I probably made a mistake buying that new laptop. I bought it because the university (my alma mater, one of Britain's three most illustrious universities: Oxford, Cambridge... Milton Keynes) doesn't support Windows 7 any longer, which my old machine runs on, and also because it comes with an AMD CPU and an ATI Radeon for gaming. However, on both counts, it is completely unsuitable.
I remember when Microsoft and MIT got their claws in to the Open University. Despite my Blackadder quote, I am extremely proud to belong to the Open University - our students study harder, longer and more deeply than many other universities' students do - that is reflected not only in the grading criteria and timescale spent studying, but also evidenced by a famous scholar and military man - formerly of Oxford - Gardiner, was his name, if I recall, that said, "I did more studying in one month with the Open University than I did for three years at Oxford University, where I just got drunk with my buddies."). There is a plaque enshrined to his memory at our alma mater.
Anyway, I was at Uni, the big phat annual, then bi-annual, now never (since the Neo-Plague) conference where I met a truly delightful scholar, a musician, a free thinker, amicable, a physics major with a keen interest in ancient Greek culture. He explained that many of the physics department used to use UNIX as an operating system, but since Microsoft took over (we're talking the days of Dot Net, not C builder) every student and staff member had to, from that point on (nine years ago now) go out and buy a Microsoft machine in order to work with and through the University's new system. This sucks. The machine I bought, is excellent (and I mean it kicks serious ass in terms of whatever you want - never mind your flashy two grand laptops, this bad boy weighs in at £500 and works like a dream). It won't, however, run any games (because it runs on UNIX) which is fine, I am a serious scholar, so that's perfectly okay. Equally, it won't run Microsoft Word, which is what I need to do my editing jobs, and it won't run Windows, which is what the University uses to have their little meet ups (Microsoft Teams). Apart from these frivolous trifles, it will, however, do everything anybody else's computer will do, and then some. Many (but not all) viruses are Windows only, so that is excellent, running on a different, more efficient operating system is perfectly fine, better, in fact. I love Google Docs, which has gotten better and better, for documenting and backing up my translations. It can type out an assignment, perfectly adequately. This machine can browse the Web. All in all, it was worth the bucks, even if it is much more of a work machine, than for fecking about playing silly buggers.
Speaking of which, I've managed to get Empire TW running on my old machine, so I've lost a couple of days. I haven't played a full game of TW since I studied A340 (The Roman Empire) back in 2015, when I played Rome TW (Barbarian Invasion). I've never played Empire before, and it's awesome. I shouldn't. I should be studying. I should be knuckling down. Yet there comes a point, when you've been slaving away for ungrateful sons o bitches, for fuck all (minimum wage) and you get home and think, "Fuck it. It's Friday night." I just... don't... care. Study? What for?
Max.
No comments:
Post a Comment