07:59 – We finished watching season three of Longmire on Netflix streaming last night. It wasn’t nearly as good as the earlier seasons. I’m not surprised that A&E canceled it, given the precipitous drop in ratings from seasons one and two. Netflix has picked it up for season four. I hope they hire better writers.
More science kit stuff today, as usual.
Retweeted today by Megan McArdle, originally tweeted by @kaepora, Nadim Kobeissi:
“There are many ways to get thrills in life. Some people jump out of airplanes. Some people use pre-release Linux versions as their main OS.”
Ah, yes. That used to be me before I came to my senses and started using LTS versions exclusively.
“Yes, sometimes turning it off and on really is the best fix”
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2015/05/yes-sometimes-turning-it-off-and-on-really-is-the-best-fix/
My daughter complained to me that her BlueRay DVD player was not working properly to access NetFlix the other night. I asked her if she had rebooted it. She said no. Five minutes later, voila!
I’ve been sorta walking my next-younger brother through Linux installs on an older Dell laptop; nothing was working that he tried, esp. wireless connections, and then he finally loaded Xubuntu and Bingo!
“That used to be me before I came to my senses and started using LTS versions exclusively.”
Ditto. And that is what the corporate world does, too; IBM up here was only just rolling RHEL onto 6.0 when I left; they check to wait until CentOS versions are stable before they move on. UVM, for which I had that phone interview last week, is still on RHEL 5.11 and wants to move up now. I currently have CentOS 7.1 on a desktop here but I’m not using it for business or production. And I’ve run RHEL 6 and 7 here, too.
But the Ubuntu Studio is on the LTS of 14.04.
Besides reboots helping, it’s also often good to run the updates. But I gotta say that Mint burned me on that a couple of times, again with network connection stuff.
“Yes, sometimes turning it off and on really is the best fix”
Sadly, I agree. But, the flip side is that lots of people have been encouraged to do that instead of first trying to understand what is wrong. THAT is often step 2 🙂
Example: when I call my DSL provider, they always first ask if I restarted my computer, when the connection between the modem and the central office is dead. Once in the past an agent refused to proceed until I had, so I faked it. Wasted a minute or two. Another time I didn’t even have a computer on, and was told I would have to check with one. Sheesh!
I reckon it’s hard being a first-level support agent. You get all sorts of idiots, and the universe is always improving the model. So when someone phones in who actually knows what they’re doing, how do they know you’re not just another idiot? You pretty have to play through the script until you get to second-level support.
That said, our Internet setup here is very much non-conforming to what you’re supposed to do, because we have an SME connection, but set up in load-sharing across two providers. Apparently only the big companies are supposed to do that. So the second-level or maybe third-level guy was helping me, but saying things like “I’m not allowed to help you here, but if you don’t do X, then Y won’t happen”. Really kinda funny, and everything worked in the end. We didn’t not have a good conversation.
Another time I didn’t even have a computer on, and was told I would have to check with one.
One time my Comcast went down, their problem. I called and got an idiot (the chances are fairly high on doing so). I informed them my connection was down. The support person said that everything looked fine on their end and my modem showed as being operational. I knew that was not true as the connection light was not lit. I then said “OK, let me check something.” I unplugged the cable from the modem. The tech said everything still looked good. I then said “OK, let me check something else.” I unplugged the power from the modem. The tech said that he could still see the modem and it was operational. I gave the tech the serial number and mac address to confirm it was the proper account. Tech confirmed the numbers and indicated the modem was fully operational and he was able to see the modem configuration. I then asked “How is that possible when the modem is not powered on?” Tech said they can still see the modem parameters without power due to internal batteries. I then asked “How is that possible when the modem is not connected to the cable or power?” Tech hung up.
Called again and got a better tech who said they would roll a truck to my house. Next day the truck arrives, guy gets out, recognizes me and says “The problem is definitely not in your house” and leaves. Comes back an hour later and says he found a bad amplifier. Cycled the modem and all was good. I asked how the phone tech could see the modem when it was physically disconnected and has no power. The guy just laughed, stated the obvious by saying it was a stupid support person.
When had the XFinity X1 installed the tech that came out said my splitters were configured wrong and redid the connections. A month later I had some issues. Tech comes out and says “Your splitters are wrong. Who did this?” I said Comcast, the tech mumbles and rearranges the splitters and installs an amplifier. Six months later I had speed issues and some digital blocking on some channels. Tech comes out and says “Your splitters are configured wrong” replaces a couple of splitters and rearranges the connections. Did not fix the problem. Tech then replaces the drop to the house and that fixes the problem.
Seems every tech has their own version of how the splitters should be arranged.
The first thing I do when I can’t connect to the ‘net is call Cox Cable’s automated status number. I’ve done that twice in six years when I couldn’t connect. Their network was down both times. No other problems on their end in six years. Not bad for a ‘net provider. I’ve had router problems in the past, but fixed them all myself.