Monthly Archive for August, 2001

Benjy, the Power(Book)less

Published
by
Benjy
on Thursday August 30, 2001
in Apple, Computers, Despair, Hardware, PowerBookless, PowerBooks and Stupidity
. 2 Comments

Hi. I'm feeling very helpless and kind of depressed at the moment.

You see, today I got 512 megs of RAM for the lower slot in my PowerBook, and I quickly put it in, and my PowerBook quickly did not boot up. Not even a chime or a crash. Just silence. Nothing.

I was pretty calm about it the first time. I've had plenty of things not work the first time. So I pulled everything back apart, and double checked some instructions, and I put everything together again, and my PowerBook didn't boot again. Rinse and Repeat, several times.

It quickly came to be 2 o'clock, and I had class, so I left my laptop in pieces in the office. I felt naked walking around campus because my backpack was seven pounds lighter than normal. And for three hours I sat in class, growing more and more anxious about my PowerBook. For the last hour of 170 I could barely stay focused (That the lecturer is hard to understand doesn't help. That the lecturer is going over the exact same thing as last semester when I didn't get into the class, but attended for three weeks, helps even less).

I hurried back to the office, and I renewed my attempts to make my poor little PowerBook boot. I found this page of links to official Apple Service Manuals (the same manuals that an official repair-person would use). I tried the trouble-shooting tactics that I was capable of with my limited resources (I don't have a whole spare PowerBook of parts to drop in as a replacement), but it was all for naught.

And then there was a breakthrough! For three hours I'd been trying to make my PowerBook boot, but the processor card hadn't been seated. I felt like a fool -- I should have noticed that the card was freely coming out, but that I'd had to really tug to actually remove it in the first place -- I'd just been afraid to apply enough pressure to get it back in. With relief, I put everything back together, put in my batteries, hit the power button, and listened to the beautiful sound of

Nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. I took it apart and put it back together a few more times, trying all the permutations of the RAM. I made sure to actually seat the processor card each time. And each time, nothing. So I gave up and walked home, planning to try using my AC power adapter instead of my batteries.

But when I got home and pulled the PowerBook out of my backpack, it was warm, bordering on hot. It felt like it normally feels after several hours of constant use. I quickly took the batteries out and pulled off the keyboard, and found the insides very hot. So I let it cool down for awhile while I cooked dinner. After dinner, I plugged in the AC adapter, but it still didn't power on, and it started heating up just like it had with the batteries in my backpack.

So I unplugged it and removed the batteries and put it in the bag. I'm going to take it to the Mac Store on Saturday, since I'm booked solid with meetings and class tomorrow. I hope they'll be able to do something. At the very least, they should have the resources to run more tests and narrow down what the problem is. And if the Mac Store can't help, I'll try calling Apple.

And if it can't be fixed? Well, I already skimmed eBay looking at used Pismo PowerBooks. I already have lots of accessories for this PowerBook that are incompatible with new Apple Portables (an extra battery and an extra power adapter, for starters). I also like the design of the Pismo better than the new Apple portables, and I happen to like having a dual of batteries. And for that matter, even if they can fix my laptop, I'm seriously considering picking up a used Pismo in six months or a year as a backup, because I like it that much and I want spare parts.

But without my PowerBook, I'm feeling very... out of sorts. In fact, I'm feeling kind of powerless. I can't work in class, and my freedom of work at home is seriously impaired. I wasn't able to watch TV without getting really upset, because I always have my PowerBook with me when I'm watching TV. And tonight I'm using my desktop (for more than five minutes) for the first time in months. Basically, I've become totally dependent on a laptop instead of a desktop, and I'm going to have to get some sort of working laptop in the next month or I'm going to get really cranky.

And for that matter, I better have a working mac by the time OS X 10.1 comes out. Bah, it looks like paying to fix my stupid mistake is going to be karmic balance for working 60 hours of overtime this pay period.

Linkstew or LinkStew?

Published
by
Benjy
on Thursday August 30, 2001
in LinkStew
. Closed

I'm wildly inconsistant in how I capitalize Linkstew. In fact, on the old version of the page, the title bar said "Linkstew" while the header said "LinkStew." Why?

Because they're both right. LinkStew is a play on words, and it has two meanings, and neither capitalization effectively captures both meanings. So I'm just going to continue to alternate. Lately I've been tending more towards Linkstew, but I'm sure in another month I'll be tending towards LinkStew. So no, they're not typos, it's just me being intentionally inconsistant.

Forms of Folklore

Published
by
Benjy
on Wednesday August 29, 2001
in Berkeley: School, Dream, Folklore, Ideas, Perspective and Procrastination
. 1 Comment

I had my first classes today, and one of them was Anthro 160, "Forms of Folklore." And after just one lecture, I'm really looking forward to it. I feel an itching at the back of my brain telling me that this is something that I'm going to enjoy, and I haven't seen anything to disprove that yet.

I've heard three things about this class: Good professor, interesting material, bad bad evil term project. And yes, the project is a little insidious, but it doesn't seem that bad...

The project? Collect (at least) 40 pieces of folklore from friends and family and whoever you can find, and gather information about where the informant learned that lore, and what the informant (and others) thinks it means, and so on. Each item is a separate entity, and is supposed to be prepared individually. Analysis of one piece is not supposed to cross-reference the analysis of another piece. Basically, the project is collect 40 pieces of folklore, and then write 40 short reports about all that folklore. And for seven of those pieces, find a printed parallel of that piece of folklore, and examine the parallels and differences. And yes, there's a shear bulk of work to do there, but I think it will be interesting.

If I could get my ducks in a row and didn't have a project to finish for work, Fray Day would be the perfect place for me to start this project. But that's probably not going to happen. My folklore archive isn't due until December 7th, though, so I've got all kinds of time... so I say now.

For the curious, one of the most integral characteristics of folklore is apparently multiple realization. That is, different versions of the story are known all over the place. If someone says "The way I heard it...", you're dealing with folklore.

And in case you can't tell, I'm feeling very drawn in already, and I'm not quite sure what to make of that. I'm vaguely thinking about what a blog version of a folklore archive would be like, but I guess I should wait and see how my folklore archive itself turns out. Well, it would be kind of like In Passing, only more focused and with more detail and analysis and categorization.

Stew Reviews Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Published
by
Benjy
on Monday August 27, 2001
in Apple, Closure, Laugh, Movies, Nostalgia, Reviews and Viewaskew
. 6 Comments

Honestly, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was my least favorite Kevin Smith to date. Which isn't to say that I disliked the movie. I enjoyed it a lot, and I laughed throughout, and the innumerable references to the other movies felt like a treat in every scene. But unlike Smith's other movies, there just weren't any redeeming qualities to be found. There were plenty of jokes, and I believe I laughed at every one of them. But the question is, how long is it possible to get laughs out of dick and fart jokes from a pair of idiots? And of course, Kevin Smith realized the answer is "not much longer," and so he packed them all the low brow jokes he possibly could into this movie about a couple of fools.

My biggest complaint is probably that the movie kind of trailed off at the end, and didn't offer much closure on the characters. And that's not a very big complaint, because I'm sure that when the special edition DVD of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is released, there'll be plenty of reminiscing and closure to be had. But where there wasn't closure, there was plenty of self-referential humor, which I'm a pretty big fan of.

It's a tough call, but yes, I liked Mallrats better than Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. For starters, Mallrats had a much more coherent, focused story, while Jay and Silent Bob get distracted and are all over the map. Second, there's one notable scene in Mallrats that I felt was funnier than anything in all of Jay and Silent Bob. And finally, Mallrats had very nice closure in the end, and I'm a sucker for closure. Of course, Dogma, Chasing Amy, and Clerks are in a whole other league, and I'm not even going to discuss them in comparison to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

And yes, I'm such a geek that the first thing I did when I got home was pull out my copy of Chasing Dogma to attempt to reconcile the timeline in my mind. And yes, I noticed all the Apple placements. Holden had four Macs in his studio!

Will you like this movie? If you liked any other Kevin Smith movie, you almost certainly will. It's most like Mallrats, but it's not the same sort of movie at all. Other than that, if you're any sort of fan of comedies with very straightforward humor, you should be able to enjoy this even if you don't catch the multitudinous viewaskewniverse references.

And again, just because it was my least favorite of the five movies doesn't mean that I didn't like it. I did like it, and I laughed a lot. I just liked it less than four other movies that I like a lot. 3.5/5.

Goals of Fall 2001 Future

Published
by
Benjy
on Monday August 27, 2001
in Berkeley: School, Computers, Gaiman, Games, Goals, Life, Nintendo: Gamecube, Pratchett and The Stew
. 1 Comment

This is pretty much a quick list off the top of my head, based on what I didn't do this summer and what I know I want to do.

  • Read House of Leaves, some Gaiman or another that I haven't read, and Pratchett's The Last Hero (assuming it gets released on schedule).
  • Stumble through another semester without failing.
  • Play Metal Gear Solid (I'm already half done with it) before Metal Gear Solid 2 comes out, play Xenogears before Xenosaga comes out, etc.
  • Do my best to prepare for the release of the Gamecube on November 18th, by hopefully getting ahead in school before it's too late.
  • Actually overhaul that other site I work on.
  • Actually consolidate my Desktop computers, and turn the remains into a PC for my brother.
  • Meet with my advisor to make sure that I'll be able to stay at Berkeley another year, and if I can't stay an undergrad, make plans to take tests and apply to Grad School. Yes, this is as backwards as it sounds.
  • Get a life outside of work.
  • Dust the untouched corners of my apartment. Notably, the shelves in my room.
  • Get new ideas for The Stew from CS 170 and 188, and possibly implement them.

Yeah, that's more than I'll be able to do, and I know it. I'm already performing triage in my head, and yes, the games are (well, not counting the Gamecube) are going to be the first to get the cut.

Goals of Summer 2001 Past

Published
by
Benjy
on Sunday August 26, 2001
in Apartment, Books, Gaiman, Games, Goals, Pratchett, Television and Vocation
. Closed

At the beginning of the summer, I laid out these goals. Let's see how I met them:

  • Yes, I finished Employees, and yes, we migrated everything to our new primary web server. Yahoo!
  • Yes, I gave Linkstew a total overhaul.
  • No, I didn't do anything to that other site I work on. Boo. =(
  • I finished Zelda 64, but I didn't finish the other three games I planned to. Instead, I played a lot of Mario Party, flirted briefly with Star Wars Super Bombad Racing, played my Game Boy Advance and beat Castlevania: Circle of the Moon twice, and then played a lot of Gran Turismo 3 (review forthcoming).
  • Not only did I read Science of Discworld, but I also read American Gods and the entire Sandman series. Reviews forthcoming.
  • I didn't really even think about doing anything to my desktop computers. They're exactly as they were at the start of the summer.
  • I gave my apartment a couple of pretty good cleanings, and threw away a lot of old junk as part of a bit of a purging.
  • I got a TiVo, and actually ended up watching more Television than I really planned.
  • And I really didn't have much of a life at all outside of work and my roommate.

Here school comes, Again

Published
by
Benjy
on Sunday August 26, 2001
in Berkeley: School, Busy, Money, Relief, School, UNIX and Vocation
. Closed

School starts tomorrow, which is moderately confusing because for the last three years classes have started on a Tuesday. But then I'm confused back in the other direction when I remember that I don't have any classes on Monday, and I don't start on Tuesday until 2 pm.

I just did my time sheet today, and I worked more than 60 hours a week for three weeks in a row. Somehow I've managed to delude myself into believing that I'll be less busy once classes start. But considering that 60 hours is three quarters of what I'm supposed to work in an entire month during the school year, it might just be true.

And I'm only taking 13 units, which will be the lightest class schedule I've had since my first semester at Berkeley. I'm taking CS 188 and CS 170 for my major, Anthropology 160 (Folklore) because it sounds interesting, and CS 9E because I needed a one unit class for my scholarship. CS 9E is "Productive use of a unix environment," and considering that I'm only productive with unix at my fingertips, it ought to be an easy unit, at that.

Why do I need that magical 13th unit? For my scholarship. And considering that this is the first semester I'm getting anything more than a measly $500 stipend, I'm not about to risk it by trying to petition to take only 12 units. Speaking of my scholarship, the check came in the mail on Wednesday, and so I actually bought a few books yesterday.

I'm kind of looking forward to 170 and 188, to get new ideas about things I can do with all the information in the stew, and new ways to do it more efficiently. And I'm kind of looking forward to Anthro 160, because I've heard good things about it, and folklore interests me.

And yes, I'm very, very bitter that I can't into CS 160.

Linkstew++ is feature complete

Published
by
Benjy
on Saturday August 25, 2001
in Delight, Feedback, Info Systems, LinkStew, The Stew and Web
. 8 Comments

After only two nights of coding, the shiny and new (but not very different) Linkstew not only has all the features of the old Linkstew, but it's got many new features as well.

So what are these shiny new features of Linkstew? Well...

  • Comments. My main use for comments is actually for personal annotation of entries (and to occasionally complain about bad posts), but it's an open system, and everyone is free to contribute. Just hit the "++" link in the corner to join the fray.
  • More immediate access to The Stew. A few items of The Stew are now available on the front page, with a link to see other related entries. This is to make it easier to quickly browse around related ideas on the site.
  • Related Topics. On the front page, for example, the topics which are most related to the recent entries are displayed in the navigation bar. On a topic page, the topics most related to the displayed topic are displayed. And on an entry page, the entry's topics are displayed. Once again, this hopefully allows a reader to jump around related ideas, much like a person thinks.

And of course, all the features that have always been available are still here. Read Random Entries, or Search for key words from an entry you remember reading months ago, or read by date or by topic. The one feature I know I still need to implement is comment previews, but other than that, I'm really happy with the way the shiny new Linkstew+The Stew is shaping up.

And in honor of all this, I've got a new email address: bsii@thestew.net. And if you don't want to leave a comment about it, that's how you should contact me.

Used to be different, but now it’s the same.

Published
by
Benjy
on Wednesday August 22, 2001
in Busy, Databases, Feedback, Interface, LinkStew, The Stew and Vocation
. 4 Comments

I've been working insane hours at work, and I needed a break from all the coding I've been doing, so tonight I rebuilt Linkstew using Kevin's Furynodes. Yes, coding this site actually is a break from coding for work. I pretty much threw away all of the old Linkstew code, which is kind of depressing, but also huge a relief. Cricky, the old Linkstew was so broken.

Yes, some features from the old version are still missing. But with Furynodes, they'll be real easy for me to add back in at a later date, and they'll work better than before. And I've got plans to display even more metadata for The Stew, including related categories when viewing a category. But in place of the temporarily missing features, you get comments! Woohoo!

I know it doesn't look shiny and new, but it really is. But I basically just recreated the old look and feel, so I'm definitely open to suggestions on how to make the page more usable.

Also, it seems to me like the whole page is running slowly. But I've been having net issues all night, so could y'all tell me if the page feels slow(er)? Or is it just me?

Now see The Stew more easilly!

Published
by
Benjy
on Monday August 20, 2001
in Info Systems, LinkStew and The Stew
. 1 Comment

Well, since no one really knew it was there, I've added links to the top three related entries for each post to the front page. I'm not overly happy with the way it looks, but at least now it's clear that it's there.