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long time no see...
Haven't posted here in a month and quite a lot has happened.
The computer power supply that I bought to replace the one that mysteriously died soon after I moved to Queensland has now died too. This time, though, I know what happened: electrical storms. And what electrical storms we have up here! They make the celebratory fireworks displays down south look like piddling jokes. Massive light shows sometimes day after day that go on for hours at a stretch. It is really humbling to realise that the atmosphere can work up that kind stupendous static electrical charge.
Anyway, I normally shut my computers down and unplug them during an electrical storm, but on this occasion I was visiting my family and hadn't realised an electrical storm was coming our way, so although they were switched off they weren't unplugged. But ATX machines never truly switch off. I see this as a major goof. Not only do we have to ask nicely for our machines to shut down, when they appear to have shut down they haven't really -- they're still on and prone to electrical damage. I much prefer the old machines that, when you wanted to turn them off, you just pressed the OFF switch and they instantly were truly off.
So this ATX machine's power supply fried itself. The only gratifying thing about it is that the 20 cent fuse was saved from blowing by the $50 power supply self-destructing around it. At least I still have a 20 cent fuse... although the genius accountant who decided that it was a good idea to solder the fuse into the circuit instead of using a fuse holder missed his calling on the dole queues, in my opinion.
Julie, who owns this lovely house I now live in, has left her sweet little dog with me. She is named Mali, after Bob (yeah, different spelling, I know), because her hair grows into dreadlocks. She was very shy for a little while after Jules left, but now she has a lovely time. I think Jules will find her terribly spoiled by me. :) I'd been wanting a doggie friend ever since Dot died. I clipped the hair around her face the other day to reveal the cutest little poodle-like face I've seen in ages. I should post some piccies of her.
I saw my first poisonous snake here day before yesterday. It was hightailing its way off the driveway into the long grass as I drove the car down towards the gate.
I now know that I'm being visited by more than one wallaby because there were 2 of them grazing in the front garden. Mali raced out after them (little brat!). I tried to call her back without raising my voice too much as I was worried the wallabies might think I was yelling at them. They didn't look too worries about the knee-high annoyance running and barking after them as they unhurriedly did their lazy hops off into the longer grass, further from the house.
My laptop's hard drive seems to have packed it in... or more accurately, the FAT (File Allocation Table) on the drive is corrupt. It is a tiny part of the drive that holds pointers to all the data you keep on your hard drive, like an index. You would think it wouldn't be too hard to repair such a table right? You'd think that there were plenty of utilities that might be small enough to fit on a floppy drive that would do the job, right? Well that's what I thought too, but after a day of searching the net I came to the conclusion that I was wrong. I can't find any FAT repair utilities at all! Anybody here know of one?
I will have to wait a while until I can afford to replace the damn drive because I'm flat broke.
I've been gradually buying parts to build myself a new, fast computer. I just need to buy some hards drives and, I hope, a DVD writer. [rubs hands together and giggles with glee] Why a DVD writer? Because backing up gigabytes of data to CDROM was just getting really stupid. DVD is cheaper, faster, simpler... and I can't wait to be able to have more than 3,000 electronic books on one disk!
I have some work now... though it could be some time before I see any money. I'm building virtual worlds again. Yay! Using VRML again. Booo!
I'm still not much closer to creating my own, all singing, all dancing VR language. But if you're interested in some of the stuff I've worked out, it is at http://users.tpg.com.au/miriame/vr/
It really needs to be updated -- some of the stuff there no longer applies. I have actually worked out quite a bit more, but haven't had time to include the changes. But is still gives some idea of where I'm going with it.
Lots more has happened:
Okies... I'd better get back to work.
The computer power supply that I bought to replace the one that mysteriously died soon after I moved to Queensland has now died too. This time, though, I know what happened: electrical storms. And what electrical storms we have up here! They make the celebratory fireworks displays down south look like piddling jokes. Massive light shows sometimes day after day that go on for hours at a stretch. It is really humbling to realise that the atmosphere can work up that kind stupendous static electrical charge.
Anyway, I normally shut my computers down and unplug them during an electrical storm, but on this occasion I was visiting my family and hadn't realised an electrical storm was coming our way, so although they were switched off they weren't unplugged. But ATX machines never truly switch off. I see this as a major goof. Not only do we have to ask nicely for our machines to shut down, when they appear to have shut down they haven't really -- they're still on and prone to electrical damage. I much prefer the old machines that, when you wanted to turn them off, you just pressed the OFF switch and they instantly were truly off.
So this ATX machine's power supply fried itself. The only gratifying thing about it is that the 20 cent fuse was saved from blowing by the $50 power supply self-destructing around it. At least I still have a 20 cent fuse... although the genius accountant who decided that it was a good idea to solder the fuse into the circuit instead of using a fuse holder missed his calling on the dole queues, in my opinion.
Julie, who owns this lovely house I now live in, has left her sweet little dog with me. She is named Mali, after Bob (yeah, different spelling, I know), because her hair grows into dreadlocks. She was very shy for a little while after Jules left, but now she has a lovely time. I think Jules will find her terribly spoiled by me. :) I'd been wanting a doggie friend ever since Dot died. I clipped the hair around her face the other day to reveal the cutest little poodle-like face I've seen in ages. I should post some piccies of her.
I saw my first poisonous snake here day before yesterday. It was hightailing its way off the driveway into the long grass as I drove the car down towards the gate.
I now know that I'm being visited by more than one wallaby because there were 2 of them grazing in the front garden. Mali raced out after them (little brat!). I tried to call her back without raising my voice too much as I was worried the wallabies might think I was yelling at them. They didn't look too worries about the knee-high annoyance running and barking after them as they unhurriedly did their lazy hops off into the longer grass, further from the house.
My laptop's hard drive seems to have packed it in... or more accurately, the FAT (File Allocation Table) on the drive is corrupt. It is a tiny part of the drive that holds pointers to all the data you keep on your hard drive, like an index. You would think it wouldn't be too hard to repair such a table right? You'd think that there were plenty of utilities that might be small enough to fit on a floppy drive that would do the job, right? Well that's what I thought too, but after a day of searching the net I came to the conclusion that I was wrong. I can't find any FAT repair utilities at all! Anybody here know of one?
I will have to wait a while until I can afford to replace the damn drive because I'm flat broke.
I've been gradually buying parts to build myself a new, fast computer. I just need to buy some hards drives and, I hope, a DVD writer. [rubs hands together and giggles with glee] Why a DVD writer? Because backing up gigabytes of data to CDROM was just getting really stupid. DVD is cheaper, faster, simpler... and I can't wait to be able to have more than 3,000 electronic books on one disk!
I have some work now... though it could be some time before I see any money. I'm building virtual worlds again. Yay! Using VRML again. Booo!
I'm still not much closer to creating my own, all singing, all dancing VR language. But if you're interested in some of the stuff I've worked out, it is at http://users.tpg.com.au/miriame/vr/
It really needs to be updated -- some of the stuff there no longer applies. I have actually worked out quite a bit more, but haven't had time to include the changes. But is still gives some idea of where I'm going with it.
Lots more has happened:
- It was my Dad's 80th birthday recently;
- my childhood best friend visited after I hadn't seen him for about 25 years;
- Jules began remodeling this house;
- the gorgeous big green tree frogs are proliferating;
- my sister's son, Dan has been given the honor of being chosen for a special Cisco course (no, it's nothing to do with O' Henry's wild west hero -- I mean Cisco, the computer networking company);
- Lois (my sister's middle daughter) seems rather bored and has been ploughing through all my Buffy DVDs and Dark Angel VCDs... I'm a little concerned for her -- there can be no excuse for being bored;
- I voted today in the QLD elections.
Okies... I'd better get back to work.
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Good to See you! I have been wondering where you went. I missed you!
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:)
I haven't been spending much time online for a while now. That is sure to change though. I've bought some surge protection equipment and as soon as I get paid I might buy a permanent dial-up line... dunno whether I'll do that or not though. Gotta weigh up the pros and cons more fully.
How time zooms past! It is already almost 1am. I wasted far too much time tonight reading about the history of the phone phreaking and the early days of hacking. See http://artofhacking.com for more info that you could imagine existed. I downloaded the entire site while I still lived in Melbourne and had a nice fast connection. I expected that I'd spend a lot of time offline when I moved up here, and I was right. I do a heck of a lot of offline reading now thanks to my foresight. :)
I'm interested in the site from the point of view of writing a story about someone who eludes the authorities in the near future when things have gone more Orwell. artofhacking.com has an amazing amount of info on such stuff.
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I hope you are having fun! You got to get on an instant messenger some tiem when i amonline so we cna chat! i havnt tlaked to you since augest i think.......
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I think the hard drive was about 5 GB -- not really big. It is a little 2 inch drive (2 and a half inch?) in my Toshiba laptop. I can buy a new 40 GB one for about $240 or a 20 GB one for about $150 I think. I'll be doing that as soon as some money starts rolling in. :(
I log onto instant messenger from time to time, but you are never there when I am. :(
I'd love to chat again.
I seem to recall you got a new account, but I can't remember what it is. Can you email me the name so that I can add it to the list of 3 Erika aliases I already have there? :)
I hope things go well for you. I read in your LJ that you've about had it with your current job. Much chance of you coming out to Oz to try for work here? :) Or maybe do that course at James Cook Uni like you were interested in. There was an interesting piece on deadly, box jellyfish on the latest Science Show at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/default.htm
You can read the transcript in a few days or listen to audio online now and for the next 4 weeks.
It's really cool. A far north Queensland marine researcher described the amazing design of these strange creatures. They have eyes that can form images, yet have no brain. Very odd.
The first part of the program describes how some people have been attacked by mountain lions over there in USA recently.