Back in the day, when I was first exposed to computers, I played a text game called ‘Star Trek’ for hours. While my buddy (whose father had brought home from work the thermal paper terminal we were playing on) was enthralled with the game, I wanted to know how it worked. I had found my niche in life, and now, some 27 years later I discovered that the venerable ’emacs’ editor included in most Unix distributions has several games embedded.
One of these is an adventure game called ‘dunnet’. To play just open a terminal window and type (without the quotes) “emacs -batch -l dunnet” That’s a dash el in the middle.
Don’t blame me if your productivity goes to zero for the next few hours as you try not to get eaten by a grue.
I haven’t posted anything about the loss of Columbia until now. This was included in my weekly Palm Digital Media newsletter. I was touched and wanted to share it here, with you.
Out ride the sons of Terra, Far drives the thundering jet, Up leaps a race of Earthmen, Out, far, and onward yet –
We pray for one last landing On the globe that gave us birth; Let us rest our eyes on the friendly skies And the cool, green hills of Earth.
The Green Hills of Earth – Robert A. Heinlein
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One of the things I like best about my new powerbook G4 is the operating system it comes with: Mac OS X. Being based on the FreeBDS flavor of Unix gives it incredible stability. My laptop has been to work with me and back everyday, and to my parents one weekend. I have not turned it off and on in over 16 days.
The problem is Safari, the new beta release browser from Apple. I’m hooked on it and and it won’t run now. It starts and then immediately “unexpectedly ends.” Phooey. I’ve tried re-installing it, and restarting my machine, all to no avail. I am left with re-booting as a last resort. This means my 16 day uptime run is over.
I’ll just have to start again.
UPDATED (8:39 p): I re-booted and Safari is working once again. Also Proteus, which had gone flaky on me is working smoothly again as well. Uptime 10 minutes and counting.
In a wonderful parody of the now famous Apple Switch ads, John Bender provides his story on a different kind of switch altogether. Watch it here.
Updated: I goofed on the link earlier. But it is fixed now.
Last May for my birthday, Michele gave me a Palm m515. It is a wonderful device that I use everyday. This is my third Palm, following a Palm Vx and a Palm Pilot (the original!).
It came with a USB cradle that worked for about a week. Then all I could get were messages about not being able to connect to my PC. I called Palm and they said they’d send a new USB cradle, free of charge. In the meantime I purchased a serial cradle so I could synchronize my Palm. When the new USB cradle came I put off swapping since it meant crawling around on the floor behind the desk to undo and plug in cables. Eventually I did the swap and was very disappointed that the new USB cradle wouldn’t work either. I tried the original on my wife’s PC with no success either. So I took the path of least resistance and went back to the serial cradle.
With my recent acquisition of a Powerbook G4, and my subsequent switch to it as my sole machine I needed to have a working USB cradle. So I once again tried both USB cradles and neither worked on the new machine. Other USB devices worked just fine so I was starting to suspect my Palm as the problem. When I called Palm they confirmed my theory, saying that some m515’s had a software problem that could be fixed with a reset chip they’d mail to me.
The chip came and I followed the instructions: backup the Palm to the chip, and then run the reset program it contained. This process took 8 hours, but once completed I was able to sync again, using the USB cradle on my Powerbook. Hubba hubba.
One of the cradles (I think the original) is on my desk at home and the other on my desk at work. The one at work works famously. This weekend I decided to try the one at home, only to get the same message I got last May. Phooey. And now the Palm refuses to sync using the previously ‘good’ cradle here at work. Double-phooey.
My thinking is that the original cradle is in fact damaged and it causes the OS in the Palm to not work with any cradle. At least I have the chip and can reset everything once again. This time I’ll be throwing the ‘bad’ cradle away.
Once again my job is in jeopardy. My client, the State of Illinois, is having their annual budget crisis. Even though this occurs every spring it is impossible to be emotionally prepared for its arrival. This year Illinois? first democratic governor in 30 years enhances the festivities. Although the press releases insist that a witch-hunt isn’t going to occur firings are happening daily. It is a scary place and time to work.
Last June the project to which I am contracted was canceled in the published budget. Only through some fast-talking, and a 3 million dollar loan, was our team restored. Now we are in the barrel once again. We are nearly ready to release a product that is the culmination of 4 years of work. Our pilot date is April 7th, and we are reasonable certain we will make that date. Once the application is in the hands of the end-users we hope there will be more reason to extend the project. If we don’t release on time our tenure here will almost certainly come to an end.
Given the current climate of fear here it is very hard not to sink into some emotional morass. Daily I find myself reaffirming that I need to stay positive and upbeat. At the same time I am fully aware that no one else is looking out for my best interests. The mere fact that there is no assurance from the client of continuation, even if we complete the pilot on time, tells me everything I need to know about being too trusting.
So I have started to examine my current options and I am beginning to lay the groundwork for the very few remaining options here in Springfield. Financially we would be devastated if we had to move this year. I know that I will get what I need to continue my growth, but trusting that my needs will be met without the need for lots of chaos is hard. In the past I have needed some major upheaval to grow. I think I am past the need for drama and chaos. In fact as I say this I realize that I am the one who controls how dramatic this contract renewal process plays out.
If I keep myself emotionally centered and focused on meeting my needs while addressing my fears I will be able to keep working here. Only if I give into the fear of losing this position will I be faced with the chaos and upheaval of having to move. In the past I felt that I had to talk to people and nail down every last detail in order to ensure getting what I wanted. Now I know this isn’t true. I need to let go of the need to control the situation through others or events. Rather I need focus on myself and trust that the TAO will take care of the rest. Knowing that this is the best approach and implementing it are two vastly different things.
Writing about it here helps because I can hear my own voice and council. When I just think about these issues it is too easy for my false-personality to insert fear into the flow of thoughts. And fear is what keeps us trapped in the same cycles. Only by voicing the fear and naming it can we defeat its hold on our lives.
My fear is losing this position and having to return to working in a more traditional way. Well, that is what my false-personality would have me believe. In truth, my fear is about continuing to have this good situation that is easy and comfortable for me. I see other people working hard to deal with the chaos and drama in their lives and I think I am doing it wrong because my life isn’t like theirs. Knowing that I am motivated differently, and that I meet my needs differently doesn’t always make it easy to continue to head in my own direction.
I think having the life I want is like baking biscuits. The recipe is so simple it is very hard to do well. There is little room for error. In life, at least my current situation, there isn’t much I can do to keep it going, other than stay out of my own way. There are, however, a myriad of things I could do to over mix my biscuits, and that would ruin them.
Trust of self is never easy, often lonely, and always rewarding.
Yesterday, when I stuck my hand into our mailbox, I discovered a large envelope from the Oregon Justice department labeled “Private and Confidential” addressed to my wife.
It seems she, along with several other people and the State of Oregon, is named in a lawsuit over events that happened over 4 years ago while we were living outside Portland.
It was a surreal experience to read over the documents included with the summons with her. You hear about lawsuits and watch them as drama on television, but it is an entirely different thing when your wife’s name is listed as a defendant.
Over the course of the evening, and again this morning, we had several conversations about this situation. Mostly she was trying to remember what had happened and when. On my own I tried to remember what specifically I was working on 4 years ago, and other than using my resume to provide some detail, I can’t remember.
Our feelings have naturally run from gloomy to cautiously optimistic. As an employee she is covered by the State and the Attorney General will defend her. It appears that our liability is minimal in this instance. Still it is sobering to think that dimly remember events that may or may not have occurred why she was employed at that agency may impact our lives today.
I think we have talked through most of our fear about this, but we are still both somewhat apprehensive. Will she get called to testify, will she be contacted at all? If this blows over will we be notified? You want to call people and ask questions but at the same time you don’t want any more notice brought to yourself because you just don’t know what is going to happen.
In the end I think this will be okay. For today it is scary and somewhat unsettling.
All last fall, as I was trying to buy a Powerbook G4 via online auction, my rally cry was escrow or bust. If the seller refused to use escrow then I refused to participate. I had several seemingly great deals fall thru only because the seller refused to use an escrow service.
I was certain that if I used an escrow service I’d be protected in the event that the item never showed up or wasn’t what I had purchased. Now it seems that even this protection may not be trustworthy. It seems there is a new scam on the Internet, one that involves the use of a fake escrow site, or one controlled by the seller.
In this MSNBC News story an unfortunate victim of this new fraud scheme tells how he lost $55,000 using an “escrow” service.
I guess the moral of the story is: use an escrow service you pick and you research. And listen to your gut, especially if it tells you the situation feels wrong. And don’t spend an amount online that you aren’t prepared to lose.
It seems that the web-based keystroke counter I was using is gone. The dolphin project at bitdevil.com has been shut down as the project leader wishes to pursue other projects.
Since May 31, 2002 I typed a total of 1,921,551 keys at home and at work. Assuming a continuation of the same typing pace I would have reach about 3,200,000 keys in one year.
I’ll have to look for another way to track this useless, but fun, statistic.