January 23, 2004
Nothing New Under The Sun
The new MuNu sever has locked up again, and my F drive has turned into a pumpkin.
How long does Windows XP take to chkdsk a 240GB pumpkin, anyway?Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:21 AM | Comments (49) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Make The Time, George
Mitch H. of Blogfonte links to an interview with George Soros. Mitch finds the money quote:
Unfortunately, I don't have time to read; I only have time to write.Says it all, really. If you don't have the time or the patience to read the whole interview, do at least look at Mitch's analysis. I don't have time to read; I only have time to write.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:05 AM | Comments (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
That's A Hardware Problem
It would appear that I was right and it was a flaky disk drive after all. Drive has now been replaced, the old Samsung swapped out for a Seagate.
I'm now writing a 40GB file just to give it a little exercise. If that works, I'll consider the problem fixed. Oh, yes: How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?None - that's a hardware problem. Update: 40GB file, no problems. Now I'll just make a copy of that... Update: Assertion failure in __journal_remove_journal_head() at journal.c:1854: "buffer_jbd(bh)" Not what I wanted to hear.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:01 AM | Comments (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 22, 2004
Pst Fnd in a Blg
Glenn Reynolds has a new Tech Central Station column up, this time about memory - both computer and human. It's worth reading, though I do have a couple of nits to pick.
First, he suggests that 10TB of storage would be enough to hold a lifetime's worth of experiences, given an estimated data stream of 100MB per second. A quick calculation (86,400 seconds in a day, 365.25 days per year, say 75 years life expectancy) yields a number around 2400 times larger than that. The original article is just a short piece in Wired (scroll down to Digital Recording for the Analog Soul) so I'm not sure exactly what was meant to go into that 10TB - possibly just selected or compressed data. When Glenn saysEvery time I buy a new computer, I just copy my old files over. I should go through and delete the unnecessary ones, but I don't. The reason is that it's too much time and trouble, and the new hard drive -- being, inevitably, much larger than the old hard drive -- has plenty of room. The result now is that I have over 100,000 files.I just have to laugh. Not at him, mind you, but at myself. My latest Linux box has a 720GB RAID 5 array containing 1.7 million files... There are actually more than that, but some of them are still compressed into archives following the Great Transition a few weeks back. My Windows box holds another 350,000 or so, a point which was brought to me with great force when my filesystem got corrupted. Just scanning the file allocation table took hours. It took several days to recover all the files. There's one flaw in the article, though, that I can't easily excuse. Glenn talks about indexing and library science, even quoting Robert Heinlein on the subject:
Figuring out how to index and find all of this stuff simply underscores the wisdom of Robert Heinlein's statement: "library science is the foundation of all sciences, just as math is the key -- and we will survive or founder, depending on how well the librarians do their jobs."But he utterly fails to mention the seminal work of literature on the subject, Hal Draper's Ms Fnd in a Lbry. It's been out of print for decades, though you may be able to find a second-hand copy of Laughing Space, a collection of science fiction humour edited by Isaac Asimov and Janet Jeppson. Ms Fnd in a Lbry is about the collapse of civilisation when the master index to the Great Library becomes corrupted, a quite remarkable insight given that the story was written in 1961. The other key insight in the story is that the indexes, bibliographies and glossaries (not to mention the index to indexes, the bibliography of glossaries, and so on) so far outweigh the actual data that the data itself ends up getting lost. A hint as to the source of this insight came from (of all places) a Marxist mailing list from 1997: Hal Draper became a part-time microfilm acquisitions librarian at the University of California at Berkeley. I can see how that job might have sent his thoughts heading in a particular direction. If you can find Ms Fnd in a Lbry somewhere - it doesn't seem to have been posted to the web, which is something of a surprise since everything else has - then do read it, because not only is it both insightful and foresightful as I have said, it is also very funny. (As a geek I particularly enjoyed the discussion of how to store multiple bits of data on a single subatomic particle, and how nudged quanta won out over notched quanta. But that's just me.) Note: The first version of this post used GB when it should have said TB. Twice. I'm sure that's a sign of... Something.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:31 AM | Comments (42) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 21, 2004
Taking It Back
Look out everyone! It's a meme:
And you know something? You know something? Not only are we going to Sto Helit, we're going to Sto Lat and Genua and the Pseudopolis and Lancre and Slice! We're going to Omnia and Ephebe and Djelibeybi! And we're going to Al Khali and Bes Pelargic and HungHung and EcksEcksEcksEcks! And then we're going to Ankh Morpork. To take back Unseen University! YEEEAAARGH!!And then there's:
And you know something? You know something? We're going to the ampulla of Vater! And the esophagus! And the duodenum! And the gastric fundus! And the small intestine! And THEN, especially then, we'll go to the anal canal... and take back the integrity of your intestinal tract! BLURRRGH!Ntot xto mtenxtion:
And you know something? You know something? Not only are we going to Tenochtitlan, we're going to Tlatelolco and Atotonilco and Coatepec and Tehuantepec and Oaxaca! We're going to Tzintzuntzan and Xochimilco and Iztaccihuatl! And we're going to Huehuetla and Zacualco and Acaxochitlan and Cihuatlan! And then we're going to Popocatepetl. To take back The Temple of The Moon God! YEEEAAARGH!!And finally, for those with smaller horizons:
And you know something? You know something? Not only are we going to Pennsylvania Avenue, we're going to Oriental Avenue and St. Charles Place and St. James Place and Community Chest and Chance! We're going to Kentucky Avenue and Ventnor Avenue and Marvin Gardens! And we're going to Water Works and Pacific Avenue and B & O Railroad and both shitty purple ones! And then we're going to Broadway and Park Place. To go past Go and Collect $200! YEEEAAARGH!!(Thanks to the commenters at Tim Blair's place.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:22 PM | Comments (41) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
You Know You're In Trouble When
Your hosting company says that they suspect there is a problem related to software RAID on your server, and they would like to disable it while they run some tests.
And you say, well, the server is not in production yet, so fine, go ahead. And then they say, how do you disable software RAID anyway? I think the new server will be a few days yet.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:16 PM | Comments (41) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Problem Solved
Now the Nintendo Gamecube can run Minx too. Which is good if you can't get your hands on an AS/400.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:40 AM | Comments (40) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 20, 2004
Oh My God! I'm Trapped in Episode 26 of Evangelion!
Thanks to Mitch H. of Blogfonte for the link to (ta da!) Nadesico Thumbnail Theatre!
Ruri: Enough with the screeching already! Mr. Greenfield, take the amphetamines AWAY from Spike Spencer and Jennifer Earhart.You know you want to!
Thousands of Anime Fans: Shut up, Ruri! This is the best dub ADV has ever put out. No wonder it took them so long to release it. Ruri: Grr. Idiots.
Akito: Did someone say anime??? Akito, Megumi, Ruri, Minato, Howmei, Seiya, Goat and Admiral Fukube: WHOA!
Ruri: Ha ha, you have to wait until after the commercials to see what Gai showed us.
Thousands of anime fans: No we don't, we've got DVDs. Ruri: Grrr.
Nadesico Logo: Quack Quack.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:16 AM | Comments (44) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
I Work Hard For The Money
Which Typical Anti-Hero Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
(Thanks to Stevie.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:44 AM | Comments (43) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Augh!
Crashy badness has migrated to the new MuNu server, which has fallen over five times in the last four days.
I think it may just be a faulty disk drive. Now I just have to persuade the hosting company to do something about it. Update: At least the hosting company is being helpful. They're taking a look at the server now to see if they can fix the problem. We may be stuck on old MuNu for an extra week while this gets sorted out, but I think we'll survive that.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:53 AM | Comments (42) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 19, 2004
Run For Your Lives!
Not only Steven Den Beste, who we know had already fallen victim, but now Porphyrogenitus too!
Where will it end, people? Where will it end? Will Glenn Reynolds be the next to fall? Or maybe (shudder) Lileks? I'm a lost cause, but maybe you can save yourselves. It's not too late... P.S. Still no crashy badness. Yay!Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:21 PM | Comments (44) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Rodents Unfairly Maligned
Kei, my Windows XP system, has been rock solid since I replaced the video card.
So apologies to Myxi, my Logitech MX 700 mouse, and I will be buying some nice King Island brie on the way home tonight. Mmm, cheese.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:38 AM | Comments (43) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Eppur Si Muove
Like vampires-in-training, the scientists sleep in rooms with blackout shades. They wear strange wristwatches that sometimes tell them it's the middle of the night when the rest of the world is eating lunch.The Toronto Star, still struggling with the concept of time zones.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (43) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 18, 2004
Ooh! Pixels!
Now running at 1792x1344 at 85Hz. It's kind of an odd resolution, and not officially supported by my monitor, but it seems to work just fine.
I tried going even higher, but then I can only run at 75Hz - and I can see the flicker. Update: And no crashy badness!Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:25 AM | Comments (46) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 17, 2004
Irradiated
Well, the GeForce FX 5700 is out and the Radeon 9600XT is in. The switch was easy and painless. Swap cards. Install drivers. Done. Works.
Crashes since swapping cards: None The card comes with a rather interesting little cable: At one end, a nine-pin mini-din; at the other, male and female four-pin mini-dins (S-Video in and out) and male and female RCA (composite in and out). Which is odd, because either you're going to plug it straight into another device - in which case you'd want a male plug - or you're going to use a patch lead - in which case you'd want a female plug. I'm going to try capturing all my old laser discs and burning them to DVDs. That should keep me occupied for the next year or two...Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:49 PM | Comments (42) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 16, 2004
A Farewell to Crashy Badness
I live in hope...
My new new video card, a GeCube Radeon 9600XT Vivo, arrived today. I'll try installing it tonight. I don't know what's up with my old new video card. It worked just fine in my Linux box with the default drivers. The reason I swapped it out was that the Linux nVidia drivers don't yet support the GeForce FX 5700 (which is what it is). My Windows box ran fine on the old GeForce 4, but the new card brought frequent lockups and crashes. I've previously used nVidia cards ranging from the Riva 128 through to the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 Ultra, and never had a problem like this. Given the nature of the problem - it only ever fails when I am actively using the computer, never (for example) while I'm watching a video or while the screensaver is running - it looks like a fairly specific driver issue, but I haven't been able to track down any answers. Anyway, the Radeon card I now have is the same one I was trying to get before Christmas, so it's not all bad.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:19 PM | Comments (45) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
A Quiz... Of Sorts
You preferred the Democratic stance for 1 issue. Democratic Platform
You preferred the Green stance for 2 issues. Green Platform
You preferred the Libertarian stance for 1 issue. Libertarian Platform.
You preferred the Republican stance for 3 issues. Republican Platform.
Which bunch of loonies do you least disagree with?Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:21 AM | Comments (44) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 15, 2004
More Crashy Badness
It's the video card. Gotta be.
Better be, 'cause I just ordered a new one. Which is a bloody nuisance, because the crashy one is also new. Grrrr. Hopefully I'll get the new new card tomorrow, so I can have a less crashy weekend.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:57 PM | Comments (45) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 14, 2004
Just Where It Should Be
Given the continuing crashy badness of my Windows box, I decided to reinstall Windows. Only... Someone seems to have hidden my Windows install disk! Where could it be? The last time I saw it, it was -
In the CD-ROM drive.Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:33 AM | Comments (45) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
January 13, 2004
Out Of Socks Error
... But when I got there,
The sock drawer was bare,
And so my poor feeties had none.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:41 PM | Comments (47) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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