Random Developments

This is a true story. It happened yesterday, to yours truly.

11:00am. Coffee time, the worst possible time to ask for support. A girl comes into Technical Services saying that she changed her password and forgot what she changed it to. Since the help desk is closed, we’re the only ones who can help… When?, ask I. “Just now”. Well, that’s not much of a memory… but, well, I’ve seen weirder things. “Do you remember your previous password?” Yes, she says. Ok, I revert it to the previous one, tell her to wait 15 minutes for it to propagate, and send her on her way.

Not half an hour later, she’s back. The previous password does not work either, she claims. Odd. I check it, it should work. So I set her password to something else, write it on a piece of paper, tell her “this is your new password, all lowercase; change it today or it will expire”, and off she goes.

Mid afternoon, and who comes in? She says that she logged in with the password I gave her, then she changed it and now she can’t log in anymore. I suspect her keyboard might have a problem, so I ask her to try on mine; it fails. So I change it back to the password I gave her earlier, and ask her to change it again.

A few minutes later, she comes back saying that the password I gave her does not work either. Well, now I know she has to be doing something wrong. So I log in to her account with that password, and it works. I ask her to do it on my keyboard, just to check. And I watch in horror as she pointedly presses the shift key while typing a password containing only digits and lowercase letters! Well, that explains it. I tell her about upper- and lower-case letters, the shift key and things not to do; a colleague helps a little with that. And she seems to understand. And off she goes.

And back she comes. Not working, she says. Ok… I need to see this. So I go with her to the lab, five floors down, to watch as she logs in. And there I see, in all its glory, a bright green Caps Lock light on her keyboard. I touch the Caps Lock key and tell her “try now”. She does it and, surprise of surprises, it works. So I have her change the password again, and watch as she does. And then I tell her to check for that light and, if in doubt, to type the password in the username field to see if it looks like what she expects.

And she’s a Postgrad student in Computer Science. What’s the world coming to?

I guess I should post something about the results of the US election. I was expecting a close result (closer that what actually happened), and I was fully expecting Bush to win (but hoping he wouldn’t). Looking at the several result maps out there, it’s very clear that Bush won on the rural, sparsely populated areas and in the largely evangelical area in the middle of the country. Both coasts and most large centers voted overwhemingly for Kerry. A friend of mine said that many voters went out to vote against gay marriages and ended up voting for Bush as well, which does seem plausible.

I don’t think this victory is an approval of the Iraq war, or of Bush’s foreign and economic policies, even though he’ll act as if were; rather, it was a victory for conservative moral values (the cover of Newsweek about one year ago was already about the “new” religious America; couldn’t find it online now) and for more government intrusion on personal lifestyle choices. Sad, really. Such a nice Constitution, being treated this way…

From Neil Gaiman’s weblog:

I woke up this morning and thought, “this is my last day of being forty-three. I’ll never be forty-three again.” But I bet I don’t feel forty-four tomorrow. I bet I still feel twelve.

Well, I’m 33 (or 0×21), and have been for a while, but I don’t feel it either. I feel just like I felt when I was 32. Or, for that matter, 21. Or 17. I think guys just mature until we’re 17 or 18, and then just keep going, pretending we’re becoming adults and, secretly, hoping that nobody else notices.

Does it make any sense at all?

I don’t think language (any language) evolved to deal with timezones. The expressions we use to refer to time kind of break down when we have to refer to events that happened, are happening or will happen in a place with a large time difference. And Australia is the perfect place to notice this.

For example: today is the 3rd of November. The US election happens on the 2nd of November, that is, yesterday. However, as I write this, people are still voting in the whole country; it’s just past 5pm in the East Coast, and 2pm in the West. And let’s not even mention Hawaii. So, how should I refer to it? I can’t say that the elections were held yesterday, as they are still happening. But I can’t say they are today, as they’re not. And “the elections happening yesterday in the US” sounds weird. The only option seems to be to refer explicitly to the time zone where the event is happening: “the elections being held now in the US, Nov 2 US time, …”. The TV stations, though, simply talk about “today’s elections in the US”.

I guess the same problem happens in reverse when someone in the US needs to refer to an event in Australia. How do you refer to something that already happened here today, while it’s still yesterday where you are? “The thing that happened tomorrow morning in Melbourne…”? It’s confusing. What do TV broadcasters do when they refer to Australia? (my guess is that the answer is “they don’t”; I don’t remember seeing Australia much in the news while I was in the US)

We need new expressions for this kind of thing.

Now, this is cool… I was mentioned in the November 1st “Daily Source Code”, by Adam Curry, thanks to a comment I sent him regarding a Gilberto Gil song he played. The audio is here, and I’m mentioned some 61 minutes into the show (but listen to everything, it’s all good).

As a final reason: remember that he is very good at twisting (or outright changing) the meaning of his opponent’s, or everyone else’s, words:

“Every performer tonight in their own way, either verbally or through their music, through their lyrics, have conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country.” — Kerry, July 8

“He now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq. After months of questioning my motives, and even my credibility, the Massachusetts senator now agrees with me that even though we have not found the stockpiles of weapons we all believed were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power.” — Bush, Aug. 18

The whole article is in The Washington Post.

Very interesting article in the latest Wired magazine about the strong open-source (and Creative Commons) support in Brazil, both by Brazilians and by the government: We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin.

The magazine, currently on sale, comes with a CD filled with, in the words of Adam Curry, RIAA-free music, including Oslodum, by Gilberto Gil. This song, as all others in the CD, can be redistributed and shared freely. Enjoy!

Today’s reason comes from an unexpected source. In this right-wing website, this is reason #6 to vote for Bush:

George Bush is a strong supporter of a Federal Marriage Amendment which is the only way to stop liberal judges from imposing gay marriage on the states against the wishes of the voters and State Legislatures.

#39 on that site is pretty amusing, as well.

And, as a bonus, check out this video to see a not so family-friendly George W. Bush.