Critical Exponent

A friend gave us a new Epson Stylus R280 printer (he’s been getting several free ones with his computer and related purchases). This is good; we’ve been needing an everyday-type printer.

I started looking for drivers. The Epson site does not support Linux, but it did point me to the Avasys site, which has a driver. Unfortunately, the source RPM wouldn’t compile, but the downloaded tarball seemed to be working fine. It asked me for the name and location of the device, at which point, crossing my fingers, I proceeded to unpack the printer and hook it up….

And CUPS just recognized it instantly! I didn’t even have to finish the manual setup of the driver I had downloaded. The test page came out fine!

Is this what life is like for Mac users?

When we went to Portland for Soup Swap, we took our skis and snowshoes; who knew whether we’d have a chance to hit the slopes? As it turned out, we were largely urban this weekend. And yet…we managed to hit the Portland Nursery and stop by The Columbia Gorge.

As much as I sometimes miss the urban density of Boston and New York— boy howdy, the Northwest lifestyle is pretty amazing!

… for soup.

We’re heading out to Portland for their early Soup Swap… and getting ready to host Seattle’s on January 23, (Inter)National Soup Swap Day.

It’s not too late to organize a Soup Swap of your own, and there’s certainly more than enough time to prepare and freeze your concoction.

Soup’s on!

I took a rock-climbing class last night. It was fun, challenging, and left my arms sore from gripping the rope in desperate fear as I was being lowered back down.

I want to try more!

Sometimes you need to get away from it all: no internet, no phone, no time-pieces.

Knox and I loaded up our newly-acquired car with skis and backpacks on Friday, headed to Teanaway, and skiied to a Forest Service cabin. We expected to be outdoors all the time. In reality, save for a brief ski run and wood-chopping session on Saturday, and the gorgeous ski back on Sunday, we stayed in, reading and sleeping.

The only other humans we saw were a handful of snowmobilers, including a group that confirmed our cabin location when we first entered the forest later on Friday evening than we had planned. We were ensconced in that little cabin, keeping the fire going, melting snow for water, and absorbed in our books. Quite fittingly, I thought, I got through the second half of The Mists of Avalon, and I could swear that if I looked just so out the window I could see the fairy country of Morgaine’s tale…

Words of hope, courtesy of Jared Diamond’s opinion piece in The New York Times on consumption trends across societies:

Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates.