Well, I have only demolished the boot record of the primary hard drive, but that shouldn’t be too hard to fix.
I have finally decided to turn my computer over to using multiple operating systems. Since I had no desire to partition drive 2, I decided to partition drive 1. Since Drive 1 has the recovery information for my system on the initial partition I believe that my partitioning of the other chunk of the drive may have been my downfall.
I have done some repartitioning using the gparted livecd I had on hand, but that 6GB fat32 partition at the front must be throwing me off. Tomorrow I am going to wipe that out and start with a clear drive.
So long Compaq Recovery Partition! You have caused me enough annoyance, I shall not miss thee.
For the record, I had installed XP Pro on the system, but the recovery system uses XP Home. Recovery tries to use the recovery partition to take the OS back to original installation state while leaving added programs in place. Trying to recover XP Home SP 1 over XP Pro fully patched did not turn out well. It was painful to use.
Or can you?
One issue I keep catching myself griping about is lack of proper communication. If there is a vision or a new rule, make sure it is properly announced and explained. It takes longer to fix wrong information than it does to simply state it correctly and fully at the beginning.
Take this story from jolly ol’ England as an example: Don’t touch that office chair! Health and Safety demand 48 hours notice to move it. Bloggers around the world are crying out “Nanny State!” Lord Berkely calls it “Health and safety gone mad” (which seems to be a popular phrase on the other side of the puddle).
Imagine working somewhere that was so locked up in safety regulations that the following is said about it:
There, employees have been banned from shifting furniture on the remote chance that they might do themselves a mischief.
They are told to book a porter to complete the task – and allow two days for it to happen.
The new rule could prove particularly problematic for staff planning a last-minute meeting.
If a porter cannot be summoned urgently staff would be left with the awkward choice of disobeying a direct order from the management or asking some of their guests to stand.
To hammer home the point, signs which read: Do not lift tables or chairs without giving 48 hours notice to HSE management‘, have been plastered across the walls in several meeting rooms.
But there is more . . . Continue reading ‘Sorry, You Cannot Move That Chair.’
I have been watching this building go up for the last year or so as I go to and from the church building. It is for a local Hindu society. Looking at the outside of it as they have framed and filled out the decorations has been interesting. After reading the description I am interested in seeing the inside once it is build.
It seems very odd to me to have idols set up inside a building. Of course they would probably think that the 4 giant crosses that mark the center of our main building are weird (90 foot ones on the front and back and then 60 – 70 foot ones in the front of the foyer and auditorium), and of course the baptistery.
I keep having a fear that someone will vandalize the building, although I doubt it will happen. Jacksonville is a very multi-ethnic town, even in the predominantly white area where we are located. This makes the house of worship architecture on Greenland Rd. even more interesting. From the golden dome of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church at one end to our modern warehouse / office complex / hospital / fortress at the other end.
I actually took a moment to smile today since I knew there were no Windows patches coming. Very nice.
Then I saw that Apple had a different story. I wonder if Microsoft figured they would just let Apple catch up for a bit.
Windows Home Server Beta is available for public testing.
To test it I would need to set up a second computer at home (yes I normally only use one), and another system as the server. Unfortunately I have no spare time for this, but I really want to sign up.
This sort of thing still amazes me.
Sometime in the last few days the name mwesch appeared on my screen in a way that I noticed it, but so that I remember how. Today I saw a YouTube video by this same Michael Wesch: Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us (link found via Tony Dye).
Watch the video and pay attention to the content of the news sites he visited. mwesch posted the video on January 31, 2007 (just over a week ago now) and the content from the pages is filled with news items that happened after January 24 (about a week before then).
In less than week an interesting piece of content was put together and published online. Just about a week later it has been viewed more than 800,000 times on YouTube.
With good content you can get information around the world quickly and easily.
Let’s consider some options:
- Move across state, but make your final words to the congregation be insulting enough that nobody is tempted to look you up again. (That was a fun going away party.)
- Just stop showing up, but lead everyone on that you will be visiting again even though you have found a new church. (Awkward in the grocery store.)
- Tell everybody that you are going to a church where people are more spiritually mature. (Really awkward if you come back again in the future.)
- Flagrantly demonstrate that you are a transvestite and start causing scenes that make everything weird enough that people ask you to stop coming. (I thought the guy looked bad to begin with, but he really brought it out with that wig and make-up)
- Tell everyone you have cancer; reduce attendance due to “treatments;” tell them you give up and are entering hospice; have a hospice nurse, who sounds like you, call and give updates; have your sister, who also sounds like you, call and say you died; then attend the funeral service pretending to be your own sister. (I have not personally experienced this one, but I did read about it.)
Woman fakes death to leave church. Oh sure, I have considered some drastic measures to get out of really lousy sermons before, but nothing like this.
The English Standard Version Bible Blog has a link to a visual chart for displaying the connections between people in the Bible.
The information is interesting, but not necessarily helpful. It is based off of what names are in the vicinity of other names in the Bible rather than on an intelligent understanding of the actual relationships between individuals. For example, Paul didn’t spend much time with Jesus during his physical incarnation (not that we know of, anyway) yet there is a strong connection due to how often Paul uses his name near Jesus’ name (”Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus . . . ” 1 Cor. 1:1). Consider it an early example of Google Bombing type behavior.
This did remind me of a study I did on the 12 Disciples. After connecting together those who were explicitly called relatives and those who may have been closely related based upon tradition or scattered information in the Bible itself an interesting picture began to arise. Suddenly I started seeing Jesus and his ministry in a different context. These weren’t random followers around him, there were friends and relatives. These were people who spent their lives around one another.
The followers of Jesus were tied into a full reality. They were connected to the followers of John the Baptist, the leading priests, and even the secular rulers of the land. That would be a great chart to see.
Thief repents after receiving kind text messages.
A kind word turns away wrath, love your enemies and it will heap burning coals upon their heads (that means it will bring them to sorrow and repentance for what they have done), return love for hate, etc.
It is nice to see it when it works.
One of my favorite sayings is that “Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity.”
As you know, most computer problems thrive on stupidity. Now humans can be taken out of the equation thanks to work being done by the National Artificial Stupidity Association. Perhaps one day in the future computers could take over the complicated and risky business of stupidity.
Evenings will be spent watching “America’s Funniest Home Applications” and laughing as services fight it on “Jerry Pinger.”
As an old friend of mine was fond of saying “If you’re gonna be dumb, you’ve gotta be tough. Fortunately I am as tough as they come.”