Random things I've forgotten to blog over the past couple days

[xiphias]

Lis's computer is making the sort of funny grinding noise that usually presages a magic smoke leakage. So we're not turning it on. I'm writing this from the Wakefield Public Library, because the Melrose one closed at 5 today.

This leaves us with 0 (zero) working computers in the house. It sucks worse for Lis than for me, since she needs the computer for job hunting.

So: at the moment, the list of things which absolutely need to be fixed but we don't have the money to fix includes:
1. My computer.
2. Lis's computer.
3. The bathtub.
4. The ceiling in the bedroom.
5. The ceiling in the kitchen, which has needed to be repaired since before we moved in, but we've never had money to fix it -- I'm expecting it to fall down in the next couple days, because, well, it's just that kind of week.

I should also at some point get better clothes, since a number of mine don't fit or are falling apart. I've been repairing them, and should probably learn to use the sewing machine which we have downstairs to repair them better.

One other funny thing that I forgot to mention about my niece when we spent the day with her on Saturday:
We were walking to the playground, and we were passed by a kid running down the street, and then by a woman jogging in the same direction. Winter called out, "Hello!" to which the woman responded, and then Winter asked, "Are you chasing after your son?"

Okay, I thought it was cute and funny.

Yesterday, walking downtown after work, we were accosted by Discordians. A couple teens were standing on the sidewalk calling out, "Cards of Chaos! Have a Chaos card!" and handing out cards to people.

We got the nine of hearts. As we took it, I asked, "Discordians?" but they didn't seem to understand the term. But even if they didn't know it, they were Discordians.

I tended bar at this event today. Unfortunately, I was set up in the "overflow room", so I didn't get to see any of the speeches, and was unable to get any of the signatures that Lis wanted me to get for her.

Comments

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

Would my laptop be helpful? It's old and clunky, but it can connect to the Net and send out resumes and such. (No battery, alas, so you could only use it at home.) You're welcome to borrow it if so.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, as Lis's laptop has no (working) battery either, it certainly wouldn't be a step down. . .

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

Hmn. I'm moving. I have a working laptop and a working desktop. I can lend you the desktop indefinitely, if you'd like - you can ship it back to me once Lis has a job. The catch is, if you want Windows you're going to have to install it yourself.

On a different note, might the strange computer noises be a problem with the fans? Those are often loud, but relatively cheap to fix.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It sounds like drive grinding, unfortunately.

Would you be upset if your machine was contaminated by Windows? I mean, I could possibly just swap in a hard drive and not even touch your drive.

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

Go for it. You can even install to the HD; I only wiped Windows off of it a couple weeks ago, and haven't put anything personal on it yet.

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it comes with keyboard, monitor, mouse, etc. Can even come with a compact computer desk, if you'd like.

[linenoise.livejournal.com]

I've got a perfectly functional tower that I could give to you for cost of shipping. It's a bit of a frankenbox, cobbled together from this and that, and didn't cost me more than $15 or so to make. Currently Windows 98, but I could wipe it and throw on 2k before I sent it off, if you'd prefer that. (Assuming it's got enough RAM, I honestly don't remember. (Also, you'd need to provide your own monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. But I assume you have those, from the otherwise non-functional computers.))

Also, you might consider Modest Needs for some of the rest of it. Worth a shot, anyways.

[ckd]

If it's just the drive (as I remarked over on Lis's blog), it should be doable to pop in a second drive, install Windows on that, copy the important stuff over, and pull the dying drive out. How big a drive are we talking about? ATA, I presume? I can probably do a dive into the junk box if it's not too large, and loan you something for a while[1]...since I have a tendency to upgrade stuff as it fills.

[1] "a while" -- "until I have a need for all of the half-dozen drives in there at once" :)

[goljerp]

"until I have a need for all of the half-dozen drives in there at once"

Well, you never know when you'll need to set up a RAID array... and, after all, you might not have enough floppy drives to do it. On second thought, ATA drives don't really turn into RAID arrays very easily, do they?

[ckd]

I actually do have an ATA RAID 1 setup at home so that I don't have another drive failure on the mail server and lose over a week's worth of spam.

There are actually a number of ATA-based high-end storage arrays these days from NetApp and EMC; the sheer cost savings of using ATA drives instead of SCSI or FC is worth the tradeoff in performance for a lot of uses.

That floppy RAID was scary. I was impressed, though a RAID of the old Apple II 140K floppy drives would have been more impressive and far more useless.