WEEK 10 2008
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First Post,
17 March 2002
|
Six Years
Ago, This Week, 2002 |
Five Years
Ago, This Week, 2003 |
Four
Years Ago, this
week, 2004 |
Three Years
Ago, This Week, 2005 |
Two Years
Ago,
This Week, 2006
|
A Year Ago,
This Week, 2007
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Saturday
- I did a bit of garage sale searching, with friends. I didn't really
end up with much but it was fun. I saw a carpet, but it was a
fairly deep green - a bit dark for a small room. But I may go back on
Sunday and see if it's still there. Also a desk, though again, it
wouldn't be my first choice, being primarily faux wrought iron with
wooden writing surfaces. But then this room is just a place to
hang my hat for a few months, not a home.
I'm on the Linux box. I was going to start up the desktop Windows box
when I arrived home on Friday, but decided to try a weekend without
Windows. So far, so good. This is KompoZer again.
Plus the Windows box overheats easily. I suspect the heat sink has come
loose from the CPU, but have been too lazy to go look. As long as I am
just web surfing or emailing the temperature stays under control. Try
to run an anti-virus scan or do some video editing and it overheats.
My friends 14 year old asked if it would be possible to put Linux on
one of his old desktops. It's something like a 600MHz P3, with about a
10GB disk - he has much newer laptop and desktop systems. It should be easy. I was surprised, but he's computer
literate - he used to have an old Redhat 9 laptop that I gave him. Also
numberless Xbox's, Play Stations and all that embedded gaming gear. In
many ways he is more conversant with the cutting edge of computer stuff than I
am.
His parents asked it it was possible to upgrade their TIVO's hard
drive. I think I've seen links about that, on line, and it's doable. I'll have to check.
Friday 7 March
2008
Friday
- just a half day, since the county had the day off. It was a nice day,
but the channel was a bit brutal - rock and cobbles, rough dry river
bottom
stuff. And me without my good boots. The weather was decent, although I
didn't have my good straw hat either.
Listened to Chernow on Alexander Hamilton on the way home. He explained
that both Jefferson and Adams were of the agrarian persuasion, and
considered banks - and bankers - evil thieves. Thus begins one of the
reasons for
their distrust of Hamilton. Jefferson, along with Madison (both
southern planters chronically in debt to bankers) were willing to agree
to the assumption of state debts in return for a Potomac (southern)
site for the Federal City, which is now called Washington, D.C.. But
with the brouhaha over the First
Bank of the United States the north/south
federalist/republican split became obvious.
Hamilton was probably right in what was needful. But the founding of
the First Bank of the
US, and Hamilton's interpretation of the 'necessary and sufficient'
clause has led to a great deal of power for the U.S. government that
isn't actually spelled out in the Constitution, just as Adams and
Jefferson feared.
You
wouldn't think banking and finance would be
interesting, but the story of the first truly American speculative
bubble - that being shares in Hamilton's First Bank of the United
States - was
riveting. And entertaining - poor Hamilton was horrified by it. He was
trying to project a staid conservative banker image, and his major
triumph as treasury secretay starts 'Script Mania'.
Perhaps
some of Hamilton's statements about the value of contracts, and the
value of holding to them, apply to todays subprime mortgage debtors.
Thursday
6 March 2008
Thursday
- keeping busy. After work we had a meeting yesterday, and tonight
another. The days get a big long after a while.
And it was an annoying day. I woke up late. Spilled coffee on myself.
Discovered that the brand new inverter for the car doesn't work.
Somehow deleted all the GPS points for the entire day. Jeez.
The new place is working out OK though. I've a dresser, a closet, a
bed. I need a little desk for a TV and maybe the laptop. A chair, and a
clothes hamper. A little bookshelf, perhaps. A carpet of some sort.
A toaster. Maybe a one-cup coffee maker, though instant coffee is
quicker and less messy. Mostly I just sleep there, so it needn't be
fancy. The owner says that,
if I can find a place for it, the kayak can be stored there. It's a two
seater and takes up a LOT of deck room on the Nor'sea, so I'll probably
take him up on that.
Wednesday 5 March 2008
Wednesday
- another long day. Seen in the channel:
Raccoons?
My father tells me that he's finished the sequel to Pillars of The
Earth, World
Without End, by Ken Follett. He says it was excellent. Also
that it was 36 CD's!
Tuesday 4 March 2008
Tuesday
- back at work. A long day, then we spent some time going over data
later. Trying to get organized at the new place.
Monday 3 March 2008
Monday
- push comes to shove, and it's tax time again. It worked out OK, but
it was close. I can deduct some medical stuff and SEP contributions (my
tax lady says) and that's all that keeps me from paying the man. Ugh. I
need more deductions...
Then down to Ventura and a move into a new place. It's a room in a
house - time to move off my friends' couch. So far it seems pretty
quiet.
Another Hamilton tape done. Lot's of stuff on Assumption, and the
famous dinner with Madison and Jefferson.
Sunday 2 March 2008
Sunday
- haircut day. Getting a bit shaggy. Got in under the wire at the
haircut place this morning - they were going to do some training and
were technically closed, but being that it was a return customer and my
default haircut is one step above a buzz cut they let me in. Even did
my ear hairs ;-) I left them a big tip.
I also tried to buy some groceries but the power in the store went out.
Tried to buy gas - power in the station was out. Tried to get money
from the ATM and, well, you get the picture. Went home and all the UPS
were
beeping incessantly. I never hooked up the control software or cables
for them so I couldn't log into them to turn off the beeps. Very
annoying.
So, when a friend of a friend called up with computer problems I headed
over to do my magic. Internet connectivity problems.
First I checked that the phone was working - it was a DSL setup. This
took a few minutes, they didn't have a non-mobile handset about so we
had to move the wireless base station to the jack in the study where
the computer was. It turned out OK, we had a dial tone (That doesn't
prove that the DSL signal is going through, but it's the best way I
know to check that something
is going through). So I then tried checking the modem/router - pinged
it from a terminal window and got a reasonable response. I tried
logging in
via 192.168.1.1 and got to the login screen - but no-one knew
the passwords.
So I tried the default fix: turn everything off, including the modem,
then turn it on. That fixed it. They should all be that easy.
Then we went out for lunch, at the Texas Cattle Company.
Returning home, mid afternoon, the power was back on.
I watched Kill Bill #1
and Kill Bill #2
this weekend, on the
television. Silly really.
I also finished off Book
#9, The
Clan Corporate by Charles Stross. This is the third in a
series, those being this years Book
#1 The
Family Trade and Book
#2 The
Hidden Family
being the earlier books. The first two weren't great Sci-Fi, but were
OK. Book three falters a bit, even from that modest level. Our heroine
doesn't actually do
anything,
except get herself beat up, blackmailed, blacklisted and almost married
off against her will to a royal scion labeled 'The Idiot'.
It's irksome when an author has to make the protagonist do things that
he/she wouldn't normally do, in order to advance the plot. (Change the
plot instead!) In this case an obstinacy bordering on the pathological,
and a refusal to even think about how another culture might view things
- completely at odds with the first two books in which our heroine
manages things pretty well. And of course the portrayal of the
NSA
and U.S. military as blundering violent idiots, and the injection into
the story of an FBI agent that just happens to be an
old boyfriend doesn't help in suspension of disbelief.
Heh. I see that the reviewers at Amazon are a bit underwhelmed as well.
