Computer-less for 5 day… and counting

So, I’ve been without a personal computer for 5 days now, with at least another 4 days ahead of me, minimum. For someone that thought he lived and died by his computing power, it’s been surprisingly bearable.

For a full accounting, my laptop’s video card fried, and it’s in the repair shop for at least a week. If that doesn’t work (I have a reasonable expectation that it should), then I’ll end up splurging and getting myself a good laptop: at least, not a lower end Dell. There are several shortcomings of my Inspiron 1545 that are annoying, like no numpad (for on the fly blender work), weird keyboard bevel material, weak screen/body joint, and no virtual machine support. So, even though I expect the repairs to work, I’m kind of hoping… they won’t?

Anyways, life without a personal computer. Between having a capable smartphone and plenty of University lab computers, life is pretty manageable. It’s not a big thing, but I managed to hack together a bunch of ADI stuff (custom QR codes, several flyers) without pretty much any of my usual resources. Made me feel badass. Ha.

However, the little things drag down on me. Not having the resources to do my homework on my computer is not so great: I can’t rip through lines of a math proof with LaTeX/Emacs and C-a C-k C-n C-y, and can’t change my intermediate results on the fly (have to erase them when you write it out. Unfortunate). It doesn’t seem like typing out your homework in LaTeX would be faster, but it at least feels like it is. For some reason, though, I finished all my homework early (even when just writing it out), and then lazed around for pretty much an entire day. Bah.

I can’t work on my pet projects the way I want to: for instance, there’s no place for me to pop open Eagle and start designing the clock PCBs I need. That’s annoying.

Wouldn’t want to be this way forever. Only for a few more days, hopefully.

Excuse the incomplete thoughts. Computer withdrawal, you know.