I’m in Houston for a workshop on exploration architectures all week, but I may give some thought to the implications of the CBS report, if I get time.

Well, I’m well on the road to recovery (fortunately, it never got much worse than a drippy schnoz and a slight cough–no sore throat, fever, aches or other debilitating symptoms), but I’m also on the road to Washington, DC on an early flight, and won’t be back until Friday night. I don’t know if I’ll be posting much from there, but the room I’ve rented claims to have broadband, so we’ll see.

That’s how I’m currently pronouncing my new ailment, which is a “head cold.” I feel like someone scooped all the gray stuff out of my noggin and replaced it with moldy cotton. Probably little blogging for the time being.

Do you sometimes have delays (in fact, timeouts) in reaching web pages (and your mail and newserver)?

I got Bellsouth DSL a couple months ago, and I’ve had this problem since day one. I’ve had several conversations on the phone with them. Until today, the only response (not including having to go through the whole rigamarole with a clueless tech-support person who had no knowledge other than a checklist and fault-tree chart) was for them to send me a new modem.

Over the past few days (having tried it with various computers, various routers) I’d finally come to the conclusion that their DNS was intermittently FUBAR.

I finally got through to a tech who had at least a dim understanding of TCP/IP (is there anything more infuriating than dealing with a supposed tech-support person who is clearly clueless, and much less knowledgable on the subject than you?) and who I managed to finally convince that it really wasn’t a problem with my OS, or network, but that it was their DNS system, by switching back and forth between their DNS servers and a public one, in which the latter worked, and the former continually flaked out.

He said that he’d pass it on to upper management, but that he couldn’t understand how I was having a problem that had gone unnoticed for so long if it were really a Bellsouth problem.

My hypothesis (which I expostulated to him, and which he reluctantly agreed was plausible):

Many Bellsouth DSL customers have been experiencing this problem for a long time but either:

a) since they’d never known any other DSL or broadband, they just assumed that occasional, or even frequent timeouts in visiting websites was Just The Way It Is, or

b) they got so frustrated in reporting the problem to ignorant first-line techs that they gave up before the issue was properly diagnosed.

He (to my surprise–apparently the company lawyers hadn’t gotten to him yet) agreed that this might actually be the case.

So. Are there other instances of this problem out there, or is it just me?

I’ve started cleaning up my blogroll, and you’ll see some subtle changes over to the left. I updated stale URLs, and promoted NASA Watch and Hobby Space from the outskirts of transterrestriality up into the “Space” section. I’ve also demoted some of the space bloggers for lack of posts. I’ve left Laughing Wolf there for now, even though there’s been little space-related content from him as of late, because I’m too lazy to figure out where else to put him. I’ve also set up an “AWOL” section for bloggers who have claim to have thrown in the towel, or simply disappeared, in hopes that some or all of them may reappear in the future.

I’ve also belatedly added Iowahawk to the humor section, though most of his stuff is about as funny as a screen door in an airlock. By the way, he’s celebrating his first blogiversary, so go over and read his annual report. I’ve also added Treacher and Frank J.

More to come, perhaps when I get time over the holidays.

I’m swamped with a couple deadlines. Well, one deadline with two products. Bloggage will remain light.

…why my network is so flaky? Sometimes the computers see each other from Windows, sometimes they don’t. They can all ping each other, but when I try to access files through Windows (loading a remote document into Word, or simply trying to view them with Windows Explorer) I sometimes, but not always, get “Network path not found.” My desktop hasn’t seen my laptop in weeks. After a reboot this morning, the desktop can no longer access my Redhat server running Samba, to which I saved a document from the desktop just last night.

What’s going on here?

[Update a few minutes later]

And no, I’ve shut down Zone Alarm, and it didn’t help, so don’t ask about that…

I’m looking at Scott Ott with envy at the (deserved) overnight success of his new book.

Does anyone think that if I stitched together a book out of the best of Transterrestrial Musings (focus on the satires and jabs at the press) with additional commentary, that it would sell?

We had a very nice trip (other than missing our flight Friday night, necessitating a later one that went through Dulles, and didn’t get us into Denver until late, instead of early evening). Weather in the Rockies was gorgeous on Saturday and Sunday, and we hiked in the park. I may post some pics later.

We’re flying out to Colorado this evening for a little vacation in the mountains (it was the trip that originally was supposed to happen on Labor Day, but was interrupted by Hurricane Frances…). I’ll probably not be blogging from there unless it ends up having an internet connection.

See you Tuesday.