deskrule v1.2 final released

[Kilmatead]

How am I supposed to know, oh Grand Poo-bah? It's your WTL-dog that's pissin' on my lawn! You're the WTL-guru with all the WTL-knowhow, livin' in your own WTL-world.

I even uninstalled, restarted, and reinstalled, and that's what I get. (The old version seems to work fine - this is just with the one you put out today. Have you been messing around with the manifest again?)

<Grumble grumble.... tiny fonts... grumble>

[nikos]

so can anybody else see these apparitions or is it just kilmatead's haunted castle?

[Kilmatead]

Actually I think everything I said was a red herring. After chasing gremlins all day reinstalling windows after a botched updating session, it turns out my motherboard is dying and taking the memory with it. When memory sticks die, they have the damnedest way of corrupting cells which can give all the appearance of working just fine for days, then for no reason turn around and hazard like a nun chasing a dildo, with equally as odd side-effects.

As it's the motherboard proper though (so the POST-results are telling me), that's more serious, and so my results can't be trusted for testing until I replace some equipment - in the meantime I'll just lower the voltage on everything to stock, pray for stability, and coax as much life out of a minimalist setup as long I can to save up for new gear.

Anyone who wants to contribute to the Kilmatead's Computer Needs a Cuddle Fund is more than welcome. I guess even high-end stuff (at the time) isn't expected to last much more than 8 or 9 years, and lord knows mine has had enough abuse.

[pj]

As it's the motherboard proper though ... in the meantime I'll just lower the voltage on everything to stock, pray for stability, and coax as much life out of a minimalist setup as long I can to save up for new gear.

So, over-clock/over-voltage CPU, probably without an ice-water coolant system, and you're surprised the CPU is fried?????

Anyone who wants to contribute to the Kilmatead's Computer Needs a Cuddle Fund is more than welcome. I guess even high-end stuff (at the time) isn't expected to last much more than 8 or 9 years, and lord knows mine has had enough abuse.

I'd recommend a Go Fund Me page. Hey, if an idiot that spend all her money on Powerball tickets can get people to shell out $800 for stupidity, you can get a replacement CPU with a little creative prose.


---------------------------
PJ in (sunny again!) FL

[Kilmatead]

So, over-clock/over-voltage CPU, probably without an ice-water coolant system, and you're surprised the CPU is fried?????

The CPU itself, though old, is quite happy. One of the original Core2-Quad chips with only a mild overclock to 3.2 GHz - rock solid for the better part of a decade on proper custom air cooling (water cooling is largely unnecessary unless you want to go overboard with these things, or are paranoid about temperatures). It's actually a bit of a myth that you can "fry your CPU" anyway, because they generally shut down automatically to protect themselves come 100° Celsius. The trouble really arises from compensating for the memory's involuntary speed-drift when overclocking on the FSB (front-side-bus). Since any Tom Dick or Harry can adjust a multiplier, it's much more fun to do things "the hard way". And that requires knowing your way around the mobo itself before things (which are not the CPU) do indeed begin to "fry".

To be fair, when I built this system those 9 years ago my inexperience and exuberance did cost me an extra motherboard and power supply replacement until I learned my limits. However, since then it's been extremely stable without a peep of bother. Last year I revamped all the drives (SSD and server-grade rust-spinners alike), so they're all good for another few years yet. That the mobo and sticks are dying is not a dramatic surprise, simply an unwelcome one at this time (alas, the humble Gardener does not earn anywhere near as much as the noble Bricklayer once did). Like when your knees which served you well for many decades suddenly betray you to gravity and entropy... one cannot exclaim to shock and surprise and still maintain any sense of integrity before Zeus. Instead, one gracefully accepts the punishments to endure, and hopes that we need not ask too much advice from our bionic moderator fgagnon in the future as to how to shoulder and appease nature's wrath.

So, like I said, no great surprise this has come about, but it's the nuances of such mechanical-death which fascinate the most - memory chips (though surprisingly robust for what we put them through) don't die in showers of sparks and skeins of smoke like in the cinema - instead they whisper their passing as subtle suggestions of irrationality, ever the quiet companions of obscurity that only a silicon-based life-form could aspire to when suffering their own elusive shadows of self-doubt in an Alzheimer's autumn.

(And yes, I'm a big fan of anthropomorphism, so don't hold me to task for that too. It's always sad when you have to watch something you built wither away after the faithful years of the sympathetic endurance we call servitude have been spent.)

And if you think that's overkill, I have an opera I once composed for the scientific calculator which saw me through many trying days of university physics (you, of all people, should appreciate that). Well, ok, I should say I thought about writing such an opera (since reduced to a mere threnody) for that beloved calculator, but even I'm not that weird. At least not since I stopped taking those red pills that so denied Lewis Carroll his due.

Did you say you had some ice-water?

(I'm not actually begging for money, by the way... surely the part about the nuns running for their dildo's suggested that I write mostly in jest? If I were to write seriously, you'd never recover from the headache of marshmallow casualties it would inflict! Indeed, you would be the first to set aside all your riches and walk throughout the Indian Continent in rags to be blessed by the poorest of the poor! Or, maybe you'd just retire to Texas and call it a day. Either way, the tide covers the crayfish! )