Exercise update

Still making with the upper-body workout before my morning cappucino.  I’m up to 50 reps on many of the exercises now, and in particular I’m now finishing up with 120 full-speed karate punches in one minute, still with the 3lb hand weights.  I think I need to switch to heavier hand weights. 5lb should be about right for now.

This morning, just as I was finishing up the speed punches, I had a Mr. Sandoval moment, which inspired me to finish up with a good sharp “KIAI!” on the final punch.  Thus startling everyone in the house and cymrullewes who was halfway out of the driveway taking Wen the Eternally Surprised to her summer reading program...

(Mr. Sandoval was one of the instructors at the bok-fu dojo I used to study at.  He was Samoan, and used to punch through five concrete blocks back-to-back.  Well, actually, I take that back: he didn’t so much punch through as just sort of casually push his hand through them.)

Hardware failure

No, for once I’m not talking about computer hardware dying unexpectedly.  I’m talking about this.

This is the bolt securing the access hatch to our attic.  Can you say “unclear on the concept”?  I hadn’t really looked at it before.

After fixing ...

And notice the use of advanced modern hard-disk technology to make environmentally sensitive recycled spacers for the hasp!  (Yes, those spacers came out of a dead hard disk.  They used to hold head-servo magnets apart.  See, you knew there’d be failed computer hardware involved here somewhere, didn’t you?  And you were right.)

Hardware failure

No, for once I’m not talking about computer hardware dying unexpectedly.  I’m talking about this.

This is the bolt securing the access hatch to our attic.  Can you say “unclear on the concept”?  I hadn’t really looked at it before.

After fixing ...

And notice the use of advanced modern hard-disk technology to make environmentally sensitive recycled spacers for the hasp!  (Yes, those spacers came out of a dead hard disk.  They used to hold head-servo magnets apart.  See, you knew there’d be failed computer hardware involved here somewhere, didn’t you?  And you were right.)

Seeking Ubuntu help

We seem to have run into a showstopper problem with Kubuntu er ... Xubuntu (my thinko) 9.04 on cymrullewes‘ Dell Inspiron 4100.  The problem was not, to my knowledge, present on 8.04.

The laptop has two cooling fans, one on the CPU, one on the video chipset.  On Ubuntu 9.04, the fans never start, and the laptop overheats.  We’ve found that this behavior can be fixed by installing the i8k module and using i8kctl to manually turn the fans on and off, or i8kmon --auto --daemon to automatically turn them on and off based on temperature.

There’s just one problem:  The moment the i8k module loads, the onboard keyboard and pointing devices are permanently disabled until the laptop is rebooted.  An external USB keyboard or external mouse work, but this somewhat defeats the point of a laptop.

So, the end result:  If you load i8k, the laptop is thermally stable, but unusable without an external keyboard.  If you don’t, it’s usable, but only until it overheats.

Any of my readers happen to know a solution to this problem that does not involve buying a newer laptop?

(Of course, I suppose we could always go back to 8.04 and just not let it update to 9.04 again.  I’m fairly sure this problem was not present on 8.04 ... but I’m not certain, because it’s not my laptop and I rarely use it.)