Reliable Hard Drive? No such thing.

Hitsville asks: "..I need a reliable 1TB ext drive..Anyone have a recommendation?"

I have the Western Digital MyBooks around my studio...I like the eSATA connections.

In my experience, hard drives suffer about the same failure rate across the board. The difference in impact to your life has to do with your backup plan. For a TB of data, the only really economic plan is to duplicate. Simply stated, buy two.

My techie friends are welcome to chime in.

Software by Subscription

You know that $800 software package you just bought? Yeah, they came out with a new version recently - and you only need $400 more this time to get it. The version you paid for and actually 'own?' Well, they went ahead and fixed all the flaws with that product, and now you can have the REAL product you paid for - only a %100 markup.

How about this?

I bought a car last year. New model. Lots of features. Some I don't use (self washing windows?). This year, the manufacturer came out with the new model, and much to my surprise, they've decided to include windshields on the new ones. Apparently, many of their earlier customers complained about the wind. Oh, and the engine actually starts in the newest line.

They're not upgrading the previous models, though, but customers can buy a new model for retail price. And they're discontinuing support on the old cars (as a cost savings to ME!).

It's time for software-as-subscription. I cannot justify the expense of buying Adobe's suite every year, seeing as how I use the products in about 5% of my projects. Dreamweaver is open for about 10 hours a month.

So I'm looking for a service that allows me to pay-as-I-go for software use. I want the latest, patched, software every time i open it. I do NOT ever again want to be confronted with a popup reminding me the version of software i BOUGHT is now obsolete. Software is a black-hole money sink for many businesses - if not in upgrade costs, then in support costs.

The technology is off-the-shelf to distribute this service (Drupal?), so it's really just a question of management inertia. I predict the first company in this space will win. (Google Docs?)

FF to 3:27 to hear a cue from my library "Dark Theme" used. Runs for almost two minutes.

Not an Atheist - an Alltheist

An idea that's been in my head for some time - thought I'd drop it here and see what the reaction is.

For a great while, I've been uncomfortable with the term "atheist", specifically the inherent negativity of the concept - a denial of an assertion (in this case, the existence of "God" in a Judeo-Xtian sense of the word). In some ways, to assert a negative is an intellectual fail-safe: because a negative cannot be proven in logical sense, asserting a negative frees one from the burden of logical defense.

While I may not subscribe to any singular religious ideology, I am certainly comfortable with the reality that other human beings do. And I'm secure enough in my own convictions I'm not threatened by the presence of someone who may not share those same convictions.

So I needed a new idea - a new word or concept that communicates how it is I can balance seemingly disparate (and fundamental) concepts. Hence, "alltheist."

An Alltheist is someone who accepts unconditionally and without reservation the possibility that God exists in all forms simultaneously.

It's a much better concept, IMHO. An Alltheist is accepting, encompassing, and inclusive. All the things an Atheist is not. And, being a new word, it comes without the cultural baggage of "atheist."

Note: I see the Urban Dictionary has an entry for "alltheist", although I find their definition to be a derisive dig about a social phenomenon, as opposed to my lofty and highfalutin philosophical motives.

Where do dead passwords go?

What happens to your login password when you cancel a membership on a website?

I know that in some places, data retention laws require the user/pass to be stored for some period of time.

I'm curious about the overall safety of user information when in this state of limbo - unuseable and inaccessible to the entities who presumably created/own that information, but of great interest to parties of less-than-benevolent motives?

Any sysadmins out there care to comment?

Screaming in a datacenter

Apparently, screaming at your hard drives will cause a change in their performance.

In other news, sound carries 'energy.' Who knew?

Scratch off gently with coin.

I see this phrase on lottery tickets and the now-ubiquitous gift-cards. I wonder what it says about our relationship with hard currency and a perception of value. Think about it: your physical currency (in this case, coins) is reduced to mere implement. Implicit in this suggestion is the idea the coin has less value than the series of numbers beneath the 'security area.'

I've yet to see a card who's suggestion was "Rub with fingernail" or simply "Scratch off". Is this verbiage deliberate? A natural consequence of economic realities?

What say ye, faithful readers?

Feature Request: SONAR MIDI quantize

It would be really nice if SONAR's MIDI quantize plugin could also deal with velocity ranges (in the same interface.) Currently, I have to use a separate tool/plugin to do this (in SONAR). It would just be convenient to see note timing and velocity controls together as they seem pretty related in terms of performance.

Here's a suggestion for an easy interface modification:

The Velocity range would be controlled by dragging the top or bottom of the indicator to cover the desired range (0-127), and all notes would be real-time scaled to that range.

Contacts by the thousands

Why do some people have hundreds, if not thousands, of contacts on 'social networking' sites? I see this phenomenon on MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and recently, my beloved Vimeo. At least twice a week now I'm notified that I've been 'added' to someone's network. To date, I've yet to actually know someone that's added me. Invariably, when I look at their profile, they've got umpteen hundred contacts....

Where's the value in that? Is is simply some psychological tick where people don't feel good about themselves without a large number in the "Contacts" field? Part of marketing efforts (easy to spam large swathes with "send to all contacts" options?) General cluelessness about social networks? Just ignoring social conventions?