The Vent and Rant Thread

[Blossom]

Crazy rant ahead!

I need my life to be boring. Nice and mundane. Quiet, stable, peaceful. It use to be. When I lived in Tennessee it was just that and I loved it. Seven blissful years.

Now I live here in a suburb of St Louis.

I don't need to watch a guy kill himself in front of my place by crashing his car into a tree. I don't need helicopters and police all over my neighbor looking for a pink haired Thelma and Louise nutcase that stole two trucks and crashed them then ran on foot and I don't need my mom calling me screaming someone got ran over in front of my street and they are stuck right in front row watching it all while trying to bring me something good to eat. All this happened since I moved here and those are just a couple of examples. The latest tonight being a guy ran over by two women who didn't see him. Sis driving up and seeing him just laying there unconscious. Mom screaming like a banshee.

What is it about this place?!?








Sent from my Nexus 7

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Crazy rant ahead!

I need my life to be boring. Nice and mundane. Quiet, stable, peaceful. It use to be. When I lived in Tennessee it was just that and I loved it. Seven blissful years.

Now I live here in a suburb of St Louis.

I don't need to watch a guy kill himself in front of my place by crashing his car into a tree. I don't need helicopters and police all over my neighbor looking for a pink haired Thelma and Louise nutcase that stole two trucks and crashed them then ran on foot and I don't need my mom calling me screaming someone got ran over in front of my street and they are stuck right in front row watching it all while trying to bring me something good to eat. All this happened since I moved here and those are just a couple of examples. The latest tonight being a guy ran over by two women who didn't see him. Sis driving up and seeing him just laying there unconscious. Mom screaming like a banshee.

What is it about this place?!?

Sent from my Nexus 7

Gosh, Blossom:

Just imagine what your new NEIGHBORS are thinking!!! :-)

I can hear it now..."...damn, it was quiet here before THAT couple moved in..."

:-)

Hitch

[Freeshadow]

A strange rant indeed. Just be glad nothing of it happened to you or your family.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Crazy rant ahead!

I need my life to be boring. Nice and mundane. Quiet, stable, peaceful. It use to be. When I lived in Tennessee it was just that and I loved it. Seven blissful years.

Now I live here in a suburb of St Louis.

I don't need to watch a guy kill himself in front of my place by crashing his car into a tree. I don't need helicopters and police all over my neighbor looking for a pink haired Thelma and Louise nutcase that stole two trucks and crashed them then ran on foot and I don't need my mom calling me screaming someone got ran over in front of my street and they are stuck right in front row watching it all while trying to bring me something good to eat. All this happened since I moved here and those are just a couple of examples. The latest tonight being a guy ran over by two women who didn't see him. Sis driving up and seeing him just laying there unconscious. Mom screaming like a banshee.

What is it about this place?!?








Sent from my Nexus 7

It could be a lot worse. You could actually know the people involved.
Guy shot by the person that called him to check on something. (Yep related)
Cops ambushed by guy. (I didn't know the cops but knew people that did)
Guy turns 7-11 into a drive thru. (Sort of related)
Dead woman gets ring stolen off her finger. (Knew them well)
Guy runs over a drunk. (Knew the guy's family)
Can't serve on jury duty because I knew the star witness.
Train accidents. (Hubby knew them)
And many other incidents that we knew someone involved.

Though the funniest one had to be when the cops needed to know if we were related to someone. The neighbor yelled at her son, the cops are here what did you do now.
Yes, we were related and that incident had nothing to do with the neighbor.
Though the cops didn't say it, they needed an address to give to the hospital.

[Rumpelteazer]

Today I've got the new Sarah Millican DVD, last week the new show of my favourite Dutch stand up comedian was aired and I recorded it and earlier this the latest book in the Merrily Watkins series was released.

This all sounds like fun, however I really want to save them for my vacation, so I have to try and wait for another week and a half for all that fun.

To top it off my throat started to hurt again, I already had a cold a month ago and I don't want another one so close to my vacation. Keeping my fingers crossed that I can stop it in its tracks with some ibuprofen and throat medicine.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Angst

I'm mega depressed. I think my PC got hit with a power surge. It took out 2 SSD drives. This despite have a power surge protector bar. Most of what I had I can replace. Except my ebook library. It's the older books from Fictionwise and the Sony Store that I won't be able to replace. And yes, I had a backup...on the other SSD that I lost.

Not to turn the screw in the wound, but flash drives would have saved your books. I just bought a 128 Sandisk gig flash drive for $20. Storage is cheap. I bought 2 so that I can alternate them (use them to store my ebooks offsite at sisters). These also store my audiobooks that were not purchased at Audible.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Not to turn the screw in the wound, but flash drives would have saved your books. I just bought a 128 Sandisk gig flash drive for $20. Storage is cheap. I bought 2 so that I can alternate them (use them to store my ebooks offsite at sisters). These also store my audiobooks that were not purchased at Audible.

The really important stuff I have on my computer, my NAS and encrypted on one or more cloud services. From my work I learned a lesson a long time ago. Never store backups on the same device and/or location....

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

The really important stuff I have on my computer, my NAS and encrypted on one or more cloud services. From my work I learned a lesson a long time ago. Never store backups on the same device and/or location....

I learned it in the mid-nineties. Stored some backups on the second HDD in my 486. It was the time where you used Vesa Local Bus I/O-cards, and a drive that had been formatted while connected to card A, could often not be used in combination with card B. (Just like with many RAID-cards today.)

En then my VLB I/O card went bust after three years, and I wasn't able to find the exact same model anywhere... and I didn't have internet in 1997; and most people hadn't even heard of webstores yet. Most of the big ones didn't even exist back then. (I got my first internet connection in 1998.)

Now I use my desktop as main computer. I use an external drive (not connected to the computer except when backing up), and after a particularly big or important change, I sync the laptop's data partition with the one on the desktop.

The really important stuff is backed up on another drive which is stashed at my mother's home.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

... and I didn't have internet in 1997; and most people hadn't even heard of webstores yet. Most of the big ones didn't even exist back then. (I got my first internet connection in 1998.)

I first saw the internet in 1995 when a friend brought a dial-up modem and connected my 386 with the telephone line. After umpteenth attempts we connected to web through Netscape Navigator. It was a horrible experience of wasting the time then, and my first reaction about internet was an utter dissatisfaction.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by drjd

I first saw the internet in 1995 when a friend brought a dial-up modem and connected my 386 with the telephone line. After umpteenth attempts we connected to web through Netscape Navigator. It was a horrible experience of wasting the time then, and my first reaction about internet was an utter dissatisfaction.

Oh yes, dial-up or in the college I think T1. I remember they would have to close the lab because the connection failed. I think all our reactions were this is very slow.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Not to turn the screw in the wound, but flash drives would have saved your books. I just bought a 128 Sandisk gig flash drive for $20. Storage is cheap. I bought 2 so that I can alternate them (use them to store my ebooks offsite at sisters). These also store my audiobooks that were not purchased at Audible.

That's essentially what I do. USB flash drives are cheap and getting cheaper. I have a 7 port USB hub on my desktop with a variety of flash drives plugged into it. Stuff I want to preserve gets backed up to them.

I use Calibre to manage my eBook library. The main library lives on the desktop, but is periodically synced with a flash drive. Aside from being a backup, it's portable. Calibre is installed on multiple machines, and if I travel and add stuff while traveling, I can store it to the flash drive, and then sync that to the desktop to update the master library when I'm home.

I keep some stuff on the cloud, but that's more a matter of having it available from where I might be, and allowing access to others for collaborative projects.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by drjd

I first saw the internet in 1995 when a friend brought a dial-up modem and connected my 386 with the telephone line. After umpteenth attempts we connected to web through Netscape Navigator. It was a horrible experience of wasting the time then, and my first reaction about internet was an utter dissatisfaction.

I started out back when going online meant connecting to a service like AOL, Compuserve, or Prodigy, or connecting to a local BBS system running on a PC, and all access was dial up modem. At one point, I got a new modem that supported part of the MNP protocol, and got 240 CPS effective speed over a 2,400 baud modem. Whoa. Speed!

I also recall admonishments back when the Internet was starting to spread that the average connecting device for a user was likely to be a 14.4 kbaud modem, and if you were a web designer, you really wanted to minimize what the user would have to DL before your page began to appear.

Now the implicit assumption is that everyone has fast broadband and you don't care. Alas, that's not entirely true. I know a few folks who still connect via dial up because broadband isn't a viable option where they are.
______
Dennis

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I started out back when going online meant connecting to a service like AOL, Compuserve, or Prodigy, or connecting to a local BBS system running on a PC, and all access was dial up modem. At one point, I got a new modem that supported part of the MNP protocol, and got 240 CPS effective speed over a 2,400 baud modem. Whoa. Speed!

I also recall admonishments back when the Internet was starting to spread that the average connecting device for a user was likely to be a 14.4 kbaud modem, and if you were a web designer, you really wanted to minimize what the user would have to DL before your page began to appear.

Now the implicit assumption is that everyone has fast broadband and you don't care. Alas, that's not entirely true. I know a few folks who still connect via dial up because broadband isn't a viable option where they are.
______
Dennis

Or the ever popular assumption wifi is EVERYWHERE free.
Now I will grant where you live, wifi probably is pretty ubiquitous. Where I live, only the big box stores and only a limited number of restaurants offer wifi.
Now we do have pretty good 3g service here but if you drive an hour west, well keep driving. You will hit a cell tower in a few more hours.
There are many places out here that technology is not very useful.
But then the area I live in is roughly the size of NYC. Total population is about 1/2 million. I am talking in the entire Permian Basin and half of that is centered in about a 30 miles long by maybe 10 miles wide area.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Now the implicit assumption is that everyone has fast broadband and you don't care. Alas, that's not entirely true. I know a few folks who still connect via dial up because broadband isn't a viable option where they are.
______
Dennis

That is sadly true. There are places around who have only dreamt of a broadband connection or may ask 'What does a mobile stand for?'

Yet another facet of the problem, I shifted to a farmhouse couple of years back, some 30 kms away from the city. The telephone companies won't give me a broadband connection because it's not 'technically feasible and economically viable' for them. I had no other option but to use a GPRS (too slow!) or a GSM-3G (too expensive!!) instead. I went for 3G, and now paying more than double of a broadband price every month.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by drjd

I first saw the internet in 1995 when a friend brought a dial-up modem and connected my 386 with the telephone line. After umpteenth attempts we connected to web through Netscape Navigator. It was a horrible experience of wasting the time then, and my first reaction about internet was an utter dissatisfaction.

I had an "internet" account in 1984/'85. Of course it wasn't called that, it was ARPANET, and the particular flavor I had was MILNET. I would log onto the network at Kaneohe Bay or Camp Smith here on O`ahu with a 1200 baud (KBit/sec) dial up modem and connect to a 9600 baud underwater cable to San Diego. From there I could access any of a half a dozen or so university mainframes with telnet I suppose there were more, but I only had the IP addresses for a few.

In those days they didn't much bother with accounts and passwords. I guess they figured that if you knew enough to get to their login page you knew enough to be granted a guest account to their directories.

The whole rig wasn't very useful, the connection defaulted to 300 baud, and error checking and latency across the router hops dropped it even further so it was impractical to try to FTP anything over a couple of hundred kilobytes, and that was assuming that you knew what you were looking for and where it was. Error checking was by packet and file, so if the file checksums didn't match on a file that you spent all afternoon downloading, you had to start over and waste another half a day.

Then in 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, and nothing has been the same since.