Mary Laura Philpott’s article looks at books of the ordinary lives that most of us lead: birth (or not), love (or not), marriage (or not), and death (oh yes). As much as the sensational books grab our attention, it’s the quieter books about quieter lives that can speak more loudly to us.
I have read to Liz before her bedtime for many years, and we’ve found that the best books for that are memoirs of ordinary people, but with a twist of some kind.
Eugene Walter was certainly not ordinary, but his memoir Milking the Moon is a delight all the way through
Betty MacDonald of The Egg and I fame also wrote a harrowing yet terrifically funny memoir of her year in a Seattle tuberculosis sanatorium in the ’30s, called The Plague and I. Every page is a gem.
Roz Chast’s graphic novel memoir of her aging parents’ decline, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant, captures the poignance with a crooked smile and Chast’s knack for the telling detail.
We’re now reading The Bridge Ladies, a memoir by a woman who joined her mother’s bridge club and sees another side to the generation of women she went to college and the big city to escape.
Philpott worries for her own book of memoirish essays and whether its normality will speak to readers. Her hope for why readers may find it of interest rests on the concept of “relatability.”
People come in all the time seeking not just an entertaining read, but (sorry, here comes that word) a relatable one. They pull down books in which they find some version of themselves as they are now or were in the past or hope to be one day. They start out seeing themselves in others; then they see the other in themselves; then they’re able to see themselves and their own futures differently. I’d say these books transform people, but it’s more that the books help people along while they are already transforming.
Perhaps. I would say instead that way down deep, in a place before words are formed, we know that we are all connected, we are all One Self. A good ordinary memoir cracks open the door to that place and reminds us of that truth.
Still getting frequent, brief DNS outages. The speed is noticeably slower for long periods, but with a few periods where we get close to our provisioned speed. The connection is more stable than it was before Saturday's visit. We have not had any periods of complete downtime.
I am close to saying that this is about as good as it will get.
So, as my friend Peter is fond of saying after a grinding life event: What have we learned from this?
Do as much work as I can to define the problem before I call tech support
I'm fortunate that our setup is simple: a DSL jack, a modem, the Airport Time Capsule. It was easy for me to directly hook the iMac to the modem so that I could tell tech support it was not the wifi. I left them no room to argue about wifi settings; when we deal with a wired connection, the troubleshooting is much simpler.
Use tools to gather evidence
Using Network Logger Pro, I collected a week's worth of outage data to prove to Frontier that we had a problem and that it was not my equipment causing it.
Also, using Speedtest (the web site or the app) to do spot checks helped because that's what Frontier tech support uses.
I like having logs and data showing that I'm getting x number of outages and only y mbps at specific times of day. Anecdotal "It just feels a lot slower" evidence does not help anyone.
The modem itself has its own stats and logs, also, but they're way more technical and I'm not sure they'd do me much good.
Accept that what I can do is limited
Rebooting the modem and/or router is the universal antidote because it solves most common ills. But for us, rebooting worked until it didn't. Getting rid of an ancient DSL filter and upgrading to a new modem helped. Hardware-wise, that was about it.
Of course, you can input different DSL addresses but that's no guarantee that the situation will change (and if you don't flush the DNS cache, then it may take a day or a reboot for the changes to take effect). I've also read that your ISP's default DNS servers may even be faster sometimes.
For wifi, you could use some tools to maybe find some less-crowded channels or change the router's DNS addresses, but again -- that's about it. The change in speed could be noticeable, but I think most likely the bump will be slight.
Beyond these simple tactics, I believe what I can physically do to improve a connectivity or outage problem is limited. Networking is arcane, dark-magic stuff; I chose to stop my research with SN ratios and Line Attenuations because it was clear to me that going deeper was not helping my understanding or the situation.
Call the ISP's tech support and get a trouble ticket
In the end, it came down to me calling the ISP, being persistent in making my case, and getting a trouble ticket. Once I had that trouble ticket, I was reassured that I'd get attention focused on the problem.
This takes time; maybe an hour on the phone with the first call, maybe a couple of hours with the technicians. I don't believe there's another way.
In all, we had three visits by four different Frontier technicians. And the final resolution was ... to replace the modem. So it goes.
All the guys who came to look at the problem were knowledgeable and each advanced the game a little at a time (changing the DSL filter, rewiring the box, double-checking the modem's settings). They have more sophisticated tools than I do to check the lines and they troubleshoot these problems all the time. So I relied on their experiences and instincts.
But ...
Run Speedtest several times before the technician leaves
This was a great piece of advice I picked up in my researches and I kicked myself when I forgot to do this.
The technicians need to see for themselves whether their work made a difference. And until we agree there's a positive change, then the ticket remains open.
In the end, it's up to the ISP (and me)
The ISP controls all the hardware from the street to my house and they're even responsible for the modem.
My physical location from the switch, the wiring in my house -- some things are beyond my control. But the things I can influence, I want to influence.
So the next time I start experiencing problems, I will gather evidence and then call them: Here's what my logs are showing. What speeds should I expect, given our provisioning? What are Frontier's parameters for acceptable performance, using Speedtest as a guide? How many outages, and for how long, does Frontier consider acceptable? Are there any settings I can tweak on my modem that would help?
It's the ISP's responsibility to ensure I get the speed and service I'm paying for. It's my responsibility to be a partner in helping to solve the problem and to make sure the ISP does not stop focusing on the problem till it's solved to my satisfaction.
I was looking for a wifi scanner to check whether there were less cluttered wifi channels in our area. Specifying a less-populated channel can reduce interference and provide a more pleasing experience.
Lo, there is a Wireless Diagnostic utility included with macOS. It takes an Option key press on the wifi icon in the menubar to get to it, so it is definitely non-obvious -- why does Apple hide this kind of thing?
The instructions on Let's Talk Tech page are clear and short. The utility told me the best 2.4 and 5 GHz channels to specify, and we're trying them out now. So far, so good, though the 5 GHz recommendations seem to change whenever I check them.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1382.0"]<img src="http://tempblogfood.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/07f5c-wifiscan.jpg" alt=" The panel on the right shows all the wifi networks in our neighborhood, the wireless protocol they're using, the band (2.4 or 5 GHz) and, most important, their channels. The summary in the left panel recommends the best channels that take advantage of less-populated bands. " /> The panel on the right shows all the wifi networks in our neighborhood, the wireless protocol they're using, the band (2.4 or 5 GHz) and, most important, their channels. The summary in the left panel recommends the best channels that take advantage of less-populated bands. [/caption]
One of my first coaches observed that the end result of self-improvement and motivational techniques is to create James Bond super-villains. Bond, on the other hand, embodies the exact opposite of those aspirational ideals.
Consider: what marks the extreme Bond villains such as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Dr. No, Hugo Drax, and Raoul Silva?
They are ambitious. They think big, dream big, plan big.
They take action on their vision.
They are single-minded in the pursuit of their goals and put in the hours to achieve those ends. (Work-life balance must be an adorable middle-class concept to a guy like Blofeld.)
Those big plans require extraordinary self-discipline to achieve. No villain binges Netflix.
They are persuasive leaders who inspire loyalty, or at least command the loyalty, of other powerful people.
They have no hangups about money, either getting more or hanging on to it.
They leave no money on the table. They take the money and the table and then sell the table to get more money.
They don't care what people think or say about them.
They have no issues with negative self-image or negative self-talk.
They don't second-guess themselves.
They set SMART goals and employ mind-boggling Gantt charts to help them achieve their (to them) utterly reasonable visions. A secret missile base inside a dormant volcano doesn't just grow itself, you know.
They exercise a tremendous organizational prowess to run tight, clockwork-precise organizations employing dozens or hundreds of people.
They have no conception of "leaving their comfort zone" because their comfort zones cover a lot of ground.
They have no filters on their personality, thinking, or behavior -- they are who they are, like 'em or not.
They do not ask for either forgiveness or permission.
They think outside the box.
They think win. Win. Win.
They feel free to do whatever they want to do.
Look at that list. Self-help books and motivational speakers by the hundreds build careers teaching only one or two of these attributes to their audiences. There is absolutely no reason in the world every villain on Her Majesty's Shitlist should not succeed with their diabolical plans.
Yet into every scenario blunders that damnable James Bond: emotional, impulsive, instinctive, reactive; an opportunist who improvises without doing proper research; who acts inconsistently, impulsively, rashly; who is suspicious of everyone around him when he's not manipulating them; who works hard instead of smart; who destroys years of delicate and methodical preparation in a few loud explodey minutes.
The Bond villain is ruthlessly, terribly orderly and methodical, a top-down thinker, patiently building his organization step by step, consolidating gains and reversing losses. He's even planned for his escapes in case things go wrong! Isn't this type of worldly success and behavior what traditional mainstream self-help and motivational literature -- especially those books sitting on the "Business & Economics" shelves -- holds up as the ideal?
James Bond, on the other hand, is the (secret) agent of chaos and destruction whose job is not to change the world, but, in a sense, to protect the status quo. Is he really the guy we're meant to emulate?
Of course, there are downsides to being a villain, too.
Every couple of years something goes wonky with our DSL connection and it requires major intervention. A couple of years ago, I had two Frontier technicians in my office talking to a third who was at the local switch.
Yesterday, I had THREE Frontier technicians in my office. One of them was the first guy who came out over two weeks ago.
Restricting them to just the iMac connected via Ethernet to the modem sped things up a bit — no futzing with the Airport wifi settings.
After all three tested and tried their ideas, they wound up doing what I thought they’d have to do: switch out the modem for a newer model. In this case, an Arris NVG443B modem, which is a brand I’ve never heard of before.
So far, so good. There were some teething problems early on as reported by Network Logger Pro, mainly Domain Name Server (DNS) outages. Network Logger has not reported any total outages since before the technicians came.
After an evening of iPad-surfing, Liz reported pages taking a long time to load, but they eventually did load and there were no outages. So the connection seems stable, though slower.
I ran the macOS-based Speedtest app and was discouraged to see our 3 mbps provisioned download speed drop to 1 mbps or less on several tests. Even though we experienced outages before, we got close to 3 mbps when the connection was up.
Update: I got 2.8 or 2.9 mbps late last night, but am barely scraping 1.5 this morning.
According to the modem’s built-in xDSL stats page, it’s seeing a downstream rate of 3360 kbps (so, about 3 mbps) and an upstream rate of 863 kbps.
Hm. The modem seems to be receiving data at the provisioned rate, but on my Ethernet connection, I’m seeing 1 mbps or less.
Hm. Network Logger Pro is showing now only DNS outages since the Frontier guys left. Fewer than before they arrived, but still...should I be seeing DNS outages at all?
Removed the Google DNS numbers from Airport Utility and the macOS Network System Preferences pane. They automatically reverted to the ISP’s DNS servers. It seems you can set the new DNS addresses at the modem, router, or device level. I'm keeping the modem's DNS settings untouched for now; I don't want to give Frontier ammunition for saying I mucked up their modem settings.
I downloaded Kim's recommendation of namebench, whose purpose is to discover the fastest DNS servers for your geographic area. I ran it but I would not recommend using it. It was last updated in 2010 and there are few recent references to anyone using it. Namebench recommended Ultradns-2 as the fastest DNS address server, but I will likely go with Cloudflare as primary and Google as secondary, since they're more recent and up to date.
I added 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) and 8.8.8.8 (Google) as DNS addresses to the Airport. So our wifi devices should be OK.
For my iMac, I'm connected to the modem via Ethernet, so I'm using Frontier's default DNS resolvers.
Liz and I will do our normal surfing to see if speed and stability are better.
If the speeds are still slow, place another call to Tech Support.
I’m not a tech guru by any means, and network stuff brings me to my knees. What I’ve been documenting in this series is what I know to do, given my paltry knowledge and Googling around. How do normal people deal with this stuff?
North Carolina's pork production and China. Yet another reason to hang my head in shame for this state. I think I remember hearing that Hurricane Floyd ruptured a hog waste lagoon and millions of gallons splashed into the surrounding countryside, rendering the area a dead zone.
I decided at one point in my life that I never wanted to be anything that would not allow me to be anything else I wanted to be … I ended up being nothing that I can currently identify, which I suppose means I got my wish.
Last night, I purchased and installed from the Mac App Store the program Network Logger Pro ($9.99).
Despite my belief that the Airport Time Capsule is not the problem with our connectivity, I still had to consider the possibility that it might be. So I started researching wifi problems with Airport Time Capsules. I compiled a small checklist of wifi settings to try in the Airport Utility (such as changing ipv6 to "link-local only").
I also discovered that the ATCs have a lifespan of 3-5 years -- not only for the hard drive, but also for the wifi components. Apparently, they get hot and wear down over years of being on all the time. So the ATC could be part of the problem after all. That is disappointing, but good to know. Time to start pricing another external drive and a new wifi router.
But let's take the ATC out of the equation: if I was relying just on the Frontier modem, would I still experience network outages?
So I started looking for programs or terminal commands I could use to create a log file to show that the outages are coming from the modem, not the ATC. It was during this research that I discovered Network Logger Pro.
Therein followed a series of brainwaves.
Brainwave #1: I already have an extra-long Ethernet cable running from the ATC to the back of the iMac, so that I don't need to be on wifi.
Brainwave #2: The modem has an Ethernet port.
Brainwave #3: If I connect the iMac to the modem via the Ethernet cable, then I'm bypassing the ATC and getting the data directly.
Brainwave #4: With the ATC out of the equation, the Frontier tech guy has one less confounding variable to deal with.
Brainwave #5: If the modem-to-Mac connectivity is solid and steady, then the problem is the ATC. If the modem-to-Mac connectivity is choppy, then -- if the line and signal are all working correctly -- then the problem is the modem. (Just thought of another variable -- the Ethernet cable. But it's not pinched or bent anywhere, so that shouldn't be a problem.)
It takes a while for me to put things together...
I installed Network Logger Pro, which has graphs and stuff I can't begin to decipher.
Now that my iMac is slurping data directly from the modem, Network Logger Pro records in its log the network up- and downtimes. Yes indeed, connected directly via Ethernet to the modem, I can see that I'm getting outages of several minutes at a time.
So now I can call the tech guy, show him this log, and make the case that we should try a new modem. Once we're sure the modem and line are working well on my iMac, then we can tackle any wifi problems the ATC may have.
Update: the Internet went down as I tried to post this from home. So I'm posting this from work.
Fast FVP worked great and accommodated a couple of enormous changes that occurred to me at my workplace.
A pile o' podcasts also silted up such that I could spend the next 50 days listening to them all. But I did get back to listening to audiobooks and other long-form items and webinar recordings I'd put off for "later."
Accd to the calendar I'm referencing, Eastertide runs from April 1-May 20. So here's what I'd like to do:
Interleave one audiobook a week with my podcasts. I usually listen to these things when I'm commuting or doing the dishes, so I can get through an 8hr audiobook in about 7-10 days. So maybe alternating weeks of audiobook and podcasts. We'll see.
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