it had a good run
November 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson
So yesterday I got my server back from the Bay Area and lugged it up to the apartment. Tonight I shut down my homebrew caseless wonder and moved some of the guts over to the rackmount case. The rackmount server's a P3 600, so I kept that instead of the PII 400. I also discovered that PC100 ram won't work in a PC133 motherboard. It's the same size/shape...
Anyway, everything's now running fine. The only problem is that the enormous fan in the case is a little too much noise to leave sitting over the entertainment center. I need to investigate where I can move that to.
From the old drive I've loaded up some missing posts from June - September. You can find those through the archives.
36 Hours in Downtown LA
November 12, 2004 by Eric Richardson
New York Times writer Janelle Brown today has a piece on 36 hours in downtown LA (found via LA Observed). The choices are good... I don't really understand why the NYT has thrown so much love to the Golden Gopher, but whatever, it's a trendy choice. I absolutely concur with the recommendation of Conservancy walking tours. That's something I need to take more advantage of myself.
At the very end of the piece, though, she gives a recommendation to the Hotel Fig.
The Figueroa Hotel (939 South Figueroa Street, 213-627-8971) opened in 1925 and is still a destination downtown. Its eclectic Moroccan-themed spaces are filled with ottomans, pink bougainvillea and Moroccan tile. Its 285 rooms are $98 to $225.
Now I have to admit that it's been four years since I was last there, but here's the impression I got back then: the lobby and bar are nice, but the hotel itself is just not. During the summer of 2000 I spent a week there while working a conference at the convention center. I shared a room that was tiny: two single beds, a crappy old tv, a chair, and a bathroom. We called it Camp Figgy. If they've remodelled in the last couple years I'd like to hear it, but if people are paying $100 for the kind of room I got that's just ridiculous.
time for a cell-ebration?
November 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson
So I'm pretty sure that between 6:30pm or so and now something dramatically changed with cell phone coverage in my apartment. Living downtown, indoor cell reception isn't always the greatest. In my apartment it's been really bad, basically where you needed to stand next to the window to have a decent conversation.
Tonight I went to plug my phone in to charge, and the first thing I noticed was a new "AT&T/Cingu" network tag. Hmmm... Merger's finally taking shape.
Next thing I notice: I have five bars of coverage sitting at my desk. I call voicemail and walk around the apartment. I get down to 3 bars at our door, but no lower.
This could be a beautiful thing. Maybe those AT&T commercials where the people had bars over their heads weren't a lie.
Update (a few minutes later): It looks like what's happened is the AT&T network tag has been changed to be dual, while the Cingular one still just says Cingular. The AT&T one gives me a lot better coverage in my apartment right now, though, so I've moved it up my network priority list.
626, 727, hike
November 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Can I just say now that for how creative they're all supposed to be, some of the gallery people around me are getting pretty lazy with their naming schemes. Across the street from me and appearing out of the blue Tuesday is 626 Gallery (ok, they probably didn't show up out of the blue, but I left for school Tuesday morning and when I got back there was a gallery there). One block down is Gallery 727.
I understand how to read your address, ok? Put a little more work into it.
In class today we watched the short 'George Lucas in Love' (google for it, you'll find a copy somewhere). Take the title jabs there and insert them here.
In related news, Downtown Art Walk is right now. I think I might cruise the neighborhood for a little bit and get baffled some more by the art scene. I'm telling you, I don't fit in at galleries.
good old college journalism
November 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Have I mentioned before how much I dislike the Daily Trojan? If not, consider just a few words in this article:
In addition to these endeavors, the university is working on a master plan for the campus that involves land north of Jefferson Boulevard and east of the Intestate 10 freeway, Williams said.
Note:
east of the Intestate 10 freeway
- It's "Interstate"
- It's the 110 freeway. The 10 runs east-west. That is unless USC has some land in North Carolina I don't know about. We do have a campus in Virginia, so who knows...
I swear I can't read a single edition of the DT without finding some typos or shoddy journalism to get mad at.