2. Let this be a lesson to everyone...

    20 March 2007

    Always double-check what machine you're working on. And always, always make sure your backups are good!

    In the state of Alaska, a sysadmin at the department of revenue accidentally reformatted a hard drive that contained information pertaining to a oil fund account worth roughly $38bus.

    Yep - billions of US dollars.

    For an encore, rather than restore the data for the account from a backup hard drive, he then reformatted the backup drive on top of that - he probably hit the up arrow, changed the device name, and touched it off again. By this time, any sysadmin worth the name would …

    Read more...

  3. Let this be a lesson to everyone...

    20 March 2007

    Always double-check what machine you're working on. And always, always make sure your backups are good!

    In the state of Alaska, a sysadmin at the department of revenue accidentally reformatted a hard drive that contained information pertaining to a oil fund account worth roughly $38bus.

    Yep - billions of US dollars.

    For an encore, rather than restore the data for the account from a backup hard drive, he then reformatted the backup drive on top of that - he probably hit the up arrow, changed the device name, and touched it off again. By this time, any sysadmin worth the name would …

    Read more...

  4. Death and distruction! Fear and loathing! Ketchup is a vegetable... but go on with your lives, as if we didn't say anything.

    20 March 2007

    Fnords about as the FBI announces that terrorists might be getting jobs as bus drivers because foreigners, some with ties to extremist groups, are getting licenses to do so. They also say that they have no information whatsoever about a plot, and so we have nothing to fear.

    Which is it, guys? Should we start driving our kids to school because They are getting bus drivers' licenses, or should we "go on with our lives"?

    Read more...

  6. I've spared you a Dresden Files post for a while.

    19 March 2007

    Last night on Sci Fi was episode eight from season one of The Dresden Files, the long-awaited adaptation of the first novel, Storm Front. This was supposed to be the pilot episode of the series but the Sci-Fi Channel execs decided to change the order that the episodes would be shown in, and instead opened the season with Birds of a Feather some weeks ago.

    Beyond this link lie spoilers.... Hasufin and I had a discussion about this last night, and we agree that the network execs made the right choice showing Storm Front when they did. They've built up …

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  7. The weekend of recovery in review.

    19 March 2007

    As I've been talking about lately (probably to the point of annoyance), I underwent my second root canal last Friday, and I've been laying low to give myself a chance to recover. Dental work always knocks me on my six for some reason, probably due to elevated levels of stress hormones and my body trying to deal with all of the unusual chemicals that winds up in it. I've been cutting back on the amount of Motrin I've been taking, in particular - for over a week I'd been taking twelve to sixteen 200mg tablets every day to keep the pain …

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  10. It's over. It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought it was going to be.

    16 March 2007

    At 1000 EST5EDT I drove into the endodontist's office for the root canal procedure that I've been dreading for the past week-and-some.

    The waiting's always worse than anything else, or at least that's what I've decided now that I've had two such procedures done so far. I showed up a couple of minutes early and was immediate greeted by Dr. Dellork and the attendant. Their manner is quite friendly, and immediately put me at ease, which is something that I very much needed at that point in time. Once room #1 was free, I was lead back to the.. you …

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