Categories
links and ideas

grep “long distance lover” *

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allow each person exactly a hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

by Jeffrey McDaniel

(…)

Categories
in the netherlands

menos ais, menos ais, menos ais…

ojogo.pt

(a capa d’ o jogo de hoje)

ora bem, em dia de portugal-holanda, lá estaremos bem no meio dos holandeses, para cantar o hino com quanta força tivermos nos pulmões e apoiar a nossa selecção! sempre estamos mais pertinho da alemanha, pode ser que nos ouçam…

(isto a ver se eu amanhã sorrio à pessoa que me perguntou, lá na companhia, se “portugal também estava no mundial?” aiiii…..)

Categories
geek

it just works.

 

so here’s the rest of it. i went to the shop to get the mac back and i payed 42 euros for a 1400 euros repairing diagnosis. 1400?! well, that was my reaction too, might as well buy a new one, i thought.
basically i had to replace the logic board, the extra memory my friends offered me, the keyboard, the trackpad, the optical drive… you name it.

i got home in the evening and was getting ready to de-wire it piece by piece and take a good look inside, save the data, etc.
i was looking at it on my table and thinking how stupid the accident had been, and out of the tiny little bit of hope or disbelief i had left, i just put the battery back on and touched the power button.
and it worked.

i choked at the familiar noise and light on the screen. i think i stared at it for a while before actually putting my hands on the keyboard for typing the password. and it also worked. the keyboard, the touchpad, the memory, it was all there. the ‘a’, ‘s’, ‘c’ and ‘m’ letters on the keyboard were even missing – which prooves it is my ibook :D i didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so i did both. :P

well, it’s not 100% working. the dvd drive still has the ally mcbeal cd stuck inside (thanks lulu! :P) which isnt detected by the ibook – something broken or just disconnected? the right shift key doesnt seem to be working and the computer wont always go to sleep when i tell it too, or when i close the lid.
but 1400 euros? please…

i went back to the shop yesterday and got my money back. naturally.
“apple authorised service providers”? yeah, right. did they even bother to open my computer? i have my doubts. maybe it was just there somewhere in a shelf, for a week (!!) and they thought they could trick me into buying them a new one. and all they had to do was to turn it on.

does anyone know the right means to tell apple about this?

(some people have asked whether it smells. yes, it does. :)
no stains, but a little smell, when you snif the keyboard. now i have a ibook that matches my website – how cool can that be? :P)

Categories
geek

help?

we’re back in business, baby! :)
oh yeah!
dear people of the world,
after a strange (to say the least) first diagnosis of “everything inside the case is broken”, i’m looking into a second opinion on the ibook issue, somewhere else.

do you have any experience or piece of advice you’d like to share on this whole “iBook reparation” matter?
anything goes, from how you got the data out of your disk to links or piece-by-piece replacement tutorials. please mail me or just leave a not on the comments.
thanks!

Categories
in china

china, still.

“The cities of China are currently in a state of tremendous flux. A whirlwind of modernization is destroying centuries-old traditions and urban structures, replacing them by a new urban substance determined by the unparalleled intensity of economic production and economic laws.

Rem Koolhaas describes the current urban development in China as “PhotoShop urbanism” – the combination of everything with everything else. He observes the free manipulation of the urban substance, regardless of all the inhibitions that traditionally organize architectural and public space. These are the same traditions that we are gradually shaking off here in Europe – in the West – as is indicated by our increasing privatization of the public domain. But what does the Chinese experience have to tell us? Are new, unanticipated possibilities for the public space emerging? In the view of Rem Koolhaas, we cannot expect any revolutionary, new ideas from the West; for that, you have to be in China. Does this mean that there are no parallels to be drawn between the present situation in China and the crisis of public space in the West? If there are, can we learn from the Chinese developments how to cope with the public domain in an ever more strongly commercialized urbanism?”

(from here)