Mozy :)

The Mozy story comes to a happy ending (I think). From Mozy’s discussion pages: “The ConnectionError issue is fixed and your backups should be running smooth again.” Work is still underway on an unrelated problem I’m not familiar with.

I’m impressed that Mozy has recognized the need for better communication with its customers. As I wrote in an e-mail to the company earlier this week, the frustrating thing with the ConnectionError issue for me was not so much the lack of backup as it was the lack of response from Mozy. The company’s increased presence in discussion threads about the issue shows a genuine interest in doing a better job of responding to customers’ concerns. And backup now works.

And yes, I can again recommend Mozy.

Related posts
Mozy :(
Mozy, continued

David Foster Wallace commencement audio

A recording of David Foster Wallace delivering his 2005 Kenyon College commencement address is now available from Audible.com. The recording may also be had from Amazon and iTunes.

Every young adult in the country should read this speech. (Or, okay, listen to.)

(via kottke.org)

Domestic comedy

“Every year, I get closer to being Aunt Bee’s age.”

Related reading
All “domestic comedy” posts

Mozy, continued, continued

I’ve updated a post detailing problems with the online backup service Mozy. This story may — may — be moving toward a happy ending.

The ’sation

The word halfalogue — meaning “an overheard one-sided cellphone conversation” — is now in the air. I want to suggest an alternative, which I invented while taking a walk with my wife Elaine this morning:

’sation \ 'sā-shən \ noun
: an overheard one-sided cellphone conversation

Sample sentence: That ’sation almost drove me crazy.

’Sation is derived from the (now nearly archaic) word conversation. A ’sation is half a conversation.

’Sations can offer bits of lurid entertainment and truth-telling. But more often, ’sations are merely annoying (just like the apostrophe that introduces the word). If it’s true that ’sations are more difficult than conversations to ignore, I would guess that at least two factors are involved: an alertness to unfamilar patterns of speech and silence and the mind’s disposition to make meaningful what we hear.

(Thanks for the walk, Elaine!)

More made-up words
Humormeter : oveness : power-sit : skeptiphobia

Infinite Jest, “almost grotesquely lovely”

The young woman known as the P.G.O.A.T. (“the Prettiest Girl of All Time”) is “almost grotesquely lovely”:

She made the Moms look like the sort of piece of fruit you think you want to take out of the bin and but then once you’re right there over the bin you put back because from close up you can see a much fresher and less preserved-seeming piece of fruit elsewhere in the bin.

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

It’s that repeated bin that makes this sentence (to me at least) so funny.

Other Infinite Jest posts
Attention : Description : Romance : Telephony

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