Mozy, continued, continued

I’ve updated the second of two posts detailing problems with the online backup service Mozy. It’s now sixteen days with no backup.

Jack Kerouac’s last typewriter

On June 22, 2010, Christie’s will auction a Hermes 3000 manual typewriter that belonged to Jack Kerouac. He used it from 1966 to 1969 (the year of his death). The estimated price: $20,000–$30,000. Says Christie’s,

This typewriter had to make a visit to the repairman in January 1969. The repairman’s receipt for $22.83 (which survives in the Kerouac Papers), diagnoses the problem as “Dropped.” The Kerouac Papers also contain the Hermes operating manual for this typewriter.

The machine is described as being “in good working condition.” There’s also an Army surplus backpack for sale.

[June 22, 2010: The typewriter sold for $22,500.]

Jack Kerouac’s backpack and typewriter (Christie’s)

Infinite Jest, romance

Brothers Orin and Hal Incandenza are talking on the telephone. Orin can’t remember the name of the woman he is attempting to seduce:

“I guess I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

“Boy, you really put the small r in romance, don’t you.”

David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996).

Other Infinite Jest posts
Attention : Description : Telephony

Write 5 sentence [sic] about cat

Another Google search, another student-driver stuck in my driveway, so to speak. Add an introductory “The cat is on the mat” to this passage to get the magic number five:

[I]f my saying that the cat is on the mat implies that I believe it to be so, it is not the case that my not believing that the cat is on the mat implies that the cat is not on the mat (in ordinary English). And again, we are not concerned here with the inconsistency of propositions: they are perfectly compatible: it may be the case at once that the cat is on the mat but I do not believe that it is. But we cannot in the other case say “it may be the case at once that the cat is on the mat but the mat is not under the cat.” Or again, here it is saying that “the cat is on the mat,” which is not possible along with saying “I do not believe that it is”; the assertion implies a belief.

J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (1962)

Or again, do your own homework. That’s the way to learn something.

Related posts
Five sentences from Bleak House
Five sentences about clothes
5 sentences about life on the moon
Five sentences on the ship
Five sentences for smoking
Write five sentences in the past
Five more sentences in the past

Infinite Jest and the iPhone

Apple’s new iPhone offers FaceTime. Says Apple,

People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality. With the tap of a button, you can wave hello to your kids, share a smile from across the globe, or watch your best friend laugh at your stories — iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi. No other phone makes staying in touch this much fun.

This FaceTime video tugs at eleventyteen human heartstrings in under two minutes. It would appear that no one at Apple is daunted by what David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest has to say about “video telephony” and “good old voice-only telephoning.”

Review: Made by Hand

Mark Frauenfelder. Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World. New York. Portfolio. 2010. $25.95.

In an America in which almost all things are boughten, Made by Hand celebrates what has become known as maker culture, which itself celebrates the pleasures of self-reliance and imperfection.¹ Mark Frauenfelder, co-editor of Boing Boing and editor of Make, has written not a manifesto but a sequence of engaging stories drawn from life, the first of which tells of moving with his wife and children from California to the South Pacific island of Rarotonga. Frauenfelder soon realized that the possibilities of a better life were to be found not in a different place but in a different approach to daily living: less buying, more making. Thus begin his efforts, back in California, to acquire various sets of skills — growing fruits and vegetables, modifying an espresso machine, raising chickens, keeping bees, building cigarbox guitars, carving wooden spoons, and making fermented foods, all undertaken with an intention of becoming “more mindful of our daily activities, more appreciative of what we have, and more engaged with the systems and things that keep us alive and well.”

The emphasis throughout Made by Hand is not “how-to” but “why-to”: there are no diagrams, no project plans, though there are useful bits of advice along the way, both project-specific (“Screws, not glues”) and universal (cross your property line — in other words, go to the store — and you’ll get nothing done for the rest of the day). As someone who teaches, I especially like what Frauenfelder says about mistakes as a necessary means of learning. Proceeding by trial and error (and more error), he gains deeper respect for art and nature, and greater confidence in his ability to solve problems. In this learning process, there is of course no escaping consumer culture: Made by Hand is filled with trips to buy lumber, tools, and beekeeping supplies. The investments of time and money sometimes make for difficult practical questions, as when Frauenfelder wonders whether a daily handful of eggs justifies the work of a coop and fence for chickens. In such situations, one must take a long view, weighing costs against future returns, both tangible and intangible.² And those returns are significant indeed. As Frauenfelder and his family come to agree, “Recreational shopping . . . is no match for recreational making.”

Reading Made by Hand makes me think of a famous WWII-era poster, which I’m now tempted to revise: Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Or — make it yourself.

Thanks to Portfolio for a review copy of this book.

¹ I like the word “boughten,” borrowed from Robert Frost’s poem “Provide, Provide”: “Better to go down dignified / With boughten friendship at your side / Than none at all. Provide, provide!”

² The long view can also be a handy way to justify buying, say, a nice fountain pen.

Pencil headline

What is this I see in the San Francisco Examiner? The stirring tale of a civic-minded soul, one “Park,” telling Gavin Newsom about the many fine qualities of the humblest of writing instruments?

No, that is not it at all.

My daughter Rachel probably knows the exact name for the type of ambiguity this sentence exhibits. I know it only as “some.”

Marriage, something to work on

“[I]f there is a lesson from the Gore breakup, it’s that with marriage, you’re never done working on it.”

It’s true. Read more:

What Brain Scans Can Tell Us About Marriage (New York Times)

Mozy, continued

The Mozy situation seems to be improving. Yesterday morning, I sent an e-mail (with a link to this post) to Mozy’s Press/Public Relations address. Later in the day, a long statement from Mozy Support Services Manager John Livingston appeared in the Mozy Community discussions of Windows and Mac backup problems. And when I checked my e-mail last night, I found a message from John asking me to e-mail or call him about my backup problem and Mozy’s response. I called last night, and we talked at length.

The discussion post, e-mail, and phone conversation suggest to me that the people at Mozy have a genuine interest in doing a better job of responding to customers’ backup problems. And it turns out that long-time users of Mozy’s free service can open Support Tickets. (See my earlier post for the details.)

Long story short: a senior engineer is looking at my backup problem (which, it turns out, may not be the same as everyone else’s backup problem). Stay tuned for further developments.

[June 8, 2010: It’s now fifteen days with no backup.}

[June 9, 2010: I received an e-mail today telling me that I need to to call Mozy tech support for instructions on how to “restore from a previous date.” I’m not sure why I need to restore, as I’ve lost nothing on my computer. I tried calling tech support twice. The first time I was disconnected. The second time, I gave up after waiting more than an hour. (Total time on hold: 105 minutes.) I’ve e-mailed a request for written instructions, having found nothing relevant in Mozy’s online Knowledge Base. It’s now sixteen days with no backup.]

[June 11, 2010: In the spirit of DIY, I uninstalled and reinstalled Mozy (why not?) and started a backup. It seems — seems — to have worked, though slowly: backing up took almost twenty-four hours. I’ve sent my log file to Mozy’s tech support (as requested). I’ve also crossed my fingers.]

[June 11, 2010: at tech support’s request, I tried backing up again with the addition of one very large file. (My choice: the wonderful short film 3rd Ave. El, from the Prelinger Archives.) This file went through very quickly. Things seem to be working once again.]

[June 11, 2010: Happy ending.]

Comic-strip anachronisms

Henry, who lives in a world in which children shoot marbles and dress like Buster Brown, is about to learn the Twist.

And in Beetle Bailey’s world, electric razors still work the old-fashioned way.


[Beetle Bailey, June 5, 2010.]

Related posts
Betty Boop with Henry
Today’s Beetle Bailey