Coax Cable, Phone Line

[FormerCallingCardRep]

I had a good one today. I had a guy call in today wanting me to schedule a tech to come in and replace 5 phone jacks. I explained to him that it would be A for the first jack and B for each additional jacks. He tells me he has our protection plan and it would be free. I ask him how many of these jacks did we install. He tells me none of them that Ma Bell put them in 30 years ago. I inform him that our plan covers the Coax cable in his home and any phone jacks that we installed. He tells me that phone line and coax are one and the same so it will be free. It took me 20 minutes to get him to understand the difference.

[eltf177]

Twenty minutes I'll bet you'd like back...

[sirwired]

How hard can it possibly be to understand the difference? One is round, metal, and has screw threads, the other is plastic, square-ish, and snaps in...

[Argabarga]

Because wires are all the same!!!! They let magical do-thingy (tm) energy in and it does whatever I want it to!

That's why Hollywood script writers still think an evil computer AI can take over the world by causing everything plugged into a socket somewhere to attack you, from your vacuum cleaner to the Pepsi vending machine behind the 7 Eleven in Des Moines.

[sirwired]

Because wires are all the same!!!! They let magical do-thingy (tm) energy in and it does whatever I want it to!

That's why Hollywood script writers still think an evil computer AI can take over the world by causing everything plugged into a socket somewhere to attack you, from your vacuum cleaner to the Pepsi vending machine behind the 7 Eleven in Des Moines.

Don't forget the Magic Evil Government Cameras that can produce 360-degree eye-level surveillance of any given point on the planet at any time, indoors or out. (And of course read license plates from orbit.)

(And by 360-degree, I don't just mean they can just rotate around in any direction (pfft! child's play for Evil Overlords), but rather they can do a sweep in a 10-ft circle or so around the luckless victim so they stay in the shot at all times.)

[catcul]

The assistant project manager was annoyed at one of these detective dramas. An episode had someone attempting to hack the protagonists' computer system. Two of them get on the same computer keyboard to prevent the hacker access.

Hey, Hollywood, that's not a piano. Two people using the same computer at the same time in this situation would get in each other's way.

[Latekin]

The assistant project manager was annoyed at one of these detective dramas. An episode had someone attempting to hack the protagonists' computer system. Two of them get on the same computer keyboard to prevent the hacker access.

I remember that episode!

Unfortunately, a great many of the older folks in my store who buy anything electrical tend to run off of this logic.
Computers are freaking magic and evil and cause every problem ever and if anything's wrong with the electrical in the house it must be that damn computer son/daughter/grandchild is always on! Try explaining to a cranky 50 year old mother that her daughter's laptop is not what's causing the light's in her garden shed to crap out randomly.
It took me an hour of going over potential hazards before we discovered that, since she was in a semi rural area, she frequently got critters like possums/rats/lizards in the shed roof, and that they had been known the chew on the cables.

She still wasn't entirely convinced that the low powered laptop her 15 year old used for word documents and facebook wasn't responsible in some way....

[Argabarga]

You also can't (apparently) stop a malicious hack you know is in progress by.... turning the machine off.

And if someone deletes your personal information out of a database, that's it, you cease to exist, the fact that you have a paper birth certificate, and a physical driver's license in your wallet issued by the state, and several neighbors who can vouch for you existing for the last 10 years means nothing.... the computer says you're an unperson, so that's it! Everyone forgets about you and instantly believes whatever the system says, the fact, it can sic the cops on you by fabricating a criminal record, nevermind a precursory investigation will fail to locate an actual Judge who sentenced you, a jury who convicted you or a prosecutor who prosecuted you or the officer(s) who arrested/charged you.... the computer says yous done it, so yous done it!

[catcul]

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[Jim]

Ya'll been watching "Scorpion" or something?

[Tee]

[This post has been deleted]

... who's this guy?

[dalesys]

... who's this guy?

First base!

[CorneliaMarieRocks]

Ya'll been watching "Scorpion" or something?

naw, we just have alot of NCIS fans here apparently

[Ironclad Alibi]

[This post has been deleted]

Hmmm... Must have been done by one of them TV show hackers.

[notalwaysright]

naw, we just have alot of NCIS fans here apparently

That show is crazy with computers. I think at one point a virus infected a computer and then instantly blew it up, like with sparks and everything... Also a virus escaped through a power cord and infected everything in the building, including land line phones. People just stood around looking at their computers and randomly hitting keys which resulted in loud beeps.

I'm way more paranoid, or at least I don't get as irritated with conspiracy theorists as a lot of folks here. I also don't deal with it daily. Yet! Started back at school in server admin, Powershell, and Apache classes. So my day is coming, and I am a little afraid.