Sunday, April 24, 2005
on waiting for a hard disc to format ...
Some things still take time! Once everything did, of course; and strangely, I didn't seem to notice it so much then. Now, it's like a nanosecond is always too long - even if you're dealing with 100 gigabytes! When I read Christopher Booker's The Neophiliacs back in the 60's, and his lament that we were all 'plunging down a cataract of change', as well as the metaphor being a little queer for those of us who do such things, I was struck by an overwhelming feeling of ruth for a man so averse to risk.
And now it's just told me that it will take 7hr 36min 11sec to do a backup ... hang on: it will take me a few minutes to calculate how many nanoseconds that is - 2.7371 x 1014 ... and wouldn't you know it? While I was calculating that, my backup failed!
Paris to the rescue! Apparently, we can make the backup over the LAN and that will take a mere 2.445 x 1012 nsec - a great time saving during which I think I will have a swim!
Feeling better now, and that wonderful little green bar has almost run full across the screen: less than 13 minutes to go.
I was going to write that sometimes, these days, I don't want things to go quite so fast either, that I wished it wasn't all "brilliant sun without the healing shadow". That must have been before I got my computer.
And now it's just told me that it will take 7hr 36min 11sec to do a backup ... hang on: it will take me a few minutes to calculate how many nanoseconds that is - 2.7371 x 1014 ... and wouldn't you know it? While I was calculating that, my backup failed!
Paris to the rescue! Apparently, we can make the backup over the LAN and that will take a mere 2.445 x 1012 nsec - a great time saving during which I think I will have a swim!
Feeling better now, and that wonderful little green bar has almost run full across the screen: less than 13 minutes to go.
I was going to write that sometimes, these days, I don't want things to go quite so fast either, that I wished it wasn't all "brilliant sun without the healing shadow". That must have been before I got my computer.
