Stumbling along...

I spent an uncomfortable time last night, shivering one moment and feeling too hot the next. This phenomenon finally eased a little after midnight, after which things settled down and I slept until almost 9 am. When I woke, I decided - since there was no immediate work to do - to take it wasy for a bit.

That bit what just about what I got.

Within an hour, more documents arrived, and these were processed in workmanlike manner. Then came the first of a batch of documents I've been asked to edit. An accompanying note stresses that these documents should be particularly carefully worked, so I'm speculating they are likely for a new (end) client. However, that doesn't jive with the news I heard that the translation of these documents into English was being done in Russia. We'll see.

I passed a pleasant 15 minutes this morning speaking with a Skyper from Marseille who is interested in improving his English (just as I, naturellement would like to work on my French). After experiencing the ease of use and high quality of the connection, I cannot help but think that Skype represents a grave threat to the status quo in terms of established pricing models for long-distance telephone service and government regulation.

As far as the former is concerned, it's a little ironic that I can speak to someone in France for free for 15 minutes, or 1500 minutes, using a technology that's been piggy-backed onto my traditional phone line (DSL) and for which I pay only a flat monthly rate.

If a phone company that enjoys a government-granted monopoly status (or even near-monopoly status) gets upset with this scheme, they'll either try to take it over, have it regulated into insensibility, or make it outright illegal. (Indeed, there is a post in the skype_ru community that relates the travails of an American who was arrested in Minsk, Belorus, on the formal charge of "establishing an illegal telephone communications circuit" - by using Skype on a computer - although the smart money says his arrest had much more to do with his support of the local opposition.)

The government would, I think, be a willing partner in the regulation effort, for several reasons. First, bureaucrats have an inherent distrust of anything they can't directly control. (They are aided in this by media types, one of whose favorite mantras - when the object is to criticize some kind of common practice - is the throwaway line "X is an unregulated industry!") More important, if bureaucrats can't control something, they can't tax it, and that's gotta hurt!

From a more, um, practical standpoint, programs such as Skype probably pose a challenge to the Homeland Security folks, since one of the features of Skype is that all conversations zip around the Internet in encrypted form on a peer-to-peer basis. (Then again, there is a fairly interesting paper floating around that is critical of Skype, concluding that it's not quite ready for use by corporations from a security standpoint. Disinformation? Who knows!)

So how did I end up in the middle of a libertarian rant? Oh, yes. This morning's conversation. Sorry.

More critical was Galina's more-than-request to take my VAIO with her to Houston when she leaves early next week. She has some software related to some recent projects she wants to install and use while she's down there.

I would rather share my toothbrush.

I've got gigabytes of files on the thing that, although I could copy them onto my desktop, simply don't amount to the same thing. What about all those wonderful applications that - thanks to various protection/nuisance schemes - will run only on my VAIO (unless I reinstall them on the desktop)?

More important, what if I need the thing while she's gone?

That's why I've decided to wipe the eSlate of Linux and reinstall Windows 98. (Yes, Virginia, that's how serious I am about this!) The procedure with the restoration disk is almost over.

Cheers...

Keen design!

Could someone explain to me why - when one uses a Windows system restore disk that is designed to work on only one model of computer - does the startup procedure insist on having me input a product key that was originally on a separate piece of documentation?

I mean: you can't use this disk for any other purpose, so it's not like you could use the disk over and over again on just any machine that comes within reach!

Then again, I haven't tried... nor would I even want to.

So there I was, pretty upset at having to cough up a product key from somewhere, knowing from past experience that not just any product key will do. (At some point back in the day, some of the sharp kids in Redmond figured out that OEM versions of Windows ought to respond only to special OEM product keys, and I was fresh out.) Out of frustration more than anything else, I input a stray product key that's on the envelope of (and different from) the product key of my legal Windows Me install disk.

And the eSlate swallowed the thing, without a squawk.

(Maybe the whole thing was a sham? Maybe it would've accepted the phone number of the courthouse downtown as a product key? We'll never know!)

Quoting Shepherd: "Excelsior!"

Cheers...

P.S. The sad thing is, I am all but sure I covered this in an LJ post or two some time back, when I was faced with the same circumstance. It turns out not only to be a small world, but a cyclic one, as well.