3 TB: the complications of being large

UPDATE: After formatting the beast after finding a USB/SATA that worked, I kept getting a few corruption events, so I bought a better case. Both the new case and the drive died.

3 TB is a phenomenal amount of data, so surely having 3 TB would solve all one's problems.

No. It generates more. Many more.

I ordered gleefully a new 3 TB beast from e-bay and put into an external hard drive case in place of a 200 GB disc.

Size: 724 GB. Windows it turns out was written by monkeys in front of keyboards or steampunkish converted typewriters, consequently nothing really works and it is not possible to format (a necessary step to use) a partition with more than 746 GB.

However, GParted, a linux Live CD used to format discs, can format the whole lot. But as it turns out, the chip for the external drive encasing needs to be special, allowing it to support 2+ GB, otherwise the disc will show only 746 GB. So I had to mount it inside my PC.

Computer boffins simply say to format the partition as NTFS (the fenestral one †) with a GPT. Obviously, there is no clear option for that in GParted. After some fiddling I find it (I had to delete and create a custom one, instead of simply replacing it).

Excited, I switch over to windows only to discover that Windows Vista did not recognise the partition table and gave the hard drive as unformatted. Formatting it in windows only allows 746GB, namely square one.

It turns out that when the hard drive was formatted the program put a code that basically identified the formatting OS as Linux, which Bill Gates's brainless brainchild hates —thus I hate it in turn.

After a few failed tries, I solved the problem by formatting it to 746 GB in Windows and expanding it in Linux. Size in windows: 3 TB.

Ecstatically exited, I try filling the hard drive up, only to discover a glass wall at 746 GB, which grinds the computer to a halt.

I am a probably missing some technical word as I was unable to find in google what was causing the barrier at around 750 GB. For some time now, I have been meaning to upgrade to 64bit as my computer was bought from a shop, which installed the 32bit version on a 64bit architecture computer to be safe. This was the last straw: good-bye 32 bit Vista, hello 64 bit Windows 7. The problem has magically disappeared!

Now, the next herculean task is to fill it up...

† Fenestral means "pertaining to windows".

Code 12

For more than six months, my wifi card (Atheros AR5005G) had not been working. Device manager in both vista x86 and windows 7 x64 gave me code 12, the "not enough resources" error.
Google gave me links to several Microsoft websites, who authoritatively informed me that the problem is fixable by uninstalling the device's drivers, rebooting and reinstalling the device's drivers. This, of course, did not work.
Some forums recommend something on the lines of "Check the PCI allocation bus for conflicts" and similar weird alien-jargon–filled requests I have no idea how to do.
One forum member asks the inquirer to check if the card is in properly. A task I can do. So I decide to give the card a wiggle and, lo and behold, it worked. A wiggle. No fancy diagnostic and registry settings. A simple bloody wiggle.

My mobile AP works!

I would like to help and give my solution, but not enough to go out of my way to register in a forum, so I'll be lazy and post on blogger and hope Google points stranded folk here!

To use the internet on my tablet (Samsung Galaxy Tab 2) I need to tether my phone (Samsung Galaxy mini) to it sharing the internet via WiFi. I am not with AT&T (which blocks tethering). In other phones "mobile AP" works a treat —in Gingerbread (Android 2.3) the option is in the silly bar that one has to drag down quickly like rolling blinds with a level of coordination beyond me.
In my phone which runs Froyo (2.2), it does not work: it connects, but no internet.
There are forums discussing this problem without avail. I stopped short of rooting my phone or updating to gingerbread.
I stopped because I got it to work. I remembered that the native internet browser did not work, hence my use of opera for browsing, so I googled that problem and the solution was simple: delete the APN of the mobile carrier and type it in manually. I did it and my browser works —but opera doesn't— and surprisingly so does my mobile AP.

Now my tablet can suck up all my data allowance via WiFi… as if its cost was not a problem enough.

rocket science or cat dispenser engineering?

Our cat, like all cats, is ridiculously spoilt. She need to be fed twice a day, otherwise she will go outside to kill and drag inside an animal, generally an endangered New Zealandish bird.

The problem is I sometimes forget to placate this ferocious beast and I have to hoover up the remains of a myna bird or sparrow found in peculiar places. So, in an attempt to solve the problem I got her a food dispenser from the pet store, a Vita-Pet Kitty Kitchen —sounds great, doesn't it?

The box came with little instructions and only a cryptic image: the hopper has a slanted bottom to allow food to pour out onto the tray, except the biscuits get stuck by the weight of those above, so they have added a long-s (ſ) shaped leaver to be hinged at the top of the side with the dispensing hole. What side to face up is unclear, so I have tried and failed with both directions.
I cannot work it out. I am a scientist and I cannot get the bloody food dispense to work.
I have even changed her biscuits yet the thing still does not work

As far I can work out, the problem is that the biscuits are not sliding down the slanted bottom through the dispensing hole. Increasing the incline by wedging a magazine underneath it proved disastrous as the cat toppled the dispenser over: she did manage to eat as many biscuits as she could, but I was not pleased with the mess, so I do not think that is how it is supposed to work, but that is the best I can do.


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Note: the scientific experimentation on animals presented herein has not been approved by an ethics committee.

Genesis, the Matrix and C++

In brief. The first two chapters of the Bible repeat themselves, one option is that God's code did not compile right the first time.

It is a commonly known fact that the Bible contains repetitions, utterly obscure and, according to critics, contradictory parts, two examples of the latter are the fact that God made the world piece-by-piece in 6 days and not all at once despite being omnipotent and despite being pleased with his divine handiwork (e.i. perfect) and having foreknowledge of how it will pan out has had to intervene more than once to set things straight. I am aware that topic has been extensively covered by saint Augustine and in the second Vatican council, namely it is a metaphor and I do not want to discuss it anyway as the title gives away.
Ignoring the omnipotence/perfection problem, there is an interesting parallel with this, computer programming and Matrix movies.
There is an interesting philosophy behind Matrix trilogy, partially inspired by Christian beliefs and partially from cyberspace, here are some points I'd like to mention in a quite lengthy digression —written as bullet points to avoid excessive bad grammar due mismatched prepositions—:

• the world is run by machines, which were originally created by humans
• these machines, contrary to the laws of thermodynamics, use humans as batteries
• these humans live their lives in a virtual world, called "the matrix" unaware of it being so
• this virtual world was created by the Architect (a demiurge without omnipotence/omniscience)
• the matrix is run by several programs (bots), one of which becomes viral
• some humans are aware of it and want to "liberate" everyone else (despite the clearly worse living conditions), those who are aware have supernatural powers thanks to their will power
• to counter some bugs in previous versions of the matrix, free will was factored in the current version, (which results in Neo persisting despite the futility of the fight and winning, somehow) so the previous version was a deterministic system whereas this one is a stochastic system if one were to borrow terminology from Mathematical biology
• the machines are lead by the deus ex machina, as it is quite ironically called when you watch the movie with subtitles —having lost the remote to the player—, ironic as it does not mean god of the machines, but it is a name for a far-fetched plot-twist (such as this)

Computer programs are written, compiled and run. If there is a syntax mistake in the code it will not compile, whereas if there is a methodological error the output will differ from expected and it will take forever to pin point the bug.

In the Book of Genesis God makes heaven and earth in 7 days, but there is not written if it was his first go nor if he made previous versions which did not compile or where excessively buggy. If the scripture is taken ad litteram as a temporal order, creation was not written in a programming language but was assembled on the fly in some fancy version of CAD or similar, whereas if the Augustinian version (accepted version) is taken, in which creation was instantaneous (atemporal) and the days are metaphors of the atemporal priority of the creation of the parts it fits the model of computer programming, namely God wrote first the library light, then the library firmaments etc, then compiled and run (instantaneous creation of the world). In the latter scenario, God could have multiple universes running at the same time.

The creation of the world appears twice in the book of Genesis, proof that the world was written in C++ or similar language, except that in the first account it failed to compile properly. Additionally some bugs are still present but luckly the simulation/creation allows a debug mode. 

It should be noted that the book of Revelations, describe the end of the world but not the end of all creation (heaven inclusive) so it is not the narrative of the program crashing, although that situation may also appear (cf. Dogma by Kevin Smith).

Additionally, it is not C++, as God does not say "int main() {light()}", but it is definitely a script as God makes stuff by saying incantations.

In conclusion, the world is written in some kind of scripting language and it took (at least) two goes to get it to compile, but there are one or two bugs still and the world may not end as foretold in the book of Revelations but may suddenly crash due to an unexpected error.