Death of a Computer

(I feel like my previous post needs to be balanced somewhat. Here at Tilt Lock, we're equal opportunity, and given that most of my computer experience has been with Windows, it seemed only appropriate to devote a post or two to it. Enjoy.)

Before our house went Apple, I had a desktop running Windows XP in my room. For some time, it worked flawlessly––lightning-fast and error-free, simply a joy to use. Computer Nirvana. Then, on a cool autumn day a few years ago, it declared war on my sanity.

I logged on one day and was faced with an ominous message: "An error occurred at address 0x0ADF2845 -- The memory could not be 'read.'" For those of you who don't speak hexadecimal, allow me to translate for you: "Oh, fuck."

From that day on, my poor little Dell desktop was never the same. It became irritable and morose, prone to mood swings and schizophrenic hallucinations. Sadly, they don't make Prozac for computers. Every morning, it would greet me with the same message: "An error occurred at address 0x0ADF2845. I don't understand. Why is this happening to me?"

I actually felt sorry for the thing. You could hear the hard drive grinding in frustration whenever I tried to open a report, and occasionally a depressed thumping sound would emanate from the case, as if the CPU had begun banging its virtual head against a wall. The CD drive would occasionally open, a moment of blind rebellion, then close again as if to say, "What's the point?" 

All my pictures stuck to the top of my documents. Smiley toolbars invaded my browsers. Everything slowed to a crawl. It was obvious the machine was trying, but it just wasn't enough, and soon a veritable chorus of other messages joined the original error. Soon, there was a 50/50 chance that the machine simply wouldn't start up, and even when it did, twenty minutes of confused beeping and whirring was usually enough to convince me to shut it off again.

In the computer's final days, it announced "Microsoft Error Reporting Service has encountered a problem and needs to close." The error reporter had caused an error. The ultimate in recursive failure. That week, we put it out of its misery; we pulled the plug on my confused, depressed little computer, which to this day sits on a high shelf in the basement, gathering dust.

In Which iRage Some More

At this moment, our house contains the following Apple-made devices:

• one (1) 28" iMac, on which I am typing this post
• one (1) iPad
• three (3) iPhone 4s
• one (1) iPod Touch (first-generation)
• three (3) iPod Touches (second-generation)
• one (1) iPod Nano (sixth-generation)
• one (1) iPod Nano (third-generation)
• one (1) iPod Nano (second-generation)
• one (1) iPod Shuffle (second-generation)
• one (1) Apple TV

This last, purchased only months ago, brings our total Apple device count to 14, 11 of which are iPods, officially qualifying us for classification as an iHousehold. The reason for this is obvious. The three people whom I share a home with, despite being quite intelligent, are technologically...impaired. Apple's well-deserved reputation for ease of use -- "computers for people who hate computers," so to speak -- was a natural fit. 

Though I was (at the time) a devoted Windows fanboy, I was happy about the change, anticipating a much lighter load as our family's unofficial tech support. Even more so when Dad purchased a ridiculously expensive AppleCare extended warranty. And then I discovered the truth.

When Apple products work, they're wonderful. And, 99 percent of the time, they do work. But when they break, and they will eventually break for no real reason, good luck fixing them.

Case in point: one day, Mom mentioned to me that her contacts weren't syncing from her computer to her iPod Touch. Here follows a brief explanation of how we fixed this problem.

11:00 AM: We make sure all the relevant boxes are checked, uncheck them just for the hell of it, then check them again.

11:30 AM: No luck.

12:15 PM: 45 minutes of Google searching finds us only Apple support articles, which we follow to the letter. Nothing. We try rebooting things.

12:30 PM: The obscenely long iPod diagnostic startup is finally finished. It fixes nothing. We try updating iTunes and the iPod firmware.

1:00 PM: The updates have finally downloaded and installed. They fix nothing, but while you're here, would you like to consider an absolutely free 30-day trial subscription to MobileMe?

1:30 PM: We finally give in and call Apple tech support, brandishing the extended warranty.

1:45 PM: "You are number...NINE. THOUSAND. ELEVEN. In line. Please continue to hold. Your call is very important to us."

2:00 PM: We finally get a real person on the line. He tells us to make sure the boxes are checked, reboot everything, update our software...

2:30 PM: Having run out of the standard script, the Apple guy puts us on hold again.

2:40 PM: *sounds of low-quality Bruce Springsteen accompanied by the repeated sound of a forehead meeting a glass table*

2:50 PM: The Apple guy is back on the line again. "Are you sure the Sync Contacts box is checked?"

3:00 PM: We give up on AppleIsStupidAndDoesn'tCare and go back to Google.

3:30 PM: After discovering the location of the ultra-secret hidden debug console, we open it and begin looking for a relevant error message.

3:50 PM: After scrolling through thousands of incredibly helpful and detailed messages like "Tue Nov 29 18:25:07 Martinez-Family-iMac.local loginwindow[33] <Warning>: CGSDisplayServerShutdown: Detaching display subsystem from window server com.apple.loginwindow[33]," we (I) finally manage to determine that, out of Mom's over 700 contacts, exactly one is corrupted and is halting the sync process.

4:30 PM: BUT WHICH ONE?

5:00 PM: We make an interesting discovery: There is absolutely no way to find out. Mom begins re-entering all of her contact data.


Somewhere, Steve Jobs laughs.

Aside: a quick math lesson for those of you who haven't already figured this out: 11 iPods / 4 people = 2.75 ipp (iPods per person). Well, actually, considering I own exactly one of these devices, the iPod Nano 2G (the exact circumstances leading to my current state of iPhonelessness are left to the imagination), a more accurate equation is 10 iPods / 3 people = 3.33 ipp. Hopefully, you don't need me to explain why this is WRONG.

Ballad of the Broken Man, Part 2

Read this first: Ballad of the Broken Man, Part 1

"That's not a broken bone. That's a lump the size of a golf ball. That is a tumor. That is cancer. You got cancer from slipping on ice. Ice is a carcinogen. Therefore water is a carcinogen. My God. Must alert the EPA. We are all in HORRIBLE DANGER!"

This train of thought makes much more sense if you're in pain.

When you're seriously injured, your body's innate response is swelling. I don't understand it, but that's how it works. In my case, after getting my sock and shoe off (ow, ow, ow), the swelling was...unnerving. "Oh, wow! That's...a very large bump! I hope it doesn't gain sentience and attack me! Ha ha! Please take me to the doctor."

I calmed down after a few minutes. We arrived at the clinic and X-rays were taken. As always, the break was almost invisible. ("See that line right there?" "...No." "...Well, it's there.") This time, it was my fibula, one of the two bones in your lower leg. Also the thinner one. A prime target for snappage. It would heal fairly quickly. I was issued a new walking cast, with non-slip treads (ha ha) and a little more space to accommodate my swelling. My old crutches would get me through the first few days. And that was that.

We returned home. My chocolate Lab, Bear, rushed up to greet me in the conventional way (HI! I'M BEAR! *thud*), but slowed down when he got close enough to see me. Throughout the rest of the day, he would sit next to me and occasionally examine my foot.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. I kept the foot elevated, watched reruns of court shows, and sent the picture of my swollen foot to a few friends. I began relearning the crutches, spent inordinate amounts of time trying to get up the stairs, and rejoiced in the news of an impending blizzard that would close school the next day.

It's 11:30, the day after the fracture. The news channels proclaim doomsday. Eight feet of snow. Hurricane-force winds. Rain of blood and a plague of locusts. Schools are closed and business has ceased, for "safety reasons." A bit late if you ask me. Not that I am bitter.

Ah, well. Nothing to do but turn on Judge Mathis and eat peanut butter cookies.

Maybe this isn't so bad after all.

Ballad of the Broken Man, Part 1

I have never been good with winter. Yesterday's events take this to an entirely new level.

Monday, 7:50 AM. I'm about to enter my school, hoping there's enough time before class to clear out my locker and the exceptional amounts of awful ceramics it contains (thanks to Studio Art I for that). Five minutes should be enoug--

SLIP

SLAM

I still don't know whether it was the fall or the landing that did it. What I do know is that a patch of near-invisible ice shoved my feet out from under me, followed shortly after by a body-slam from the concrete. Something was broken. I knew it. I am never wrong about this. I'm something of a veteran when it comes to broken bones.

My father has a bone condition called osteogenesis imperfecta. This is Latin for "doomed to pay unnecessarily large amounts of money for health insurance." The defect impairs your body's ability to make the connective tissue that your skeletal system needs. The practical upshot is brittle bones. There is no reliable treatment and no cure.

His was a fairly mild case. Mild enough that he could join the Marine Corps (and rise to the rank of major) without ever being diagnosed. Through the miracle of genetics, I inherited the defect in a more noticeable form. "Noticeable" as in "capable of breaking a leg, then breaking it again the day the cast came off, then breaking it a third time." The diagnosis came soon after.

A fractured collarbone when sledding on Big Bear Mountain. A broken elbow (the right one) the first day of our family vacation to Hawaii. A broken arm (the left one) after stepping on a dodgeball. A thrice-broken foot: once while running, once while lifting weights in a supposed "recovery" program, and once when walking into a chair. My current favorite? Four fractured ribs after being hit by a car.

Of this last, I am fairly sure that my chemistry book saved me from a punctured lung. When I got hit, my backpack absorbed most of the force, spun off and landed on the sidewalk. Weeks later, I opened my pack to find the book with a huge dent in the front cover. So remember, kids, chemistry could save your life. And as long as I'm giving out advice, morphine is not all it's cracked up to be.

Back to yesterday morning. Back to the concrete. The familiar pain came, centered on my left ankle. Fracture pain is the same every time. At first, it's awful. Then your adrenaline kicks in, and it goes away. Then your adrenaline goes away, and it comes back with a vengeance...then, over the course of hours, it fades. Twitch the wrong muscle or move the wrong way, and it flares up, but leave whatever's broken alone and chances are it'll leave you alone.

I prepared myself for at least a few hours at the doctor's office. The assistant principal, a student, and my mother (who had dropped me off literally seconds ago) helped me into the car. Mom, still in her pajamas, called the clinic to let them know we were coming. She then drove home and assembled the kit: several half-finished bottles of military-grade pain medication (from previous breaks), a pair of crutches, and a walking cast with Velcro straps.

Be prepared.

Continued in Part 2

The Psychology of Minecraft

Upon first starting up Minecraft, the Internet's latest viral game, you are placed in a randomly generated world. Everything is made of giant blocks. You can see vaguely blocky mountains in the distance. The world stretches off in every direction, as far as you can see your computer can render. And you're armed, though perhaps "armed" is the wrong word, as you appear to be the only person in this vast, pixelated world. with nothing but your wits and a (blocky) fist. So, naturally, you start punching trees.

Hours later, you look up and realize it's 3:00 AM. You have spent most of your day building a fortress, wandering through dark caverns looking for rare minerals (going through hundreds of pickaxes in the process), grilling pork, rigging elaborate traps and generally refusing to do anything productive. Oh, and you've been killed by exploding zombies at least twice...but that coal isn't going to mine itself.

Such is life in the world of Minecraft.

There are two ways to look at Minecraft. On one hand, it's a game based on human creativity and ingenuity. On the other hand, it's a game based on the basic human need to shape the world to our will. This darker side becomes apparent when you realize that the beautiful, lush world you started in has, after a week or so, turned into a "cobblestone jungle," every last natural element destroyed...or, when you realize you don't have any trees left. (This is a lot more common than you would think. Wood is absolutely critical in almost every aspect of Minecraft, thus creating a compulsive desire to seek out and cut down trees.) Whatever the reason, the normal response is to build a boat and to sail to a place you haven't destroyed yet...maybe you'll do a better job next time.

The other dark side of Minecraft shows itself when you take the game online. Notch, Minecraft's developer, added online play fairly recently, and servers sprang up in no time. Every server contains a separate world, free for anyone to jump in and build.

Or, at least, that was the idea. Now, Minecraft online play is openly hostile towards new players. Most servers are blocked off with a "whitelist," meaning that you have to apply before you're allowed into the server. Others have constructed indestructible holding cells for new players, a way for the moderators (think of them as the police) to keep an eye on new citizens. Still others have constructed elaborate systems to prevent new players from affecting the world in any way. Those few servers that are open and unrestricted are plagued by "griefers," named for the emotions they inspire in fellow players. Covering buildings in sand, flooding cities with lava, or simply blowing up everything they see, these players are responsible for the electronic gated communities that characterize Minecraft.

I'd like to chalk that up to the anonymity of the Internet. No matter what they're called, malicious Internet users have been around for as long as the Internet itself. But maybe it's something more. Maybe the chaos of open online play reflects something about human nature. Maybe destruction comes easier than creation.

I won't dwell on it for too long. I've got iron to mine.