On Friday one of my committee members (the geeky one) stopped by my office, and I showed him the pretty new version of Ubuntu I had installed. With Beryl! Hence wobbly windows! And desktop-on-a-cube! He was very impressed.
Then he suddenly got this expression that, in a cartoon, would be represented by a lightbulb appearing above his head. "I have the new Charles Stross book!" he said proudly. "You can borrow it when you finish your thesis."
I laughed at him. "Are you trying to find me an incentive to finish? Do you think the promise of a new book to read would do it?"
"It's Charles Stross!" he said. Then, obviously fearing this might not be enough, "I've got all the Alastair Reynolds books as well."
I use Linux, and have never been much of a science fiction reader. Maybe I'm defective?
ReplyDeleteYou obviously gave the secret handshake without knowing it!
ReplyDeleteBeryl looks absolutely amazing. If I ever switch from Mac, that's what I'm switching to. It has several Mac features, I see (the F9 feature is one I use all the time, and the zoom-a-window function is fun).
ReplyDeletePerhaps your next migration will actually be to Mac! Welcome to the threshold of the club! :-)
Why would I do that when I can theme Beryl to look just like OSX? :)
ReplyDeleteOSX does a cube-like thing when you switch users, I discovered to my surprise when I set up a new user on mine. When I saw that I did a puppy-like yelp and called The Man. "Watch this!" I said, and did it again. And again. And again.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not even a geek.
And TWO (!) science fiction books isn't incentive to finish? What is the world coming to!
ReplyDeleteBadaunt - in denial of geekiness, eh?
Actually, yes, Geeka. My supervisor even started talking about something in 2009 a while ago, and when I mentioned I might not be there, she gave me this look of total surprise and then said, "Bummer. Yeah. I always forget students graduate and go away."
ReplyDeleteI'm all for them not making us leave, though. Just keep paying me and I'll stay FOREVER.