Bill "Scoop" Cimino of Bloviating Inanities has managed to establish contact with our lost lamb, John Collins. Unfortunately, it looks like John might not be able to blog for a while. We'll see what we can do to fix that and get "the funniest man in the Blogosphere" up and blogging again A.S.A.P.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:56 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Steven Den Beste deconstructs the Tranzis - with a chainsaw.

Worth a read, as he does a good job of explaining why the Tranzis think the way they do. Yes, it's because they're idiots, but he explains the idiot-logic that leads to the Tranzi position, step by horrible step.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:34 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

As many of you guessed, the new Munuvian is none other than H of Everyday Stranger. Say hello, H!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:19 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Thanks! Nice to be here

Posted by: H at October 07, 2003 08:19 PM (4tEWI)

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Even at Fark, a site practically overrun by Democrats, they at least hate the French.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:05 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

There's another reason why I haven't been writing essays like my non-exsistent The State of the World: It's not what this blog is about.

Not that I'm saying that I know what this blog is about. It's just a filtered stream-of-consciousness, really. Whatever survives from the time it pops into my head to the time I sit down at the keyboard - and won't get me arrested - in it goes. Except - there's this filter thingy involved. It slaps little markers on my thoughts like whiny or pompous* and another post goes *pooft* into orange smoke before I can hit the Save button.

One of the guidelines I set myself when I started trying to work out what I was blogging about was accentuate the positive. Or it would have been, except that I hate the word accentuate and refuse to use it. In fact, I never use a five-syllable (counts) four-syllable word where a one or two syllable word will do. In writing, I strive for utmost clarity and precision, so if anyone needs a copy of my Nuclear Engineering for Grade Schoolers, just give me a yell.

And I don't set myself guidelines like that anyway; smarmy little bits of so-called wisdom set my teeth on edge.

He's got hiiiigh hopes,
He's got hiiiigh hopes,
He's got high apple pie in the
Sky hopes

So I'll write about the good, whenever I can, and wherever I find it. And when I do find that I simply must rant about something, I will endeavour to make it at least amusing if not instructive.

So any time your gettin' low,
'Stead of lettin' go,
Just remember that ant -
Oops there goes another rubber tree plant

Um... Y'know, I think it might just be time for bed.

See you.

* Or, all too often, stupid.
** I've tried this and know whereof I speak.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:43 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

I seem to have ended up writing half of my State of the World essay that I said I wasn't going to write. Now I might as well finish it, I guess. It's not all about idiots, either. Wolves and pooping also make an appearance.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:54 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Much of the value of the Blogosphere comes from its ability to absorb both facts and opinions and respond to them rapidly. For example, Porphyrogenitus has already responded to my earlier post.

A couple of points that I might have made clearer:

I do indeed see the value of liberal arts studies. History in particular I find fascinating, and it is obviously useful in putting today's world events in perspective and understanding them, and so an essential field of study for anyone going into politics. Literature - while I prefer to read for the pleasure of reading, I have no problem with those who seek to understand what makes a great book great. And so on.

As Por' notes, the problem is not with the subject matter so much as the way it is taught, which goes back, of course, to the teachers.

As I understand it, the idea behind having a liberal arts degree in the modern world is not so much the knowledge involved - what does a history degree prepare you for, apart from studying more history or teaching the same? Writing bad fantasy novels, perhaps... Not so much the knowledge gained, but being taught to think. Logic and reasoning and suchlike.

As someone recently said on this subject (possibly it was Victor David Hanson), the problem is that the teachers are no longer satisfied with teaching their students to think, but now feel it is their duty to teach them how and what to think.

My purpose in exposing arts students to mathematics and science and engineering was not intended as a slight on the arts studies themselves (though the character of this blog is to toss off all but the most serious of topics with a clever remark), but that the difference in thinking in the schools of science and engineering would expose those students to a new world of thought. Two new worlds in fact.

First, in science and engineering and mathematics and accounting, you can be wrong. It's not a matter of opinion or politics, it's just wrong. No, that bridge will not stay up. No, you can't have a double-bond with hydrogen. No, the square root of two is not a rational number. No amount of debate will change these things. The facts of science, the rigorous logic of mathematics, the application of these in engineering - this is a different world.

Second, because of this, the destructive theories of Postmodernism cannot find a foothold in any sane science or engineering faculty. Postmodernism, to an engineer, is simply and obviously wrong. So the particular leftist structure that we find built around PoMo thought today likewise finds no place. Not that there are no leftists in science or engineering - hardly that! - but there is equally a place for centrists and conservatives. As long as the equations are right, as long as the facts check out, as long as the plane flies, as the building stands, that is what matters and your politics not at all.

And that is as strong an antidote to the Idiots of Academia as I know.

Also, Porphyrogenitus wishes us all to know that he is not in fact bound for Mexico.

It's Bermuda.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:46 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

No Thursday Bleat. No Friday Bleat. Where's the Bleat?

The Bleat is in New York:

That's right! LIVE from New York!

Inasmuch as I’m not dead when I’m writing it. This of course is not being posted on the days written, because I don’t feel like telling everyone that I’ve left the house for a while. Unlike Dave Barry, who is content to tell everyone he's on a book tour because no one knows where he lives, and because he has a gator-invested moat and a security staff and a panic room with pnuematic access to a subterranean monorail, I don't broadcast my absences from Jaspewood. This alsso means I will have nothing to say about current events this week - like this Limbaugh thing which is breaking; my gut says guilty. I am also sure that upon hearing the news, Al Franken spronged sufficient wood to knock the table over. In terms of his credibility with his followers, I think Rush just had his Aimee Semple McPherson moment. The faithful will be divided. Short term? His 4Q ratings book is going to rock.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:57 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The problem with idiots* in Academia has caught the attention of a number of bloggers recently.

One of Steven Den Beste's readers comments on how Nazi Germany was all America's fault - according to the idiots.

Sparkey of Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing remembers how Russia saved the American bacon in WWII - according to the idiots.

Critical Mass has a series of posts about how idiots stick together to defend themselves against the competent. (I'll note at this point that my two-thirds of a degree was in Computer Science at an engineering university. Even then, we knew what liberal arts degrees were good for.)

Porphyrogenitus has an excellent post on the issue, noting that turning on the light may make cockroaches scurry for cover, but it doesn't actually deal with the problem. Por' is so dismayed with the ongoing Rise of Incompetence that he is considering closing up shop and moving to Mexico.

Flit, meanwhile, points us to Accuracy in Academia, a group devoted to exposing the idiot wherever** and however he may manifest himself.

Victor Davis Hanson leads a review of the blight of idiocy in American universities at NRO; unfortunately, not only is the web version of this a scanned copy of the print version, but the web designer has set the wrong dimensions for the scanned image, rendering it almost illegible.

What is to be done about this? I have one suggestion. There seems to be far less of a problem in those areas of study that are actually useful for something, science and engineering, mathematics, accounting, and so on. It's the worthwhile-but-not-immediately-applicable fields that have suffered the worst of the infection.

When I was studying at Kenso Kindy*** science and engineering students - the majority of the student body - were required to pass a certain number of liberal arts subjects in order to graduate. The aim, it seems, was to produce a more well rounded engineer, one who could make polite conversation at the dinner table. There was much grumbling among the students over this, because the opposite was not true; that is, liberal arts students (we in Australia simply refer to these as "arts" students) were not required to pass any practical subjects.

I think it would make a huge difference to the value of a liberal arts education if this were to become a requirement. Every history or English major, every student of political science or "women's studies", should be required to take and pass a certain minimum number of courses in mathematics, science and engineering.

Of course, we know now - as we knew then - why this isn't done: They'd all fail. But I don't see this as a bad thing.

* Said bloggers mostly refer to these individuals as Leftists, but what they really are is idiots. The problem is not so much one of political leaning - though that is often how it expressed - but of incompetence.

** Within academia, anyway.

*** That is, Kensington Kindergarten, a.k.a. the University of New South Wales, located in Kensington, Sydney.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:05 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 When I got my degree in "arts" I only had to take ONE science or math class. I believe the college later changed it to one science and one math class.

Posted by: Susie at October 07, 2003 12:38 AM (0+cMc)

2 Sounds like one of the better schools, then

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 07, 2003 12:43 AM (jtW2s)

3 There are schools that have fairly high math/sci/engineering requirements, but they tend to be engineering schools. I went to a rather well known engineering school and the "core" curriculum included 1 year Calc, 1 year Physics, 1 term chem, 1 term bio, 1 year of "Restricted Electives in Science and Technology" (whcih tended to be filled by courses in your major), and 1 term of lab work (1 or 2 classes that, again, tends to filled by major classes). Then there's an 8 term set of humanities requirements, included 3 writing intensive courses and spread over multiple fields.
Granted, I don't think my school gives generalized "arts" degrees and there are few straight humanities majors, but the economics dept is big and I do know at least one english and one music major.

Posted by: Chris C. at October 07, 2003 02:39 AM (bH5MG)

4 Yes, I doubt that many PoMos could get through that lot with their blinkers still attached.
I think chemistry and engineering are probably the best anti-idiotarian subjects. Chemistry has the advantage that if you get it wrong, it's you that suffers the consequences.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 07, 2003 03:09 AM (jtW2s)

5 I'm sure some do. You can pass out of most of them with 5's on AP exams. Still, I get the feeling that my school is in the minority with heavy math/sci core requirements. There certainly are other schools (basically all the large engineering schools would probably be similar), but most state schools have less requriements.

Posted by: Chris C. at October 07, 2003 04:18 AM (bH5MG)

6 I was a liberal arts major at Penn State. They require a certain number of science courses of varying hardness. Not much in the way of math, though. Some folks got away with Geology 101, aka "Rocks for Jocks" and the like; I took Chemistry 012 just for the bloodyminded hell of it. The only time I ran into a theory-addled professor at Penn State was in a film class; I guess Penn State is pretty conservative as such things go.
BTW, that link to the Sergeant makes it look like he might have been arguing about whether the existence of the Russian Front saved the rest of the Allies; that wasn't the substance of the argument. His professor was peddling shopworn Comintern propaganda specifically about the Battle of the Bulge, which is utter bollocks, of course.

Posted by: Mitch H. at October 07, 2003 04:27 AM (tVSJJ)

7 Heh, for some perspective, the core for UH-Manoa (Univ. of Hawaii-Manoa, the main campus) is here
The entire Sci/math portion is...
Natural Sciences (3 credits biological science, 3 credits physical science, 1 credit science lab)
Now, there may be more math/sci requirements from the individual college (College of Arts & sciences, et al.), but the general is kinda...thin.
Incidentally, I chose UHM because I took classes there and it was the first state school off the top of my head.

Posted by: Chris C. at October 07, 2003 04:50 AM (bH5MG)

8 My experience is that where there are such requirements for non-science majors, they can be fulfilled by "Life Science" and such. Heavy on the "wonders of the universe", color pictures of impressive astronomical sights, and discussion of biological oddities like the platypus, light to nonexistent on such matters as statistics and experimental design.
Which of course means that such students usually think they've taken a couple of science courses, but in fact have not. Students who go beyond this and take, say, the Intro Physics course required for physics majors get more of a balanced education, but it's usually not required and I don't think most do.
(I also notice that there are special watered-down science and math courses for humanities, but usually no watered-down history or English courses for science majors - "Physics for Poets" but no "Literature for Geeks".)

Posted by: jaed at October 07, 2003 02:15 PM (1RG3V)

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This has been around for some time now, but I don't seem to have linked to it before. It's a truly wonderful study that brings to light something we all know: Idiots are not aware that they are idiots.

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

Moind's Fourth Postulate

The degree of certainty in one's level of competency is inversely proportional to the actual level.

Corollaries:

1. The hopelessly incompetent are absolutely certain of their abilities.

2. The competent always have sensible doubts, precisely for the reason that they can realistically assess the situation.

3. The incompetent never realize they are incompetent, precisely for the reason that they lack the competence necessary to discern the difference.

4. The work of the incompetent tends to be superficial and bombastic. By extension of Corollary 3, they are completely unaware of this and usually regard their work as profound and important. The converse also tends to be true: those who regard their work as profound and important usually have an unrealistic appreciation of their abilities (or lack thereof).

5. The incompetent tend to hire people like themselves, since, for obvious reasons, they do not find their own kind threatening. Moreover, they usually confuse the sensible doubts of the competent (see Corollary 2) with a bad attitude, and the overconfidence of the incompetent (see Corollary 4) with great promise.

6. The competent are only tolerated because they are needed to perform all the necessary tasks that the incompetent regard as beneath them, but which are, in reality, beyond their ability.

7. The truly gifted don't even think about any of this. They just do their thing. The converse, however, is far from true.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:29 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Long-time readers of Ambient Irony will have noticed that my blogging output over the last couple of months has been considerably less than what it was back in the good old days of, for example, July. There is a reason for this: I got eaten by mice.

Well, not literally. Back in February, after a few months of blessed non-employment (just as it was moving from extended holiday to out of work), I was offered a job with a company I had previously worked for. This job, Job X, involved a certain amount of system administration, web mastering, network tweaking and so on. Only a short-term thing, but once things were sorted out, I would move on to Job Y, which involved producing complex analyses of very large data archives. Since those data archives were not yet available, there was plenty of time for me to work on Job X while they were prepared.

Which was all well and good, until management decided that they were unhappy with the person performing Job Z, and started looking for a replacement. Since I had previously performed Job Z myself, I was the perfect candidate. And since I had the most critical parts of X under control by then, and the databases for Y were still not available, I was not exactly overworked at the time, and it was hard to avoid Z even if I had wanted to.

So I took on Z, which turned out to be in something of a mess. I started sorting out the mess, and handling new Z-related projects as they came down the pipeline. There was a fair bit of work involved, but I was dealing with it and things were getting easier.

Then the databases for Y arrived. Suddenly I had more work than could reasonably be done, and all of it was needed now. Suffice to say that there was rather less blogging time for Pixy.

The worst of it seems to be over now, and as I move into blessed October, I hope to be bringing you more of the anime reviews, funny news items, and incoherent rants that a few of you were accustomed to.

Also, thanks to the wonders of percussive maintenance, I have fixed the light bulb in my microwave.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:47 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Another first-rate blogger is mu.nu bound!

No, I won't tell you who.

Yes, I'm a big meanie.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:15 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 BIG BIG BIG meanie!!!!!!!
Is it H?

Posted by: Susie at October 06, 2003 01:38 AM (0+cMc)

2

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 06, 2003 11:31 AM (jtW2s)

3 It's Satan, isn't it?

Posted by: Victor at October 06, 2003 10:35 PM (L3qPK)

4 Mmmmmmno.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 06, 2003 10:49 PM (jtW2s)

5 Victor is right...it's H.

Posted by: Don at October 07, 2003 01:36 AM (e6au8)

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Another fine blogger has made the break from the evil Blogspot Empire and fled to the peace-loving (but well defended!) and prosperous lands of mu.nu. A big welcome please for Jim of Snooze Button Dreams!

Alas, my snooze button only gives me five minutes. I really should do something about that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:13 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Well, I survived the week, and now it's a long weekend here in Pixy Land.

On my way home from the salt mines this evening, I dropped in on my friend Richard, who owns a book store. (Dymocks on the corner of Pitt and Hunter streets in Sydney.) I was looking for a copy of Kushiel's Chosen, the sequel to Kushiel's Dart, the latter having been my bedtime reading material these last few nights.

Normally I avoid long fantasy novels; it's a rare author who can hold my interest for eight hundred pages (much less ten volumes of eight hundred pages each). But when work gets particularly hectic, I sometimes find it hard to get to sleep, because my mind is still buzzing hours after my body has left the office. During one particularly wearing project I read the entire Recluce series, something I wouldn't contemplate when my brain was functioning normally.

As I was saying, for the past week my sleeping pill of choice has been Kushiel's Dart. This book - I don't know how many of you have read it - this book has the same strange attraction as a road accident. You know that you don't want to look; you know what you will see if you do look, and you know that you won't like it. But you have to look anyway, just to have your fears confirmed.

Kushiel's Dart takes place in an elegantly conceived world, with most of the story occurring in a version of France called Terre D'Ange, the land of angels. The D'Angelines are literally descended from angels, and consider themselves something of a breed apart from normal mortals. More beautiful and longer lived.

Though, I must say, rather less intelligent.

The well named Eight Deadly Words in story-telling are I don't care what happens to these people. That's not quite the feeling Kushiel's Dart inspires. Rather, it is a case of I would quite enjoy seeing the villains of the piece being disembowelled and buried upside down in a nest of fire ants. As for the heroes, well, they all need to be whacked upside the head with a clue-by-four, and then sent off to trade school so they can become good and useful members of society.

Post-hole diggers, perhaps. Latrine attendants.

The story is told by Phedre, a masochistic whore sold into slavery by her parents. Her role in the tale is almost entirely passive; she is tossed about on the sea of events and rarely takes a hand in anything. Even when, late in the book, she makes a heroic bid to get a vital message through to a besieged town, there is little sense of excitement or adventure. And she is promptly captured anyway.

The book has been described as erotic, but if you find some of the sex scenes in Kushiel's Dart erotic, then you are a very disturbed individual. The whips, well, those were bad enough, but when Phedre finally gets together with Melisande and the Warning: If you are easily squicked, stop reading now. I mean it! scalpels come out, well... Ugh.

If I had written this book, it would have been about six hundred pages shorter, because Phreddie would have driven a stake through Mel's heart right after that scene. Or possibly even before. Maybe that's why I'm not a best-selling author. Or maybe it's because I haven't finished writing my first book yet.

Well, anyway, I never claimed to be able to resist a good train wreck, so I went to look for Kushiel's Chosen. I didn't spot it immediately, because someone neglected to inform the people stocking the shelves that Card (Orson Scott) comes before Carey (Jacqueline).

What I did find while I was browsing, though, was a copy of A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, in the wonderful Fantasy Masterworks series, and - completely unlooked for - a new Terry Pratchett novel, Monstrous Regiment.

Well, that goes straight to the top of my to-be-read pile, of course. And since I have nothing planned for the weekend other than setting up a blog or two, maybe a forum, and a little light house keeping,* I may as well go get started on it now.

See you all in the morning.

* Trim the wick, clean the lenses, sound the foghorn, that sort of thing.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:13 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Front Line Voices had a pretty good first day: around 14,000 visitors and 35,000 page views. Which produced no signs of strain on the server, even though it's only a little Celeron box.

Which is as it should be, given the architecture of Movable Type. MT is strongly biased in favour of fast, low overhead reading, whereas the writing - adding new posts, and, unfortunately, leaving comments - can be very CPU intensive.

If you've noticed that leaving comments on MT-based blogs is rather slow, this is why: when you leave a comment, MT is forced to rebuild any pages containing the post that you are commenting on, which may include the main index, an individual archive entry, a category archive (which can get quite large), and one or more date-based archives (daily, weekly, monthly). Even if the only change to those pages is to say "3 comments" instead of "2 comments", MT needs to pull all the appropriate entries from its database, and reprocess those entries according to their respective templates (which amount to a complete programming language). It doesn't help that MT is written in Perl (not the fastest language in which to do this sort of thing) and is a CGI application (so none of this can happen in the background).

On the other hand, it handles 35,000 page views in a day with perfect aplomb.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:54 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Grrr!

Did I mention that I hate SPEWS? I did? Good.

I also hate spammers. Which I hate more varies from hour to hour, but I'd like to see both groups dragged off in chains to build aqueducts in Albania or something.

I will now resume my usual quiet seething.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:53 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Due to pressures of work - as I've mentioned before, I somehow managed to land myself with what amounts to two full-time jobs - I don't have as much time to blog, or to read other blogs, as I would like.

So it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the newest bloggers here at mu.nu: Stevie of caughtintheXfire, Heather of Angelweave, and Don of Anger Management. Please give them a warm Munuvian welcome.

And lots of links.

And if anyone sees our stray kitten, John Collins, give us a yell.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:02 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

This coming weekend - should I by some strange chance live that long - is a long weekend for me. It looks like I will be spending my time backing up my millions of stray files and installing new disks for them to live on.

Yes, my DVDs have arrived. (Almost. The Post Office says it has them. I'll have to drop by and pry them loose tomorrow.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:39 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Achoo! Achoo! Cough cough. Achoo!

Too much blood in my antihistamine stream again.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:46 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Geishundtheit.

Posted by: LeeAnn at September 30, 2003 12:29 AM (HxCeX)

2 I was going to say gesundheit! no fair!

Posted by: Susie at September 30, 2003 02:21 AM (0+cMc)

3 Bless you.

Posted by: Jennifer at September 30, 2003 02:32 AM (E9paH)

4 's okay, Susie, I think you spelled it more correctly.

Posted by: LeeAnn at October 01, 2003 02:27 PM (HxCeX)

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Okay, who was it this time?

No Instapundit. No Spleenville. No Eye on the Left.

And Blogger says

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a0005'

Invalid procedure call or argument: 'mid'

//functions/doAutoLogin.inc, line 15

No A Small Victory, either.

Update: Never mind, it's all better now.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:17 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

That Bastard Lileks™ has a dual-G5 Macintosh.

And I don't. Sniffle.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:33 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Front Line Voices is a new project launched by Frank J of IMAO. It is planned to be an outlet for the letters of those serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and a counter to the one-note reporting of much of the mainstream media.

You can learn more about the project and how you can help at the Front Line Voices Meetingplace.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:32 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Unlike Red Thunder, The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth doesn't suck.

One might even... Yes, one might even go so far as to call it good.

Now I'm off to finish reading it. After all, it's only been waiting for fifty years.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:09 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

I had a wonderful essay to post here, but the little edit box was too small to contain it.

That's my story, anyway.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:59 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

A terabyte here, a terabyte there, soon you're talking real storage.

I recently bought myself a DVD writer so that I can do backups of my 3.5 million (or whatever the number is) files. I also ordered 100 DVD-Rs (Shintaro 4x disks, in case anyone is interested), so that I'd have something to backup to.

Meanwhile, my disks are filling up. Fill fill fill. Also, I still have six IBM Deathstar drives in use. These are the notorious GXP-75 series, which have a half-life of about 12 months. Suckiest disk drives since the days of Miniscribe.*

So I bought 6 Maxtor 120GB drives to replace the 6 45GB Deathstars. Got them cheap too, although the bargain price I got will look pretty ordinary in a month and hideously expensive in six. Only problem is, the Deathstars are in use and have stuff on them - more stuff than I have space to copy elsewhere. After all, if I still had 180GB free I wouldn't be buying more disks.**

So I need the DVDs to back up the Deathstars so I can take them out of use before they do that for themselves. Only... Only the DVDs are coming by Australia Post, who did what they are best at and lost them.

It's not the first expensive shipment that Australia Post have lost for me. The only comfort I have is that this time it's C.O.D., which means that I haven't paid for it. I still don't have the DVDs, which is a nuisance, but at least I'm not out of pocket.

The supplier managed to get confirmation from Australia Post today that yes, they (Australia Post) had lost my DVDs, and they (the supplier) are sending me another shipment. Maybe I should have suggested they put a GPS tracker on this lot.

* Not one of the computer biz's better moments:

In mid-December 1987, Miniscribe's management, with Wiles' approval and Schleibaum's assistance, engaged in an extensive cover-up which included recording the shipment of bricks as in-transit inventory. To implement the plan, Miniscribe employees first rented an empty warehouse in Boulder, Colorado, and procured ten, forty-eight foot exclusive-use trailers. They then purchased 26,000 bricks from the Colorado Brick Company.

On Saturday, December 18, 1987, Schleibaum, Taranta, Huff, Lorea and others gathered at the warehouse. Wiles did not attend. From early morning to late afternoon, those present loaded the bricks onto pallets, shrink wrapped the pallets, and boxed them.

The weight of each brick pallet approximated the weight of a pallet of disk drives. The brick pallets then were loaded onto the trailers and taken to a farm in Larimer County, Colorado.

Miniscribe's books, however, showed the bricks as in-transit inventory worth approximately $4,000,000. Employees at two of Miniscribe's buyers, CompuAdd and CalAbco, had agreed to refuse fictitious inventory shipments from Miniscribe totalling $4,000,000. Miniscribe then reversed the purported sales and added the fictitious inventory shipments into the company's inventory records.

** I can't back up the Deathstars onto the Maxtors because I want to build the Maxtors into a RAID-5 array, and I have neither the drive bays nor the IDE controllers to run another six drives off my Linux box.*** I doubt the power supply would be particularly happy either.

*** Huh. Come to think of it, I do have enough IDE channels to put another six drives on that box. The cabling would be... problematic at best, so I think I'll take a pass on that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:42 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 That would no doubt be very interesting if I had understood any of it.....

Posted by: Susie at September 23, 2003 02:09 AM (0+cMc)

2 Do you have a spare comp? You could just create the second RAID-5 array and slap the spare onto the network and copy everything over. Also, if you could free up one of the IBMs, you might be able to use something and compress a backup version of everything on the other 5. Otherwise, I forsee a long week of DVD burning.

Posted by: Chris C. at September 23, 2003 05:49 AM (Fuc2o)

3 I foresee a long week of DVD burning.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 23, 2003 02:59 PM (LBXBY)

4 Have you thought about a DLT tape drive? You can get at least 80 gig per tape.

Posted by: Pete at September 23, 2003 11:01 PM (3ENEt)

5 And they're so cheap! (Cough.)
DVD-Rs have the advantage of actually costing less than the disks they are backing up.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 24, 2003 01:31 AM (jtW2s)

6 OT: Pixy, I sent you an e-mail. Please let me know if you got it.

Posted by: Jennifer at September 24, 2003 04:44 PM (LNFFk)

7 Hi Jen!
Yep, got your email. But its at home and I'm at work...
I'll get it set up tonight.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 24, 2003 05:05 PM (LBXBY)

8 Cool.

Posted by: Jennifer at September 24, 2003 05:10 PM (LNFFk)

9 The dangers of not backing up. I should know better than to not back up. In fact, I had a tape drive on my Linux server so that I could automate the backup process. Too bad I could never get it to work properly. Damn windoze only software from the maker!
Two days ago my server committed suicide. The power supply blew. No problem, I thought. I'll yank the power supply from my workstation, stick it in the server to get it back up quickly, then run down to the store and get a new one for my workstation. I've been wanting a bigger one, anyway. A few minutes later I'm staring at the server wondering why the damn thing wasn't booting. Sigh. Ok, now I need to yank the video card from my workstation and stick it in the server to see why it's not booting (the server is completely headless - no video, keyboard, or mouse). It turns out the computer isn't detecting the hard drive. Sh*t! Is it the motherboard or is it the drive? I try switching the drive to to the workstation (which also requires I move the power supply and video card back). Ok, power up. Uh, oh! Not only is it not detecting the drive, the video is screwed up. Double sh*t!
In the process of moving equipment around it looks like I zapped my expensive video card - and yes, the hard drive is completely dead.
The following day I popped down to the computer store and picked up the cheapest video card they carried (US$38). The server will have to wait. I need to replace it completely. I've lost a lot of data. All my blogs, experimental firewalling code, possibly my history web pages, lots more.
I know the rule, I just didn't follow it. "Backup your system because it's not a question of 'if' the drive will fail. It's a question of 'when'."

Posted by: Rossz at September 25, 2003 02:07 AM (43SjN)

10 Ouchie. That's gotta hurt.
All my work - my music, my novel, my programs - are backed up to the server at work.
My web pages (all the mu.nu sites, in fact) are backed up twice a day to my server at home.
But I have a huge collection of... stuff... That I'd rather not lose if I can help it. Hence the DVD burner.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 25, 2003 02:29 AM (jtW2s)

11 Well, it gets worse. I had hoped the brand new 60 Gig Western Digital drive had survived. It didn't. It contained /home and another paritition that was used for general purpose file storage. That's where I told my wife to store all her important files for safety. Lots of irreplacable files. It's still under warranty, I suppose. Though they might argue it was "abused". One day my wife might forgive me for losing her files. I don't expect that day to be any time soon.
I called a data recovery service. It's about US$4,500 per drive. Definately not in the budget.
So who's responsible?
1. Me. I should have returned the tape drive a long time ago and found another solution instead of being pig-headed about it and continuing my fruitless attempt at getting it to work.
2. Seagate. For selling a device that is advertised as Linux compatible, but isn't (I'm not the only person who had trouble getting this piece of crap to work under linux).
3. Maxtor and Western Digitial. For leaving out a 50 cent part that would have protected the drive from a power surge.
When I can finally afford a new system, I will get a DVD burner, too. Damn, that pretty much doubled the replacement cost. I hope my job interview goes well tomorrow.
One day, old system administrators will tell my story to their grandchildren to scare them.

Posted by: Rossz at September 25, 2003 04:57 AM (43SjN)

12 That sucks
I've had six drives die over the past two years (poxy bloody IBM disks), but never without warning (they make horrible noises for a few days before they die) so I haven't lost anything much.
What might work is to buy another drive of exactly the same model, and swap controller boards (on the drive itself). This has actually been done successfully at least once.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 25, 2003 01:18 PM (LBXBY)

13 And someone thinks that 200TB will hold all human knowledge.
Sounds like you have a good chunk of that yourself, Pixy.

Posted by: Anonymous Coward at September 26, 2003 03:30 PM (1/d9U)

14 I have had many hard drives die. It hurts. Perhaps you could get a few tips from this site.
http://www.datamole.com

Posted by: hard drive recovery at September 29, 2004 11:38 PM (RKRdf)

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