Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged

CERN reports that the last of the magnets to replace those damaged last year has been lowered underground.

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2009/PR06.09E.html

...and now you can still see it! But the time may be coming when you can't.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8025886.stm

...if there maybe one or two people out there with too much time on their hands?

http://www.babelgum.com/html/clip.php?clipId=147374

ScienceBlog reports successful trial of tablet form treatment for Multiple Sclerosis;

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/new-pill-treat-ms-20733.html

BBC reports NASA's SWIFT observatory has spotted the most distant object in the universe identified to date;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8022917.stm

to that question which crops up all the time, 'How do I make anti-matter?'

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16832-antimatter-mysteries-2-how-do-you-make-antimatter.html

I'm satisfied that I have Vista sorted now on my desktop and now I need to start the process of getting it back to what it was, without turning it in to what is was, which was slow and cranky. Whenever I do this I vow that I'm not going to load it up with crap but six months down the line it seems to have apps on there that I vaguely remember installing for some reason but have only ever used once and was only ever likely to use once but never bothered uninstalling.

I've put Firefox on, so I could get the latest copy of Trend Micro Internet Security, next on the list is MS Office and then Outlook so I can import the backups of my mail folders. Next will probably be Nova Backup, iTunes, then Starry Night, Tree Size Professional, Partition Manager, Defraggler, Registry First Aid and so it goes on.

Keeping me off the streets I guess.

Ground it's way through about 50 of the 84 updates and then threw the blue screen of death and didn't reboot correctly after I pulled the plug on it but up and running again though it's now telling me it's failed to install 37 updates but still needs another reboot. Needless to say it lost all the personalisation I put in whilst watching it download the updates! Grrrrr.

and yet more updates. 84 of them to be precise, about 350Mb, but does include an updated nVidia SATA driver so that may help with the problem I'm still having reading the drive. Crawling along at update 21 at the moment. Only just plugged in all my USB devices so after these eventually complete I guess there'll be a few more after the reboot.

Seems to be sorted, fingers still firmly crossed as I haven't done anything meaningful on it yet. So as indicated it would appear that Vista installation process, circa early 2007, can't handle a SATA drive on Ch1. Some of the threads I've viewed have gone back to 2007 and at the start of the installation routine it connects to the internet and downloads the latest updates to the installation process, and it would seem that, 2 years down the line, Microsoft still haven't fixed the issue? Do I look surprised? No, I didn't think so.

The first suggestion I've found to sort out the problematic Vista install is to do with SATA HDDs, not got any choice but to leave my main drive hooked up but I have disconnected my second SATA drive, which was installed after I upgraded to Vista first time around.

I have to say it was a complete pain in the arse to wade through all the arrogance and bruised egos of some of the contributors to the newsgroups and bulletin boards I's been through. I sure hope this fixes the problem or I'll have to endure another reading of the boards. These forums are an invaluable resource, but my recent visits suggest that more and more people regard them as an IT machismo pissing contest and the useful content gets buried beneath layer after layer of whining and flaming. There were always people on these forums who didn't have much idea and others who were absolutely sure they had every idea and neither were much use but they were all there to try and help others, not just to jack up their egos.

My desktop machine has been creaking for many months and the kids haven't been able to access their accounts since I uninstalled Steady State (I think it was called), bet there were other issues with it as well. So I'd been promising to reinstall for quite a while. I started at about three this afternoon and I'm still at it. Tried various methods to get Vista back in and I've still got nowhere. I tried booting to the update DVD, which would have gone ahead but offered me the tantalising prospect of saving my files and I thought I might as well give this a try even though I have everything I need (I think) backed up so, as directed, I started the update process from within Vista. It hung, three times, so I went back to trying it from boot and giving up the prospect of saving my files, still hung. Went back to the original configuration by using the Gateway supplied restore discs and went back to XP and tried the update again from within XP and was again offered the prospect of saving my files, tried it again, hung again. Tried it without saving files, hung again, but this time after I shut it down at the point it hung it refused to do anything except say that the installation failed and I needed to restart to complete the installation, which would take me back to the same point. Couldn't get to a command prompt to format the whole drive, but I have a suite of tools on CD that were left in a previous machine that I asked a local company to fix. It seems that they were not going to spend more than 5 mins trying to fix it and when it looked a bit tricky they just threw up their hands and said that there was nothing they could do. But they did leave me these tools. So I did a destructive write test and wiped all data and partitions and now got at a command prompt and it's presently doing a full format and see where we go from here. I've disconnected everything but keyboard and network so I'm not sure what else I can do, I suppose the next thing will be to check all the MS newsgroups to see if there is any definitive info out there.

The present lack of solar activity has the astrophysicists scratching their heads, the approaching solar maximum, 2010-2011, was being forecast 18 months ago as possibly being the most active the sun had been for 50 years, stretching back to a time when the Northern Lights were seen, at times, as far south as Mexico. But it seems that things are not quite as advertised;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8008473.stm

BBC website reports that Stephen Hawking has been admitted to Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, 'very ill'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8008767.stm

Well it certainly wouldn't be for me but I guess NASA expects astronauts to manufactured from sterner stuff! The risk of catastrophic loss of vehicle and crew for STS125 were calculated at 185:1 back in October last year, but now they've gone fallen all the way down to 211:1. So that's OK then.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/spacedebris-1.html

NASA has released the first images from the Kepler mission;

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/multimedia/latest-images-collection_archive_1.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/whatamilike/index.shtml

Happy bunny right now, watching the Blues @ Canucks from last night, next up is the first game from the new Yankee Stadium which I recorded earlier and finishing off configuring my laptop. Only slightly perturbed by my dsughter's PC dropping off the network with an apparent problem with the network adapter, but she's gone to sleep now so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Installed Thunderbird for my email, setup was very easy and it also pulls in GoogleMail, which is nice. Using TweetDeck to access twitter, looks good, shows a lot more info, in a full screen view, than twhirl, which just showed friends or replies or direct messages. Nothing wrong with twhirl, just depends what you prefer. Still got 9 Toshiba updates to install and get BOINC up and running.

The laptop has returned. It seems that they threw components at it until it started working again, mainboard, HDD, bottom cover, DC input, they might as well have given me a new one! Uninstalled all the old versions of Google crap, desktop search, toolbar, Picasa and Google Earth as well as McAfee. I may put some of it back on as I need it but for the moment I'll keep the space free. Installed Revo Uninstaller, Firefox with various add ons and just putting Trend Micro Internet Secutity 2009 on. Still got 10 Toshiba specific updates to load, plenty from Microsoftas well I imagine, need to reload MS Office and twhirl, find a mail program and get Skype. And then I can think about other trivia to load it up with.

Can't access my files saved on the desktop machine at the moment, this is always the case whenever I set up a new machine and I always have to do something which seems unnessary in order to get things going, and I can't remember what it is!!

Granted that there were a few interruptions last night due to thunderstorm related power cuts but Defraggler is still grinding it's way through the mess on my HDD and I don't see it being done anytime soon. So with things going slowly on the desktop machine, now would probably be a good time to pop along to Comet and see if my laptop is back with them.

The NHL playoffs leading to the Stanley Cup start tonight with two live games on ESPNAmerica and, with nothing listed for Channel Five through to the beginning of next week, it would seem that ESPNAmerica is going to be the only source and the end of US sport on Five seems now to be a done deal. Five's coverage introduced many to MLB and NHL in particular and they brought us many great presenters, Todd Macklin, Mike Carlson, David Lengel and even Johnny Gould could be engaging at times. Macklin is long since departed but I hope that the others find another home, along with MLB and NHL, on another free to air channel.

I thought my desktop PC was running a little slow but I just put it down to it not being in great shape, which it is not, and sometime soon I'll back up everything and reload Vista. But I thought I would fire up Defraggler from Piriform just to see what it thought of the fragmentation of the HDD. Now, as I recall, the last time I looked the Windows Defragger was scheduled to run once a month, I suspect this may not have been the case for a while as Defraggler tells me I have 25,000 fragmented files in 200,000+ fragments, or, to put it another way, 37% of the HDD.

Defraggler has just kicked over into 3% done and been at it for over two hours. Defraggler is a nice little, free, program which can be used to replace the defragger which comes with Vista. I think it's a little quicker and it gives you more information about what it finds on the HDD and what it's doing whilst sorting it out. This and a couple of other useful little apps can be found here;

http://www.piriform.com/

But, needless to say, there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that they've fixed it, the bad news, part one, is that they may not get it on the delivery run to the store for tomorrow and the next run is Monday. Bad news part two is that they are going to reload the OS, the guy who phoned didn't know what the problem was that caused it to become stone dead in the first place but whatever it was it needs the whole shebang reloading. Not too much of a problem as I had saved all, or almost all, my to the desktop PC after the HDD failure at the end of last year but unless the HDD had gone again, and I can't see why that would result in the whole machine becoming utterly lifeless, I really don't know why it should need a full reload. They were initially looking at swapping out the mainboard but that should not require the OS reloaded as it ought to be exactly the same spec as the original. Anyhow I'm looking forward to it's return even if it does require a few hours of set up and downloading of the previously installed apps.

This is why I hate d.i.y. Start to do a little job, taking up some carpet treads to hide a cable, get out the cordless screwdriver and find a neat little hole where the charger should be housed. Now I can use a manual screwdriver as well as the next man, well I can once some one tells me which end to hold, so I can do the job, that's not the problem. The problem is all the chargers I have for unidentified products, 13 of them to be precise, 8 of which have no identifying marks, no branding, just voltage, frequency and output. I've been in touch with the manufacturer and so far all they can tell me is that the charger was made in China, which narrows it down to just 6 of the 8 mystery chargers and 4 of the 6 have a fitting that could be used in the screwdriver but with wildly differing outputs. Can't someone insist that manufacturers at least put their brand on these things otherwise I'm going to have to hire additional storage for the damn things because I just know that if I throw them all out someone is going to pop up the next day and ask where the charger is for their phone/MP3 player/iPod/keyboard/PSP/DS etc?

Is it possible for anyone on the planet to write a realistic job description? I think not. I encountered this years ago applying for other jobs within the bank and it just seems to have got worse. The lowliest of jobs seems to require the combined talents of Alan Turing, Henry Kissinger, Stephen Hawking, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mother Teressa.

Here a just some of the selected highlights from a job description for a position which is, essentially, humping files around;

Organisation and motivational skills
Excellent prioritisation skills
Initiative and ability to be able to prioritise own and others workloads
Analytical skills
Ability to communicate effectively at all levels
A team player able to work well with others and demonstrate commitment to team objectives
Ability to work under pressure and to strict deadlines (often very short notice)
Ability to lift, sort, file and general handling of medical case notes

The last one, as you may have realised, is what it is all about, it's a step and fetch it job; someone tells you they need a file, you go and get it. That's it.

Woods failed to win the Masters and so we are spared the prospect of fat, middle aged white guys dribbling on about him being the greatest athlete on the planet and 'did you know he won the PGA with a broken leg?'. These people all seem to imagine that they can achieve some sort of athleticism by association despite all the dietary, waistline and cardio-vascular function evidence to the contrary.

Woods is not the greatest athlete on the planet, here's a clue; he plays golf. He strolls around for a couple of hours, taking a break to lean on a club for a while, which he then swings a few times and then hands it back to his flunky to carry around for him.

Woods is probably the best to play the game physically and certainly the best to play the game mentally but he is not the best athlete in the world, not only did he not make the cut, he didn't even get invited to the tournament.

Just watched the last part of 'Red Dwarf, Return to Earth' on Dave. Oh dear. I'm guessing that the Beeb knocked this back, and with good reason. I didn't note who wrote this bollocks but he really needs all his crayons taking away, it was utter dreck. Completely lacking any depth, it barely had surface and delivered nothing to the actors with which they could work, though they all looked like they had moved on quite sometime ago. The sets, effects and green screen work were all third rate and the 'homage' to Blade Runner was there because.............?

Coming back to characters that had been away for so long looked like a real struggle and allied to a script that was just a travesty left the main roles lacking any of the charm of the previous series.

This effort, and boy it was an effort watching it, cannot possibly be considered a springboard to a new, full series, it doesn't stand alone and it detracts from all previous incarnations.

Thank you so much for sucking me in to watching the biggest bunch of arse I've seen on TV this year and devaluing the currency of Red Dwarf to below that of the Zimbabwe Dollar.

To do a simple job such as putting a post up against a wall and then adding another couple of post a little further along? Not that many I always think when it comes to this sort of work and I'm invariably wrong. I find myself digging bits of kit out from the shed, from the back of cupboards and from the back of shelves and inevitably create more mess. I don't mind clearing up the mess that I make doing the job, it's having to put everything away again after getting all the tools out, and boy, did I have some tools out? Screw driver, hammer, mains drill, battery drill, jigsaw, electric plane, three lengths of screw, cold chisel, twist drills, brad drills, masonry drills, set square, pencil, Dremel, screwdriver bits, screw extractor, tape measure, wall plugs, hand saw, tenon saw, bradawl, deep drive screwdriver bits, spirit level, sanding block, gloves, wood chisels, knife, folding work bench, extension lead and others that I can't remember. And then it rains so all the electrical stuff gets hastily brought in and put anywhere and what starts off as a little job, outside, ends up with tools and associated paraphernalia taking over a significant portion of the inside. This is always the way when I do d.i.y. I don't know what the answer is but whether I've done a good job or not, the edge of satisfaction is always taken off by having to find homes for all the gear that I've used.

And that will be the sound of the suspension collapsing on my Mondeo. It looks like the coil spring is off the bottom mount, which I have to assume is broken, though I can't actually see any damage. The garage at the top of my road is looking at it now, but that's all that's going to happen before they come back in to work on Tuesday. So that will be great then.

Dallas Braden, Dana Eveland, Brett Anderson, Josh Outman, Trevor Cahill. Believe it or not, this is the starting rotation for the Oakland Athletics. Braden 6-13 in 41 games, ERA 5+ and this years opening day starter, Eveland 11-13 in 71 games, ERA 5+, Outman 1-2 in 6 games, ERA 4.5+, no Major League stats for Cahill or Anderson. I know Cahill and Anderson are exceptional prospects and the possibility certainly exists for this to be a good rotation, but not before 2011. Even the return of Duchscherer doesn't make it look so much better and I have no idea what is happening with Gallacher. I can't explain why we are going into a season with $20M+ tied up between Holliday, Giambi and Garciaparra, plus whatever Cabrera is getting, from a limited budget and starting 5 pitchers under 25 years of age??

Due to recently changed circumstances I have been looking to get a cheaper deal than the current £17 pm I cough up to Sky. Only went with them in the first place as they indicated that they would be unbundling the local exchange and dangled the prospect of 8Mb/s for £5 pm. That went by the board sometime ago and it doesn't look as if anyone has been into our dusty exchange and put their own kit in and I am still looking at having to pay a premium for piggybacking BTs old kit. Lots of introductory offers at £6 or so but all go up to around what I'm paying currently at the end of 3 months. The only slight saving I can see is with Virgin, not their cable (cable, what cable, we don't even have mains gas out here in the sticks!) offering but the DSL flavour. Is anyone out there on Virgin? What a choice, do I throw my hard, currently unearned, cash at Murdoch or Branson???

Just back from signing on for the first time. Relatively painless experience, they seem to have manged to lower the temperature which was just as well as I was standing in line for twenty minutes listening to some jerk shouting the odds at the 'Welcome' desk. Handed over the details of what I had done these past few days, looked through paper(not), checked the internet(not), submitted one application(yes), requested another(yes) and we all seemed happy at the end of it. Will be checking papers and internet in due course but getting the two going that I have on the boil seemed like hard work as I haven't done this sort of stuff for quite sometime.

It's little consolation but I've found the problem I had with my email job application. For some reason, which I can't tell whether is with my email program, Windows Live Mail, or my IMAP server with 1and1, the job app email gets sent but does not get moved to the 'Sent Items' folder but remains in the 'Outbox'. The attempt to move it to the 'Sent Items' folder times out and the next time an automatic send and receive occurs another copy gets sent. I've stopped it now by increasing the 'time out' period and the email is now in the 'Sent items' folder but that was done about 30 minutes ago and I suspect it's been sending more copies all evening! My name is going to be shit when someone opens their inbox tomorrow morning!

Submitted my first job application via email and asked for confirmation of receipt. When it came back she informed me that she had received the application 10 times?! So now I look like someone who is either insecure or doesn't trust technology or has a twitch, all traits which I suspect they would wish to avoid in applicants for their job!!

Made my first trip to the job centre. I could offer a significant cost saving as soon as I walked in the door. Are these people reptiles, no offence intended, that will come later, but it must have been 80 degrees in there, some were in short sleeves but most had long sleeves and some had jackets on. Do the planet a favour and knock the heating down by 10 degrees.

So, straight in the door, the sign on the desk said ‘Welcome’, the attitude said ‘fuck right off’. This is going to be an entertaining hour or so I thought. It did get better, had an interview with a woman who’s outlook seemed pretty jaundiced but not offensively so, signed up for my £60 p.w. Job Seekers Allowance and came away with a couple of interesting applications, they would have been a lot more interesting had they been paying another £5k but interesting nevertheless. Have to go back every other Monday and present evidence that I’m looking for work. I’m told that HGV jobs are not paying well at all at the moment, IT jobs disappeared off the face of the planet about 18 months ago, though that was going to be a long shot as I have no qualifications or experience, and the jobs I’ve come away with are an admin position with the Fire Service and a van job with NHS. Better be getting back to the paperwork then.