Les said, the better II

I’m going to cheer up any damn day now. But in the meantime: super exhausted all day. Slept through morning class meeting thingee. And then super grumpy. I hate everybody on earth. Except I don’t. Playing in Braxton’s ensemble always makes me happy (even though I’m late every goddamn day). Colloquium does not. It has complexities. I’m having a lot of complexities. Came home and napped for like half an hour and then went to my usually deserted office hours. there were 37264191724 people there. they all have stuff due tomorrow. they are all trying for the first time to figure out how to use the software. It’s kind of endearing. also, I laugh at their ill planning. Ha ha ha. Nothing personal. It’s what comes from hating everyone on earth.

Braxton came in and I wrote an Event thingee for him. Ron told me to figure out Events when I met with him this afternoon. (The meeting mostly included me cussing and him saying I should rewrite stuff in a bunch of different conflicting ways. This is exactly what happened with my text project. He’s always thinking “what’s a different way to write this?” It’s sort of helpful with writing code, because he’s going to touch upon a better method and then I’ve learned something. Not so helpful with text.) so, I had a hammer and Braxton’s thing looked enough like a nail.
I am extremely fond of Prof Braxton. We’re going to jam on friday.
Ok, I don’t actually hate everyone on earth. It’s much too tiring. I don’t hate anyone, really. Also, I am drinking calm tea before bed. It’s working.
John Cage has a pretentious quote about being willing to dedicate his life his art. Me too. Sign me up.

Thoughts on Death

I spend a lot of time thinking about death. Anyway, a hospice worker told me that people often experience a period of wakefulness before they die. sometimes they sort of come-to and say goodbye to everyone and then die a few hours later. This didn’t happen to my mom, but she did have one sort of dramatic waking over a week before she died. I think it’s different when you have a brain tumor.
Anyway, I’ve been over anthropomorphising my laptop. It booted and I logged in and looked at the desktop, thinking I was never gong to see it again. And then half an hour later, it died. Sort of not like a person. Like a pet rabbit that hops a few last hops and then goes back into a coma. So, ok, it’s inanimate. I still grieve. I’m thinking a memorial service would be overkill . . . although we had a wake for Leroy the gerbil when he died last spring. I’m going to write a requiem for my laptop disk.
No, I haven’t really written a requiem for my mother. there’s a major difference between a dead pet rodent and a dead mom. I don;t cry when recording Chopin’s funeral march because I’m thinking of my disk. However, I did write a piece for my grandmother. Maybe I’ll post it later.
Tag: Celesteh

My problems are all temporary. they will all evaporate. their resolution is in sight. One day, somebody will ask me about my rube goldberg backup system and i’ll furrow my brow and think “oh yeah! remember when my laptop died?” and my thesis is due in april or may, so i’ll have something by then and my concert date will come and then pass. the only thing that’s really worrisome is lack of data surrounding brining Nicole to Germany. If you’ve got ideas on that, drop me a line: celesteh@gmail.com or leave a comment.

Tag: Celesteh

Went to talk to german professor about the exchange program I want to do. Asked about bringing Cola with me. Professor was less than helpful. Suggested that Cola move to the east coast, so it would be a short flight to germany and she could visit me on weekends. Cola was understandably less than pleased when I passed this along. I don’t know anything about anything. I dunno how to find out. Talking to the people in charge of this is like banging my head into a brick wall. Frustrated.

apparently you have to register for apple care. they give you a little cardboard box that says “apple care” on it. in that box is a form you have to mail off. otherwise, you need to spend fxcking forever on the fxcking phone.
Half the software on my desktop is broken. Toast won’t launch. the preview application won’t launch, so i can’t look at PDFs. I cannot figure out how to get the sound drivers to play nicely with SuperCollider. this machine was supposed to be a dedicated protools station. it’s the only thing that works on it. My last operating system upgrade failed. It crashed part way through. the computer’s fast enough, but it’s an oddball machine and probably the new OS didn’t get QAed on it. Everything on it is screwed up.
And . . . my advisor wants me to put aside my thesis project that i have thus far and instead re-implement all of my existing pieces in nicer-looking code. i’ve made less than stellar progress on this because my laptop is fucking dead goddamn it. And I get to spend hours re-coding things that already work. and i get the supreme joy of listening to ann coulter over and over and over again. Rated the 50th most loathsome person in america in 2004, BEAST magazine best describes my feeling towards her. they say, “we find our outrage slowly giving way to a baffled ‘I can’t believe I used to go out with you’ feeling.” Exactly like that, except she’s staying in my room until she gets back on her feet, shrieking at my dog about Bill Clinton for hours while I re-implement my piece as a Pbind.
In short, I’m going insane. but hey, things are still going way better than last year.
Tag: Celesteh

I thought it was extraordinary that the computer guy was taking my word for things. Ok, that’s not fair. He didn’t know anything more than a grad student walked in asking how to deal with creating a disk image of dying disk and then returned later with a laptop. He ran a bunch of disk utils and it showed no symptoms. None of my files are corrupted! huzzah! (I was nervous about my Library files.) So he yanked off my entire user directory. and then called me and told me he needed a password. (“why didn’t you just boot single user mode and change it?” “people get upset when i do that.”)

So I walked over and there was my laptop booted up. I never thought i’d see that desktop again. I explained that I was a former sysadmin and that I had heard the death rattle of hard disks before, and then he was willing to take my word for it and label it “intermittent” and ship it off to apple. If I did not have that experience, he would have run a bunch more tests while logged in and if still no symptoms, he would have handed me my computer back and told me that he couldn’t find a problem. I went poking through the console program looking for an error log. I couldn’t find squat in the way of IO errors. So, I asked him to make an image of the whole disk. the files are uncorrupted, so why not? If it works, then I can figure out if I want to ship off the computer to apple (symptom free now. do I want to sit on it until it dies for real and have it my hands, or do I figure it’s death is imminent and ship it anyway?). If it doesn’t work, then the problem has been replicated. also, I really want an image of that disk drive. really really. i think i will do an image once a month in the future, not archiving old months, but Just In Case.
anyway, so I ended up talking to a grocery clerk about how I really didn’t know if I wanted my computer back, knowing it’s unhealthy, but I have it, or sending it off and not having it. Anyway, like a minute after I left the store and not but half an hour after I left the computer center, the tech guy called up and said my disk had started clicking and grinding. He’s going to leave it off for an hour and then try again to create an image of the disk and then drop it in the mail to apple.
Goodness, I want an image of that disk in the worst way. also, I knew this would happen. It would have really sucked to walk out of there with my computer in hand and then get it home and have it start making noises a half an hour later, only to have to bring it back again. denial is exceedingly tempting.
this is all fascinating, no? Mumble an request for intercession to your deity of choice asking for a disk image.
Tag: Celesteh

How to get more hours of computer usage before your disk dies. All disks die, but you might be able to make it happen later rather than sooner.

• Keep it still

If you have a desktop, that means placing the desktop in a location that is stationary. If your desk tends to rattle or vibrate, you want your computer on the floor. don’t ever move a desktop computer without turning it off first. If you have an ipod, that means not running with it or throwing it around (unless you have an ipod shuffle, which has no moving parts). If you have a laptop, you want to minimize motion while the disk is spinning.
Laptops are designed to be used in places like cars, trains and airplanes and they’re supposed to be moved from place to place. A little vibration is ok. But the less vibration, the better. Also, if you’re going to be running for the train or walking around swinging your laptop case, you want the disks read/write heads to be parked. Disks are a lot like record players that spin at many thousands of RPMs. like the needle of a record player, disks have an arm that reads and writes data. but it doesn’t make contact with the surface of the disk. It floats above the surface, only a few microns away. If you jar the disk suddenly, you might cause the read/write head to hit the sinning platter. That’s called a head crash. It scratches the platter and destroys data. sometimes it kicks up debris which the head then runs into, causing more head crashes. this is a bad thing. so if you’re going to jar your computer, make sure the heads are parked. that happens when your computer is off or asleep. If you’re going to carry your powerbook across the room, close the lid, let it go to sleep, then move it.

• don’t spin it when you don’t need it

In system preferences, under energy saver, check the box next to “Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible.” If they’re sleeping, they’re not spinning. If they’re not spending their lifetime spinning when unneeded, they will spin when you need them.

Tag: Celesteh

there are some advantages to using CVS to manage your files. Not only does it provide a redundant copy, it keep track of previous revisions for you, which can be handy. also, if you find yourself generally using more than one machine, having your bookmarks in CVS could be handy so that you can have the same bookmarks across many computer and be able to change bookmarks on any computer and get the new bookmarks on every computer.
Obviously, you need to figure out what you want in cvs. Imagine that your computer’s disk is on it’s last legs. what files would you grab? those are the ones you want to backup and may be the ones you want in cvs
You need to install the developer kit on your mac, if you are using a mac. also, make sure that you have installed the optional bsd components of your operating system.
If your remote server is doing something weird, like running ssh on an unusual port, you will want to edit ~/.ssh config. Your file would look like:

Host host address
 Port port number

contact your sysadmin for more information on that.

You need to set an environment variable. If you run bash, edit ~/.bashrc and put in it:
export CVS_RSH=ssh

Ok, now ssh to your remote machine. you want to start a repository. you probably want to do this in your home directory, depending on what sot of permissions you have on the system. also, which filesystems are RAID? which are backed up? on my remote server, /home is RAID.
on the remote machine, type
cvs -d path to repository init
path to repository should be a full path name. for example, if your login name is brad, it might be: /Users/brad/Documents/cvs-repos . On my remote system, I used: /home/celesteh/cvsrepository
Ok, you’ve already got the list of files that you want to backup. Make a new directory containing all those files. Think about logical ways to break them up. I’ve decided to keep my library files in a separate distro than my documents.
tar cvf Documents.tar Documents/
gzip –best Documents.tar
scp Documents.tar.gz username@remote server:path to a temporary location
You’ve tar gzed the Documents that you want to save. You’ve copied that to your server. Now, log into the sever and re-expand:
cd path to a temporary location
tar xvzf Documents.tar.gz
Now cd into the directory where you have things to import and run the import command:
cd Documents
cvs -d path to repository import Documents vendortag releasetag
I don’t know what those tags mean. i used “backup” and “documents”:
cvs -d path to repository import Documents “backup” “documents”
You will have to enter a message describing your import. This is described further down.
The rest of this document deals with your local, personal computer and not the server. When you want to get this stuff back out, it doesn’t matter if you already have a folder named Libraries or Documents. On my local machine (the mac), those folder are just inside ~/ . We’ve set this up to run from within the bash shell:
bash
cd ~
cvs -d :ext:username@server:path to repository -z 9 co Library
The -z 9 compresses your data before sending it across the network, because network transfer is usually a major bottle neck. If your network is fast, you can omit the -z9 where ever you see it, or change it to less compression. 9 is most compressed (slowest processing, but fastest network travel time). 1 is least compressed (fastest processing, but slow network travel time).
Then, when you update your bookmarks or something and you want to make sure it gets backed up
bash
cd ~/Library
cvs -z 9 commit [ -m “change message” ]
The square brackets indicate optional arguments. It will look for changed files and prepare a list of them. If you use the -m flag, you’ve already entered a comment about what’s changed. otherwise, it will open a text editor where you can type in a comment. This text editor will usually be vi. Type a to start typing your comment. when you’re done, press the escape key and then :wq . that is: colon followed by w followed by q. Then hit enter. It may put you in emacs (after typing your message, hit control-x then control-s then hit control-x followed by control-c) or pico (after typing your message, hit control-x then y and then enter)
When you switch to another machine which uses the same cvs files, type:
bash
cvs -z 9 update

to grab all the most recent versions.
You can find out what has changed by doing a diff
bash
cd directory managed by CVS
cvs diff
It will give you a list of changed files and also of files that are in your local copy but not in the archive. expect to see a lot of cache files. However, say, if you log your ichats, each new log is a new file. you will have to add them:
bash
cvs -z 9 add newfile
you will have to do a cvs commit to actually get your new files into the archive.

Tags: Backups, CVS, Celesteh

I eat dinner, then I go to the concert hall, which is, thankfully, warmer than my home. and I sit in a relatively comfortable seat and am supposed to sit in still, rapt silence in the darkened hall and hold my applause until the very end. Often, I fall asleep. It’s hard to sit still in a dark room and stay awake. My co-students say that nothing in modern culture prepares us to pay attention to something for two hours. I’m going to disagree. In the past, we would never have been expected to sit quirt, darkened and disengaged for so long. Alex Ross has a great blog post about the history of applause. Music should not be like church. at least not like boring churches. We do music because it’s fun. fun means having a beer while listening. Or cheering at exciting parts. Or moshing. fun is not sitting still and trying to keep my eyes open even as a piece I love plays. If I wanted to sit in a perfectly quiet room by myself and listen to music, I’d stay home and put on a CD. I want to have an experience at a concert. I want to see somebody perform a piece really well, and to be there. Not passive.

Three semesters ago, I saw to clips from two movies which had the characters attending concerts. Both movies used the same piece of music. In both cases, it was intended to be romantic. In the American movie, everyone sat very still and stared without moving or blinking. In the Soviet film, couples that had gone to the symphony together smiled and snuggled. The US is in a culture war against all forms of art, especially high art, as evidenced by the eviscerating of the NEA. the Soviet Union encouraged art. Their movies reflect the political agendas.
We could all just start clapping when we felt like it. And snuggling with people next to us. We should not however, use a our cellphone rings as means to participate in the John Cage pieces, as that would be annoying as hell.
Tag: Celesteh

Your mac’s disk suddenly starts clicking really loudly or grinding and you’re suddenly getting IO errors or your system is crashing. What do you do?

1. Turn off your computer!!

Hold down the power button. you can cease all damage immediately by turning it off. It won’t get worse while it’s off. Off is safe. If only other life disasters had off buttons that could halt damage.

2. Panic, get drunk, etc

Call up your ex mother in law. Feel sorry for yourself. Cry. go ahead. Do all of this as often as you want and for as long as you need, but make sure that your computer is off whilst you drink, panic, make a fool of yourself, etc. You’re not thinking well while you’re freaking out. So take the time to do it, but don’t expose your disk to additional risk

3. Figure out what data is important

You are not going to be able to get an image of the disk. Your disk has errors. You need to figure out what you need to save. Generally, this is your home directory. Make a list of what matters by priority. Yeah, you want everything, but you may need to grab your bookmarks before you grab your 40 gigs of iTunes library. Things like your bookmarks, your apple address book and your apple calendar and in your home directory under Library. You may want to grab that.

4. find a computer with a lot of free disk space that you can borrow and a firewire cable
5. boot your computer as a firewire device.

hold down the t key while it boots. A firewire logo should appear on the screen. If it starts clicking and grinding TURN IT OFF. Try repositioning it and try again. You may find it works at a funny angle or on it’s side or upside down.

6. Connect the firewire cable between the good computer and the bad computer and start copying data

Get it by order of importance. When the disk starts clicking and grinding again TURN IT OFF. It may also just slow to crawl. turn it off in that case also.

7. Let the disk cool down

Let it sit off for a while to cool down. Then try getting more of your data. You can stick it in the fridge to cool faster if you can guarantee that you won’t get condensation inside the computer. Anyway, this just cools it down faster. Letting it sit will also cool it. cool is good. cool spins better

8. Repeat the grabbing and cooling cycle until you get everything or the disk completely dies
9. Take your computer to the store to get a new disk

If you have apple care, great. If you don’t you may want to consider it for next time. Also, ask the store about professional data rerieval, if you need it. Prices usually start around $500 and go up. The guy at the campus store told me the last two disks he sent off each cost $1200. Data was retrievable because the users turned off their computer when they heard loud clicking and grinding noises. Otherwise, disks and grind to death.

10. formulate a backup policy

Yeah, we’re supposed to the them. But we don’t. Who knew my disk would actually die? I haven’t seen that happen in ages. anyway, you need a backup plan and preferably, one that happens automatically. I don’t have answers here, but i think storing things offsite is good. Your data is just as lost by fire or theft as by dead disk. You need backups in a location where local calamity won’t destroy them.

Tags: Celesteh, Macintosh

1. Denial
I’ll just create an image of my entire hard drive.

2. Bargaining
I’ll just leave this running and it will, um, speed, up, right? I’ll call apple and if i plead with them they’ll tell me secret tips like freezing the disk drive (which may or may not work, as ipods seize up when frozen.)
3. Anger
I will never trust a laptop again!
4. Acceptance
Maybe it’s not worth $500 to save some diary entries, my address book and a few scripts. Maybe I could just rewrite my scripts.

The moral of the story

Maybe it’s best not to do tech work for something you’re personally invested in. I should have asked for help sooner, rather than drunkenly trying to copy the whole thing. Try to save everything. end up with nothing. thank god i had enough sense to grab my school work first.
also, it’s amazing how invested i’ve gotten with an inanimate object. in the future i need to 1. do backups. 2, not entrust my sense of self to a machine. 3, use paper more often.
Tag: Celesteh

Drinking will not solve your problems, no no no, but it certainly helps you forget what you’re thinking about.

No, it makes the fucking problems worse. Why didn’t I just turn the damn thing off and then wait until later and prioritize what I wanted to save? Now I’ve got a broken 12 gig disk image and no guarantee that i’ll be able to mount the physical disk again.
I feel real sense of panic when I think about this. My laptop is turned off. I will eat and do other stuff. then I will come back and try again. If it fails, I will go to the campus computer store and ask questions about disk repair. Maybe a new motor could revive it enough. Maybe there are some types of data recovery which only cost $500 or so.
The data I want: my diary, my scripts, my tax receipts, my frequent flier info, my addressbook. I can live without all that stuff.
I hate letting go. I am so not zen.
Tag: Celesteh