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June 29, 2005
Open-brain surgery on an Apple G4 Powerbook
I live in an apartment that used to be "Leven Street Medial Practice". A group of GPs and their nurses treated patients where I now sleep. How many people had to take off their pants in my bedroom? How many poor folks heard about their maybe terminal prognosis where I sit in the sun now?
Following the great tradition of our apartment, I performed surgery the other day - my patient was Lucy. Remember, Lucy's sister hit Madonna hard, right in the face -- and smashed her screen. Lucy and Madonna are my laptops.
Now, Lucy got a new screen implant. It was brain surgery - pretty difficult, but with the help of a somewhat outdated manual, I could exchange the LCD panel of my 2005 15" Alumnium Apple PowerBook.
So Lucy can see again, and after a second round of surgery, Lucy doesn't have problems going to sleep any more either (she wouldn't want to go to sleep when the lid was closed!).
I've published a series of pictures, which aren't really meant as a How-To, since I can't take that responsibility as a non-certified non-support non-technician. But my pictures might be fun to look at and even instructional to those who need to exchange the LCD panel on their Apple PowerBook. (Screen exchange of an Apple Aluminum Powerbook (2005))
Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you. I have decided not to become a laptop doctor.
Posted by dr at 2:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 25, 2005
A Survivor-Jack-Bauer challenge for More Effective Researchers
Very intensive research work this week: I took part in a "transferable skills" course - they tought me what is commonly called "soft skills" and all those things that aren't really my job, but definitely part of it.
With a group of six people, I went to the Edinburgh University sports grounds to solve the ultimate Survivor-Jack-Bauer-combination task. Save the city by placing two buckets filled with a secret neutralizer H20-solution onto two little tiles in the middle of a 10x10m grass area, without stepping into to area or touching the lawn at all. We had a bunch of beat-up wooden sticks, some rope and a wardrobe hanger to accomplish the task - and a paperclip, which turned out to be a red herring.
With self-organization, leadership, planning and collaboration and a good deal of creativity, we solved the task, coming in first among the other groups. Yeah, baby.
The next task was harder - plan a local fun park for people with disabilities, including budgets, marketing, themes. A number of role games and "challenges" later, with intermittent explanations and reflection, I'm supposed to be better at organizing myself and others.
Am I? I'm not sure if I needed to find out the basic truths of professional life by playing role games. My current job is in science, after all - we're trained in analytical, abstract thinking. I have never been to a job assessment center, and unless I'll become a management consultant one day, I'm not planning to. So wasn't it helpful at all?
On the other hand, the explanations and the interaction with people from different fields, who are in the same basic situation, did have a positive effect. They motivate me to see my job, my research work as a "project" that wants to be planned with foresight, tackled with motivation, controlled by milestones and kept going by regular revision - despite the fact that the actual content and outcome of research is random and very, very open. Planning does not need to hinder creativeness. But staying in control will make me a "More Effective Researcher (TM)", as the course title reads.
Well. Let's see.
Posted by dr at 5:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 21, 2005
PowerBook wars: little sister with a broken face
When a new little sister is born, there may be hard feelings in the family. That was the case with Madonna, who got jealous the other day, jealous over Lucy. As you can imagine, Lucy is the new baby, and Madonna the older sister.
Madonna and Lucy are Laptops.
One morning, I brought Lucy and Madonna to the office, and that was a mistake. After Lucy claimed her new spot on my desk, I took Madonna out of my laptop case. I admit it was a disgrace: I had Madonna wrapped up in an ugly LIDL plastic bag, and she was about to be sold on ebay. If computers had feelings, she must have felt like a cat on the way to the vet's. Madonna is still a beauty, no doubt, but I have no use for her, and her little sister is even more beautiful, sexier, faster, brighter.
Madonna's revenge was bitter. All of a sudden, she jumped out of the plastic bag and prepared to deald a violent blow to Lucy, who was innocently sitting on my desk with the lid closed. Madonna took aim, positioned herself in a destructive angle and used gravity over a few centimeters to pick up speed.
Powerbooks are sturdy. "Come on, Madonna", I thought to myself, when I heard the bang and realized split-seconds later what happened. The damage was greater than I expected. In no uncertain terms, Madonna made known that the new little sister was not welcome. Little sister has a a broken face now.
No damage on the outside, but a huge crack all across the display.
Why, oh why? A fraction of a second of unattentiveness, and the private little war of two Appple laptops costs me what the repair service quotes as 700 pound sterling, or well over US-$1000.
Now, I'm moving windows around the cracks on the screen. Madonna remains locked up in a drawer.
Posted by dr at 11:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 18, 2005
Linda Going in Circles
A Friday night, at a bar in Edinburgh: Linda.
Linda and her husband invite us to take the empty seats at their table, right near the huge windows overlooking the waters of the port of Leith. Linda might be in her forties. The gentleman next to her is her husband Paul; he wears a black leather-coat. Witty eyes.
Linda tells us straight away, Paul had a form of cerebral palsy. He's got his wheel-chair by the table. I feel she wants to manage expectations. I suppose she has some kind of handicap, too.
No, we're not here to see a movie. Just for a quick drink. "Oh, I love the movies. American ones, only American ones." She asks me when I'm born. "March 5", I reply. - "So what sign are you?" - "That would be Pisces." Linda is excited. "Oh I felt it. I'm a little psychic." Her husband smiles. Paul is an actor at one of the local theaters.
Linda fetches two more pints of lager from the bar, to go with her half-empty one and her husband's red wine. "So, what movie are you going to see tonight?"
We talk about the movies again. She likes Jane Fonda. "Oh, is she still around?" I ask, and I am met with disdain. Of course she is. She's probably the best-looking 68-year-old on the planet. Conversation in circles. Star signs, pisces. Life is a history repeating. "What movie will you you seeing now?"
Sudden moment of clarity. Things fall into place. We all know, Hollywood flicks are simplistic in a way. They tell the same story, over and over again, the theory of epic theatre applies. But more importantly, scenes are tightly coupled. Stories are told step by step, one scene connects to the previous one.
"Oh, no movie tonight. We're just here for drinks and to enjoy the view." My replies show little variation, either. "Are you from Edinburgh originally?"
The continuous stream of story-telling, that's something found not only in Hollywood movies. Texts show a similar property. Sentences in text pick up concepts from the previous ones, one thing builds on the other, and you end up with chains of topics, threading through your text. That is, if the text is what we call coherent. Why do people prefer to read coherent texts? One possible answer is: because it's easier for us. It's easier to deal with previously encountered topics. We're all limited, just like Linda: we can't keep much in our working memory at the same time. Some are better, some are worse, it may as well be a question of degree. That's why Linda has a hard time learning things: because she can't shuffle them around and play with the ideas until they settle.
Tonight's little revelation for me is that Hollywood movies accomodate for the Linda-phenomenon. They are easier to understand for people with little short-term memory. People like you and me! The same criterion applies to series: they make very little backreferences from episode to episode. But even within an episode, we don't need to remember what happened 10 minutes ago. We only need a short window of attention if we're allowed to focus at one thing at a time. Maybe that's why watching movies is relaxing. Maybe that's why Golf is fun, when you have to juggle many ideas at the same time in your professional life. Just concentrate on getting the ball from here to there.
I wonder if Linda knows Dory from Finding Nemo, the fish with short-term memory loss. Dory is amicable, yet difficult to talk to. I bet Dory would like Hollywood movies, too.
Posted by dr at 4:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 15, 2005
Life is not what it seems.
The following graphics are static. They are not animated. Yet they seem to move. No they don't! Of course they move. Look, here! No way... it's an optical illustion that most likely has to do with the way the human brain points your eyes at part of the picture and processes the images coming from the retina. Now, the psychological background info that I received was that how much you see the picture elements move negatively correllates with your stress tolerance. I don't know if that's true.
(Click on the images to enlarge.)
Posted by dr at 5:02 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 3, 2005
Lucy
As an hommage to Chinese American women :-), I name my brand-new Powerbook "Lucy".
It's predecessor is called Madonna, and I have a nice history of computers named after female celebreties: Catherine (Deneuve, a Mac at work in Dublin), Franka (Potente, a Linux server in Dublin), Cameron (Diaz - a cheapo Windows laptop in Berlin), Marilyn (Monroe, a cheapo Linux server at home in Berlin back then)...
Lucy Liu played roles in remarkable movies such as Kill Bill.
At this point, I should return to my real life and do something fun. With or without Lucy.
Posted by dr at 11:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack