I finally got fed up with Windows 2000 on my laptop and decided to replace it with Linux. The current popular distro is Ubuntu, so I went with that. As far as work things go, I’ve set up everything I need and because so much of what I do is Linux based anyway, things are a good bit nicer. But, being me, I had to mess around with settings and get everything just the way I like it, so I set it up to automatically mount my network attached storage device. This makes it so that as soon as I’m logged in, I can navigate to /nas and access all the files stored on the external hard-drive connected to my router. The only real problem I had with this setup was that the NAS wasn’t unmounting when I shutdown the laptop. After doing some reading, I found out what I had suspected, which was that the people that make Ubuntu, in they’re infinite brilliance, had set it up to shutdown network connections before attempting to unmount shares. I followed these instructions, and it fixed the problem, so it no longer takes forever to turn off my laptop.

Oh, and don’t give me that line about Linux not being user-friendly, it’s not really true these days. I ran into a problem because I was doing something that few people would even attempt on a Windows machine. When I was running Windows 2000 I couldn’t even print files at school. I often had to print my plots to a file, convert them to pdf, upload them to my web server, go up a flight of stairs, login to a machine there, navigate to where I stored the files online, and then, finally, print my plots.

[Joe]

This is the tallest tree of it’s kind in the US.

See, I told you.

You have to get older, you don’t have to grow up.

You can’t see it very well, but he’s blocking the water so he can send a pulse down the pipe.

This has to be the dumbest looking dorm ever. Well, if you don’t count all the other ones on this side of the campus. It looks like a bunch of cages at the zoo.

I think Big Bird went this way.

You may think that because of the title and the photos that this post is about Dad and I going to Root Glen (for like the billionth time) last weekend. It’s really about my need to do things that should be easy, but are being frustrated by something like the incredible piece of crap that is Wordpress (See, I can self-edit), sort of like a mental claustrophobia.

[Joe]

I received this yesterday:

Don ****** to allgrad

Dear colleagues,
Some of you, particularly those of you who have offices on the fourth floor, have at times been subjected to my Windows desktop changing pranks. Specifically, you might be logged into a computer on the fourth floor, step out of the office for a minute, and return, only to find that your
Einstein-visits-Middle-Earth background had been changed to some rainbow colored pattern involving unicorns. White unicorns. White unicorns frolicking. White unicorns doing obscene acts.

I just wanted to take this moment to clear the air and apologize for these little pranks, and to ask for your understanding. You see, I have a problem. I like unicorns. No, I love unicorns. So big, so strong, so… happy. One day, I hope to own a unicorn. A white unicorn. A white unicorn with a long, pointed horn. I’d play with it, I’d ride it; I’d ride it through fields and meadows while rainbows shoot from the ground and little fairies sing “It’s Raining Men.” (Of course, it wouldn’t really be raining men, I’ve just always loved that song.)

So you see, these little desktop-changing pranks aren’t really pranks at all; I just wanted to share with you my love for unicorns. So please, in case I accidentally left a computer logged into my email account one day and one of you felt the need to seek revenge, please reconsider. Thanks!

Cheers,
Don

Dad comes home fuming about something to do with Microsoft too often for his own good. The things he says about Bill Gates, well… I can’t repeat here. Recently Dad was working on a proposal that was due the next day at 6am. The problem was that the night before, the computer gnomes had upgraded his Word to the latest version. The latest version which, of course, completely changed the interface around. As he tells it, the only things he could find were cut, copy and paste. Everything else was a mess of unrecognizable icons. You can guess what happened to that proposal.

Anyway, it’s because of all that, that I dedicate this link to Dad. It’s an email that Bill Gates sent to a number of people inside Microsoft regarding his experience trying to download Windows Movie Maker. This is from back before it was included with the OS. If you scroll down to the bottom, there’s even a link to a dramatic reading, but the email is so long that he doesn’t do it all.

[Joe]

I wonder if I’d get in trouble if I tried to bring a skull on the plane. Probably…

Anyway, now that I’ve gotten confirmation of financial support from our collaborator, I’m pretty sure I’ll be headed off to Denmark later this year. As I understand it, the plan is for me to go over there in late August/early September and help out with some computing stuff. There’s also a workshop on electroweak symmetry breaking in September, so I will likely stay on for that.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, at least, come September there will be.

[Joe]