Technically Incorrect

Somewhere behind me, a baby girl was crying a Ganges river.

Her parents, strongly resembling Lucy Liu and Ted Kaczynski, appeared unable to administer the appropriate gag. This was the 9 a.m. American Airlines flight out of JFK, heading for San Francisco. My eyes were as bleary as a bailout document, and my head throbbed from a mixture of lack of sleep and some bad, loud company the night before. Yes, Knicks fans.

Rummaging in my seat pocket, I suddenly discovered that this flight was equipped with Gogo, American Airlines' new Wi-Fi service. Intent on at least googling some institutions that might be happy to adopt loud children, I got out my MacBook.

Logging on to Gogo couldn't be simpler. It costs $12. Yes, it's cheaper than checking your golf clubs. The speed was impressive, even if I could find no trace of the World Decibel-Reducing Adoption Agency. In any case, the minute I got online, the baby girl suddenly entered a deep sleep. Or perhaps I had somehow frightened her into pretending.

However, after about 20 minutes, something odd occurred. Just as I was about to check Hotmail, the laptop screen went dark.

This band is called the Gogo Ghouls. Might they have been responsible for my outage?

(Credit: CC Habi)

Please let me explain at this point that my heart is not technical. I represent the proles (and the Poles) who, when it comes to gadgets, just try to get by any way they know how. So try not to get mad, OK? But my MacBook was clearly dead. No lights, no sound, no picture.

Given its lack of life, I put it away, thinking that I would ask someone with a brain appropriately wired to solve the problem in the Bay Area.

When I got home, I opened the MacBook again. It began to stir, and I stepped back, thinking that some nefarious beings might have tampered with it.

The screen came to life again, and it busily resumed its attempt to load the Hotmail page I had been trying to access on the plane five hours previously. But, you see, I hadn't turned the MacBook on. I'd merely opened it.

Is it possible that it was the Gogo that had put a stopstop to my MacBook? Might the signal have suddenly bemused my configuration to a coma? Or should I take my MacBook to the nearest Genius Bar, where a 14-year-old will tell me I should not, under any circumstances, put money down for cryogenics?

A few people came to my house today to watch the Baltimore Ravens steal an NFL playoff game with their usual display of vomit-forward video game violence.

When I say 'people', some, including my friend Ali, were not as fascinated with the game as with checking their friends' breast-feeding pictures on Facebook. So Ali grabbed my MacBook (black, seeing as you ask) with the intention of anti-socially networking.

She tugged at the power cable in order to plug it into the MacBook and seemed to be having trouble. After several attempts she was still not successful in making the magnetic connection with the cable port.

Because her frustration turned to grunting louder than that of Ray Lewis in Surround Sound, I turned to see that she was trying to put the cable into the wrong side of the machine. When I suggested she try the other side, she looked at me as if I was her parole officer. Then she declared my MacBook "stupid" and "discriminatory."

I confess I've never considered the plight of the left-handed laptopper, even though I have some left-handed tendencies myself. Ali said her PC had ports on the right and had never encountered such wrong-headed one-sidedness.

The hand of a depressed MacLefty?

(Credit: CC Okko Pyykko)

So in the interests of her satisfaction and the ability of several hard-working people to enjoy the game, I made her a cup of strong tea, took control of the MacBook and went online to examine the essence of left-handed computing. I found deep discussions about laptop left-handedness. I also found left-handed keyboards, and many examples of the left-handed mouse.

I was even reminded that golfer Phil 'Lefty' Mickelson is not, actually, left-handed. But I failed to find a MacBook with the holes on the other side.

Now I have no idea if many deeply creative, Mac-passionate left-handers out there secretly suffer every day of their lives with this spatial awkwardness. Could it be that some even suffer from a troubling form of MacLefty Tourette's? But perhaps readers might share their discomfort in this most curative of subjective forums.

I wonder if Steve Jobs left-handed or right-handed. I can't say I've ever noticed. I'll ask Ali. She's bound to know.

My MacBook and I are at a difficult stage in our relationship.

We've traveled the world together. We've written heinous insults together. And we have refused to countenance entreaties from sites of ill-repute together.

But something is now coming between us.

It's that little Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy. You know, the one that tells you, well, what is it supposed to tell you exactly?

The first time I saw it, I had no idea what was going on. It whirled away on my desktop just like a dog that is trying to communicate with you and, in its frustration, begins to chase its tail in circles as if this will somehow make things more obvious.

(Credit: CC Cessna206)

This little Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy might have been a bug. Or the introduction to some errant and very nasty computer game.

I even wondered if it was about to burst open and turn into a dancing leopard or wriggling worm.

The most I have ever comprehended about this anomic apparition is that it is somehow meant to signify: "Hold on there, mate. I'm not entirely sure what's going on. The ole' system's playing up a bit here and I'm trying to get it sorted out."

In other words, it's like a plumber perched beneath your sink, his upper bottom portions waving to the sky and his voice telling you: "Hmm. Aha. Uh-huh. Aha. Hmm."

Well, except for the dialogue part.

The Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy never, ever tells me what's going on. Or how long it will be chasing its tail around my desktop.

It arrives and disappears as suddenly as a drunken gatecrasher. At times I confess I lose my patience, take out the battery and start my MacBook up again. Without fail, the Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy will be gone.

I would therefore ask the core of superlative minds at Apple to please find me another plumber.

I would like something that talks to me, that gives me at least a clue about what is going on.

You know the kind of thing: "Your trash is fuller than Meg Ryan's lips and the Big Lebowski's belly. Empty it, you moron."

Or perhaps: "I can tell you've got no idea about tech, so just do what I say. Go to the cache and click on the third choice down."

Or even: "This MacBook is wasted on a bonehead like you. Get yourself a PC and like it."

comScore has done a wonderful job. Of marketing comScore results.

If the Internet abacus company sees its readings suggest a significant conclusion, it releases the information in an interesting and digestible form.

However, I understand that both comScore and its frats-in-stats at Nielsen Online are having their audits audited by the Interactive Advertising Bureau after mlb.com declared that Nielsen Online's score for its site of 6 million was a "conScore." The real figure, according to mlb.com, was actually 19 million. (the results of the audit's audit are due at the end of this year.)

I try to leave discussions of numbers to intelligent people.

But there seems to be a big difference between 6 million and 19 million.

As I was thinking about this, a book wafted beneath my nose that tended to crystallize some human instincts about facts, something that numbers purport to be.

It's called "True Enough: Learning to Live in A Post-Fact Society" by Farhad Manjoo.

(Credit: misocrazy)

Mr. Manjoo performs an enjoyable analysis of some recent political controversies, such as the allegations that the elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen by devious and surprisingly organized Republicans. (His conclusions seem to suggest that Mr. Gore was hard done by, Mr. Kerry was not.)

The book is at its strongest in describing just how deeply most human beings want to find information that most closely confirms their own prejudices. And how they shut out information that counters those prejudices.

What prejudices do research companies have? Is it, perhaps, important for them to have their research come up with newsworthy results? Are their methodologies actually primed to achieve that?

There are allegations that comScore's and Nielsen Online's figures tend to discriminate against, for example, foreigners and MacOlytes.

Why would the research companies allow for this sort of speculation?

Why would they allow for the perception that someone on a Mac in Krakow, Poland, is nothing more than a hanging chad?

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's CEO, Randall Rothenberg, these companies are "still relying on panels, a media-measurement technique invented for the radio industry exactly seven decades ago, to quantify the Internet".

Wait a minute, they're using panels? Does everyone know about this? Do the people who use their numbers know about this?

For so many people in the advertising business and beyond, who have their prejudices too, it is the headline that matters. They present in headlines. They talk about themselves in headlines. They need news.

Being 21st Century humans whose budgets are shrinking, attention spans are short and careers even shorter, they sometimes eschew analysis for today's news currency, the soundbite.

comScore and Nielsen Online are in the business of creating some very soundbiting headlines indeed. (FACEBOOK OVERTAKES MYSPACE!!! OHMIGOD!!! I NEED TO WRITE A SONG ABOUT THIS!!!)

Which leads me to the headline of this post.

I have no reason to believe that the folks at comScore and Nielsen Online are anything other than well-meaning, dedicated but imperfect professionals.

But what if the conclusion of the IAB audit is that the figures from companies such as these have been wildly inaccurate?

What would their PR people do with that?

Would they publicize these findings, as a declaration that they need to work harder, to find better methodologies in order to reveal more accurate truths? (Oh, there are so many inaccurate truths out there..)

Or would they decide that wouldn't be good for business?

I'm just asking.

You see, I only have a MacBook and I'm feeling ignored.