Month: August 2008

How come when you restore software — say, because you had your logic board replaced, or a hard drive fail — your registered applications frequently lose their sense that you actually paid for them, but your demo software remembers that your trial period has expired?

I’m glad that St.Patrick’s is set to break ground for their rebuilding project in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — and I’m glad, for now, that they haven’t gotten much further. In case Gustav hits harder, and more directly, than anticipated, we’re keeping David and his family and Long Beach in our prayers.
 
And all our other Seabury alums on the Gulf Coast, and all the good folks in peril from the sea.

A recent MacInTouch reader’s comment called attention to Farhad Manjoo’s polemical tract from Slate, directed against printer manufacturers. While Manjoo frames his essay in a way that muddies the case, I share his frustration with the market model for near-commodity goods such as printers (and razors and cell phones) — where the low cost of entry for the vehicle locks the buyer into very costly proprietary consumables (ink, blades, minutes). A couple of years ago I pleaded with the LazyWeb to put together a long-life, low-maintenance printer, but so far no one has gotten on board.
 
On the brighter side, Margaret’s home safely from her first week of work at Loyola; classes begin for her next week. Go, team!

David pointed to Fantastic Contraption which is obviously a subtle plot by some terrorist organization to bring the productivity of U.S. workers to a grinding halt.
 
Mine, anyway.
 
The boys and I used to love The Incredible Machine (I even miss the intro theme), the game on which Fantastic Contraption is obviously modeled. Likewise, my dad and I loved Rube Goldberg cartoons (one of the Christmas presents I remember most vividly was a catalog from Goldberg’s 1970 exhibition at the Museum of History and Technology). I wish I could clear away the whole long list of tasks that need my attention, so I could devote a whole day or two to these entrancing puzzles. (By the way, the third level took me long enough that I realized I needed to quit for the day and get to my real work).

Working without your computer entails predictable inconveniences, but the one that frustrates me most is the Ominous Wall of Email accumulating on servers, waiting for me to download it. I’ve successfully kept my inbox below ten items all year — now I see 47 items backed up in my inbox. Most of these I’ll be able to drag to my “Looked This Over” folder right away, but some I won’t, and I still don’t have a signal from Apple concerning the return of my notebook.
 
If you’ve been thinking about dropping me a digital line, this might not be the best week to do it.

Susie Schaefer sent me an email message yesterday afternoon; it began, “I’m supposed to be writing articles on summer youth events for our diocesan newspaper. Instead, I’m erasing every other sentence.” This reminded Susie of the olden days back at Seabury’s Writing Boot Camp (Hello Debra, Beth, Cliff, Siobhán, and others!), where I promised that if we practiced the principles I taught there, eventually we would internalize the awareness of what our colleagues would say to us about malconstructed periods, imprecise usage, and evasive passives.
 
“So, I… decided to entertain myself by making a picture.”
 

 
I glow with pride (not only that my writing instruction has taken root, but also that Susie sustained a correct implementation of LOLspeak), and I urge Susie et al. to press forward for the golden afternoon when they no longer “erase every other sentence,” but compose freely in strong, supple, limber, stirring prose. Even for a diocesan newspaper.
 
Now, I can haz bocaburger?

Today was Margaret’s first day at Loyola, which involved her leading a faculty seminar on a recent papal encyclical, and my first day of classes at Duke, which involved an introductory session with my Greek Exegesis of John class. Both of our days involved a lot of walking and, giving the climate in both Durham and Baltimore, a lot of perspiration. My class listened patiently as I sketched my vision of the fitting way to study the Greek text, and they indulged my many eccentricities; Margaret’s report suggests that the Loyola theology faculty participated actively and appreciatively in the discussion she facilitated. We’re both worn out, and both thankful for good starts.

This morning I brought Margaret to RDU for her first flight to Baltimore as a member of the Loyola faculty. Although her plane was delayed, everything worked out fine, and I got back in plenty of time to take Pippa for morning services at Duke Chapel.
 
After a brief midday break, we headed out to The Streets at Southpoint. Our main objective was to drop off my notebook computer for repairs, but Pippa had ideas of her own. When we arrived (early), Pippa spotted a couple of end-of-summer sales on the sort of light clothing she had less call to select in the frozen Northland. I, meanwhile, headed for the Apple Store to make my appointment with Technical Destiny.
 
At precisely four o’clock, the Apple Genius called for the next Mac appointment. I plopped my beleaguered MacBook Pro on the counter and pointed him to the case numbers, adding my mysterious magenta-corner problem. He was initially confident that I had a battery problem, then considered a possible problem with the hard drive, but when he heard about the magenta corners his eyebrows rose rapidly. “This should be an interesting repair. I hope I get it!” After shifting his attention from the hard drive to the logic board, he suggested that the hard drive was fine — so I pointed out the results from a SMART test that said my hard drive was “Failing.”
 
His off-the-cuff diagnostic involved a replacement battery, a replacement hard drive, and a replacement logic board. I proposed that they simplify life and just give me a whole new computer, but we all know that’s unlikely. No matter — with as many replacement parts as he’s likely to install, my MacBook should be as good as new toward the end of the week.

I cloned my two-plus-year-old MacBook Pro’s drive on Thursday, anticipating taking it to the Duke computer repair shop (which does Apple-authorized AppleCare repairs), but it turns out that they charge $90 if you didn’t buy your computer from Duke. I made an appointment at the local Apple Store, but they didn’t have a slot till Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, I’m trying not to change any important files, even though I use Time Machine — I don’t want to tempt digital fate.
 
In case anyone’s Googling for similar symptoms, my battery is acting unpredictably (despite having been replaced under the MBP recall program) such that it shuts the computer down when the Battery meter suggests that I have twenty minutes or more left, I’m experiencing sporadic system crashes even when connected to AC, and (I forgot to mention this one to the Apple representative, so I’m writing it here so I’ll remember it tomorrow when I turn this one in) occasionally the display flashes a trace of magenta in the lower right corner of a window (or an embedded video element). I have two separate case numbers, one for the power problems and one for the crashes.
 
My AppleCare runs out mid-2009, so I wanted to get these squared away at such a time that would permit me a return trip in case Apple doesn’t resolve one of the problems. At the same time, beginning the school year (my first class meets Monday) without my digital weapon of choice at hand makes me feel edgy. I’m a-hoping they spruce it up nicely at Apple, and I can swoop in for the second week of classes at full strength.

xkcd has a cartoon today that characterizes the way Margaret and I spent the days between when we left Princeton (actually, to be precise, “between when our cable service in Princeton was cancelled”) and the day before yesterday when the cable van hooked us up.
 

 
My appointment to drop off the MBP is Sunday afternoon; my first class at Duke comes up on Monday. Keep an eye on me, to see how “teaching without my outboard brain” is affecting me.

Well, to be exact, they want my two-year-old MacBook Pro, which has been misbehaving more and more egregiously all summer. Since we haven’t had a stable address till recently, we haven’t had a convenient way to get the laptop serviced. Where would it be sent? Or at what Apple Store might we take it in, to be picked up at another one entirely? Now, however, as classes and a series of presentation dates loom, I called Cupertino to see whether they might be able to come to the aid of my poor distressed computer.
 
They were so impressed with my symptoms that they issued me two distinct case numbers. Now I have to back everything up, run down to Duke’s computer repair facility, clench my teeth, and get ready to go for a week without my digital right arm.

The installer from Time-Warner finally came today, and after testing and rejecting one defective modem, he set up a modem that works. Now, however, we find out that our Lexmark printer doesn’t agree with being the USB printer from an AirPort Extreme. Plus, the older model of the Extreme (which we have) doesn’t allow networking USB hard drives, plus one of my (neurotically many) hard drives seems to have given up the ghost (my last Fireware drive ever, I expect). But we’re online, on our own connection. And I picked up a second-hand microwave. We’re getting closer.
 
Oh, and I booked a flight from St Louis to Nashville on American. I can’t explain the difficulties I was having, but thanks for the ideas.

I’m working on one presentation for an international conference, another for a clergy conference, and I have to make a connection from St Louis to Tennessee — and I’m discovering that it’s a lot harder to book a flight from St Louis to Nashville than it is to put together a provocative essay on technology, copyright, community, and theology.
 
I’m not quite sure what to make of this.

Last night, we all were on our way to Elmo’s to celebrate John Utz’s having landed a job as a fifth-grade teacher at an exciting school, when we heard a snippet of Bob Elliott on the radio. Margaret and I were so captivated that we could hardly get out of the car when we arrived at Elmo’s, and we had to explain to Pippa who Bob and Ray were (“are,” in Bob’s case) and why we love their style.
 
This morning I went a-searching and turned up the Archive.org treasure-trove of old Bob and Ray show recordings. I started listening to one while I read my daily dose of Lucian of Samosata (my Greek is rusty — if not outright calcified — so I’ve been working through Lucian to regain the pretense of competence). Pippa came downstairs and asked me to make breakfast for her and when I brought her eggs and (veggie) bacon out to her, she was listening intently to Wally Ballou, Biff Burns, the Komodo Dragon Expert, Mary Backstayge, and the other characters and skits.
 Triumphantly, this is A K M Adam, saying write if you get work.

How come no one told me Sophia Hinshelwood was in the Batman movie? I was staring at her in the press conference scene, wondering why she looked so familiar — and not in an “I’ve seen her in another movie” way, but in an “I know that person” way. I asked Margaret who she was, but Margaret (having spent so much less time around the Seabury Institute office) didn’t recognize her.
 
It was an unsettling, but terrific surprise — and enthusiastic congratulations to Sophia, for whom this will, we hope, be the start of something big!

We’ve unpacked some of our boxes, moved others around, gotten me a Duke ID card and an office key (I’m ensconced in the office of Richard Hays, for whom I’m subbing this year), and we’re still waiting for connectivity from our home. The stress levels are high, as this intermediate state touches different nerves from the liminal state of packed-up-but-not-settled. There’s much good going on, and still some glitches.

In Kenneth Turan’s review of Tropic Thunder, he refers to “the self-involvement of actors who say things like ‘I don’t read the script; the script reads me.’” That line stood out when I read the review, because when applied to grandiose film stars, it rings true — but I’ve frequently heard it cited approvingly (mutatis mutandis) by theologians with whom I’m broadly sympathetic: “Instead of us reading the Bible, we should let the Bible read us.”
 
I’ve never been comfortable with that trope, for reasons that people who know me will quickly anticipate. It points, commendably, to a disjunction between the cultural narcissism that presupposes its own superiority to insights from evangelists and commentators of centuries past (on one hand) and the humility of considering that one’s own methods and analysis may be flawed in ways that we don’t perceive. Still, and vitally importantly, it’s not the Bible that’s “reading us” when we get off our high horses; it’s other people and the different priorities they bring, or even more often it’s our projections of what other people might think of us and our interpretations.
 
That obviously makes a huge difference. Once we come clean about the fact that the “reads us” trope usually relies on representations of the other (the Bible, the Oppressed, the Native, the Exotic Foreigner) that reside in our own imaginations, we can see more clearly that claims about “being read by” another usually just displace and occlude our own authority behind a mask that represents some more innocent, more generally-acknowledged interpretive presence. As a result, people feel as though they can get away with claims about the Bible that might otherwise seem self-serving or uncharitable, or they can congratulate themselves for a ventriloquistic “being read by” that still permits the ostensibly passive interpreter the last word.
 
Here’s a really radical idea for people who want to “let the Bible read them”: why don’t you stop and actually listen to the people who, in reading the Bible, come to the conclusion that you are wrong? They are not always right; they may not be right at all; but at least they actually are other than you, and they are not encumbered by your tenacious longing to justify yourself. (They may be afflicted with the need to justify themselves, but that’s a different problem.) Or we could all just come to the seminar table as fallible, needy, self-justifying sinners, and be a lot more patient with one another.

I’m drinking a cup of coffee that I ground and brewed in our kitchen. It’s not the greatest cup of coffee ever, but it sure feel good to be able to do it.

As we were extracting varied booty from the buried treasure of our cardboard box and packing tape collection, I encountered a box marked “Mugs and Utensils.” Since we haven’t yet located the electric kettle, I dared hope that this box might contain the vital necessity for making hot coffee (Pippa already recovered the French press and the coffee grinder, bless her soul).
 
So I opened the box and pulled out — three volumes of paperbacks on The Art of Star Wars. Quoth I, “Mugs, utensils, and Star Wars?” Margaret rejoined, “Where’s David Weinberger when you need him?”

Now that we’ve alit in Durham, we can look back at our summer travels. In conversation with Mark, it occurred to me to work out just how far we’ve come. Beginning somewhat arbitrarily with our departure from Princeton in early June, this is what we’ve done:
 
Princeton to Pittsburgh (memorial event for my Dad): 336 mi.
Pittsburgh to Evanston (packing week): 480 mi.
Evanston to Ypsilanti (visit Nate and Laura): 270 mi.
Ypsilanti to Princeton (return trip): 613 mi.
Princeton to Baltimore and back (Loyola faculty picnic): 262 mi.
Princeton to Hyannis (to ferry to visit Mom): 303 mi.
Hyannis to Boston (drop Pippa off, visit Taylor-Coolmans): 71 mi.
Boston to Princeton (return trip): 266 mi.
Princeton to Durham (first load): 449 mi.
Durham to Chicago (via air; we didn’t drive this leg, so I’m not counting it)
Evanston to Indianapolis (big-ass truck evening one): 203 mi.
Indianapolis to Johnson City (big-ass truck, day two): 460 mi.
Johnson City to Durham (big-ass truck, last leg): 219 mi.
Durham back to Princeton (return trip): 449 mi.
Princeton to Durham (second load, round trip): 898 mi.
Princeton to Framingham (on our way): 246 mi.
Framingham to Augusta to Brunswick (See Pippa’s play): 216 mi.
Brunswick to Damariscotta to Quincy (pick Pippa up, visit Himmers): 219 mi.
Quincy to Shoreham NY (visit Clevengers): 139 mi (not counting ferry mileage)
Shoreham to Baltimore (see Orioles, visit Fowls): 246 mi.
Baltimore to Durham (phew!): 323 mi.
 
That’s a total of 6,668 driving miles this summer. That’s roughly a round trip from Fort Kent, Maine, to San Diego. That’s roughly the distance from New York to Kabul. At 60 mph, that’s 396 hours in the car/truck cab. At an average of 20 mpg (a guess, between the Subaru and the rental vehicles) and at $4 a gallon, that’s $1,333.60 in gasoline. We won’t even calculate the collateral expenses of prepared food, hotels, and wear and tear on our flesh and spirit.