entirelysonja

Woke up this morning, switched on the computer - no network connection. (Well, only my VirtualBox Host-Only Network, but that doesn't get me onto the Internet.) As in, it didn't even recognise that there was a network hanging off my network adapter, not even a LAN.

Took the network cable out (not easy in the confined space in that part of the case!) and put it back in - no dice. Looked up Driver Manager - no yellow exclamation mark. Disabled the network chip and re-enabled it - and things worked again.

Still, I hope it's not going to make a habit of that.

Language Hat has an entry on the origin of the word “commute” (as in “travel back and forth regularly between two places, especially home and work”):

Do you know why someone who regularly spends a certain amount of time traveling back and forth between home and work is called a "commuter"? It's because the first people so called were using commutation tickets, what we now call season tickets, that commuted ('changed,' from Latin commutare) a bunch of daily fares into a single payment. (If you check the foreign equivalents linked at the left of the Wikipedia article, you find that a number of languages use a word or phrase meaning 'pendulum migration.')

Never thought about that, but that makes sense.

Language is fun!

Starting to get a bit worried about my computer. It went into production on Monday, so I would have expected it to ship by Tuesday at the latest.

Today’s Wednesday, and there’s still no sign of it. I called them up at about half-past five (shortly before they closed for the day at six) to inquire, and the chap on the phone said he’d need to look up something, could he call me back? I left my mobile phone number with him and he said he’d get back to me soon.

Well, close of business has come and gone, and I still have no news.

Stella says she’s starting to worry they’re in the nocturnal aviation business and will simply take our money and not deliver the goods (and I wondered, briefly, whether I should have sent the money via my VISA card so that I could have, perhaps, disputed the charge with them). But that’s not the impression I got from reading their forum and a couple of other places on the Internet (let alone the test in c’t magazine); there were some disgruntled customers who had to wait too long for a machine because parts (especially higher-end graphics cards) were not available in a timely manner, or who had an encounter with an unfriendly employee on the phone, or whose computer needed to be repaired several times—but nobody who even intimated that they never got what they paid for.

While browsing Wikipedia this evening, I came across the article on the “house system” used especially in boarding schools, and it reminded me of the houses we had at my school.

As the article says, “In the case of a day school […], the word 'house' refers only to a grouping of pupils, rather than to a particular building.” The two houses at ISH were “Hansa” and “Galleon” (and I think they were usually enumerated in that order); as best I recall, pupils were randomly assigned to one or the other. I believe I was in Galleon.

I think Hansa had the colour red; I don’t remember which colour Galleon had (blue?), nor which symbols, if any, the houses had.

The names were presumably derived from the location of the school: the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Hansa referred to the Hanseatic League, or Hansa (German: Hanse) and Galleon presumably to the ship type (though I associated “Hansekogge” with the Hansa, i.e. cogs).

As best I remember, essentially the only significance was in sports; occasionally, we’d split up by house to play a game, and I think we could also gain points for our house by doing well in sports (surpassing a kind of “par” score for whatever the event was). I think a year-end game was also officially Hansa vs. Galleon.

On the whole, though, it was a rather negligible part of my school experience.

I’ve got a bunch of Dreamwidth invite codes if anyone wants any.

They’re ( behind this cut. )Let me know when you’ve used one.