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I’ve been out of touch for a few days because my internet connection has been down for well over 72 hours. This has resulted in a really jolting sense of confusion and disconnection with the world in general. If anyone has been trying to get ahold of me for the past few days, and was irked that I refused to reply, have no fear, I’ll get to you as soon as my connection gets back up. The same goes for anyone trying to email Madalene (though she was able to do some emailing from lab).

My DSL provider Speakeasy was making some internal changes, and moving some people’s plans to a PPPOE style system. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with PPPOE, let me just say this about it. It is really bad for someone like me. Here are a rundown of its effects:

• No more always-on connection, I must connect manually when I want to use the internet.
• Lower speed due to PPP overhead.
• Increased hassle setting up linux boxes to use PPPOE stacks.
• Loss of my static IP’s.
• Only one computer online unless I buy more hardware or set up one computer as a router.
• No benefits to me whatsoever.

In fact, its unclear to me how PPPOE benefits anyone at all, except the ISP. I’ve heard vague mutterings about increased security, but I think that is more of a function of the dynamic IP address instead of the actual PPPOE stuff. And even so, I take responsibility for my own computer security, so I’m not worried about that. If anyone knows why PPPOE is good for anything, please let me know.

So, when they told me they were switching me to a PPPOE connection, I said, “Screw that, dog! I’ve gots to have me connection be always-on! I’ve gots to SSH into me boxen from who knows where! I’ve gots to keep me static IPs!” So, they agreed to move me to a different plan that would be keeping the static IPs. I’d have to get new IPs, but thats no big deal. A few weeks pass, and one day, the net goes down, and doesn’t come back up. Hmm. I give a call to the tech guys, and they respond, “DOH!!! You’ve been moved to PPPOE inadvertently!” They put in trouble tickets, they call advanced support, they call Covad (the circuit provider), and I get ETAs of 24 hours for connectivity. 24 hours pass, I call more, this time frantic. I’m given more ETAs, more apologies. 24 more hours pass. I call again, this time the guy makes a few small changes, gives me PPPOE connection settings, so I can get one of my boxen online at least, and makes some more internal phone calls. Apparently they are waiting on the bozo’s down at Covad to make some changes, and they just weren’t happening.

Now, despite this experience, I’m still basically pleased with Speakeasy’s handling of this. I’m pissed that I’ve been without a connection for over 72 hours, and now that it’s back up, its this crappy neutered PPPOE connection. But they have been trying hard it seems, and each person I talk to seems to have a genuine desire to fix the problem. I just hope they work things out soon. Talk of compensation for the inordinate downtime was brought up, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’ve also realized how reliant on the internet I am. Not having a vast source of instant information and communication is really throwing me off. Here is a short list of things that have come to my mind, but was unable to satisfy my curiosity about:

• The URL for a website with videos of plant motion.
• The hours of a furniture store.
• The cost difference between a dedicated ethernet MP3 playing appliance and a mini-ITX computer.
• The exact specifications for the VideoCD format.
• The cost of Funky Porcini’s new album “Fast Asleep”.
• How the Indian musical notation system works.
• How the MIDI standard handles different temperaments (if it does at all).
• etc.

Every one of those things would take a maximum of 5 minutes to answer given the power of the internet. However, I couldn’t figure out any of them. Sure, there is the library, but they close at night, which is the time when I frequently brainstorm and cultivate my curiosity. I have an insatiable desire to know, and the internet enables that. I also felt really out of touch with my friends and family, since I primarily communicate with them using the internet.

In any event, I’m going to start looking over the several hundred backed up emails. If your email is among them, don’t expect an immediate response, but I’ll try to get to you soon! Updates will be sporadic until my connection gets fully restored.

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