Sony VAIO with 3rd party PCMCIA CDROM drive. Verdict: fubar, cannot restore from OEM recovery disks. Solution: Attach it to home network for network installation of Red Hat; donate to church, take tax deduction. (Being atheist, I recommended a different charity, but it's not my decision to make

Gateway something-something pentium machine with "too much stuff on it". Verdict: Working, hard disk full. Solution: Educated user about "Add/Remove Programs"; created 365 free MB (1.5 GB disk). Considered chatting about legacy hardware and free software alternatives, but didn't: don't want to find/support free software greeting card maker application.

My neighbor asked if I would help her get her computer running this weekend. I agreed. It's kind of a trade of services. She's a painter, and did some work in my rental property at a substantial discount.

The computer is older and second-hand. I suspect I will be dealing with an effed-all-to-heck windows installation which is long overdue for a reinstall. My neighbor tells me all she wants is to "clear some stuff off" but she doesn't know how because she is "computer illiterate".

Who knows if there's even an installation disk. I'm certain there's no stand-alone windows disk; not so sure about an OEM restore disk.

Terrific.

I think I will start by getting a good idea what she wants to do with this machine. If it's a typical type/email/surf thing, it's tempting to set her up with a free OS. That would allow me to avoid some of the inevitable callbacks when it crashes or locks-up or something like that. I'm certain she's not going to want to swing by Best Buy to shell out for a copy of XP, which will be a dog on this hardware anyway.

Online journals are just like journals we (maybe) keep in paper form. They're a place to organize thoughts, ponder, or just rant.

On the plus side (and whether or not it is a plus or not is an open question), there is a greater possibility that someone will read your online journal before you die. Balancing this, however, is the possibility that your online journal my vanish. It's volatile in a way that your paper and pen are not.

But even that's up for debate: if we found out that /. was going to disappear in a week, somebody (or several somebodies) would start mirroring. Maybe your online journal less vulnerable to catastrophe as a result of the technology.

Only time will tell...

So this story got me thinking...

What's the difference between a commune and a community? What's the difference between communing and communication?

In American culture (mine), commune has a generally negative connotation, while community has a very positive connotation.

Communing has a religious connotation, but communication is something to be sought on a worldly level between individual mortals.

Okay -- I know the dictionary gives us different definitions for these things, but they are etymologically not that far apart.

Okay, I minored in English, so I guess I'm overly fascinated by this stuff. Where's my OED?

Yesterday I asked some coworkers (hyphenate at your own discretion) what they thought about Carnivore and Magic Lantern. Now, these are folk I work with: programmers, engineers, ostensibly nerds -- like those for whom the news is, you know, the stuff that matters.

Of the three to whom I talked, two had no clue. Independently of each other, they asked me if I was talking about the sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Why is the world the way it is?