Congratulations to Ash, who mere minutes ago won the MVP Baylor Bear Award at the Baylor University women’s basketball camp. Although Ashlin is going into the seventh grade, she won this after being moved up to the eighth grade division. For those of you who didn’t know, the Baylor ladies recently won the NCAA championship for basketball.
And I used to think the whole refrigerator light mystery was absorbing. (link).
My dumpster pII linux machine just became a dumpster pIII linux machine with a processor transplant. I got two brand-new pIIIs for $10 (an extra in case I fried one installing it). A quick BIOS flash and jumper change and BAM! The machine was very usable before, but now seems nigh-snappy. I think I’m beginning to understand the whole linux movement. It’s not so much that the OS is superior; linux instead gives you an opportunity to tinker that wind0ze and OSX don’t. Old hardware means it’s okay to let the smoke out.
I have a spare pIII-500 if anyone’s interested. I might trade it for a 128 stick of pc100 RAM.
(PBS/cringely): How much would it cost Intel to buy Apple? Not much. And if they paid in stock it would cost nothing at all since investors would drive shares through the roof on a huge swell of user enthusiasm.
Makes perfect sense to me. Now, watch MS make the switch to PPC! Hey, maybe they could use those hot new xb0x dual-cores!
Well, it’s true. Apple will be switching to Intel processors over the next couple of years. I bet the next step is to partner with a graphics card vendor (nvidia, ati) to offer a bundled hardware package that’ll let you run OSX on any ol’ wintel box. Yeah, they say that OSX will never run on anything but Apple hardware, but this move would let them straddle the fence while fending off the Linux crowd, which was probably the biggest factor in the architecture switch anyway. Hardware compatibility has always been Apple’s trump card, and being able to supe up the graphics end of the Intel deal might satisfy the gamers, too, especially if Apple could buddy-up with MS for some sort of on-the-fly Wind0ze emulation. The whole computer industry is going to get real weird real soon. I’m switching to Linux.
Here is my feeble entry to the book meme gauntlet dropped by wheat:
1. Total Number of Books I’ve Owned
Like wheat, I dunno. When I would move in college, it would easily take two Subaru loads to move ‘em. Because I like used book stores, there’s pretty much a contstant ebb and flow of musty pulp through my bookshelf. I will say this: I’ve probably given away more books than I currently own.
2. What was the last book you bought?
The Men Who Stare at Goats: “This exploration of the U.S. military’s flirtation with the supernatural is at once funny and tragic.”
3. Last Book I’ve Read
See above. I’m also reading all the Ian Fleming Bond novels in order, so that should probably go here, too.
4. Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me
Robert M. Pirsig’s magnum opus wasn’t that informative about Zen or motorcycles, but the bright pink cover dared me to pull it from the shelf at Southwest Junior High. I didn’t understand most of it at the time, but it became sort of a touchstone for me over the years. I’ve probably re-read it half a dozen times, but not since I was an undergrad.
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel pretty much doomed me to anthropomorphisizing machines for the rest of my life. I still have my original copy.
I picked up Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae in grad school. It was fun to reference her in class, because it would make the profs’ head spin around like that girl from the Exorcist. She taught me that I really didn’t know a whole lot about literature or history, and that neither did most of the people teaching it, either.
I’m a sucker for the everyman, and Charles Bukowski filled the bill just fine. Pick any book or poetry collection, but Women stands out if only because it briefly, and disasterously, served as my guide to personal relationships in those good ol’ college days.
One left? Hmm? I’ll take the Clymer Shop Manual for my motorcycle, an ‘87 BMW K75. It’s not like it needs a lot of work, but I like to tinker, and this book gets “used” more than any I own. Everyone should own a shop manual to his vehicle, if only to keep from getting ripped off by unscrupulous mechanics.
5. Tag Five People and Have Them Do This on Their Blog
I’ll work on that. Already, one person who did this won $500 in a lottery. Another person who agreed to do it but forgot lost her job the next day.
Wheat has tagged me with some sort of reading list thing, so I’m working on it, ok?!?