Ain't Technology Grand?
May. 26th, 2005 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowI subscribe to Dish Network. The satellite box is controlled, of course, by an IR remote.
As of about ten minutes ago, the remote is not working. There are several possible explanations; the most benign has to do with dead batteries. The remote requires four AAA batteries, and for all I know the failure of one of them suffices to render the remote inert. I have two spares; that is, I have six AAA batteries, of which an unknown number are dead. There are fifteen different ways of choosing four batteries from a set of six; I could, I suppose, test all fifteen to see if I can find a subset that works. Success would, of course, be satisfying, but failure would tell me nothing, since I don't know how many (if any) of the batteries are dead. (Yes, I'm aware of the existence of battery testers. I don't have any handy.) All that, of course, assumes that it is the battery and not the IR source or some other component.
What this means is that, for the moment, I can't change channels. I'm stuck on the local WB affiliate. BO-ring. Fortunately, all of the series that I've been watching have finished their seasons. But there are other shows...
Fortunately again, I received a nice haul of books today. From the Library of America (a very nice book club, I must say), I received a volume of Louisa May Alcott: Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys; I've never read any of her work, and had been idly toying with looking into them, so this is serendipitous. Also, part of my Amazon order arrived: Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Dorothy Dunnett's Scales of Gold (the fourth House of Niccolo book), and A Pirate of Exquisite Mind by Diana and Michael Preston. (The last is a biography of William Dampier.)
I finished the Chanur series, and am now reading Richard Fortey's Earth: An Intimate History and rereading M. Z. Bradley's Sharra's Exile. (I've never been much of a Bradley fan. The Heritage of Hastur is excellent, but none of her other works that I've read - Thendara House, The Shattered Chain, and Sharra's Exile - have impressed me. However, I do happen to have a copy of the last, and decided to give it another shot. Just a whim.)
[Addendum: the remote is working again, for no discernible reason. Damn gremlins.]
[Further Addendum: the reason the remote appeared not to be working was that I had done something stupid with another remote. Damn multiple wands.]
As of about ten minutes ago, the remote is not working. There are several possible explanations; the most benign has to do with dead batteries. The remote requires four AAA batteries, and for all I know the failure of one of them suffices to render the remote inert. I have two spares; that is, I have six AAA batteries, of which an unknown number are dead. There are fifteen different ways of choosing four batteries from a set of six; I could, I suppose, test all fifteen to see if I can find a subset that works. Success would, of course, be satisfying, but failure would tell me nothing, since I don't know how many (if any) of the batteries are dead. (Yes, I'm aware of the existence of battery testers. I don't have any handy.) All that, of course, assumes that it is the battery and not the IR source or some other component.
What this means is that, for the moment, I can't change channels. I'm stuck on the local WB affiliate. BO-ring. Fortunately, all of the series that I've been watching have finished their seasons. But there are other shows...
Fortunately again, I received a nice haul of books today. From the Library of America (a very nice book club, I must say), I received a volume of Louisa May Alcott: Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys; I've never read any of her work, and had been idly toying with looking into them, so this is serendipitous. Also, part of my Amazon order arrived: Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Dorothy Dunnett's Scales of Gold (the fourth House of Niccolo book), and A Pirate of Exquisite Mind by Diana and Michael Preston. (The last is a biography of William Dampier.)
I finished the Chanur series, and am now reading Richard Fortey's Earth: An Intimate History and rereading M. Z. Bradley's Sharra's Exile. (I've never been much of a Bradley fan. The Heritage of Hastur is excellent, but none of her other works that I've read - Thendara House, The Shattered Chain, and Sharra's Exile - have impressed me. However, I do happen to have a copy of the last, and decided to give it another shot. Just a whim.)
[Addendum: the remote is working again, for no discernible reason. Damn gremlins.]
[Further Addendum: the reason the remote appeared not to be working was that I had done something stupid with another remote. Damn multiple wands.]
