The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence

[sovay]

Happy Bloomsday! I have no computer.

There are a couple of reasons that yesterday was outright awful until the evening, when rushthatspeaks and I went to see Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961) at the Harvard Film Archive (it is one of the best black-and-white films I have ever seen, meaning that it could not have been made in color; and the ghosts are uncanny, but Deborah Kerr is terrifying), but one of them was the way my laptop failed to boot for over an hour in the morning and only came back, slowly and waveringly, sometime after dark. This morning, it wouldn't come back at all.

I do not really feel like recounting the details of a day spent at the Apple Store, except that at one point I texted derspatchel, "I am the only person with a book in this entire store. Everyone else around me waits staring into their phones or the air. I'm reading ethnography from 1912, but I feel like I'm conducting it a hundred years later." I had thought the problem might be that one of the fans in the computer had died, leading to overheating, but when the utilikilt-wearing employee at the Genius Bar (whose logo is a sort of stylized Bohr model of the atom; I am amused that the universally recognized sign for genius is still something to do with nuclear physics) popped the back off, it transpired that my machine only has one fan, which was not in the specs. I may have to name it either George VI or Owen Pugh. In any case, there were tests run, the hard drive appeared to be fine, it was decided that the problem was software corruption and the machine was taken off into the back room to have its operating system razed and reinstalled.

The operation was a success and the patient died: the hard drive failed during reinstallation. The good news is, a replacement is actually covered by the insurance I bought three years ago August. (For once, paranoia rewards. I cannot, cannot afford to buy a new computer. I am not sure I could have afforded a new hard drive.) The bad news is, I am unlikely to get the machine back before Monday, and until such time I have really no access to my e-mail and no ability to do my job. I guess this month is my exercise in unplugged weekends. But at least I could write about the last one without resorting to pencil and paper. I just don't write that fast by hand.

Comments

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Poor laptop. When you are financially situated to buy a new computer, I highly recommend finding someone affiliated with an academic institution, in order to buy on discount. (I'd offer to do that for you, but my current location makes that kind of cumbersome.) There's also the possibility of getting a refurbished machine - I got one back in 2003, and it ran beautifully for years - in fact, it still runs just fine, but it's slow for up to date software and such.
At least so much else seems to be going right lately?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That's a *very* lucky break that it's still under warranty (... though it's a lucky break in the larger sea of an unlucky happening...)

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Aaiiieeee!

Can they pull all your stuff off the old hard drive? (I have a widget that does that if you need to borrow it.)

Nine

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

I am sorry that your day sucked balls. But vicariously very grateful that the thing was still under warranty.

(Who was Owen Pugh? I am not inclined to look it up in my present mental state.)

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

I'm really sorry to hear, and I hope that your temporary lack of computer doesn't make you feel too powerless.

Incidentally, on what did you type this post?

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Agh! This is a fear we all have, I'm sure; it now makes me want to rush and back up mine, just in case. But on a selfish note, I'm so glad you saw The Innocents.;)

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear about your laptop woes, but very glad it's still covered and that you've got backups.

I hope it's soon back in your hands and with minimal further fuss.

I'm glad that The Innocents pleased you and helped improve your day.

ETA:
I'm reading ethnography from 1912...

If you don't mind my asking, which ethnography was this? (There was a time when I read a lot of ethnography, so I'm always curious if it might be one I'm familiar with.)

My condolences...

[obzor-inolit.livejournal.com]

Yet I'm glad you are being your observant self

whose logo is a sort of stylized Bohr model of the atom; I am amused that the universally recognized sign for genius is still something to do with nuclear physics *
Well, nuclear physics managed to invent the most deadly weapon yet known... and Einstein is the Genius Incarnate in the collective mind (I wonder who was it before him, maybe Edison? And yet before - maybe Charles Watt?)

Everyone else around me waits staring into their phones or the air *

Well, that depends of the phone (and one's use for it). Some people actually read e-books on their phones (and I admire them for it, one must realyy like reading to do it on a phone on subway). And my e-reader is happily full of vintage public domain books from Gutenberg.org

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Pants. I hope this gets resolved soon. I'm glad you managed to back up.

The Innocents sounds like a wonderful film, though; I should watch that. It sparked off a Kate Bush song ("The Infant Kiss"), which will make a lot more sense after viewing.

[selidor]

Thank goodness for backups. Thank goodness for valid backups.
/me anxiously looks at digital copies of thesis, adds a couple more on various extra continents for certainty...

the universally recognized sign for genius is still something to do with nuclear physics

Which I've always found a little odd in that the Bohr model got thrown out nearly a hundred years ago. It's like so many modern symbols: steam train is a railroad crossing, telephones are comfortingly clunky Bakelite prisms. (And yet, there was never a decent symbol for 'fax').
And as you quote, Einstein as the myth-symbol of 'scientist': yet the image is the shaggy-haired dreamer, more shaman than skeptic, trying to unite quantum theory and his own gravitational descriptions of the warp and weft of the universe. Not the clear-eyed bright young thing of the 1900s' Nobel-work and teasing out time's fabric. Perhaps we can't tolerate our legends to have been young, unless they die that way.