Archive for March, 2008

Book Review: Absolution Gap

Recently, I read the Absolution Gap, the third book in Alastair Reynolds’ trilogy (the previous two were Revelation Space and Redemption Ark, and have been complemented with several novellas and short stories set in the same universe). I quite enjoyed it, but reading it reminded me of why I can only take Mr. Reynolds’ writing in small doses.
(continued)

Candidacy Exam Anticipation… Forever!

As a warning, this is going to be a bit of a whining post, but I really want to get it out. I’m in a molecular biology PhD program and in my specific program I have to write an approximately 20 page proposal on a topic (completely unrelated to the topic I’m actually studying in my lab) and then defend it in front of four established professors in my department (usually in a 3+ hours meeting with only white boards as props) in order to advance to candidacy. I’m at the stage where I submitted my proposal, have done a mock defense, and am now just waiting for the thing to be scheduled (professors are busy!)… it’s now been over 3 weeks since I submitted it and there’s no date picked.
(continued)

Tagging

For a while now, I’ve wanted to have a Tag Cloud for this site (look to the left column of this site, right under the welcome). Adding the cloud was easy, but going through the 340 posts on this site and tagging them took several hours– and isn’t done! Nevertheless, I think it turned out pretty neat. What do you think?

System76 - A Class Act

Several years ago, I bought a Koala Mini from System76, a company that sells PCs running Ubuntu Linux. The system is hooked up to my TV, and functions admirably as my media center. However, a few months ago the cpu fan died, the system overheated, and it would continually overheat after about 5 minutes powered on. The system was far past warranty, and my specific model had been discontinued by the manufacturer, so I figured I was out of luck. I was wrong: System76 fixed my system free of charge– I didn’t pay for labor, shipping, or the new cpu fan. I certainly didn’t expect a free ride, but I was happy to see their dedication to excellence. So I just thought I’d post about it, for those who might be considering a pre-installed Linux system.