One-way conversations

Well, another frustrating day of trying to use the Internet here. A lot of stuff works just fine, but the stuff that does not work utterly does not work - in this case, I need to post something for school and can't. Then there are the endless reply-all emails we all know and love, one of which I was sucked into a couple days ago and which is still gaining momentum. I know I can send email successfully, but the message is just not getting through. It's a day of one-way conversations ...

The first one-way conversation I had today was on this reply-all email. It's really not kosher to divulge the content of the email, but suffice to say I explained some technical details about the network we're monitoring over here to some people with a complaint, and they responded saying that they agreed with me but continued with the complaint like I had not said anything at all. If you agree with my explanation, they why would you continue to complain that no one knows why your problem exists? I know why their problem exists, and I can tell you it's not technical ...

I also tried to access my grad school's online learning system - basically a modern day incarnation of a bulletin board where people post long threads of discussion, readings, assignments, and Byzantine grading systems that take into account whether you responded to something within a certain amount of time or not, how long your response was, and most insidiously, what the quality of your response was. I think before we reduce quality to such a trivial role, we might take a lesson or two from Robert Pirsig about how this website is leading us to our goals of enlightenment. I said I tried to access it because I was only partially able to access it - apparently I can read but not write from the recreational network we have access to in our housing units. That's just great, now I get to work on school from the building where I am on shift!

There's really no good way to get Internet access out here - you can spend the money on your own personal satellite dish and access plan ($thousands, but good), buy the commercial ISP-provided stuff ($tens, but see above for how satisfying it is), walk 20 minutes and use the education center's Navy-run separate network ($free, just very inconvenient and often maxed out), or if you are lucky enough to have it at work, just use that ($free but monitored, and you get drive-by taskings since you're still at work when you use it). All of these options are riding satellite links that are the best we can do, but really not all that good. I guess that should make me thankful I have the last couple options, right? Some guys out here don't even have that; their network access consists of a couple hardened plastic cases and a wire to whatever radio gets the signal to a larger radio and more plastic cases.

At least I have the ability to post to the blog!