I use a lot of Apple products. Practically, this means I frequently give Apple lots of money. Personally, this means a decision has more benefits than disadvantages, and lends a good deal to my personal happiness and sanity. I have never had a problem with Apple software that they refused to fix or make right for me, and hardware is always as easy as telling them it’s broken, and having it replaced on the spot. That means no questions asked, and a speedy return. We have a good relationship together.
For the past year or so, I’ve been having problems with my MacBook Pro’s (isn’t English genitive funny?) SuperDrive, which in everyday parlance would be optical drive. The drive isn’t broken so much as flaky, deciding to work every fifth day, when the lights are off in the room, and after I’ve spent fifteen minutes coaxing it to read the disk for me. And the problems don’t end with reading disks; don’t ask me burn any anything but coasters… To make matters that much worse, when the drive is working, it will randomly stop working during intensive reads. For example, watching a movie will usually work for around an hour. After that, you’ve got to let the drive “rest”.
The drive is obviously busted and needing serious mechanical care or replacement. Luckily for me, my local Apple store is too busy to do the former, and gladly offered up the latter, under one condition: they needed root access to my computer. When I heard this, I blinked a couple times, completely failing to process. Let me clarify. For a hardware replacement, access to the host operating system shouldn’t even be needed. Failing that, I’m sure Apple is smart enough to boot its own well-tested diagnostic software. When I was told that wasn’t an option, I offered to bake up another password less user account for them to use while it’s out of my hands, which seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Nope, that wouldn’t fly either. They needed full access to my account. Sorry, scratch that. They wanted access to the root account on the system.
Let’s take a second to look at the ramifications. First, start at a purely technical level. In Mac OS X, beside your user account, there are various system-level accounts which manage system functions, one of which is named root, i.e., the super user. root has access to everything and anything on the system, capable of extreme good or (more often than not) evil. Access to this account is generally disabled, but can be easily accessed if by any administrative account (i.e., the first, default, and usually only user account on the system). This brain-dead idea is compounded by how I was supposed to give them my password: verbally, in the middle of a very crowded store. Password safety is Security 101, and the first step of that is to never give your password up, under any circumstance.
Okay, at this point I’m irritated. These people are flagrantly violating basic computing tenants. I became increasingly sick to my stomach the more I thought about what they wanted me to grant them access to. Forget the root access for a second, and understand that your computer is a personal treasure trove of personal information, the gateway to email account, contact information, sensitive documents, private secrets, work related information, access to any network or computer you use, credit card information… I know I may be lectured for storing some of this data on my computer, but come down to reality! a lot of people do this. In fact, I’d be surprised to find someone who didn’t have a trace of his personal, online, or work identity on a computer.
I understand that not granting access to my user and root account wouldn’t have prevented the most experienced hackers from gaining access to my system, but I also understand that giving this away wouldn’t make my information any safer. Further, I don’t explicitly mistrust the people who are handling my machine, or Apple itself, but there’s simply no way they can guarantee a point-to-point handling record for this machine while it’s gone a week’s plus time. Call me paranoid, but I simply will not grant that kind of access. It became even more frustrating sitting on that stupid bar stool, realizing that the people that “Genius Bar” simply do not care for user security. I understand that having access to a user’s account is essential in fixing a problem for a client, but asking them to repeatedly spell their password out loud in the middle of a very crowded and busy Apple store is flat out wrong. Imagine how many people don’t use more than one password! I myself learned two or three different passwords just waiting for someone to come and help me. This is unimaginably corrupt, and Apple should address this kind of attitude in their stores.
Apple wouldn’t return the disk to me upon receipt of the laptop (nor would they accept a hard drive less machine), so I ended up wiping the entire machine and claiming that’s how I use it on a daily basis. That’s bullshit, and they know it. I eventually got one genius to agree with me on this issue, but I’m sad to say it’s too little, too late. Out of all the options I gave them to access my system, and explaining why my data and password are important to me, this is the only route this particular case left me with. I’ve never had to go to such an extreme before, and I’m frustrated with the entire experience.
I thought I’d take a couple seconds to weigh in on the Firefox 3.5 fiasco, not just because I can, but because we all really should be deploring this shit. I’ll admit it upfront; I’m not a Firefox user anymore. More many years, I was a proud user and I pushed hard for its adoption. I switched to Safari as soon as it was released and never looked back. On Windows, nothing can beat Chrome for elegant speed. And while the Windows version is well-maintained and generally pretty okay, on the platforms I use it on, Firefox is ugly and slow. As something that declares itself as an alternative to the “Mammon”, I expect quality support on alternative platforms, as well. That’s really beside the point, though, this takes the cake.
If you’re a Windows user, use Firefox, and use other programs on your computer, you will suffer incredibly long wait times starting Firefox if you upgrade to Firefox 3.5. I’m not talking an extra ten seconds. No, we’re talking minutes here, multiple minutes. It boils down to some code used in the security subsystem used to generate pseudo-random numbers; by scanning every single temporary file on your computer, including cache from other browsers, you’ve got your measly bit of pseudo-randomness–and a gigantic startup time. The arrogance of this decision is staggering; what’s wrong with the countless other APIs for PRNG? I’m not a Windows developer, but I’m positive that there’s more than one Windows’ specific API for this, let alone the standard C solutions. Even if you’re willing to forgive that, how can you ignore the startup time? That’s right, you can’t.
I respect the technologies that Mozilla stands behind, several different directions they are taking the web, and competition. The fact remains, though, that I can start my computer up in the morning, launch Firefox, go tamp and steam espresso, mix my drink, come back, and still find Firefox struggling to start up. Without reservation, I will use and recommend using something else.
Last night, I polished all my dress shoes for two hours. It was a lot of work, and my arm is quite sore. Am I crazy for investing that kind of time into something so superficial?
Today I picked my personal website to enhance. I’ve greatly reduced the size of the overall page, brought it up to spec and spec, and increased overall load efficiency. I’ve redesigned it, bringing new colors and a new level of simplicity. By using third party tools, the site now takes advantage of proxy and browser caching and avoids complex rendering. All of this in the name of optimization. And stress relief. And personal satisfaction.
To me, the world is a mess of different cases needing optimization. This makes me an optimizer, someone dedicated to improving and bettering. On one hand, I’ve very interested in optimizing software, improving the execution, but also improving the programming experience in general. That means faster compilers, better algorithms, and more efficient tools. In reality, I focus on selecting the most efficient paths to walk down on the way to the car, the quickest way to obtain all the items on my shopping list, and even arranging my morning showering details the night before. More, none of this is constant. That means, that everything is always changing, and that none of my plans ever stay around. This is the optimization flow, constantly poking at rough edges and smoothing corner cases, that has come to define my life. It’s monotonous, unrelenting, but is unparalleled in success.
Today when I have the chance to daydream, as I have always done, I try to conceive the very best of something, the absolute of epitome of its essence. I think about warm, peach-colored spheres, which are in fact the roundest a sphere could ever be. I’ll drive the most powerful car being “green” will allow, balancing fuel efficiency and raw performance all day in my head. I want to write that efficient and concise programming language, which might finally meet the demands of thousands of developers around the world, and I imagine inspiring an operating system that perfectly complements that custom environment. I like to picture the dramatic contrast of Tenebrism, being shown a fitting gallery, with the lighting just right. –If something exists, I am thinking of a way that it could be made better. This is a good exercise for me: by stretching my imagination with my favorite things and technical expertise, I want. I don’t desire a state of perfection, merely the act of perfecting. Think of it as chipping away to fell a tree or a river wearing a stone down. It’s slow, rhythmic, and effective.
This is how I view the world with everything and everyone in it. It can be overwhelming at times, and when I feel angst in the face of everything- or nothingness, I find a way to remember that this is the way things are, and are meant to be. In many natural systems, the pattern of optimization is hard at work: e.g., in linguistics there is a theory of linguistic evolution, eschewing design or active choice. Perhaps is biological evolution itself is more familiar, though. It’s a fantastic feeling to know that things are to become better, and that it is my job in many cases to make that so. Anything less is a waste of time, money, and my talents.
There’s something to be said for involving yourself with only the finest of things and people, but there’s more to be said for dedicating yourself to those. Whatever you do, be efficient and quick, apply your best self to the work, and remember to smile when you see good-character and integrity looking back at you in the shine of polished shoes.
Nur der Schönheit weihte ich mein Leben
Sometimes the first side a person shows you is annoying and aggressive, but that’s only because they’re nervous. It’s only after you spend time with them that you find another side, a side worth knowing.
I just want to go to sleep.
Grades are hard.