2012 — 12 April: Thursday
If eBuyer hadn't sent me a flyer offering a 3TB HDD this morning1 I wouldn't have found this interesting little guide. (Which, I admit, makes for a change after last night's choice of reading: some vintage "Calvin and Hobbes" — to whom I was introduced by the late Penny Russell, back when she was Penny Hislop.) Who knew the path to successful booting was so much more fraught than mere denser data storage when breaking the 2TB barrier?2
The sector size increase, described by Advanced Format, occurs at the hard drive media level. Host systems will continue to request and receive data from the hard Advanced Format 4K Sector drive in 512-byte sector sizes. However, the translation from 4096-byte sectors in the hard drive to the 512-byte sectors in the host will be managed in the hard drive. This process is called 512-byte emulation. It's important that every drive partition start with an LBA offset that is aligned to the drive's physical 4K sector. If partitions are un-aligned, then hard drive performance will be degraded.
Win7 has been trained to do all this by itself. But Josephine Public wouldn't stand much chance, would she? Now back to your normal service (and a second cuppa). It looks as if there's been an overnight frost,3 but there are now (07:40) some distinct signs of sunshine.
I enjoyed this little 'Project Glass' video a little too much. (Link.)
All was well...
... until I saw the "Road Ahead Closed" sign blocking off my intended access to Hill Lane. A dignified 180 degrees at the roundabout, therefore, and I was soon heading back down the Avenue on the route into Soton that Christa always took. I then decided to park on the top floor of the multi-storey and toddle around the East Street end of the city for the first time in more than three years. If I thought Eastleigh lacked commercial vitality, East Street has imploded. Amazing.
Music matters
Exactly three weeks after Christa died, BBC Radio 3 played a track from the re-recorded "Oxygene" album by Jean Michel Jarre. I've just picked it up on CD for a fiver in HMV's basement, as I did the 2-CD Tim Buckley anthology, and (I finally gave in) the "Scott Walker sings Jacques Brel" CD that came out in 1990, though it omits one track from the 1981 vinyl of these glorious songs recorded between 1967 and 1969.
Then Mr Postie greeted me with one of the 'cheques' from Uncle ERNIE and this lovely comedy memoir by Jonathan Lynn.
I've been reading it during the latest shower. And, yes, that is a Willie Rushton sketch. For bonus points, from what film have I snaffled this clip of Mr Lynn?
Which one's pink?
Back in March, I downloaded the remastered version of Pink Floyd's "The Wall", including various 'work in progess' tracks, after hearing one played by Cerys Matthews. Today, I spurned the HMV CD of a similar reworked edition of "Wish you were here", and promptly downloaded it back at the ranch for about 25% less. It's playing as I type, and mighty fine it is too. [Pause] I wonder what Dad would have made of the collaboration with Stéphane Grapelli on one of the tracks...