The Life of Lou Ruppert

All of the walking around for winterfest finally caught up with me today. I began to regret my vow to post once for each of the days of Lent this year. What do you post about a day you spend walking around the house in your pajamas drinking tea? And still feeling somewhat ill, I’m doubly handicapped, because it’s hard to focus to remember what exactly did happen today.

I started the day reminding myself that Linux doesn’t really benefit from a team of usability experts like Apple and Microsoft do. I was looking at why my friend Tina’s machine wasn’t picking up the mic for Skype and I opened the Volume Control in Linux and checked out the settings. Instead of an Input tab and an Output tab, there were four tabs. Input, Output, Capture Select, and one other one. The input levels were correct, and Front Mic was selected in the Capture Select. That left the final “Miscellaneous” tab, which had no sliders and only one checkbox, mysteriously labeled something like ACDMUX. There was no help button. There were no tooltips describing the setting. The box was unchecked. For all I knew, someone in Germany could be getting a powerful electric shock every time someone clicks that checkbox. When I finally said my apologies and checked the box, sound immediately began working in Skype, and would stop working only when I unchecked the box. But who begins their debugging process for muted inputs by saying “Hmm, must be the ACDMUX, look for the hidden tab, behind the bookcase.” And why four tabs?

I had a dream last night that I was in some kind of computer science class I was auditing at Syracuse University. The professor was a chubby Portuguese guy who was involved with some kind of crime syndicate or something. I was doing my best to pay attention, when the professor turned to me and said “You’re not really here right now because you’re in a dream. Everything I’m saying is stuff that your mind is making up.” Rather than flying, having sex with a supermodel, talking with dead relatives, or going to work without pants like most people would do if they found themselves dreaming lucidly, I answered the professor “Yes, but dreaming is often a time where the brain sorts through stuff it’s learning, so I think I’ll stay for the rest of the class and see what I pick up.” I’m even a geek when I’m sleeping.

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