Utter Chaos

Posted by Ace on June 29th, 2009 filed in letters from Ace
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My new computer is on a FedEx truck and has been dispatched for delivery;  it’s out there on the highway, somewhere.  In the meantime, the Sealand Sanitation Department has unloaded a 2-ton rusty green dumpster, big enough to block half the street, in front of Flora’s house, and a crew consisting of her sons, their sons and several hired workers is busy cleaning all the crap out of the garage.  Buried under the 8-foot high pile of scrap wood, broken tools, and useless artifacts from three generations is…  a 1945 Jeep!


Year 2

Posted by Ace on June 29th, 2009 filed in Tales of the Interregnum
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Today is the one-year anniversary of the Interregnum site, or as close as makes-no-nevermind.  I didn’t send out links to the Main Index until near the end of July 2008, but I started working on it much earlier, and The Sign was the first entry I posted here in the Tales section;  Drinking the Kool Aid was written later and back-dated, since it was more of an introductory post.

And today I am…

Pretty much exactly where I was a year ago, in every way.

Bummer!


Worse Than I Thought

Posted by Ace on June 28th, 2009 filed in letters from Ace, tech stuff
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The outlets are testing Hot-Neutral reversed.

This place is a death trap!!


Shocking Revelation

Posted by Ace on June 28th, 2009 filed in letters from Ace, tech stuff
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Now that I’ve purchased a new surge suppressor to replace the old, fried one [I bought the Belkin 4000 joule “home theatre” model, if you care], I have made an unbelievable discovery:

The two outlets that all of my high-end computer equipment have been plugged into for the last six years are not grounded.

Well THAT would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?


Once Bitten: the saga of computer power supply protection [part 3]

Posted by Ace on June 26th, 2009 filed in tech stuff
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This is the last post in a series of three.  Read the previous posts on surge suppression and power conditioning/ voltage regulation.

UNINTERRUPTIBLE POWER SUPPLIES

Arguably the final step in being able to thumb your nose at the vagaries of man and nature is the Uninterruptible Power Supply, or UPS, the point of which should self-evident from the name.   A UPS consists of a battery plus some associated circuitry;  you plug it into the wall, then you plug your computer and peripherals into it and (ideally) ignore it.  They come in three flavors: Read the rest of this entry »


Once Bitten: the saga of computer power supply protection [part 2]

Posted by Ace on June 26th, 2009 filed in tech stuff
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This is the second post in a series of three.  Read the previous post on surge suppressors.

POWER CONDITIONING & VOLTAGE REGULATION

In theory, your wall outlet is supposed to deliver a steady, predictable source of current to the devices plugged into it, free of fluctuations.  In practice, this is not always the case, for a dozen different reasons:  the time of day, the demands on the grid, the way the wiring and appliances are set-up inside your house.  Plug your air conditioner and a lamp into the same socket and watch the lamp dim when the air-conditioner kicks in;  you’ll get the idea pretty quickly.  Any attempt to deal with straightening these sorts of fluctuations out is loosely referred to as power conditioning (or sometimes line conditioning;  in my case, and probably yours, the attempt  is going to start at the wall socket, not at the pole outside.) Read the rest of this entry »


Once Bitten: the saga of computer power supply protection [part 1]

Posted by Ace on June 26th, 2009 filed in tech stuff
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Like most people, I occasionally find it necessary to research topics with which I have no previous familiarity, in order to address certain nagging practical questions.  (“Is the risk of drug interaction between pseudoephedrine and vicodine overstated?” “Am I endangering my life by attempting to pry this thermocoupler loose from the furnace with a sharpened spoon?”  “Will writing this e-mail get me arrested for insider trading?”  Etcetera.)  Unlike most people, however, I frequently seem to find myself in the situation of having done that research, only to wind up with another hundred questions.  Such is the case with the exciting topic of computer power supply protection, the mention of which has invariably elicited a monosyllabic and confused “Huh?” from those friends with whom I have dared to broach it.  I am setting forth what I have learned about it and related matters here, not only to straighten it out in my own head, but in the hope that it might prove useful for someone else wrestling with these same issues.  If you’re that someone, read on… Read the rest of this entry »


Time Wastes Too Fast

Posted by Ace on June 26th, 2009 filed in artwork, letters from Ace
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Maira Kalman is my hero.


The Squeaky Wheel

Posted by Ace on June 25th, 2009 filed in letters from Ace
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I’m not sure whether it had anything to do with my e-mails to Customer Service (I’m going to pretend that it did), but Dell has finished my system and shipped it.  It should arrive by 1900 Monday.

Oh, crap, now I have to decide what to do about the power supply!


Hell’s Half-Acre

Posted by Ace on June 24th, 2009 filed in history
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“On 31 January 1944, the 93rd and 95th Evacuation Hospitals opened for business in the new hospital compound [at the beachhead in Anzio, Italy].  They joined the 56th Evacuation Hospital, which had been accepting patients there since 1300 on 30 January.  By 0100 on 1 February, the 56th Evac had admitted 1,129 patients.  The hospital area stretched over a half acre of flat, open land and in a matter of days would be christened ‘Hell’s Half-Acre’ by patients and hospital personnel alike.  All throughout February and on through March and April, the hospital area would be continuously shelled and bombed; the wounded would be rewounded, and many doctors, nurses, corpsmen, technicians, and other hospital personnel would be wounded or lose their lives.  No other hospitals in World War II took more bombings and shellings, or suffered as many injuries and deaths within their staffs of doctors, nurses and enlisted men, as well as re-injuries of patients, than the hospitals on the Anzio beachhead.”

– from “And If I Perish:  Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II”, Evelyn M. Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee


Through the Looking Glass

Posted by Ace on June 23rd, 2009 filed in Tales of the Interregnum
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employee

Well I’m glad it worked out for him.

(Thanks to Church for the laugh.)


Failure of Perspective

Posted by Ace on June 23rd, 2009 filed in letters from Ace
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OK:  the Dell company, for the first time EVER, is now totally on my shit list, as they have changed the projected delivery date for my new computer system from June 25th, this Thursday, to July 7th, another two weeks from now, with no explanation given.  Under most circumstances this would be the point at which I would breathe deeply and remind myself that in the 17th century, ships could be overdue for a matter of weeks before there was considered to be any cause for concern.  But you know what?  THIS IS NOT THE 17TH FREAKING CENTURY.  This is the 21st century, and this is a multi-national corporation, and this is what they do, and unless they had to send a team into the @#$% future and shoot a @#$% T-800 to get the goddamn cpu, then as far as I’m concerned there’s just no freaking excuse for it, and that’s that.

I have bypassed the FAQs, which say nothing informative, and sent a second e-mail to their customer service department, in response to the automated reply they sent in response to my first e-mail (said response, of course, directing me to the FAQs).  I have requested more information as to the cause of the delay.  Politely.

I have also discovered, incidentally, that Gmail has been dumping all my WordPress comment notifications into Spam.  Which explains a lot.


Battling Entropy III: Here’s to Your Health

Posted by Ace on June 22nd, 2009 filed in letters from Ace
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Flora, the landlady, fell a few days ago.

Apparently this happened while I was in the house, upstairs in my apartment, and I never heard anything.  (She lives on the first floor;  I live in the attic.)  Maybe it happened while I was in the shower, or running the hairdryer, or maybe I just failed my Perception check (an event which a long, long list of people, most of them female, enjoy depicting as occurring with some frequency.)  But in any event, the first news I had of it was when I suddenly realized that I was hearing far too many voices inside the perimeter of the yard for it to be any kind of normal activity, and came downstairs to discover myself face to face with a cop and a pair of medics, dragging items out of the stairwell in preparation for carrying her outside.  (“Jees!” said the startled cop, glancing through the doorway of my apartment and up the stairs.  “I thought that was a closet.”)  Her family, most of whom I’ve met before, and all of whom seemed to be there, gave me a strange combination of polite smiles and the jaundiced eye–  they obviously hadn’t realized I was there, any more than the cop had, and were no doubt either embarrassed that I was, or wondering why I hadn’t done anything, or both.  Flora herself was talkative.  The fall had injured her foot, and no worse:  painful certainly, and incapacitating, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been.  They carried her out, and the family followed, and in a short time I was left standing alone on the back asphalt next to the oil-soaked towels and rain-soaked air-conditioner, blinking.  There being nothing to accomplish in that location, nor anyone to engage in any kind of dialogue, I went back upstairs.

Today, I discovered from Carmine, my next-door neighbor, that while Flora is fine, she will probably not be back:  between the arthritis and the gout and now this injury, she has sufficient mobility problems there’s simply no way she can continue to live unassisted.  And while that’s a total bummer for her, it leaves me with an imminent problem.  If I’m living in the attic of Flora’s house-  without a lease or any kind of written, legal arrangement, no less-  and Flora isn’t coming back, what happens to me?…

On the other hand, things could be much worse.  It could, for instance, be Horrifying Medical Emergency Week! And it isn’t.  (At least not yet.)   Count your blessings there…


Happy Father’s Day

Posted by Ace on June 21st, 2009 filed in letters from Ace
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The jazz music is cranking, and after a fine homemade breakfast of orange-banana-walnut-raisin pancakes and English Afternoon tea, Jack is sitting on my lap playing “Star Wars Lego: the Complete Saga” on his DS, as I watch his progress over his shoulder (and reach around him with both arms to the laptop to type.  :)   )  Since we went to the Art Museum and the Cheese Restaurant in the City of Mists yesterday, and since we’ll be spending the afternoon at Uncle Mayor and Aunt Bella’s house, we have no agenda for this morning except enjoying each other’s company.  And maybe destroying all comers on Mario Kart…

Time to race!


Conditioning

Posted by Ace on June 18th, 2009 filed in Tales of the Interregnum
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Reed Richards, round 3.

The air conditioner is lying canted on the kitchen table at a crazy angle, one side up in the air, causing it to piss dirt-water into a brown towel like some incapacitated animal.  I have stripped the fins off and tossed them in a clattering heap on the couch, and am now removing the screws of the exterior casing.  They are the hexagonal bolt-head type, without slots;  I don’t have a socket wrench small enough to grip them, but I do have an adjustable wrench, and my own grim determination.

Reed, of course, probably wouldn’t have left his air conditioner in the window for three years straight. Read the rest of this entry »