indiboi.com

I had a problem with stale NFS handlers a little bit ago, the umount/mount trick didn’t work, so I rebooted.

Much to my horror the POST stuck on the “T” of “Memory Test” and nothing would work. I tried several times, took out each ram stick and tested individually, unplugged the drives, etc…. Nothing. I cleared the CMOS, remembered HP put a totally moronic banner up to hide the POST, and was even more screwed.

I called my brother David in my growing state of horror, still nothing. I arranged to buy his old computer from him… my budget just can’t afford everything for a new computer (considering pretty much nothing is usable from the old one at this point).

I then, forgetting to do it earlier, unplugged the USB hub.

It booted.

The Bluetooth dongle that I had moved from the front of the computer (the USB plug that is part of the card reader) to the hub (to get it out of the way)… when I removed that, plugged the hub back in…

It booted. The damned Bluetooth adapter kills the boot process of the computer, wtf? The computer boots without issue when it’s plugged into the front.

Now, unfortunately, the computer seems to think the CPU fan (which is infact non-existant) has failed. HP in their infinite wisdom uses the system fan to blow cool outside air over a big ol’ heatsink. The system fan still works, the sensor cable still works because the speed is read within the BIOS. Wtf?

The problem here is that unless the “F2″ key is pressed immediately upon the notice from the BIOS, the computer will shut itself down to prevent overheating. I can’t seem to find where to shut that “feature” off. Agh!

Anyway… who knows, I think I might end up swapping over to David’s old computer anyway, he’s asking $300, which feels like a good deal, it’s still better than this one afterall. It’s a AMD 64 2.8+Ghz or something, this is a P4 2.53Ghz; technically my CPU is faster on the clock, because of that whole weird not really the speed thing, but ahhhhhh!

So… my okay day turned into kind of a horror show. I guess everything is okay now, but that residual freak-out will last a long time.

Well, I found the little thing on the mainboard that says “cpu fan” and plugged the system fan into that, now it boots without moaning about the lack of cpu fan. This is really weird though, considering that the fan was plugged into the “sys fan” pins and it had worked without issue for years.

It should be mentioned that I bought this HP computer in an emergency years ago. The company’s server was going absolutely wacky, then my computer failed horribly. The amount of work necessary was beyond the scope of my little iBook’s 12″ screen… the HP has been a decent computer, but I did buy the most expensive computer that Circuit City had; major raping there.

Don’t you just love it how some people think they’re completely above the policies, rules, and laws that actually do apply to everyone? The people that think it’s okay to drive 90MPH in the 55 zone, the people that don’t think they actually need to pay for services that are provided to them, and of course the people that think it’s perfectly acceptable to threaten violence; they’re special.

If something is important to you, do you take steps to protect it? I do. The MySQL file that contains all of the information on this site is downloaded from the server every single day. The data is important, so I keep a daily backup.

If there is a service you depend on, do you make sure that the bill is paid? I do. What do you think would happen if I ignored an emails from the data center about my credit card not working? They’d shut me down, goodbye server. That service is important, so I make sure the bill is paid and that there are no billing related problems.

So why is it that so many people seem to think they don’t have to pay for hosting? Why is it they seem to think that they’ll still be provided service when they’re already behind on the payment? It’s beyond me, I don’t expect any company I deal with to keep providing service when I’m not paying them, seems reasonable doesn’t it? It’s also beyond me how there can be an email that says service will be suspended if payment isn’t made, and the recipient is flabbergasted when the service is actually suspended because they’ve not made payment.

It would be wonderful to pick up something at a store, say to the cashier “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” and just walk on out of that store. That’s, of course, theft, but it’s the same thing as providing service without payment. It’s touching how someone can claim theft of their data, when they had every moment up until the suspension to make sure they had a backup of their own; they don’t seem to realize they’re attempting theft of service. Service includes every bit on the hard drive used to store the data, every bit transmitted over the network connection, every bit of memory used, and every millisecond of processor power.

If you stopped paying for a storage locker, would the manager of the storage company keep your crap in the locker for you anyway? No, it’d be thrown out onto the sidewalk. Since website data is already out on the sidewalk, well… hmm.

So, alright, just say that you’ve made a mistake, you owe some company for a service that they’ve turned off on you. Do you get nasty with them, threaten them, and still not pay the bill? It seems to me, that if I actually want something from someone it’d be in my very best interests to be polite and civil, don’t you agree?

I know if someone, just as an example, wanted to borrow some tool of mine, you can be damned sure the answer will be no if they approach me with a foul and demanding attitude. Conversely, if someone is actually polite and respectful, asks for something reasonable, then I’ll pretty much do whatever I can for them. It’s stunning what a little bit of “please” and “thank you” will do to advocate for your position.

I continue to not fully understand the depth of irrationality some people seem to be capable of. It’s that, along with this notion so many seem to have of their superiority, in regards to how limitations don’t apply to them and they ought to be able to do whatever they want without consequences, that drives me to loathe humanity. I’m far from perfect, but overall I am a pretty generous and nice guy. I know the speed limit sign on the interstate applies to me, I know the due date on any bill I receive also applies to me, and I know that if someone has something I need or want, I better treat them with respect. Ultimately I’ll just let these sorts of people “win,” it’s simply too tiring to see how pathetic their behavior will become.

I’ve certainly learned a lesson over the past day, if I get a foul whiff off of someone, it’s in my best interest to hand them their bags and tell them to get lost right at the beginning. There’s no point in me attempting to be anything that resembles helpful.

I’m a hair away from issuing the shutdown command on the webserver, turning off my cellphone, and turning off my workstation.

I have been able to do nothing of any value this weekend other than sit here babysitting a server that is practically going thermo-nuclear. I’m not getting paid anything extra, I still make basically nothing. I’m sick of it… if things don’t improve in a very rapid fashion, I am done.

I know that Cardinal Tetras are delicate fish, afterall they’re transported through quite a few middlemen from South America. I’ve read stories about them dying single file, etc, but I had no idea the mortality rate was quite as high as I’ve been experiencing.

I bought 10 Cardinals on Thursday. I wanted 7, so I bought 3 extra to cover “expected” losses. Two were dead upon arrival home, two died by morning. One died midday on Friday. I bought 5 more, all survived the trip home, but come morning two were dead. One died this morning, one died midday, and it looks like another is pretty close to death right now. Generally if they’re acting at all different from the rest they’ll be dead within a couple hours. 66% mortality… that’s also $20 thrown down the toilet.

It should really go without saying, but the water parameters are perfect and every single fish had an hour of drip aclimation. I’m glad I set up the quarantine tank, if for no other reason than it being easy to pick up the dead ones.

I did notice one of the Cardinals losing balance, whirling around… which could be a protozoan, Myxospora, which is (duh!) lethal, but it could also spread to my two Blue Rams also in quarantine. I sincerely hope not, but… it’s really a toss up, they cost $10, it costs $10 in gas to get to ‘That Fish Place’ … so if they die within the five day quarantine, it’s break-even. Of course, they’d likely not die, they’d show no symptoms, and eventually once they’re in the show tank infect the others… and someday down the line I’d have an entire tank of dead or almost dead, but whirling about, fish.

So, folks, if you’re thinking about Cardinals, even if you get them from a supplier foolish enough to even bother with offering a ’stay alive’ on them, please reconsider. Hell, you’d be better off with the “poor man’s Cardinal” aka the Neon Tetra… purchased from Walmart… they have a 90 day (omg!) ’stay alive’ guarantee.

Money aside, it’s depressing too, waking up every morning to find dead fish.

I simply do not understand how an ACH deposit put together on Wednesday and sent Thursday is still not posted to my bank account by Saturday night. This is the age of electronic transfering, that’s what this is, obviously… does my bank need to manually type in that money was electronically deposited? It’s insanity. If the deposit is sent Thursday I want it to appear on the account on Friday. There is no sense in it taking longer than 24 hours, ideally it’d show immediately.

To follow along with that level of annoyance, a paper check deposit, also made on Wednesday, did pot post to the account until Friday night!

I think I’m going to go re-open/open an account at the Credit Union. They’re completely electronic; the moment you deposit the check, cash, or what have you, it is then immediately available and posted to your account.

I’m not sure that it is my bank being slow in this particular instance, perhaps the depositing bank decided to take its grande old time this week, but regardless I’m terribly annoyed by the entire process.

To make matters even worse, my paycheck last week was short. I had an instance where one smaller transaction was cancelled to be replaced by a larger transaction. The smaller transaction was subtracted from my payment; however the new payment didn’t clear until about 10 seconds too late to actually make it onto the payment. So, a big portion of my payment last week is actually the annoyingly delayed payment for this week!

These delays and annoyances are making it nearly impossible to actually manage my financial situation. Granted, it’s primarily my fault for deciding to budget on a paycheck to paycheck basis, versus having a whole big wad of cash sitting in the account at all times. I used to do it that way, but then I decided to stop being a hermit and actually buy the crap I want to buy… for me and for other people. I had all of my Christmas purchases nicely planned out as to which payment would pay for which item, it’s just not actually working that way because my paychecks keep being screwed with in one way or another.