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Roosty6 @B110

Friday, August 6, 2010

Computer Crashes, Etc.



Why do I have to learn the hard way to back up everything worth saving on a computer?
The drive became unstable on this machine last weekend and finally refused to run windows.
I was ready to replace it as it has been giving me hassles for quite some time. But I decided to
try and fix it myself by re-installing windows. It worked but of course everything that I did not have backed up was lost. I am not sure and maybe don't want to know just what all I lost but have some work ahead of me replacing it. I've had an external hard drive for backup for a year now but just did not get around to backing up everything I should have.
I managed to find my way back to some of my familiar sites, including this one, red power, newagtalk
and a few others. Its almost like being "born again" with an almost empty computer and having to re-locate things.
As usual I'm working against the weather. The photo shows some of the hay I cut last Saturday.
Normally it would be dry enough to bale (or already baled) by now but it got rained on a time or two since I cut it. Not sure how much as I don't have a guage at this farm which is 5 miles from home. And 5 miles is a long way when it comes to rainfall discrepancies.
The hay in the photo is unbelievably rank and green. It grows on an old cattle shelter area very rich in nutrients and produces a heavy swath that resists the best efforts of the sun and wind to dry it. I've turned all the swaths with the hay rake yesterday and was hoping to bale it Saturday
But now with possible showers forecast for tonight I might just push it up to this afternoon.
Its pushing my luck to bale up hay that is too damp but its a gamble leaving it out there to almost surely get rained on again and lose more quality. Hopefully it will be just light showers, less than a millimetre for those that favour the metric system. (Not me)

7 comments:

  1. Sorry about your computer problems, Ralph. I've got most of my files backed up, but not my programs.

    I remember bales "heating" for a few days after they were baled a bit damp. Some, we'd put at the top of the mow and cut them open and sometimes even divide them a bit. Better than letting the barn burn down!

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  2. Yikes. And the missing information isn't lying about the floor where it fell when the bin broke and you can sweep it up and sort it out...

    Our generation is having to learn those lessons the hard way because we don't have generations of experience with the technology. Kind of like one of my grandfather's neighbors learning the hard way he couldn't control his Model T by talking to it like he did to his team.

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  3. Interesting swather. So you are expecting like a tenth of an inch? What's a milliliter or millimeter or whatever. A cat's whisker? Fine as frog's hair? What does it mean? A drop in the bucket?
    I just busted my GPS tablet computer again. I was using it to listen to strange country music in the shop and banged the bottom of the case into a wrench hanging on the wall. It just so hit in a way that the sharp edge killed the hard drive. Lost a bunch of field records, some photos, and a whole bunch of interesting music that I don't really know where I found it.
    Oh, well! Shouldn't have had it hanging on the wall!

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  4. Budde, I have had to become at least partially fluent in metric as all our weather people speak it. I know that 25 milimetres is about an inch so that helps. Still annoying though when we had a perfectly good working imperial system before and were talked into converting everything to the "new improved" metric system. How is it better?

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  5. The French and the Chinese just love the Metric system; does anything else matter?

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  6. I hate to break it to you, but the metric system makes engineering design much much easier where one is working with lots of data and complex equations. So we are forcing it on the rest of you!

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  7. I guess I have to agree that sometimes the metric system works better. Like using a tape measure to measure and cut lumber, metal, whatever. Its easier to work with decimals than fractions when it comes to dividing or multiplying. Like cutting a sheet of metal in half that is 12 feet, 6 and seven eighths inches long.

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