Periodically, I look up the Pegasus
Mail
site to see if there have been any upgrades. PM.is a very stable and problem-free
client, so there have sometimes been several versions released by the time
I get back from the previous visit. This time, there were only minor bug-fixes
to v3.12c, but this is supposed to represent the "last and best"
of the 3.x series. Work is underway to completely re-write the codebase for
version 4. Anyway, I downloaded and installed without incident. This is probably
only of interest to those of you who don't use Outlook (aka Borglook) or
are for some other reason not yet assimilated and pst-ified.
Nevertheless, I note the upgrade availability.
Tomorrow, I'm off to Gothenburg on business, and for a change I'm not going
to lug around the notebook. Hence chances of updates are minimal unless I
borrow a connected system somewhere and post on the
wiki comment page.
If a day goes by without any update here, check that page as well.
If I was very much on the move, I'd probably have the entire journal on a
limited-edit wiki, since that gives the easiest (web-based) update model.
I would have to think about a different structure then. The date/week oriented
approach seen here would be toned down in favor of titled articles. (Updates
are automatically listed chronologically by Recent Changes.) Hmm,
I might still do such a change some day. It would re-integrate journaling
and reader feedback, and might be worthwhile just for that reason alone.
Looking back over 13 months of ISDN usage, I see that my online time is pretty
constant. (Such stats are of course meaningless to those of you who have
24/7 flat rate cable. If nothing else, your usage patterns change considerably
depending on your type of connectivity. Even dial-up modem to dial-up ISDN
is a world of difference.)
Television has proved that people will look at anything rather
than each other.
There's been some discussion lately about the "docu-soaps" phenomenum --
Big Brother, the Bar, Villa Losers, Strip
King's Girls, ... their name is Legion, along with cinematic portrayals
of similar themes. Premise: broadcasting a group of people as they are, 24/7
(edited down to daily episodes for normal tv), give them "tasks" of one kind
or another, and winnow down the participants until only one walks away with
a "large enough" cash prize. Sometimes it's more games show, sometimes talk-show
out of studio, sometimes it's video therapy, but at root it's the same. Instead
of fictional soaps, give the audience real people in contrived situations.
As an added bonus, unwitting "external" people can become involved. The overhead
to make these shows is so minimal -- at its cheapest you simply give someone
a cam to "document" their life and environment. Optionally, some edit time
with studio people.
When I first read about this concept, in 60s and 70s science fiction, it
seemed like a very unlikely future indeed, yet we're there without really
grasping how it happened. The insatiable demand for (ever more extreme)
programming to fill the seemingly endless number of channel hours makes these
kinds of shows inevitable, I guess. The whole concept was summed up in a
satirical cartoon as a half-dressed man slouched in front of a tv watching
a half-dressed woman sitting in front of a tv watching...
Liberty is the right to choose. Freedom is the result of the
right choice.
Out of town on business, travel day. For reference, the wiki posting
for Thursday is copied here...
Thursday, July 27, 2000 at 04:16 (servertime, 10:16 GMT+2)
Good morning all. Took a while to get to any connectivity (albeit I wasn't
trying hard), but here I am.
It's been remarkably dreary weather, with plenty of grey sky and drizzle
-- when it hasn't rained of course :) If this summer keeps on like this,
people might even "abandon country". Already, sales of trips to vacation
resorts down south, or further afield (Asia) are at record levels as Swedes
try to reach sun and warmth.
Last night was grand fun, since a gang of folks here decided to make an evening
of it to see the ST-parody Galactic Quest. I haven't laughed so
much for a long time. It very successfully lampoons everything from SF
conventions to the sometimes truly awful scripts that TV SF shows have committed
to posterity. The film pretty much says it all, but in an entertaining way
-- it actually manages to have a decent plot of its own amid all the hilarious
fun. The characters are more than the cardboard cutouts that one might expect,
the effects are good, and there are loads of inside jokes.
When you've seen this film, a moment's sober thought. The wave-front of the
first ST episodes now makes a roughtly 70 lightyear sphere around our system.
Might somebody already now within this spehere of influence be
reverse-engineering the technology implied by these episodes?
--
Backreading through some of the Daynote regulars, I find much worthy of thought
and comment. Sadly, I've not the time to comment much. In a little over an
hour from now I'll again be on the road, heading home, my immediate comcerns
in Gothenburg addressed as far as I can for this visit.
I will however make this comment about something Brian Bilbrey notes on one
of his notes earlier this week: ... What the corporate support contracts
are for is not "expensive answers", but answers RIGHT NOW. Immediacy costs
money. ...
This has a broader scope than just support. It is perhaps a fundamental rationale
for "employment" in general. As the trite saying goes, when you get a job,
you sell your time; agreeing to be "available" at the immediate call of your
employer -- at least during the agreed on working hours. To a lesser extent,
it is also true of consulting, that is for the duration of a project and
the contracted deadlines or milestones.
I'm thinking about that a bit now, since there's a possibility that I may
sign up for an interesting job soon. In at least one case, I have the option
of accepting either consultancy or employment. Pros and cons with both, and
something I need to think about.
The sad reality is that book revenue (advances) is as yet far from enough
to live on, and I must devote more time to ensuring that the day-to-day needs
of my family are met. A year and a half of full-time book work has been an
investment which has not yet begun paying off from that perspective. That
may change as royalty flow starts, but one must bridge the immediate gaps.
Back to routines. It was all in all a very rewarding trip, and we'll see
in a few weeks where it all will lead.
When I arrived, yesterday, I dropped by my local PC supplier (where I bought
this notebook once) to pick up the extra HD tray I had ordered. This had
actually come on Monday, and I figured I might pick it up on my way out on
Tuesday. Fat chance, cumulative delays meant I had just time to take a taxi
and go. But on the way home, I arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule, which
gave me ample time to drop in.
Surprise 1: the tray was not a replacement primary, as I had assumed, to
swap main harddisk, but a secondary that exchanged for the floppy module.
Very interesting -- I'd been told they would never have one of those for
this model.
Surprise 2: I couldn't fit the tray mechanically into the lock position.
I was a bit stressed for time, so I left it.
Anyway, today I decided to look more closely. The HD tray seemed the same
as the floppy tray, but while the floppy one slid in and clicked smoothly
into place, the HD one just clunked to a halt a half-inch out. I checked
this, I checked that, and nothing. Didn't feel like it could be "forced"
either. But a one point I pushed just so, sideways on the front
end, and click, it was home. Weird. Did it again just to make sure.
Same thing.
Ok, it fit, finally. In with the old 2 Gb harddisk. Started up in primary
C (Win95) to see what it all looked like. The tech rep had said that the
BIOS would autodetect and re-configure on the fly, no jumpers necessary.
And so it did, except that the second drive produced a "not an ATAPI device".
Hmm, reboot into BIOS settings, change a few of them relating to what's supposed
to be on which bus. Ok, both drives recognized as working IDE. Predictably,
the second drive's primary usurped the D slot, but with PartitionMagic from
C, I hid the second primary partition and rebooted. But where had the CD
player gone? No tweaking of BIOS settings got me back the CD.
Hmm, forget the "no-jumpers" advice. I had a few IDE-pin jumpers somewhere.
I pulled the secondary and jumpered it as slave. Back into BIOS, ensure CD
is secondary IDE master, and autodetect HD as secondary slave. On into boot.
This time everything was where it was supposed to be. Therese thereafter
occupied the system with a session of The Sims, which resided on the second
HD.
Dual harddisks gives me some other options to use this space than I had thought
of. Needs thinking about, because I can now completely blow away the existing
system partitions on that second drive.
Hell, there are no rules here; we're trying to accomplish
something. -- Thomas A. Edison
--
Today was Friday. End of Month from the point of view of rent and bills,
since Monday would have been a bit late to take care of payments. Therefore
I undertook the now mandatory hike across town to the remaining open branch
of "my" bank, passing the still-open post office on the way. Trudge trudge,
wait wait, trudge trudge... While waiting my turn at the bank, I followed
the arrows and signs, and with nothing better to do tried out the demo of
their "Internet bank". It was depressingly broken and IE finally crashed
the site with a scattershot rendition of raw html. If anyone with connections
in non-Swedish banks is reading, this moment in time clearly represents a
window of opportunity for anyone who wants to enter the market -- just establish
popular banking services. Chatting with other customers revealed
ample disgust with the current domestic banks and their cutbacks on personal
service and open branches.
Never argue with a fool. Someone watching may not be able to
tell the difference.
So, latest new theory of why the dinosaurs disappeared: they farted
their way to extinction! Dino non-stop flatulence = much methane = ozone
depletion = ecosystem changes = dino starvation. Yeah, well, hmm...
I see that Napster gets to continue for now and MP3.com made an arrangement
with EMI. The landscape is changing, not necessarily in ways that we will
like.
And extrapolating the reports of Malcolm's adventures of late, I'd be willing
to wager that by Christmas it will be Malcolm posting journal on Bob Thompson's
site, describing the antics of that crazy human he keeps locked up downstairs...
Here, the now-monthly bulk-rubbish containers are full. More or less, and
the scavengers have already been through much of the junk. We managed to
dump some stuff, and plan on cleaning out some more before they disappear
again on Monday.
I keep seeing so-called experts and keynote speakers now consistently denouncing
HTML as "visual markup". Strange. Clearly someone reprogrammed the newspeak
discomburparator again. The first time I seriously reacted to that sort of
semantical degradation was many years ago when everyone started talking about
14 or 33 or 56 "kbaud" modems. Even technically knowledgeable people shrugged
at my insistence that this was nonsense and that it should have been "kbps".
Trouble is, when language use shifts so that the majority uses words a different
way, then it is hard to keep to the old usage, even when this would retain
useful nuances of meaning. There is much truth to the concept that control
of a people's use of language is central to control of that people.
Well now, what was today? A lot of exhausting work trying to sort out stuff
to throw away, is what. And a day of taking stock and drawing up the broad
outlines of where we want to go from here. Always good to discuss this
periodically in the family: whence, where, whither. You need to
look about and see when the next leap of faith through a passing window of
opportunity is appropriate. Otherwise nothing much happens in your life.
I've done that kind of leap several times, each time radically changing my
path through life -- but it's never easy to know what, where, or when until
the precise moment is at hand. Then, if you're looking, the pieces are all
momentarily aligned and the leap is possible, even obvious and inevitable.
On the other hand, if you're not paying attention, the moment passes and
you are left with a nagging feeling of something missed. Still, inevitable
or not when seen, it requires a certain amount of faith to commit when the
time is right, to let go of the seemingly secure status quo and reach for
something new and uncertain.
Yes, there are changes in the air. I'll keep you posted on things as they
develop.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to
the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to
control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely
present. -- Tao The Ching
