So this morning I tried to process an order a customer had sent me last night.  I went to log into my photolab service provider, exposuremanager.com, just like I always do.  Bzzzt.  Can't get in.  "This link appears to be broken."

Huh, maybe it's my machine.  So I try my daughter's machine, nope she can't see it either.  Internet down?  Nope I can get my email and see all the other sites I use regularly.

So I (reasonably) assume exposuremanager is down.  That's not too cool--because while it is down my customers can't place orders.  So I call customer support and leave them a message that their site is down.

A little while later I get an e-mail from them stating their site is up and running fine (and by the way, nice pictures on your site!) Thanks, but I still can't get in.

So I try the DOS utility "ping" to ping their server.  Sometimes it can't resolve exposuremanager to an IP address (implying a problem with a domain name server at Comcast) and other times it can resolve the IP address but gets no response.  I check with WHOIS on Tucows (their registrar) to see if their domain has expired, but it hasn't.  WTF?

So then I run a traceroute in an attempt to see where the communication fails between me and exposuremanager:

Tracing route to exposuremanager.com [66.254.91.235]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  www.routerlogin.com [192.168.1.1]

  2     7 ms    10 ms     7 ms  [ my IP omitted ]

  3     8 ms     8 ms     6 ms  ge-1-2-ur01.gardner.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.85.187.109]

  4    11 ms    10 ms     9 ms  te-0-8-0-2-ar01.woburn.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.85.162.93]

  5    14 ms     9 ms     9 ms  pos-0-15-0-0-ar01.needham.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.85.162.145]

  6    15 ms    14 ms    22 ms  pos-0-0-0-0-ar01.chartford.ct.hartford.comcast.net [68.85.162.70]

  7    16 ms    18 ms    17 ms  pos-2-4-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.61]

  8    22 ms    18 ms    17 ms  Vlan546.icore1.NJY-Newark.as6453.net [206.82.132.41]

  9    17 ms    45 ms    18 ms  if-6-0-0-25.mcore3.NJY-Newark.as6453.net [216.6.57.41]

 10    19 ms    17 ms    18 ms  if-2-0.core1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net [216.6.57.66]

 11    17 ms    18 ms    19 ms  sl-gw31-nyc-14-0-0.sprintlink.net [160.81.249.29]

 12    18 ms    19 ms    17 ms  sl-crs2-nyc-0-2-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.13.35]

 13    23 ms    27 ms    19 ms  sl-bb20-msq-2-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.74]

 14    22 ms    22 ms    24 ms  sl-bb21-msq-15-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.9.110]

 15    26 ms    26 ms    27 ms  sl-crs1-rly-0-8-5-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.73]

 16    25 ms    25 ms    26 ms  sl-bb20-dc-5-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.162]

 17    24 ms    28 ms    25 ms  sl-crs1-dc-0-0-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.15.11]

 18    74 ms    73 ms    74 ms  sl-crs2-fw-0-11-3-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.19.200]

 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 20     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 21     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 22     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 23     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 24     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 25     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 26     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 27     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 28     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 29     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 30     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Trace complete.

As you can see, the communication makes it to "sl-crs2-fw-0-11-3-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.19.200]" and then fails.  Sprintlink.net is inside of the Sprint network.  To get as far as I did required the services of three companies, Comcast (comcast.net),  Tata Communications (as6453.net), and Sprint (sprintlink.net). None of these companies is my company (sagewoodstudios.com) or my photolab service provider (exposuremanager.com).  In fact after the last hop, I don't know what the next address would be--it might be a fourth company, or another server in the Sprint network.  Exposure Manager can't help me--it's not their computer.  Comcast can't help me--it's not their computer either.  Sprint *might* be able to help me, but I'm not their customer. 

What I do know is, if I didn't have to use this route, I would indeed be able to get there.  I found an online provider of the standard 'net tools (ping, traceroute, etc.) called Network-Tools.com (that's a handy link btw, you might want to bookmark it).  I can get to their server to see their website, and when I ask THEM to do a traceroute to exposuremanager, they can get there just fine:

TraceRoute to 66.254.91.235 [exposuremanager.com]

Hop

(ms)

(ms)

(ms)

IP Address

Host name

1

8

6

6

206.123.69.137

-

2

9

6

6

8.9.232.73

xe-5-3-0.edge3.dallas1.level3.net

3

12

7

7

4.69.145.140

ae-3-80.edge2.dallas3.level3.net

4

8

15

6

4.71.220.14

xo-communic.edge2.dallas3.level3.net

5

10

12

9

207.88.13.122

207.88.13.122.ptr.us.xo.net

6

41

40

40

207.88.12.46

207.88.12.46.ptr.us.xo.net

7

41

40

40

65.106.1.69

65.106.1.69.ptr.us.xo.net

8

41

49

52

65.106.5.10

p0-0-0.mar2.la-ca.us.xo.net

9

46

40

40

207.88.81.170

p15-0.chr1.la-ca.us.xo.net

10

50

44

45

66.238.50.106

66.238.50.106.ptr.us.xo.net

11

53

45

47

66.254.64.1

gw1.pixelgate.net

12

53

50

47

66.254.91.235

host235.exposuremanager.com

Trace complete

As you can see, because they are starting from a different provider (level3.net) their communication path takes a different route that never involves any of the companies I'm forced to use.  If Network-Tools.com provided a "browser in a browser" basically an embedded frame that I could point anywhere I want to, I'd be able to get to my photolab and process my customer's orders.

In the meantime I'm pretty stuck.  I can't help my customers, and my service provider can't help me.  Welcome to the Internet... where you really "can't get thar from hyar".

In a single payer system, the cost of healthcare drops dramatically.  Yes it's true taxes go up, but at this point?  They're going up anyway.  The economic stimulus our country needs is going to have to be paid for, and we are all going to pay for it.  Combine this with the 30 years this country has frittered away when it should have been building a new energy grid, green technologies, maintaining infrastructure, and so on, and it's clear, the party is over.

And by "the party is over" I'm referring to those artificially low taxes that our conservative friends still think are too high.

I am sick and tired of listening to gloom-and-doom naysayers fiddling about long lines, delays, and taxes while Rome burns.  I have friends who are suffering right now simply because they cannot get the help they need due to lack of coverage.

Single-payer health care works in many countries around the world, some better than others.  I have enough faith in American ingenuity that we can make it work here.  But it does mean (AFAIC) the end (or serious curtailing) of health insurance companies that have risen to wealth on their two core tenets--1. collect premiums, and 2. don't pay benefits.

For those who quake in fear at the notion?  We tried it your way for decades and it sucks.  I'm ready for something new.

I'd like to take this opportunity to express my utter disgust at the crowd of shoppers who mobbed the doors of a Wal*Mart in Long Island yesterday morning, broke through the doors, and trampled a 34-year old employee to death. There is NOTHING that can be found in Wal*Mart that is worth crushing a human being for--none of you were in desperate need of food or medicines that could only be had in that store and nowhere else on the planet. Believe it or not, your kids will survive if they don't get Guitar Hero for Christmas.

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death (The New York Times):
...Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau police, said the store lacked adequate security. He called the scene "utter chaos" and said the "crowd was out of control." As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. "I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not," he said. "Certainly it was a foreseeable act."...

I strongly urge the detective and the county DA to pursue criminal charges against these people. There is security video from the store, so there should be no problem identifying them and providing evidence of their guilt. Nobody "accidentally" breaks a door down and kills a man. The Damour family will have an empty seat at the dinner table for the rest of their lives because of a bunch of stupid assholes wanted to save a buck.

It's 2008 folks, you don't get to be cattle anymore. Whoever went to that Wal*Mart yesterday morning and forgot to bring their humanity? I hope you rot in prison.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given what a wackaloon theist McCain's screwhead VP pick is, but just in case it wasn't obvious... Sarah Palin supports a federal Gay Marriage ban--because her religion frowns upon it, it should be illegal for people who don't share her religion. Basically, because she is arrogant.

...in my own, state, I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that that's where we would go because I don't support gay marriage. I'm not going to be out there judging individuals, sitting in a seat of judgment telling what they can and can't do, should and should not do, but I certainly can express my own opinion here and take actions that I believe would be best for traditional marriage and that's casting my votes and speaking up for traditional marriage that, that instrument that it's the foundation of our society is that strong family and that's based on that traditional definition of marriage...

Knuckledraggers love this witch. If McCain doesn't win, I expect we will be hearing from her again in 2012. Crooks and liars has the video and transcript of Palin's statement to CBN's David Brody.

So yesterday I was exhausted in the morning.  I had fallen asleep about 10 PM the night before and then woke up around 2 AM.  I was excited to be writing about Mara and Kennis again, and when I woke up I went back to work on it.  By 7 AM the chapter was nearing completion but I was utterly wasted.  So toward the end it got a little rushed but all in all I was satisfied.

It also looked to be the only day we weren't going to have rain.  So needless to say the fam was up and about by 8 and looking to go out for a day hike.  But I was so not up to it.  So I slept on the couch while they went out and had fun.  I woke up around 1:15 or so, and trekked to the information center in Thornton where there was a public access internet terminal.  The wifi on this old laptop is fried... so I need more than an access point.

When I got there two people were coming out, a man and a woman, and the man was saying "well ya, I could have checked that if I could have gotten on the computer."  That didn't sound good.

Once inside I noticed a teenage girl was on the computer, so I decided to kill some time and asked the person on staff for information about local architecture that I could shoot.  He recommended a list of covered bridges starting with the Blair Bridge.  I had already shot the Blair Bridge last year, but thought it would be nice to try again with the 5D.  Plus I had an idea for something new to try, and even had the necessary lens in my bag--fisheye shots from inside a covered bridge.  I thought that would look really cool.

We talked for about 20 minutes.  When we were done the young lady was still using the computer, so I said, quite clearly from about 3 feet away.  "Thank you sir, do you mind if I wait here for a bit?  I need to use your internet access."  The staff member said, "Sure no problem."  The young lady glanced up at me and then went back to what she was doing.

I had brought my Kennis and Mara story with me, all preformatted and ready to post.  All I would need to do is copy and paste it into a window and click a button.  Then I wanted to check my mail, respond to any comments on my blog or flickr, check twitter and post a tweet about shooting bridges, and then I would be on my way.  I figured it was about 10-15 minutes of time on the computer.  So I sat in the chairs provided to wait.  These chairs are situated immediately behind the computer, which is probably not a good idea because it means you can see whatever the person using the computer is doing.

And in this case the person using the computer was on MySpace.  I realize it is a public access terminal, and nothing I was going to do was any more important than poking about on MySpace.  That wasn't the problem.  The problem was this young person was posting comments on MySpace pages and then waiting for responses to be posted.  Or rather, hoping responses would be posted.  She would check her incoming MySpace messages, and then scroll up and down, up and down, up and down, on her MySpace page, continually refreshing it, to see if she had gotten a response.  After a few minutes of no response, she would click on one of her friend's pages, post a message there, and then return to her page and scroll around waiting for responses.  This is clearly not the way such a resource should be used, you get on, you do what you need to, and you get off.  If you are going to just wait around for messages to be posted, you let other people on and get back on when they are done.

After about 15 minutes she got bored scrolling around, so she went to YouTube to watch videos of kittens playing with toys.  After 5 minutes or so of this she glanced back at me, at the time I wasn't looking exactly at her.  I was looking a little to the right, sitting forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped, and clearly doing nothing other than waiting.  I think it occurred to her at this point that it was obvious she was just fucking around with the PC, so she had three options: (1) get off and get back on later, (2) do something other than simply kill time, or (3) try to make it *look* like she was doing something other than kill time and hope that I would give up and go away... like the people before me had.

Guess what option she chose?  She turned back to what she was doing and opened a new browser window.  The home page was a New Hampshire tourist information page, so she clicked around and pretended to read information about local attractions that she probably would not be visiting.  And then, about once every 30 seconds or so, she would switch back to the browser window containing her MySpace page, refresh it, look for new messages, and then minimize it and go back to pretending to read tourist information.  Occasionally she had a message, but most of the time she didn't.

I was not going to be bested by this kid, so I remained where I was.  I figured I would wait until she looked at me again and if she did I would ask her how long the wait was going to be.  I figured I could offer as a consolation that it would take about 15 minutes for me to take care of what I needed to post.

It took another 10 minutes or so before she looked at me again.  By now I had been in the information center for almost an hour.  This time when she looked at me, I made eye contact with her and made clear from my expression that I was not going to leave.

"Are you waiting to use this computer?" she asked.

Gimme a break.  She knew I was waiting.  Still I just wanted to get on, so I gave her an out.

"Yes.  I need access for about 15 minutes."

"Um, okay, I'm almost done I just need 2 more minutes."

Yeah.  Two minutes so you can post a message to whoever you are yakking with on MySpace to let them know you need to get off the computer and you will be back in 15 minutes.

"That's fine thanks."

After about 5 minutes she shut down her MySpace page.

"Ok all set."

"Thanks.  I'm just checking my e-mail and posting an article.  I should be done in 10 to 15 minutes, and then you can get right back on."

"Okay, thanks." And then as she left "I'll be back in 15 minutes."

She was just letting me know not to take my time.  Now if I had been an asshole I'd have sat there and waited for her to get back, then watched videos of kittens on YouTube.  But I actually  had things I wanted to do that day... and should have long since gotten started doing them.

It took 10 minutes for me to post my material, check my mail, and respond to my messages.  And then I left.  No kid in sight outside.

But I'll be returning today to post this article, upload 5 covered bridge fisheye-pix to flickr, and check and respond to mail/comments.  And of course to minimize my time on the PC I have prepared everything in advance.  Should take about 10 minutes again.  I wonder if I will have the joy of waiting for her again?  My plan this time is to show up at 9 AM.  I got the sense this young person doesn't do 9 AM.

The fisheye pix came out nice BTW (12345).  When I get home I'll be able to do some proper post processing.  All I have here is IrfanView, which doesn't do well with Canon RAW files.  100% chance of rain today, but it is 8:22 AM and nothing has started yet.  So I am probably going to at least *try* to shoot some covered bridges today.  Wish me luck!

"What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous ... it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God. Get out of that seat ... You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon."

-- Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), speaking to atheist Rob Sherman

If Rob Sherman was a Jew or a Muslim or a Methodist or anything but an atheist, Representative Monique Davis would be openly castigated from every direction (and deservedly so).  But it's okay to hate atheists here.  Welcome to my country.

Mr. Sherman was testifying to the Illinois House State Government Administration Committee about a one million dollar grant slated to go to a Baptist church that was trying to rebuild from a fire.  As you know churches already don't pay taxes, so it seems rather curious that anyone would think it okay for tax money to go to a church--especially in a country where church and state are supposed to be separate.  The grant money story is pretty smelly all on its own, but I am not at all surprised that any outspoken atheist would have an opinion on the matter, and might choose to testify to government bodies on the matter.

But Monique Davis feels otherwise.  She feels atheists have no right to testify to the American government.  And for that matter we are destroyers, and dangerous to children.  And it's okay to censor or silence us.  Oh and the country was founded on Christian principles.

How does someone like this even get elected in the first place? Shame on you Monique Davis.  You madam, are no Democrat.

Hat tip to the excellent science blog Pharyngula for the story.  You won't be hearing about it on Fox.

So I watched an overly long atheist/theist debate on YouTube the other day.  It was held by an American Muslim organization and featured two Muslim debaters and two atheist debaters.  It was depressing and nightmarish to watch.  I thought the atheists did a horrible job, frankly, and let the other side get away with dodgy logic and word games.  In their defense the environment wasn't friendly to them in the least, but they weren't really doing anything that would have won the crowd over.

After the sorry affair was over, I found myself wondering what possesses atheists to want to debate the existence of God or Allah or what-have-you.  I can understand giving a talk, taking questions and answers, writing an essay, but a debate?  Would you debate the existence of the tooth fairy?  What's the point?

We hold political debates to see how potential representatives think on their feet, but not to find the truth.  As I have long noted, debates are not about truth, they are about winning, and this is precisely why I do not like them.  You get people playing semantical games with each other and trying to win over the audience instead of working together to reach truth or at least understanding.  And since the most outspoken debaters tend to insult each other, or each other's position, they do little to convince anyone of anything.  Instead these events tend to drive wedges between people instead of bring them together.

So if it is about winning as opposed to truth, what good does debating the existence of supernatural entities serve?  Even if you win you haven't proved anything beyond the fact that you are the better debater.

Personally I think irrational beliefs are not the sort of thing you want to try to debate--your theistic opponents will simply expand their belief beyond the boundaries you try to set for them--whether it makes sense or not.  And why wouldn't they?  The beliefs were irrational in the first place.  As the old saw goes you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.