The computer is back again, this time with a new screen.

Whoever travels a lot, may find something familiar in this sentence, borrowed from Edward S. Casey: "Place's inflow and outflow are such that to be fully in a place is never to be confined to a punctate position; it is to be already on the way out". 16:39

Why does music sound better when it rains outside? 11:55

Just returned from a dissertation defense, where a colleague of mine admirably blocked the tiny imperfections that the opponent was able to find in his study, and while doing that, kept the audience entertained with some well timed humour. The opponent, coming from the opposite side of the globe, shared the same tone and level of seriousness in a atmosphere of mutual respect. An ideal way for anyone to finish a project that has taken several years of their life. I can only hope I will handle things with at least some of that same kind of smoothness in a couple of years from now. 15:38

I had a computer screen problem a month ago. Now I have it again. My laptop was "fixed" earlier as a warranty repair, only it wasn't fixed. The report revealed that nothing was really done. After a long period of black screen, the machine had decided to start working properly just when it was about to be fixed. And because it was working, it wasn't fixed. Now the black screen is back. I fear it will again temporarily fix itself before it reaches the repair person, and I will be labelled a paranoid customer for good. I'm sure they have a black list, since they have the power.

But I don't even know if I've made contact with these gatekeepers of IT society yet. I think they're closing doors as we speak. First the phone line kept me waiting and prompted me to drop a note about my repair need by e-mail instead. Then I had four e-mails boomerang back to me. The fifth has disappeared forever. It may have reached its destination. More probably, some embodiment of the computer age has simply eaten it for lunch. 15:45

I've been listening to a distant, quick, and continuous patter for the past hour. At first I thought one of my academic neighbours is typing as if there's no tomorrow, but now I'm pretty convinced the source of the sound is not a living organism. 16:33

It is summer. The colour combination of the cloud shreds hovering up in the sky and the sky itself greatly resembles the one in the national flag most familiar to me. Sitting by my office window and staring out, I again demonstrate my skills of observing the movement of the leaves in the trees and thinking about nothing particular. I just toned down the ringing volume of the phone because otherwise, when I'm in this mood and the phone rings, I jump too high. 13:48

This is where I live. This map service is not bad with the zoom. It would be even more illuminating, though, if you could zoom out up to the level of Europe. 18:36