Linguistics, Dancing, and a Few Good Books

31 August 2002

The computer saga continues...

So I went home yesterday to check on the 10.2 installation. Oddly, the computer was off---I figured maybe it had shut down after completing the install? But no, I hit the power button and nothing happened. It was off and it wouldn't come back on. Great. So I went over to Hilary's computer and killed some Babylonians.

This morning the situation was, of course, unchanged. I figured I'd have to send the darn thing in again. But then it dawned on me: what if the power cord were dead somehow? If the battery couldn't charge, and the computer couldn't go to sleep (because it was in install mode), then it would eventually have a hard shutdown. When it does this, you can't turn it back on until his has a power cord plugged in. But if the power cord is dead... I pressed the button on the battery that lights up LEDs to show how full the battery is. It appeared to be dead. Aha!

So I came in to the CIT and found Rob, who has an iBook, to borrow his power cord. And indeed, the computer booted right up. It started installing 10.2 from scratch, so I'm guessing that the hard shutdown occurred in the middle of the install before. At least it hasn't complained so far---something like that could completely hose the system if you're not careful.

It's installing now. One hour and 36 minutes to go.

"The usual conservative has to argue against liberal solutions on liberal grounds: e.g. affirmative action is bad because it doesn't treat all races equally; gays are really demanding "special rights". The antidemocrat can argue more directly: he doesn't believe in equality." --Mark Rosenfelder

Posted 4:14 PM [+]

30 August 2002

It seems that my random quotes file is a hit on =shiggy, so I thought I'd post it here too. For all those people who read this and don't read =shiggy, I mean. Hi mom!

I left the system disks installing MacOS X 10.2 on my laptop while I went off to a grad social, but I suppose it should be installed by now. Will report on that once I've played with it a bit. :)

"I distinguish liberals from progressives, who can be recognized theoretically by their belief that The Man is as oppressive as ever, and operationally by their low-circulation magazines, their Volvos, and their Third World jewelry." --Mark Rosenfelder

Posted 8:36 PM [+]

System 10.2 arrived! Woo hoo!

Posted 3:24 PM [+]

Computer seems to work fine. Civ3 still doesn't. Apparently it has something to do with the funny resolution on the Powerbook G4---but since the laptop also supports the standard 1024x768, it's not at all clear to me why this isn't easily fixed. Well, the 1.29 patch is still being ported to Mac, so maybe that'll fix this. Until then, I'll be making great use of Hilary's computer. :)

This was orientation week for the first year grad students at Brown. It's been neat showing them around and telling them what classes (not) to take and what professors (not) to work with; but the real surprise was today. Today we were joined by a guy named Frank Wood, who went to IMSA with me way back when. We were in the swing choir together. And now he's in the masters program here. I can't even describe how weird that is.

"Liberals believe in equality of opportunity but not of results. In other words, in the game of life we should all start out at about the same place, but there's no maximum level of attainment. That neatly divides us from leftists, who would prefer some sort of ceiling, and from rightists, who don't believe in the level floor." --Mark Rosenfelder

Posted 12:59 PM [+]

29 August 2002

My computer arrived today. Actually, it arrived yesterday, but they dropped it off at the 3rd floor instead of the 4th (because we on the 4th were all at the CS department picnic); then one of the students came downstairs to pick up his own package and they gave them all of them. Love the security around here.

Anyway, now to see if it works....

"Exercises for the Republican reader #4: Compare the GNP with the rate of taxation over the last fifty years-- e.g. the boom years of the '50s with their 90% marginal tax rate-- and practice explaining that high tax rates discourage investment until you can do it with a straight face." --Mark Rosenfelder

Posted 1:29 PM [+]

27 August 2002

Incidentally... the quotes you've been reading for the last few posts come from zompist.com, a site maintained by Mark Rosenfelder containing such diverse elements as the constructed world of Verduria, a SpinnWebe satellite site, and the sci.lang FAQ. There are also a number of essays that are simply a gold mine for great quotes. Go visit, it's pretty cool.

"Exercises for the Republican reader #3: Take your favorite flat tax proposal and your last 1040, and have your acountant calculate how much money it will save you. Find the names of the five or six middle-class people who will have to make up that shortfall, and write them a nice thank-you note." --Mark Rosenfelder

Posted 5:40 PM [+]

The saga continues: I called Apple's tech support late Friday, and they seemed pretty appalled at the treatment I'd gotten. They overnighted (I keep wanting to say and write something like "overnote" there... ah English) me a box to put the computer in, along with a packing label to overnight it back; then they fix it and overnight it back to me. I can only assume this fast-track assistance is due to the shaft I got from the supposed "licensed Apple service center". Anyway, over the weekend I also discovered that even without the extra memory in it (yes, the Brown guy actually took out the memory and taped it to the side of the computer---Apple guy said I might as well leave it out) it still had the wake-up-while-closed problem (in spades), and at least once it did the screen-won't-come-on thing, so it can't have been the memory's fault totally, and Apple has something to fix.

In other news, Hilary encouraged me to play CivIII on her computer since mine was broken, and last night I caved in. After making sure everything else was done (i.e. I was fed and my laundry had been started), I sat down at her computer and started playing. That was about 8:30 or 9. When she got home, at 1:30 (AD 400), I looked up, blinked, and said, "Hi! I think I'd better stop this now." She laughed. Boy howdy, is that game ever addictive. Whatever Michael may say about Civ3 being not as good as Civ2, it's certainly right up there on the addictiveness scale.

Finally, the first-years are here this week, getting orientated; I have shunned all responsibility for this, since I (probably) won't be here next year, and other people should know how to run stuff. I still end up at most of the things and helping out, though. :)

Exercises for the Republican reader #2: Write a homily, suitable for use in Sunday school, explaining why Jesus should have condemned the sheep who demeaned the poor by feeding and clothing them, and blessed the rich man for living in splendor while Lazarus suffered. --Mark Rosenfelder

Posted 11:05 AM [+]