Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

As of this morning when I switched off the charger, my "12 V" battery has 15 V across it. This startled me, because I never remember that a lead-acid cell has a capacity closer to 2 V than the "a little more than 1.5" that I keep expecting. (Not that batteries usually measure what they're labelled as. For example, a fresh-from-the-store AA cell is 1.6 V; depending on what device it's trying to power, "dead" will probably mean something under 0.8 V.) I'll check it again just before putting it back in the car.

Then I came upstairs and had another "Doh!" moment when I realized why the iMac couldn't find anybody else even though everyone else replied to its ARP "who has" requests. Stuck a different Ethernet cable on it and all of a sudden it sees the world. So now I'm sucking iCab and Opera and Nifty Telnet through my narrow modem, and will see about the feasibility of iTunes later. (If iTunes for OS 8.6 is too big for my connection, I'll burn a CD at the home of someone who has broadband.) Interestingly, the copy of Microsoft Internet Exploder currently on it won't display http://www.opera.com. It refuses to treat it as a web page, and instead downloads the page as a generic file and sticks it on the desktop. Fortunately I wanted both iCab and Opera anyhow, so downloading iCab so that I can use it to download Opera is not a huge, time-wasting extra step.

Now if I can score a 250 W AT-style power supply before the one in my main Linux box downstairs finishes eating itself, and get my tires dealt with, I'll feel a lot more "together". (Except that I still need to pay my gas/electricity bill and sort out how I'm going to fuel my furnace. Urk. And figure out why neither electrical outlet in the bathroom is working, so I can plug in a space heater there. And put plastic on my windows. And ... drive myself nuts worrying about everything at once instead of a piece at a time ...)

Urk. Urgent distractions lately, and here it is nearly Samhain and me with no idea what Hallowe'en parties I'm going to try to get to (need to see how tired I am after car stuff, too), nor what I'm doing for a costume this year! (Which probably means repeating a past costume unless a really-easily-fabricated and entertaining idea pops into my head in the nick of time.) I never seem to manage to be prepared for the holidays.