Circular Illogic

Many years ago I took a course in logic where they taught us a bunch of fallacies. Things like “poisoning the well” and “circular logic”.

This post has nothing to do with that but it does have to do with circular thinking and circular activity.

Background: I have an iPhone with a Verizon voice and data package. I have an iPad with Verizon 3G which magically lets me do internet stuff. I have a MacBook Air with no internet package. To get internet on my Mac I turn on the hot spot on my phone. Then I have wifi on the Mac and/or the iPad. Most of the time.

It seems there is a “known” problem between the phone and the Mac. The Mac, every now and then, decides it doesn’t want to be connected to the phone so it disconnects itself. Then it doesn’t like to reconnect. It always makes me jump through at least two hoops and sometimes several more before it will reconnect to my hot spot.

For some time now, my Mac has been nagging me to do updates. But, I have mostly not been in places with fast connections so I have been reluctant to do them. But, then I got a notice that there is a new OS for the phone. Maybe they fixed the disconnecting problem?

So I drove from north of Lake Havasu City down to the Plamosa Road BLM just north of Quartzsite where I had a fast connection for the short time I was there. But, the connection is not fast near Arizona Highway 95 and I didn’t feel like driving the, I think, eleven miles in that we were before to see if it was better there. So I drove on south to get closer to I-10 to see if it was better there.

It was just OK. But, I decided it was likely as good as I was going to get.

So I turned on my phone and asked it about the update. It said it needed a wifi connection. No problem. I turned on my hot spot, turned on my Mac, plugged the phone into the Mac, and said there you go. Anyone see a potential problem here?

It simply did not occur to me that using my phone for a connection while updating my phone might not work. I’ll never know for sure whether my Mac just decided it didn’t want to be connected any longer or if the phone tried to reboot while acting as its own hot spot. All I know is that more than a half hour into the update it crashed.

Which broke my phone.

Now the Mac said the phone needed to be restored. Which requires a wifi connection. Which it can’t get from the phone because the phone is broken.

So, I drive north again. To the McDonald’s in Parker. And use their wifi to restore my phone. Mostly.

It did all the restore then said it had a just a few more questions. Starting with what did I want to use for a network?

Ummm. The phone is my network. And McDonalds won’t connect to my phone as an alternate.

So I drove back to Quartzsite and spent the night.

The next morning, I drove to Phoenix. To an Apple Store.

They wanted to know what my problem was. I said, “Your system update broke my phone.”

They wanted to know if I called to make an appointment. I looked at they guy in disbelief and said, “Your system update broke my phone. My phone is my wifi connection. So your system update also broke my internet.”

“OK.” he replied. “I just wanted you to know you are supposed to make an appointment for next time.” Aargh!

Fortunately,  they were well staffed today so I only had to wait about fifteen minutes to get a tech to help me. He had me connect to the store’s wifi and cleaned up the mess. We did have my usual problem with the Apple Store saying my password is wrong a few times before it said, “Oh, OK. I guess I’ll take it this time.”

Then I stayed and did all my other updates using their wifi just in case anything else broke in the process.

The I drove back to Quartzsite. 315 miles round trip to fix my “new, improved” software.

And I still don’t know if the “known” problem was part of the fix.

TTYL,

Linda