that, as with the World Trade Center, burning gasoline cannot melt steel, including rebar, and so the damage must have been the work of controlled demolition. Expect theories, backed by nerdy engineering professors from second tier state universities to follow. We can discount the much more prosaic explanation that people are seldom at their best in the early morning hours on a weekend.

    And as we begin the week’s first mazeless commute we have our first contestant in the best ‘crash conspiracy theory’ category:

    However, it is evident that the design considerations did not include the possibility of a tanker truck (presumably with gasoline or fuel oil) burning for considerable time just below a ramp, impacting a large area of its bottom surface with high temperature burning (we assume about 1000 C) and infusing the structure with a massive quantity of heat.

    I think the collapse proceeded as follows:

    And you can read the link for this particular theory…

  28. on 30 Apr 2007 at 9:06 am 28. christian h. said …

    Just to make this clear for those who follow the CFL and don’t regularly read Counterpunch: Garcia and Counterpunch have done good work on debunking the 911 conspiracy theories. Garcia is making the same point as James in the linked piece.

  29. on 30 Apr 2007 at 11:28 am 29. James Killus said …

    And oh hell, I find that I’ve got a serious comment to make.

    Some thirty years ago, there was a plan to lay a gasoline pipeline from some oil refineries in the North Bay (Richmond, Hercules, Martinez) down to the heavy consumption areas on the South Bay.

    It was eventually scuttled, in part because of the fear of–terrorism. Back then it was the SLA and the Weather Underground going booga booga. I had an atmospheric research colleague who had worked for an oil company who noted the very clever, clever public policy that belived it made fuel transport less vulnerable to move the fuel from fixed positions underground to moving vehicles on the public highway system.