View 313 June 7 - 13, 2004 (original) (raw)
Saturday, June 12 2004
The hotel has "free high speed Internet" but at 8 last night they turned off the ability to send. ITT says that's to prevent spammers. The result is that I have no way to send email. I suppose I can use mail2web for anything vital.
Of course there was no warning. Just suddenly I noticed in my INBOX a number of system administrator messages that said that "some" of the mail was not delivered to intended recipients. "Some" turns out to be all. Thus when I get access to mail I will have to resend all those that gof blocked.
For a while I thought this was a problem with my system or perhaps with Service Pack 2 and its firewall, since neither the hotel nor ITT gave any warning that their "service" isn't. The "high speed" was never very high to begin with. Now it doesn't go out at all.
I cannot recommend Adams Mark hotels, which seem to be trying but don't have their act together.
Anyway, if you send me email, do not expect an answer until Monday night when I am home.
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Later today I'll go listen to a panel featuring Cory Doctorow on Fair Use. That may be interesting.
I think I have been to enough conventions. Airplanes are no longer fun, and conventions seems increasingly bogged down in rules and regulations and details. It's time to go write some more. The real world isn't so much fun as it used to be. Maybe my own worlds can be better.
And maybe I just didn't digest my dinner as well as I should have.
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I'm told by one friend that Firefly is awful, and deserved cancellation. Sigh. The young actress is very nice. She was describing being handed a huge machinegun which was so heavy she could hardly lift it. This was in the green room. Soon others came in.
Then I was sitting at a big table with a half dozen 25 year old actresses, mostly secondary characters in Buffy or Angel or both. Perfect conditioning, well groomed, poised -- and looking for work, now selling the opportunity to get your photograph taken with one or another of them. Friends tell me that 25 is over the hill in small screen in Hollywood, and few go from small screen to big screen where the longevity may be longer. Even Buffy herself seems to be looking for work. I have watched Hollywood eat kids alive for 30 years, and it looks to continue.
This convention is mostly media oriented, which I hadn't known. There are few books for sale here. I wonder if all conventions are headed this way, kids in punk costumes, everything media oriented. We'll see what kind of discussion happens with Doctorow in an hour or so. And see below.
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Well I cannot connect to my web site, so I guess we have had it. The Adams Mark Hotel can't do communications. Why should it.
Avoid this chain if being connected means anything to you. If you see this before Monday it will be because I have used dialup. Jacksonville itself seems to be deep in an Internet well, but the hotel service is the main problem. We'll try Earthlink dialup later.
So: I cannot send email, and I cannot connect to ftp any longer. Probably for my convenience.
Trace complete.
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It's working now. Apparently there was a massive power spike that took my web host off line. That wasn't the Adams Mark's fault. But I can't email out and that is the hotel.
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
I realize that tastes differ, and I'm sure that your friend's judgment is impeccable, but in this case you might be wise to check out at least an episode or two of Firefly before passing it over. It certainly isn't traditional science fiction, but it is well done and entertaining, in my opinion.
Thanks, Jerry Boyd
Enough. I'll get a couple of episodes if only to see the young lady in action. She was quite charming.
I have ordered the DVD. We will see. Mail is running 3:1 for Firefly. I am urged to watch the episodes in the proper order. And see below.
I still cannot answer email unless I use dialup and there is nothing so urgent that it needs that. I'll be home Monday.