First episode of the season that was truly funny.

Hello "I.T." have you tried turning it off and then on again?

In case of emergency please dial 011-8999-88199-9119725-3

I love how the internet is just a giant linksys router

i saw that coming from a mile away last night. kyles solution, not stans dad, that is.

hahaha the ghost. i thought it was hilarious. sick but hilarious.

Was that Dan Rather?

I imagine this is how the little electronic people live inside my home network.

Just shows the the world would die without their favorite blogs like the Giz.

Must...refresh...Giz...every...10...no...5...no 3 seconds...

@lafond66: It isn't?

My question is this: if so many things can be fixed, i.e. routers, modems, computers, etc... by simply unplugging it, why don't they have reset buttons that do the same thing?

How hard would it be, seriously, to put in a button that does a hard reboot that cycles the power for 30 seconds? I am not engineer, so don't scream at me if that WOULD actually be difficult.

I am just the idea guy, you technical folks figure out all the tough crap.

@CutePuppyz: i agree, i refresh Giz and Consumerist contasntly...

We Jews have to fix everything!

I'm mad its a huge linksys router.

Sorry. I don't watch formerly great shows that have become super preachy and predictable.

@zenpoet:

"How hard would it be, seriously, to put in a button that does a hard reboot that cycles the power for 30 seconds? I am not engineer, so don't scream at me if that WOULD actually be difficult."

Well I AM an engineer - it would be trivial.

@Darrone: You mean like the negative commenters on every blog who have to tell us why they don't like something instead of moving to the next blog?

i work for CCity FireDog..

thats why the new N routers are so expensive, we stick a technician into every one =)

@zenpoet: my linksys router does have a reset button, but w/ ddwrt, I have it auto reboot once a week, at 5AM, when I'm sure I won't be using it.

are you serious?
that ep was terrrrriiible

the ghost thing was the onnnly funny thing

It's the ectoplasm...

@Leonard Nimrod: ROLF. BOOM!

@MadColombian: I think you're just mad, in general.

@jkr: Not a bad idea.

tttthhhhhheee ghosttttt!!!!!

@zenpoet: When I used to work as Cisco, we power-cycled the newly assembled routers constantly for 30 hours straight and make sure they're still working. Works like a charm. (Well, most of the time)

@Leonard Nimrod: You mean leave a gadget blog because of a post that has nothing to do about gadgets?

If there weren't any negative comments, there wouldn't be any discussions, and blogs would be boring. And you know that's true.

Hey, while I was working on RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) at Brookhaven National Labs, this is really how we solved our problems. We called it, "Recycling the Power." We would have to unplug and plug back in the machine every few hours.

I thought this was great.

@Darrone:

Now who's preachy? :P

@Krowyn: Hahaha. Just started watching The IT Crowd last night.

@diablodevil2: What am I preaching? I'm saying negative comments are par for the course (love that term today). And I'm not preaching about gadget only, exactly the opposite. I'm not going to leave a blog because of a few off topic posts. So what am I preaching? Relax? Ok, if you can call that preaching, then

I Command you, diablodevil2, to relax! For those that do not relax shall be cursed to eternal hell-fire or someplace equally terrible that has occupancy!!!

When I had a linksys router that was always the first thing I did when I lost my internet connection.

It almost always came back after resetting the router.

That was too funny. I loved all the non facts that were presented as fact.

I work with networking stuffs all day and that was just too great of an insult not to laugh at it!

@zenpoet:

This magical button you speak of is called the power switch. It's readily accessible and available on every Linksys router and gateway.

"interracial gangbang..."

oh it's no use.

@Darrone: "If there weren't any negative comments, there wouldn't be any discussions, and blogs would be boring. And you know that's true."
You saying it's true doesn't automatically make it so. I'm sure most of us are smart enough to manage to have a discussion without needing trolls to egg us on.

Then again, you already have a high oppinion of your oppinion, otherwise you wouldn't take time out just to tell us you don't like something, then take more time defending telling us that you don't like something.

(Do you randomly walk into people's offices, tell them you don't like their tie and then walk out?)

@Leonard Nimrod:

Are you cheesin' or something man? This episode was hilarious, but "Eek, A Penis," and "Major Boobage" were better, IMHO.

Also, did anyone else notice that all the characters in last night's episode was using a Mac and/or Safari?

@justinpe: Yeah, but the computers didn't have apples on the back... they had lemons. Interpret that as you will.

I loved the final scene's homage to Steven Segal's "On Deadly Ground"

Michael Cane is the ultimate bad Guy!

[us.movies1.yimg.com]

Okay but what I don't understand is... why is there even a reset button? Why can't the router do that automatically? And, once again, engineers feel free to comment if this is not possible, but why can't the router assume that when it turns on that blinking orange light, it's having an internal problem instead of just saying "umm your internet's not working" and giving up? I would instantly go out and buy a router with such an auto reset feature, even if it cost $50, hell, $100 more than other routers.

@AaronZ: So you're saying a discussion can occur without someone taking a negative opinion?

I think if we both took a positive side of every post, it would be a terribly boring discussion. I post constantly on gizmodo, its pretty much killed my work productivity, and I still enjoy it. Do you feel the need to defend the universe from negative opinions? Just shut up and move on if you don't like hearing "negativity"

For the sake of the pagan gods, if you can't handle negativity, don't go on a blog!

I don't want to be a grammar nazi, but there's one P in opinion, and if we're going to discuss it, i don't want to see the word oppinion 243 times.

@jkr:
hey how much of a PITA is the dd-wrt thing? i've got a wrt54g thats completely unconfigured...

@Darrone: I believe my opponent is a great man. I agree with everything he says. However, I believe he is not great enough. He could be greater. He has yet to fart sunshine, and that disappoints me. However, I congratulate him on the level of greatness he has achieved.

Wow south park has become pretty lame now. I'll pass.

Franky, I thought "Major Bewbage" was pretty funny, too. This episodes on the DVR, should be able to catch it tonight.

@nutbastard: then why do they make the reset button some tiny little piece of crap that you have to poke through a hole with a ball point pen? Or, you have to pull the cable from the back of the unit. Chaps my ass, it does.

@dbx: No. You are mistaken. I owned many linksys wireless routers, and none of them had power buttons. I gave up on the pieces of crap, and now I use a toaster for my wireless connection. It doesn't connect very often, but its still more reliable than the linksys ever was.

@jopari:

Could be that they are are all running Safari on their PCs (this would explain the lemons).

Also, maybe the internet stopped working when Apple forced Safari down people's throats while updating iTunes?

@nutbastard: DD-WRT on the WRT54G is pretty damn cool. I haven't rebooted my router since the first Friday in February, I could activate an auto-reboot, but I really want to keep an eye on the stability and want to know when/if it freezes up. For the record, the reason I rebooted was due to a Verizon outage, not a router instability issue.

My favorite feature is being able to assign IP adresses from the routers DHCP, and lock them to that Mac address. My server is always on 192.168.1.50, so I can route all of the traffic to that without fear of reassignment, and without dicking around with Static IPs.

@zenpoet: that reset button you hit in the back clears the nvram that holds the settings. If you want to setup your router each time, go ahead and press it. What is being asked for is a Power interupt - pretty easy to build into it, a nice 30 second timer would make it perfect.

@nutbastard and jkr: I had the wrt54G, and wanted to kick babies it pissed me off so much.

@Lizard_King: I know man, I was saying that was the only thing available on my routers as a response to dbx: . All I want is a power interupt, and I think that, because it DOES solve so many problems, that they should just be built in.

If what nutbastard: says is true, then they should just do it, dammit!

@dbx:
"This magical button you speak of is called the power switch. It's readily accessible and available on every Linksys router and gateway."

...Except, apparently, for MINE (BEFSR41). It only has a recessed reset button (paperclip accessable), and the power cord. To Power-cycle the unit, you have to pull the cord.

@Darrone: Well, good for you.

And thanks for bringing the smug.

Guys, All linksys routers have reset buttons, I have never seen one with a power switch. I agree that it is insane that we all have to unplug and plugin our routers in order for them to work properly but wouldnt it be alot easier/better for everyone is Linksys came out with a patched firmware that automatically reset the router if the internet went out for more than 5 minutes?? or maybe a specific router that had such a feature?

@Lizard_King: Wow, There are a whole lot of commenters here that have no idea what they are talking about.... the RESET BUTTON DOES NOT CLEAR THE NVRAM, UNLESS you hold it down, Then it does a factory reset, Your settings are all safe unless you hold it down.

ALL linksys routers have recessed reset buttons.

I agree that i would spend a bit more on a router that had an auto-reset-when-disconnected feature. Mostly because im in a guest house and waking up roommates at 2am with "sorry internet is out, got to unplug and re-plug it in" is not so fun...... but i could always just flip the circuit breaker ;-)

I detected a Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck moment on the farm with the jump kick which would grab me as a fan if that was the case.

@ivealwaysgotmail10: Umm...yes, and my reset button does NOTHING if you do not hold it down....so where does that mean I don't know what I'm talking about? The reset button on the back does not reset the power. Not on my V1.

I wonder what percentage of the people outside of the giz-type demographic actually understood that as a joke. A novelty sized paper clip in the back of that sucker would have made me chuckle a little more

@nutbastard: Nut, its easy and its super configurable. Just do it. WRT54G FTW!

@ivealwaysgotmail10: duh...retract last statement, it's because of the DD-WRT firmware - i thought it always functioned like this. Sorry for the confusion.