Comments on: Turn Off Your Irony Meter

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:06:28 +0000

Steve, it’s almost like she reformatted her “hard drive” when she went to Stanford and the facilities management position.

We still study the Greeks because we never learned the lessons they taught.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 04:37:31 +0000

Put as politely as I can manage, is there any evidence that Condi knows jack (and I’m not referring to the Australian PM) about the Kremlin?

Michael, I regret that my exposure to the Greeks is only in English translation, but I fear that your concerns are all too well justified.

Batteries are the ongoing problem with all laptops, sooner or later. Indeed, the battery is the only problem with my current laptop (by WinBook; they no longer make laptops, to my great regret). The underlying problem is that batteries are a mature technology, and dramatic advances of the sort that would help us all are few and far between.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:39:23 +0000

Batteries are the biggest problem with laptops and I don’t see much progress being made as people are milking lithium ion for all it’s worth, rather than looking for something better.

I’m glad it worked out.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:31:49 +0000

Yes, I picked it up Friday. And by the by, thanks for the suggestion about looking at IBM and HP. I wound up going with a ThinkPad T61. Some of the keys are in different places from what I’m used to (and there are more of them), but otherwise, it’s working like a dream. And I love the fact that the battery’s good enough that I can actually take it with me around the house. The old one was pretty much tethered to a power outlet.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:11:43 +0000

OT: You seem to have received your new machine for your trip.

The final act is coming, and no one can be sure of the fallout.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 02:26:10 +0000

It isn’t Νέμεσις I’m worried about. It’s the very unholy third member of the most unholy trinity κόρος…ὕβρις…ἄτη (superabundance….overweening arrogance….ruination) that lay at the root of all the great Greek tragedies that keeps me lying awake at night. We’ve done more than enough of our share of the first two for the third to be far away. I just hope that whatever form that ruination takes, it stays away from me and mine…unlikely though that may be.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:14:19 +0000

Hubris is certainly in the mix, Michael, and the assumption of a blessing from on high does link it to the Greek understanding of the word with the disrespect for higher powers included.

Nemesis will not overlook the fellow travelers.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:54:19 +0000

I think the word you’re looking for, Bryan, is ὕβρις.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 03:34:15 +0000

There has to be a new word for this, something beyond hypocrisy, something with the base arrogance involved.

By: Cookie Jill

Cookie Jill — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 02:55:53 +0000

To quote Alanis Morresette….”Isn’t It Ironic?”