Does Windows behave any better, knowing it has a gun to its head?
No, I threaten to throw my whole system into the pool plenty of times but it doesn’t matter.
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I call BS. I just tried it and it didn’t erase your windows partition.
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Only tangentially related to computer threats…
In 2008, I had a fire in what was my home office at that time.
The work laptop caught quite a lot of heat… it was a Dell thing with a metal case, etc…:
I cleaned it up a little…
…and tried to power it on to see if I could save any data… it booted right up and presented me with this message:
Gave me a bit of a chuckle.
I was able to get all of my data off. A funny coincidence was that the day job called later that day to tell me my laptop lease was up and it was time to get a new one.
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At what point would the ambient temp be higher than “too high”
I don’t know… but apparently “hot enough to melt the plastic around the screen and part of the screen” is hot enough. 
And then I come home and my Windows won’t boot 
More fun information:
The voice chips had been painstakingly accumulated from E-bay over about 6 months to repair a couple of the broken Juno-106es I’d acquired. Chips gone literally up in smoke along with the chip sockets I was going to use to upgrade the boards. If I’d rechipped even one of the Juno-106es with easy-replacement sockets, I could probably have made back all of the money I’d spent on parts.
Oh well. On the plus side, behind me in this pic is a bunch of e-bay acquired synths and studio equipment, much of which smelled like cigarette smoke from the original owners. The fire cleanup company cleaned them inside and out and they are good as new, basically. The only lingering issue is something that rattles around inside my JD-800.
(None of which means much to anyone unless they happen to be old-school Roland synth fans.)
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At least the guitar stayed alive.
It’s a crappy guitar, though. (And the plastic face has warped… still sound good.) Fortunately, the Les Paul Studio was hanging on the other side of the room.
…so it only had smoke damage and that was all cleaned up.
Oh my God, you got so awesome studio!
Hahah… thanks!
I don’t even have it setup anymore. I do everything on the computer now… takes up much less space. I have space for the stuff but after the last time I “played out”, I haven’t bothered to set half of it up again.
To continue the story to end up with where it ended up…
Again hearkening back to 2008, my temporary basement office while we repaired and redecorated upstairs:
http://imgur.com/DzdYOj1.png
We had to have all of the carpets replaced on both levels and some drywall repair and repainting pretty much everywhere except my daughter and son’s rooms.
Prepping the living room for new carpet:
http://imgur.com/wtzzLrs.png
…fortunately this level didn’t need repainting because I really like the paint in this room.
Age old question… when you are replacing all of the carpet, where do you put your stuff? In the kitchen, of course:
http://imgur.com/xAc3Ose.png
The nursery prepped for new carpet… this is my office now: (I did all of the woodwork myself.)
http://imgur.com/S87hdW4.png
All of my stuff finally back from the electronics cleaner people… Now we’re in December 2008 or so:
http://imgur.com/rcLzOeX.png
My kids “helping” daddy clean up the master bedroom, post-paintjob:
http://imgur.com/dLE5uqm.png
Living room again, post-new carpet, after getting all of our stuff back from the cleaners:
http://imgur.com/wK8DOEI.png
Finally by April or so, I’m starting to put my new office together:
http://imgur.com/E7N0iQi.png
Guitars in their new home… though I hang them on the wall now and there’s a whiteboard over there:
http://imgur.com/K9QuDwW.png
View from my desk way back when my office was still clean and before the bush and vines took over that window:
http://imgur.com/kkdtRPO.png
I apparently have no good pictures of my old office once it became my daughter’s room, but this is as close as I could find: (wife and daughter playing)
http://imgur.com/i5PZjQS.png
The other corner of my office before I put shelves up:
http://imgur.com/7w5vjzk.png
I thought I had better pictures of it all put together after the shelves went up and stuff but I can’t find it.
Sorry for the image spam. I was looking for that one pic that I couldn’t find and just kept adding stuff as I searched.
Edit: and the place is WAAAAY too much of a message to take pictures right now.
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Programming, Math, Music producing, DIY home building…
Is there anything you suck at? Just not to feel like such an untalented guy.
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Managing my time?
I grew up in an environment where I had creative influences that showed me not to be afraid to try new stuff. My uncle (who was only 12 years older than I am) lived with us for a time and he was into trying everything. “Snowboards look cool. I think I’ll try to make one.” etc. He was an art major. A computer programmer… basically whatever he set his mind to. So since I was a kid if I thought something was interesting then I’d just try it… and screw it up and try it again. I’d either get to the point where it was something I was reasonably capable at or where it go too hard without proper mentoring and then I’d stop.
But anyway, if there’s one important thing to learn that makes everything easy it’s how to see what you can improve next time. I’ve made a lot of really horrible furniture and cabinetry that is just scrap wood now. That I can build a wheel chair ramp on the front of my house in two weekends (because I had to tear the first one down and start over) belies a whole pile of badly made stuff.
Anyway, if you have kids then let them play with your tools. My dad let me hammer all kinds of stuff together in the backyard and then I had to take it all down again at the end of the day. It’s like the first level of a video game over and over.
And I think it’s all connected anyway. 3D graphics made me not suck at math. Getting better at music made me a better programmer and getting better at programming made me a better musician. And working with my hands made me better at every other brain activity.
But yeah, I suck at lots of stuff… but I don’t know if I could list it because I don’t often think about it. And I’m not that good at a lot of the stuff I can “do”… I just get comfortable for most things. As I got older, there were maybe only 3 things that got re-enforced. Owning a house: woodworking was one of those things.
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Well woodworking is fun, since it doea not require that much machinery.
The extension on the left side is build by me and my father
My only metal project. But i had a professional to resolder everything.
Also build by ourself
Bit i have to say all this was only possible because due my grandfather we had a full featured equipment. Unfortinately when we have build our new home most of the equipment did not make it to the new place since space was limited
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But on the other side, as kid, having access to all those stuff i paid my tribute. All but 5 finger where broken once, two times broken legs.
And i have learned what a fuse is good for only 5 minutes after i learned how to shorten them.
All in all i would say i had plenty of luck
Yeah, I really like working with wood. When the day job has been especially hard and I want to chuck it all in, I fantasize about a world where someone can make the same amount of money I do but making cabinetry instead of programming.
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Well, in my country you can earn about 300$ for it every month…
Cost of living differences for sure, I guess… I can’t even buy two weeks of groceries for $300.