2016 — 16 February: Tuesday
My Bible Studies in years long since past1 said something about "I am not my brother's keeper". So when I read between the lines of his overnight email to detect odd hints here and there of his data backup strategy...
One brand new keyboard, one brand new (and larger) hard drive, one super clean... and the Toshiba is back on stream. All data and programmes cloned across and at this point all appears well...
... I feel strangely uncompelled to comment. Not that I would, of course. My own data backup strategy — like the chap who always carries a bomb on his travels as he figures the risk of there being another one is minimal — merely disperses the risk of (partial) data loss across a far greater number of these wretchedly-fallible2 devices.
Thanks to a niece or two ...
... here's a not-very-sun-drenched shot of the Birthday Boy with his cake, and the inevitable celebratory little glass of something squeezed from a passing grape:
In these colder climes...
... the sun is shining very brightly, the barometer remains ridiculously high, but I fear my own glass (thin tube) of non-drinkable blue alcohol now says it's -3C on my front porch. As does the frost on the passing cars. My next supplies run will therefore have to wait an hour or so. Then I have a post-lunch possibility of an afternoon cuppa and a catch-up chat with Iris. The passage of Time reminds me that I've now known her for longer than my 33 years with Christa.
[Pause]
Supplies shopped for and lunch lunched. Now emails tell me to expect the delivery of my remaining NUC bits today. I've warned Iris that I'll need to defer our meeting until Friday. (And, until I just typed that word, I had no idea UltraEdit [which has just rather stupidly suggested I upgrade to the new Mac variant] would highlight it.)
I'm no better...
... but, I hope, also no worse, than anyone else at being able to grasp large numbers. Which is why I always get a little bemused by statements such as the one I've highlighted in this piece. I'm more used to hearing the lady curating classical music on BBC Radio 3 (unless she has a name-sake, of course):
The esoteric Chinese strategy game Go is more than 2,500 years old and is mentioned in writings by Confucius. Its branching factor is huge: it has more possible moves than there are atoms in the universe;
But then, I was also recently tickled by Simon Singh's assertion (in his book "The Simpsons and their mathematical secrets") regarding the wastefulness of evaluating pi to more than 38 decimal places.
If astronomers had established the exact diameter of the known universe, then knowing pi to 38 decimal places would be sufficient to calculate the universe's circumference accurate to within the width of a hydrogen atom.
Mind you, that's a mighty big "If..." And what about the "unknown" universe? Let alone all those multiverses?
I'm making...
... my own contribution to lower energy consumption in the UK. I've switched off my always-on Humax Freesat PVR (used 99% of the time for radio) at the wall socket until the next time I want to watch broadcast TV, and re-instated one of my Sony Freeview boxes. That can just as easily be left running in radio mode. But without also spinning a hard drive. OK, so I've lost a fluorescent clock display... but it's too small to read from this end of the living room in any case.
This particular...
... issue of a DVD-based film "magazine" struck me as potentially interesting for its interviews with John Sayles and others:
What I only realised on inspecting the tiny copyright line was that it's actually been sitting around somewhere in a dusty American retail outlet since 1999! It refers to the (then) still upcoming cinema release of Kevin Smith's "Dogma", for example.
I've been listening...
... to a fascinating programme on Bosch while scanning the artwork of this incoming quartet:
They arrived with the NUC bits, which I've opened up to allow them to approach room temperature. However, it's a bit late to embark on any assembly tonight, methinks.
The idea that this is not only a 512GB SSD, but can read and write data over twice as quickly as SATA III devices, is rather boggling.