< PREVIOUS ] [ 2003 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
For most of my life, I have managed to get by without email. But when I lost the connection for a couple of days last week, I sure missed it. I felt the deprivation even though at least 90 percent of my email is junk.
There are offers to shrink my body (lose 10 pounds in 5
days) and to enlarge part of it (Viagra without a
prescription, except some of them spell it V1agra,
presumably to evade various protective filters). I can get
a substantial commission if I assist in transferring $35
million out of Nigeria. Working from home can provide even
more money if I enroll. I can get HBO for free if I send
$10 for a parts list and schematic. If I disable my
anti-virus software, then I will be able to install an even
more powerful anti-virus program, and for some reason,
these strangers expect me to trust them.
There's a place where I can sign up for megabytes of
free p<! -- d4cc -- >rn,
and my guess is that
this odd spelling is a way to fool filters that might catch
the word porn.
There was an offer for a free
Disney screen saver
which contained a virus, according
to my ISP, which deleted the attachment.
I don't use a filter on my machine, because it's pretty easy to filter the messages myself. If the message is in plain text, I'll at least glance at it. If it's encoded in HTML format, or it is an attached file, or it's encoded in hexadecimal bytes -- then it goes straight to the trash, unless it's from someone I know.
When I began using this email program (Kmail, which comes with the Red Hat Linux 7.1 KDE graphical interface), it annoyed me that it did not handle HTML and the like. But soon I saw this as a blessing, since most of the spam tries to attract attention by its fancy formatting, and thus it's easy to spot.
As for my email deficiency last week, on Tuesday morning I started the dialer, and before it finished making the connection, it dropped the line. Continued efforts produced sporadic results -- once in a while, it would hold the connection, but often it wouldn't even finish dialing the number.
I had an identical internal ISA-slot modem in another machine. The swap worked at first, then acted up in the same way. I started calling smart friends. Our conclusion was that the sole ISA slot on the motherboard (which is less than six months old) had gone bad, and the sensible solution was an external modem, which was ordered right away, but wouldn't be here until this week.
The modem issue is one of the vexations of Linux, which works fine with an ISA internal modem. But the newer motherboards have no ISA slots (Microsoft won't support them in new and improved versions of Windows, and we all know what runs the world), just PCI slots, and PCI modems often lack Linux driver software. But an external modem could just plug into a serial port, and Microsoft hasn't gotten around to banning serial ports yet.
What to do in the interim? I used to sell old hardware, but then I discovered that someone who bought a Pentium 120 system for $150 often expected it to come with a free lifetime support contract, and I didn't have time for that. Giving away the old machines generally produced the same expectation from the recipient -- it's probably easier to escape from a collection agency than it is to be rid of someone you sold a computer to.
So now the hardware just accumulates in our cellar, where I found a junker and got it running with Linux. The modem worked, so I loaded my data and configuration files, and by Wednesday night I was back in business on a slow but functioning machine.
Meanwhile, my pile of unanswered email was growing to immense proportions. During the modem downtime, this was a guilt-free accumulation, since there was nothing I could do about it. But as soon as I was reconnected, then I felt bad about just sitting by a warm fire and reading on Wednesday night.
Not so bad that I immediately caught up on all these messages -- indeed, as of this writing there are still many to answer -- but still, I couldn't be comfortable. And every time I wanted to put more wood in the stove, the dog was blocking the way, and since she's 14 and somewhat arthritic, I felt guilty for making her move.
Trying to clear my mind with some brain-deadening material, I turned on the tube. After an hour or so of that, I didn't know whether to feel guilty for not doing more to support our troops, or to feel guilty for not doing more to oppose the invasion of Iraq.
There's the answer. I'll just write an inspiring essay
about How not to feel guilty about things you haven't
done,
offer to sell the pamphlet for $10, and buy one
of those lists of 10 million valid e-mail addresses
and start spamming.
Sure, I'd feel guilty about that, too, but at least I'd be making some money out of it. As it is, well, a working modem is a mixed blessing.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 2003 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >