The Empirical Manifesto

I experienced an unexpected (and rather lengthy) internet outage today in the middle of my workday, and as I flipped on my phone's hotspot I saw the default setting didn't include activating the wireless radio and wondered if the reason for that had to do with power consumption (it does). Having never before used the Bluetooth protocol for tethering, I attempted that today instead. The instructions, however, left quite a bit to be desired:

1. Pair iPhone with your computer.


2. On iPhone, tap Pair or enter the code displayed on your computer.


3. Connect to iPhone from computer.

How? How do I connect to the iPhone from the computer after pairing. Does a new interface become visible in the Network and Sharing Center? No, it does not. I couldn't imagine it showing up as a wireless broadcasting device, but checked there nonetheless. Nope, not there! I re-read the last step, “Connect to iPhone from computer.” I finally decided to see if any devices popped up in my icon task bar and sure enough there was the familiar Bluetooth symbol. A simple right-click and “Join a Personal Area Network.” Which, by the way, I didn't know the nomenclature for such – not that it would have mattered, as Windows 10 doesn't know it either, so searching for the phrase “Personal Area Network” wouldn't have been any help (not that in the entire history of Windows has searching ever been any help).

But its worse than that, much worse. I called support on an installation issue I was having with SLES 12 SP1 and supplied them with detailed error messages, log files, and a supportconfig. At one point I was asked if I'd reviewed the VMare installation instructions (I hadn't). Support provided a link and I sat there, mouth ajar, wondering how the fuck they expected me to respond. I waited until the next morning to send my email. You see, the three “steps” they wanted me to review (I shit you not) were:

1. Insert the CD into the CD-ROM drive.


2. Power on the virtual machine.


3. Follow the prompts to complete the installation.

I responded to support that I was fairly confident the issue I was having was with #3 if that helped and thanked them for the detailed installation instructions.