Logging Out, Logging In, Rebooting

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” — Herbert Simon

Man. I am finding it challenging to maintain velocity. It’s so easy to start something. Less easy to burn it into your pattern and finish it.

The other week at the organization I currently work with, I was working with some architects on drawing out some network infrastructure using an online diagramming service. I was logged in as a guest, but the restrictions were pretty fucking annoying. So, by the end of the meeting, I decided that it was about time that I went through the organization’s software acquisition process.

I do what needs to be done - finding the right online forms to submit the request, then wait.

A couple hours later I receive the email that my request had been processed. That I was now licensed.

But… When I clicked around… Nothing had changed.

I didn’t care that much because I didn’t need the software immediately. The week ends, my weekend is questionably productive, and then Wednesday comes along and it’s time to do some diagramming.

I’d been logged out because my session cookie had expired. When I logged back in everything is the way I’d expect it to be if I’d been licensed.

Given the industry I’m currently contributing to, and the length of time I’ve been contributing to it, I felt a slight sense of shame that I hadn’t tried logging out and logging back in.

That’s when it became abundantly clear that we’ve hit the Windows 95 phase of Web 2.0. The Web 2.95 for Workgroups era.

I guess that joke is more of a “you had to have been there” type thing… there was software that ran on the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) called Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. It was a big bag of yikes. But it helped me learn.

While Windows 95 worked, overall it was a very unstable OS. A stepping stone into computing as we now know it. But, so fucking unstable.

Back in the late 1990’s, I worked at an Internet Service Provider (ISP). One of my roles was providing phone support. As a 16 year old, this was a very challenging job to perform - especially having undiagnosed, and untreated, ADHD.

Oftentimes, when I had to provide technical support, people weren’t learning - they weren’t figuring things out - as quickly as my 16 yo brain would have liked. However, I managed to maintain a good attitude while I was on the phone.

The ISP I worked at was also an Internet cafe. One day, a man came in and wanted to use the internet. He had never used a mouse. I had to teach him how to use a mouse. I wanted to scream.

But I did not.

When I wasn’t doing customer support, I was learning all about Linux System Administration. All about scripting. All about all the concepts needed to ensure infrastructural internet components were highly available. This hands-on experience made dealing with the masses worth it.

When customers called in, when they needed support, the very first piece of advice I suggested customers do was:

Turn the computer off. Turn the computer on. Try connecting again. Call back.

This solved 90% of the problems.

Even now, as of today, “Did you turn it off, and turn it back on again?” Is still an integral step in most technology debugging processes.

It has now became consciously crystal clear to me that “Log out, and lock back in” has become equivalent to “Power off, power on.”

This makes sense to me. If you abstract what’s going on to the individual’s level of time, experience, and action, then you can refer to the length of time the person’s doing the thing as a session. Logging out - powering off - is just the act of terminating the session.

Logging back in is pressing the power button to turn your thing back on. To start a new session.

It seems an unfortunate side effect of time, and entropy, is the destabilization of systems that aren’t tended to. This is some sort of realization that I’m working through, apparently.

Human systems that aren’t tended to tend to degrade more rapidly than the standard human. As in, “they age faster.” Shit knows, that the gestalt of questionable choices made through my life has destabilized the system that tends to be Tim.

Logging off, powering off. Powering on, logging in.

And starting a new session. A new day.

Maybe that’s what I should call sleep. Except I’m unsure if powering off means dying. Because your mind - your body - continue to do their thing even after you’ve logged out.

And you begin to experience dreams.

I guess that joke is more of a “you had to have been there” type thing… there was software that ran on the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) called Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. It was a big bag of yikes. But it helped me learn.#

When I wasn’t doing customer support, I was learning all about Linux System Administration. All about scripting. All about all the concepts needed to ensure infrastructural internet components were highly available. This hands-on experience made dealing with the masses worth it.#

Human systems that aren’t tended to tend to degrade more rapidly than the standard human. As in, “they age faster.” Shit knows, that the gestalt of questionable choices made through my life has destabilized the system that tends to be Tim.#

I guess that joke is more of a “you had to have been there” type thing… there was software that ran on the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) called Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. It was a big bag of yikes. But it helped me learn.

When I wasn’t doing customer support, I was learning all about Linux System Administration. All about scripting. All about all the concepts needed to ensure infrastructural internet components were highly available. This hands-on experience made dealing with the masses worth it.

Human systems that aren’t tended to tend to degrade more rapidly than the standard human. As in, “they age faster.” Shit knows, that the gestalt of questionable choices made through my life has destabilized the system that tends to be Tim.