Well, pheh.
I was going to probably (well, maybe) write various webloggish things
here tonight, but now the iBook (the original one that we got so
happily all those years ago)
has developed an Invalid Key Length in its root filesystem, and
files are randomly disappearing (mostly from the little daughter's
directories because she's the heaviest user).
Apparently this problem has been there for some time, but
equally apparently starting up, let alone merely logging onto,
OS X doesn't do even the simplest sort of fsck, because
the system hasn't issued any sort of error message or warning
or anything to clue us in that we might want to back up
everything before it's Too Late.
fsck in standalone mode said yipes there's an invalid
key length error error error and refused to do anything.
I found the install CD and booted from that and after a
long wait ran the Disk Whatever Tool, and to all appearances
it exec'd fsck which said yipes there's an invalid key
length error error error, and the Disk Whatever Tool very
helpfully said yipes there was an error yipes yipes yipes
and refused to do anything.
Extremely helpful.
I'm somewhat less gruntled about the whole Apple User
Experience thing than I once was.
Could be a bad spot on the hard drive.
I'm very suspicious, though, that it's just that the drive
filled up the other day (the little daughter and I really can't
keep both of our music libraries on the same smallish drive
anymore), and the filesystem maybe just isn't very good about
filling up.
Which would be annoying.
So anyway we've (carefully and gingerly and with fingers crossed)
backed up the few non-music Important Files from the iBook that
weren't already on the Web somewhere to a network share on the
Windows machine in the playroom (the shame!), and the plan is
that tomorrow or Saturday we'll see if we can get a copy of
DiskWarrior, which is said to cost like a cee-note and I'm
guessing from my web researches has about an even chance of being
able to fix the problem.
(I wonder if they'll let us return it if it can't?)
We've got probably two or three cee-notes' worth of iTunes
purchased music that only exists in the corrupt filesystem,
and I'm afraid to try to burn it to CD because that involves
(I think) creating a gigundo cd-image file first, and that
means allocating lots of space from the corrupt filesystem
and therefore perhaps overlaying the very stuff I'm trying
to save.
So we're going to try DiskWarrior first (or at least that's
the current plan), and if it fails we're going to cross our
fingers really hard, try to burn all the unrecreatable
music to data CDs, deauthorize, and then rebuild the
filesystem from scratch (ick) and reinstall and reupgrade
everything (ick).
And of course in the future we'll keep better backups.
Of course! *8)
I have an old copy of "Mystics and Zen Masters", Thomas Merton's
collection of essays on Zen from the 60's.
He sees Zen (and the world) through very Catholic filters,
which makes it a sort of surreal read, but I'm fond
of it.
I'm fond of this particular copy especially.
It's a Noonday Press paperback, printed in like 1988.
The cover is a semi-pastel abstract of rectilinear
shapes surrounding the author and title.
And on this particular copy the top inch or two of the cover,
especially on the lefthand side, is pale and faded,
probably from the sun.
Some days I think how nice it would be to be a
copy of "Mystics and Zen Masters", sitting in a
pile of books in a livingroom somewhere with just the top
inch or two of my cover sticking out, and the sun
pouring in through the windows for hours and hours,
and days and days.
So let's see.
I finished and wrote up
The
Historian (a literate vampire novel),
and (speaking of Zen)
Zen
and the Beat Way (also from the 60's, but Watts rather
than Merton).
In Sims 2 news, the Raptor twins
are teenagers now,
and one of them was photographer at
Eleanor and
Kennedy's wedding.
I've also been playing FFX again, for no discernable reason.
I beat it long ago,
but the other night I felt like playing it again.
It's kinda fun.
WTF: I've been trying not to take up log space
with politics too much, but really.
The public finds out about various blatantly illegal things
that the government is doing, and the administration's only reaction
is to toughen the laws against government whistleblowing, so
that next time they decide to violate the law and/or the
Constitution the people will be less likely to find out
about it?
My God.
Holy
Inverse Function, Batman!! A virus for MATLAB!
Two recent noteworthy spam subject lines:
Subject: Glaze using "Rice Husk Ash"
Subject: dingy scholar
Dingy scholar is relatively ordinary, if sweet.
But glaze using "Rice Husk Ash" is unusually complex
and meaningful-looking.
Is this the start of a whole new trend in spam subject
line semantics?
(I glanced at the content, and it had nothing to do with
glaze or rice husk ash.)
Here's an interesting one:
do fictional characters have the Buddha nature?
People in novels and stuff are always telling their children
stories about how that building over there used to be a
butcher's shop, and about the time that Cousin Rose lost
her stuffed mouse and it turned out that some robin had
carried it off and it turned up in a fallen bird's nest
the next autumn, and about how at the grocery store that
mommy and daddy used just after they were married all of
the signs were misspelled, and things like that.
I don't seem to remember things like that, or
at least not very much.
The little boy came with me to the grocery today, and we
saw a little girl pushing one of the little kids' carts
that they have at the grocery, and both of us remembered
that years ago he used to push one of those once in awhile,
but he didn't know whether that was in this grocery store
(which is pretty new, I think) or in some previous one, and
neither did I.
And really I don't think I could remember what grocery store
we used to go to before they built this one; I could guess
but I might well be wrong.
And when we dropped the little daughter off at the theater
on the way to the grocery (for the 2pm show that she's in
the orchestra of), he thought he remembered once going to
something (like a party of something) at the gynmastics
place next to the theater, and I thought I remembered that
also, but I'm not sure if I did and I don't remember any
details, and I also vaguely recall that years ago the
little daughter's ballet school was in that same little
commercial area, and/or maybe the place where she took
gymnastics for a few years was there.
Or something.
But (obviously) I'm not sure.
Maybe all those people who tell the kids detailed stories
about years ago are just making stuff up.
How would the kids know, after all?
Or maybe they have better memories than I do.
I do remember lots of things, the unseen little girl
named Athena who kept saying "where daddy go?" in a
nearby tent when M and I were on honeymoon, and
lots of roses bought for
a little ballerina, and lots of holding onto a little
boy by his overall suspenders, and a bunch of dark wooden
shelves on the wall by a table where us parents ate
pizza and talked while the kids at the party (someone's
birthday; don't know whose) did primitive gymnastics
on the other side of the glass (somewhere; don't remember
where).
But wouldn't it be nice if there were like video recordings
one could refer back to?
Just to sort of refresh the memories...
