(5:35 PM) | Adam Kotsko:

Science and Technology

1. My computer is now running Red Hat 9. Most of my problems from my past computer post stemmed from the fact that I had actually installed 8.0, which is way out of date. The fonts are much prettier than in Windows ME, but it does seem to be running considerably slower on the whole. I'm sure that I'll figure out some way to speed it up, though, since Linux is all about choices and customization and all that. Expect many posts in the future in which I detail how I went about some really cool computer task using a series of programs with strange, inside-jokey names written in all lower-case letters. For instance: "Man, you'll never guess what I grepped last night." If anyone has any speed-up tips, I would welcome that.
   
   
2. I now have a cell phone. It's pretty nice, too -- it has a camera, and it's a flip phone, and it has a little time display when it's closed. I set up my screen saver to be a calendar, so that I can tell what date it is "on the go." Living in the big city, I'll undoubtedly have to do a lot more stuff "on the go."
   
   The Cell Phone Guy was also amazing. Lauren and I ended up spending a good half-hour just getting to know him and learning the story of his life. This involved getting kicked out of Olivet, joining the Marines, meeting a woman who was a model and did crystal meth to stay skinny, getting involved with meth himself, going into rehab, drinking to replace the drugs and getting a DUI, getting sent to "the brig" for 60 days, getting kicked out of the Marines, becoming a small-time drug dealer (not for profit, but only to keep up his habit) and getting caught when someone else set him up, and finally ending up at the cell phone kiosk at the mall because no one else will hire a felon. He thought that we had the air of a couple that had been married for years, despite only being together for a couple months. Lauren definitely has a way of making people feel at ease -- I always enjoy introducing her to new people because I know they're really going to like her. In this particular case, I don't think it was all her charm at work, since this guy obviously had a lot he wanted to share with the world, but I doubt he would have felt as at ease if it were just me.

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