To my immense delight, I found out last week that every Avid editing suite comes, as a matter of security, with a programmable key called a dongle. The function of the dongle is to prevent unauthorized rogue editors from sneaking into the building and layering in an aftereffect or converting a cut to a dissolve (
Sometimes a dongle goes wrong and the Avid suite refuses to do so much as turn its head and cough. What causes dongle wrongness? Cosmic rays? Viruses in the works introduced by rogue editors? The unhealthy influences of HAL, Edgar, Proteus IV or maybe Skynet? Spindling? The truth is, we don't know what sends a dongle off the rails. But when it happens, you have to send the dongle back to the manufacturers to have it reprogrammed. To reprogram a dongle is to bless it. Therefore it is permissible and even encouraged to phone up Avid corporate headquarters in Massachussetts (978 640 6789, if you're really determined to follow through) and say "Bless my Avid Dongle, sirs, for it has gone wrong". Make sure you can produce the wrong dongle when asked, though. And don't forget the 'sirs' when you phone up.
8 comments:
Don't forget to not actually phone Avid headquarters just because I provided the number, which is available on their official website anyway. But if you do please let me know how they respond.
Ha ha! The funniest post about dongles ever!
There once was a dongle named Avid
And as Palinode's luck would have it
His dongle got messed
And he now needs it blessed
Or, Solomon-like, simply halve it.
...It scans if you squint. There's not enough squinting in the world to make it make sense, though.
~K.
Vegasandvenice: are there other, less amusing posts about dongles out there? Is there a site that rates dongle posts on a scale? "This post gets ten dongles!" or something like that? Because now you've given me hope.
K.: Of all the many dongle limericks out there - and lord am I sick of them - yours is the freshest and funniest I've seen. I bet if Solomon were an editor, he'd chop a dongle in half just to make a point.
Similarly, but not really the same at all, we have badge cards that need to be swiped to get in the door at my work.
I wonder if I can convince them to go the dongle route....
My ever-practical K says he just sends his dongles out to be blessed.
not that i would ever advocate such a thing, but there are software patches out there, called cracks, which you can install so that you no longer need to have a dongle.
First: "Bless my Avid Dongle, sirs, for it has gone wrong." - total spit-take.
Second: I'm confused about the "reprogramming." Is it like a Maoist re-education camp? Or is it more like Love in Action? And does it love Big Brother afterwards?
I'm just trying to understand.
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