Category Archives: GeekWorld

Aging, Cinema and Television, GeekWorld, Great Work, Memories, Politics, Travel

I Want To Like Nuclear Power

March 26, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Waning Bloodroot Moon

Japan. Nuclear power. Climate change. Not a pretty picture. I don’t know about others, but I want to like nuclear power. Its non-carbon emitting energy production has a potential role in staving off the worst effects of global warming. However. With no place to store the waste permanently, the waste gets stored temporarily near the reactor in which it was used. This seems safe. Look at Prairie Island. After all these years, still no trouble. Then again. How many years do we have to have in a row with no trouble? 25,000 or so, I believe. That’s a long run.

That’s not all. Situations develop, human error, mechanical failure, maintenance scrimping, natural disasters with unforseen confluences, say an F5 tornado and a once in a century flood. Could happen over the span of over 25,000 years. Probably will. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl had become objects in the rear view mirror, errors, mistakes, but over with. Until Fukushima.

Now, suddenly, they begin to look links in a chain, a nuclear chain. Remember Godzilla? Them? The 50 Foot Woman? Radiation. Now there’s radioactive iodine in the sea. I want to like nuclear power, but I’m having a hard time. The stakes of mistakes seem too high. At least for now.

Wish somebody would get a good fusion reactor goin’.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, GeekWorld, Literature

Tech Savvy Milbank

February 28, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waning Bridgit Moon Blue Cloud Abbey

Since I plan to spend most of my time writing, I brought one of my split keyboards which make typing much easier for me. Only thing. It had an old fashioned pin style plug-in. I have a USB exclusive laptop along. Sigh.

Got on the web and discovered a Radio Shack in Milbank, only 13 miles back toward Minnesota. They were redesigning the store tonight, so, though they would have been closed otherwise, tonight they were there. After supper, I drove to Milbank, had a nice chat with the clerks and the owner, who offered me a beer, bought a new keyboard–they couldn’t find the adapters due to remodeling–and schlepped back to the Abbey.

When I pulled up in the Abbey parking lot, I opened the truck door and the bells started clanging. 7:30, time for Vigils. Scared the B…well you know, out of me.

So here I am, typing on my new keyboard, ready to get up tomorrow and start writing more pages of Missing. The Abbey is a peaceful place, set high atop a prominent hill in an otherwise flat topography. As a result, you can see for miles. At night Milbank twinkles off to the east and farm houses dotted across the prairie are outposts of electricity, television, the modern world.

What would Per think?

The meal was in silence tonight and Brother Bennet read while the rest of us ate. Another Minnesotan is here, a woman, and me. The monks were all in black robes and cowl tonight. I don’t know what signifies, but I’ll ask tomorrow.

The drive out here is a long one, over 4 hours, and I’m tired. Early bedtime tonight.

GeekWorld, Weather +Climate

More Fun With Computers

February 19, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Full Bridgit Moon

After 52 on Monday and a good deal of melting, with a good deal left to go, too, the red button on my status bar has lit up again with a winter weather advisory, a winter storm warning. If all goes as predicted, we may end up with 8-10 inches of new snow.

Today I spent a good bit of time installing a new printer, a multi-function HP, so-called plug and play. Well, sort of. I finally got it set up to print from all three computers on our home network. Felt good to get it done. Now I may tackle that old laserjet one more time before I buy a new one.

Groceries, then time on the treadmill and time with the grandkids on Skype. Now to bed.

GeekWorld, Humanities

The John Henry Syndrome

February 16, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Full Bridgit Moon

Watson. Won at Jeopardy. Big time. Over the best player of the game ever. Human player. The coverage has interested me because it showcases what we might call the John Henry syndrome. Each time a machine takes on a task thought uniquely human and masters it, then beats a human competitor, we go into human self-examination mode. Are we still necessary? Will machines replace us? The human Jeopardy champion, Ken Jennings, wrote on his final Jeopardy answer, “I for one welcome our new computer overlords.” Humor? Or, irony? Both?

Here’s one clear difference. Watson is not sitting at home tonight, feet up on an ottoman, wondering if the next hunk of big iron will replace him. Nope. He’s just sitting. Maybe warming his transistors or his circuit boards, drawing a little extra juice to keep things humming, but self doubt? No.

We wonder. We step back from a situation and observe, ask questions, then process them in a complex, data rich environment foreign to the world of bits and bytes. Bring on the machines. All of’em. I’m not even worried about the Kurzweil singularity. If it happens, we’ll never know, right? Where is that ottoman?

Bees, Dogs, GeekWorld, Humanities, World History

Carpe this Diem

February 13, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bridgit Moon

OK. Today is a new day. I do not plan to torture my computers anymore today in regard to my legacy laserjet printer. It has been a faithful companion throughout the last 19 years and I do not plan to give up on it yet. Even so, I’ve experienced my tolerance level of geek futility since I tried to convert it from parallel processing to usb, so it will rest on the sidelines for a while as I install the new multi-function printer later in the day. If I can find a new laserjet printer for under $300 I may just get one with a native usb connection. Not sure I’d do with old faithful. I might bring it in here (the study) and see if I can convince it to mate up with the Gateway in here. I might give it to somebody with a parallel printer port.

I know, too, that losing colonies is still common for beekeepers and that my experience is not unusual. In fact, as I said a bit earlier, I was not surprised by the deaths of two of the colonies. Only the package colony’s demise surprised me, since it seemed to have plenty of honey and a healthy group of bees. Another year is another year.

With temperatures above freezing the dogs are frisky, staying outside longer, bumping, running, tails held high. They both hunt between the honey house and the play house, noses to the ground, body alert. Kona still finds the outdoors a bit too cool and no wonder, she no longer has any hair on her butt. I know how it feels when there’s no hair on the head, probably a similar sensation. And it is hard for Kona to put a hat or a scarf on that particular location.

I’m inclining toward a Renaissance theme for the Titian tours. This exhibit showcases the High Renaissance in Venice from its beginnings in the early 1500’s through its end in the 1580’s. Venice held on to the Renaissance longer than the rest of Italy, though even its extension ended well before the Renaissance limped toward its end in the 1700’s in northern Europe. The Renaissance gave shape and content to our era, actually doing what those embroiled in it thought they were doing, ushering in the modern age, shifting from the ancien regime to the days of democracy, individualism, capitalism and science, days within which we still live.

Not often do we have the chance to experience such a clear visual record of this dramatic change in the lifeways of Western civilization, a record written not in words, but in the brushstrokes and vital imaginations of artists who distilled the time and painted it. On canvas. Using oils.

Bees, GeekWorld

A No Good Day

February 12, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bridgit Moon

Some days. You know. This was one. I got the printer cable. Spent another 2+ hours fiddling with the printer. Nothing positive. Still. I know it’s a breed fault, but I do prefer to be competent. At everything I do. Every time. Not perfectionism. It’s competencism. Things don’t have to be perfect, but they have to display my general competence, or else. Well. You may have been down that hole, too. It can get deep.

Then, I went out to check on the bees. I suppose I might have missed something, I did last spring, but I don’t think so. All three dead. Geez. I didn’t stop to diagnose the cause. I just closed the hive boxes up and walked back inside.

I tried yet one more time on the printer. Well, actually, several more times, flailing at different solutions suggested by this website and that. Even went into DOS, foreign territory for me. I got in and got out of DOS unscathed, but no closer to a solution.

If I had any hair left, I’d be pulling it out right about now. Guess I’m gonna have to call Steve again. See if he say some words over the machines, toss some holy byte water at them. I don’t know. An exorcism?

The good thing is. Worked out. Got my endorphins buzzing around the old synapses. Sweat.

Now. I can be philosophical. Never to fail is never to do. Never to do is to be dead. I want to be alive. I want to try things that challenge me. Guess failure is part of that. Gotta be. Otherwise no forward progress. So, I’ve got two challenges ahead: get the packages installed in early April. Do the due diligence before hand to find out what killed the bees. Fix what I can fix. Get the printer installed. One damn way or another.

Grrr.

GeekWorld

No Joy

February 12, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bridgit Moon

Hmmm. Spent an hour + last night with the network guy. He took over my PC through a remote connection, a free app called showmypc.com, fished through my network settings, my printer settings and did a number of things I’d never imagined doing. In the end though we still had no more luck than I’d already had. None. This cheered me up since I didn’t feel quite so inept afterward.

Heading over to Radio Shack for another try on the printer parallel to usb cable. I avoided buying the Radio Shack cable because it was more expensive, but I’ll try it now anyhow. As soon as I get this one set up, I’ll put the new printer online, too. I’m not expecting trouble with it since it’s plug-n-play. Each problem is a learning opportunity and I say that with no tongue in cheek. If you pay attention to the problem solving, it’s true.

So, among other things on external Saturday, I’m headed for every geeks favorite store, Radio Shack. Always good to have an excuse to go there. At some point today or tomorrow it looks like the temps will rise above freezing, so I will have a chance to check on the bees. Bee season has begun in active way, as has the growing season. I have a few other things to accomplish over the weekend, get a system repair disc made for each of the new gateways, crank up the chainsaw and get my Titian tour together since I have my first tour on Thursday, the 17th.

Aging, GeekWorld, Humanities

68. My Driver’s License Will Be Good Until I’m 68? Hmmm.

February 11, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bridgit Moon

There are those moments. Drove over to Ramsey city hall (municipal center sounds much more… what?), walked through the glass doors and the 20 foot high atrium, all in stone and glass, followed the signs and found the License Center. I filled out a form, missing four questions, handed to the nice lady and she clipped the ear off my current driver’s license, collected my $24 (a fee, not a tax) and took me over to the vision machine. Wonder of wonders, for the first time in 8 years, I passed. How about that? Up against the blue wall, smile. “Great picture!” the nice lady said.

The real shocker? This new license will be good until I’m 68. 68! How did that happen again?

Tonight I’ll get a call from the network guy to see if he can walk me through the problem that’s keeping my printer from shaking hands with my two new computers. Well, sorta new. Decided I’m going to RTFM the backup stuff. I really oughta know how to work this stuff, otherwise, what’s the point of backing stuff up?

End of the week. Another legcom meeting under my belt, the Titian walk through and some quality time with the exhibit yesterday and today Latin. My Ovid work drew nice remarks from my tutor. He essentially agreed with my translation. As a rough draft. Which it was. My English to Latin was a little more fuzzy, showing that I whipped through it faster than is required to do good work. I’m still working on Diana and Actaeon. I’d like to finish it before the show leaves.

Each segment, the legcom, the Titian preparation and the Latin, requires serious prep work. Makes me feel good, sorta like exercise. Which, by the way, I gotta go do.

GeekWorld, Politics, World History

Fire in the Streets

February 10, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bridgit Moon

See. It helps to share your pain. Woolly brother and cybermage Bill Schmidt gave me the number of his son-in-law, Steve Johnson, who runs a part-time business called I-tech. He knows networks and backups, doing that kind of thing during the day for 3M. I’m gonna give him a call. Time to stop banging my head against this stuff.

I’ve not kept on top of the Tunisia, Egypt coverage and have missed a lot of the analysis, so this may be ill-informed; but, it all sounds pretty healthy to me. Dictators may seem more stable from a US foreign policy perspective, yet they often/always? do disservice to the people(s) and the nation which they rule. Whether kept in power by US aid and good will or by their own ham-fisted acts, dictators lack a key ingredient for legitimate power, the assent of the governed. By definition in a dictatorship there is no consent by the citizenry, yet their rule could work if the people assented to their government. And they may. At first. Especially if the dictator rose to power by throwing off a corrupt state government or overthrowing a sitting tyrant. In the end though dictators dictate and no matter what the political philosophy of the whole, no one likes being told what to do time and again with the force of arms behind it.

It should come as no surprise when people in such situations say, enough. In fact, to old political hacks like me, it’s more surprising people take as long as they often do, fearing the consequences of action. Of course, from our North American vantage point, it seems the outcome of these people’s movements must be radical Islamist states, but I think it too soon to tell.

An even more intriguing bit of analysis will come from discerning the true role of social media. They are, of course, a new player in politics and one few people understand very well. Except maybe those that use it for these purposes.

Whatever the outcome, whatever the analysis, these uprisings have clear public support. What happens next could determine the fate of the unfortunate Middle East for years to come. One less: beware the lure of wealth from natural resources. They destabilize as much as–more–than they stabilize. Just ask residents of Minnesota’s Iron Range or any of the First Nations in either Canada or the U.S.

GeekWorld

A Purple, No, A Cyberhaze

February 9, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bridgit Moon

I have all my files from 3 computers backed up. Only problem? I don’t understand the back-up software. I wish it would just let me call up the files in the same way I do on this machine. I’m in a cyberhaze right now, machines too complicated for this guy’s savvy. I may have to call in some help. Hell, I can’t even get my computers to talk to my printers. Ah, well. It’s important to know when to say uncle byte me. Not quite there yet, but I’m close.

This stuff bothers me. Why? I guess it’s like the guy who fixes his own car, but suddenly faces something he knows is beyond his skill level. Seems like he oughta be able to do it, but he can’t.