Archive: August 7, 2008

<<< August 6, 2008

Home

August 8, 2008 >>>


XP SP3

Thursday,  08/07/08  11:55 AM

So, I am taking my computing life into my hands, and - gasp! - installing XP SP3.  Yes, I have a current backup, thanks for asking.  If past experience is any guide, having it will be the main reason I don't need it.

And so it begins...

Okay, here we go...

Ah yes, I had forgotten how much fun Windows Service Packs could be...

[Update (eleven hours later): Cannot get past this point.  I've tried a bunch of stuff, but this error always appears.  A few times it was preceded by some other errors which gave me an "ignore" choice, and which I ignored, but this one can't be bypassed.  I'm giving up; there wasn't anything in SP3 I was that interested to get, I just felt I needed to "stay current".  I'm afraid this starts the clock on when I'm going to have to reinstall XP from scratch, that's something to look forward to...]

 

 

Thursday,  08/07/08  11:21 PM

Today was a mixed bag; I enjoyed scheduling a release beta now that I can predict bugs, and got in some productive coding, but also pissed away quite a bit of time trying to install XP SP3.  I did have a great ride, felt really strong, and joyfully setup my Tivo to record the Olympics, which as you know start tomorrow! 

Actually one of the first events of the Olympics is the Men's Road Race, as previewed by Velonews.  Check out the stage profile at left - wow - bet you've never seen anything like that before.  I think it favors someone like Levi Leipheimer, he's my pick to win.  There isn't quite enough climbing for Contador, there's too much climbing for Evans, and Valverde likes an uphill finish, but he'll tire on all the other climbs.  We'll see! 

Engadget tells us how to get the most out of the 2008 Olympic games

I love this ad from McCain, especially that great snippet from Hillary at the end: "I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House, and Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."  Ouch!  There is a serious side to this message; by showing that prominent Democrats think they can work with him, McCain is telling us he'll be able to get things done even if he has a Democratic Congress, which is very likely.  Perhaps many of those Democrats would find it easier to work with McCain than Obama... 

McCain and Obama both commented on Bambi, guess who said what: 

    • "I think I may have teared up at the end..."
    • "Oh, yeah, I cried.''

Right there you have the stark difference between these two guys.  Of course Obama might change his mind after polls show Americans don't like crybabies.

The iShares cup, presently being held in Extreme 40 catamarans, off Cowes, England, is amazing.  Check out this action from Sailing Anarchy!  Whoa. 

Martin Eberhard, ex-CEO of Tesla, has driven 1,000 miles on his car, and posted a review.  Overall he seems pretty happy, but the range is only 125 miles, and the nav / radio seems pretty broken.  The range will be harder to fix :)  Also note his snide reference to a MacLaren F1; that would be Elon Musk's car, and we can guess that Elon is responsible for the fact that Martin is no longer at Tesla... 

Chris Anderson: thirteen words that lose their meaning when the denominator approaches infinity.  "Here are five words that I would suggest are usually meaningless in a world where the populations we're talking about are limitless in size and diversity and doubling overnight (just add the word "blogs" after any of them and you'll see what I mean): Most, Average, Typical, All, None/No".  It is an interesting point but I think it is dead wrong; just because you don't know the absolute quantity doesn't mean the ratio isn't meaningful.  You can say "most blogs" and make a point without knowing how many blogs you're talking about... 

Some interesting speculation: AppleTV could become a Real TV?  There could be something to this; all the other speculation about Apple's forthcoming "product transition" has struck me as too lame to be true. 

This could be from the Onion: Athiest finds image of nothing in his toast.  I love it :) 

 

 
 

Return to the archive.