Oh look, it's Dietrich

[Spoilers below for Doctor Who Season 5.]

Just finished watching Season 5 of the new Who, and while I'm enjoying the new folks a great deal, I've been pissed at the writing more than once. Is it just me, or has there been a kind of sea change in the rules of causality? I mean, I know, the science is always super-spotty, but the way Tennant carried it off (wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey) was always funny and, to me at least, believable - or at least I was able to suspend my disbelief. Now it seems like more often than not, the thing that saves the day is the equivalent of people clapping their hands and saying "I believe in fairies!"

Is it just me? I mean, I'm a person who's really into the power of love and memory and belief, but it's not what I expect - or what I've seen - from this show so far, and it's annoying me. Beating Dalek technology with memories of an old girlfriend? Making a time-traveling ship explode with the power of schmoop? Making a Rory-bot real by being really insistent about your love for him? Resurrecting the Doctor from a reboot of the entire universe using Amy's memories?

It seems sappy at best, horribly lazy at worst. Your thoughts?

Is there a way to reply to screened comments without unscreening them first and then having them all unscreened and stuff during those few seconds before you go back afterward and screen them again???

motive_nuance offered to help me out with this, but he's been absolutely swamped lately and so I would feel bad to ask him right now. Besides, I might be able to do it myself, with a bit of help. :)

My computer is a Mac iBook, about 5 years old. It runs Mac OSX version 10.4.11, and has a 1.2 GHz Power PC G4 processor. It has 256 MB of memory, which I think is where I'm running into problems.

I've never considered myself a "power user," but at the moment, using, say, a browser, the Mail program, and Word at the same time causes the machine to slow down considerably. iPhoto and iTunes slow it to a crawl unless they are the only things running.

I'd like to add more memory to the machine - I think that would solve a lot of problems - but I'm told that going to the Apple store and having the Geniuses do it is going to cost me a lot more than I really have to pay.

So: how do I do it? Where do I shop, how much do I get, how much should I expect to pay, and how the heck do I install it?

Thanks, LJ!

I have an aftermarket power supply for my iBook (a Macally). Recently, when I have it plugged in, it will often cause the battery indicator to flick between "Calculating" and the amount of power my battery has left, causing the whole screen to flick between bright and not-as-bright. Presumably it also makes charging a lot slower - essentially, the computer thinks that it's continually switching between being plugged in and being on battery power.

Thoughts? Whaaa?

It looks like the Airport on my machine has died. Or rather, here's how it behaves:

I was using my computer, unhooked from the power, when the screen went black, and I couldn't get it to come back.

Did a reboot by pressing the power button.

When I went to connect to my usual network on the Airport, it looked like it connected, but then it didn't, really - I couldn't get online. When I went to change it to another network, or turn the Airport off and on again, the Airport froze, and now it's perpetually highlighted, with the spinning beach ball of death (the Apple version of the blue screen of death, for the uninitiated, but only per application) going with all its might whenever I bring the cursor near it.

Thoughts?? I can't force quit it - it's not even an application; it's a piece of hardware, I believe. Without the airport, ain't much I can do with communications. Posting this from my husband's machine.

Oh, Help!

ETA: Now it also won't accept blank disks. I'm beginning to think some kind of hardware snafu has occurred and that it's only a matter of time before the entire system falls apart. I have my home directory backed up on an external hard drive. Any ideas for transferring a home directory to another machine? That may be what I'm up against...

EDITED TO FURTHER ADD: Ohhhhhkaaaay, so it looks like two reboots was what it took for it to start working properly again. I'm still not convinced it isn't just going to explode any minute. But now it works. For now. WTF??

So, my Mail program has been acting really screwy lately.

The main things it keeps doing are as follows:

1. Either re-downloading already downloaded and read messages or re-marking them as "new." This also means that if I've flagged anything, responded to it, forwarded it, or done anything else with it, all of those markings are lost. This is also true for messages I've de-flagged - they get flagged again whenever Mail pulls one of these "backwards" moves.

2. Not sorting messages into the folders I've designated with Mail's "Rules" option.

Anybody know how to fix a buggy Mail, or why this might be happening? It started out as a nuisance, but now it's actually disturbing my workflow and organization.

Thanks.

Is there. A reason. Why iPhoto.

Is the SLOWEST FUCKING PROGRAM ON THE PLANET???!!!

[Edited to add:] Anyone have suggestions for other Mac-friendly photo-organizing programs that don't cost $200?

In Excel, how do you make it so that a given number will display as a given letter, and so that if you enter that letter in the cell, it will understand it as that letter's numerical value?

That is, if I want 3.67 to mean A-, how do I make Excel understand that?

Thankye!

Hi, folks,

Actual size is out of commission for the nonce, as I'm trying to reset my servers after moving and with my server-owner at Burning Man...

Please, for now, send mail to kamelathehut at excite dot com.

Thankye!

ert has gotten hisself a purty 17-inch Powerbook...

...and has indefinitely lent me his iBook for my personal nefarious use.

Oh baby. I have a little laptop bag, too. All my files in one place. iPhoto. iTunes. Wireless Internet. Audio chats. Mmmmm-hm.

Now I'm in trouble. :)