Another Word for Nerd

I finally got Brad Parker’s MIT CADR emulator up and running on my Mac under OS X. I had some SDL problems at first, but version 0.8 only required me to change one line in the Makefile and rebuild everything.

Now I just need a “taller” screen, as 1440×900 cuts off the bottom of the 768×1024 CADR window!

To make a long story short: traded in Amy’s 2000 Ford Explorer Sport, drove home from the dealership in a 2005 Mitsubishi Galant (dark grey, 24K miles). Yay, the car problems are over. I’ve still got my Kia Sportage, too.

I didn’t expect to have to spend more than two hours getting our new photo printer (HP Photosmart 7450) working with my Windows system, though. The default HP install copies SIX HUNDRED MEGABYTES of drivers and software to the hard drive. I’m *so* tempted to just run it under OSX on the Mac using Gimp-Print and the Deskjet 900 driver.

Lots of rain (5+ inches) here in Houston today. We lost power here at the house around 1pm. It was still out when I got home at 5:15, so I sat and read The Little Schemer by candlelight.

As it turns out, when a transformer down the street blew, it took out a transformer in our next-door-neighbor’s back yard, and then blew a line fuse. So, we got to watch linemen from Centerpoint Energy spend two hours replacing the transformer on the pole, and then flipping the line fuse (really just a big circuit breaker) back on with a really long pole. When everything came back on I went over to the fence and told them all thank you for working hard in the rain.

The primary home for my “Lisp Books and Information” list is now lispmachine.net.

The installer from Time Warner Cable (Houston) showed up this morning to install our cable connection and DVR. I really wasn’t too impressed with him, although he got the job done.

- Called me 15 minutes before the appointment time to ask what the street name was (it was printed on the work order).
- Cut one of the coax lines going into my DirecTiVo (we’ll have both DTV and cable) within five minutes of showing up, although he patched it back together after I let him know.
- Ran a 3′ length of cable with a female coax connector on the end out of the jack plate, instead of installing a normal jack
- Asked me the street name (again) while on the phone to activate the service, with the work order sitting in front of him
- Asked to borrow my ladder so he wouldn’t have to go get his out of his truck

I’m glad that I told him “Just plug it in and make sure it works, I’ll re-arrange all the cables later today” when he arrived, and already had an AV cable plugged into the back of the TV so he wasn’t able to mess with that.

After a delay of 2-3 months, I was finally allowed to order a new work laptop to replace my four-year-old Thinkpad A20p (P3-733).

I ended up getting our “standard configuration” - a HP Compaq nc6220 with extra memory. Pentium-M 740 (1.73Ghz), 1G total RAM, 40G HD, CDRW/DVDROM, 802.11b/g and Bluetooth built-in, and a 14.1″ 1024×768 screen (I don’t need anything bigger or higher-resolution for VPNing from home).

So far, I’m *really* happy with it, and it feels more solid (and is, of course, faster) than the old Thinkpad. I’ll probably end up finding another 256M of RAM for the A20P and put Linux on it.

We lost the best comedian ever yesterday. Richard Pryor passed away at the age of 65 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis.

I’ve spent the morning listening to his albums. I’m thinking of picking up the box set of his complete works.

You think I’m sick?
You think I’m twisted?
You think I’m ill?

You’re right!

Here’s proof!

So far, so good. Yesterday I finally stopped trying to use vi navigation keys by default.

The only problem I’ve found so far - I can’t get either Aquamacs or Carbon Emacs to remember my window-size settings! I have to resize the window every time I launch the program.

We awoke from a nap this evening to find that UPS had deposited a Bose Wave Radio on our porch. My first suspicion was that Amy had ordered it (she has been wanting one), but it turned out to be a surprise Christmas gift from her dad and another friend in Tennessee.

The current model plays MP3 CDs, so Amy burned some test songs while I unpacked the system and set it on top of its cardboard box to test it out. As it turns out, the empty cardboard box works well as a rather impressive bass booster.

I have to admit that it sounds better than the Acoustimass 5 speakers I bought a couple of months ago.