KayPro II

You find some strange and old technology lurking around universities. Yesterday I found this: "Kaypro"

As far as I can tell, it's a luggable computer or word processor of some type called the Kaypro II. Note the dual 5 1/4" floppy drives, and the lovely monochrome monitor. The keyboard snaps into place to cover them, and all told it weighs around 20-25 pounds.

I'm thinking of putting it up for auction on eBay. This one is going for $30!

I know John has some Commodore PET's still lying around in the dungeon of the Science II building. It's rumored he uses them to torture mosquitos.

Catching My Breath

I've finally caught up to the point where I can spare a few minutes to update my weblog! It's been a very busy week here at work. I'm hoping tomorrow is much less hectic. I've gotten my Windows 2000 Server up and running. The first non-techie users will be added into the domain tomorrow. It was a bit of a hassle getting our domain created as a "child" domain of the central IT people here on campus, and the DNS service integrated with ActiveDirectory can cause headaches at first.

We received 20 new Apple G4 computers for our lab today. Here's a valuable tip, don't move those boxes if you're wearing a white Nike polo shirt. I now have nice black blotches on my shirt in the chest and shoulder region, I think they'll wash out.

I started the first class of my second degree today. I'm taking a class entitled "Introduction to American Politics", for which you'll find the catalog description below:

940:014. Introduction to American Politics -- 3 hrs. Processes and functions of American government in relation to concepts of American democracy and to practices of other governments.

The class is taught by Tom Rice, who is the head of the Political Science department. He seems to be an excellent instructor, my only frustrations lie with having to take such an introductory level class. I also dislike the pace we have to move at because it is a summer session class. I've got to concentrate on keeping my mouth shut, because I could debate many of the issues for hours, but we simply don't have time for it.

The class dynamics are interesting, there are about ten of us in the class, half are non-majors, the other half of us are majoring in Political Science. Obviously those of us with an interest in this subject have more to say, as well as a greater understanding of the subject matter.

This was demonstrated today by a classmate who stated (quite strongly) something to the effect of -

"I can't stand how these liberals are tearing the country apart. I think it's wrong of the Supreme Court to say that we can't pray in schools. This is America! This nation was founded believing in God! If people don't like that, it's too bad! This is America!"

He actually bolded the words as he spoke them. That's not the type of argument you should use to make your case. Something more along the lines of "Student lead prayer doesn't constitute state-sponsored religion" would have been much more effective, and have a much better chance of winning a court case.

I bit my tongue here. I don't really consider myself a "liberal" but I generally vote for the Democratic party. I'm one of the mythical moderate majority, the people who could have crossed party lines to vote for John McCain, but won't touch George W. Bush with a 10 foot pole. I probably most identify with the ideals of the Reform Party, but it'll be a cold day in Hell before I vote for Pat Buchanan. I'm fiscally conservative, but socially liberal, believe strongly in civil liberties, am pro-choice, but am still up in the air on gun control. I think the most important outcome of this election will be who is nominated to the Supreme Court in the next four years. I fear that those Bush would nominate might seriously erode the separation of church and state, to infringe upon the rights of flag burners, and seek to overturn Roe v. Wade.

However, I completely agreed with the Supreme Court's decision, on the school prayer issue. Organized prayer of any kind has no place in our public schools. Conservatives are so big on "family values", why does a strong family need the school to impart and foster religious belief in their children? Isn't that something the parents can do on their own, and in a manner much more suited with their beliefs? There are 168 hours in a week, about 35 of those are spent in school for the average child. Isn't 133 hours enough other time for religious instruction and worship?

I don't really have a problem with vouchers however, I think that our educational system would be improved in many ways if it had to "compete" with private schools on a more direct level.

Alas, there was about 2 minutes left of class time.

I saw this at the gas station the other day. You don't normally see a vintage International Harvester M Tractor in the middle of Cedar Falls.

On The Road

I'm connected via my trusty Sony VAIO laptop again. I'm at my grandparents' house in Ventura, Iowa for the fourth of July holiday. Now I know how John feels, out in the country with little bandwidth. I can only manage a 26,400 baud connection out of their phone line, and I had problems doing that, as I'd never initiated a dial-up connection in Windows 2000. User error on my part.

Bad Support

Since I give technical support over the phone, in person, and via e-mail for a living, I feel plenty justified to criticize those who do so poorly. I noticed that Diablo II had a little yellow sheet of paper with it that mentioned that it might not work with Kenwood CD drives and that a fix was going to be available at Blizzard's web site. I looked for the fix, or any mention of the problem in their support area, and finding nothing, I e-mailed their tech support: From me:

I have a Kenwood TrueX 52 speed drive. I was a closed-beta tester, and had to install a different drive then to read the CD. I have the same problem when I try to use the final CD. The insert with my Diablo II CD that I got today claims that I can find a fix at http://www.blizzard.com/support to fix the problem with this drive (which I have since re-installed) but I can't find it. I don't really feel like ripping my computer apart again tonight just to make it work with this game. Can you tell me what I need to do to fix it?

And they replied:

If you are able to install Diablo II but then when you try to play it it gives you an error message "Please Insert CD To Play" or something similar...

You should contact the manufacturers of your CD drive for any firmware updates availble. If an update is available, install it and see if that helps. If no update is available, they should be able to tell you when such an update will be released. Also, If you are running Windows 2000, make sure you are logged on with Administrative Rights and if you have a virus scanner, make sure it is updated to the latest version.

If you still have problems after updating your CD-ROM drive, please reply with your system specs including what kind of CD-ROM drive you have (brand/model number) so that we can investigate the problem.

Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you.

Regards, David N.

Obviously they don't teach reading comprehension over at Blizzard. Since this is clearly a known problem, as it was included on a yellow sheet with the game, you'd think he'd recognize that I said I had one of the Kenwood drives in question in the first line of my e-mail. I wound up installing the game from my 2X CD-RW drive. It takes a long time to install 1.5GB of data from a 2X drive...

100 Years of Stories

In a comment over on Slashdot, I saw this story about DaVinci's parachute design being tested (and working!) over 500 years after it was drawn. This is pretty cool, but I don't think I'd want to land with a 187 pound parachute over my head. I picked up my copy of Blizzard's Diablo II that I'd reserved at Software, Etc. I've been waiting for this game for a couple years, I'm glad it's finally shipping. I was mildly alarmed when the clerk took my copy of the game and sliced it open and pulled out the contents. He told me that a lot of them had only come with two of the three Compact Discs needed for the game. Thankfully, my copy had all three, but I was deprived of the feeling of removing that shrinkwrap, it just doesn't seem as new now...

I left a three-cent tip for the waitress at lunch today. We ate at Diamond Dave's, a Mexican restaurant. The restaurant was not remotely busy, her offenses were:

Took 15 minutes to ask us what we'd like to drink, and if we were ready to order.

Mixed up our drinks when she brought them, giving the wrong drink to the wrong person.

Mixed up our food when she brought it, just as above.

Took 15 minutes after we were finished eating to return with the checks, during which time one of the people had to leave to get back to work.

The checks were wrong. I had a taco salad and water. My bill included a lemondade that my co-worker had. We had to work it out amongst ourselves.

My co-worker paid with a credit card, I paid with cash, she brought me his receipt to sign and handed him my change.

Now, my question is, did I overtip?

We're starting to implement some wireless networking in our building. We've got an Apple Airport set up, and have gotten some PowerBooks connected to it via their Airport cards. I've gotten a Sony VAIO working with a Dell Aironet card and Windows 2000 to access the same network too. I wish our building wasn't made of concrete and steel, we'd get a lot more range out of the cards! Now I just need for Xircom to hurry up with their 802.11 Springboard Module for my Handspring Visor, so I can walk throughout the building and still be connected to the net. Macintouch has some more info about Palm computers and wireless technology as well.

This morning, on my way to work, I was listening to KUNI radio (broadcast from two floors above my office). NPR is running a series during their Morning Edition program called 100 Years of Stories. The series features the stories of people over the age of 100, and this morning featured Roy Larkin Stamper of Oklahoma. While his story isn't available yet in RealAudio, it should be by the end of the day. The story of Ruth Ellis is already up, I caught that one a few weeks ago while sitting in the drive-through lane at McDonald's. All of these are fascinating stories, it's amazing what you can learn from NPR.