The Phantom 30 gig

I thought I'd write about Windows Vista before I forgot about the experience ... Most people seem to hate it and because of this no one uses it. Strangely enough, that seems to be the biggest problem I've found with Vista. Nobody likes to use it, so there's more scattered and confused tech support for it. There's also less software for it and just a general confusion about it ... You can tell, because Microsoft tried to attack this general dislike and confusion with the Windows Mohave ad campaign. I discovered this lack of support when I had a rather interesting problem with my system.

I was trying to partition the hard drive in order to put things like music on one partition so that when I inevitably need to reformat I wouldn't have to copy all 32 gigs of music I have to a back up drive and then back again after the reinstall. I figured I would split my 100 Gb hard drive in half and leave around 50 for windows and whatever I might need to install. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? I'd had the computer about a month and hadn't done anything crazy to it, so I went in to look at how to partition it, and ... there were about 60 Gb used. And my music wasn't even on it!! As a matter of fact, it wouldn't even fit nicely on there! I was astonished that vista took up that much space, so I went hunting to see what exactly needed all that room. I tried sizing the folders on the C drive, and then I became even more perplexed. The total space all the files on my C drive took up was about 30 Gb. There was a completely missing 30Gb. Like I said, I was very very perplexed. So I did what I always do when I am very very perplexed. I googled it. Because I have found that no matter what my compter problem is, someone, somewhere has already encountered and kicked the ass of said problem. It's a good situation to be in. Unless you're running Vista ... I searched for what I found to be an exceptionally long time for a computer problem for an answer to this question and not simply the confused question posted all over support forums. I even went to *gasp* the Windows tech support site ... I know. I was desperate. Anyway, I finally stumbled upon this forum thread which had the answer to my question!! but even that guy had a seemingly difficult time finding this ridiculous problem, *and* it was posted on an Ubuntu forum. The one good answer. Was posted on an Ubuntu forum. Really? So I turned off the system restore feature and recovered about 20 Gb (the other 10 it turns out is an additional Lenovo backup ... man that system was backed the heck up).

But really I'd just like to complain about the ridiculous situation Microsoft had got themselves into. I actually think that Windows Vista is pretty cool. The neato graphics are awesome. It looks cool. The search option in the start menu is *spectacular.* It utilizes IPV6 if that's your thing. Tablet functions are already built in if *that's* your thing. For the not-so-computer savvy, I think it's a great OS, because it pretty much does everything for you. The only reason I'm not using it now is that I had a nasty LAN problem with the network in my office. I had and IT person come look at it, because, well I didn't have time and it was a really weird problem and it took me so long to find Vista help the first time ... He couldn't get it to work (He was seriously in my office at least twice a week for about a month, poor guy.), so I quit and installed XP over the break. Now I have a few more moments to look around for a good answer, and it turns out it wasn't even really a Vista problem.

For the computer savvy, it's rather annoying, because you have to navigate through about 4 or 5 menus to get to things like network connections just to disable the wireless connection. It does a lot of things on its own, and that is pretty cool, but never take away my manual option, because it never fails that something will go wrong and even if the manual option doesn't work, it could still give me more information as to what is going on. But I don't think Windows is really going for the small percent of the population that is computer saavy with their general OS.

So what happened with Vista, which has done nothing evil to me besides eat some of my hard drive space and waste a little bit of my time due to an incompetent OU network? Well, the trouble is something that causes problems, I think, in most of the world. Too many people take other people's word for it. Newscasters, Oprah, Politicians, the New York Times (who once "wrote" an article stating that blonds will die out by the year 2020 or something ridiculous. This story had months before circulated as spam and was proven to be incorrect by snopes.com and apparently has been around for a loooong time. Seriously? I wrote them a nasty email), bloggers, Wikipedia (don't get me started on high school science teachers who don't bitch slap students for using wikipedia as a reference--though it is generally very good, and I do love it ... ) Obviously the internet and TV don't really help this situation.

I find that to be a recurring theme in this blog and something that generally annoys me about people. If someting can easily be experienced first hand, don't be lazy and just rely on stereotypes and public opinion. Everything is spun. I think that will be my new year's resolution: Experience more things first hand. (What? I'm only like a month late--you should ask my professor how late my papers get in ....)

... Or maybe Vista really does suck ;-)

PS. I've got a new polymer post coming up! At least Steph should be excited about that!

Hiatus

Hi friends!

I've been very quiet for the last month or two (holy crap, has it been that long??). I could tell you what went on, or ... no wait that'll take up good blog-space. Let's see, the last post was on ... wow. November 17th. Well, now I wouldn't be surprised if everyone stopped reading it. Thank goodness for RSS feeds, eh? Anyway what happened was: First my brothers and I raced my Mom and Dad down to Houston for Thanksgiving to meet up with my dad's side of the family. Then there were only 3 weeks left before school was out, and silly me thought I would be able to get work done while all the profs were assigning everything they forgot to teach us during the semester. Directly after that there was Christmas break, which really was not a break, and consisted of a drive to Tulsa, losing my purse (dumby), a nice quick drive down to San Antonio, a friend visiting for New Years (no, I know. He sucks--his website does not work.), a crazy awesome New Year's party, and catching up with all my Tulsa buddies, and a drive back to Norman--whew. And since then, it's been a paper turned in that my prof didn't really agree with ... or it didn't agree with him ... I dunno--I have yet to figure that out, as well as a ton of lab work to catch up to where I think I should be ...

But since the year has turned, I went back through the blog (rather quickly between DCA runs if you know what I'm saying). And pulled up all the titles of unpublished or draft ideas I had started but never finished (well, not all of them. One was not really ever meant to be printed--just funny and ... lude, and the other one is a surprise I'm saving for 2009, so it'll stay secretlike in my blogger account). Some of them are pretty funny. For the most part, the reason they are here and not an actual post is because I either lost interest (The Phantom 30 gig was supposed to be about Vista, but I've since given up on Vista ... but I might still write the post), or not gotten around to it, or I've totally forgotten what it was about (Reverse Psychology Girl, Spanish Thingy)

Reverse Psychology Girl
More Polymers
Math Tutors!
Spanish Thingy
The Phantom 30 gig
TV is a lie!
Google is creepy
Wikipedia as a research tool
Free in a package of batteries

Anyway, now we may take time to meditate on things past ... and things to come. Hopefully in 2009 I can take a few minutes to stop thinking about decanoyl-N-methyl glucamine and sodium docecylsulfate to write a post or two.

If you were a dragon and had 3 heads, would you still be one person?

I once made a philosophy major cry.

I had left my head at home, and I didn't think very hard about it, and didn't think that perhaps philosophy majors get a lot of crap and thus don't like answering the repeated question: "Yes, but what will you do with it?" I was genuinely curious. I wasn't trying to give him a hard time. Really. You don't believe me, do you?

I should have asked him why he chose it instead of something else, because he had a plan, I just didn't see what philosophy had anything to do with that plan. It was more sensible to me that someone trying to go into that line of work go for a business major or some such.

But that's pretty much how I feel about philosophy. As demonstrated by this excerpt the 'engineering ethics' paper I just wrote:

Kantian ethics or deontological views entail that since we are rational beings, reason alone can be used to determine what is moral and what is not. The main argument against this view seems to be stupid people. The analogy presented here is a babysitter who spills water on the cat and in her determination to get the cat dry before the adults come home puts him in the microwave. In her capacity for reason, the microwave seemed like the best option. Her reason and intention keep her in the morally right area with deontological ethics. Perhaps Kantian ethics has a learning curve.

That's my favorite version of ethics. The one that involves reason. Sheesh. I should say that this was how the philosophy professor who guest lectured my chemical engineering controls class so non-chalantly discarded kantian ethics, which is why this paragraph is dripping with sarcasm. I was annoyed with him, but the man has years of philosophy training up on me, so I couldn't think quickly enough to argue with him. I could have argued it in the paper, but this was more fun.

I find philosophy interesting at times ... like when I'm on the toilet. Or just spacing in Kinetics class. I often think about why we're here and how in the world we got here and what I really want out of life, etc. Apparently last Thursday was 'World Philosophy Day.' My friend shared a BBC article with me that included four questions 'to make your brain hurt.' It was interesting, because I've actually thought about a few of them before. It was also interesting, because it demonstrated what kills me about philosophy. It's the so amazingly loosely based analogies they love so much. Sometimes it seems like they just say whatever they want, and it automatically applies ... just look at this bit: They get you piece by piece to admit that you are not your body, but rather your mind (ok, ok), and then out of nowhere ... Bam!

what if surgeons imprinted your mental states on two pre-wiped brains: George Bush's and Gordon Brown's? Would you be in the White House or in Downing Street? There's nothing on which to base a sensible choice. Yet one person cannot be in two places at once. In the end, then, no attempt to make sense of your continued existence over time works. You are not the person who started reading this article.

Whooaa there. There's not really any part of this I agree with anymore ... I don't even know how we got here. Obviously I am not only my mental states, but also my experiences--basically memories. And I feel as though if we had the technology to reformat brains and install new OS's on them, we would probably end up with more than one someone running around, so I do not accept that premise, either. Then all of a sudden I am not the same person who started reading the article ... maybe I've just watched too many sci fi shows or have a vivid imagination, but it just seems crazy to rule in that we can copy brains and rule out that there can't be copies of ourselves .... oi.

Don't get me wrong, I find Philosophy to be rather interesting and often useful, but this is just crazy talk ... and it's 5:30am and I'm writing this to avoid finishing my homework, so I should go. Read the rest of the article, though. It's pretty cool!

When I was a kid, I had to *walk* to school ...

I just paid $1.73 for non-ethanol gas. I can't really even remember the last time gas was that cheap. That's a lie. When I was a kid, the thing I remember about gas is that it was always around 97-99 cents/gallon. That was nice, but the times, they are a changin'. I think in high school I paid less than two dollars for gas, but I was perhaps a little spoiled back then and my parents paid for the gas, so I wasn't too concerned. The prices must have crept up while I was away at college where I was in absolutely no need of a car (3 cheers for Boston's public transportation system). I remember something about the price increasing while I was having a little too much fun on the T in Boston but again, wasn't too concerned. Now that I pay for gas and drive myself most places, I'm a little more concerned. And when the gas prices started rising I got a little nervous as I'm sure everyone did. I even went out and bought a new (used) car!!

Alright, so the reason I'm not kicking myself now that gas has gone down is actually that miles-per-gallon was really just an excuse to get rid of my 11-year-old mommy-mobile which was white. I mean, really, do I read like a person who likes the color white?? Not that I wasn't grateful to have the car at all (I was super lucky that my family seems to have so many cars on the brink of not being able to start again ... ever ... RIP, our red corolla). I'm also super lucky that my mother insists that for me to stick around as a dependent and keep their lovely insurance package they have to actually pay for a few of my things, so they absolutely cannot go without paying for my car insurance. Yay mom! Thanks! Not that I couldn't handle it ... it's just, who would want to?

Back on point, gas has dropped 2 dollars here in the past month or so, and it's starting to freak me out. I actually want it to go back up! Because, let's face it, gasoline is not nice. When the prices go up, people start to become concerned with finding energy sources that aren't gasoline, and they were for awhile. I'm still happy with my car, first because it doesn't make me look like I have a couple of 11-year-old kids, but mostly because it doesn't waste as much gas with little ol' me driving just little ol' me around. I'm still concerned with global warming and foreign dependence and all that ... is the rest of the country?

Add to that point that every time I see gas prices it reminds me that we are seemingly in the midst of a 'bagel.' If you don't get that, you should watch more West Wing. The state of the economy is surely the main reason that gas prices are so low right now. I don't think it can be that suddenly the people who have the oil are cool with us ... eh Chavez! What's up, friend?

Uh ... anyway. What I'm (nervously) saying is: Go back up, gas!! Not too high ... maybe around 2.50? Or better yet, just stand still for a little while. Just relax, chill (chillax, if you will), and be stable. That would make me happy. But if that were to happen, surely it would mean the whole economy would have to be stable, and that's a whole 'nother can of worms ... (yeah, that's right--I wrote "a whole 'nother")

Hey, at least there hasn't been anyone complaining about BPA in awhile!

Extra Fancy

You're probably wondering what I've been doing lately. "What are you thinking about, Kendall?" is what you're saying to yourselves. Well, I'll tell you what I've been thinking about, and it's not very many things, so don't be disappointed.

1) The thing I am thinking about most of the time is thermodynamics of adsorption of anionic and nonionic surfactant mixtures. Seriously. I'm in the middle of writing a paper. And it's taking much longer than I thought it would. Hopefully I'll be done with it by the end of this week, but I am writing a blog post instead of writing the paper right now, so ...

2) Failure rate data (is this mentioned only because some of the guys from work stumbled across my blog? ... perhaps, perhaps). Right now at the internship I'm collecting data from everywhere on how often pipes and valves and pressure vessels and pretty much everything fails (in tiny ways, in small ways, in very large catastrophic ways--it's pretty interesting).

3) Whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing for whatever class I'm in ...

4) The new bond movie that was friggin awesome! I love Bond.

5) What countries I'd like to visit/live in. I'll start with all of them on the list, and then stop dreaming and maybe see if I can actually pull off a few. I'm looking into Engineers without Borders as well as the Peace Corps. Anyone know any other programs like this?

6) What I'm going to eat next ... it's not that I don't have anything to eat, it's just that sometimes I forget that food is important ... yeah, it's been that kind of month.

Oh yeah, and at the grocery store today I found 2 different items that were labeled 'Extra Fancy.' Ooh la la. One of them was a bag of rice. really. white, long grain, rice. sigh. and the other item was a bag of granny smith apples, but there were no other granny smith apples in the store, so if there were other kinds that were less fancy than these, they were sold out before the 'extra fancy' which makes me wonder if there's really anything fancy about them at all ...

I think I should change the name of my blog to Extra Fancy Polymers are just a bunch of Extra Fancy mers.

I voted!

I don't know what it is about those little white stickers with the American flag on them, but I really love them. They say "Hey! Look at me! I'm a patriot!" and it's a situation where it's OK to boast! It says: I just voted, and it's cool that we can do that, and it's cool to do it! And it's completely free, and very easy. You just go to your polling place, and pull a lever or punch a card or draw a line or fill in a circle, and you did it! And you get a nice little sticker to tell everyone you did it, too . . . Only I forgot to get mine :-(. I was so psyched about the sticker, but I was so much more psyched to be actually voting that I forgot all about it. Damned sticker. I'm so disappointed, that I might have to make one all on my own. I actually sat outside in my car thinking about going back in to get a sticker ... that's how much I like this sticker.

So I voted, and then I went to Starbucks to get my free cup of coffee just for voting. Turns out you don't need the sticker to get a free cup of coffee. Just go tell them you voted and they'll give you a free cup of coffee. It's good coffee, too!

Today will be exciting. I hope everyone's ready. I should have had a party. What was I thinking? I'm a little disappointed that I can't watch election results in real-time anymore. That made it a bit more fun, but I guess this is better (better? maybe for people who trust news agencies. silly people). Anyway I hope you all have a great day, and I'll sooo be watching CNN tonight after the polls close on the East Coast.

Wait, what?

Haven't blogged in awhile. It's because I'm crazy busy. I started a new internship while still taking classes and doing research for 40 hours a week ... that internship deals directing with the oil and gas industry along with many other industries, and I'd love to tell you all about it--you'd be surprised about a *lot* of things--but first I gotta figure out what's proprietary information, and what, well, won't get me in tons of trouble. fun times. Anyway, I though I'd tell you this story before I ran off to bed.

My roommate stole my shower curtain.

Seriously. I was a little amazed as well. There are two of us here, and we have one bathroom, and this morning I woke up at 9am, and ... no shower curtain ... I had 2 interviews today, so I was pretty much pissed, but I put my hair in a bun, and ran off to work. I got home around 8:30 tonight, thinking I would take a quick shower and then run off to my friend's birthday party at a nearby club. I walk into the bathroom with my towel, taking my hair down, ready for the shower, when I realized there was *still* no curtain ... WTF? It's been 12 hours! plenty of time to wash it (if that's what she was doing--I've never washed a shower curtain in my life...) or whatever it was she thought she needed to do! So I text her 'So, the shower curtain is going to be back tonight?' And a few minutes later I get a responce 'Yup. 2am' .... 2am?!?! WTF??? that's at least 17 hours the curtain will be gone!! *And* there was no remorse or surprise in that text. No 'I'm sorry!' No 'oh no! I forgot!' Just a 'yup.' Like it's normal for one's shower to be out of commision on the 23rd of each month due to a missing shower curtain ...

She used to live alone ... so maybe she's used to frequently washing her shower curtain ... I really don't know. But communication is the key to any relationship, so surely when I see her tomorrow morning I will let her know that she should probably let me know the next time she needs to remove the shower curtain for whatever reason ... like, do I need to have a back up hidden somewhere in the apartment just in case?? ;-)