Saturday, April 30, 2005

Post of the day

"Good thing I didn’t get into this racket for the sheer fun of it."

Sunday, April 24, 2005


untitled

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Songs of Innocence, Introduction
You are 'regularly metric verse'. This can take
many forms, including heroic couplets, blank
verse, and other iambic pentameters, for
example. It has not been used much since the
nineteenth century; modern poets tend to prefer
rhyme without meter, or even poetry with
neither rhyme nor meter.

You appreciate the beautiful things in life--the
joy of music, the color of leaves falling, the
rhythm of a heartbeat. You see life itself as
a series of little poems. The result (or is it
the cause?) is that you are pensive and often
melancholy. You enjoy the company of other
people, but they find you unexcitable and
depressing. Your problem is that regularly
metric verse has been obsolete for a long time.


What obsolete skill are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Monday, April 18, 2005

Toshiba Satellite 5005 Settlement

Toshiba Satellite 5005 Settlement: "A. Remedy For Settlement Class Members Who Experienced Impairment And Took Their Satellite 5005 In For Service (“Severe Impairment”)

If you suffered “Severe Impairment” -- which for purpo.ses of this Settlement means that you (1) acquired a new Satellite 5005 that suffered and continues to suffer overheating, shut downs, or noticeable reduction in processing speed with normal use (“Specified Conditions”); and (2) sent or took your Satellite 5005 to Toshiba or to a Toshiba authorized service provider for repair for any of the Specified Conditions – you may be eligible to receive one of the following:

• If you had your Satellite 5005 serviced on more than one occasion prior to November 2, 2004, your choice of either a $1,000 cash payment or a $1,500 credit voucher (“Credit Voucher”) for use on www.toshibadirect.com. If you select the $1,000 cash payment or Credit Voucher, you will have to return your Satellite 5005 to Toshiba. If you wish to keep your Satellite 5005, you may be eligible for a $500 cash payment.

• If you had your Satellite 5005 serviced on only one occasion prior to November 2, 2004, either a $1,000 cash payment if you return your Satellite 5005 to Toshiba, or a $500 cash payment if you choose to keep your Satellite 5005. If you had your Satellite 5005 serviced one time only, you are not eligible for the $1,500 Credit Voucher.

These remedies are subject to the following terms and conditions..."

Toshiba Satellite 5005 Settlement

Toshiba Satellite 5005 Settlement: "This Web Site Will Inform You Of The Proposed Settlement Of A Class Action. If The Settlement Is Approved By The Court, Certain Benefits Will Be Available To You In Settlement Of All Claims Relating To An Alleged Defect Causing The Toshiba Satellite 5005 Computers To Overheat, Shut Down, Or Experience Noticeable Reduction In Processing Speed With Normal Use."

Motherboard Issues - Toshiba Notebooks - CNET Forums

Motherboard Issues - Notebooks - CNET Forums: "Well, On December 15th I received my computer back and they did replace the motherboard and the computer SEEMS to be working fine in the respect but the 'Built-In' Microphone (the part I was informed was not going to be in until March 18th so I could not understand why I was getting it back) was still not working. When I called Toshiba ONCE AGAIN I was put on hold and was informed at this point that the specs were misprinted and there WAS no built in mic on this unit. Well I asked WHY they told me that they were waiting on the part (they said they tried the first one and it did not work and THAT was a direct quote from their 'depot team') and the guy said that he had no idea but that if my computer seemed to be fixed basically I could file ANOTHER complaint but would get nowhere and to basically just be happy that my computer was working!!!! Was was appalled! I have NEVER been treated so badly by a company or their representatives in my life! I was given information for WEEKS that was incorrect. They should (at the very least) inform thier customer service reps of issues so they can give their customers correct information."

i also have a problem with A75-s226 - Notebooks - CNET Forums

i also have a problem with A75-s226 - Notebooks - CNET Forums: "i bought a toshiba notebook thinking there will be no problems. I was WRONG! My laptop has the same problem as everybody else. it freezes up, shuts down, over heats, and the sound card doesnt work properly. i sent my laptop in to the Toshiba Depot for repair twice. the first time i send it back was because of windows freezing. i got my laptop back after a month because they didnt have a mother board in stock. then when i got it back, i had the same problem but this time the laptop was over heating, freezing up, and the sound card didnt work properly. so i called up and they told me to send it back...still im waiting for my laptop because once again the freaking mother board isnt in stock.

NEVER BUY A TOSHIBA NOTEBOOK!!"

Negative for Toshiba a75 s209 - Notebooks - CNET Forums

Negative for Toshiba a75 s209 - Notebooks - CNET Forums: "I have had it for 3 months already. It's been used only 2 months and it's still in shop for another 1 month!!! Mine can't power on at all. I send to toshiba authorize center, and tech told me that it need to replace system board. But Toshiba has it as back order so, he can't get replacement!!!
So far, many ppl complaint about this!! I call Toshiba and CS told me just sent it to tosiba depot!!..No refund, no exchange AT ALL!!
We also have to play S/H too!!!!
Only solution they can provide....

Should we still buy toshiba???"

Contact attny General, also be sure to - Toshiba Notebooks - CNET Forums

Contact attny General, also be sure to - Notebooks - CNET Forums: "The attorney General is one of the most under utilized services by residents in my opinion. They are there to help us. Also, the Atty General's office makes money off settlements from these types of things. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY TO HAVE A DEFECTIVE PRODUCT FIXED! If you live in New York State, especially, AG Spitzer is cleaning up this type of customer abuse.
My sister bought an A-75 a week ago and has this problem. She bought a Toshiba on my advice, as all Toshiba laptops I have owned have been bullet proof, so I feel guilty.
Also, contact every tech writer you can think of, NY Times, your city's paper, etc and let them know this is a common problem. Let 60 minutes, hard copy etc. know. Call your local news stations troubleshooter/fraud guy, they love a story like this.
No one at Toshiba told my sis about the static issue... they told her to bring her computer to a repair center an hour away... What happened to customer service? If Toshiba wants to play, then play, call the Attny General, and scream to every media outlet there is."

Ping away on Toshiba, technorati!

Satellite Pro 6100--the hot zone - Toshiba consumer complaint: "Toshiba's response has ranged from denial ('we know of no problems') to total disregard ('it's under warranty, send it in') to ineptitude (a customer service 1-800# with the recording 'our agents no longer service this line') to a baffling hide-and-seek game in which they want to make a 'deal' (astonishingly they want more $$$ from my students for another model), yet do not return phone calls or answer questions."

Reviews for Toshiba Satellite� Notebook PC (A75-S211) at circuitcity.com

"i bought this computer in october, it broke in december-- wouldn't boot. took it in for repairs on 12/29 and they determined it was the systems board. as of yesterday, it's still not fixed because the board is on backorder. they won't refund the money, replace the computer, or at the very least extend the warranty for the 2.5 months that it was sitting in the shop broken. also, each time i call they keep extending the date the boards will come in, first it was 2/8, then it was 2/16, now it's 2/24. come on, i'm getting the total runaround here. if this computer works, it's great, but if it breaks, well watch out. save yourself trouble and buy a different computer "

And now it's April...

The further travesty that is Toshiba

This is becoming almost comic. Semele is very sick. She now is cutting out to standby every few minutes, at random. I have just spent an eon holding for Customer Service wanting to know what Toshiba plans to do about it. There is a long story there, but I haven't the heart to write it. At present. When I find the proper (read most widely promulgatable) venue, however, be sure to read it there. (I wouldn't let the "service tech" off the line, he had to sit there and wait along with me. He kept saying the company wouldn't authorize him to let me wait "indefinitely" and I told him he'd better get authorized as waiting indefinitely for The Company was what I'd been doing for a month now, so why shouldn't he?...)

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Fraud

Semele was gone for a month. And still Toshiba did nothing. Absolutely bupkis, the AC cord still wiggles out at the slightest movement and drains the battery. Supposedly they kept her an extra week because they had to change the systemboard and they were out of them (Toshiba is a computer company, right? I'm just asking.) Then they didn't change the systemboard anyway. If I have to send her away for another month I will wither and die. Bleh.

untitled (2005)

This is the first drawing I have made with the sketching tablet and Painter IX. Finally.

new beginning

Somehow, after staying up until 5am tweaking, I '"awoke" this morning to find that blogger had wiped out my template. The whole thing, all the links, everything. All gone.

Well, let it be so then. I start anew. I don't even mind the white ground, we'll go from here. It seems to have retained my pink. A new dawn?

Saturday, April 16, 2005

the bubble (series)


untitled

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The elements in these images are taken from a lovely painter named Duane Keiser, who puts up an oil sktech a day, it seems. Please go view them on his site. He studies, and then esquisitely composes and renders, single objects of great loveliness into pieces that he calls Postcard Paintings and sells for $100 a pop. I have downloaded some and here, as I am wont to do, have pulled out their hidden colors and montaged them into other things for myself, of which this forms a series that I find haunting.

Now to come up with the very reasonable price of some Postcard Paintings.

YooHoo!

Well, Ted said I have a little southern accent...



My Linguistic Profile:



65% General American English

25% Yankee

10% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern


Philosophy Misfires

Chief Blogging Officer: "But the interpretation of that event, indeed of any set of historical circumstances, warrants the use of quotation marks around 'the facts.' Everything depends on the lens you look through. For instance, we're fairly sure there was something we call The Inquisition, and something we call The Reformation, and something we call The American Revolution, but what these phrases mean... oh man, don't get me started. Because each seems to mean a lot of different and often conflicting things to a lot of different and often conflicting people. OK, so are we clear on that much, then? "

Well, no. Even that, although I think we're saying the same thing, I can't accede to. We're fairly sure there was something we call The Inquisition, but actually there wasn't, there was no thing outside of a series of factual occurrences and that composite series--or not even that; its results--we call The Inquisition, but a series, not to mention its results, does not a "thing" make. In other words, we construct this and call it a thing. So of course each seems to mean a lot of different and often conflicting things (that word again.)

Chris Locke is using this innocuous example to speak on (many things including) contemporary philosophy, god help him. I can't imagine why-- I mean who needs it besides its own practitioners?-- but he's stumbled into its realms in the person of John Searle. Which leads me to suggest, since lately he's looking at late 19th century thought, Realism/Idealism, Frege, Russell and on up to Wittgenstein, Paris is the capital of France being Russellian, to which Searle would be directly referring and expecting his audience (again philosophy for philosophers) to recognize and therefore actually the perfect example of social construction since Russell was unfamiliar with the lady in question (perhaps a singular instance in both directions)--the blonde one, that is. Only she's not, apparently, blonde today, which is part of it too.

Searle is speaking in a tradition--analytic philosophy, which treats of how we can speak of things and mean anything at all--nothing more than a social construction itself although the Anglophone philosophical community would excommunicate me if it hadn't already for saying so; he's doing the same thing in the title of his book. Paris also being the scioness of Hilton, for instance, Frege treats in reverse in his morning star/evening star (Venus) argument. There might be something there for Mr Locke (Chris, not John) if he cares to, er, Highbeam it. Since I believe he's making the right argument, but framing it with philosophical counterexamples that may not actually be counter, that is. Disclaimer: I am no fan of Searle or of his philosophy of mind, I think it's all historically determined (where "determined" is used very loosely.) I would, and do, lean more toward Gadamer, myself, were I to lean into philosophical buttresses, which I do as much as the next. (The Realism/Idealism nexus being the topic of one of my own abandoned theses.) Which is not to say that Gadamer is not himself guilty of historical blindness, but then that's the point, who isn't? Not me.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Happy Happy HAPPY!

Semele is home. I'm back in business!

Thursday, April 14, 2005

OYA


P. Adam (2005)

post of the day

"'SHE's a TECH WRITER!' I will posture and poke at the guy's chest. 'She can take away your subject verb agreement, for GOOD!'

'I were in trouble!' he will say. 'Good lord! What be you done!'"

That's me!

Unitarian Jihad Name Generator: "Sister Shuriken of Enlightened Compassion"

Monday, April 11, 2005

Well, jeez, thanks!



How to make an elithea
Ingredients:

1 part friendliness

3 parts brilliance

1 part beauty
Method:
Stir together in a glass tumbler with a salted rim. Serve with a slice of lustfulness and a pinch of salt. Yum!

Saturday, April 09, 2005

"'Do you want the nutsacks returned?' she asked me."

april in tampa

'biscus in blossom

holiday tables

under the tree?

This is what is left of the front garden the spring after the hurricanes. I haven't touched a thing in months. I'm thinking of painting the walk...

The starters today--for the Bakerina(s)


the Wodgy: day one (16 hrs)
note thumbprint in northwest quadrant

the Gluey: day three (3 hours after 2nd feeding)
bubbles due north

in the mill....


apoceclipse

Prepare To Meet Your Bakerina: Let's get cultural

"Day one: Combine 227 grams whole rye (or pumpernickel) flour and 227 grams warm water (90F). Mix, cover and let ferment for 24 hours.

Day two and three: Measure 125 grams of mix; discard the rest. Add 125 grams of whole rye flour and 125 grams of warm water. Mix, cover and let ferment. Feed this starter once a day for these two days, unless it becomes so vigorous so quickly that you think it can support a second feeding (unlikely at this stage, but possible)."

Friday, April 08, 2005

Prepare To Meet Your Bakerina

"Day three through five: Measure 282.5 grams of the starter mix; discard the rest. To the reserved starter add 125 grams all-purpose flour and 156 grams 85F-degree water. Feed the starter in these proportions twice a day. By day six you should have an active culture, ready for raising bread, but Chef Hamelman advises that if you can keep feeding it for two or three more days, you will have a stronger and more complexly-flavored starter."

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Prepare To Meet Your Bakerina

"Day two: Measure 285 grams of the day one mix; discard the rest of the mix and return the scaled mix to the bowl. Add 67.5 grams whole rye flour, 57.5 grams all-purpose flour and 155 grams warm (90F) water. Mix well, cover and leave to ferment. Do this twice on Day Two, about 12 hours apart."

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Prepare To Meet Your Bakerina

"Day one: In a bowl, crock or plastic container, combine 250 grams whole rye (or pumpernickel) flour, 312 grams warm water (about 85-90F) and 5g honey (the honey is optional, but it will assist in the fermentation process). Mix well, cover and leave for 24 hours."

Monday, April 04, 2005

mhhmmph!

"But he is keen to be the first archbishop of Canterbury to attend a papal funeral - though as of yesterday evening he had not been invited."

this is news?




You're California!

In many ways, you are larger than life and almost defy description. You
certainly love to shake, rattle, and roll with the best of them. You have a generally
sunny disposition, but are capable of resorting to harsh extremes when pressed. You are
more likely than most to become rich, or famous, or perhaps both. While you have the
golden touch in so many regards, your respect for actors is a little over-zealous. This
endless faith in actors needs to be terminated.



Take the State Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.



via snow

Saturday, April 02, 2005

historical inerrancy

This day in history "1978 Velcro was 1st put on the market"

This can't be correct as I specifically remember working with it as early as 1975. But I am only as accurate as my feeds.

for today

‘Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.’