2007 — 20 Apr: One week to go
And it will be exactly a year since I handed in my notice to IBM. My, how Time flies. It's obviously time to move on up to Ubuntu 7.04, for example. While that's cooking on the Gateway machine, a simple click of the Belkin and I can note on the XP machine the following recent arrivals by one route or another:
- Thieves' Dozen by Donald E Westlake. A set of John Dortmunder tales, but in (for Westlake) the fairly unusual short story format
- I am a strange loop by Douglas Hofstadter, whose cover design I noted with admiration (and envy) yesterday. He is (of course) fascinated by, and in thrall to, the mind and its strange workings
- Inside Man directed by Spike Lee and recommended to me
- Stay directed by Marc "Stranger than Fiction" Forster, although I'm no horror story aficionado
- Finding Neverland also directed by Marc Forster, and also recommended to me
- Coupling (4th series) this hilariously insightful show took an interesting turn in its final episodes
Of course I recorded it when it was first broadcast — and somewhat resented the loss of the character played by Richard Coyle. There are some lovely quotes here from various episodes. - This girl's life whose cover artwork I have yet to scan, what with my ongoing wrangling with Ubuntu (see below)
- The lying Ape by Brian King. Can you believe it? An honest guide to a world of deception. Oliver North, for example: "I wasn't lying, Senator, I was presenting a different version from the facts." Or our very own Sir Robert Armstrong, roughly (I would estimate) the UK equivalent of the White House Chief of Staff: "...it is perhaps being economical1 with the truth."
- Beckett remembering remembering Beckett edited by James and Elizabeth Knowlson. An interesting-looking set of uncollected interviews with, and memories of, people who knew Samuel Beckett. (I'm still waiting for Godot to show up, of course.)
And then see how the page looks by browsing my "local" Apache server running on XP from the iMac. Cooking with gas, or what?
Ubuntu, how I do love thee
Welcome, Feisty Fawn. But why do I have to go find how to drive you at my 24" screen's resolution2 yet again? <Sigh> Too tired now, at 12:30 or thereabouts, so off to bed.
With a tiny hint from the ever-helpful Brian, I found the restricted drivers manager, and enabled nVidia. Rebooted, and was immediately able to select the higher resolution I wanted (albeit at 50Hz rather than 60Hz). Then I made a bad mistake: I enabled Desktop Effects (which, to be fair, warned me it was experimental), fired up Firefox, maximised the window size (which happened with an unseemly wobble) and promptly seemed to freeze the entire machine, though I can still move the mouse pointer around — it has turned itself into rather an appropriate clenched fist symbol which is, I suppose, moderately amusing.
After the inevitable power off and reboot, I was back to the old Ubuntu symptom of having the top right hand bright red "power" button more or less in the middle of the top line instead. Trying the usual trick (for me, at least) of resetting the screen resolution to try to provoke the desktop into some semblance of obedience to my evil will, I ended up with a sadly badly broken affair. Powering off in some disgust, and off to supper.
Having refreshed the inner man, I rebooted again. This time I have the desktop with the trash can just over halfway along the bottom of the application tray. The red "power" button is still two/thirds of the way along the top bar. The "wired network connection" icon is at the extreme top right (where the power button should be). What jolly fun computer operating systems are.
Another glorious day!
Callooh! Callay! How frabjous, indeed. But what is a beamish boy? Is I one, for example? No, but I think my friend Peter's friend Brian's 1938 Morgan is:
Am I turning into a petrol-head? At my time of life??
I cannot make this stuff up... department
It seems the "new dating scene" needs a beautiful mind (with a nod, no doubt, to the title of Sylvia Nasar's 1998 biography3 of John Nash).
"Let's face it, there really is nothing more sensual than caressing someone's mind," said Paul Holdengräber, who launched the [New York Public] library's live lecture series that
is now a staple
of New York's "intellidating" scene. Two years ago, the average age at library lectures was 68. It is now 41 and falling, driven down partly by a new crop of cutting-edge guests
including underground cartoonists Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb and director Jonathan Demme.
"Intellidating," first coined in England in 2002, sprang from "Intelligence Squared," a live discussion series launched by a couple of British moguls whose professed aim was to
make debating "sexy." Heated debates on topics ranging from "Monogamy Is Bad for the Soul" to "Maggie Thatcher Saved Britain" brought in the London glitterati, including actor
Hugh Grant and, until their split in February, svelte girlfriend and socialite Jemima Khan.
Where does one start? Well Jonathan Demme is 63, Robert Crumb will be 64 in August, and even Aline is fast approaching the UK state pension age. And, much as I can take the floppy-haired English superstar in a variety of rôles...
Hah! Mac OS X has just got into its own security and application update mode. In fact, it's just finished rebuilding the entire Aperture photo application, by the look of it. There can't have been much left untouched by a 129MB download. I shall have to take it out for a second spin in due course. But I'm a busy chap, you know. I've only just finished re-reading Pride & Prejudice (and resisting the temptation to buy an updated edition of Austen's Letters in Borders this afternoon, too). Still, at least I don't have to do a monthly timesheet (unlike She). Tee-hee.