The Vent Thread

[BasharOfTheAges]

Not to be too snarky, but you just discovered the root cause of disdain people in science related fields feel for liberal arts / humanities education in general. It pretty much all is a core of ancient substance lacquered in hundreds of years of bullshit.

[Otohiko]

Yeah, but trust me - that's not exclusive to any branch of the university. I see no less of this in the sciences than I do in humanities, since I work directly with the tech side of the school when it comes to both research and teaching. There are some real issues in all fields, but the biggest ones have nothing to do with field at all, but rather with university administration. A lot of this is also far from ancient - my own fields of expertise are at most 40-50 years old, even if they come out of more ancient stuff. The problem, if I really simplify it, is that the university is run like a corporation, and that's something that is at most 25-30 years old, and actually emerged from technical/business education (and the gradual switch of the university from doing deep liberal learning to essentially becoming a certifying body that you need for your resume) rather than anything to do with liberal arts.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Rise of the middle class will get you that. Does seem kinda diploma-mill-y though from what you're saying. My university occasionally gave me a similar vibe. At least 40% of the students didn't deserve to be in a place of higher learning, yet there they were.

Biggest example of the business mentality sort of thing I can see from mine is how they have about 70% of the parking spaces they need at the beginning of the fall semester and they refuse to build more year after year. The clever bit is that they know by one month in, they'll have a 20% surplus. People didn't just figure out their schedules and get carpool buddies, hundreds of them dropped classes that they already paid for. The administration intentionally admit lots of dumb students that can't make it, so they can help pay everyone else's way. I don't entirely fault them for it - it helps keep tuition low. They keep stats on the fields where most of those people that can't cut it come from, though, and it's pretty disproportionate.

[Kitsuner]

Ripped another pair of slacks.

[AngelDragoon]

Compacted wisdom teeth. Won't be able to get them out until mid/late January because it seems EVERY oral surgeon I can get a hold of will be away on holiday. The painkillers my regular dentist gave me aren't working, and I can't contact them for a new script because they aren't in until the 1st. Oh, and my friends hit me in the face with a whistler nerf dart the other day, (the one with the hard top). Granted, it was on accident, but it still hurt like the dickens.

[Chained(E)Studio]

external fail-er D:
is it worth it to pay to have my files removed?
really hate technology..

[Dr. Derpface, J.D.]

external fail-er D:
is it worth it to pay to have my files removed?
really hate technology..

Depends on the way the drive failed. If it's just a bad USB controller on the external, then the drive itself is fine. Most places charge $50-$200 to plug in an adapter and copy everything off of the drive. If the filesystem is corrupt, you're looking at $500+ to have someone do a raw read on the drive and sort all the files out. If the drive has physical issues such as the motor being bad or the servos malfunctioning, then you're looking at having to send it off to a clean room so they can remove the platters, put them in a new drive, and read the data to a new one. $1500 is where that STARTS...

[Pwolf]

It's always cheaper (and better) in the end to invest in backup.

[Chained(E)Studio]

Depends on the way the drive failed. If it's just a bad USB controller on the external, then the drive itself is fine. Most places charge $50-$200 to plug in an adapter and copy everything off of the drive. If the filesystem is corrupt, you're looking at $500+ to have someone do a raw read on the drive and sort all the files out. If the drive has physical issues such as the motor being bad or the servos malfunctioning, then you're looking at having to send it off to a clean room so they can remove the platters, put them in a new drive, and read the data to a new one. $1500 is where that STARTS...

Its the hardware inside the hard drive. I moved it into a couple different cases to test, and into my own computer to test it out. It spins up, but is unable to keep spinning to mount/read on any computer/laptop. Or in other words its dead as the tech guy said today. BUT, if you can replace parts inside the drive then I might send it off. The manufacturer I bought it from guarantee's that if they can't get your files off by doing whatever type of data recovery needed, they don't charge you. It's just if they can... do I want to pay? I am not sure I want to spend so much just for so little files.... 1500 O_O

It's always cheaper (and better) in the end to invest in backup.

Yeah, that only works if this wasn't your temporary backup. I just finished getting files off of my old computer. Turned it off for one night, and turned it on the next day and it wouldn't go. Luckily, my more important files I have elsewhere. Its just the less important ones I want =P.

[Taite]

Dad let our dog out while I was sleeping, she jumped the fence, went exploring and so far hasn't come back. It's been 12 hours now, and it's dark outside. No idea where she is; I spent hours looking for her. I hope the Pound has her, but I won't get to find out til Monday. Fmllllll
2012 is just bound to suck.