2012-07-10 - Hard Drive Fall Down Go Boom

So a few weeks ago the main hard drive on my computer decided to crash. I was watching TV and when I got up to turn the computer off I found it complaining about how it couldn’t boot. I did some investigation and found out that the hard drive had gotten some serious sector errors and was pretty messed up. So I installed windows on the secondary hard drive to ensure that there were no other problems with the computer and ordered a replacement drive. I then had an interesting week where I had a computer but didn’t want to do much with it because anything I installed would just have to be reinstalled when the new drive arrived.

It wasn’t a total loss as I was able to recover a fair amount of data from the old drive. There were important things that were completely lost and there were useless things which were perfectly recoverable. The template images for this site were one of the things which I couldn’t recover so you might notice a change as I need to partially recreate them. I’ve been meaning to try and make my own penguin anyways, it’s always better to have everything be an original creation.

I should point out that the drive only took a week to arrive and that the reason I didn’t post in June is more because I’m lazy. There probably won’t be many posts in July either because it’s freaking hot and this computer is a furnace.

2012-05-21 - Food

I am annoyed with food, and I really think they need to put out a patch to fix their balance issues. The problem is that the amount of time things last and the amount of time it takes you to get around to eating them don’t match up. To make things worse the amount you should be eating is never the same as the amount you want to be eating of it and this usually causes you to run into the first problem. For example, if I buy a bunch of bananas, which are good for you, it usually takes me about a week to eat them but they go squishy after only four or five days. On the other hand if I buy some chips or cookies, which aren’t all that good for you, it takes me a couple of days to eat them when they could last for months. Another example, Milk lasts for about two weeks and Orange juice lasts for about one. If I push myself to drink both regularly I can usually meet those requirements but if I don’t they both start tasting really horrible soon after their dates. Pop on the other hand only goes flat and it’ll be drunk long before that happens.

Food should be set up so that it goes bad just as you would normally be done finishing it. That way I could buy vegetables and not think it a waste as they go mushy waiting for me to eat them. Snack foods should be designed so that you only feel like eating small amounts at a time, ensuring that they last and you don’t get fat. These things should all be properly proportioned to encourage a healthy diet. You eat your 5 cookies a day and then feel tired of cookies and move on to a banana which will last for at least a week to allow you time to eat it. Of course that will never happen since vegetables go bad based on biological processes and snack food makers want you to eat as much as possible.

ANOTHER thing that annoys me about food is lunch. I like lunch, I want to have lunch every day, but I can’t think of what to eat for lunch. Breakfast is easy because you have a full set of “Breakfast foods” to choose from and supper is open to just about anything. Lunch doesn’t have those easy foods the same as breakfast and it doesn’t really make sense to take the time to make something when you already have to do that for supper. Oh well, more sandwiches for me.

2012-04-25 - The Future

We live in interesting times. On the one hand we seem to be making advances in just about every industry, especially information technology, and on the other hand we seem to be on the brink of economic, environmental and political breakdown. In the next century we are you going to face some major challenges as oil runs out and climate change becomes a serious problem, but enough about that. I want to talk positively about the technology side of the world and things I’d really like to see.

The first thing I’d like to see is Artificial Intelligence or AI. It doesn’t even have to be a functional robot, just some program with the ability to learn and to make decisions by itself. I’d love to see a fully autonomous robotic life. Even more I want to watch a computer solve problems. I think it would be very interesting to watch them examine things, make choices, attempt solutions, and then examine the outcome of those solutions and measure their success. Then you get all the interesting questions about morality and ethics and is it alive and does it have a “Soul” and is it a crime to kill it? Interesting possibilities that I’d like to see happen. That is as long as it doesn’t become Skynet.

The other thing I’d like to see is space travel. We’ve made a start on this with rockets to the moon and robots on mars but there’s still a lot we can do. I would like to be able to jump on a ship and travel to any part of the solar system as easily as we travel from one city to another in a plane. I’d be really happy if I could take a trip to Titian and just walk around. I’d be even happier if I could see other systems, especially if they had alien life there, but I’m not greedy. I would settle for in-system travel just so long as I can say I’ve been to space. This would also mean developing engine and power technology that could make it possible to travel to other planets and moons in a reasonable amount of time and maintain a stable and comfortable environment while they do so. That would also be interesting to see.

So there you have it, I want to be able to take robots to Pluto.

2012-04-22 - Doing things

The best reason ever to do something is because you can (Excluding anything illegal, unethical or immoral, dangerous for other people etc.). The worst reason ever to do something is because someone thinks you should. This is not to be confused with doing something because someone wishes/wants/would like you to do it which is a fairly good reason to do something. Demands are to be ignored, requests are to be considered. The second best reason to do something is because it will help someone. The second worst reason to do something is for money, unless you’re a red light district resident. When in doubt, ask your feet.

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