Computers - can't live with them...

So there I was, late in the evening and I deciding now was a good time to update my MacBook to Lion.

I should have known.

The download went well, if slowly. But it was finally done and so I hit "Go".

What was my first clue? I think the "Your disk is corrupt" was the start of it all.

"Physician, heal thyself" or rather "Disk Utility - Repair my disk". Would that it were that simple.

For starters, the installer was booting off the disk to be repaired. All that was possible was a verify that failed to complete. The "Repair Disk" button - a stubborn gray.

Insert standalone installation disk - attempt a repair. No go (or dice for that matter). The disk cannot be repaired.

Instead I get a helpful message about backing up, erasing the disk and then restoring.

Only one small difficulty - the disk is corrupt (you said that) and cannot be backed up.

Erased, yes. Backed up - "I'm sorry, Dave, I just can't do that."

So, erase, reinstall the previous operating system version (Snow Leopard) and pray to whatever deities are in charge of late night computer repair.

As my dad said, "Ain't technology grand?"

No - you may not buy this book!

And why ever not, I ask.

"The City and the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke is one of Science Fiction's great works. I don't know how often I've read it. It bears re-reading.

And I bought it for my Kindle some time ago, from Amazon, in the US. I read it. Archived it. Today I was extolling the virtues of the book. We went to see what it cost on Amazon. Not there.

I thought I remembered buying it, nay buying and reading it, so I checked. Sure enough, there in my Digital Items it was. I clicked on the product information and the cover showed up.

And a note that it was not available to people living in the US. I live in the US. It is, however, available for purchasers from the Amazon UK site.

And there we have it, a concern I have about electronic books. If I want to read a book, but it's not published  here in the US, I get a friend or a relative to buy the book on my behalf (a friend of mine did that once for me - but instead of buying one copy of Paul Gallico's "Jennie", titled "The Abandoned" in the US, she bought six! The Lady C was ever thus.)

You can't do that with ebooks. Somehow, I'm not "allowed" own a book not made available in the US.

This is not good.

Lest anyone think that I'm not "for ebooks and e-readers", allow me to present my credentials. I've owned e-readers for well over a decade. My first was the Rocket E-Reader in the late nineties. The side of a large paperback and an ugly gray screen, it was a marvel in its day.

I progressed, after a couple of years,  to the Gemstar color e-reader, which had an Ethernet port (wired) that allowed, what today we would call, in-app purchases. In the end, I bought two of the Gemstars, as the device was discontinued after a few years.

Both of them are alive to this day. Both of them still capable of displaying the content they contain.

A Sony e-reader followed the Gemstar, later traded in for the next version of Sony's technology. Both versions were the new e-ink displays. The Sony still works, and still displays the over 100 books I own on that platform.

The first Kindle, then a Kindle DX, one iPad with Kindle software and now a color Nook (so I can see e-books I publish for that platform) mean that I am very much part of the e-book/e-reader enthusiast group.

Yet there is a restriction placed on me as a purchaser of books in the digital realm that does not, nay cannot, exist in the world of dead-tree books. In the world of dead-tree books I could phone a book store in another country, order the book I wanted, and have it shipped to me. I could even do so using the online-store of such a book store.

I cannot do that with an e-book - the store won't sell it and thus I cannot get it onto my device for reading.

I've just now tried to download the copy I purchased at some time in the past to my Kindle app. There's an error in synching - so no book.

This is not good.

Perhaps a mirror cracked...

On occasions, more frequently than I might care to admit, I feel like my writing isn't going nearly as well as I would like. Or I don't have the time to devote to it I'd wish. Or that I have to work, because writing alone won't sustain me financially.

Or simply that I have to work (Monday mornings are particularly bad for that).

On such occasions, the sculpture of the Weeping Buddha helps, or at least serves as a focal point for the feeling. I used to have it on my desk at work (now it sits near my writing computer) and, on being asked about it, would say, "Somedays, it's just like that."

Everyone seemed to understand.

And yet, and yet...

When I do feel like that, back at my home office where I also do my writing, I have two other sculptures that provide a different perspective. These remind me that anything, no matter how crazy it might seem to the outside world, is possible.

And so I continue to write, safe in the knowledge that all I have to be is awake to hear the story, and that it's OK to be quite crazy at times.

The title of this entry is from a poem I wrote much time ago.

The cracked mirror explained the many images that seem to make up my life - some even externalized like those above.

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My toaster was talking to me...

...so I put a cloth over it's head.

It's quiet now.

All of this "stuff", electronic gadgets and the like, are getting too complicated. Too complex for their own, or my, good.

We have all run across DVDs, from video stores (so quaint that they're still called "video stores", no?) that cannot be played. We turn them over and marvel at what abuse they seem to have suffered. What do some people do? Attack the disks with carving knives?

So, the sensible player refuses to play them. Nothing reasonable can be made of the stream of bits detected by the laser.

That makes perfect sense.

The other day, Thursday to be exact, I bought the blu-ray version of "Avatar". Yes, I know, had to have it on the very day of release. That's just the way I am. I've learned to live with it.

Ready to enjoy an evening of magic, I put the disc in the slot and...was greeted by a message saying my player wasn't up to date enough to play this disc.

The disc was dissing my player? Who asked its opinion?

So I connected the player to the net and told it to go update itself. And so it did - for the best part of an hour.

I re-tried the disc. Close, but no cigar. Seems still not quite up the exacting standards of my nice, shiny, new disc. The player couldn't find any newer software by itself. But I did. Download, burn to disc, insert in drive...and wait. Another hour and the player proclaimed itself up-to-date.

Well past bedtime by now, and way past frustrated on the emotional scale, but I had to see if the disc would deign to play.

It did. I said something rude, turned the thing off, and went to bed.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
copyright, 2010 by KjM

Location:Balboa Ln,Foster City,United States