September 2005 Archives
California natives need a leap of faith to survive as pedestrians in New York. The first challenge we face is distance. People in Manhattan -- normal people just like you and me -- might walk a full mile to get from Point A to Point B, where neither Point A nor Point B is on a nature trail, or on a treadmill at the gym, or the spot in the mall where we forgot our car was parked. In fact, Point A might very well be home, and Point B might very well be work, and the A-to-B-to-A-again journey might happen every weekday. Yes, my fellow Californians, I've witnessed it myself: New Yorkers walk that far, on purpose.
The next challenge is accepting the change in personal space. In California, invisible bubbles surround us, extending eighteen inches in all directions. It's understood that we stay out of each other's bubbles; we've written screenplays about violations of our safe zones. But in New York, if it doesn't bruise you, then it's not too close. If you sit on a bench, someone might very well sit right next to you. On the subway, two or more people will grab the same handle to steady themselves, their hands possibly touching. On the sidewalk, even a slight hesitation in your gait could trigger multi-person collisions; that's how closely and precisely New Yorkers navigate through crowds of themselves. If you're going to be visiting Manhattan for the first time, you can simulate the experience before your trip begins: just go to your nearest shopping mall and spend six hours walking the wrong way on the escalators.
The final challenge is understanding the balance of power between cars and pedestrians. In California, cars win. In fact, they win with a vengeance. They're speeding metal blocks of death that won't slow down even after they mow down you and your family. This is actually codified in the California Vehicle Code:
21949. (a) The Legislature hereby finds and declares that it is the policy of the State of California that vehicle travel shall supersede pedestrian travel, whether by foot, wheelchair, walker, or stroller. The Legislature hereby further finds and declares that any such vehicle shall divert, impede, pummel, squash, or splay pedestrians as necessary for said vehicle to reach said vehicle's destination with comfort and convenience.
OK, maybe that last part is an exaggeration. But truthfully, it's no surprise that California pedestrians follow the rules: we wait when we see the red hand, we go when the little person appears, and we quicken our pace when he turns back into the blinking red hand. Jaywalking has been reported in our great state, but only in hit-and-run newspaper articles where the subtext screams loud and clear that it was the pedestrian's fault for veering out of the crosswalk. This is why we always drive rather than walk in California. It's no fun playing on the losing side of a game.
In New York, it's no contest: pedestrians win. The red hand ranks second-to-last in the Signs That We Respect category, barely ahead of mattress tags. Here are the rules, as far as I can tell:
- Walk symbol: Walk. Feel free to kick or slap any vehicle within reaching distance.
- Blinking don't-walk symbol (with green light): Walk. Begin crossing the street if needed.
- Blinking don't-walk symbol (with yellow light): Keep walking. Pick up the pace if you're still half a block or more away from the crosswalk and intend to make the light.
- Don't walk symbol (with fresh opposing green light): Run. Increase speed if cars honk.
- Don't walk symbol (with stale opposing green light): This is soon to become a walk symbol, so go ahead and walk now. Look or listen briefly for oncoming traffic unless everyone around you is already walking.
Note: I mentioned that cars honk their horns. This happens a lot in Manhattan. I recommend wearing an iPod. Most New York pedestrians wear iPods to eliminate the annoying sound of drivers attempting to warn them of approaching danger.
If you do survive your stay in New York, you'll have a new respect for the power of walking. You'll have visions of waking up half an hour early everyday and strolling to the coffee shop down the street. You'll think about investing in a new pair of walking shoes. Then you'll remember that the coffee shop is two exits down the freeway, and that California doesn't have any sidewalks. But you can still buy the new shoes.
If you've ever had your DSL go south, you know that it's a painful world of trouble tickets, repeated queries whether the information provided was helpful in resolving your issue, threats of 8-am-to-4-pm technician windows, unsupported OSes, and Muzak. Or if you're a sonic.net customer, you can actually click on their website's "live chat" link and have an experience like this:
miket : How can I determine whether packet loss in my DSL line is a problem with my equipment or Sonic's?
** You are now speaking with John F, Technical Support. **
John F : Hi there, normally the best way to determine where packets are getting lost is through a traceroute
miket : OK, I've done that, and when I try to traceroute www.yahoo.com for example, I get asterisks (which I suppose indicate dropped packets) at sjo.equinix.net, and even some at servers in the yahoo.com domain
miket : Much of the time the traceroute completes normally
miket : but the asterisks are not regularly concentrated around a single hop
miket : so I get the feeling that it's something else
miket : There I just did it again and the packet is dropped at 5 0.ge-0-1-0.gw4.200p-sf.sonic.net (64.142.0.198) 14.488 ms * 14.239 m
John F : that's no good
miket : Yeah and this time it was at 2 a.b.c.d.dsl.static.sonic.net (a.b.c.d) 12.501 ms 11.936 ms *
miket : ... which is closer to my end
John F : That would tend to support the idea that these packets are actually getting dropped between your computer and us, and that the other hops that are dropping just happen to be dropped packets
John F : or rather, that they weren't necessarily dropped at the far end, but on the near end
miket : My connection has been rock-solid for a year, and really nothing has changed that I know of
miket : I can't rule out that a squirrel peed on my phone box or something like that, but for what it's worth my voice line doesn't sound static-y or anything like that
John F : what's the IP of your connection, so I can try to ping it from here?
miket : It's xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.com
miket : Let me dig that, just a sec
miket : www.xxx.yyy.zzz
John F : that looks like a sonic.net IP
John F : eyp
John F : *yep
John F : ah, and it also looks like it isn't set to respond to ICMP traffic
miket : I can change that..... hold on
miket : Sorry, X over DSL is slow
John F : fair enough
John F : I'm sending 100 ATM pings right now
John F :
miket : OK it should be working now.
John F : Ok, this may be unrelated
John F : but when you were configuring your system, I was getting 94-95% returns on ATM
John F : right after you told me it should be working for ICMP, I got 100% returns on ATM
John F : of course, your X connection shouldn't prevent ATM traffic from going through, but the coincidence struck me as odd
miket : It's possible the router was rebooting or something goofy like that -- it's a Linksys WRT54G
John F : But I'm not pingin g the router, I'm pinging the DSL modem (with the ATM pings)
miket : Or is ATM at a lower level that that?
miket : I see
John F : ATM is lower-level
miket : The original problem is sporadic but frequent
miket : So maybe you were seeing it for a few seconds
John F : and I dropping ATM packets left and right now
miket : Traceroute failed entirely -- couldn't even resolve www.yahoo.com
miket : So is this implicating the modem?
miket : Or worse, the line between you and the modem?
John F : I'm thinking it's not your router at all
John F : I just simultaneously sent out ICMP and ATM pings, and when the ICMP was failing, so was the ATM
John F : it's looking pretty solid right now
John F : there's another hiccup...
miket : Yup, I saw it too
miket : during traceroute
miket : there
miket : now
John F : yeah, that isn't your router, it isn't your computer
John F : it's your modem, the line, the DSLAM, or us
miket : OK, so here's what I'll do:
miket : I'll check my wiring up to the demarc box and convince myself that nothing happened
miket : Maybe I can hook the modem straight up to it with new wiring and I can ask someone at Sonic to repeat these tests
miket : If the problem goes away then I'll fix it
John F : that would be one good approach. I'm loading your line stats
miket : Otherwise I suppose you need to do something?
John F : well, the physical numbers look great
miket : Yeah I get 350KB down on a good day with great latency
John F : So I'm guessing it's not the physical copper line that's at fault here.
John F : Yeah, you're noise margin and attenuation are both better than my line at home
miket : I see. But no other Sonic customers in my neighborhood are reporting problems?
John F : Not that I see
miket : If the copper is good, then that suggests the problem is farther from me (if I'm understanding you correctly, and I don't really know squat about DSL)
John F : I think that an alternate modem (if you happen to have one handy) would be a great test to narrow down the possibilities
miket : OK. I do have one from a horrible Speakeasy experience
miket : I'll give that a try tonight when I get home
John F : Excellent. We want you to have no packet loss at all, so any progress on this is good!
miket : Great. Are you a regular here if I join the chatroom again later in the week?
John F : I should be on for the rest of the week. I'll leave notes in your "xxxx" account record so if you get somebody else they can pick up where I left off, though.To summarize: this is good. It's much better than 20 minutes on hold. Even though my internet connection is still spotty, I feel that my ISP listened to my problem, and that I'm closer to solving it.
Mary and I had three old Monterey pines removed from our backyard today. The arborist said they had about three years left to live and were infested with some sort of tree beetle. Plus we didn't like them. :) The workers are chopping up the trunks now.
This reminds me of a column I read in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1987 (I remember the context so I remember the date). Unfortunately, it predates the web and sfgate.com's online archive, so I can't find it. The article recounted the joy the author received from renting his own chainsaw and taking down just about everything in his own backyard before he had to return it. If you have a Lexis or Westlaw subscription, please help me find it! The search phrase I specifically remember is "chattering excitedly about peyote and hashish."
Update: the column is still MIA, but a friend sends an even better one.
Went out on a limb tonight after reading Cory's article about hard drive enclosures that play DivX movies. I picked up a Media Gate MG-25 from Shop4Tech along with an 80 gig 2.5-inch hard drive from Directron. Total cost before tax & shipping: about $183. Both components should arrive before the end of the week. Yee haw, at last I have my video iPod!
Update: see two-month checkup.
Hey, Visual Studio .NET, pop quiz: User searches for "RemoveDirectory." Does he want to see the documentation for RemoveDirectory() in the Platform SDK, or the documentation for "CFtpConnection::RemoveDirectory"?
You get two guesses.
