i should be working (but i'm fixing my computer).

The thing that I liked about computer programs was that they were finite and one could understand them.  Then I realized that with the millions and billions of lines of code we are using, they have become reflective of the world at large -- perhaps finite and theoretically understandable, but exceeding the comprehension of any single individual or perhaps any group of individuals.  Unknowable.

...

Which is disconcerting, since my family drives a Prius.  And it has become impossible to actually know whether, under a given (and yet unknown) set of circumstances, the vehicle will morph into a suicide machine.

A condition that, on further reflection, potentially afflicts each and every vehicle utilizing a computer chip.  Yikes!

But, generally speaking, I do not spend a lot of time brooding over whether I will be hit by lightning.  It could happen, but I know the odds are not particularly large.  This is, after all, the third Prius in my immediate family; and when I look at the extended family, my sister is on her second Prius, and my father owns two of them.  Collectively, that is a lot of flawlessly driven miles with no evidence of any particular circumstance under which the vehicle accelerates uncontrollably or refuses to brake.

Nevertheless, I don't think the victims are "making it up" (at least not in every instance) and even worse, I am confident that Toyota is unable to replicate the disaster scenario and therefore has no idea what causes it.  Otherwise it would provide a lucid explanation and an appropriate fix.  (Telling me to remove the floormats was laughably irrational).  There has been an ECU reprogram, but it was not accompanied by anything approaching a rational explanation of what was being done.  If I can't trust the original ECU programming and I have no idea what is being altered, why should I begin to believe the system is now better?  For all I know, it may be worse.

At least that has been my experience with a lot of Windows patches ... but I digress.

What I wish to know is, how do "normal" people cope with computers.  And by "normal" I mean people who do not waste inordinate amounts of time verging on the obsessive trying to understand computers in an effort to force them to do actual human bidding.   As far as I can tell, normal people  have collectively purchased quite a few computers.  But, as computers are irrationally complex systems, how do normal people actually utilize them in a productive, non-infurating way; and beyond that, how do they utilize them in a manner that is even rudimentarily secure?  Inquiring minds wish to know the answers to these questions...

Well, anyway, it has been a busy weekend.  Client #1 relocated; and thus was informed by Time Warner Cable (roadrunner) that the Linksys router I had installed at location 1 and which had run flawlessly for a year + without user intervention, could not be used in location 2.  Thus, a multi-user internet connection became a single user one.  My explanation of the solution was useless, so I had to make a house call where, yes ... I clicked on "MAC clone" and all was well.

Client 2 had unusable email, due to have exceeded server allotment.  Which was something of a mystery to client 2 (who had deleted all of his emails).  However, it was not a mystery to ME.  The mystery was how to explain the solution without making a house call.  Simply stated, I had set up computer 2 so that its POP email would not delete email off the server.  The reason being, computer 1 was an "internet appliance" with a razzle-dazzle, super-duper (now obsolete) phone-interface-system.  Said system was, to my thinking, the "primary" email user and I dutifully instructed said clients to be sure to delete email via the phone appliance, whereupon it would be gone.

For reasons inexplicable to me, but probably having to do with business-model-failure at the supplying company (which sold its appliance product on a method somewhat approximating tupperware sales), the internet appliance apparently ceased actually accessing the email server with anything approaching "reliability."

So, I had to spring all of the "deleted" email back to life on computer 2, and then tell it to actually delete email off the server.  (This time I used an IMAP connection).

Problem solved ... now try to explain it to the client.

Nevermind.

Client 3 had upgraded his broadband modem, at the instruction of his not 24/7 we-never-sleep tech support, which resulted in (deja vu!) his Linksys box refusing to connect, so that his multi-user access had become single user access, limited to one computer.  Hours of calls by client to Verizon resulted in assurance somewhat similar to the Time Warner assurances, which run basically, "it can't be done, or maybe it can but if you do it we won't provide tech support and you are on your own."  Oh, sez I, no problem, we just need to clone the MAC address.  And, proceeded to walk the client through the steps I had just completed with client 1.

Except on this irrationally complex system, we now faced a new dilemma.  The incoming Verizon feed was on 192.168.1.1.  Which, if you know your basic Linksys boxes, is also the default for the box.  And, what you cannot do is connect both on the same subnet.  So, I had him change to 192.168.0.1.  Problem partially solved, as now he had multi-user internet connectivity.

Only problem was, all of the rest of his system was setup for 192.168.1.xxx.  Which meant a lot of restructuring.  Which, given some further thought made no sense as his other IT guy was delivering a truckload of new equipment next Friday and what was the point of fixing up all the current stuff?

So, we switched the Linksys back to 192.168.1.1.

About an hour later I got an email indicating he had talked Verizon tech support into switching the incoming feed from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.0.1 (or whatever), but in any case, problem solved.  Interesting how Verizon went from "can't help you, " to "oh, we can do that ..."

And BTW, did you know that Linksys is "the only router" that uses 192.168.1.1 by default?  (So, ergo, don't blame us for using the same address?)  Umm ... would that be the same Linksys that is also Cisco, that supplies the majority portion of internet hardware?  Inquiring minds want to know, and thank you for playing this installment "Irrationally Complex Systems."

Before I started any of this, I addressed my own irrationally complex system, which is my Linux-based, aging computer music system.  AKA, Toshiba A15 laptop.

Well, as I have reported here, the A15 did not like OpenSUSE 11.2, so I had to rollback to OpenSUSE 11.1.  I have no idea why this should be.  Also, KDE 4.4 uses too much CPU to make me happy (4.3 was ok), so it is running LXDE.  The major impetus for this is that although my Toshiba computers have been more or less rock-solid for years at a time (unlike my HPs) they have really crappy fans.  Therefore, the fans make a lot of noise, so I'd like to keep processor heat as low as possible so the fan doesn't ramp up.  (The HP I just ripped apart and threw on the scrap heap and a really nice metal structure fan in it BTW.  So nice, in fact, I always thought that particular laptop -- with Pentium II Coppermine processor -- did not actually have a fan in it!)  Too bad the fan won't fit in the Toshiba.

But I digress again.  There are a few remaining problems.  I like run my family photoalbum as the background art, with the photo changing every 1/2 hr or so.  Without the built-in capacity to do this in KDE, I will have to revert to the system I used on IceWM (documented here) but which I have for the moment forgotten how to implement.  Since I like to use a clock screensaver, I had to addon the xdaliclock (as LXDE uses the xscreensaver system).  Too bad you have to add the xdaliclock package manually.  But, DONE -- even though actually I prefer the KDE analog clock screensaver.  The other good thing about xscreensaver is that it will provide power management, which is useful to tell it how long to display the clock and when to shutdown the screen.

OK.  So, now we get to the real aggravation.  Amarok just uses way too much processor -- especially when re-reading the music library, which if it is on a remote drive that can be inadvertently disconnected, can be really annoying.  Not to mention, threatening to cause the A15 to self-immolate.  And, as far as I know, Amarok 2.0 still doesn't have smart playlists (since I build my playlists by adding comments to the mp3s).

I had been using Banshee, but banshee inexplicably decided it was only interested in playing one song and then stopping.  So, I switched to Songbird, which inexplicably would play a few songs and then repeat whichever song it particularly liked to infinity and beyond.

I began to suspect these two defective conditions were related in some manner.  Perhaps they were both using the same underlying software library or something to achieve playlist management.

Don't know.  Don't care.  But, in any event, I began to suspect that maybe there was a problem in some setup files in one of the user hidden directories.  Yes, but which files?  Which directory?  Don't know, do care.

To test, I created a new user.  Unfortunately, this meant replicating a number of setup/programming things from the existing user.  TIME WASTED, DUDE ...  And then, disappointingly, nope, Songbird still exhibited the same defect.  Problem not solved.

However, Banshee now decided that it actually was willing to play entire playlists after all.  So, problem solved, we are back to using Banshee.  (But why am I always having to fix systems that used to work just fine?)

Let me mention a few (annoying) LXDE quirks.  Such as, the desktop icons and background do not properly display on log in UNLESS AND UNTIL I click on the panel "file manager" folder.  Why?  I do not know ... but I have seen this quirk on two separate installs/computers now.

Next annoying quirk -- KDE desktop icons/links will launch the underlying script -- but the script will only partially execute.  WHY??? For instance, I have a script file that checks to see if the remote drive is mounted; if it is mounted, it launches dolphin to display the files (so I can manually observe whether it is in fact mounted), then asks me whether I want to run Banshee.  The reason being, it is really annoying to launch Banshee when the remote drive is not mounted, as Banshee (or Songbird or Amarok) will proceed to "update" the library and delete all of the music library from the cache.

Ok.  so, if I run my bash script -- by executing the bash script -- it works fine.  The kdialog dialogs pop up just like they are supposed to.  System works.

OTOH, if I click on the "desktop icon" that links to my bash script, the script will execute -- but only up to the command that launches Dolphin!   I have no idea why it stalls at this point and fails to complete the process.

Which is additionally annoying, since as far as I can tell I can get LXDE to autostart scripts linked via desktop icons, but not scripts themselves.  So, now I have to manually launch the script.

Manually launching the script is No Big Deal as far as I am concerned, but the primary user of the music system is my wife.  Who, as I may have mentioned here before, is a Normal Person and therefore not interested in dealing with irrationally complex systems.  In fact, barely patient enough to deal with me while I attempt to turn irrationally complex systems in to simple, reliable systems that Function as Expected.

OTOH, she has listened patiently while I describe the runaway-Prius-shutdown-checklist.  IE, shift to neutral (will go to neutral if you hold it for a second or so); power-off byholding the power button at least 3 secs. (Toyota -- do you have ANY IDEA how far a vehicle travelling 100 mph will go in three secs? What's wrong with an instantaneous "kill" button???)  Lean on the brakes AND lean on the emergency brake.  (Well, let's get on the the brakes FIRST,  WHILE we try to kill the power system of the runaway machine ...)

And Toyota, I will never forgive you if my wife does not come home safely ...

(But I was thankful that GM recently recalled Cobalts for steering issues, as my father-in-law and I are always sparring over whether it is better to buy one's vehicles from incompetently run subsidiaries of the US Gov't or profiteering foreign corporations.)

Thank you for reading this installment of "Irrationally Complex Systems" and have a pleasant tomorrow.