Zathras' Great Machine

"I got up this morning to find that the space bar on my notebook computer is malfunctioning: it doesn't depress all the way, as it was doing just fine last night. Not having time to investigate it properly..."

wtf? You wrote me at 4:40am your time, you usually leave at 7:30am for the office...how did you not have time? *looks baffled*

You should be able to yank the space bar off pretty easily, I regularly pull the keys on mine to clean beneath them. If not, it's *very* easy to replace notebook keyboards, and the replacement iBook keyboards on eBay look like they have the same basic "plastic film" kind of connector that other notebooks do.

It's good it's easy to replace keyboards, in fact -- I just destroyed the plastic widget that holds down my #2 key the other day by accident. :( Hmm, wonder if I can use the spare board that used to be on the Toshiba to replace the Sony's broken part, rather than spend $50 on another keyboard...

As to not having time to look at the keyboard... well, I didn't want to mention it until after it was over with. We had a conference today. *cringe* Fortunately, it went quite well.

I did get the keyboard fixed -- this isn't the first time I've had a key pop off of it, so taking it off and fixing the little spring thingy (whatever that's called) wasn't a big deal. It did take a little bit of doing to get the space bar back on, since it's designed a little differently from all the other keys, but after a bit of fussing, I got it straightened out.

I also found out what the deal was with all my mail: the space bar on my keyboard was depressing when I closed the lid on my notebook, so it woke from sleep after I left the house and checked my mail all day. Now I have two hundred emails to sort thru. No big deal, though... I'm getting good at scanning emails.

*now here's where I come in with 'un of those stories . . . *

My TRS-80 III's keyboard had its comma key broken. It woulda been great to replace the keyboard, except the keyboard was part of the computer itself:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/tandy_trs80-model3_1.jpg

Thus, my school reports for the rest of the year did not have one comma in them, I couldn't get online to either PeopleLink OR Compuserve thanks to the fact my username had a comma in them, and what was once a 2k computer was rendered obsolete: all thanks to one comma key.

Be thankful for da modern stuff we have.

Of course, then there was the Atari 400 with the "Membrane" keyboard:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/atari_400.jpg

Typing on that thing was just as painful on my fingers as my new Diabeties Glocose meter

Ah, yes, the old computers... you know, I really miss those days. In a lot of ways, computers were just a lot more fun back then. Not that I'd ever go back, of course -- the Internet is the most important thing in my life. Next to a certain person that I met on it, that is. :-)

"...this connection is also malfunctioning, going up and down at random intervals."

This is where the concept of showing up, *pretending* to work really hard to fix it, but not actually accomplishing said task for a few days comes in.

"I really miss those days. In a lot of ways, computers were just a lot more fun back then."

I was thinking along those lines a while back. Then I realized: it's not that computers were more fun fifteen years ago, it's that I wasn't letting the life be sucked out of me as thoroughly.

"I was thinking along those lines a while back. Then I realized: it's not that computers were more fun fifteen years ago, it's that I wasn't letting the life be sucked out of me as thoroughly."

Quote of the month.

Right next to a friend of mine's 10 yr old kid yelling:

"IIIIIIII AAAMMM AAAA GOOOOOODD!!!! ...hitting puberty."

And yes, things were much more fun back then in some sense. There was much more sense of adventure back then when it came to computers in general.

Now that computers have "become a major part of our lives," things just seem so typical. The adventurious (sp.) stuff isn't being encouraged. Even Wired looks boring . . .

"This is where the concept of showing up, *pretending* to work really hard to fix it, but not actually accomplishing said task for a few days comes in."

Hmm, yes, I suppose it does, doesn't it...

Well, you *did* end your post with "I need a vacation." Seems to me like this is quite an opportunity to be paid while taking one.

"Well, you *did* end your post with 'I need a vacation.' Seems to me like this is quite an opportunity to be paid while taking one."

*grin*

"Don, the technician from Covad says he wants me to stay home tomorrow and try to telnet into the new router remotely. Err, yes, he thinks it has something to do with the Y2K patch that got upgraded thru the 1394 interface there, right around the same time that the 10-Base-T started fritzing out on port 139. I tried pinging the USB port and got 100 percent packet loss, too, so we're *really* stumped on this one. Unless it were something to do with the firewall, which is obviously ridiculous."

Well, I couldn't take it quite to *that* level -- my boss is too computer literate for that to work, and he's also one of that small (but annoying) group of people who, when confronted with arcane language and acronyms related to technology, will ask you to explain them to him in layman's terms (it really is surprising how few people are willing to do that, but he's one of them).

Working it at the office, though, could work. :-)

I *meant* at the office! :*p The idea was for you to look very busy troubleshooting the issue, when in actuality accomplishing nothing at all. Hell, put in earplugs to help you "concentrate" and then proceed to use a wide variety of apps in remote locations around the building, physically test every single connection...there's a number of ways to kill time while looking productive.

It's too bad one can't go to a therapist and announce "I'd like to learn how to be more devious!" ;)

> It's too bad one can't go to a therapist and
> announce "I'd like to learn how to be more
> devious!"

Heh. I had a friend in college who was super, super manipulative... so much so that it was hard to ever *really* feel like he was a friend. He seemd like a great guy, and the only time you could ever really tell he was being manipulative was in various games (such as "Diplomacy") that clearly required it... but he was so good at wearing masks that it was hard to tell when he was being sincere and when he wasn't, and the fact that he was *extremely* intelligent (IQ 170-ish, depending on whose test you believe) made him that much harder to read. Shaw, do you remember Josh Pendragon?

Perhaps you should look him up and ask for lessons?

Yes, I do. But there was more than one person back at *THAT SCHOOL* that was super manipulative. I won't name names . . . that is, until I write about them in my book ;)

and NO - I am not talking just about *that certain "girl"* I've mentioned a lot of either...although she was one of them.

but throughout the yrs., I've learned to avoid people like that. You just can't trust them with anything . . .

My problem is I typically can't distinguish between manipulative people and everybody else. So it's either be wary of everyone in general, or be mistreated/taken advantage of. :-p

honestly, it takes awhile to distinguish between who is manipulative and who is nice. Trust is such an important issue...

and trust takes time...

Yes, it does take a long time.... It also takes something else, but I haven't fully grasped what yet. Either way, I've only learned to trust two people thus far in my life, and it's blazingly obvious that neither of them could manipulate their way out of a paper bag. *grin*

What do you mean by something else?

I meant a miracle or a saint, or something resonably close to either. I'm very wary of people, it's just how my personality turned out. :-/

I can understand that...it's really hard to trust people nowadays. We live in a time where even (someone who seemed as) a sweet person can turn manipulative and mean.

Since I'm nearing my 30th (22 days and counting), for the past few months I've literally done a "shakedown" of the people I know and currently talk to, just to see who my friends are and who really are not. I feel a shitload of a lot better for it.

...in any case, probably all of them will end up being articles for my magazine (as well as chapters of my forthcoming book) ;) It's a good thing to be a people person, yessiree...

Shit - maybe it's finally time to create my own blog. I'm, like, actually writing again.