Just now, talking to my boss on the phone, I used expression “in one fell swoop”, referring deployment of files from SourceSafe. I am puzzled about what “fell” means. I thought it was related to “swell”. I could not have been more wrong:
From http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-fel1.htm
We now never see it outside this fixed phrase (or perhaps only occasionally in poetic use) but once it was a common word in its own right. One of its relatives is still about: felon, which comes from the same Old French source, fel, evil. Originally a felon was a cruel or wicked person; only later did the word evolve to mean a person who commits a serious crime.
That’s fitting, especially considering the nature of SourceSafe.
Oooh, I wanted to steal that sign.
Interestingly enough, the creators of the sign knew that, and added a meta-warning at the bottom.
I am back from my vacation.
We rented this nice cabin in the Poconos in a place called Shawnee.
This abstract sculpture was once proudly standing near Ingersoll Hall. Now it rusts in the grass. I wonder who made this monstrosity and what it was called.
Strangely enough, twisted pieces of metal welded together are closely associated with sculpture these days. When I think of sculpture, I think about granite, marble, wood, clay or bronze. I think about chisels and wax models. Rebar and welding apparatus I closely associate with construction work.
A friend of mine met her boss’ daughter carrying a huge pile of rusty metal somewhere. She asked her about what is she was going to do with it. She became very surprised and answered – “Don’t you know? I am a sculptor!”
I wish Dan Maynes-Aminzade had a livejournal….
TurboNet card arrived yesterday. It’s an amazing feat of engineering – a tiny little custom-made ethernet card that fits into Tivo’s ISA slot and is powered by the motherboard. Install took 3 minutes (good hearted Tivo engineers included drivers for it with the latest version of software) + 5 minutes to staple cat5 to the wall. Well, and half an hour contemplating Tivo’s insides.
What am I gaining from having an ethernet card in Tivo?
Well, for one, it will not be phoning home every day. 30 calls per month at 5 cents each is not a huge saving, but I will not have to unplug the phone cord during thunderstorms.
I already had a burned out modem once. The nasty thing about it breaking was that it kept phone line “of the hook” so that nobody could call me. I had to send my Tivo to a Texan who goes by the handle Electriclegs. He figured out how to fix Tivo modems by replacing a few parts and even made a repair kit available, but I was not brave enough to solder surface mount components myself. The repair cost me $50 + shipping, but the worst thing was being without Tivo for a couple of weeks. Brrrr.
Things left to do:
1) Install bigger hard drive (not simple because I have a double drive model)
2) Mount the ethernet jack flush in Tivo’s case (cold not do it this time because my nibbling tool broke during cutting a hole for exhaust fan on my computer)
3) Install TivoWeb, other neato hacks
4) Learn to solder surface mount components, install memory kit from Electriclegs
This reminds me a dream from “Slow Wave” comics, where the light turned blue. I did not do anything to the colors. I don’t know why the traffic light is blue.
