Some weekend notes for 15 May 2005

Saw The Interpreter Saturday night in East Hampton. I'd give it 3 stars. There's a couple of "eh" moments, but the pace is decent and there were no sappy romantic scenes. It reminded us of Three Days of the Condor which was also directed by Sydney Pollack (hat tip to Jon H).

If you change the battery in your IBM Thinkpad X31, be certain that you've either shut down or hibernated the system. Changing the battery while the system is simply suspended is a bad move.

I am spending the day tomorrow at the Personal Democracy Forum. I don't expect to blog it.

Later this week, Lisa, I and Frisket will be travelling to Boston so that Frisket can earn additional points for staying at the Hotel Marlowe in Cambridge. In addition I will attempt to lure unsuspecting IBMers to leave.

Frisket got a bath and trim today. She needed one after swimming in the stagnant pool in Amagansett over the weekend.

The Crimson Hexagon: Books Borges Never Wrote

Borges - Crimson Hexagon: Imaginary Books: a catalogue of books, monographs, and encyclopædias mentioned by Jorge Luis Borges in his various books, with some elaborations to fill in certain gaps.

Elsewhere: Little privacy hole in itp32.exe

I had an odd thing happen while trying to register a copy of Lotus 1-2-3. Read about it here: Little privacy hole in itp32.exe

Road-Trippin'

Driving to Boston today for the weekend.

Beware the Storrow Drive-Gov't Center-BigDig interchange

We left Brooklyn around 3:15 p.m. We arrived in our room in Cambridge precisely just in time to watch The Apprentice at 9:00 p.m. A bit longer drive than normal. Traffic was a nightmare from Brooklyn all the way to New Haven, CT. We took I95 since the Hutch and Merritt were both messes from the time we got in the car.

Once in Boston, where I've been, oh, like a zillion times, I managed to make a wrong turn on Storrow Drive. See, to cross over to Cambridge, you get off Storrow at Government Center (or Govt Ctr as the sign reads). However, just this once, I was actually trusting the GPS to remind me when to turn.

And it didn't.

So...we followed this loopy road which looked ok since it took us across the Charles. I then made my second mistake: I avoided the I93 ramp and stayed on US1. That however ramps around and around to the Tobin Bridge. Once on, you cannot get off until you are in Chelsea.

Another set of driving around blocks and we were back on the Tobin Bridge. However, inbound there's a US$3.00 toll. This time we did take the I93 ramp, which isn't actually a ramp to I93 but to local streets in Somerville.

We pulled into The Marlowe and let Frisket out. She's popular here, they even had a greeting for her at her eye level, though as far as I can tell she cannot read.

APIs to various Web Applications

Internet Alchemy Webapp APIs

Just FYI, the Hotel Marlowe has an open access point in the lobby with great signal strength. The Marlowe is on the far side of the CambridgeSide Galleria, opposite IBM's Rogers Street building.