Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:34 PM

Yes, I not only brought my laptop to the SF con, but I'm blogging about it while here.

Couple quick notes:

Panel this afternoon titled "LiveJournal and Your Social Life."

Ian: And? Or!

Lis: Neither. “Is.”

What connection/conjunction do you think is most correct?

Seen on Dealer's Row: A voluptuous woman being fitted for and laced into a corset, while three men nearby were staring in rapt fascination... at the shelf of cheap paperbacks beside her.

I love fandom.

Oh, and today's Giveaway of the Day is HDDlife Pro, described as "a real-time hard drive monitoring utility with alerts, malfunction protection and data loss prevention functions. This hard drive inspector is a proactive hard drive failure detection system which manages all of your hard drive risks."

Too bad I didn't have it last month... But that in-and-of itself makes it worth having my laptop here.

Anyway, I'm heading back to connish stuff, but just wanted to share.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:58 PM

I've set up several automated alerts to inform me of new articles mentioning Marlowe (hey, it's a hobby).

This morning, I discovered a new article in the February 2007 issue of Reason Magazine that looks like it was written for me:

The Fan Fiction Phenomena: What Faust, Hamlet, and Xena the Warrior Princess have in common
by Cathy Young

Can you think of any two subjects more up my alley?

It doesn't appear to be freely available online yet, but it's a well-written defense of fanfic -- like many that I see online in fannish communities. The distinction here is that this is being published by mainstream press, so hopefully the word will get out beyond the converted.

I'm quite pleased by her conclusions (trying to keep this within fair use):

Despite such griping, fan fiction is clearly here to stay. Their work's legal status may be a bit precarious, but fan writers are generally left alone. ... The mainstreaming of fan fiction is likely to raise standards further, bringing more educated people into the arena and perhaps encouraging some voluntary gatekeeping, such as contests with input from professional writers or editors.

Woo-hoo!

For the record, here's the Marlowe mention flagged by the alert engine:

As many defenders of fanfic have pointed out, much classic literature would fail the kind of originality test [Robin] Hobb wants to impose. Goethe's Faust retells a medieval legend previously adapted by Christopher Marlowe. In a recent Newsday story on fan fiction, Battlestar Galactica producer (and former StarTrek fanfic writer) Ron Moore conceded that "Shakespeare wouldn't like a lot of the incarnations of Romeo and Juliet"--an ironic comment considering that Romeo and Juliet was itself adapted from an earlier story.

I'll keep an eye out and post a link once the entire article is online.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:56 PM

As part of a companywide initiative to be more environmentally sound, I now have a copy of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth on DVD.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:45 AM

This weekend, Arisia.

Next week, East Lynne?

Here's a quote to consider while I'm away:

“If video games really had the power to influence young minds, then my generation would all be running around in the dark, gobbling pills and listening to repetitive music.”

— attributed to Marcus Brigstocke     

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:28 PM

And because we can all use a good laugh now and again, I'll echo AMERICAblog in noting the similarity between the latest plan for "victory" in Iraq and the World War I setting of Blackadder goes forth:

The dialog transcribed below starts about 2 minutes into the video:

GENERAL MELCHETT: Now, Field Marshall Haig has formulated a brilliant new tactical plan to ensure final victory in the field.

CAPTAIN BLACKADDER: Ah, would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy, sir?

CAPTAIN DARLING: How could you possibly know that Blackadder, it's classified information?

CAPTAIN BLACKADDER: It's the same plan that we used last time, and the seventeen times before that.

GENERAL MELCHETT: Ex... ex... ex... actly! And that is what is so brilliant about it! It will catch the watchful Hun totally off guard. Doing precisely what we've done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time!

There is, however, one small problem.

CAPTAIN BLACKADDER: That everyone always gets slaughtered in the first ten seconds?

GENERAL MELCHETT: That's right. And Field Marshall Haig is worried that this may be depressing the men a tad. So, he's looking to find a way to cheer them up.

CAPTAIN BLACKADDER: Well, his resignation and suicide would seem the obvious.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:15 PM

No, I didn't watch the President's speech. Couldn't bear to.

But if you want a little context for the latest escalation plans, here are a few quotes making the rounds, starting with The Carpetbagger Report quoting The Washington Post on how this "surge" plan came about:

As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton. (emphasis added)

In other words, as Peter chided Edmund in The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe, “You didn't think at all; it was just spite.”

Josh Marshall reminds us that our framers created the system with certain checks and balances:

The way this is 'supposed' to work is that when the president takes a dramatic new direction like this he consults with Congress. That way, some relative range of agreement can be worked out through consultation. National unity is great. Or at least that's the theory.
But here we have a case where the president's party has just been thrown out of power in Congress largely, though not exclusively, because the public is fed up with the president's lies and failures abroad. (Indeed, at this point, what else does the Republican party stand for but corruption at home and failure abroad? Small government? Please.) The public now believes the war was a mistake. Decisive numbers believe we should start the process of leaving Iraq. And the public is overwhelmingly against sending more troops to the country. The country's foreign policy establishment (much derided, yes, but look at the results) is also overwhelmingly against escalation.
And yet, with all this, the president has ignored the Congress, not consulted the 110th Congress in any real way, has ignored the now longstanding views of the majority of the country's citizens and wants to plow ahead with an expansion of his own failed and overwhelmingly repudiated policy. The need for Congress to assert itself in such a case transcends the particulars of Iraq policy. It's important to confirm the democratic character of the state itself. The president is not a king. He is not a Stuart. And one more Hail Mary pass for George W. Bush's legacy just isn't a good enough reason for losing more American lives, treasure and prestige.

Unfortunately, as ABC reported this afternoon, it may already be too late:

President Bush's speech may be scheduled for tonight, but the troop surge in Iraq is already under way.
ABC News has learned that the "surge" Bush is expected to announce in a prime time speech tonight has already begun. Ninety advance troops from the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in Baghdad Wednesday.
An additional battalion of roughly 800 troops from the same division are expected to arrive in Baghdad Thursday.

Finally, Joe Lieberman made this odious statement while promoting the President's proposal:

The worst thing that could happen here is that there be some kind of attempt to resolve this pivotal moment where they compromise among factions in American politics and in the American Congress rather than doing what is right and has the highest prospect of succeeding in Iraq.
In other words, this moment cries out for the kind of courageous leadership that does what can succeed and win in Iraq, not what will command the largest number of political supporters in Congress.

As many people have pointed out, the worst thing that could happen is thousands more deaths and injuries. And that's entirely too plausible given the record so far.

If Lieberman doesn't get that, then... well, given the amount of time he spends agitating against videogames, maybe he needs a crash course in the difference between real and virtual violence.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:34 PM

So, from what I've been able to find about this morning's error message, I either have a bad system board, which will cost several hundred dollars to fix, or a bad AC adapter, which can be replaced for one tenth that cost.

I brought my laptop into work and borrowed somebody else's AC adapter, and my computer booted up without error. So that suggests the problem's in the AC adapter. [If I wanted to be extremely certain, I'd invite somebody else to power up their machine plugged in thru my adapter, but I didn't feel like asking that of others.]

I don't think I'll damage my system by running like this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the principal problem this causes is an inability to recharge my batteries.

Sadly, Dell's own adapters seem to get totally crap reviews from buyers.

But I don't really trust Targus, which seems the predominant seller of third-party AC adapters. My old Sony developed power supply problems within a few months of purchase that I blame on the power adapter being an imperfect match.

More damning, though, my laptop calls for a 90V/65W adapter, and all Targus' current adapters are 70W. That's just the kind of imbalance that led to those problems, so no thanks.

So those are options I'm not taking -- now I just have to figure out what to do...

For the record, here are the AC Adapter specifications according to my laptop owner's manual:

Input voltage	90-264 VAC
Input current (maximum)	1.7 A
Input frequency	47-63 Hz
Output current	4.5 A (maximum at 4-second pulse); 3.5 A (continuous)
Output power	65 W
Rated output voltage	19.5 VDC

This morning, I worried briefly about the "___ luck always comes in threes" before I realized this was my third tech scare in recent weeks. My hard drive was the obvious one, but there was also the week-long fob loss.

Mind you, now that I've got the fob back, I discover that it's not all it was cracked up to be.

Just Google on Lexar Firefly slow and you'll see the problem...

I don't think Fabio has to worry about retirement any time soon.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:14 AM

So, I finally got last month's HD problems sorted out, and now I seem to be facing a new issue.

Since last night, when I've turned my computer on, I see the following message upon bootup (after the memory check but before Windows starts):

The AC power adapter type cannot be determined. This will prevent optimal system performance.

Strike the F3 key (before the F1 or F2 key) if you do not want to see power warning messages again.

Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility.

Okay, I am running my computer with the original AC adapter it shipped with. [I partly blame a third-party adapter for the power supply problems I experienced in my old Sony laptop.]

So, what the hey?

Googling the error message, I see a bunch of links, mostly focusing on adapter issues (bent pin in the connector?).

Maybe I'll bring my laptop into work today (we're mostly a Dell shop) and see if I can't borrow somebody else's adaptor for five minutes to see if that's the problem.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:42 PM

So, I've been reading all the obituaries for Momofuku Ando, inventor of instant ramen.

If you're unfamiliar with the details regarding his accomplishments, the best tribute came from Slashfood, with Jorge Cham's cartoon a sentimental favorite.

Enough people blogged about it that I didn't think I had anything to add.

Until I heard Robert Smith on NPR, who said:

I hope the Nobel Prize Committee is listening: You've got to think of all the innovations over the last thirty years -- the Internet, gene splicing, you name it. It was probably worked on by graduate students. Poor graduate students. Poor graduate students fueled by -- what else? -- instant Ramen.

Well, I don't expect Stockholm to pay attention, but somebody else should be.

Surely he deserves one.

Even though he never earned the honor in life, I think they should honor him with a posthumous lifetime achievement award for his contributions to nutrition and science.

I've emailed my nomination -- who's with me in making this a campaign?

PS: From the New York Times' appreciation:

Ramen noodles have earned Mr. Ando an eternal place in the pantheon of human progress. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Give him ramen noodles, and you don't have to teach him anything.

I believe only Pastafarians have the appropriate response to that:

Can we all say, RAmen.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:25 PM

From Universal Hub, I've discovered You Park Like An Asshole.com, with printable notices (PDF) and a photo gallery for offenders.

Which raises another question I've been pondering:

Parking lots/garages are effectively real-estate rentals. Your money pays for use of a parking space over a certain period of time. [Ignoring for the moment monthly lease arrangements.]

If a space is unusable, that cuts into the lot's revenue.

So why don't I see parking lot terms that will charge somebody double if they occupy multiple spaces?

I'm talking about (a) self-park hourly lots where you pay upon exit, and (b) about cars that render two spaces unusable. Somebody just barely over the line is rude, but not revenue-impacting.

They just need to state their terms up front, and have a staffer walk around the lot periodically to check for vehicles that are over-the-line. Either put a "ticket" on their window or use some other indicator to dun offenders when it's time for them to pay. [And be reasonable -- if double-parking is the only way for late arrivals to fit in around early overlappers, the fault (and fee) should only lie with the original instigator.] Cheap digital photography can reduce grounds for dispute once violators have left their double spaces and are at the booth.

Risk-averse owners of luxury cars may be willing to pay extra for the additional margin of error against bumps and dings. But otherwise, it feels to me like they're just taking advantage of the system out of a misguided sense of entitlement.

From an entry I made in 2005: "Somebody parked a Cooper Mini so it took up two adjacent parallel spaces! A Mini!!! Perfectly centered so neither of the spaces were usable by anything larger than a motorcycle. I'm used to this kind of behavior from oversized SUVs, where the fault might partly lie with incompetent drivers [or poorly-drawn spaces], but this just made my jaw drop."

But right now, there's no cost to this kind of rudeness, so drivers assume they can get away with it. Give folks an incentive and they'll start parking more carefully.

Somebody please tell me what's wrong with this idea?

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:06 PM

My missing USB thumb drive has been returned!

A coworker brought it by my cube sometime after lunch today.

She found it in the umbrella stand by the front door.

It looks exactly as I left it.

What a relief!

[I partly blame this on having named my original USB fob "Fabio" -- with a name like that, he was bound to get jealous. I don't think my new drive fell out of my purse... I think it was pushed!]

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:58 AM

They might interest or entertain you, too...

 • oBaby!

 • Just desserts

 • Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) on "The Myth of Scarcity"

PS: I've got meetings from 10-11, but outside that time give me a call once you're awake.

PPS: If you see Ben, apologize to him on my behalf. I accidentally hit the car's panic alarm while loading it up this morning. I didn't mean to, and if I woke him, I'm sorry.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:35 PM

A small restaurant has two restrooms.

Each has a single toilet and sink behind a locking door.

On first glance, they appear utterly identical. No urinal; no sanitary supplies; no additional handicapped access nor place for diapering.

Signs on the doors say "Men" and "Women."

Why?

Why assign gender labels?

If two people of the same sex need to go to the bathroom, one will be stuck waiting, while the other bathroom remains uselessly idle.

Why not "Either" and "Or" (which were the stalls in Grendel's)? Or just be honest -- "First come" and "Also ran."

Can somebody explain the logic behind this?

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:35 PM

A little ticked over that B in Mind, though.

That seems to come from saying I was more more pessimistic than optimistic.

It's not like I'm unhappy or anything, just that I tend towards skepticism.

Via