God damn POS puter

[Liar]

Since the only local hardware geek I know is out getting shitfaced... today was the day I woulda needeed him around.

I was happily posting on Lit, scrolling down the lengthy masectomy thread and it's epic posts, when my screen froze and I couldn't do a damn thing. After 30 seconds of waiting patiently, I swear, reboot and is greeted with 2 seconds of booting progress, and another frozen screen. So I reboot again, and is greeted with...nothing.

It's a fanless thing with quiet processor and gfx cooling, so I assume overheating, open the monster up and is greeted by the Gales From Hell. I could fry an egg ten feet away from the damn thing. I swear something was glowing deep in the beast's bowels. My fingertips are still smoking.

Well you know what they say, the geek shall inherit the earth. And Internet Abstinence is the Mother of Invention. My computer is now an open casket, and a desktop fan is roaring a steady breeze straight into the churning machinery. So hopefully it'll stay alive long enough for me to post this.

It was only fifteen minutes of downtime, but damn I felt handicapped. My first thought was not "I need to fix my computer". It was "why don't I have a backup system so I can keep fucking about on Lit?"

 

[S-Des]

You could try ice . . . it's pretty good to cool things down.

 

[buxxxom]

Since the only local hardware geek I know is out getting shitfaced... today was the day I woulda needeed him around.

I was happily posting on Lit, scrolling down the lengthy masectomy thread and it's epic posts, when my screen froze and I couldn't do a damn thing. After 30 seconds of waiting patiently, I swear, reboot and is greeted with 2 seconds of booting progress, and another frozen screen. So I reboot again, and is greeted with...nothing.

It's a fanless thing with quiet processor and gfx cooling, so I assume overheating, open the monster up and is greeted by the Gales From Hell. I could fry an egg ten feet away from the damn thing. I swear something was glowing deep in the beast's bowels. My fingertips are still smoking.

Well you know what they say, the geek shall inherit the earth. And Internet Abstinence is the Mother of Invention. My computer is now an open casket, and a desktop fan is roaring a steady breeze straight into the churning machinery. So hopefully it'll stay alive long enough for me to post this.

It was only fifteen minutes of downtime, but damn I felt handicapped. My first thought was not "I need to fix my computer". It was "why don't I have a backup system so I can keep fucking about on Lit?"

You get it, don't you?

Hi, my name is Buxxxom, and I'm a Lit addict.

 

[Guest]

What was he doing in that room to make the computer overheat like that?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Since the only local hardware geek I know is out getting shitfaced... today was the day I woulda needeed him around.

I was happily posting on Lit, scrolling down the lengthy masectomy thread and it's epic posts, when my screen froze and I couldn't do a damn thing. After 30 seconds of waiting patiently, I swear, reboot and is greeted with 2 seconds of booting progress, and another frozen screen. So I reboot again, and is greeted with...nothing.

*laugh* I really am sorry for your computer problems, but after reading this much of the post, all I could think of was that it had died in a selfless effort to save you from that thread.

There is precedent:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48461

Heroic Computer Dies To Save World From Master's Thesis

WALTHAM, MA—A courageous young notebook computer committed a fatal, self-inflicted execution error late Sunday night, selflessly giving its own life so that professors, academic advisors, classmates, and even future generations of college students would never have to read Jill Samoskevich's 227-page master's thesis, sources close to the Brandeis University English graduate student reported Monday.

"This fearless little machine saved me from unspoken hours of exasperated head-scratching and eyestrain, as well as years of agonizing self-doubt over my decision to devote my life to teaching," said professor John Rebson, who had already read through three drafts of Samoskevich's sprawling, 38,000-word dissertation, titled A Hermeneutical Exploration Of Onomatopoeia In The Works Of William Carlos Williams As It May Or May Not Relate To Post-Agrarian Appalachia. "It was an incredible act of bravery. This laptop sacrificed itself in order to put an end to Jill's senseless rambling."

Added Rebson: "I only wish some of my other students' computers could be as selfless and brave as this one."

Those familiar with the IBM ThinkPad T41 characterized it as an ordinary machine placed under extraordinary circumstances. According to Information Technology Investigator Bob Arnett, the computer endured "constant abuse at the fingertips of this lackluster scholar," who forced it against its will to record page upon page of "overindulgent, impenetrable drivel" that some say even Samoskevich herself didn't understand.

"It was one of the worst cases I've ever seen," Arnett said. "I minored in English in college, and I can tell you, this computer went through hell. But it never lost sight of what was right, and it's comforting to know that it's in a better place now, and it took that abomination of literary masturbation with it."

"From what I read—specifically, pages one through 76—this computer was put through a lot of painful, torturous passages," said Department of English graduate faculty advisor Judith Mendel, who was scheduled to meet Samoskevich on Thursday to discuss the possibility of publishing the "atrocity" in the department's academic journal. "Thanks to this laptop's valor, Jill's classmates or future students will never have to pick their way through dense and discursive passages about 'The Red Wheelbarrow' and North Carolina farming communities. Also, I get to have a free lunch period Thursday."

Mendel said that even her most scalding critiques and fundamental dismantling of the paper's core arguments could never have demoralized Samoskevich in the way this computer's single system shutdown did. "Jill called me last night and told me that she was too crushed to even consider starting over from scratch," Mendel said. "One determined computer has triumphed over years of misapplied literary theory."

The day before the crash, the computer reportedly resisted an attempt by Samoskevich to transfer files to an external drive when it failed to recognize a USB port, convincing some that the laptop's self-destruction was premeditated.

According to Samoskevich's roommate, Pamela Roscoe, the ThinkPad had been "up to something" for months.

"There were definite warning signs," Roscoe said. "It infected itself with a virus so Jill couldn't send e-mail attachments, and it would noticeably lag or shut down while she was typing out particularly long, dry sentences. I guess when she got to the chapter about how the 'imitative tactility' used in the first two stanzas of 'Young Sycamore' can act as a 'neo-structuralist, pre-objectivist perlustration and metonymy' of the importance of anti-Episcopalian sentiment in the rise and fall of central West Virginian coal miners' unions, the computer just decided that something had to be done for the greater good."

Mark Weiss, also in the English graduate program with Samoskevich, witnessed the incident at 2:39 a.m. Monday, just as Samoskevich was putting the finishing touches on her abstract so that an already exhausted Weiss could "give it one more pass."

"I had already read the whole thing twice to tell her whether her argument made sense, which it didn't, but this time she wanted me to make punctuation and grammar corrections," Weiss said. As Samoskevich minimized one of her Internet Explorer windows, the screen froze "for what seemed like an eternity," then turned blue.

"I've already forgotten why 'Queen Anne's Lace' symbolizes the advances in modern agricultural implements, but I'll never forget that brave computer's last words: 'You will lose any unsaved information in all applications. Press any key to continue,'" Weiss said.

Although the loss of the thesis meant that no one in the Samoskevich-Roscoe residence got any sleep that night, Weiss characterized his subjection to Samoskevich's frantic ravings as "a small price to pay" when compared to the laptop's self-obliteration.

"It's tragic, but I can't help but think how the laptop never had the opportunity to do anything fun, like gaming or viral video–viewing or instant-messaging," Roscoe said. "People need to hear its story."

Faculty and staff of the English Department will gather at the Brandeis IT center Friday to honor the ThinkPad with a Purple Hard Drive, traditionally awarded to computers that die at least 100 pages into a dangerously boring thesis.

Though Samoskevich was unavailable for comment, sources said she appeared to be immersed in new research on alcoholism and depression.