May 2008
44 posts
Good news and bad news
GOOD NEWS: I got my PowerBook back and its logic board is nice and WORKING. I’ve also upgraded the hard drive myself with no major problems (okay, so I dropped the hard drive once BUT IT STILL WORKS). BAD NEWS: I somehow put the keyboard back in CROOKED and now I can’t get it back out to straighten again. I bent a small part of the keyboard needlessly… remember to remove ALL the...
What's an emo? →
The BBC takes on a subculture enigma. </sarcasm>
FAIL! →
I'M GRADUATING COLLEGE IN THE MORNING
…That is all I wanted to say. No deep thoughts or anything… have headache, need sleep.
Geek dream
This morning, I had a dream in which I installed a wireless card for an attractive person I know in real life. I think I have reached a new level of geekiness.
Videos starring OS X
Think Dennis Liu was original in using his Leopard desktop as the basis for a music video? Turns out he ain’t got nothing on Scientific American. …And also Donnie Hoyle.
My day in some particular order
Work for the first time in a long while.
Refused to pay absurd price for hard drive replacement in the PowerBook.
Japanese food (and lots of left-overs for breakfast).
Got ready for senior night at the club.
Power hour and the most I have ever drunk. Ever.
Not ending up going to senior night due to extreme misery.
Used Wii-mints for toothpaste substitute.
Eventually became no longer...
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A bit of optimism amidst earthquake ruins →
Chinese students understand reality like no one else.
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'Death Note' Manga Spawns Movie, Crime Wave →
It seems that an article about Death Note crops up every once in a while. The film is apparently officially debuting in the U.S. today/tomorrow, thus prompting the latest batch of articles. Barring the annoying actors, it was a pretty good movie adaptation… and I actually think the manga series should’ve ended the way the movie did, instead of dragging on another ten years to a slow...
WatchI got my touch screen so of course I had to tape it onto my iBook and mess around.
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Perfection is...
…popcorn just ever-so-slightly over-popped, so that what’s left of the kernel skin is a deep brown and you can just taste a hint of something smoky.
I'm surprised I didn't know of this site. →
It’s dedicated to the childhood dreams of so many Mac fans: a 12” MacBook Pro. Doubt it will happen, but it would SO make my day. The limited resolution doesn’t bother me… that’s what my big external monitor is for.
In other news, my 12” PowerBook is currently on its way to California…
HAH!
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
“48 HOURS. 2 HOURS OF SLEEP. AUGH.”
– guess
Adobe's Suite Life Sweepstakes →
It says you must purchase an Adobe Creative Suite edition to be entered to win (prize is the Master Collection, which is like Windows Ultimate, but with Adobe’s software), BUT a quick perusal of the rules reveals that NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY. One needs only to submit this form.
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Touch screen iBook hackery notes (most people can...
This is more of a note to myself… and I guess anyone who ACTUALLY cares about this stuff.
A little background: Mac portable tablets have been done and done again (and I can’t forget the Modbook)… which is actually good for me, because I don’t care about breaking new ground and would rather there be existing examples for reference. The original plan was to just turn the...
AmEx math
American Express keeps trying to give me a Blue travel rewards card. Let’s do some math on their rewards terms:
First, they have this “exclusive” offer which pretty much advertises their dinky rewards terms:
7,500 bonus points, equivalent to a $100 statement credit, that you can redeem for airline tickets, hotel stays, or any other type of travel —- after your first $500...
Paper progress
I started writing at 4pm. It is now 3:25am and I have 12 pages. That is a little better than 1 page/hour (and I took a 2 hour break in between)!
The bad news is that I am not even onto the analysis section of this thing yet. Well, I have 12 more hours until it’s due! (Unfortunately, some of that time will be devoted to sleeping, eating, a meeting, and staring off into space).
CAN IT PLEASE END TONIGHT? →
P.S. The Brits are funny.
Flash is the way of the future (and by "future" I...
Stupid ideas involving flash memory:
Make my 4G black and white iPod flash-based (okay, this is actually a somewhat reasonable hack to do if I use the iPod for another year).
Make my iBook flash-based (its hard drive is only 20GB anyway…).
Make my PowerBook flash-based (in the distant future when two 32GB cost less than $60).
…I have to stop.
The repair saga begins...
Not that anyone cares, but I have very little going on in my life right now (unless you want to hear about my progress on my three final papers).
So I’ve shopped around a bit for quotes on logic board replacements for my PowerBook. PowerBook Medic and the PowerBook Guy gave ballpark quotes that landed well outside the Green Monster and started bouncing off cars in the $600-700 lot....
WatchFor no reason at all, a very short video of what a VRAM failure looks like in verbose mode (AKA, my computer being broken).
Speaking of which, turns out the parents would like to keep the PowerBook, so its going to get repairs instead of the eBay treatment. Maybe a new logic board will allow it to run Leopard better this time…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ...but yes... but NOOOOOO!
According to the Apple Hardware test, the video RAM on my PowerBook is broken. Unfortunately, that business is soldered onto the motherboard, so I would need the whole shebang replaced …and that stuff costs major body parts.
This is about the time my hopes of getting a new laptop becomes a real necessity.
That pretty much means the PowerBook is destined for intrepid hackers on eBay...
Two laptops + two hard drives = one desperate...
…this getting-my-PowerBook-working-again business is becoming quite complex. You should see my ridiculous set up right now.
NOW MY BACKUP HARD DRIVE IS BROKEN
This is not fun. Stuck on a G3 iBook with no wireless and a CD drive held close by tape. At least it says comfortably cool in my lap. Now to write three papers on this thing…
Kelly's new MacBook
Kelly: oh my god it's magical
Me: the magsafe?
Kelly: i love how i'm givig you a play by play
Me: yeah, i played with my friend's
Me: i think she was worried about my attention to a little plug
Kelly: nobody else understands..
Me: TURN IT ON TURN IT ON
Kelly: i'm going i'm going jesus
MY COMPUTER BROKE
If I believed in a higher power, this would’ve truly been an excellent sign that someone/something was smiting me for all of the kittens I’ve kicked in my life (disclaimer: I have never kicked—nor do I ever plan on kicking—kittens).
Basically, my almost three-year-old PowerBook just had a kernel panic (something like its 4th under Tiger) and now the operating system...
April 2008
47 posts
Word to my city ...and libraries.
I love Boston. Especially when the weather is not doing this making-humanity-all-miserable thing it so likes to do.
I had to make a day-trip there today to look up a certain ancient Chinese art object in the MFA and Boston Public Libraries. Got myself a shiny new BPL card in the process. I feel that happy geek warmth that only a new, bright orange library card can bring.
So apparently, the...