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Uh, did somebody just buy me a gift subscription to
Science News? A copy of the current issue just
arrived in today's mail ... and I did
recently mentioned (and
a
little less recently) mention having been a reader
of it in the past.
If so, thank you. A lot. I've missed it. It's a
bit thicker now than I remember.
I could probably get all the same news from the web
nowadays, but someties it's just easier -- feels more
relaxed and recreational -- to read stuff like that on
paper. And by just turning pages instead of scrolling
up and down and then deciding which links to click next.
(I love the web, but I'm glad we still have dead-trees
publications as well.)
I've got a few questions regarding folks' preferences
in command-line options for commands. The copy of this
entry with the poll in it is
at Dreamwidth
(or you can jump (I think) directly to just
the
poll itself)
I'm not sure whether I'll get back to the project that
sparked the questions in that poll (see below), but the
responses will pertain to some future project too, I'm sure.
Despite the welcome arrival of a copy of Science News,
it's been a discouraging week. The Mac won't boot, and it died
just as I was fine-tuning the interface for a program that was
nearly ready to share, beautifully comment, with a man-page and
everything ... that I had not yet copied elsewhere to try
compiling on a different OS, or to post yet. There was a lot
else not backed up, but most of that will merely
annoy and inconvenience me; this bit is the "somebody kicked
over my masterpiece sand castle just before I finished it" kick
in the gut. (Hmm. Much of what was backed up was
backed up to DVD. I'm not sure yet whether any of my other
computers can handle that. Experiments to put on my to-do
list.)
Couple that with the main Linux workstation -- the bedroom
machine -- which I hadn't been using much since I was given
the Mac, no longer talking to its monitor, and I've been getting
by with an itty-bitty Windows XP machine with a tiny screen and
a so-so X server on it for the past few days, and it's been
really putting a dent in my enthusiasm. So, in the immortal
word of Charlie Brown: AAAUUUUUUGH!
(The bedroom Linux machine shows the POST messages on the
monitor -- which is itself having major problems, but I have
an even larger monitor to use ifwhen I ever feel capable of
getting it up the stairs -- but at some point the screen goes
blank and nothing I do to the keyboard or mouse will light it
up again. I can SSH to it, and throw X apps to the itty bitty
XP screen (a VAIO that only works when plugged into the wall),
but I don't get the benefit of the decent-sized screen or the
larger keyboard.)
The small screen is fine for web surfing and email; not so
good for editing source in one window, editing docs in another,
looking stuff up in a third, and viewing output in a fourth,
or comparing two PS/PDF pages side by side. Or maybe I'm just
spoiled from having a Mac to use for the past several months.
I haven't had the heart to start reconstructing a week of
coding from scratch (get a filter working: a couple hours;
add enough comments that I won't be embarrassed if anybody else
sees it, usefully robust command-line arguments and options,
and somewhat reasonable user documentation: a week) -- and
I'm still clinging to the faint hope that the files can be
recovered -- so I tried to dive back into composing and
arranging, and am finding the tiny screen even more annoying
for that than for programming. Or maybe I'm just too acutely
frustrated and discouraged to cope with even small inconveniences
right now. Maybe I'll feel differently about this in a month.
But right now, it sucks.
The plan is to head down to Virginia to see whether
justgus37,
who has more Mac tools, more Mac experience, and OS install
media, has any more success ressurecting the Mac than I've had.
Wednesday I wasn't feeling well enough to drive that far; last
night I got a late start and then ran into some kind of mess
that turned I95 and the Beltway into obstacles instead of arteries,
and turned back after it became clear I wouldn't get there at any
sane hour. So: trying again tonight, if I'm up to it, which at
the moment is iffy but I've still got little under and hour to decide.
(By the time I got home again last night, it hurt to steer,
and I've got power steering. But on the plus side, I got more
sleep this morning than the past couple of days, so let's see
what my body decides to do with that.)
I want my code back. I want my files back. I want my tools
back. This business of knowing I need more backup media and
a big disk for a live backup, but not being able to afford
either ... well it's starting to wear me down.
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