Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Saturday 1 February 1997, 8:00 AM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary (or, A Week With Bill)
One likes to have one's routine in the morning: get up, put kettle on, wash, grab email, leave for office. Not today. I've been using MSN as my access provider at home; it was exceptionally fast (less so now they have 100,000 users), reliable and didn't have any nasty habits. Sure got one now, though: "Incorrect Information Specified", it says, just before it should dial.. Useful, huh?
Five days later, I still can't tell you what Incorrect Information Specified means. It doesn't mean the telephone number, user account or password is wrong, or that some odd modem's been configured. Despite a lot of swearing and cold coffee, my MSN account remains in abeyance. I've switched to Compuserve. It's fine.
Gah.
Tuesday
Now and again, I make a mistake (Nurse! Smelling salts for the fainting multitudes!). One such, I suspect, is getting a friend online with AOL. It's not been reliable lately, as recorded in diaries passim: today I see the CompuServe advert that got played during the Superbowl. It was a blank screen, with repeated dial tone
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