In fact I’m so paranoid, I don’t just backup to a portable HD, I also archive really critical stuff several times over on a variety of media.

Even so, I could still get caught out – and I know it. It’s one of my nightmares.

As for the haunted Interweb and W98, look at it this way. By now, there are hardly any bad guys out there who were active when W98 was around. They just want to break into people’s feelthy leetle Vista boxes and the few old-timers still struggling along with Model-T XP

Yes and no, Badger. I installed a new, faster DVD burner, but the system booted fine after that. I think it was an auto-update (or two) that simultaneously stepped on each other whilst doing whatever they do. My data recovery guy is confident he can get my (very important) data off the thing, and (probably) recover full functionality.

And – yes – I have a backup for all but the last 6 weeks or so. That six weeks is critical for a number of reasons and is damned near non-recoverable if my hard drive is kaput. I was about to do another backup when I decided to re-boot (just to start clean – hah!). Bad call…

This would happen on precisely the day Weasel talks about ampersands and boob chairs! Rats!

I have seen a “&cetera” or whatever in “olden” writing that I took to mean what we call “etc”. But I’m probably mistaken.

Did the drive just go without warning? That’s my idea of a nightmare

Weaz – I just tried to drag & drop your site up there to the “site bar”. I just kinda clicked somewhere randomly and dragged.

It filled my site bar with the word “ants” and links to your damned ant drawings! Dozens of the fuckers! Took me minutes to hand-delete all of ‘em.

okbai

And remember – this person is allowed to vote and reproduce!

Weaz, et al, my PC took a mighty dump and the hard drive is at the data recovery place as I type. I am on my (Jeez!) 450mhz Pentium W98 machine – which I hadn’t powered up in years. See my blog comment for details. I’ll be back online Saturday I think.

Holy crap, alexandra! In 406, are you actually asserting that being rude is unconstitutional?! That whirring sound you here is the Founders spinning in their graves. “The pursuit of happiness” doesn’t mean we’re all obliged by law to be nice to each other. I can’t imagine anything more horrifying than using the awesome muscle of the state to impose niceness across the land. Brrrr.

Good lord, folks. A certain percentage of human beings are jerks. Ergo, a certain percentage of your colleagues will be jerks, too. No amount of legislation is going to change that. In fact, a really inspired bully always finds ways to use rules to his (or her) benefit.

— Posted by S. Weasel

Have you spanked her yet? Please do and tell us if she cries.

The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution exist to allow us to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not to make us do it or to give it to us.

People seem to forget that our Founding Documents are not a mandate of what Government ought to do but rather they list what the Government may do. It’s less a guide and exhortation and more a stringent limitation of Government.

Independence from Great Britain — no offense, my British friends — was realized because then British policies hindered the American people’s pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. That is why The United States were established: to establish a polity and system of government that would ensure that the government would not interfere with the people’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Ignorance of the basic philosophy of the founding and establishment of this great Nation, and of the purpose of our Founding Documents, infuriates me because it simply exacerbates the abuse thereof. Or leads to ridiculous “reinterpretation” of the Founding Documents and The United States’ purpose of existence.