I’m in the pleasant town of Kearney, Nebraska to give a couple of talks at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and something tragic and horrible has happened.
My laptop has died. The video card, she no longer generates the video. It makes it rather difficult to illustrate my talks with projected images. It also makes it difficult to get on the web and engage in the blogging (I’m using a hotel business office computer to post this).
I’m planning to stop at an Apple Store at the Mall of America when I get back to Minneapolis tomorrow and beg them to FIX IT RIGHT NOW, but until then, I’m crippled, with half my brain no longer functioning. It does make my talks more entertaining, though: I’m just talking. I’ve managed to fool them all so far, but today’s talk is all about embryonic development, and I’m going to have to show the evidence through interpretive dance, epic poetry, and finger puppetry, I think. It might be amusing, anyway.
Someone better tape it and put it on youtube.
Do you have a “Pro” card? It does cost $$ but should help you get the machine looked at faster. It bumps your repair to the head of the line.
I don’t want to start another pc-Mac war but after that post of Obama using a Mac, I’d say you were asking for it.
I’m really sorry for you, though. I too have been in the position of preparing for a conference and the computer suddenly dieing on me.
Maybe you biologists are a less community spirit bunch than mathematicians, but could you ask someone to lend you a laptop for the duration of the talk?
Strip down to your underwear and no one will notice anything you say.
Oh, PZ, that sucks. Good luck on the presentation. I suppose trying to go to Lincoln to get it fixed before the presentation is a little out of the way…
If you got the Pro Care coverage, you ought to be fine. I am really hard on my Macbook Pro (dropped it ten feet down a flight of stairs, for example) and they’ve fixed every single thing for free. The even exchanged the laptop with a new one recently, at no cost to me. I’ve never seen another computer company with better customer service. It’s a major reason, though not the only one, that I am so infatuated with Apple.
Can you play the banjo? That’d be kinda cool.
If someone loans you another Apple, you can use Target Disk Mode to get to your files.
Another possibility is Screen Sharing (which is just VNC). Use someone else’s computer (possibly even one installed in the lecture hall) to display what your computer would ordinarily show.
Just a couple of thoughts from another Mac fanboi.
Get someon from your office or home to email the presentation to your gmail account and take it on a USB stick to the talk. Someone there is bound to have access to a laptop.
Taking a copy of the talk on USB is a good policy as its not unusual to have temperamental projectors that refuse to recognise your computer even when it is working!
Just the other day I booted up my laptop and it went completely dead, I felt like I was suffering a massive stroke, I was completely panic stricken and all I wanted to do was read my email, I can imagine if I had to do something important. Call 911 for sure!
Hmm, maybe this guy is onto something.
http://revminds.seedmagazine.com/revminds/member/lambros_malafouris/
I had a development lecturer who loathed powerpoint, preferring OHP’s and improvised props. She used to explain neurualtion with a piece of paper, and Xenopus gastrulation with a rubber glove (blow it up, tie the fingers together so it’s a round balloon, and poke the thumb in to be the ingressing mesoderm).
Someone once told me Mac’s were more reliable than PCs. Oh how I laughed.
Whatever you do, don’t try prayer!
I was in attendance at Kearney last night. I thought you did well. We’ve been discussing it all morning.
If that happens, someone has just got to capture the evidence somehow. :-D
Just temporarily hook the hotel computer screen to your mac, in order to transfer the presentation to a USB stick. Then, at the conference, ask someone to lend you their laptop for the talk.
I keep hearing about people with Macs that die, reboot constantly, can’t access their hard disks, spontaneously go supernova and wipe out entire sections of the galaxy, etc, etc, etc. Is this just confirmation bias, or is Apple producing much less reliable hardware than it used to?
The advantage — the only advantage; this is a Linux fanboy speaking — of a Windows PC is that there are easily ten times as many options for repairs. You don’t need to find an Apple shop; any old computer repairer will do. Thus you get the advantages of competition: reduced prices, a wider range of skills. What you don’t get, of course, is the Rolls Royce service that Apple still generally gives you, albeit at nearly Rolls Royce prices.
Kearney,Nebraska has a University but no computer store?
And presentations on USB stick is a must.I carry mine on a 16GB stick that has a Linux OS installed,so I can just use any hardware thats available.And if I get stuck,theres always the wifi and office-capable smartphone…
Ahhh,geekism….
You could always use some of that mad ScienceBlogs lucre to buy a new MacBook Pro. It is an awesome machine, and I just got mine delivered yesterday. I can’t wait to play with it this weekend. (No time yesterday or today.)
Finger puppetry is possible of course, but puppetry comes in many forms. Don’t be afraid to be creative!
Quick! Make cookies! http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2008/11/fetus_cookie_cutter.html?CMP=OTC-5JF307375954
Well, they are a university, so maybe they are equipped with that antiquated device – a chalkboard?
Or you could try puppets. Especially sockpuppets, since you have so much experience dealing with them!
Epic Poetry?
That’s much too European–
Try Burma Shave signs
I’m going to have to show the evidence through interpretive dance
For some reason I first read this as “…show the evidence through lap dancing…” Which would be an interesting way of doing it, but I don’t think you are supposed to produce embryos in this talk…
Good luck with the talk. Maybe you should ask Cuttlefish for some epic poetry to get things going.
Computers… Always dying at the worst time ever!
Good luck. Hopefully the apple folks will be nice to you and give you hugs and candies (and a working computer.).
I’d make a joke about Bill Donohue and divine retribution but I’m still mesmerized by the idea of you doing an interpretive dance about embryos.
Youtube, please!
Sorry to hear about your computer woes. There’s an Apple Store in Omaha, but that’s a bit of a drive from Kearney, unfortunately.
PZ,
Quick! Plug your Mac into the projector. I bet it will still pump video out that way. I highly doubt your video card died.
BS
If the high tech route doesn’t work, FedEx/Kinkos might be able to help you print up some visual aids or something. I also second the idea of carrying presentations on a USB portable flash drive AND on one’s laptop; always good to have a back-up, etc.
Best of luck in any case…feel your pain.
PZ, are you sure the video card is dead?
Could it be a failed backlight instead? (you would be able to see a faint image on the screen if you look closely).
In that case it would still be OK to use with a projector.
You’ll love this:
The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.
“Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president,” Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.
“Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.”
If you start to lose the crowd, entertain them with some fancy pageant walkin’.
As someone mentioned (without details)..
Boot into Target Disk Mode by holding down the “t” key at power-on. You can then attach your Mac to another Mac via FireWire cable and your Powerbook/Macbook will mount on the other machine like an external hard drive.
Also, there’s an outside chance that this is a problem with corrupted firmware. Remember, apple stores your Energy Saver prefs.. and one of those is the setting to control powering down the monitor.
To reset the various setting..
– reset the PARAM by powering on with the p – r- command – option keys all simultaneous until you hear the power up [POST] chime 5 times. It’ll go ‘bong, bong, bong, bong, bong’ if you’re doing it right.
– reset the SMC if it’s an Intel laptop.
Macbook MBPro: Power down, remove charger, remove battery. Press and hold down the power button for 5 seconds, .. then put it back together.
Macbook Air: Turn off MBA, connect power adapter, press (left)shift-control-option buttons and the power button once. You must use keys on left side.
Wait 5 seconds then turn laptop on.
– reset the PMU if it’s a PowerPC laptop. There are various procedures depending on the Powerbook/iBook model. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431
steven.
You could try removing the hard drive and swapping with another Mac.
Don’t be sad PZ. Your pc is now in peace, watching over you from laptop heaven…
You know, not that long ago when myself a my coursemates were spending all our time sat hunched over papers revising for our final year undergrad exams, we did comment that science would be so much more interesting if you had to present all your results in the form of interpretive dance. I mean, think about it, it would make going to confrence one hell of a lot more exciting. And who woudln’t want to read that pivitol paper the third (or twenty sixth, I forget) time if it was actually a DVD of the results presented through interprative dance. It would make lectures a lot more interesting too. I think it’s definetley the way of the future.
Eric TF Bat @ #17:
There may be more repair options for desktop beige boxen than for Mac desktops, but laptops are still pretty much “send it back to the manufacturer”.
stevenb @ #33:
Yeah, I didn’t post the details because I figure it would be easy to look up on the off chance he gets loaned another MacBook (Pro).
:bites tongue:
Well, if Marcus de Sautoy could dance a proof for the irrationality of sqrt(3), I don’t see what you’re whining for.
I’ve done fingerpuppets in place of a poster abstract once (I’m notoriously bad at meeting deadlines …).
Perhaps you’ve heard of this fancy new tech that’s around, though. They use something they refer to as “chalk” and when they touch it to this thing called a “blackboard” it leaves marks! You can write and draw and stuff! Without a mouse or anything!
While I have great compassion for your predicament, I believe you should know that Bill Donahue just issued a statement that half your brain never did function. As for the dancing, if all else fails, go nude. That will distract them (except, perhaps, the local constabulary which, if I remember Nebraska, is on the prudish side).
I’m in the pleasant town of Kearney, Nebraska
Well, at least you have the Platte River nearby.
That’s something.
.
Oh for crying out loud, PZ, get a USB flash memory stick and keep all needed materials on it. I, too, travel and present and I never leave home without it. Before the era of flash memory I always burned a CD. This is basic travel/presenting 101 stuff, you of all people should know better.
Less whining, more intelligence.
Best of luck with the presentations PZ!
I’m crippled, with half my brain no longer functioning. – PZ
As I’ve said here before, the material basis of the human mind extends well beyond the brain; and the extent to which this is so is continually increasing.
This happened to a friend of mine on his mac when he played a pirated copy of Fallout 3.
Are you stealing software, PZ. WELL…..ARE YOU!
I also say try hooking it up to a projector (or even the hotels computer screen) and see what comes out of the video port, it you haven’t already.
Also if anyone there can loan you a Mac laptop you can do the target disk mode trick. If you used Keynote to make the presentation and they don’t have it installed let me know.
So how did the talk go?
Is this just confirmation bias, or is Apple producing much less reliable hardware than it used to?
I support over 200 of the things and I’d have to say no. Apple’s worst period in the 2nd reign of Steve was the later G4s, and that was mostly due to the counterfeit power capacitors that effected several manufacturers (especially Dell).
Compared to the pre-Jobs Performa era (What’s in the box? Pain!) even those G4s were rock solid and well designed. And the modern Intel machines are works of frelling art.
From PZ’s description my immediate diagnosis would be a dead backlight or a bad inverter board not powering the backlight. Shine a flashlight through the Apple logo on the lid while the machine is running. If you get a ghost of the image you’re supposed to see you gots an ex-backlight.
I would pay good money to see PZ’s interpretive dance.
Cuttlefish breaking out the Haiku — don’t see that very often :)
Much applause.
@#41 – AGREED
We do not come here to hear whining about incompetence with computers. I can get that from my parents, so why visit ScineceBlogs? Get with the program and buy a USB memory stick already!
Also if anyone there can loan you a Mac laptop you can do the target disk mode trick.
Unless it’s a current MacBook (non-pro) or MacBook Air which do not have Firewire ports (USB does not support targeted disk mode because… well, because USB sucks ass).
Macbook Pro?
Core 2 Duo 2.2 or 2.4?
Does it sound like it’s starting up fine, you just don’t have video? Turn on voiceover after it boots without video (Cmd-F5 or Fn-Cmd-F5 will turn it on) and if it talks to you then your video card just died.
Good news is that it should be under warranty even if you don’t have Applecare and it’s more than a year old. Bad news is that they treat you like me, they are going to ship it to Texas to fix it. You’ll get it back in about 7-10 days.
Sarcastro @ #50:
The real, non-snarky reason is because USB is strictly master/slave, while Firewire is peer-to-peer. Implementing Target Disk mode with USB would require both host and client circuitry in the computer. With Firewire, the host and client circuitry are one and the same, since the ‘host’ is just another device on the chain (a la SCSI).
But otherwise, I agree: USB sucks ass.
Sorry, to hear that. This is exactly how my trusty iBook died in 2004. Alas, Apple wouldn’t grant me the extended warranty because I didn’t find the bill anymore. (And you most certainly won’t have it with you) Great….
That was the day I switched back to PC. Usually in run Linux though….
If you start to get nervous, just imagine that your audience is naked. Better yet, strip down yourself. They’ll be so appalled they won’t notice your mistakes.
“My eyes! My eyes!”
You went to give a presentation without carrying a back-up of your presentation on a secondary medium? For shame.
This is why you should get a PC.
(ducks incoming flames from Apple fanboys)
“You went to give a presentation without carrying a back-up of your presentation on a secondary medium? For shame.” – Jack, #55
I used to always take a backup CD, then switched to a USB drive – but over time have found the host’s backup laptop didn’t have a CD drive – or a USB port! Now I take both, plus e-mailing the PowerPoint to the host.
As a (soon to be) mathematician, I can only welcome you to the world of waving arms madly to exemplify difficult or abstract ideas.
Come on, a talker’s true skills lie beyond projected images and laser pointers.
If the video doesn’t work you can plug it into the local Ethernet use some other system to remote desktop into it and copy the files to a location where you can project them from. Oh, wait its a Mac!!! Never mind. :)
Actually Mac being so advanced, superior and user friendly, maybe it would actually let you get into it remotely and do this. I am sure local IT folks in the University will help you out with that. As long as you will be OK with them pointing and laughing. ;) I am a PC, yo!
When your voice starts to go you can just use mime. Much less stressful than the interpretive dance.
ILYa @ #59:
“Screen Sharing” (it’s basically VNC).
This may be somthing that apple will fix for free. Regardless of the state of your warranty.
Apple warns of faulty graphics processors in MacBook Pros:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/education/news/index.cfm?newsid=23121&pagtype=samechandate
“…a talker’s true skills lie beyond projected images and laser pointers.” – Luk, #58
Speaking of laser pointers, check out http://www.wickedlasers.com – some of them can almost burn a hole in the screen if you let it stand still too long. My green 35 mW has folks coming up to me after presentations asking where to get one.
This is why you should get a PC.
Yeah, then he’ll be used to it breaking. ^^
(ducks incoming flames from Apple fanboys)
Nah, PC hardware is fine if you don’t buy the cheap shit. That’s all Macs are these days, after all. The difference is how that hardware is put into the case and what OS is running on it.
Sounds to me like the backlight went out, though, if it’s not making horrifying beeps when it boots up.
PZ–
There’s an Apple Store in Southdale, too, in case the line at MoA is too long.
Come on, everybody. Let’s all get on our knees and really pray for PZ’s video card.
*ducks*
Luk@58: I’m a mathematician too. Seriously, LaTeX up proper slides. I’ve seen many speakers who thought they could give a clear presentation with just a whiteboard, markers and hand gestures. They are almost all wrong.
Cuttlefish, OM said (comment 23):
> Epic Poetry?
> That’s much too European–
> Try Burma Shave signs
We can help him along:
The Zygote splits,
And splits again,
Becomes a Blastula,
And then …
…
At last the teen
Leaves the home cave,
And must resort,
to Burma Shave!
I’m certainly getting irritated enough with Windows to think about switching to a Mac. My printer recently died and when I was shopping for its replacement (fixing it is $85+, replacing it was $90), I rejected the printer/fax/scanner option because I already had a scanner. Turns out I had a scanner that wouldn’t run under Vissssssssta. That combined with a recent crash that required reinstalling Windows that I’ve never fully recovered from – there are a few things that used to work that don’t anymore, and I have no idea which magic updates will fix them without creating more problems. After that, Mac is starting to look like a reasonable option, even if I have to use a Windows emulator for my favorite program (Autosketch for drafting quilt blocks).
Most any computer can die inconveniently, have a couple of E-tower doorstops here, previous posters have covered the bases well on the possibilities, but always check out the least expensive remedies first, but the new MacBook Pros look wonderful, even if you’ll need new video adapters to hook them to projectors.
As an Evilutionist you must now place your laptop in a junk yard and wait for a strong wind to come along and fix it! Anything less is proof of God!
– Matt
p.s. Yes, sarcasm.
YOUR CHANCE TO SWITCH TO LINUX!!!!!
Seriously, I am very sorry this has happened. A fellow blogger fallen to the worst possible fate.
Maybe you should have gotten that iTouch and the connecter to let it show power points..
Show them the evidence?
Bah! Ask them to have faith in your evidence, instead.
*ducks*
While PZ is digitally disabled, we Pharynguloid minions can amuse ourselves by agreeing that “In God We Trust” should be removed from U.S. currency:
MSNBC Live Vote
Chalk Talk! Chalk Talk!
It’s not just a good idea — it should be the Law.
For greater dramatic impact, you could have killed your Apple during the presentation, like Marvin Minsky tried to do during a presentation about building fewer robots, and more simulations, at a Game Developers’ Conference. He knocked a glass of water over on it and the other people on stage nearly bi-located in their hurry to upend the laptop and mop up the mess in time to avert tragedy.
We tried a bunch of the options mentioned.
We can get it into target disk mode, and the hard disk/os are fine, all the data are still there. It’s clearly just the video.
We tried plugging in a video projector. No go. It seems to be a problem with the whole video board.
We tried moving it to my flash disk (yes, I have one), and putting it on another computer. Unfortunately, this really was just minutes before I was scheduled to go on, and I decided that rather than fussing over slowly transferring a big file over usb, the show must go on.
I know that computers can do this. When I put together talks, I always have it in the back of my head that I should be prepared to wing it if technology fails, so it isn’t quite as traumatic as it sounds. I know how to use a chalkboard.
The really bad news is that lack of a laptop crimps my blogging style. I actually have two Friday Cephalopod posts sitting there, ready to upload, and I can’t get it done. Your loss, gang.
Embryonic development…mmmm.
I remember my best lecture ever. I’m a vet student, and embryonic development is a part of the curiculum. My teacher’s computer also died, but he managed to illustrate the keypoints using only him self, a rubber hose and 4 students. He got standing ovations after that. I was lucky enough to be one of the helping students. I was left side of the cardiovascular system. ;o)
Peasant town in Nebraska? That’s not very nice, careful though, especially if they’re being repressed,
Seriously, no. Maybe one speaker in twenty that thinks they can pull this off actually can. The rest just mumble into the board.
MH: Seriously, no. Maybe one speaker in twenty that thinks they can pull this off actually can. The rest just mumble into the board.
Yeah, but I think that only 1 in 20 should be giving presentations… the rest should sell cars.
Let’s raise the bar!
Just great. In addition to the inevitable PC-Mac debate, we’ve got an impromptu chalk circle.
Oh NO. No cephalopod pictures today? Aughhh.
Now back to our regular programming.
OT, late-breaking news: PZ is building an army of co-operative green cyber-yeast that live in beards. Soon they’ll have green laser pointers with which to commit terrorism. This is a vital development in the takeover of the Militant Atheist Conspiracy. Evidence.
I don’t know, man. If I was in your situation, I’d have to use balloon animals to illustrate my talk. They distract… like magic! *jazz hands*
I wonder how long before someone gets wind of this and pronounces it god’s punishment…
Use your iPhone. You should be able to squeeze 2, 3 people at a time around it.
The power supply on my parents’ desktop recently died. No big deal, $50, 30 minutes of work… Except it must have produced a spike when it died, because it fried the MB at the same time. That was a PITA. Luckily, their hard drive survived.
Sounds like a good reason to have been using the presentation software built into “google docs”. then you could just borrow a laptop, fire up the web browser, and Bam!, the show goes on.
“Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil”
Rev. Jay Scott Newman has mightily strange ideas about what constituttes a “plausible alternative”.
See, if you prayed to Jesus more, these sort of things wouldn’t happen. Hope you’ve learned your lesson.
Except that the incompetent presenters (and teachers) are often the most brilliant researchers.
If you’ve done some research and your main aim is just to give your peers the best understanding of it you can, slides at least offer a safety net that stops you clamming up and failing completely.
I love it! Sorry for the inconvenience. Not to be snarkey but or anything but I am no longer surprised by this kind of stuff, things breaking.
All computers fail from time to time one is not “better than the other” they are just different have their strengths and weaknesses that become clear when there are “difficulties”. I have a few computers some old (Kaypro which still works) some PC towers and a G4 powerbook have run most of OS’s all give me trouble from time to time.
As a readers of this blog, a “Pharyngulite”, we have some understanding of “Scientific Laws” or principles but it has occurred to me that there is one that is not ever formally stated at least I have never come across it so stated. It is “Murphy’s Law” shit happens! The exact time a Murphy event will happen can not be predicted or even if it will happen but by definition it will happen at an inconvenient time be it a random part failure or an asteroid impact.
I await the return of the Professor and hope it does not cost too much or take too long to solve this particular problem.
Confirmation bias and the Squeaky Wheel Effect.
I wrangle a bunch of them here, and we’re not really seeing an increase in problems, it’s just that there’s more places for the Squeaky Wheel Effect to happen.
You read in some online forum that ‘My mac did this!!’ and all the squeaky wheels come an chime in and before long you wonder if Apple was secretly taken over by Packard-Bell or something.
But the 99.99% of people NOT having problems never log on to say “Yep, it’s working like a charm. Boring. Ta Ta!”, so the effect is magnified.
Real hard numbers research, like JD Powers and such, show Apple’s build quality to be superior most everyone else.
Even model-specific issues (such as the ibook G4 video issue, where the manufacturer did not properly solder down the graphics chip, and the design let the MB flex right at the wrong spot) only affect a minority of systems, even if it sounds like every one.
This sounds like what happened to my daughters Mac laptop. Apparently their is a reset button for the power supply/graphics card under one of the covers (I think).
She’s teaching (science) at the moment so I cannot call her.
I sent PZ a couple of Photos from his talk last night. But without his Laptop working, he probably can’t access them anyway.
Thanks for visiting us in Nebraska PZ!
As I recall, Macbooks use Nvidia 8×00 series graphics chips. Nvidia’s 8×00 series GPUs have..ah..’issues’ with reliability. Issues severe enough that Nvidia is being sued because of the problem. Searching for ‘nvidia defective’ on theinquirer.net will turn up a small mountain of information.
Re: #12
Ever have to clean up someone’s virus and malware-infested Windows box? How about dealing with a Windows 2003 server that’s been royally fucked?
After years of dealing with Windows, all I have to say is, “Fuuuuuuck you, Microsoft!”
I’d recommend ANY operating system over Windows if you want a reliable machine for an average (meaning mostly clueless) user.
One of my co-workers was forced due to a ill-timed laptop problem to do a presentation on the development of the Bell telephone via hand shadows. Literally. He says it turned out as one of the best presentations he has ever given. This has affected his attitude towards Powerpoint since the incident.
I’m afraid all I ever got out of the Apple store at the MoA was ‘we’ll send it in and you’ll have it in approximately 2 weeks’. 2 logic boards, a screen, and a latch all went out on it in the 18 months I had it. Fortunately I bought Applecare on it.
Of course, I went to an Alienware after that and ended up getting the Better Business Bureau and Florida Attorney General’s Office involved to get them to replace a battery that was damaged in shipping after they told me to ship it to them (in addition to going through a motherboard and 6 video cards), so at least Apple’s customer service was better, if not their hardware. Though at least Alienware bribed me with a newer model of laptop since my old one was clearly a dud. Apple wouldn’t even put replacement on the table until I went through 3 logic boards.
Ah come on everybody. Let us not dispair! Have a little faith in PZ. I’m quite sure that his brilliant mind and scathingly witty sense of humor will get him through this presentation with nary a droplet of sweat from his brow!
Daughter suggests:-
1) remove battery and AC power, hold power button for 10 seconds before reconnecting.
2) press the power button to turn it on and immediately press the apple, the option , the R and the P buttons until you hear the power on chime for the 2nd time.
Try that and see what happens.
#101, You forgot the most important part: Prior to initiating the procedure you must turn widdershins three times, and during the procedure, you must be standing on one foot only (your left).
Ur pain… i feelz it…
Laptop bluescreened last night. I fear the hard drive is down for the count (hurray for relatively cheap external hard drives & good backup/mirror software).
Last conference I presented at, Windows did it’s autoupdate trick before I got on the plane. When I got to the hotel, the computer would connect to the Internet (the second level tech had me running pings from the command line that showed there was a connection) but nothing would render. Fortunately, the AV techs were able to get me back on line. Finally found out a few days later, Win update conflict with my firewall.
We wuz not amuzed…
There’s that famed “Apple Quality(tm)” for you, PZ.
Any use for a 386 laptop with monochrome display, 4 Mb of RAM, 120 Mb harddisk and Windows 3.1 (German)? Still works and, as a bonus, has an in-built 2400 bps modem, so you can connect to the outside world… :-)
“is Apple producing much less reliable hardware than it used to?”
Apple doesn’t make hard drives. They use Seagate, WD, Hitachi, etc… I’m not sure what general failure rates are, but laptop hard drives; by virtue of being smaller, hotter, bumped around a lot, and exposed to extreme temperatures and the elements; are more likely to fail. Backups are important.
That being said – sorry you’re having laptop trouble. It can be very disruptive (especially on the road). Please be patient with the techs :)
I’m fighting this…but I’m just too weak!
“See…God punished you!”
I’m a Recovering Roman Catholic, what do you want…
Securlarly Yours,
SingularBlue
Funny, my mac laptop also died in almost exactly the same way just last week. Unfortunately the casing had been dented months ago. It was out of warentee, and the &*(&)ing Apple support refused to simply replace the logic card (i.e. the faulty bit) without also fixing the chassis… 1200 bucks I don’t have.
So, I had to dip into starting funds and buy a new one. Yay for being a professor!
More ways to give PZ condolences. Crash a poll for him!
spork-incident ~ the Platte River looks more like a sad little stream at this point…stupid dams.
Anyway, I heard that your developmental biology talk went over well and I know that everyone in my genetics class was excited to see you this morning. You were throughly entertaining. Besides, it was nice not feeling like the only ‘out’ atheist around…calming.
I would suggest that you give it a good thrashing while saying “Bad computer! You naughty little thing! You should be ashamed of yoursef!”
I do this whenever my daughter happens to clumsily run into something and it always leaves us rolling with laughter. :)
I’m planning to stop at an Apple Store at the Mall of America when I get back to Minneapolis tomorrow
The infamous Apple Store from which you blogged about your expulsion from the Expelled premier?
I’m planning to stop at an Apple Store at the Mall of America when I get back to Minneapolis tomorrow
The infamous Apple Store from which you blogged about your expulsion from the Expelled premier?
Have fun paying them 600$ to fix it (or is it 800$?)
OOOO. Bummer. Hope they fix it. (Probably charge you.)
I thought this kind of thing was rarer than rare with Macs?
May I recommend you buy something like this:
http://www.granitedigital.com/emergencycopyusbtosataidebridgeadapter.aspx
I have no connection with that company but I bought one of those a while back and it has paid for itself many times over. Dead computer? Pull out the drive, connect it up and plug it into a working computer.
Luk:
Yep! that’s the best part of talks, as well as an endless source of fun for students. We keep dismissing physicists’ proofs as “hand waving”, but we actually do (and need!) quite a lot of that ourselves…
Last week I mimed an infinite number of mutually perpendicular directions in front of the class, in order for them to see that the unit ball isn’t compact. It takes amazing skills :-)
Surprisingly, depending on what metric you use.. Laptop hard drives are significantly more robust than 3.5″ Laptop drives, modern ones, have one small data platter. That platter, and the much smaller heads, make laptop drives at least an order of magnitude more shock resistant than desktop drives.. especially when they’re ‘spun down’.
Laptop drives are locked into small areas but they generate less heat than larger drives. Some of the new 1TB drives get so hot in a well ventilated computer case that they’re nearly too hot to touch.
All in all, MBTF for laptop drives is less than for desktop drives. They do tend to carry the same warranty though which usually says a lot about functional life.
Actually, Apple recommends that you let it chime several times.. generally 5-7. We used to go by three but I’ve seen Apple TechNotes that say 5 and some that say 7. Repeatedly clearing PARAM makes sure it’s totally reset.
BTW.. in case anyone is curious, the chime is actually a Power One Self Test [POST], just like the thing that a Windows PC does at boot when you see the text scroll by at startup.
Theoretically, if it chimes then the hardware is OK but that’s not always the case. The mac has to be really broken to fail POST.
Aside..
For the most part, the Dell laptops are very reliable though we see more PC hard drives fail than Mac hard drives. From our experience, we’ve got a pretty even Mac/PC split in our division. I’d guess it’s related to the fact that Mac laptops are wrapped in heatsink (aluminum) and PC laptops are wrapped in insulation (plastic).
On the other hand, we see more file system corruption with Macs [HFS+] than with Windows [NTFS]. HFS just isn’t that great. Maybe someday we’ll get real ZFS support.
at least you can still have some fun there since you can’t spell drunk without UNK. At least that is what my niece that went there always said
Target Disc Mode isn’t of much use (Benjamin Geiger comment #9) unless you also happen to have a Firewire cable on hand too. I’m about to update this Apple laptop to the Mac Air, and I have been looking around for my Firewire cable for ages, to transfer the files to the new one. I doubt seriously that someone would actually travel with a Firewire cable, just in case.
Remember when they used to have you “ZAP the PRAM” to solve problems? Ah, the bad old days of machine-gunning Mac SEs running OS 6.0.3.
another apple dead, good
One suggestion that I don’t see made so far: Be absolutely sure that it isn’t just the brightness turned all the way down! A friend I know had an Apple Laptop, and the brightness wheel somehow got turned all the way down one day. She was just about ready to buy a new laptop before someone remembered the brightness dial and thought to try it!
Uncle Froggy #92
I have that book. It’s amazingly succinct. Wisdom of the ages.
Interestinglly enough, i have recently lost my cell phone, which vanished INSIDE my house – completely gone! My Maui Jim unglasses are gone too! Not long ago i lost a camera that showed up 3 months later IN MY BACKPACK (natuarally this same backpack was emptied and searched before, on more than 1 occasion), just *poof*. These damn things come and go in my life. I think there must be some malicious propability field around me that does this sort of thing. It seem to be a related phenomenon to this. Getting back to electronics, i had 3 tv’s in my house fry in the same week (weirdly all on the same side of the house, now that i think about it), i could smell my tv cooking from the inside out. got a new one, a little plasma screen (well, another new one, once the original replacement died as well)
my new tv actually sits on top of my old dead one! my room is too small, so we’re gonna have to deconstruct my bed to move the peice of junk out of my room lol. sorry i had nothin to add about your Mac though PZ, this was the best i could come up with off the top of my head lol.
This is too easy to work around. Start your Mac in “target” mode (press the power key while holding down the T key). Your PowerBook is now an external FireWire drive. Borrow somebody’s Mac and shut it down. Connect the two with a FireWire cable and start the borrowed Mac with the Option key pressed. When you see the boot drive selections appear on the screen, pick the drive in your Mac to start from. The borrowed Mac will start with your system on your drive. It will be exactly like using your own computer.
This is too easy to work around. Start your Mac in “target” mode (press the power key while holding down the T key – hold it for about 10 or 15 seconds, since you have no visual feedback as to the startup process). Your PowerBook is now an external FireWire drive. Borrow somebody’s Mac and shut it down. Connect the two with a FireWire cable and start the borrowed Mac with the Option key pressed. When you see the boot drive selections appear on the screen, pick the drive in your Mac to start from. The borrowed Mac will start with your system on your drive. It will be exactly like using your own computer.
Apple, it just works my ass.
Hell; A Warning To Atheists ; Bill Weise
Ten foot tall and bulletproof
He lived by a bloody swords edge,
Ten foot tall and bulletproof
With the manners of a sledge,
To take by force, to have it all
Were his only creed and call,
Ten foot tall and bulletproof
My oh my how hard they fall
No love for life, no love to be
Save the love he had for he
Ten foot tall and bulletproof
My oh my he could not see
A need for God, A need for Jesus
Despite his mothers plea
Survival of the fittest and dog eat dog
Or so he thought, thought he
Thus, Ten foot tall and bulletproof
Came to meet his fateful day
With no clue of the fate
For all of the hate
That he had called his play
Yes, Ten foot tall and bulletproof
Without any slight delay
Soon found the cost for all he had lost
Was not in his strength to pay
Yes, Ten foot tall and bulletproof
Despite his own mighty strength to prevail
Soon found out without any doubt
That he was in the mouth of hell
New paper on Human Chimp Similarity
Chimpanzee?
10-10-2008 | Dr Richard Buggs
The author is a research geneticist at the University of Florida.
He states in his paper that the actual similarity between humans and chimp may be below 70%
excerpt …Therefore the total similarity of the genomes could be below 70%.
Evolution is just getting hammered from every direction…Oh well you atheists still have hell to look forward to,,,Oh wait a moment, normal people think that’s a very bad thing.
> (I’m using a hotel business office computer to post this).
$0.05 worth of advice: change all the passwords that you used on that computer.
Public terminals are rife with trojans and rootkits :)
#130, #131,
Citation please? It looks like there are couple of new Jack Chick tracts missing from my collection.
Sorry Pat, I was referring to posts #129 and #130.
[..] but until then, I’m crippled, with half my brain no longer functioning.
Reminds me of one of the characters in Charles Stross’s Accelerando. 90% of his working capability is carried by his heavily augmented sunglasses. When these are stolen in a mugging by a thief, the character is left dazed and confused. In the meanwhile, the thief having started wearing the sunglasses, is showing up for his victim’s appointments.
Rob @134, very apposite. cf. Jerry Pournelle, for a very recent real-life example, after his radiation treatment.
PS His site is one I read daily, and I admire him, though in many ways his beliefs and opinions are contrary to mine.
jose: Apple, it just works my ass.
Wow! That’s way too much info about your private life, sport.
So, was that you and your wife I happened to see in the beer and wine section of the Lincoln HyVee on 84th street?
Jeez, professor, just get a real computer! :)
Right, Thomas!
It’s for a good reason I call these “Craple”.