MacWrite? What’s that?
It’s quite trying to have to find 15-year-old install floppies so one can access archived stuff in an obsolete format. (And find a floppy drive while I’m at it.)
I should just thank Eris that the old software even runs. I need one of those Federation tricorders that can access 1000-year-old alien logs in 20-30 seconds of thinking.
Water, fire, and radiation
Monday morning, our oil heater (which handles water and house heating) conked out on us. We had a cold Monday and Tuesday, and a shower with 40-degree water’s not much fun at all.
After discovering that a repair call would cost around $350, we decided to get out the tools and see if we could break anything else get it working again. Last night around 9, we re-discovered fire, and I can add a die or two of “oil heater repair” to the skill list on my character sheet. Hot water is so wonderful when you’ve gone without for 36 hours or so.
My parking garage has switched from magnetic-stripe access cards to RFID cards. I no longer swipe the card through a reader, I just wave the card in the reader’s general direction. Makes me feel like a VIP with a special pass or something.
“Merovingian” is hard to say
I finished The DaVinci Code this weekend. To the point: I’m glad it was a library book. I’d have been okay paying paperback price for it, but it wasn’t worth hardcover cost to me. The actual “These are coded messages in DaVinci’s works” part was interesting enough that I plan to look some of them up when I have the time, but some of them appear to depend heavily on the bias of the researcher. On the other hand, the supposed content of the secret messages startled me not at all: I’d already read about it in GURPS Warehouse 23 (yes, a role-playing game sourcebook). The remaining plot was basic thriller stuff, adequate but not fascinating. The movie will probably do quite well.
I’m happy my cell phone is working again! It got wet last week, and appeared dead as a doornail; but once it dried out completely and the battery recharged, it went back to beeping happily. So that’s a surprise expense I don’t have to worry about.
raininva has a huge article in the new issue of Undefeated magazine talking about Mechwarrior: Age of Destruction, with color CGI ‘Mech illustrations and everything. Kelly Bonilla’s design notes are kind of fun too. According to the website, it will be on shelves Jan 18th.
That’s all for now. The clock just struck 9, so time to get to work.
Rutan’s servers feeling the Monday
I guess I won’t be watching SpaceShipOne’s attempt at the X-Prize. Looks like they’ve been slashdotted. 🙁
The good news of the morning is: my lady is once again living under the same roof as I am. It’s amazing how good it felt to wake up this morning knowing that!
Edit: based on the 5 seconds of video I managed to grab before the badnwidth again freaked out, it looks like they made it. Yay 🙂
Geekery, sappy and comedic
I was lucky enough to be near a broadband connection yesterday when SpaceShipOne went up again. The live feed from the small rear-mounted camera was breath-taking: no movie effects, no footage released by NASA months later; the viewers were all stowaways, participating in this ride.
No thunder, flames, pieces designed to fall off; yesterday some guy just got in a plane and went up to space for a bit, just like all the science fiction said would happen. It doesn’t hurt that his launch system looks like Hayao Miyazaki and Gerry Anderson went out drinking together one night.
You know why I like this setup – both launches have suffered control problems, and both times, it didn’t matter. It was a minor inconvenience, not even as major as a flat tire in a car. That’s the sort of ride I’d feel good about, over a system “guaranteed” to have no issues at all. Leonardo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet learned a truth about systems that “can’t fail”.
In unrelated news, mollyringwraith has posted “Lord of the Rings told in lines from Star Wars“. You should check it out.
GANDALF: Lord Saruman. I should have known. Only you could be so bold. The Wizard Senate will not sit for this, when they hear you’ve attacked a poor little–
SARUMAN: Don’t play games with me, Gandalf. You weren’t on any pipeweed mission this time. You passed directly through a magic-infested area. Several transmissions were beamed to this tower by palantir. I want to know what happened to the Ring you found.
GANDALF: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a friendly old wizard on a diplomatic mission to Hobbiton…
SARUMAN: You’re part of the western Alliance, and a traitor. Take him away!
Add another picture to the Rec Deck
The transport, entertainment, and communications group Virgin has commissioned Bert Rutan to begin construction of the VSS Enterprise next year. This vessel is intended to take passengers on suborbital flights at $200,000 a ticket as part of the new, whimsically named “Virgin Galactic”.
In the past 40 years, the cost of putting a human into space has lost 4 zeros off the right end; perhaps it won’t be too much longer before we lose another two. It may turn out that Heinlein and others were right – space will not belong to countries, but to companies. No matter what, it’s fun to watch.
And a note to rubinpdf – now that we’re putting Rutans into space, can Sontarans be far behind?
Phase One complete
Yes, Virginia, you can fit a futon, mattress and all, in a Hyundai Elantra.
Spent my first night in the new house. The room I’ve slept in for the past three months had crappy A/C, but this morning I woke up a bit chilly – raininva will be pleased. Glad I found my bathrobe in the move. This week I start unpacking what I have with me of my office, which is little more than a mess of boxes at the moment. The commute is easier (it seems so far) than the previous commute, which is nice. I have to find out why the smoke alarm emits random stifled beeps all day, but last night I was far too tired to notice.
Had the sense to take some ibuprofen before bed, so didn’t wake up too sore.
So, it seems a Mac shareware developer released an app which, if you enter a pirated serial number, erases your Home directory – your system and applications survive, but every personal document, music file, movie, e-mail, website, password, etc. is GONE. So, is this just desserts for pirates, or equivalent to burning someone’s house down for punching you in the nose? Discuss.
Tote That Crate!
Mayhem Associates (Little Creek Station) Status Report:
Electrical Systems: Online
Cooling Apparatus: Active
Life Support (Liquids): Intake & Outflow Nominal
Video Display: Ready
Data Transfer: Functional
Voice Transmission: Offline, expected within 24 hours
I just need to make about two more trips, and Phase One of the move will be complete. Funny how the new place didn’t really seem like it was ‘ours’ until I could use the bathroom and run the AC 🙂
