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Backup is for Wimps

June 4, 2005 / / 0 Comments

I always tell my clients to do a backup. Of course, none of them do. Until that day when their hard drive fails. It’s not a question of if it fails, I tell them, but when. Usually it only takes that one staggering, painful experience to scar them into becoming Backup Believers. Usually.

Today one of the hard drives in my Linux server, which hosts this site, failed on me. It was the main root filesystem drive. It had been spinning nearly non-stop for over four years. That’s decent, I think. The other drive that I bought at the same time is still going strong (at least, it is as of this minute).

Fortunately, I had a backup system in place, with redundant hard drives in the machine. I don’t use a RAID (which I probably should), but instead rely on regular rsync backups from the main drives to a couple backup drives. I think I have 5 hard drives in that machine (yes, it gets warm).

Once I discovered the failed drive, I was back up in an hour. It should have taken less time, but I had never practiced the restore before, and there was a little trouble booting from the mirror. But I prevailed. Up and at ’em again. What a relief. Not what I expected to be doing today. What I expected to be doing was digging post holes in my backyard. Hard to say which I ended up preferring…

Star Wars

June 3, 2005 / / 0 Comments

Saw episode III yesterday with my wife and our young friend. I feel the same kind of disappointment everyone seems to feel with these first 3 episodes of the long saga.

Sure, my formative years were shaped by the original trilogy. I was 5 when the first Star Wars came out. Saw it three times in one week in the theater during its re-release a few years later. My Lego adventures revolved around Luke and Han Solo.

The thing that helped make the first 3 so myth-like and epic was that I felt dropped into the middle of something much bigger than I was. There were many unexplained things just presented as part of the story: the robots escaping to the planet in the middle of a battle; a mysterious princess asking for help from an even more mysterious magical man in a hood; a simple farm boy told his father was someone special but killed by an evil lord; a quest; a rebellion; the Force. Nothing was explained; everything mattered.

In these latest three episodes, everything is explained, and nothing seems to matter. It’s a tragic story, how one wounded man wounds everyone around him, and finally the whole universe. But we know it ends happily. Everything is explained; and so, nothing really matters. No mysteries are left lying about to confuse or mess the tidy universe of Lucas’ making. All questions are answered in the end: how Anakin becomes Vader; what the Force is, exactly; how the Jedi die; even down to how Obi Wan can commune from beyond the grave.

Don’t get me started on the dialogue. So wooden.

I realized that part of what made the first 3 so good was the chemistry between Han Solo and Leia. I’d go so far as to say that Harrison Ford made the first trilogy as good as it was. He had a great character and he played him really well, made him breathe. He wasn’t a comic book caricature; Solo was a scoundrel, and a believable, lovable one.

I’ll watch them all again; and I’ll remind myself that it’s a good story, a comic book story. I’m disappointed, like everyone else, because I wanted Star Wars to explain something more about the world, my world. Instead, it explained everything very tidily about its own world. I guess I shouldn’t expect more. And because I do, that’s why I’m disappointed.

Have a nice eternity.

May 23, 2005 / / 0 Comments

Somehow this blog has become a spam hall of shame. I find my amusement where I can. And since this arrives unbidden, might as well enjoy it.

Before its too late make peace with GOD, and make sure the ones you love do also.

You need to pick between a eternity of joy or one of torment.

Accept him.

Repent.

Get baptized.

And have a nice eternity.

In ablow we can axwise as always casaba alpinely theirfore antodontalgic is arthrorheumatism and anadicrotism.

What I like is that “Repent” comes after “Accept him”.

An eternity of torment would be clicking delete on all the spam I get…

I hereby nominate

May 9, 2005 / / 0 Comments

this spam as the most entertaining one I’ve gotten yet. Sure, it’s a total scam and a hoax, but the story telling is first-rate and the idiomatic English is very amusing. Look for this line: “the one that makes me to blubber and scuttle away from my dad’s abode is the deposit certificate.” Brilliant. Miss Jane Sandra, my hat is off to you. No doubt some sucker will fall for this and we’ll read about it in the dailies some months from now. After all, it’s hard to resist the damsel in distress, especially when she’s waving $5M.

Hi

I am very sorry trying to nuisance you in this my time of necessitate. conversely, I am Miss Jane Sandra Pittman, the only daughter to Mrs. Mary D.F. Pittman, who was the second wife to Mr. Smith D.D Jon Pittman, who was the proprietor of LIGHT GREEN MARINE LTD UK. My mother was conjugal to him on the 6th day of may 1979, providentially Gave birth to me and regrettably no male child. I am 22 years Old and still in the University of Birmingham UK. Here is the website of my school. http://www.medicine.bham.ac.uk

I sketched your email From the Internet.

My mother died when I was 2 years old, she died with her unburned baby when she was delivering her 2nd child and my Dad died last month after anguish from long time Cancer, which suffers him for numerous years and lastly killed him last month after prescription. My Dad called his first wife and me with his personal attorney and gave me some of his affluence for my endurance and the rest was given to my stepmother because my Dad’s special doctor has told him in advance that he will not live for the next 5 days.

Instantaneously after the bereavement of my Dad, My step mother and my Dad’s Personal attorney united collectively and distorted almost all the documents that was given to me by my Dad for my durable continued existence. They tainted the documents to the name of her two sons. Now, the one that makes me to blubber and scuttle away from my dad’s abode is the deposit certificate, which was issued to my dad on the day he deposited the sum of 5 000000.00 united state Dollars (five million united state dollars) on the 28 day of September 1999 in a security company Abroad. My dad personally gave the deposit certificate to me in the attendance of my step mother and his personal attorney, they are now trying to take away from me the deposit certificate which is the only paper among the documents that was specified to me for my survival. She is doing all these things to me because of her position in the administration.

Before my dad died, he called me confidentially and told me not to mishandling this 5 000000.00 united state dollars ( (five million united state dollars) because I don’t have any other person who will persevere to take care of me in the prospect. He hence advised me to search for a God fearing person who will aid me to claim this money as soon as I graduated out from the University. But as things stands now, I necessitate to claim this money before my stepmother take away the deposit official document from me and claim the money.

currently, I need your help. I want you to situate as the receiver of this deposited money so that the security company will release the money to you and then you will deposit the money in your personal account there in your country so that I will have some money back from the whole amount and find a way out from UK because if I continue to hang about here, she might decided to slay me just to have the deposit certificate. If you can help me to safe this money in your custody without betraying me, then I can abscond the whole amount of money for you so that you can invest it into business, but that can be under the following circumstances.

(1) You will keep me in your house and extravagance me as your daughter.

(2) You will be providing me with my fabric and monetary needs.

(3) You will subsidize my education to any level I wish to operate.

(4) You will setup a standard health center of my preference as soon as I terminate my educational carriers.

(5) You will build a comfortable house for me where i can stay Independently.

If you are contented with these conditions, you can contact me back. But if you are not happy with these conditions please inform me so that I can straight away search for another person for the assistance.

Yours

Miss. Jane Sandra.

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