07 October 2009

The one where I pretend my motorcycle can travel hyperluminally.

There are things about computers I don't get, I admit it.  The basics, yeah, like buying cool hardware and installing it.  Buying or stealing cool software and installing it.  Removing undesirable stuff, too.  But every once in a while there is something that makes me scratch my noodle and wonder about.  Take for instance the following screen captures:












Do you notice anything?  The one on the left is a screen capture of my computer at the office. It could just as easily be a screen capture of my desktop PC here at home.  The one on the right is my HP desktop replacement PC, affectionately known as a lap crusher PC.  I got a little more of the background on the HP screen capture, but they are basically shots of the task manager window, both Windows Vista.  I go in task manager and close down things if I intend to tax the system with some big application like Second Life or World of Warcraft.  Well, maybe you haven't noticed it, but it's a real pain in the arse.  The HP task manager window doesn't have any way to close the window except to "End process" under the processes tab.  (There is no X in the corner.) It used to have the X in the corner, but I somehow lost it.  Now I'm sure there is simply something to tick in some list of files somewhere to get those little buggers back in their corner, but what do you call that stuff in the corner?  It will undoubtedly have some specific nomenclature, and with a computer, you really need to know what everything is called in order to hunt down how to fix or destroy it.  Tonight I will either sleep the sleep of a victorious computer conqueror, or I will lie in bed for hours wondering.

In other news, the motorcycle I bought from Todd B. is in the shop for a new battery, new tires, and to fix the tachyon readout, or tachometer or whatever it's called.  Actually, the guy called and told me it's done, but I was already in my underwear guzzling a Hoegaarden and listening to Keith Olbermann's show, so I'll pick it up tomorrow.

It was windy today.  More than usual for Gyeongju.  And the sky was totally overcast.  Wonder what that's about.  Are we in a feeder band?

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