So the install is done and most of the files have been transported via a nfity tool Unison-gtk. It is pretty remarkable all is up and running because in times past it took at least a couple of weeks to get everything just right and even then, well, it was never just right.

The fabled 10 step Ubuntu install is totally true. It requires only the mildest of attention and thought. Unfortunately after the intall the first time around many of the GNOME applications were acting totally quirky: like it took over 10 minutes for open office to open. Now that may have been common in the past and with my computer but clearly something was wrong. So we had to reinstall and then everything worked all right. With Ubuntu, it coud identify sound card/video card, drives etc. However, some of the programs still needed tweaking to make things like sound in them work. As Andreas pointed out, the unofficial Ubuntu guide is also quite helpful for trouble shooting & getting those non-free packages like Acroreader etc.

I am not crazy about GNOME, the default window manager, but KDE is not currently supported by UBUNTU so I will have to get used to it for a while and then change back if I still feel the same way.

Anyway, this is definitely a step in the right direction… It will be fun to see what happens with Linux when the install is 15 minutes and additional tweaking is only 15 minutes more.

Oh and the computer is sweetly sauve. I love IBM keyboards and I just can’t believe that the computer can be so tiny yet still have an almost full sized keyboard. I say almost because the backspace is tiny and needs to getting used to. Otherwise it is classic scissor style keyboard that has this satisfying feel to it.

Ok, so my computer managed to get here before 10 am despite the China mishap. Now that is globalization for you. But now, I am debating or really trying to muster the inner strength necessary to brave the (INTENSE CHICAGO) cold to get a blank CD to burn a new Linux distro, Ubuntu which is supposed to be a snap to install compared to its “brotherly source” debian.

We will soon see if that is fact and fiction. In fact, since many of the Ubuntu developers have the same computer I have, Ubuntu apparentlyd detects the IBM x40 hardware with no problem. Given that in the past getting things like sounds, video, pcmcia etc to work with Debian on my past laptops was nothing short of a grueling death ritual, I look forward to this supposed new found “ease of installation…”

So I ordered a computer two weeks ago and it finally shipped on Friday. But somehow in Louisville, KY, which is relatively close to me, it was sent back to its original place of shipment for “customs clearance:” Shanghai, China. So even though there is you know, email, faxes, telephones, by which one could verify the status of the package, it went back to Shanghai where it was magically cleared and then made its way back to the US via Anchorage, then KY, and now is making its way back to the US, in Rockford, IL. All of this information is thanks to UPS tracking system which seems to work better than their mail shipment system.

There are some authors, like Dick Hedbidge, that I love to read, especially to re-read after a considerable absence. It is not necessarily because I agree with everything he says but because of what he loves to write about: style. His style of writing, at once very precise yet expansive and textured with such excessive metaphors and vivid language, creates a type of text in which excess, an excess of meaning is created. This excess then becomes the basis for allowing you to make a series of assocations between his material and your thoughts (on some unrelated material) so many associations, it almost as if you can hear you brain’s synapses firing away. Next week I will write something more precise about what I mean by all of this on a new blog, 775 that I will be participating on as soon as it gets off the ground.

Oh and I also like Hedbidge because he looks like a thiner, more angsty Bill Murray.

,

An entiely geeky and hackish homage to things past.

So it is not often that I get surprised by things I stumble upon on the web or the net. After all, going to Boing Boing, for example, already announces that you will be reading about the strange and wonderful, which then, to some degree diminishes the surprise effect. So today, I received two somewhat odd and surprising pieces of news/information, one a question about the “best coffee steak rub” (see below) on a coffee roasting mailing list, the other an article about the Microsoft Kid sent to me by a student. Both made my eyes, widen, for sure.

I was wondering what peoples favorite coffee is to use as part of a
rub for steak or ribs? What degree of roast? How fine a grind?

Mine is usually a Kona or a Costa Rican coffee.
Roasted about first snap of second.
Ground almost for espresso. If you used the grind in Espresso you
would get about a ten second shot.

I think when I’ve done it I’ve probably used what I had on hand, but
were I to do it by design, I’d probably pick something like Moka
Kadir on the grounds that the wilder taste and uneven roast would
punch through a little bit more.

So this morning, I received a notice about University of Chicago’s Counter-Inagural Ball organized by various centers like Gender Studies, Race and Culture etc. I have to say, I was somewhat surprised by this because it seemed that political activity over the elections was primarily sequestered to the student community. But this shows otherwise and it is exciting to see some of U of C’s brightest, engaging speakers confronting this head on, on the day, and even with a ball at the end of the day. So since activities span the day, see if you can stop down, for this political ho-down at the U of C.

So today as reported on Lawrence Lessig’s blog, IBM is pledging 500 patents to a patent pool a safe zone for open source development. Even though Lessig places this news under his “hero” category, I will use my Not Wholesome category, in fact I think I will break out my rarely used Not Wholesome!!! category to comment on it,

Why? In 1999, IBM, the largest patent holder in the world, made a profit of 1 billion dollars from patent licenses alone (!!!) and along with this, they accrued a record breaking 2,756 new patents (!!!). The following year, they made 1.5 billion from their patents and were awarded 3.4000 new patents. 500 patents in a safe sone patent pool is not even like placing patents in a kiddie pool but is more like putting them in a (small) spalsh of urine. I am not alone in thinking of IBM’s move as tactically disingenous, yet enormously advantageous for them. It gives them some sort of street cred, fame, and publicity, and sort of serves to momentarily ward off the contradiction that is open source at the largest patent holder in the world (and probably Known Universe). I was also glad to see NoSoftwarePatents stand firm to their credo:

It’s just diversionary tactics. Let’s put this into perspective: We’re talking about roughly 1% of IBM’s worldwide patent portfolio. They file that number of patents in about a month’s time.

Ok, so I have to admit as much as I think this is a problematic political move, it does make my dissertation a tad more exciting (I have a whole section on IBM) and I can’t really claim some total vitriolic hate for IBM. After all, I just ordered an X40.

So if your eldely parent all of a sudden loses a ton weight, and sh/e is not on some crazy low carb weight loss diet, or has some other medical condition, there is a chance, according to a very preliminary study, that weight loss can presage alzheimers . I know, I know the data looks shaky and weight loss can indicate a panopoly of conditions, but this stikes home because my mom lost massive weight before she got alzheimers and then as it her percpetual disturbances and memory degraded, she lost even more weight.

She went from around 135-140 pounds to 120 and then dropped to 114, 110, and has stablized at 104 for over a year now. She sometimes strikes as a walking corpse at least to those who knew here in the past. I sometimes feel like people look at me like I withold food from her but in fact she eats and can’t seem to put on weight.

She was eating a ton during the first drop in weight while I cannot say what happened during the second. I then also lived with when she reached 104, stuffing her with all sorts of food and lots of fat, but her weight never budged.

I bet such dramatic weight lost over the course of what seemed only like months, cannot be all that good for you. I know that fasts/hunger strikes can lead to brain damage, in part because of near total lack of the vitamin Bs. I wonder if such quick and dramatic weight loss even if spread a bit over timecan act somewhat like a prolonged mini-fast, speeding up the degradation of the brain because of lack of essential vitamins and such. I am sure it indicates some sort of malabsorption but for a doc of the brain to think of digestion is like sunbathing, along the lake, in Chicago, in Feburary, during the middle of an ice-storm.. Not likley.

Anyway, interesting stuff and if anything

Hmm even if it may be somewhat NANCY (Not A Nother Consciousness Yammering), I think that this debate between the Buddhist/scholarAndy Wallace and John Searle to be held next Friday at Northwestern, looks promising…

ps–> John Searle has a pictureonline with like a gazillion pixels. With such an image and such sharpness, makes you wonder if he secretly wants to be a male model.