discovering the bus pirate

this might be the most awesome thing ever. i am not speaking lightly.

it's like 1% of the cost of the tools that recovery rip-offs use. it's actually cheaper to buy this little thing than it would be to hack together a homemade solution, and it's actually multipurpose - not only is it 1% of a pro device, it actually even pays for itself. it's even cheaper than a recovery evaluation would be...

but the assembled nature of it cuts out all the uncertainty of stringing together cannibalized cables to power sources. things get fried that way, but it's a last resort. not any more. it cuts out the need to use legacy hardware. should work direct from a laptop.

it's going to come with a learning curve, sure. but it could put the fucking vampires out of business. given what this could sell for, to manufacturer it like this and sell it for $30 is just shockingly decent.

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Bus-Pirate-v36-universal-serial-interface-p-609.html

was looking at a blu-ray writer for better storage. the price of media is still ridiculous. but finding one for under $30 is no longer infeasible (if still requiring a little luck). not a priority, though...

there may be a new format out in the next two years. that should help bring the blu-ray prices way down.

the flash made it give up faster, which is actually an improvement. cleaning the drive turned the fan noise down but didn't fix the read issues. it just spins. windows. dos. no os at all. same thing. so, i'm concluding that the drive is broken.

which means i haven't ruled out the ide on the board.

today, i need to get an external sata/ide-->usb thing and some other things. i'll be taking a run for old parts (ram for my secondary board is like $2/stick, might as well fill it up. it's also time to upgrade to usb 2.0, lol, given that usb 3.0 cards have pushed the price down. it's useless from a store's perspective. like, $5. and if i can find one for cheap enough ($10) i might even upgrade the chip from a pIII 500, although the max the board can take is pIII 950.) tomorrow and will grab an old ide then.

i mean, that board has maximum specs that are dirt cheap to attain. might as well...

alright, yamaha...

i know it's a little odd to go looking for a dos firmware installer for a cd-rom manufactured in 1999, but you really couldn't spare the 200 kb on your website? was it the bandwidth?

jerks.

there's legacy hardware sites, but they don't even support dos anymore, so i have to install windows to flash the drive. ugh...

i don't even think it's going to work, it's just a last chance before i trash it.

worse, people that flash things know it's not always so good to flash things from windows.

i could brick it trying to fix it. right now, i don't know if it's programming is corrupted, if it's physically broken or if it's just ridiculously dirty.

that little 200 kb (if that) file could prevent somebody from having to buy a new....

yeah. great system we've got going, here.

if you're curious, i'm trying to get the boot block on my motherboard to kick in. it's just simply not reading the floppy connector, but i think it's because the pin is damaged on it. the sata drives are spinning, but they're not reading. and i don't think i'm getting power to the usb ports. the ide connector seems to work, and the drive is spinning, but the drive isn't reading in my other pc at all, so i can't really conclude that that isn't working until i can verify that the drive is working. i have an ide dvd but i know it doesn't read cd-rs well. so i need the drive to work to rule out that the boot block isn't kicking in, before i go through the process of trying to serial in.

48 hours until i can get back to working on my mobo. it's going to be a while before i'm back to recording.

so, i'm going to do a song a day. i've been playing with this "channel trailer" feature on youtube. honestly? ridiculous idea. but, it does provide for a big button to push. i'd rather they set it up so it cycles through a list, but it's clearly designed for tv shows rather than musicians...

but, i can do that myself with minimal effort. so, song a day, moving forwards, chronologically (and selectively).

i'm going to start here. this is actually from april 11, 1998.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNDvac3oCwc

so, the guy upstairs wants to turn the air conditioning on when it's a high of two degrees. i'm an open-minded person, but that's really a signal that it's time to lose some weight for your own health. and i see no option but to turn the heat up to 25.

i get the feeling that the window is going to be open all summer.

i hereby declare this weekend to be....

PASTA WEEKEND.

(preferably stated with some ominous dread)

some of the other answers might get you something close (just be sure to crank the fuzz with some kind of tube preamp, and probably even a line booster - this is very high gain), but it sounds to me like that octave-y sound is actually an electronic relic of his guitar synthesizer tracking in and that the actual answer is something along the lines of digital distortion on a violin or cello patch, rather than anything created with guitar pedals you can get in a store. it's also probably manual whammy technique getting that envelope wah, rather than anything digital.

this is also done right, with a proper amount of key force.

i'm done with rachmaninov for the night....

actually, rachmaninov and angst go well together. under 15, and it's just notes on a screen. but a little older than that is probably the ideal age to get this right.

she's hitting the keys with sufficient force. that's the big thing. and it's a russian thing, consistently. her western counterparts want to over-intellectualize and turn it into some dainty prance, rather than the noisy protopunk classic that it is.

i'm mildly relieved. i suppose that if we end up on the other side of some curtain, we can still rely on the former soviet states (and satellites) to play the russian classics for us properly, without having to endure westerners butchering them.

i have a moderately recent american version and a modded russian version designed for smashing pumpkins fans (creamy dreamer) and what i've found is that the russian muff seems to be designed for better sound at lower volumes. the russian version does sound clearer and more usable here, but that's why. it has to do with the way a muff works. it's supposed to be plugged directly into a tube amp at high volume levels. this test is consequently largely useless.

deathtokoalas
the orchestra sounds good, but she's just not hitting the piano hard enough.

Eleanor Gay
Does she need to pound the keys to mke the music? Maybe for you to hear the music.

deathtokoalas
this particular piece needs to be pounded, yes. bourgeois westerners that want to focus on masturbatory techniques have consistently failed to understand that for close to a hundred years. the russians grasp it properly...

go find a russian recording to hear it bashed out the way it's supposed to be, then come back.

shantihealer
Your right, my friend, she not only underhits the piano but kind of smacks it.

SugarTomAppleRoger
You are joking of course. Few can play with such power as she does.

deathtokoalas
i've pointed out a few performances that have the proper level of aggression. she just doesn't sustain the smashing throughout.

Ricardo Macayo
y tú muerte a los koalas si que sabes de música!

deathtokoalas
i apologize if i've mistranslated, but i think you're asking me why i hate koalas.

the answer is that they're revoltingly cute.

valkhorn
I hear nothing wrong with it. The notes are clear enough, and she plays with finesse - which is very hard to do on this piece, esp. the last movement.

deathtokoalas
see, that's the problem - the finesse. this isn't a technical, subtle piece. it's a banger, meant to be played with all the bourgeois sophistication of "tutti frutti".

anyways, i'm repeating myself. thread closed.

ok, this sounds like a solid version. it's likely not coincidental that it's russian, but it does look like the whole concerto is up here.

so i was able to find a proper russian version on youtube, after all.

this is better, it seems to get the point better, but the playing is a little blurry (it sounds like he's using the sustain pedal to blur some of the notes he can't hit in the same way that electric guitarists use a distortion pedal), and the mix is pretty piano-heavy.

busted? lol...

no grit. and, look at 3:23: he's catching his breath? maybe his suit is too tight, and it's restricting his breathing. then he prances through the rest of it like it's some kind of gentle ballet...

this should be beaten down with every ounce of emotional and physical force that can be gathered, as though the police have shown up to steal your last ounce of vodka at 4:53 am and there's nothing you can do about it....

deathtokoalas
his is worse, he sounds bored through half of it. yeesh...

i have a version by the soviet symphony orchestra that owns everything i've seen online so far, but my discs are packed. i can't even find info online. fucking cold war, getting in the way of what really matters...

Concertos n°2 and n°3 (USSR Symphony Orchestra, feat. conductor: Gennady Provatorov, piano: Victor Eresko).

find that one if you want to hear somebody just bash this out.

XaverScharwenka
Or simply enjoy one of the best versions ever, by Earl Wild... but then again, we all like things differently.

deathtokoalas
earl wild does not sound like a very russian name.

perhaps, you'd like to suggest a wonderful slavic folk version of 'the entertainer' while you're at it? grigorii does gershwin? on balalaika?

fucking hipsters.

1231CarrieCheuk
your profile pic is so frightening

deathtokoalas
that's only because you can't see the muppets dancing around me.

South Texas Piano
Please tell them to save you

deathtokoalas
i believe that request ought to be formed in terms of a question, but you forget that the average muppet is a monster!

12x12surface
Can you post it on YT?? 

deathtokoalas
i don't have muppet copyright access.

deathtokoalas
i agree with those arguing that she's butchering this. i've always interacted with the piece as a blaring romp, written by an emotionally insecure male that is releasing all of his anger and frustration. she's playing it in a soft and sensuous manner that invites a sultry lounge singer.

the notes are flawless, but there's just no rage or sadness or frustration in it.

deathtokoalas
i mean, maybe she's trying to sex it up. fine.

...but this really needs to be played by 40 year old virgins (ok, i'm exaggerating) to get the maximum feel out of it.

Tim
your understanding of the composer's work is clearly limited if you think anything he wrote is devoid of lust or passion. also, wang's artistic conviction and integrity are what make her performance so remarkable. interpreting a piece in a way that deviates from the norm (or, in this case, your personal preference) is not indicative of poor musicianship.

deathtokoalas
did i not point out that she played the piece flawlessly? but if you understand where the piece is coming from, and all the self-doubt and insecurity attached to it, you'll realize she's completely missing the point.

i mean, if i want to listen to shmaltzy, upper class nonsense i'll go listen to mozart or shostakovich or something. what makes rachmaninov special is the social anxiety in the writing. you take that away, and it's just another delve into aristocratic masturbation. there's plenty of that for those that want it, without needing to ruin that which stands away from it.

i kind of held back a little bit initially, but does she look to you like somebody that has ever experienced the kind of shit rachmaninov went through? young, beautiful, rich. she'd need a brain transplant to get her mind around this. it would be remarkable if she did understand this emotionally, that is as something more than notes on a page - which she does clearly understand quite well.

Vlad
eugh...welcome to music, blessed art it is, where each comes with their own interpretation.

deathtokoalas
this is scored music, not jazz. personal contributions should be kept to an absolute minimum. the performer is a worthless intermediary between my ears and the composer's mind - a necessary evil. i don't care what she thinks.

Vlad
Scored music is still subject to interpretation (not talking about improvisation). Any two people will feel to play the same piece differently

deathtokoalas
completely wrong liberal bullshit. if i want to listen to yuja wang, i'll listen to one of her compositions. i'm here to listen to rachmaninov. the moment she brings her individuality into the process is the moment she completely fucks up. you need to get your head out of this relativistic gallow before it comes down. there are correct and incorrect ways to play a piece.

i don't want to continue this into perpetuity, so i'm just going to be clear about the non-relativistic reality of things before i close off further comments.

there are two ways to perform a scored piece of music:

1) the way it was written
2) incorrectly

this slutty performance is not capturing the piece the way it was written. it's a "modern interpretation" that replaces the tortured soul of the piece with vapid and gratuitous sexuality. therefore, it's wrong. there's no further worthwhile debate on the point, unless you want to resort to the idiocy of "it's just your opinion".

it's not. and that decadent attitude is destroying our culture and our civilization.

out.

benchmark disc.

benchmark disc.

benchmark disc.

you want to know why we can't have another cold war? because i can't find any decent recordings of rachmaninov. no, i don't want to listen to some asian child prodigy that can hit the notes but has no emotional investment because she lacks the maturity. i don't want to compete over who can do it better, either.

the best version i've heard of the second piano concerto (by far) is by the soviet orchestra, which i found as an import from france (you can keep your freedom fries) in a second hand store several years ago. it's nowhere to be found online. and, it's not hard to guess why. instead, we have versions by west germans, koreans, jews from chicago...WESTERN VERSIONS....

none of them compare to the soviet version.

what is important in life is not which set of bankers controls which oil rig. what is important is the ability to listen to high quality renditions of universally recognized russian classics. likewise, russians have an inalienable right to access american renditions of american jazz.

"we have bitches brew, too. dmitri play trumpet through superior delay system. better quality big muff for vladimir's guitar."

it's not the same, dammit.

we need to put this into perspective before we revert back to that fucking bullshit all over again.

rando
In my opinion, it was Fripp, who changed and developed Belew's guitar style and technique this way. This video basically shows, what guitar techniques and what playstyle you had to have, when wanted to be in King Crimson.

deathtokoalas
belew picked a lot up from fripp, but he never lost his more playful style - and it's something fripp desperately needed to counter his medieval dour. the biggest give away that it's belew rather than fripp is the presence of anything that contradicts the structure of the piece - be it a double time lick, an unexpected syncopation, etc. i love fripp, but the truth is that the man ticks like a clock.

uploading movement one to youtube

first section of the industrial grunge opera i've been working on since 2006.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tNP9yHJWWM

uploading the spontaneous combustion of leonardo pisano to youtube

this was constructed out of commands in matlab as the project in a course i took on wavelet design. no instruments or samples were used in this recording.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea-RR0FvjQQ

uploading evil is a human construction to youtube

i was spending a lot of time stumbling through ottawa bars at the time, imagining guitar solos over unimaginative house beats....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haUlXmRA-A0

uploading strung out to youtube

pun intended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LeUuevZ1UM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M024AMcMh5w

uploading like divine amoebas to youtube

a commentary on the invasion and occupation of afghanistan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRsX2NKqqsk

so, i pulled some of the releases out and put them up for sale as lightscribe cd-rs in jewel cases with whatever cover art comes to mind. the discs will be standardized, but the package they come in could be all over the place.

it's not the point. the point is the number on the disc, for collectors, if any happen to take an interest in what i'm doing.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch

we should really rename "midlife crisis" to that period that exists between pretending you've outgrown yourself to realizing you haven't, because outgrowing one's self is an incoherent idea.

ok, maybe people are right. maybe if i'm going to post so much criticism i should post some stuff i like.

first, here's my cd list:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/music/index/index.html

second, it's over here in timeline form:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jessicas-Music-Collection/505092896244390

third, here's a playlist with highlights that will grow as i work through the reviews:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3JSjmqp0cbtJ3wEtlfPjMu2xYH7DKIHP

i'm further going to mark my favourite discs as i go forward.

.....'cause it's good marketing. i'm not pretending otherwise. i enjoy the conversations i have, but the point is that people are supposed to click on the link and check out my music. maybe i should just shut up. but youtube's advertising model really doesn't make any sense, given that people  can post whatever they want right on the page (and that most people with a measurable quantity of brain cells use adblock).

about the best advertising i could pay for would be to interact with fans of records that have influenced me. that's actually not possible to buy, but it's certainly more meaningful than an annoying decal on the side that most people are going to literally or mentally block out.

then again, i'm certainly not the next katy perry. there's not really a way to mass market this stuff. it just has to somehow find the right audience.

found my troll twitter account.

still think it's stupid.

https://twitter.com/dgkfgjklgjkgjka

ok. so, that cd drive doesn't read anything. it just spins. lol...

i think it's the only actual *cd* i have. i have two dvd ides, and two dvd satas. that was the initial cd-r i saved up to buy when i was in my mid teens. you know those reasons you get a job when you're 15? i wanted a cd burner, to make demoes with. but it seems to be cooked...

it doesn't sound good, either.

couldn't be more than $5 on kijiji. if i can find one...

this is some progress:

if i put in a cd-r (not a dvd) into a cd-rom (not a dvd-rom) connected via the master ide cable, with the jumper to master (not cable select) it indicates drive activity that is otherwise not present.

unfortunately, i burnt the motherboard cd on what seems like my last cd-r. i thought i had a stack of lightscribe cds, but it turns out they're dvds. i'm not sure why i bought lightscribe dvds, but whatever. and i was silly enough not to put the amiboot.rom file on it.

so, now i'm searching for a cd-r to burn a 1 mb file on to. *sigh*.

actually, i had connected my floppy cable upside down in the process of swapping drives around, which is why the light was solid :|. put in the right way, there seems to be no power to the drive at all. no seek from the boot block. bricked...

reason: there's no power to the board. hotwiring it isn't going to get the read info. shorting things would only be useful if it's not reading from boot block at all, which i'm not convinced is it.

see, i may have two damaged drives. the pins on both are bent all around. in contrast, the cd-r powers up, through ide or through sata. i'm not convinced it's reading anything, especially through sata, but it spins and flashes and turns the fan on and stops. it doesn't seem to matter what disc is put in...so that seems more like firmware...

...but it powers up. neither floppy does.

i've also determined that at least one of the floppies i was using is unstable. i could have several bad floppies. the copy operation seems fine for about ten minutes, then seems to evaporate. like, i'll do a format /u and copy the rom over and three hours later will get read errors on that disk in that drive.

it's tedious, and i don't think it's the problem, but i have to determine the integrity of the floppy disks before i give up on this approach.

i then have to try every cd-r/cable combo i have.

however, i am currently resigned to reprogramming the chip.

http://www.oocities.org/rrbhaius/recoverbios.pdf

i suppose i could still try some older roms.

the floppies could be damaged.

but i don't seem to be getting read/write access.

i mean, the light is on. and it spins. but it's not reading.

it's a better idea every single one than to short. so, here i go on that...

i mean, it seems like they're perfectly describing the situation....

yeah, that still doesn't turn the power on the mobo on. i wasn't sure if usb needed it the same way the older connections do. apparently, so.

i can't see how a drive would work where a hub doesn't. so, i'm leaning more and more towards shorting.

actually, my hub has a power in. i don't use it, but....hrmmn....let me test this, anyways, see if i learn anything from it.

precisely whether the short works or not depends on if the information needed to get power (rather than instructions) to the peripheral i/os on the board is accessible somewhere outside the bios (proper), which the proposed recovery process (through boot block) suggests is actually the case. otherwise, i can short it all day without accessing the power info in the bios that doesn't exist.

nope.

i'm not getting any power to the board past a certain point, which is a different problem than i dealt with the last time i did this. see, but it's a bit deceptive, because the externals all take power from the psu. so, the cd spins when you put something in it and the floppy lights up, but neither are able to communicate with the cpu, so the emergency bit doesn't come in.

one of the things that made me understand what's happening a little bit better was plugging an mp3 player into usb. i wasn't expecting power from the board, but i was hoping the power on the key would be enough to get over the hurdle. unfortunately, the key is programmed to turn off on the physical connection, rather than an electronic one. so, no good.

that leaves me with three remaining options:

a) i can try and short the chip, but i think this is unlikely to work.

b) a better idea is to try an externally powered usb connection. and, thinking back, i think that might have been what i did last time, too. i need an external usb drive for two other reasons now so it will be top priority next monday...

c) i can try and use a jumper to replace the bios. i'm going to have to wait until monday for this, too. it's an excuse to get the soldering iron that i probably should have inherited but, for whatever reason, didn't.

so, my gst money on the 5th is basically going to computer repair. that's mildly irritating, but ok. i don't budget that. it's all stuff i should have around, anyways.

i'm not going to short the chip unless i can find a precise set of instructions. see, i don't think the boot block isn't kicking in, i think the board needs power to communicate with the devices. the short might reset the power along with the force, which shouldn't be missing in the first place, but it's not the intent of the process, so i'm a little cautious about messing with it. as it is, i have no keyboard commands, because there's no power. i have no video out because there's no power. yet the fans are all spinning so it's clearly that the bios crashed before that point...

if i can get some power to the board, i think it should go into recovery and flash off of any media it can read. but, i need to be careful with that.

i could do this with a screwdriver, and conceivably have it up in a few hours. in the back of my mind, though, i'm thinking that, if i wait, and the usb trick works, it won't be necessary - and that the jumper is a safer way to force it. it's simplicity v. safety...

if i can find exact instructions, i will do this. if not, i'll wait for at least the external usb.

there's always reading to catch up on.

actually, i'm realizing the emergency iso i downloaded doesn't have the right file. i have to try that...

yup. i've tried every possible combination and the boot block is just not setting in like it should. i'm rather confused, though. that should be there.

i'm going to have to wait a few days before i can get the materials for a jumper.

the floppy isn't doing what it's supposed to, and the cd isn't either. the flash shouldn't have fucked my boot block, but i'm not even getting beeps with no ram.

so, it's looking like i'm going to have to jumper this. ugh.

it was indeed one bad bios, along with at least one drive of questionable integrity, and i'm irritated i spent so much time with it. there wasn't a way to reset the cmos, but a "set to default" got the floppy working properly in freedos. sort of. it's still sketchy. i'm going to have to flash...

first, to find a disk that i can actually format. i'm confident that this should get the main pc's bios in.

well, i found a bios, and i can't see how one version of dos is really better than the next...

there doesn't appear to be a way to clear the cmos, besides "shorting" it. like i want to do that...

so, dumbass move #2 this month was flashing my bios. i thought it would be a good idea, moving up to 64-bit. my recording machine has been unable to post since friday evening.

a stuck bios chip is not an irresolvable problem, in theory. these particular chips have something built into the firmware that checks the floppy drive. there's also a cd utility i've used before, but cannot locate right now. i'm hoping the floppy works.....

...but i've been having difficulty finding an operating system that will read a floppy drive. there's a known issue with xp (the workaround is to use server 2003, because home users shouldn't need floppies, apparently). my copy of 98 is broken, in general, and won't read it either. i've tried three specialized recovery linux live cds that won't mount...

so, i'm resorting to installing freedos. and then real dos, if that doesn't work.

worst case scenario, i'll have to go in with a parallel cable and reprogram it manually. so, there's a few more days lost....

i know the drive works and the discs are good, if for no other reason than that i just installed 98 with a boot floppy (even though the os won't read, and it won't read from funny windows 98 dos).

so, i either have two bad floppy cables, two bad floppy drives or one bad bios. i can't get the floppy to do anything at all on this backup motherboard.

the bios hasn't been flashed since 1999. i doubt it supports any method besides a floppy flash. ironically. nor do i suspect asus still has bioses for this thing around...

just to preemptively counter some textbooks that may be overly idealistic or flat-out out of date...

consider the following four combinations:

a) properly written kernel mode drivers written in an os with weak kernel mode security (xp, with most hardware combinations).
b) kernel mode drivers written for an os with weak kernel mode security being run in an os with strong kernel mode security, and that expects almost all drivers to run in user mode. (vista/7/8, with some hardware combinations)
c) badly written user-mode drivers written in an os with strong kernel mode security, and that expects almost all drivers to run in user mode. (vista/7/8, with some hardware combinations)
d) correctly written user-mode drivers written in an os with strong kernel mode security, and that expects almost all drivers to run in user mode. (vista/7/8, by design)

the reality will agree with the textbook in stating that a is faster than d, on the same hardware - meaning xp is faster by design, but less secure (that's the trade-off). again, windows 7 on faster hardware may seem faster than windows xp on slower hardware but that's an apples and oranges comparison that reduces to an actual comparison of the hardware.

but the situation i'm talking about is with either b or c, which are both going to be slow and buggy and which is still the reality with some hardware.

if you think back to '06, vista had a horrible reputation. this is the actual root of the problem. microsoft understood it perfectly well. it's support agents (one of whom was me) understood it perfectly well. the hardware companies understood it perfectly well. but part of my job was confusing people into blaming intel or nvidia instead of microsoft. which isn't to say that they didn't share the blame. but that was microsoft's official strategy - fuck the issue, lie to the customers. they saw it as a pr game.

i can't count the number of times where i nearly broke down and just leveled with the poor bastard on the other side of the line. but, given that everybody understood that the problem had no solution, my job was to ensure that the person walked away from the conversation blaming the person that made their board or chipset or video card, rather than the company that made an operating system that changed all the industry standards without proper documentation or sufficient warning.

again, though, it's eight years on, now. there's no excuse for it still being a problem.

so, that's actually something else to take away from this: if support agents can solve your problem, they will. if they can't, they will lie to you - and get promoted if they're really good at it.

going back to the usb test, i should point out that my pc actually has a faster processor, surprisingly, given that the chip is from 2005. my pc is a pentium D @ 2x3.6. the laptop is an i5 @ 2x2.4. the difference between ten minutes and 30 seconds is still incredible, though, and can't be explained purely by the processor speed. especially given what i know about the way the drivers work...

listen: i worked support for microsoft. i'm telling you the story from the inside. from microsoft training. from documents written by microsoft engineers. it might sound incredible, but it's the actual, blunt truth.

i'm transferring files around right now, and this is a good example. it took almost ten minutes for me to transfer a few gb of files from my laptop (which is running a 64 bit windows 7, with a core i5 and 4 gb of ram - certainly better hardware specs on paper than my desktop) to a usb key. it took 30 seconds to transfer the same data from the same usb to my pc's hard drive, which is currently running an xp x64. if i were to do that on a fully patched vista, it would take ten hours.

ten hours!? yes. ten hours.

...because intel won't update the chipset to conform to the very different driver signing standards. the way windows handles drivers was a huge update from xp to vista.

i'm willing to accept that a lot of hardware manufacturers initially didn't understand how to rewrite their drivers for vista/7/etc. but, they did eventually figure it out. and there's really no excuse for not doing so, other than driving the hardware market.

it's a very widespread problem.

https://www.google.ca/#q=vista+slow+file+transfer&safe=off

all those answers are dead wrong. it's the change in driver framework.

(specifically, chipset drivers)

windows 98 is no longer useable for a number of reasons (for me it's mostly sata drivers), but it would be way faster than xp, too.

generally speaking, the older an operating system is, the faster it is (when compared on the same hardware). of course, it's going to have less functionality. it may be less safe to access the internet with, in theory if not in practice.

this may seem counter-intuitive, but it shouldn't. making something more complex makes it work slower. what doesn't make any sense at all is the idea that upgrading your os will make your machine run faster.

this is a brief explanation.

"If we're only using two isolation rings, it's a bit unclear where device drivers should go-- the code that allows us to use our video cards, keyboards, mice, printers, and so forth. Do these drivers run in Kernel mode, for maximum performance, or do they run in User mode, for maximum stability? In Windows, at least, the answer is it depends. Device drivers can run in either user or kernel mode. Most drivers are shunted to the User side of the fence these days, with the notable exception of video card drivers, which need bare-knuckle Kernel mode performance. But even that is changing; in Windows Vista, video drivers are segmented into User and Kernel sections. Perhaps that's why gamers complain that Vista performs about 10 percent slower in games. "

https://blog.codinghorror.com/understanding-user-and-kernel-mode/

this explains a bit about the actual problem, without getting into it. i don't really want to spend any more time looking around about this. it's something that nobody seems to want to be published. i wouldn't know this if it weren't for reading internal support memos that said DON'T TELL THE CUSTOMERS THIS all over them.

but, as i've stated, this is irreversible on some hardware, without getting the manufacturers to update their drivers. what's happening is that the drivers are running in kernel mode, when microsoft wants them to run in user mode. this is producing huge amounts of security checks (by design) that slow the fuck out of the file operations. what intel needs to do is rewrite their drivers to run in user mode, like microsoft wants them to do. but they'd rather blame it on vista and tell people they have to upgrade their hardware, as microsoft blames it on the hardware manufacturers (at least internally).

https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/hardware/drivers/wdf/user-mode-driver-framework-frequently-asked-questions

the result is unusable hardware, on any windows version beyond and including vista.

but, the design changes in how vista uses drivers make xp faster (by design) anyways.

you can think of it as a trade-off between speed and security. xp is all speed, weaker security. vista is all security. now as the hardware has caught up, it's evened out (in terms of perception). but xp remains inherently waaaaay faster.

i mean, this isn't entirely microsoft's fault. it's as much on intel and others (my problem is with intel, i don't know how much others have caught up. initially, nvidia was dragging their feet on this a whole lot.). but, what the hardware people were saying at the time was that microsoft didn't give them enough warning. their engineers had to go through a lengthy retraining process. it's apparently not the kind of change you can gloss over in a weekend. the retraining required was substantial.

how much of that is an excuse, i don't know. but there's a reason that microsoft is widely acknowledged as incompetent. and the whole driver framework switch from xp to vista really demonstrates it.

even so, there's no excuse for this still being an issue, 8 years later.

just a note that if you're still geek enough to be using xp (and i and others have very good reasons that will not change soon, if ever - i'm more likely to move to linux than a post-vista windows system, because they're really legitimately awful on a lot of levels) - support ends on april 8th. so, it's a good time to track down all the updates. if, for example, you've been relying on an sp2 disc and then running windows update whenever you reinstall, you won't be able to do that anymore.

somebody will no doubt do this and torrent it, but trusting them is another issue. better to do it yourself while you can.

there are hardware issues that jumped up in vista that never got solved. the only solution is to buy specific hardware. i mean, if you're running a pre-built system then you probably won't notice any of this. but, as deep and valid as the criticisms of apple are, you're better off with a mac than a dell or an hp....

there's a lot of fixes that don't work floating around. i actually worked support for vista and i will authoritatively tell you that microsoft's response is to blame it on the hardware.

yet, the same hardware works flawlessly with xp.

so, there's conspiracy theories floating around that probably have a lot of truth to them.

around '06, microsoft started loading it's operating systems up with meaningless services that are designed solely to require faster hardware. there's almost no functional use for any of this, except to coerce people into upgrading their systems. that much is really not debatable.

but you can turn that off. that's minor.

one of the bigger problems is with copy operations, and while it may be true that this is at it's core a problem with user-mode drivers (that is to say that the hardware people never made drivers that work properly with the security aspects of windows, post-vista), there's still this lingering question of whether the thing is by design.

what that means is that people with certain types of fairly modern hardware are stuck with xp, unless they want to upgrade central aspects of their system or deal with cripplingly bad file operations.

that's a very good reason to either stick with xp, or move to linux. microsoft isn't going to make an exception - they're going to blame it on the hardware manufacturers. and the hardware manufacturers are going to tell you to buy new hardware - and you'd better do the research to make sure the drivers work right.

for me, the precise issue is my board. but, i mean, it's a perfectly good asus with sata connectors that can handle up to 16 gb of ram. there's no good reason to upgrade this board. intel just won't fix the chipset drivers to work properly with the way windows does, post-vista.

but if i stick with xp, then i get full use of the board.

worse, the truth is that xp just performs better at core os functions for the simple reason that it's doing less things in the process. getting the drivers to work right will speed up file operations, but it will never be as fast as xp on the same hardware. that would defy basic logic; it would require doing more things in less time. nor does a home user need to care about the security functions that slow everything down...

so, again, it goes back to the conspiracy theory: were the security updates really necessary and were they really buckling to pressure to idiot-proof the os, or are they just driving the hardware market by literally introducing billions of empty cycles?

i'm hoping microsoft decides to do a final platform update or something that pulls everything together. that'll make life easier. but, i suspect that they won't. so...

april 8th.

i'm surprised that i was able to log into my school account, but i was. i was looking for a way to download 7, home premium due to the extra key i have. the links that are all over the internet are all corrupt. i've tried four times, and have given up.

they did, however, have a 64-bit xp, with key. well, that's the best option, really.

i should be able to reimage a 32-bit version based on an old compaq corporate image from about the year 2003. it's all patched up, and ready to be ripped apart.

so, i will come out of this with a 32/64 all-xp dual boot that i will plan to slowly transfer over to 64. first, i need to focus on replacing the dead hd. and i still need to know if i can get the script off.

getting a few more sticks of ram will help act as an incentive to the switch.

probably not today, but almost certainly tomorrow.

the new la dispute record is a little bit boring

well, we can't be young and full of energy for our whole lives. aging isn't preventable or reversible. the interesting part is how we adjust.

for the lyricist, it makes sense to move into more reflective, almost hip-hop type territory. yet, la dispute's strength (musically) has always been it's ability to cause a ruckus as the poetry climaxes. the notes didn't matter, it was all atmosphere. they couldn't be separated. as the lyricist softens, the band behind him simply isn't pulling off the shift to sounding like rem very well. the level of melodic introspection simply doesn't match the level of lyrical depth....

sometimes, age brings us closer to our friends as experiences solidify shared ideals and the depth of interests strengthen. other times, we outgrow our friends and move on. the future, of course, remains to be seen. yet, i can't help but think that the band would rather be rocking a little harder, and i'd definitely suggest that the lyricist could benefit from musicians that have a deeper sense of melody.

it's not ironic. it's universal. it's life.

i just discovered presonus, though, which is the newish project by some of the guys from cubase. no dongles. no virtual dongles. that sounds like it's worth checking out.

i also want to check out reaper. the install is less than 10 mb. i'm a fan of light software...

...but in the end, it's going to be the same old. hopefully, i'm reinstalled by tomorrow.

bad iso.

ugh.

i won't do this a third time.

i'm going to end up mostly running 32 bit software. 32 bit software on a 64 bit os is a bad idea. i mean, it works, but it's pointless to upgrade if your key programs are 32 bit.

i was going to maintain a dual boot, anyways. but i'm thinking old xp - even broken - will still be dominant for the near future.

i built that machine - and this was many years ago now - to get up to 64 bit xp in time. expandable to 16 gb on the board was pretty advanced at the time, although i've never put in more than 4.

contrary to claims otherwise, moving to 64-bit from 32-bit with 4 gb of ram can get extra resources because 32-bit will inevitably ignore one of your sticks to fit the total (including the ram from your video card) under 4. it's not a max of 4 + bios + video + whatever else. it's 4. max. total. so, if i upgrade then i get another gb...

...but the reality is that setting the pagefile to 10 gb is just as good. the system may have to dump stuff to the drive here and there, but you never have to use more than 3 gb of ram all at the same time and if you did your system would crash because it couldn't.

i'm standing here all these years later and sort of laughing at myself. 64-bit is still a niche market. and i have to admit i don't see any real reason to upgrade, either. there's nothing i can think of that will work in 64 that doesn't in 32.

it's mostly the lack of evaluation software. there's lots of software i could buy. i can't afford to even think about that. so if i'm running everything in 32 anyways because it's all i can find then it's meaningless.

but it may be useful to have a non-broken system, from time to time.

yeah.

the problem with running 32 in 64 is that you're constantly converting it. what you're actually doing is running through a virtual machine. that's a net loss in speed (it may not be measurable, but it's a downgrade). considering the amount of drivers in use in sound production, that's bad news waiting to happen.

i just realized i installed the wrong version of 7 on my laptop. it's a home premium key on the back. i have a pro version i got from school, that resulted from a wipe on the recovery console. i can't swap the keys out without reinstalling, so i'm going to download home premium and try that for my 64 bit escapade, instead.

it's what i should have done in the first place.

(i could call them, but it's not worth it. they never really fixed the copy issues in vista.)

a google search suggests it's still a problem with 7. well, i'll find out.

i highly doubt there are 32-bit linux drivers for my mixer, let alone 64-bit ones. it's not feasible.

currently reminding myself why vista is the wost operating system ever...

i mean, i can handle a little bit of performance degradation from an optimized xp to an out-of-the-box vista, at least for now. but my windows 98 computer (currently running xp) can transfer files faster. it's preposterously slow.

i don't have the interest in stripping it down the way i stripped down xp, but i'm going to try to vlite it before i essentially give up and stick with what is a half-broken xp. the cd install is the broken part. the scripts i lost in the hard drive crash were what fixed them...

....and then this no good, third rate os has the nerve to reject my perfectly valid product key. fuckers...

you are SO getting formatted, windows vista.

i actually worked vista support for a while, believe it or not. i wrote some of those kb articles. it was a fun job with good pay, even. canadian labour can't compete with labour in the philippines, though. and alas...

i happen to have one of those cords from an old phone. i may end up trying this, after i swap out the chips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZBsf-5iiDE

i have a .10, though, not a .11. the bug that affects the .11s doesn't affect my model.

regardless, if i can't get it to read, trying to hack in through hyperterminal is a third thing i can try.

i'm in a back-up mood, obviously.

i've never really liked the idea of forcing people to pay for mp3s. i'd never pay for one, myself. nor is streaming the best option for traveling. but these drive type options weren't really available, yet, either, so i rationalized to myself that if you're going to listen to it when you're on the bus then you can bloody well pay me for it....

the technology is here, though, now, so i'm going to use it. it'll take some time to upload, but my first 23 releases (and my 26th) will be available here in mp3 by this time tomorrow. i'll keep this up-to-date as i continue forwards.

https://googledrive.com/host/0B5JfVE9XTZikMS1zek9ER0xSU1E/

yeah. i think if i just download everything from bandcamp, and repeat the process of categorizing all the cd-rs and dvd-rs in the box...

it's not worth the amount recovery is going to cost. sadly.

tools or bust. i'll find out in two weeks.

musically, what i've lost is xml files and transitional pieces. parts to build tracks up, but nothing completed.

for right now, i'd rather spend the cash on a good external backup drive.

on second thought, data recovery is much more expensive than i thought it would be.

there are two further troubleshooting steps i can try at the beginning of april, when i can get the right tools, but i think they're both low probability. i've resigned myself to needing somebody to open the drive up. that could take years to save up for...

obviously, i can't leave myself in suspended animation for that long. so, i'm going to take the opportunity to upgrade as much software as i can.

in the end, i'll have to decide if it's worth it. am i happy with a vanilla vista or a vanilla xp? do i really need to recover a few dozen source files for the sake of having them? or is the iso i'm about to reconstruct "good enough"?

i could see the drive sitting in a box for the next ten years gathering dust.

i absolutely must try those fixes, though. and if they don't work, and i'm happy with the replacement, i might get experimental about it.

of course, i don't have the right sized screwdriver.

...and i just spent my last $20 for the month on fruit and vegetables....

 powerless until april. guess i'll grab a book...

well, i guess i can try the store tomorrow. maybe they'll even let me use a screwdriver.

there's no use in installing on the backup drive, because it's going to be wiped out as soon as i get the data recovered. by the time i can use the os, i'll be writing over it.

i have four identical drives.

i'm going to swap out the circuit board, just to see. surely, i can't damage anything...

on second thought, if i hold it up really close to my ear, i *can* hear it clicking. it's just a super quiet drive. that's not what i wanted to learn, but at least it clarifies the problem. and i don't see why i can't get the info off...even if i have to save up for several months...

i'm hoping it's this easy.

i'm going to stumble out to the local store tomorrow and see if they'll just plug it in for me to check.

i wasn't able to try it from an e-sata 'cause i don't actually have the right cable.

i mean, the data is there. i should be able to get it off. it seems like the power is broken. it's not whirring, it's just not reading.

i need it to bypass the bios somehow to determine if it's the power or not. if it's the power, i'm going to have to pay somebody to replace it...

the only other thing i can think of is that the self-test is failing, and that's why it's neither whirring nor being read by the bios. still reduces to paying somebody to swap it out.

rap news 23

L00NGB00W
Gotta ask, are you guys affiliated with RT?

selvmordspilot
afaik they're based in australia. I'm afraid it's the other way around. RT has gotten their hands on some great journalists - that are worth featuring in the rap news. #powerfulabbymartin

deathtokoalas
they are recently, yes. check their facebook page.

L00NGB00W
I can see no evidence of this.

dangerouslytalented
They have some great journalists, and are not afraid to use them... But only if and when the facts are on the Kremlin's side. The problem is when the facts are not on the Kremlin's side, whoops journalism broke.

selvmordspilot
true, and it's still up to us to decide who to believe in these matters.

dangerouslytalented
... basically, if Russia has a vested interest in not telling the truth, then don't trust them.

deathtokoalas
all media has a motive, otherwise it wouldn't exist. i mean, it's not like rap news is void of bias, either, we just all like their biases. so, i dunno why people have this naive perception that some media is more trustworthy than other media. all media is full of lies; it would't exist if it wasn't. and the other response consequently gets it right. you have to be constantly skeptical....

dangerouslytalented
That completely depends on what the motives are, Take the Guardian for example, their business model relies on their integrity. If they sell that, then there is no more money. Ever.

L00NGB00W
Assuming that all media is lies borders on paranoia.  

One must take the stories with a grain of salt, and realize there is bias. 

The idea of the fifth estate is to report on the actions of those in power. With enough viewpoints, one can piece together the truth.

deathtokoalas
the guardian is one of the worst advocates of liberal imperialistic bullshit and general state apologism out there. their coverage of foreign conflicts often seems written by the british state department, if not by the cia. kind of like the new york times, actually, which markets itself as relying on integrity, but is basically state media. both cnn and fox claim to be "trusted" as well; generally, when "trust" is a part of your advertising campaigns, that's a flag not to trust you. to see how bad the guardian is, all you have to do is read the independent, who is a rare source in the western world. you can at least vaguely trust the general idea of what they're presenting. but, even they have certain lines that they need to be artistic in dancing around.

@L00NGB00W it's not paranoia, it's a type of hypothesis testing. the null hypothesis is that what they're telling me is bullshit. now, can enough evidence be generated to reject that null hypothesis?

i suppose scientists are just a bunch of schizophrenics, living in a delusional fantasy reality.

we need more scientific thinking, to increase the bar so to speak, not vague accusations of paranoia and more pandering to rupert murdoch.

L00NGB00W
There you go. Case in point.  

I'm not pandering to Rupert Murdoch, he manipulates the news. <_<  

Assuming everything is a conspiracy is not a null hypothesis. Even if it were... One true news article would debunk said hypothesis.  

Weigh each story on an individual basis. And skeptically if it is merited.  

Pretty sure I am the one thinking scientifically here.

deathtokoalas
you don't know what science is, clearly.

this is painful: "Assuming everything is a conspiracy is not a null hypothesis. Even if it were... One true news article would debunk said hypothesis."

and i'm just going to request that you stop, educate yourself and come back.

L00NGB00W
Ugh.  

The truth is painful sometimes. ^_^  

I will stop now. But I will not return.   

It's not like I have anything to gain from this conversation, other than enlightening someone.  

Good day to you. ;)

deathtokoalas
can somebody other than me explain what a null hypothesis is and why the statement that it can be contradicted with a single counter-example is hilariously misinformed?

L00NGB00W
Sure, I'll explain it to you with an example. ;)  

Hypothesis: Squirrels are eating my strawberries.
Null Hypothesis: Squirrels are not eating my strawberries.  

Experiment: Set up a camera to see what is eating my strawberries...

Result: squirrels.  

Hence, the Null hypothesis is contradicted.  

LOGIC  

You're welcome. ;)

deathtokoalas
that's right. now, what happens when you apply that to the question of whether media coverage is accurate or not?

(note that i'm being generous for brevity, there's no use in getting picky about the language given that the discussion is circling around an idea)

this is all getting to the point that if you want to approach the question of media truth with a scientific perspective, you begin by assuming falsity and then generate evidence otherwise. that doesn't mean you should be calculating p-values to analyze the evening news and it doesn't mean you need to walk around with a tinfoil hat on, literally or figuratively. it's just a rule of thumb, in context. one could summarize it with the word skepticism.

...and to clear up that loose end (if it's not clear), suggesting that finding one "counter-example" (which in this case would be an honest newscast, and these do certainly exist) proves that all media is correct is one of those classical logical fallacies. i'm pretty stingy with my likes, but i'll +1 the first person that points it out.

L00NGB00W
Same. But your original statement was that 'all media is biased', Not whether 'all media is accurate'. They're rather different statements.

With the former, finding one contradiction invalidates the Null hypothesis.

With the latter, all media would have to be true to falsify the null. Which it isn't.

Perhaps I'm just  being picky.

deathtokoalas
yeah, you very much misunderstood what i said. the statement "all media is full of lies" is not the same thing as "all media is solely lies". and if you could find me a media source that's never lied, i'd be interested in hearing what it is. further, you couldn't do a meaningful test on the question of "is all media solely lies?" because you're not dealing with a specific enough question. i mean, sure, a counter-example would demonstrate it false, but it's an absurd statement to begin with. hypothesis testing has to work in a more specific context than that. i thought that was obvious, but apparently not.

it's again a basic fallacy. x is in Y does not meant Y only consists of x.

what you could do, i suppose, is generate a data set of broadcasts from a single news source and then ask "does this specific news source lie?". but that's about as broad as the method allows for (and perhaps badly (but, with some sources, perhaps reasonably - it's a question) sets all reporters as equivalent), and is something different altogether.

i was working on the assumption of analyzing claims on a statement-by-statement basis by beginning with the perspective that, because all media is full of lies, skepticism is perpetually required.

i couldn't imagine anybody not realizing that.

dangerouslytalented
There are two classes: "trust but verify", and "these guys are full of horseshit, if I want to know about this story, I am going to go somewhere else for the primary source".

L00NGB00W
No I did not, but I'm tired of arguing with you. 

"It's an absurd statement to begin with."  

Yes. Precisely. Some reporting is honest and accurate, some isn't.  

Good day.

deathtokoalas
well, it works out to the same thing in the end. you're presenting a categorization of required rigour, if anything. i think it's largely illusory, and reduces to your own biases. one person will put fox in a and democracy now in b, and the other will flip them around. in the end, you're doing your homework, either way. that's the important part.

personally, i think it's more worthwhile to figure out what the biases are so that they can be actively countered. this whole crimea thing has actually been useful, as it's brought some closet communists out (and hopelessly misguided ones, given that russia is currently the most right-wing of any major country, including the united states. one might even call them useful idiots.).

uploading interplanetary isomorphism to youtube

this one is done, done, done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbNeNaff53Y

uploading symphony 8 to youtube

i may remaster this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHGBbID_Ckc

uploading symphony 7 to youtube

this was initially written for inclusion in a project entitled 'the cynicide collaboration', which was created on the initiative of jon and included myself on bass and sean on vocals. it was supposed to be a straight ahead alternative rock song, which was the style of that act, and you can hear the remnants of that within the song structure. that project never got off of the ground, so the track was moved to it's successor project: rabit iz wolf, which consisted of just myself and sean. a 25+ minute version exists with sean on vocals, but we eventually agreed that it was not a rabit iz wolf song but one of my own projects with sean on vocals (rabit was moving towards a psychedelic folk feel, while this track moves into industrial and noisy ambience). rabit didn't break up so much as it faded away; after some time, i decided that i wanted to replace the vocals, which were heavily modified and came off as sort of awkward. they were replaced with samples, and the track was turned into a dark, satirical attack on everything from the mainstream media's approach to the 9/11 attacks to internet dating sites and what would eventually turn into sites like facebook. in time, i grew tired of explaining the message to people who completely misinterpreted it and simply removed the samples, leaving a 25 minute noise-rock catastrophe that sounds roughly something like a collaboration between trent reznor, sonic youth and boredoms and that i've labelled as my fourth symphony.

this was written in 2001, constructed/composed/recorded in roughly it's current form in 2002, remixed in 2003, reassembled in 2007 and remastered in 2009. i think i'm finally done with it...

that does, however, leave multiple existing versions of the track. they will all be dumped onto bandcamp in the near future. for now, there is only this one:



i'm also going to point out that the idea of a "trepanation nation" has been picked up recently by some metal bands. i'm not a fan of metal, and doubt i had much influence on their adoption of the concept. however, i did think it up *first* and will not take kindly to suggestions otherwise. it may be coincidence, but they have to eat that, not me. sorry. my primary influences at the time were as mentioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=658axrUn-7w

uploading symphony 6 to youtube

this came out of a two-person psychedelic folk project i was working in over late 2001 and into mid 2002. we had brainstormed the idea of a piece that slowly built itself up, like a wave, and that had sporadic pieces of poetry interspersed as it did so. of the two of us, i was the musician, and he was the poet; i generally produced the music by myself. however, my vision of the track proved to be much larger than his, to the point that the two ideas could not be effectively reconciled given the deficit of technology available to us (i simply couldn't find a way to get enough resources to condense the track to under ten minutes). that left me with this seventy minute ambient piece that has mostly stayed hidden in my closet over the last twelve years.

this is very much process music. it's built on 36 distinct loops of identical length (just under 57 seconds) that assemble the collage up on a loop by loop basis, hitting it's full point only in the 35th loop. the 36th loop does not fit into any of the patterns that define the first 35, but is nonetheless the climax of the piece. this is followed by a disassembling process that is precisely the reverse of the assembling process.

as process music, this is mostly meant as background music. also, headphones help substantially.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQdW5_lKtUY

i've stated before that i have the mind of a 70 year-old woman in the body of a 12 year-old girl. but i was sort of joking.

it's not that strange for people to skip their childhood. childhood is really a social construction in the first place. the truth is it's the parents that won't let go of the innocence; in reality, most of the world is working at ten and reproducing at fifteen. keeping young people juvenile throughout their teens and even into their twenties requires huge amounts of biological and psychological suppression. rather than saying "i skipped childhood", the better idea might be "i escaped the christian cult's attempt to stunt my development to uphold their warped perceptions of purity".

but, i don't expect white liberals to lose their fantasy reality any time soon.

so, skipping childhood is common and normal; it's the idea of childhood that is perverted. but, skipping adulthood is really bizarre.

i mean skipping adulthood as a phase of life, rather than having any cultural affinity with people twice my age. the entire set of goals just seemed pointless to me. property? what for? vehicles? i'd prefer something more ecological. job? status? you know you're going to die, right? what's the point? partner? i prefer my independence and i need to spend most of my time alone, anyways - it's impossible for me to maintain a relationship with the need for that much alone time. children? i'd rather be paraded through downtown by my entrails than become a slave to my offspring, thank you.

it was the goals of retirement that appealed to me directly from childhood: time to read, a space to grow a garden and maybe a pet (at this point, though, i think pets are as much enslavement as children).

i mean, we have some pretty bizarre ideas of what an adult is in our society. the definition of an adult in our society is identical to that of a slave. then, we associate adulthood with freedom. 'cause freedom and slavery are the same thing, here.

but to just skip the entire phase of existence - the dominant phase, the defining phase - is something i'm having a hard time understanding in myself, even as it is crystal clear to me that it is true.

click.
hope.
fail.
groan.

repeat.

i'm getting a rough directory structure, but almost all the actual data is garbled. that's useful in triggering my memory in reconstructing things, at least.

i've decided on the following plan:

1) finish trying to recover as much as i can.
2) back up everything else i might want to back up.
3) while i'm waiting to see if i can recover, upload some things that are already complete. that is, jump ahead.
4) make further decisions based on what i can recover.

so, there should be some new (old) tracks up in the next few days, after all.

i have these strange straight edge behavioural remnants that i've never really gotten over.

i won't take anything for headaches, ever. not aspirin, not acetaminophen, not ibuprofen and certainly not codeine. i'll get moderately intense migraines, too: blurred vision, vomiting.

i'll actually mostly just ignore it.

"j, you don't look so good".
"yeah, i'm having a migraine."
"you look like you need some help."
"nah."
"i really think..."
"i'm fine."

in truth, i'm in horrific pain, but it's the kind of pain you get used to. i mean, the only other way to deal with it is to go fall asleep somewhere dark, and that's not always an option.

i'm glad it's an option right now, though, because i'm still refusing myself aspirin.

some bad news with my hard drive, if you follow the comments.

i'm kicking myself for not backing up when i had the opportunity. in fact, i was actually going to do it right at the very moment i discovered the last blue screen. just a few hours too late. ugh. *bashes head against wall*.

i've had a little time to think about it. there's an off chance that i may be able to recover parts or all of the install partition because i was moving a lot of files around from drive to drive. if i can do that, i can reinstall the machine, and i will.

if i can't, i'm not sure if i'm going to let it sit and hope i can recover the data by bringing it to a store, maybe read a bit instead, or if i'd rather upgrade to 64 bit vista (which is what i have sitting around). see, it's going to take probably close to a week to get it up and running. given that reality, waiting might be a better plan.

pretty depressed about it, though. that's pretty much everything i've done since i moved here - as well as the culmination of eight years worth of scripting - that is possibly just kablooey.

too late to recover. garbled characters. ugh...

found some fragments.....

i'm certainly not going to bother rescripting it. that took months. it's not worth it.

well, now that i'm forced to, i'm going to try and upgrade to 64 bit. all my scripts were for a 32 bit xp. some of the drivers have updated over the last several years, too, which was the other problem.

maybe it'll help offset the bloat.

scripted, that machine was super fast. it's only a 3.6 dual core, but it's way faster than this brand new five core hp laptop bogged down by windows 7. i was proud of that...

and, as mentioned, it was supposed to be modular. as depressed as i am right now, i'm really mad at myself for not backing it up yesterday afternoon. i would merely be annoyed right now, had i done that.

*sigh*.

in my defense, it wouldn't have been easy to back this stuff up. the script partition was 40 gb of software, the temp partition was 20 gb of iso files and avis.

further, most of my script partition is backed up in the storage drive, so i haven't lost much actual software. it's the script i lost, but i suspect i may have something close to it somewhere. i couldn't have backed up that much data onto a disc. and the reason it isn't imaged onto a series of ten or fifteen dvds is that i liked the flexibility of a script. who wants to go through 20 dvds every month?

...and the temp drive was just that. it was sitting there awaiting back-up to an external hd, once i got one big enough to hold all my music files. i was going to put that drive away somewhere.

further, everything that was on the temp drive is backed up across a dozen dvds - *except* the videos (some of which are on this laptop) and the remastered or modified files, which are all up at bandcamp. i can redo this, minus a handful of minor differences that if lost are lost. but, dammit...

no. that drive's dead.

but i'm going to have to let it sit until april, anyways. maybe somebody at a data recovery shop will be able to get what i want out of it.

or maybe that's long enough to let it think it's back at the factory. that's ultimately what i think happened to the magically reworking laptop.

until then, i'm going to have to just keep going. i have one more trick to try - maybe it'll read through an external sata in. if not, i'm going to wait until i see if i can recover the data before i start downloading gigs of wave files from bandcamp.

here's some hope: windows knows there's a disc plugged in. it says it's "unknown", but it at least knows it's there. that's more than the bios can say. so, i'm going to throw on a temp install and see if it reads it...

i had a problem with my laptop's hard drive last month that in the end turned out to be a corrupted mbr. regarding the laptop, it was minor in the end cause....just reformat and that's that. but i cannot format this drive under any circumstance. and i even don't care about the hardware. it's almost ten years old. i don't think 250 gb drives are even on the market anymore.

it's doing something very strange that is both worrying me and giving me some hope. it's only reading the empty drive if the failing one is not plugged in. i mean at a bios stage. i've reset the cmos and it's not helping.

so i'm going to start swapping cords around. i don't see why plugging in the failing hard drive should stop me from reading a functional one.

if it's a board problem, that's a bigger issue. but it might mean i can get the info off. which is what's important. i can replace a dead drive relatively easily. i can't replace some of what's on it without a great deal of effort.

i spoke too soon. the drive is not reading at all. i should have taken the data off while i had the chance.

the c: partition is designed to be throwaway. there are two smaller partitions that are not. one is an install partition with reinstall scripts. the other is a temporary partition that currently holds all of my temporary recording material.

i think i can reconstruct the last one, although it will be a lot of work. that's the most important, by far. i can't reinstall the machine as it is without the second, but i can get around that.

it could conceivably cost me a month. so i'm hoping i can get the data off somehow.

lesson learned: a chkdsk may stop a hard drive from whirring, but it doesn't mean it's fixed it. and i should have worried about it.

grargh.

so, i'm going quiet here *again* for the foreseeable future. *sigh*.

that was a scare. hard drive started whirring on me....

it would have mostly been an annoyance. i built the pc to be modular. 1 tb total memory, over four 250 gb hard drives. rather than use something like raid, i've just left one empty. if a drive begins to die, and this hasn't happened yet, the plan is just to copy it over to the empty drive, unplug it and replace it. worst case, i might have to reinstall, but the process is automated.

as it is, a chkdsk stopped the whir and i'm not going to worry myself about it. but i blew the morning on that...

well, i got the stuff printed on monday, then spent 6 hours walking on tuesday to finish up most necessary spring shopping, did spring cleaning (and much sleeping) on wednesday in the midst of a horrific blizzard and should get a start on the track today, after i do my taxes, duck student loan repayments for another six months and fill out some other necessary paperwork.

don't get me wrong. i appreciate the six hundred some dollars i'm getting back from rent. it's almost a month of rent. in theory, that's substantial.

but, if the government thinks it's doing me or the economy a favour by dividing it by twelve and giving me $50/month for the year, it's really sadly mistaken. what i'd like to do is spend the money on furniture. bookshelves and tables, specifically. at $50 a month, it's going to take all year to do something i'd rather do quickly. it's going to mean i'm going to have to save the money up over the course of a few months and probably go shopping every two months or so with roughly $100.

....except that it's a virtual certainty that i'm not going to do that. instead, i'm going to waste it on nothing of any importance, and mostly on items that are not taxable due to repressive laws.

i'm well aware that the idea is to prevent low income people from wasting it on drugs, or beer and popcorn, but whomever thought that up has obviously never been low income or done drugs, or drank beer and ate popcorn. there's not much chance i'm going to spend $650 all at once. that would be pretty much smoking myself stupid. however, there's a pretty good chance i'm going to pitter away what is more or less smoke money, at $50/month. the way to stop me from pissing it away is to give it to me all at once so i can spend it; the way to have me waste it is to give it to me in monthly installments that aren't enough to buy anything with.

as policy, it's just not very intelligently thought through.

i'm actually considering not claiming the energy credit, so the refund is under $360 and it just comes in in one chunk.

now, that's this year, when i just moved into a new place.

next year, $650 might buy me some gear if it comes in at once. if i played video games (i don't) it might have bought a new system, rather than a new game for an old one every month.

some people could use it to pay down credit card debts. $50/month just keeps them on the interest paying hamster wheel. useless.

...all to try and combat the imaginary problem of people blowing their tax returns on beer by budgeting them monthly beer money instead....

the other options are both more economically useful and more functionally useful.

of course if i was a real economist, i'd say something about investing it somewhere. which is probably true of a small number of people. you'd think that would be what they'd want.

but what i'm irked about is the idea that giving me a small amount will help me spend it more responsibly, because i'm too irresponsible to spend a lump sum. i'll even concede that i'm irresponsible, but they've got the whole thing backwards.

at least give me the choice how to adjust to my inherent irresponsibility, rather than trying to enforce a model of fiscal responsibility on me that is alien to what i know my nature is.

that sort of forced fiscal planning always fails.

you ever helped a bug get from a to b, or maybe moved it out of the sink because you're doing the dishes (but didn't want to kill it because it's a beneficial insect) by coercing it on to a spoon and then carrying the spoon across to a crack in the floor?

might that insect think it just had an experience with god, or perhaps was abducted by an air monster?

nah...

i'm going to hang on to them; used tires aren't particularly hard to find for free, and there's enough rubber there for a few tries.

why not try it? nothing to lose.

i wonder if it's possible to just buy a sheet of rubber and cut it up with a drywall knife.

yeah. that should be possible. hrmmn.

actually, you know what? i bought some goo. i'm going to see if i can hack something together.

that's too big for tape

the one on the other side is a little smaller, but the same basic problem.

if i actually *could* scan it and feed it into a printer that could print out the right size...

those shoes were actually split right down the sole, both feet. if somebody told me that a nefarious shoe vandal broke in overnight and used a machete to slice right through the bottom, i'd agree it was a plausible explanation of the state the shoes are in, if a little less credulous an explanation regarding the path of them getting there.

i hadn't checked the bottom until now. well, i could see holes on the front, so i didn't have to get that far to come to the conclusion that the shoes have holes. the rubber is worn through around the places the sole is cut, creating what is almost a "sinkhole" kind of effect.

just literally worn out.

....meaning i'd need more than epoxy or shoe goo to fix these things. i'd need plastic and rubber. and a 3-d printer might be useful. really, it would cost less in both labour and currency to replace them. they're dead.

so, they are now drying in the sink, until i can get them to a proper disposal centre along with a bunch of electronics and other things i've put aside. they were a pair of gravis skate shoes that lasted close to five years, which is not bad at all considering how much walking i do.

nothing to be done about that.

you should be able to see the slice through the material.

i'm actually surprised i couldn't feel this, except for the wet.

6 hour walk.

dead feet. tender calves.

...but a few tasks completed.

for a small city, it is about as scattered as possible. i want to say it's badly planned, and it is, especially the lack of sidewalks, but it's more like it's planned as a giant suburb of detroit rather than a city of it's own.

so, the necessity of fixing my bike is quite apparent.

one of the things i needed to get was some water resistant spray for some shoes. there's plenty of options, but they're all at least an hour walk one way or the other. how can that be? i'm not sure, but i'm going to take a guess....

see, if i walk down the street that comprises the business district closest to me, it's pretty sketchy. there are some successful businesses, and some very old ones. but a lot of the storefronts are either boarded up or for rent.

could these have previously been somewhere to get shoe spray? it's a reasonable deduction, i think.

for twice the price that it's sold at walmart.

so, i'm going to hypothesize that windsor is in that middle phase where the big box stores have decimated local businesses and they haven't moved into the core yet.

i have to think that there will eventually be a mall built downtown. right now, it's just strip malls a km or two in either direction and a half dead city in the core.

which is why the rent is cheap.

which is why i'm here...

with the spray specifically, i think there's a few places around here i could try and i'd guess at least one would stock it. it's an example of limited actual applicability. i wouldn't have gone as far as i did just for that, and probably wouldn't have actually had to. any kind of electronics would be a better example.

freakishly small feet strike again.

a few months ago, i bought a pair of little girl's rainboots because they fit and they were only $6. not sized.

my shoes are demoed to the point that walking on moist ground produces wet socks, so i took a walk around. i'll get some goo later and save them for emergency; i just wanted to see if i could get something cheap, as that's easier. it turns out i'm a children's size 6, and just about any pair of adult shoes is literally not made in my size.

seriously. i spent an hour in the adult section looking for something small enough, before i walked over to the kid's aisle...

i actually can't remember the last time i bought a pair of sneakers. for years, i've been inheriting shoes from my sister, who has a habit of ending up with shoes that are too small, somehow. i don't ask questions, i just take the shoes. but it means i'm not sizing my feet. the ones she gives me are usually a tad big, but i deal with it.

well, now i know. and there's an upside to it, as kids shoes seem to be cheaper...

the ones i picked up were in a weird store a few blocks down that is something like a cross between a dollar store and a kmart. everything in the place is cheap. they actually had a two-for-one sale, which is the only reason i bothered. even if they are gone at the end of the year, two pairs of shoes for $15 is something i can deal with in the short run.

i think i'll make 'em last longer, though. i've been known to wear $10 shoes for three or four years - until they develop holes, basically.

with stuff like shoes, i'm actually convinced it all more or less comes off the same assembly line. $10 walmart shoes and $150 nike shoes are made by the same children in asia, they just have different labels stamped on them. i don't see any reason to pay more than the least amount possible for it.

it's less that the inexpensive shoes aren't cheap and more that the expensive ones are just as cheap and preposterously priced.

the handful of counter-examples seem to mostly be skateboarding shoes, which are built differently because there's a higher wear level. i have tended to gravitate towards them for that reason.

it actually seems to be the salt that finally ate through a part of the pair i just replaced. i'm thinking if i clean them up, then patch them with the rest of the epoxy i have left that should extend their life. but i needed something with better grip, anyways.

for me, a big part of "urban living" is walking everywhere. this isn't currently the best city for that lifestyle, which just puts extra stress on the shoes. when you're regularly walking five or more km, it doesn't matter what the label on your shoes is - they're going to fall apart. so, you'd might as well try and strengthen them.

i think with the salted through ones, the epoxy will actually make them stronger.

see, this is what i mean. if you analyze this part, it's pretty simple. just two arpeggiated chords. but it somehow got saved in this fucking mess that's almost illegible.

that, by the way, is unregistered win 9x software. save your binaries, kids.

i should probably go looking for a freeware replacement, it's just that the format on nwc is really unique and awesomely simple.

i'm not sure one really exists...

so, that's 18 1-3 page files to print at the library tomorrow. and then i'll be on to recording the parts.

something i'm remembering is that a lot of the tracks got split into bass/treble clefs as a part of the process that made them illegible. so there's actually less parts that that. i'll leave some split, recombine others. easier if i just print all possible combinations and figure it out after.

something else i'm going to need to do is figure out just how bad my acoustic is. it got warped on a cross country trip ten years ago and sounds atrocious. may have to use an acoustic simulator. or even look for something cheap on kijiji.

hopefully it's at least playable.