I'm in PC hell yet again. This time it seems to be my power supply. The machine just randomly shuts down without warning. Ugh. I've just ordered a new power supply and hopefully all is well in a few days. I'm suspecting my covet of an iMac has brought this fate down upon our household. The macbook pro that is on its way from China probably also heaved some heavy karma toward my pc.
I will fix the PC but only until the new iMac comes out and then I'll go through the agony of deciding whether I'm forever jumping ship. That'll take a month at least. So I need a good PSU that will last me roughly 3 months. Not being one to skimp, I got a really quiet one. There is nothing like a quiet machine. And on that front Apple has everyone beat. You could fall asleep to the purr of a Mac Pro.
I really really hope it's the power supply. The last time I went through a random shutdown problem, it wasn't so easy to pinpoint. I ended up swapping out the motherboard, the PSU, and tons of memory sticks. In the end, it was the memory sticks though I could tell you a story about unlikely coincidences that would make the story seem fishy. It was a long moment of hell.
There is nothing like a hardware problem to make me revert to obsessive geekiness - a state more endured than enjoyed.
A song for this post.
Showing posts with label apple pie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apple pie. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Time, space and apple pie (day 4)
I just put an apple pie in the oven. It takes time to make an apple pie. It's full of suspense too. It involves no digital resources....oh...except for the recipe from America's Test Kitchen...and...the digital readout on the oven. There is something to do with your body and mind for about 2 full hours. Not bad. And then there's the moment where you get to sit down with the laptop to wait out the baking in a kitchen full of that nice cinnamon apple smell. Precious time.
Today someone asked me some questions about mobility and the hyperlocal trends. It happens that I'd like to create a mobile hyperlocal narrative application with Vancouver in mind. The question had to do with spacetime and implied that somehow the web has done something to our sense of time and space. It has taken away time by asynchronous communication, and taken away space by allowing us to connect from far away. I think I know what she was getting at. The feeling of other world when you're in it, and the feeling of the world happening without you when you're not reading, watching, keeping up. There is definitely another space with its own speed and insistence. It changes the expectation of what we know about each other when we do meet in the same physical space.
But I think the spacetime perception change may have more to do with the speed at which we need to switch contexts when we plug in. Check email, open a document, keep it open in the bg, quick check of RSS feeds, who's posting on fb, back to email, oh ya the document, scan the document, phone rings, another email comes in, and so on. It's a stream and somehow lots of little things get done. But no big things. I know what it feels like to focus and when I'm actively online, that is not what's happening. And while I'm in it, I'm not taking care of my physical environment in the same way. Maybe my plants don't get watered, maybe my computer gets unpacked months before my books do.
Part of the promise of hyperlocal is another dimension to sort the info. Maybe if I only get relevant information to where I am, it'll be meaningful and manageable. Again the issue of scale pops up though, there are millions of people in Vancouver. Why would the space not be cluttered. Just as cluttered as Robson street on a sunny Saturday afternoon. After all, the online is the mother of pack rats.
Making an apple pie is risky business. You have to go offline for 2 hours. And during that time much could happen without you being aware of it. More than before? Before we knew? Don't know. Don't think so. Not making an apple pie is risky business. You may forget the feel of a good pie crust and the smell of a baking pie. I'm not kidding. These things need to be maintained.
Today someone asked me some questions about mobility and the hyperlocal trends. It happens that I'd like to create a mobile hyperlocal narrative application with Vancouver in mind. The question had to do with spacetime and implied that somehow the web has done something to our sense of time and space. It has taken away time by asynchronous communication, and taken away space by allowing us to connect from far away. I think I know what she was getting at. The feeling of other world when you're in it, and the feeling of the world happening without you when you're not reading, watching, keeping up. There is definitely another space with its own speed and insistence. It changes the expectation of what we know about each other when we do meet in the same physical space.
But I think the spacetime perception change may have more to do with the speed at which we need to switch contexts when we plug in. Check email, open a document, keep it open in the bg, quick check of RSS feeds, who's posting on fb, back to email, oh ya the document, scan the document, phone rings, another email comes in, and so on. It's a stream and somehow lots of little things get done. But no big things. I know what it feels like to focus and when I'm actively online, that is not what's happening. And while I'm in it, I'm not taking care of my physical environment in the same way. Maybe my plants don't get watered, maybe my computer gets unpacked months before my books do.
Part of the promise of hyperlocal is another dimension to sort the info. Maybe if I only get relevant information to where I am, it'll be meaningful and manageable. Again the issue of scale pops up though, there are millions of people in Vancouver. Why would the space not be cluttered. Just as cluttered as Robson street on a sunny Saturday afternoon. After all, the online is the mother of pack rats.
Making an apple pie is risky business. You have to go offline for 2 hours. And during that time much could happen without you being aware of it. More than before? Before we knew? Don't know. Don't think so. Not making an apple pie is risky business. You may forget the feel of a good pie crust and the smell of a baking pie. I'm not kidding. These things need to be maintained.
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