DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

After upgrading to Jaguar, my TiBook refused to mount my workstation’s disks. The error message was a lot less than helpful: “Connecting to afp://… An error has occurred (error = -1028).”

I couldn’t mount the TiBook from the desktop machine, either, because I’d made the unwise decision to format the laptop’s filesystem as UFS rather than HFS+, and OS9 (the desktop’s OS) won’t read UFS disks. This means I had two computers that wouldn’t talk to one another. Basically I was suffering from the inverse of Metcalf’s Law: the value of my home network had decreased in proportion to the square of the number of nodes that were refusing to join. Or, assigning values, 1² = 1.

While on hold with Apple’s tech support group, I poked more at the laptop, assuming that the solution was something simple. And, I soon found, it was: within the network prefs, I’d disabled AppleTalk by mistake. Re-enabling it made my network happy once again.

Still: lousy error message, no?

We realized we’ve been enjoying good house karma lately. I’m writing about it now to thoroughly jinx myself, because I just can’t stand it when things go too well, and I really need to add some new stressors to my life. I fully expect part of the roof to cave in as soon as I publish this story.

A few weeks back we had our oven diagnosed because the thermostat was off by 75°. The repair estimate was ridiculously high at $860.

When we bought this house, we had the foresight to purchase a home warranty policy. A “home warranty” is basically an insurance policy that pays off if anything breaks during the first year of ownership. Some systems, like septic and wells, are exempt unless you purchase additional specialized coverage, but basic appliances and systems (heating, cooling) tend to be covered.

The policy we have may not be the best. It requires a $40 copay, which the insurance company uses to dissuade all casual inquiries — at $40 per claim, we’d want to be sure something was wrong.

With our oven situation, I was sure something was wrong. The insurance company arranged for a diagnostic visit and repair, and paid the whole tab minus my $40 fee. It all worked out surprisingly well.

(Confirming my suspicion that the original repair shop was trying to hold me up when they bid $860, the folks who actually did the work told me the wholesale price on the controller board: $250. Installation took about a half-hour. Had there been no insurance coverage, they’d have charged me $440, or roughly half what the original shop quoted. )

The $400 I saved pays for my entire home warranty, and then some. I am now a convert to the religion of home-warranty insurance. I just wish I was getting a commission.

Then we had a problem with our heater: all the vents in the main zone died. A phone call to the insurance company revealed that zoned heating systems are not covered by our policy… can’t win ‘em all I guess… and a second call, to the HVAC contractor who’d installed the zoned system originally, revealed that the part that had blown out was discontinued by the manufacturer.

All in all these were not looking like ingredients for a good-karma story, and I was on a deadline, so I had to juggle reality pretty quickly. Immediately, the HVAC guy said, “But you know, I think I have exactly one of those discontinued parts in the back of my warehouse. I’ll go dig it out and give it to you for free.” Seriously. In the end I paid him $90 for the installation and a grateful handshake for the part. He’s won a customer for life.

Finally, and there has to be a 3rd instance in any proof so here you go, we watched anxiously as the skies opened and drenched our new home for the first time this season. To understand how this feels, remember that in California it generally does not rain between April and November. And then it rains a lot and continues to do so for five months, causing enough flooding and drainage problems to keep repair crews busy for the dry summer to follow. The season’s first rain is like a warning shot at everyone who thinks they might need new gutters or a french drain.

For new homeowners, the frightening question is “where does the water go?” Chances are, it goes somewhere you’d rather it didn’t, like into the basement. Another good chance: your yard and/or driveway will end up about 10' further downhill than it was before the rain started. It kills my green soul to say this, but pavement is a good thing.

However… so far, so good.

We’d managed to clean out the gutters the weekend before, and I’m sure that helped prevent some problems. We hadn’t cut all the dead branches out of the trees yet, but last week’s windstorm took care of them, helpfully dumping two cubic yards’ worth into the driveway for easy pick-up. (We’ve since discovered that driving through them in the car two or three times helps break them up into manageable pieces.)

I got to the diner at 8am. My normally-punctual friend (well, frankly, he’s abnormally punctual) was not there. I waited for a few minutes, chatted with the cook, and then decided that my friend’s absence could be due only to my failure to understand our plans. So I hopped back into the car and drove to the other diner.

On the way down the street, I saw my friend driving toward me, or rather toward the diner I’d just left. I’d had the right place after all; he was late for the second time in five years. (I don’t consciously keep track of these things… but I think it’s natural to remember the odd events, like when a politician does an honorable thing or a big company acts in the consumer’s favor.) Anyway, I spun around and followed him to the diner.

I know this story isn’t very interesting yet. Bear with me. It will get better, or at least longer. Did you have something else you had to get to?

There was a delay in the parking lot, some kind of confusion with a car stopping and people getting in and out. This cost me a few seconds. My companion was visible through the door, ordering breakfast at the counter. I’d hoped to catch him at the counter so I could put my order in at the same time. But the guy getting out of the car, tying up traffic (such as it is in the mostly-empty parking lot of a tiny diner in a small town), walked inside and formed a line at the counter.

I debated — line up as #3, or walk to the front to join my friend? It could be argued that my friend was holding a place in line for me. It could also be argued that, as I’d been there way before any of these people, I had some residual right to order food early. And finally (and conclusively), it could be argued that I didn’t feel like waiting for the guy who had been causing trouble out in the parking lot, what with his people getting in and out of the car and blocking me from pulling in. So I walked ahead of him and ignored the visual daggers he was shooting at me.

I began to order when “EXCUSE ME DIDN’T YOU SEE ME IN LINE HERE?!” It was the rudest thing I’ve heard around town, ever. Most people here are exceptionally polite. This loudmouth must have been a tourist.

But I felt some guilt; maybe I had unfairly cut in line. There was no huge downside to taking the civil route here. I stepped aside, did my best to smile, and encouraged him to go ahead of me. But I admit I festered a bit, there in the second place in line, because I don’t like being yelled at.

And then a great thing happened… the guy’s wife came in from parking the car, and she cut in front of me to join him at the counter! Clearly, the gracious thing to do would be to allow it without a word. Of course he was holding a place for her. Friends and spouses join one other in longer lines than this in venues all over the world. I bit my lip, struggling not to shout at her, “Excuse me, didn’t you see me in line back here?!” My better nature (don’t laugh) won out; I said nothing. Maybe, in a quiet moment while he’s alone with his thoughts, this lout would see the irony.

The cook brought my food out first anyway.

There was a time when Linux was not just an operating system, but a ticket to Wall Street success. Remember Red Hat, Slashdot, Corel, and the leader of the acquisition-and-IPO pack, VA Linux, whose stock opened with a record-setting gain of 700% and hovers now at NASDAQ’s delisting point, $1/share. (A plot of LNUX share prices so effectively encapsulates the term “dot bomb” that it would send Edward R. Tufte into spasms of joy.) At the time of those acquisitions and IPOs, all sorts of companies were touting Linux, even if it was only peripherally related to their core business, in hopes of pumping up their own image (and share price).

So it seemed like a time warp today to learn of a company called Linux Motor Corp. They look like just-another hosting company (which, from what I can tell by the “pervasive thinning” in the hosting industry over the past two years, has not been a sound business model for a long time either), but dressed up in “open source” robes in hopes of favorable treatment by analysts. But I’m not an authority on these things, so forget my impressions and focus on the issue at hand: linuxmotor.com is run by spammers.

I received an email spam from Marc Gomez of Linux Motor, promoting the company’s web-hosting options. The message was sent to one of my domain-registration addresses. This implies that Linux Motor is harvesting email addresses from “whois” records — a traditional spammer technique for email-address collection.

Now for the irony: if you want to host your website at Linux Motor, you have to agree to their Terms of Service (local mirror), which state in part:

As a provider of Internet network services and management, Linux Motor considers it an obligation to put an end to Spam.

The policy continues with some great stuff: immediate account termination for spammers, to pick one example. They take a strong stand against spam. So I have to wonder, why doesn’t Linux Motor follow this policy themselves?

I’d suspect that some marketing guy acted on his own in launching this spam campaign, except that the name on the spam belongs to the CEO of the company.

Also here’s a confusing sight that tends to cloud Linuxmotor.com’s endorsement of Linux and Open-Source software: not only do they offer Windows 2000 (note: not open-source) as a server OS, they list it under the heading “Linux Hosting.” Elsewhere on the page they list Windows 2000 under “Linux Support.” Err, what? Is this a simple page-design mistake, or evidence of misleading and opportunistic branding?

“A study of affluent Bay Area residents who were seeking health benefits by eating lots of fish found that they were also loading up on toxic mercury.”

It’s unfair, in a cosmic sense, that people who are trying to take responsibility for their health get caught in a trap like this. And it’s a pity that the folks who stuff their snouts in the fast-food slop trough two or three times a day will use this story to justify their dangerous addictions — “These super-size fries may not be very healthy, but at least I won’t die of mercury poisoning…” Feh.

Anyway, if you eat fish, especially swordfish, sea bass, halibut, or tuna (including canned tuna), you need to read this article: Rich folks eating fish feed on mercury too: ‘Healthy diet’ clearly isn’t

The study mentioned in the Chronicle article is supposed to have been published in the November issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, but I’ve been unable to locate it online. There is good background information on the controversy (and, yes, there’s always a controversy) in this AP story on ENN.com: Research of mercury contamination leaves huge gaps in knowledge.