It did this twice yesterday.
...so I pulled the cover off, removed the video card, and nearly burned myself on the heat sink; I took it outside and blew all the dust out of the heat sink using compressed air from the compressor.
Came in, went to reinstall the card, and the computer wouldn't boot.
*sigh*
...turns out that I'd wiggled the front fan plug the wrong way (and probably forgot to sacrifice a goat this morning) and that was keeping the machine from booting. So I went back out to the garage and grabbed a tube of RTV, made sure the plug was on right, and then stuck that bitch down with RTV.
See, the front fan plug is not in good shape. Lo these many years ago when I put a third hard drive in, the fan connector was in the way, and it went BEND-SNAP! as I shoved the drive in. It's not that the connector was too tall; it's just that the way the wires were run, the hard drive couldn't slide all the way in, and instead of popping off the connector the plug just broke the tab right off.
It's been a bit wonky since then. I have no idea why it was causing a boot failure when it was plugged in correctly and it's impossible for it to find a sneak path to ground or anything. Whatever--it's fixed now.
I blew a lot of dust out of the video card's heat sink, too, so I know that must've been a significant part of the problem--but not all of it, since the front fan wasn't running right. Now it is.
To make things even more fun, the power supply fan is beginning to sound like a diesel truck. I don't know what to do about this, but in all liklihood my solution is going to be "buy a new fan and replace it" rather than buy a whole new power supply.
I'm just glad I didn't have to replace the video card. Shit. For a little while it was looking like it had fried; I'd thought, "Taking that hot-ass card outside into freezing temperatures and then blowing freezing cold air on it thermally shocked it to death!" But then I put the original card in and the machine still didn't boot. So the next thing to try was the front fan, and sure enough....
* * *
Italy's Welfare Minister breaks down crying when she has to report that her bailiwick is going to be pared back. I don't think she's crying in sympathy for the people; I think she's upset because her personal power is going to be reduced.
* * *
One definition of stupidity: the total inability to learn from the mistakes of others.
A local family watches their home burn to the ground and just a few feet behind them, firefighters watch, too.Yes, this is the same town that got national exposure last year for its "evil nazi thug" policy of only providing services to people who pay for them.
It's happened multiple times before in one local community: firefighters refuse to respond because the homeowner didn't pay a fire subscription fee.
The last time this happened, the city of South Fulton, Tennessee, received a lot of heat nationwide for this policy. That was more than a year ago but nothing has changed.
If you live in that town and you see what happened to that guy who didn't pay his fire department fee, you'd have to be a total fucking moron not to think to yourself, "Hey, maybe I'd better pay my fee...?"
Oh, I know what this person did: he thought, "I'll never have a fire at my house!"
...said before I read the entire article, wherein the penultimate sentence is, "...admitted they were aware but thought this would never happen to them."
Sorry, asshats. You knew the rules and you chose to take the risk. It's no one's fault but your own.
* * *
If you worked at a deparment store and saw a man go into the women-only dressing rooms, what would you say?
I think you'd say, "Sir, you can't go in there." And you'd get fired, because our society insists on kowtowing to the perversions of less than 2% of its members.
On the plus side, if you're willing to put up with a little social stigma, it means a guy can now go into the women's dressing rooms at Macy's! It's heaven for peeping toms!!
* * *
Other ways we can make food more expensive is to shoot anyone who is caught growing vegetables in his back yard without a permit!
*sigh*
* * *
Even bigger FLASH RAM chips. 128 Gb is pretty f-ing huge; that's 16 GB on a single chip.
Still wondering what the various semiconductor companies are doing with memristors....
* * *
Totally unnecessary carbon mitigation is too expensive to be practical.
* * *
People in Australia put up solar panels and sell the electricity to the power companies, which is putting too much stress on the power grid and causing failures.
...yet another fail for solar power!
* * *
Atheists once again display their class and erudition.
"'The message to me at least,' said Jonathan Weintraub, of the group NOVA Atheists, 'is that the meaning of Christmas, which is about faith and family, is dead and has been replaced by commercialism.'" WTF do you care about "faith"? You're an atheist; I thought you guys were anti-faith.
* * *
Bank runs in Greece. Not a good sign. That is, in fact, a very bad sign.
And let's not step in the DOOM!
* * *
Yesterday I managed to get the bathroom fan replaced, finally.
It took me an hour. Only an hour--I had expected it to take longer than that, and I had expected it to be a much bigger pain in the ass than it was. It was not a picnic, but it was easier than expected.
The old fan was half-assed in place; the new fan is correctly mounted.
There was no sign of any animals anywhere. Certainly there was nothing in the vent pipe. So I have no f-ing clue where the mystery stink in the bathroom came from, unless something got into the crawl space and died.
* * *
I got the blab slab connected to the antenna, and I can receive channel 7. Whee!
...I'm thinking that the antenna is optimized for analog signals (since it was installed at a time when there was no such thing as digital TV) and that I'll therefore have to get a set-top antenna that's made to receive digital signals. Argh etc.
Basic cable would run me $30 per month; the approximate equivalent satellite package is $70.
Oh, they say it's $30 per month, but you have to pay $60 per month and then get a rebate of $30 per month after you've paid it for 2 years...and I'd bet that "rebate" would be a credit towards future service charges rather than actual cash.
How about NO???
Here's the funny part about Comcast: they offer basic cable for $30 and Internet for $20...but the package deal (cable TV and Internet) is $70 per month.
...not that it matters, because these are all starter rates. After the first six months the cable TV goes up to $60 and the internet goes to $35.
I think I'm better off just finding myself a good antenna.