My new, high-speed blogging hub of operations.Kevin Drum

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

I guess this is my week for being hoist on my own cynical petard. As promised, I went out and bought a new cable modem yesterday. I didn’t do this because I thought it would make any difference, but because I figured I’d never get any serious help from Cox tech support until I did. So I bought the one that was on sale, plugged it in, allowed Cox to sniff around, and then ran a speed test to get a rough idea of where I was.

And . . . it was running consistently at 4-6x the performance of my old box. And in the last 24 hours, at least, it hasn’t crashed once. So the problem really was my cable modem, just like the Cox guy suggested.

Which is a bit of a mystery. I mean, it’s not like my old cable modem was some kind of relic from 1997. I bought it three years ago, and it’s still a current model—selling for more than the replacement box I bought. So why would it provide such sluggish service? And why would it slowly deteriorate over time to the point where it was crashing three or four times a day?

Beats me. Luckily I have wealth privilege, which means that if I can fix a problem for mere small dollar amounts, it just doesn’t matter. If the new device works and all it cost was $150, I don’t care what the problem was. In with the new, and off to the trash with the old.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate