DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Whenever I download MP3s with Napster, my first choice (when I’m not searching for something so obscure that nobody else on the planet, apparently, has encoded it) is to download from the bozo who claims his bandwidth is 14.4k. Invariably, these guys have OC3s — capable of serving up not just a song, or even a CD, but an entire genre of music in about sixty seconds. For unknown reasons every one of those guys thinks that by hiding their monstrous bandwidth behind the “14.4'' label, nobody will figure out that they’re running Napster one hop away from MAE West on a 72-node Beowolf cluster with trunked gig-E connections to a NetApp filer.

But sometimes I’m wrong, and I find a guy who really is trying to squeeze dozens of megabytes of music through a crackly old analog phone line — miles of corroded copper wire strung haphazardly to a shed behind an abandoned gas station in Tucumcari, NM — where he proudly boots into Napster on a hot-rodded 486 (133MHz DX-4!) with 8 megs of RAM, and a genuine 14.4k modem with a street value of about five cents.

Here’s my new start page: California ISO System Conditions. This page shows the current and forecasted load on the state’s power grid. Today is the 3rd straight day classified as a Stage 3 Emergency, which basically means the ISO projects that load will be within 1.5% of capacity.

I don’t happen to live in Zone 50, the 43% of the grid that is immune to rolling blackouts, so this site may well go dark at some point before Spring. And then again during the summer. And then again next Winter…

I had to laugh at this: Steve Peace, author of California’s energy deregulation plan, has decided against running for statewide office — but denies the current crisis might have affected his ability to win an election.

In the spirit of Disturbing Search Requests, I trace back my referer logs to see who is linking to me. I found one that strikes me as odd.

I’ve received a number of clickthroughs from this site. I visited to see why they were pointing to me… and found the page to be written in French. I asked babelfish to translate, and was dismayed to find my site listed under the heading Dreadful, dirty, and malicious. Worse yet is the 3-word summary of my journal: pub with fart

Pub with fart? Maybe this should be my site’s slogan. Some folks appropriate song lyrics, or marketroid buzz-phrases. But I could be much more original: debris.com: Pub with Fart

I wonder if it’s too late to get in as a DigiScents beta site. I’m quite sure their ScentWare SDK allows me to embed hydrogen sulfide in a web page.

It’s been ten days since I ran into Tom Waits at the coffee shop. My life has not changed in any way I can discern. Nonetheless, I’ve prepared this interview with myself regarding the event, so I’m ready when the magazines come calling.

Interviewer: So I understand you ran into Tom Waits the other morning at the coffee shop.
Me: Yes.

<seconds pass>

Interviewer: Ahh, can you tell us about it?
Me: Sure. I was at the coffee shop, and I ran into Tom Waits.

<seconds pass>

Interviewer: OK, well, what happened? What did you say?
Me: Oh, I asked if I could have a glass of water.

Interviewer: You asked Tom Waits to pour you a glass of water?!
Me: No, no, no. I asked the waitress for a glass of water. Tom Waits was just standing right there. I didn’t even really look at him.

Interviewer: How did you know it was Tom Waits then?
Me: He broke into song actually. Spontaneously leapt right into Downtown Train. Unbelievable voice.

Interviewer: Really?! He just lit into a tune right there in the coffee shop?
Me: Heh, no, not really. He just stood there. I actually thought he was yet-another contractor guy. Those Grizzly Adams-lookin’, toolbelt-and-baseball-cap guys pretty much own this town.

Interviewer: You’re telling me Tom Waits was wearing a toolbelt and a baseball cap?
Me: No, but he seemed like a local, whether or not he was about to go tile someone’s bathroom after breakfast.

Interviewer: OK. But let me get this straight. You saw Tom Waits at a coffee shop, thought enough of it to arrange this interview, and yet you didn’t actually speak to him at all.
Me: Didn’t make eye contact, even.

Interviewer: Why not?
Me: Well, at the back of my mind was the idea that celebrities who live in small towns enjoy that the locals tend not to hound them. Perhaps that’s even why the celebrity folks moved to the small town in the first place. As a solution, this doesn’t scale, of course; once the density of celebrities passes a certain point, the small town will also attract paparazzi, swarming like maggots to last week’s beef.

Interviewer: I see.
Me: Also there was the issue that I was dressed, at the time of this encounter, embarassingly like Mr. Rogers.

Interviewer: Gad. Light pants, tennis shoes, cardigan sweater?
Me: The whole bit.

Interview: Tie?
Me: No tie.

Interviewer: Whew — close call.
Me: I felt lots better for it.

Interviewer: Well, this begins to make more sense. I’m surprised you even left the house, looking like that.
Me: I was meeting friends for breakfast, and they don’t seem to mind how I dress. At least, they don’t comment on it… not while I’m there, anyway.

Interviewer: So what would you have said to Tom Waits, had you decided to brave certain ridicule and approach him?
Me: I think I’d have complimented him for his riveting performance as the taxi driver in Escape from New York.

Interviewer: Err, what? Tom Waits wasn’t in that movie. That was Ernest Borgnine!
Me: Damn, it’s a good thing I didn’t say anything then!

Interviewer: You’re thinking of the taxi driver, the Ghost of Christmas Past, in Scrooged.
Me: Was Waits in that movie?

Interviewer: No, not at all, but at least David Johansen looks vaguely like Tom Waits.

<seconds pass>

Interviewer: Time for one last question?
Me (checking my watch): A quick one.

Interviewer: Do you still dress like Mr. Rogers?
Me: Yes, absolutely.

On January 16, Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff recommended a sweeping consolidation for the computer industry (a plan another analyst termed “the height of stupidity”). Under Neff’s plan, Apple would stop making computers and become, instead, an industrial design shop, designing Windows machines. Presumably he believes this would be to their advantage, a step in wringing out the “fundamental overcapacity in the PC industry.” (Man, that’s dumb.)

IBM, according to Neff, needs to sell its PC business to Dell or Compaq. I have to guess this dramatic change is required by forces of the market — for an analyst to recommend that a company sell off a division, wouldn’t you think that division must be doing badly, or not be a good fit with the company’s overall business plan?

The answer is “no,” as far as I’ve seen. Analysts pretty much recommend whatever ridiculous plan would generate the most income for their own portfolios.

A day after Neff’s report, IBM announced 4th-quarter results that were strong enough to instigate an 11% jump in their stock price. Apparently Neff’s prediction was way off base… certainly there was nothing in IBM’s results to warrant selling off huge pieces of itself to the highest bidder.

Neff himself didn’t admit any mistake (to no one’s surprise), although he reversed his position on IBM about 179°. CNET reports, “Neff said the stock should do well as long as IBM’s operations remain steady…” Further, “Neff added that with several business lines likely to pick up momentum in 2001, the time to own IBM is now…”

Err, at what point during this operations-remaining-steady and business-picking-up should IBM auction off their PC business?

I find it laughable that analysts spin these absurd scenarios. Here’s what I’d like to see: a disclaimer on every one of these analysts’ reports that indicates how much the analyst will personally profit if anyone follows his or her advice.

IBM should sell off its PC business to Compaq or Dell. BTW, if they do that, my company will underwrite the process and will make about seven million dollars. My commission will be enough to buy another three Ferraris.