Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

In Case of My Untimely Demise
June 16, 2006

I might have mentioned that Berta’s sister, Therese, is pregnant and expecting her baby any day now. Really, any day now.

Berta was talking to her on the phone recently, and they were discussing all sorts of baby things, as they usually do. But a new topic arose, something that is often left unconsidered until the nurses at the hospital bring it up - What happens to the baby if the parents die?

Well certainly, most parents would rather than someone they know take care of their baby, rather than for the baby to enter the foster care system. In many cases, I would suspect that an extended family member would be able to adopt the baby if the parents didn’t leave explicit instructions.

But the thing is, you’re supposed to have plans. As parents, you’re supposed to know who would care for your child if something happened to you. And the decision might be difficult for you to decide who to ask, sometimes the decision on how to respond is pretty difficult, too.

Robert Newman's History of Oil
June 15, 2006

I’m not sure if this will last, being as it looks well-produced and will probably be removed from the net somehow, but…

This is a video of comedian Robert Newman providing some history of oil production and use, and the wars that were required to keep the oil flowing. It’s long, but it’s pretty darn good.

What Is Your Backup Solution?
June 14, 2006

Can you buy insurance to protect against the loss of data? That seems like a bad company to start up. Since nobody is going to compensate you for the trip to Australia so that you can re-take your irreplaceable vacation photos, you might want to consider what your backup strategy is.

Maybe I’m lazy. I bought an external drive for backing up downloaded applications and registration codes. When the computer died, I used the external drive to restore everything. It worked great. Unfortunately, I did not duplicate the drive back onto the computer, I merely re-installed directly from the backups. Later, when I switched the drive to a brand new PC, I performed the same procedure.

Well, that PC was struck by lightning or something. The booting SATA drive in that PC failed, but the data drive was left intact. The external drive (the one with all of my software on it) seemd fine and lasted long enough to rebuild most of that system, but suddenly died two nights ago.

I’m still in shock, I think. We’re talking thousands of dollars of software here, not to mention some photos of Abby when she was really little.

So. While I consider how I might still get data off of that drive, I’m trying to figure out what backup strategy is best for my needs.

Things Go Soft
June 13, 2006

It’s been quite a day. I’m up pretty late tonight for no great reason, and am still tapping out this post — on my phone, no less.

What struck me at such an hour that I needed to write about it right away; that I couldn’t wait until my computer restarted, much less until morning?