Tasmania
Last time I was in Tasmania in Summer, I found there was a lot of folk music. Of course, at the time, I didn't know that folk music was so cool, and besides, we were too damn busy hiking to enjoy the musics. This time, I found that some genious scheduled the LCA right around peak folk music time, which makes me really happy (oh, and scheduling it such that I can get away from crappy hot weather in the North). And, having listened to JJJ tonight, I discover that Mamadou Diabate, Jeff Lang, Bobby Singh (and Nick Cave) are playing at the Mona Foma festival just as I arrive in Hobart (I heard that combination for the first time ever, just as I got into the car to come home from night shift this afternoon, and I just heard them again. *Brilliant*!). This makes me very happy. Hopefully I'll be able to fit it around a loop-de-loop Tasmania schedule that hasn't been developed yet other than in terms no more detailed than "we'll look at the map on the plane and pick a random direction. And then maybe come back.".
As to the LCA, which laptop should I take?
The reliable dell from last yearthe year before last, that works solidly other than it having a crappy nvidia card that 50% of the time crashes upon suspend/resume (I'm guessing LCA will involve lots of suspend/resume cycles). And only has 43% of its original battery reserves. And is my server.
The 17" new dell quite heavy-never-really-intended-as-a-portable-laptop that I take on night shift with me, with quite a solid kernel now that it runs 2.6.28, suspends *very* reliably with an intel video card that never crashes and can be plugged into a projector (should I find the need to present an impromtu lightning talk at the sysadmin miniconf or BOF) without needing arcane invocations of nvidia-settings and a reboot to work, and lasts forever on battery thanks to not using a crappy nvidia card that interrupts at 60 times per second. But with a crappy broadcom wireless card that doesn't reliably work on anything other than my router at home. And it crashed 2 minutes before I went onto night shift, and although I rescued it enough to boot, I still haven't restored it from backup paying attention to the files that have deliberately changed since the last backup was made (which get more numerous the longer I leave it and still use it).
The work eeepc, which is quite reliably, lasts forever, but I can't type on it or see the screen, and it doesn't yet having a working wireless.
Or the work acer aspire, which seems to have a nicely sized keyboard (but I still can't see the screen) for the 15 keypresses I've made on it so far, but isn't yet installed and I have no idea if I can get the wireless working on it in the 12 or so waking hours I have before I get on a plane. And since I'm meant to be evaluating it for work purposes for conference usage, I'll be able to bill my time to work?
P.S. Why am I having to put the volume in the xmms streaming JJJ, the mixer, the computer, the pre amp, and the power amp all up to 11 repeatedly on tonight's Roots & All? The internut isn't loud enough. And/or my eardrums can't cope with this repeated bashing.
As to the LCA, which laptop should I take?
The reliable dell from last yearthe year before last, that works solidly other than it having a crappy nvidia card that 50% of the time crashes upon suspend/resume (I'm guessing LCA will involve lots of suspend/resume cycles). And only has 43% of its original battery reserves. And is my server.
The 17" new dell quite heavy-never-really-intended-as-a-portable-laptop that I take on night shift with me, with quite a solid kernel now that it runs 2.6.28, suspends *very* reliably with an intel video card that never crashes and can be plugged into a projector (should I find the need to present an impromtu lightning talk at the sysadmin miniconf or BOF) without needing arcane invocations of nvidia-settings and a reboot to work, and lasts forever on battery thanks to not using a crappy nvidia card that interrupts at 60 times per second. But with a crappy broadcom wireless card that doesn't reliably work on anything other than my router at home. And it crashed 2 minutes before I went onto night shift, and although I rescued it enough to boot, I still haven't restored it from backup paying attention to the files that have deliberately changed since the last backup was made (which get more numerous the longer I leave it and still use it).
The work eeepc, which is quite reliably, lasts forever, but I can't type on it or see the screen, and it doesn't yet having a working wireless.
Or the work acer aspire, which seems to have a nicely sized keyboard (but I still can't see the screen) for the 15 keypresses I've made on it so far, but isn't yet installed and I have no idea if I can get the wireless working on it in the 12 or so waking hours I have before I get on a plane. And since I'm meant to be evaluating it for work purposes for conference usage, I'll be able to bill my time to work?
P.S. Why am I having to put the volume in the xmms streaming JJJ, the mixer, the computer, the pre amp, and the power amp all up to 11 repeatedly on tonight's Roots & All? The internut isn't loud enough. And/or my eardrums can't cope with this repeated bashing.