I am fairly at my wits’ end (short trip, I know). Perhaps you have someone reading your blog who can help. The situation is this:
Since early July, my company has been getting about four or five calls a day from #209-382-7432. When the phone is answered, an ear-splitting howl comes out of the earpiece. Nothing else. If one calls that number, it’s a robot answering for free magazine subscriptions.
I called the phone company. The “harassing calls” department says you have to have a police incident number before they can trace the call, and they will not inform you of who is placing the call, only law enforcement. So I called the county sheriff, got an incident report, and called the phone company back. For a month we reported all harassing calls. The phone company then called us and said “Yes, you are being harassed and we have notified your local law enforcement.” (Note that they did not tell the harasser to stop.) But the sheriff can’t do anything because the 209 number is not in my county. I have not seen the incident report because it’s not my business. No I am not making that up.
The harassing calls department at AT&T is bloody useless. AT&T does not care if you are being harassed. It’s not their problem and they will hang up on you if you ask them why not. And they will not return phone calls asking for clarification.
So I called our attorney. He suggested I call the FBI. I did. The FBI said they do not deal with harassing phone calls, try calling the FCC. The FCC hasn’t a clue what I am talking about, and why don’t I complain to AT&T?
Do you sense my level of frustration here? My people are being harassed daily and I can’t get anyone to take me seriously. Can anyone who reads your blog help? Have any advice, or knows of another avenue to pursue? I’m lost.
What awful problem with the Gnome desktop in F14 were they trying to fix with the completely screwed up revision in 15? What happened to the standard windows interface with its minimize, maximize and close buttons?
OK, so I’ve upgraded my laptop to Fedora 15, and want to restore the backup, but I can’t ssh into it. Here’s what happens:
[simberg@linux-host ~]$ ping 192.168.0.105
PING 192.168.0.105 (192.168.0.105) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.0.105: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=0.250 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.105: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=0.243 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.105: icmp_req=3 ttl=64 time=0.225 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.105: icmp_req=4 ttl=64 time=0.261 ms
^C
— 192.168.0.105 ping statistics —
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.225/0.244/0.261/0.023 ms
[simberg@linux-host ~]$ ssh 192.168.0.105
ssh: connect to host 192.168.0.105 port 22: No route to host
[simberg@linux-host ~]$
So I can ping it, but it won’t connect. I’ve installed opensshd on the laptop, I’ve enabled it, and the firewall has port 22 open. I can also ssh into it from a terminal on the machine (e.g., ssh localhost or ssh 192.168.0.105), but not from another computer on the network. Any ideas?
So I’m backing up my laptop in preparation for an upgrade from Fedora 13 to 15, and I notice that the data transfer speed is only about half a meg per second. Here is the output of ‘ethtool eth0’:
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: No
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Link partner advertised pause frame use: No
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
drv probe ifdown ifup
Link detected: yes
The bathtub has two separate valves for hot and cold water, not a mixer. When I turn on the hot water valve, the cold one starts leaking from the stem.
Any ideas how that works? It’s not really a problem, because it only leaks when the water is running, and it leaks into the tub. So it’s not worth fixing in and of itself. I just think it’s very strange.
For those people who foolishly thought that the Republican debate was more important than my conversation with Alan Boyle tonight, the podcast is up now.
This is a problem that has been concerning me for some time. We have a lot of people who plain don’t understand how things work, from cars to economies and businesses.
Alan Boyle of MSNBC will be interviewing me in Second Life tonight on Virtually Speaking Science at 6 PM SL time (PDT). Here’s the SLURL for SLers: http://slurl.com/secondlife/StellaNova/228/226/38
This is the promo:
Alan Boyle talks with Rand Simberg
As MSNBC.com’s science editor, Alan runs a virtual curiosity shop of the physical sciences and space exploration, paleontology, archaeology and other ologies that strike his fancy. Alan is the author of “The Case for Pluto,” a contributor to “A Field Guide for Science Writers,” and the blogger behind Cosmic Log, the 2008 recipient of the National Academies
Communication Award.
Rand Simberg describes himself as ‘just a recovering aerospace engineer.’ The Competitive Enterprise Institute describes him as ‘an expert on space technology and policy, particularly with regard to NASA and commercial human spaceflight.’ He writes widely about the politics and economics of space exploration. Read him in Popular Mechanics and Transterrestrial Musings – Biting Commentary about Infinity and Beyond! Watch him on YouTube. | Listen live and later on BTR
And yes, it will probably conflict with the Republican debate.