Mar 30 2006
It looks good!
I have some minor quibbles but not enough to make it worthwhile recreating the WinWord master file so I can change it.
However, the resolution on the cover art is problematic and I will have to rework it. 
With the crash, this means completely recreating the cover from scratch … what a PITA!
This means that the hardcover can go on public sale as soon as I finish the new cover and get it uploaded.
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Mar 26 2006
“Ye saga continues” Mainly, it continues to suck!
Got the laptop HDD from internex.CH on Friday. Installed it in my Dell Latitude CXs H500XT on Saturday. Ran diagnostics and everything except my batt is fine. The batt’s had a dead cell since before I got here. The problem there is that replacement batts are nowhere to be found. Well, the batt now has two dead cells which is not enough juice to keep the BIOS CMOS charged and it went flat this last week. I should have kept it plugged in.
After the diagnostics run (booted off floppy) I rebooted to get to the setup screen. Once it got there it stopped responding to the keyboard, period. I can’t change out of the default BIOS settings and that means that I can’t get it to boot from the Win2KAS CDROM (Dell Tech support says that this indicates that the MoBo is shot). It gets better because I can’t boot from floppy because I can’t have the FDD installed at the same time as the CDROM, they use the same port.
However, I did manage to find a used identical laptop, missing some critical pieces, for 50USD. I have the missing critical pieces and they are fine. What this’ll give me are the missing pieces that I need to get mine working again. It’s on Ebay and I placed a bid on it.
The downside is that once it gets here I have about a two day major laptop tech surgery session ahead of me. I’ve already reserved the dining table for the job.
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Mar 23 2006
Item 1 is the single biggest argument for running Win2K Domain Controllers. We have an internal Domain, CASELLE, with it’s own Top Level DNS and all. What I also setup was Roaming Profiles with the master on the PDC, a third computer with a 30GB HDD, running a K6/200 on 128MB of RAM. Not a really fast box but it’s a decent PDC and serves our web pages, both external and Internal. It’s a good use for older hardware.
Long story short …
I will explicitly note the relative lack of brain damage/tinker-factor doing any sort of decent networking with Windows Servers v Linux. If you don’t believe me then set up Linux as a Domain Controller or even emulate just half of what a Win2KAS does (You won’t get that done anytime this year but even if it only takes a month, you’ve already lost the bet). There is a world of difference.
I’m still hurting from the massive personal data loss, my email wasn’t recoverable although I am now a big believer in Plaxo (they saved my Contacts, yet a third time).
Another lesson learnt, don’t trust CDs! Longevity is an issue and it’s irregular. What you can read today is junk tomorrow. However, another CD from the same batch may last 10 years. Until they have some standards and Quality controls then you simply can’t trust them for long-term storage of backups.
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Mar 22 2006
“The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science
collapses on three major grounds: the creationists’ need to invoke
miracles in order to compress the events of the earth’s history into
the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to
abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all
fossils are products of Noah’s flood; and their reliance upon distortion,
misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the
ideas of their opponents.”
– Stephen Jay Gould, “The Verdict on Creationism”,
The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186
–
Goshawk.Caselle:~
Wed Mar 22 22:18:31 [-bash:root:114]#>
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Mar 21 2006
Wasn’t there a computer game where a cute little frog hopped from one lilly pad to the another as his lilly pad got yanked out from under him? Eventually he ran out of lilly pads and got drowned. Our data was that little frog. He hopped from one data pad to the other until he ran out of data pads and he drowned as the last one went under.
In reference to this we had anohter HDD go south the next morning (yesterday).
Just when I thought evrything was bad, it got worse.
I managed to have at least backup on my pendrive of up to two weeks ago. I quickly loaded them onto
This turned into a 100% dataloss. Everything I had done, code literature, SQL schemas, Net drawings, web graphics, everything … gone!
The good news is that other than the data loss, it isn’t costing much money and both failed drives are eligible for warranty RMA. The data is toast and and both drives are with unrecoverable media failures.
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Mar 19 2006
Bad things happened yesterday. Some of you may have noticed that I was been MIA for the past week or so. I have been busy. I put 25000 words toward the “Book of Susan:Bindings” fixed the artwork on the TFW:Djinn book and got started on the technical book. I also upgraded my CV and other things. In total, 50-60K words of work completely lost plus all the new artwork and the latest six versions of the book in production (Lulu has current production PDFs, I lost the WinWord masters).
I didn’t have the last two weeks backed up because my pendrive, and the PDC, both ran out of space, and SG was hammering Eagle with AdventureQuest. That and I was too busy writing to stop and fix the backup issues. Murphy noted the opportunity and …
Then disaster struck. Yesterday, about noon, I got BSODed. Wibn2Kas doesn’t BSOD unless there is something seriously wrong with the hardware. The BSOD indicated an unrecoverable error in atapi.sys. This is the driver of the IDE HDD system. Some reasonably rapid diagnosing later had the Hitachi DFT running from the last time this happened. It showed bad sectors but the SMART said it was okay, then. Okay, I start remapping sector (not easy with NTFS) until I ran across failed LBAs in the systems portion of the partition and the sector remapper refused to touch them.
Somewhere in there SMART decided to agree that the HDD was bad and then DFT refused to work on the drive anymore. The real problem is that it won’t boot anymore so I can’t look at it.
We’ve decided to get an new 60GB, 7200 RPM TravelStar (the broken one is a 40GB 4200 RPM TravelStar), and an external USB HDD case. I can install Win2K on the new internal HDD and then try to recover the data from the old HDD before I send it in for RMA. I’m hoping that it will still work as a data drive.
When the old HDD comes back it will be installed on my Linux box, using appropriate adapter rails and connectors, and my Linux box will go grom 6.5GB to 40GB, giving me two servers with 40GB each (K6-200 w/ >128MB RAM) and we can figure out where to go from there.
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Mar 10 2006
In the beginning there was the creator who shall remain nameless because there is only one. She lived outside of space and time as we know it.
Then she gave birth to the universe in a violent explosion of energy, which created the twenty-three known dimensions of our universe, as well as subspace.
In this expanding universe of energy she built a harp of an infinite number of strings and she plucked all of them.
Each one vibrated at a very complex rate and they became a symphony and that symphony was called “hydrogen” the first matter.
Not being stretched upon a frame, these vibrating strings began to wind around each other and so the matter coagulated to form the first stars.
The vibrating strings rubbed each other and cut each other into segments, each vibrating at a different rate. These are the various elements and the process was called fusion.
These early stars burned hot with the energy of youth, lo they burnt out their fuel early and collapsed into novae and scattered the new strings everywhere. So ended the first generation.
The shock waves from the explosions caused new stars to precipitate and coagulate around the pieces of the heavy broken strings spewed out by the first stars. And the cycle was repeated once more. So went the second and third generations of stars.
But the fourth generation was made of heavier stars filled with many bits of cut strings. They burned slower and steadier and they had children that they kept warm. The universe was now filled with many different lengths of string, all of them still vibrating with the energy of the Nameless Creator. We call these strings iron, copper, aluminum, uranium and one hundred ninety seven other elemental names.
One of these fourth generation star systems began as the usual diversified cloud of matter that began to coagulate. The central portion of this cloud began to coalesce and form a star. The star was to become Sol.
This was the begining of all things that matter to us.
When that star finally ignited it was the beginning of the Age of Light, in the dust cloud surrounding the new star, life was born; it evolved and eventually became the entities you know as Angels.
Angels were powerful and proud, they drew as sustenance, the very energies of Sol. Their world was the entire hot coagulating nebula that was to become the Solar System. They lived a long time in this state, knowing only their elemental form. Their magic was the magic of the stars, the power of light and energy, the mind over matter.
They wanted for nothing so they built nothing.
As the dust cloud coalesced into planets the Angels move into the star itself while the planets are still molten globs, then begins the Age of Fire.
On one of those molten globs, a new life form evolved into Djinn and their magic was the magic of fire, the stuff of reality, for they could alter the very fabric of the universe and they drew sustenance from the very heat of their cradle. They could touch the fundamental strings of which matter is made and change them.
The Angels saw Djinn as younger brothers and servants, something that they could control. They enslaved the Djinn for millions of years. The magic of the Angels made anyone love them, whether they wanted to or not.
Thus was the birth and enslavement of the Djinn.
As these globs cooled and became solid globes then began the Age of Earth and this new age came to pass with the Djinn in bondage to the Angels.
The Djinn had no choice but to be contented servants of their masters. The power of the Angels could not be broken and the Creator had pity on them for this is not what she had intended.
She created an Avatar, a Marid Djinni, and taught that avatar the secrets of the Orbs, with instructions to teach all Djinn how to make Orbs and thus it came to pass for it maginfied a Djinn’s abilities three-fold.
And the Angels saw that the Orbs were good even if only the Djinn could use them for it made the Djinn more capable of doing their work.
Little did that Avatar know that the Orbs weakened the love spell of the Angels the more that they were used and slowly the Djinn stopped loving the Angels.
When it came time for that avatar to pass, the Creator invited him to live in the Orbs and become the first Orb Sprit.
Lo and he did so and over time he was given leave to invite others into his new realm, where they could live forever in service to the Creator.
The Angels did not know of this and the Creator forbade the Orb Spirits from revealing themselves to the living and those who had passed so appeared to have died and the Angels paid them no heed, as a Djinn was known to have only a third the lifespan of an Angel.
In 50 millennia cycles of the Earth, the spell wore off enough for Djinn to learn what has been do to them they became angry and they refused to do any more work for the Angels.
Thus we have the revolt of the Djinn. The Angels were still more powerful than any Djinn and there were multitudes more of them and the Djinn were hounded unmercifully for Angels do not know mercy and show no mercy for their former slaves.
The Angels tried mightily to re-enslave the Djinn and they could not succeed for the Djinn had learned to become immune to the angelic love spell.
This vexed the Angels greatly and they strove to eliminate the Djinn whereever they could find them for they must destroy what they could not control.
And they found a way to reduce the output of the sun itself and lo, they brought a chill upon the Earth and the Seas did grow cold and the glaciers came when there hadn’t been any before and as the monsters of that age died from the cold so too would the Djinn have died as another age of ice came upon the Earth.
And the Djinn found themselves hard pressed so and much put upon and they were at their wits end and once more the Creator took pity on them.
She made them another avatar and this one she taught the secrets of alternate universes so that the Djinna could teach the others and the Djinn embarked on the project.
They labored in secret long and hard. The first one destroyed itself in firey implosion as did the next two, each a sacrifice to their knowlege for building the next one. Then came those that exploded into novae, almost destroying their containers, and there were two of those.
Finally there was one that survived its instantiation but the details were wrong and the new world was far too cold, a ball of frozen ice, even the atmosphere was frozen. The next was too hot to maintain a livable atmosphere and yet too cold to support their elemental form. Then there was one that was too hot and dry for their Djinn forms and the latest was only slightly warmer than the Earth but it was a jungle planet.
But they had no more time to try yet again and they prepared the latest result for habitation and they cast mighty spells, aided by the Orb Spirits, to ward the Kaf, which means nine in the language of the Djinn, against angelic attack.
As they worked on their secret project the Angels came at them in a mighty effort, to eliminate the last of the Djinn and so it was that under duress of a mighty battle that the Djinn move their families into the Kaf. There were many tales of glory, suffering, and success and the Mirandir Marid gained a permanent place of honor with their valor and sacrifice to protect the last of those to enter the Kaf.
The Angels did smite mightly in their vexation and their anger for they could not abide a being that was free of spirit but to no avail for the Kaf was well wrought and invincible to angelic force and the Creator herself seemed to stand at the gates of the Kaf and in the spirits of the Guardian Djinn and the Kaf remained safe.
And it became so that the new home of the Djinn was in the Kaf and they visited the Earth form time to time but the Angels never forgot the Djinn and smote them at every opportunity.
Thus was the Djinn Rebellion successful.
And it came to pass that Ariel, Gabriel, and Boreal became vexed with the world and with the Creator for they considered her to have become inattentive to the needs of Angels and that they sorely missed their former Djinn servants. They formed a Great Bonded One and with various powerful magics, made themselves immortal and demanded that they be worshiped by their fellows as the one true God of the universe.
But there was one, a close friend named Lucifer, the Bringer of Light, who was a follower of the real Creator and he saw that their aura did not match that of the signature of the universe and he denounced them as liars.
He spoke with other Angels and convinced a full third of them to his cause and together with Lilith, Jezabel, and Baphomet formed the Great Bonded one Satan and made war on Angelic God | God and his Elohim.
And Angelic God | God’s multitudes told on Satan and his forces and Satan was forced to retreat so sorely was he pressed and their forces battled on mightily.
Then fortune favored Satan and his forces trapped a Djinni, one who knew about the creation of the Kaf and all its variations and so Satan learned of Hel just as God’s forces increased their strength.
The Archangel Mik’hail, with his flaming sword, and the Seraphim Afreal began to press Satan sorely and Mephistopheles arrived with his host and joined in the fray while Satan sent Astertoth to prepare Hel for their arrival.
Lo and it became clear that the numbers of Mik’hail and Afreal’s host were too great and they had to retire from the field. So, they fled into Hel through the way made for them though it looked like a great pit, a bottomless abyss.
And they arrived in Hel in their Demonic Form and sealed the pit behind them against the Elohim and lo they marveled at what they found and took it as their own.
Thus began the Angelic Civil War.
Life began and evolved there too, the supreme form of which is known as Man.
This evolution was watched closely by Demon, Djinn, and Elohim alike, as Man learned how to build cities.
Lo they all marveled at this hairless ape who had little magic of his own and who had to eke his sustenance from the Earth itself. The weakest of the Earth’s creatures was also one of the cleverest.
Where Man had no claws, he made clubs. Where he had no fur, he hunted animals to use theirs and when that was not enough he made fire to keep warm. Where he couldn’t run fast enough or wasn’t strong enough, he got his friends to help. Finally, where he couldn’t swim well enough he built canoes and ships.
Lo this creature wasn’t completely without magic but its magic was weak. It was so weak that not all of mankind had it and of those that did, even the strongest was no match for the weakest Djinn or Angel and none of them could transport themselves from place to place. Man was condemned to walk everywhere.
As the first empires grew and collapsed they marveled yet more at the tenaciousness of this hairless ape.
The Elohim performed a grand experiment and allowed Sol to burn a little hotter and this banished the Ice Age.
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Mar 10 2006
ARRRGH!
Thank you, I needed that.
This is normal production release cruft of any sort of product.
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Mar 10 2006
You are a Spiritualist. Your magic flows from the
primal forces of the cosmos. You could be a
gentle Healer, a miraculous Prophet or a
spirit-summoning War-mage with the strong
link your soul provides to the realms beyond
reality. You have preternatural abilities,
intutively sensing the personality of people
you meet and discerning events yet to happen.
You enhance your aura with meditative
pursuits. You are a good judge of character
but your idealism or morality can confuse
others.
Which Magical Order Are You In?
brought to you by Quizilla
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