August 14th 1984 started off like any other day, yet events which would unfold would lead us to this moment in time and space exactly 20 years later. The world would never be the same again. The history books have little to say about this day but what we do know is that the filters on a power distribution unit in a mainframe room were flushed through (see Exhibit A) and that a submarine was caught in the nets of a fishing boat off Berry head, South Devon.
Exhibit A: A maintenance logbook.
While these events have little to do with anything they were the prelude to a far more important cosmic conjuncture - my birth! I don’t generally feel that the passing of another year is much to talk about but I think it deserves a small mention considering its the 20th I’ve managed to survive 
One of the coolest presents I received was a copy of R.O.D. the manga Vol. 1 from a friend - thanks! It’s all in Japanese so it may take me a while to work out but at least I can look at the cool drawings!
THE LAST LITERATURE D-LINE OF U.K. - AGENT YOMIKO READMAN - “THE PAPER”
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Found a new unique (and in my opinion very cool) use for broken hard drives today at work, and a rather artistic one at that! WARNING: The procedure described below will void your warranty and potentially be dangerous if you don’t observe basic electrical safety precautions (i.e. don’t do it if this concerns you!).
1. Remove the top casing of the drive using an appropriate screw driver (some have nasty nonstandard screws which need special tools).
2. Plug a power cord from the PSU into the exposed hard drive leaving the IDE cable out.
3. Turn on the computer - you should see the hard drive immediately spin up and the read/write head(s) start oscillating back and forward over the silver platter(s).
4. Select any number of colored marker pens and gently draw on the platter making pretty patterns!
It’s all very mindless really but fun nevertheless! If you’re interested in what all the different bits and pieces inside the drive are doing take a look at this article on the excellent howstuffworks.com.
N.B. This is the last post I’ll write as a teenager as tomorrow I hit the ripe old age of 20 which is seriously worrying! Whether this will feel any different only time will tell!
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Stumbled across a cool little cartographic project yesterday called the “Fool’s world map“. It’s basically meant to represent the world as viewed by a ‘fool’ - if you know someone who thinks Disney Land is a state in America or that Atlantis actually exists then this is for them!
Although very funny it’s actually quite scary to think that some people actually have a picture of the world in their mind not unlike what has been represented here. I imagine most of them are American. Even scarier is that fact that some people around the world, notably in places like North Korea, have very little idea of what going on outside their immediate place of residence at all.
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Its been a very hectic couple of days back at work. A number of people have left recently so we’re a bit short on support staff which is creating a bit of a backlog of work but on the whole I think things are being coped with pretty well considering!
Had a bit of fun today installing Windows XP Service Pack 2 on my work PC (not knowing if my system would come back up after it did all its messing about with the internals) but luckily all was fine and I was presented with a number of nag screen about securing my system - looks like Microsoft might have finally woken up to the fact that their OS is like a kitchen sieve when improperly configured. It’s something I thought I’d never hear myself saying but I rather suspect it’s too little too late.
I also got round to printing off a couple of my photos from Italy yesterday evening. Considering I only have a cheap little HP DeskJet 950C the results were quite good and definitely wouldn’t look out of place in a cheap clip frame!
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After getting back yesterday evening I’ve been pretty busy trying to catch up with everything. I’ve just got round to going through the hundreds of photos I took last week and have uploaded them to the gallery. I was pretty pleased overall with them, there are a couple I’d defiantly like to print properly when I get a chance.
Update: I’ve added a few photos to all the posts from last week to give a quick look at where we were. You can see the whole lot in the gallery which is accessible here.
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