it's the little things i miss.

June 4, 2004 2:25 PM

it's the little things i miss.After trying to download a plug in through firefox i had a complete computer crash. not even talking about the years of work, images, music, research-- (still in shock and denial phase)-- ahem-- it's the little things i miss, like my millions of bookmarks, work and pure subversive fun. lots like the baby jesus butt plug are gone forever, but as i got so many from you, lovely, wide ranging, all topic sprawling metafilter, help a recall damaged, traumatized gal out? give me your wacky, absurbed and heartfelt, human endeavor, holistic and achingly funny-- prove that the monkey represents sharing?
posted by ethylene (56 comments total)

Are you blue-green color blind by any chance?
posted by scarabic at 2:32 PM on June 4, 2004

Oh, dear, oh, dear. I am so sorry!

This is probably too late but when I teach people to use a computer, I tell them "the question isn't *if* your disk will crash but *when*" and "data doesn't exist until it exists in two places".

What have you tried to get your data back? What sort of computer is it? How much is the data worth to you??
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 2:38 PM on June 4, 2004

no, i am not color blind; no, this is not my first or worst major crash; yes, i know to back up my data, but the way i work with lots of this is to have a massive pile of stuff to work from, as evident in my live work space, so it doesn't do to inventory and back up things, because in the evaluation-- it's a long story, and no, i don't periodically burn every bit of mental detrius i save. i am a bad bad compute-er. and i am still pulling info off other old comps as i got this new imac a couple years ago and it crashed the first week only to completely restore when i reinstalled. this time it didn't. most probably because like the first most devastating time when i lost over ten years of work, there was some accidental third party intervention that caused it (don't let random partners turn of the computer!)
meanwhile, a currently fetus fascinated friend keeps sending me stuff like this.
posted by ethylene at 2:48 PM on June 4, 2004

My point is that I think this belongs in the green of Ask MetaFilter, since you are soliciting help from people following a problem you had. The blue site is for posting "best of the web" links, not asking for them.
posted by scarabic at 2:55 PM on June 4, 2004

Uh... shouldn't this be on Ask Metafilter?

Also, what kind of computer "crash" was it? I can't see how some Firefox plugin thing could wipe your data, unless you're some kind of fool who reformats and reinstalls Windows at the drop of a hat (as many people appear to be).
posted by reklaw at 2:55 PM on June 4, 2004

I've had this happen to me two times.
1. External FireWire drive. I turned the drive off without officially disconnecting it from windows, came back up and *poof* 6 years of email gone. now I back up to disk yearly with email and every few months with my documents dir.
2. Installing Linux and it didn't like my Raid card. Mandrake decided to write to the boot sector of one of my raid 0 disks, hopelessly scrambling the array. yay, buh-bye linux until I have a third machine.

the moral, I now keep the bookmarks I use on yahoo, everything else gets backed up.
posted by Dillenger69 at 3:00 PM on June 4, 2004

and by the by, as someone who use to be able to effortlessly reel off all her credit card numbers, please feel free to bash my current neurological impairment ad nauseum if it feels like friday fun. soo mea culpa, yes the dumb chick didn't burn the whole of her comp on a daily basis and can't comprehend half her bookshelf any more, please excuse me as i painfully search for software updates as bits of ephemera resurface, flotsam on the sea of pain for the search.
(lalalalamaintainingdeniallalalalala--)

oh and in review, sorry, i don't usually post or use metafilter so much as scan for links and so i didn't know about the ask. i'm sure this will get wiped off, though i thought people might just like posting their fave absurd links.
i had shifted a lot of info online at one time, it all a long story of crashes, theft, loss, hospital, trauma, etc.
i'd go into how this happened from a corruption but it's long and not so very interesting.
posted by ethylene at 3:11 PM on June 4, 2004

Ever since I discovered Furl, I put things there instead of making a bookmark. Since it's web based, I can furl something at work, and pull it up at home, or vice versa.
posted by ambrosia at 3:12 PM on June 4, 2004

thanks, i forget the last thing like furl i knew of. i haven't kept up with comp stuff like i use to in a very long time. once life take you away from the internet, it's hard to catch back up in all the different ways if it's not what you do anyway.
posted by ethylene at 3:16 PM on June 4, 2004

Point is, colour issues aside, your data might yet be salvageable... if you haven't reformatted the drive or anything irrevocable like that.

Best idea -- take the drive out and put it as a second drive into someone else's working machine.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 3:18 PM on June 4, 2004

thanks for the concern but i know it's not. i'm not gonna go into how the final nails got banged, especially because as my misposting is Such an affront. at least i know about ask now.
posted by ethylene at 3:27 PM on June 4, 2004

I'm going to be nice here, or try to be, but direct too: You're obviously not the... um... most computer-literate of people. If you tell us what you did to your computer, someone here might be able to help you fix it, no matter how far gone you might think it is.
posted by reklaw at 3:34 PM on June 4, 2004

Raid 1.

With disks so cheap these days it boggles my mind that systems are not sold with at least Raid 1 as the minimum config.
posted by meehawl at 3:36 PM on June 4, 2004

gee, thanks, but i'm not the most illiterate either. if it were fixable, i'd be fixing it. i wasn't asking for computer help, and i appreciate the intent, but it is a lost cause at this point and reinstalled, and a dumb story of other people's good intentions and accidents, plus circumstances most probably curious to my comp and situation. i ignorantly thought people might just like posting fun links like i use to have. i'm probably going to make the most headway looking up usernames i remember posting most of the things i liked am an interested in.
so who wipes these posts?
posted by ethylene at 3:46 PM on June 4, 2004

Don't you hate it when you mistake metafilter for your own blog? Oops!
posted by Hildegarde at 4:13 PM on June 4, 2004

c'mon everyone, let's pile on ethylene!
posted by keswick at 4:19 PM on June 4, 2004

"so who wipes these posts?"

you're joking, right?

and yes, the pile on beckons...
posted by triv at 4:21 PM on June 4, 2004

yes please, don't miss a chance to flex your big brains in the two way mirror/filter-- watch those wrinkles ripple!
sexy
posted by ethylene at 4:23 PM on June 4, 2004

Don't miss a chance to reply to every comment, ethylene!
posted by Hildegarde at 4:24 PM on June 4, 2004

i was joking but i have seen posts wiped.
posted by ethylene at 4:24 PM on June 4, 2004

trying just for you Hilly!
posted by ethylene at 4:25 PM on June 4, 2004

Hey, thanks for the furl link, ambrosia; I'm going to try that out.

ethylene - here is one of my favorite links: sandlot science
posted by taz at 4:27 PM on June 4, 2004

ethylene:

There is absolutly no way downloading a software plug in could have destroyed your data. Most likely, all of youre files are still there, just out of reach. Unless you've already reformated your hard drives and reinstalled the OS, you can probably get them back.

Just install the drives in another machine, and see if they come up. Beyond that, there are tons of data recovery services that can help you out (for a hefty fee).

But seriously, if it was just a botched software install, your stuffs almost certanly fine.
posted by delmoi at 4:32 PM on June 4, 2004

Jesus, what a bunch of dicks. All ethylene is asking for is links to fill his/her/its depleted bookmarks. Is that so hard?

Here's a link that shows you how to toilet train your cat!

have fun!
posted by sic at 4:33 PM on June 4, 2004

and swear in 107 languages....
posted by sic at 4:35 PM on June 4, 2004

Hildegarde: I think you meant this thread. Or maybe this one. Or this. Or that one. or this or that or this and that.
posted by techgnollogic at 4:36 PM on June 4, 2004

why thank you, taz. now that the Hilly one has given me the will to go on, it's like hosting a booth at a hotel with warring conventions. the vulcan elvis still is the most amsuing thing here.
seriously, i sincerely thank the people who want to help but it's been taken care of beyond help, by people with all too helpful intentions. much like another time when certain people who think they are "optimizing" your computer screw it up because they "know best."
there was a window when i could have salvaged some things, but it's gone. it wasn't just the download but it did spark it all, and it was part haste and human error that make the last blow.
funnel cakes to your left!
posted by ethylene at 4:38 PM on June 4, 2004

geez, only a few people bitched about the post. Anyway, tell us what happend. Computer disaster stories are always intresting.

The worst, for me, was when I was in Highschool, and had only been using computers a while. I had a doublespace drive, which took up a large part of the hard drive. i then misconfigured my BIOS so that it didn't support Hard drives larger then 500 megs, and subsiquently scandisk started marking every sector above that as bad. This included the begining of the doublespace drives.

It sucked. And on top of that, my ISP had managed to fuck up the transfer of files from one webserver to another, causing me to lose all my subdirectories. Combined with the hd crash, I lost my first web page :(.
posted by delmoi at 4:40 PM on June 4, 2004

Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by eddydamascene at 4:46 PM on June 4, 2004

thanks, sic, it is one i had. i almost couldn't swear in swahili. and i am killing time between downloads.
feel free to polarize
fight fight fight!
delmoi: things always looks harsher in anonymous text, people never know what's polite or cold or sarcasm. it's not the worst crash or even the worst loss of info, having my purse stolen while traveling was much worse, but it was bad and i'm really trying not to think about it. and it's just not even as particularly amusing.
posted by ethylene at 4:47 PM on June 4, 2004

Toilet training cats is a pain in the ass. They did fine with the little bowl thing with kitty litter in it that sits on top of the toilet, but once I tried to take that thing away, and they had a big gaping hole of potty water staring up at them, the little bastards shit on the rug.

Hey, maybe I did it wrong.

Seriously, though, there are numerous backup solutions available for anyone who has a CD-RW, there's damned near no excuse to not do so at least once a week. Hell, the latest version of Nero, available with damned near every $50 OEM CD burner, has a weekly backup jammie built into it.
posted by adampsyche at 4:52 PM on June 4, 2004

reminds me of the infinite cat project and that marc maron quote about him first going into chats: "i like cats"-- this is the information highway?
btw, i like cats
posted by ethylene at 4:53 PM on June 4, 2004

at least it's something almost everyone can understand. it's given me great excuse for not having to be forced to be nice to visiting relatives.
posted by ethylene at 4:55 PM on June 4, 2004

(so, we're stating from day one, are we?)

The dichotomy between the two kinds of people posting will magically become extremely easy to understand upon reading this from this book.

The data you want is right inside your computer, ethylene. Baring you burning the computer to pure silicon and carbon, it is recoverable.
posted by sleslie at 5:01 PM on June 4, 2004

i know but i don't really have the resources and i have had to move on. i know if there is something i can't get one way or another i really need i can do it if the need balances out the cost and effort.
i'm trying to think of it as a buddhist headshaving.
it's interesting to overview the posting anyhoo, as i don't usually.
free fridge magnets in hall two.
posted by ethylene at 5:09 PM on June 4, 2004

btw, i like cats
posted by ethylene at 12:53 AM GMT on June

This should make you chuckle then.
posted by sic at 5:18 PM on June 4, 2004

and this
posted by sic at 5:19 PM on June 4, 2004

Okay, so now that the pile-on has run its course... I'm still not 100% clear, but if you're looking for amusing little bits of internet ha-ha, here's a very very old index (oh-so 2001) of wee net movies and such that I used to maintain. Enjoy.
posted by scarabic at 5:22 PM on June 4, 2004

oh... cats? Did I mention Pinky?
posted by scarabic at 5:23 PM on June 4, 2004

marked but i still have to get different thing up to speed to play stuff. i do miss lots of clips and japanese links, like one matrix pingpong one, and i got all hooked on domokun from that cat pic.
posted by ethylene at 5:23 PM on June 4, 2004

and the liking cats does not denote crazy fanatical cat collecting liking cats, not more than, say, oddities or scientific quirks. above fistulas, close to dadaist social action.
posted by ethylene at 5:31 PM on June 4, 2004

The least I can do is get you your Baby Jesus Butt Plug back.
posted by eperker at 5:42 PM on June 4, 2004

your bookmarks were not deleted! unbeknownst to you, everything you've ever bookmarked that was worthwhile has been secretly backed up here.
posted by dvdgee at 6:01 PM on June 4, 2004

awww, i thought that site went down ages ago. the copy is different but it's still sacrelicious.
(time to power down this monster and walk away swiftly into the deepening night)
posted by ethylene at 6:01 PM on June 4, 2004

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."
posted by wendell at 6:05 PM on June 4, 2004

It seems like the question you wanted to ask is where can I find a page of Free Bookmark Managers. They allow you to save your bookmarks in a different location than your own computer.

Regarding the little links- have you ever seen the Netscape Fish Cam?
posted by jeremias at 8:00 PM on June 4, 2004

Wait ... this is an iMac, and firefox means Mac OS X. There's practically never a reason for reinstalling Mac OS X, especially something that's been done at application level. Creating a new user would have almost certainly solved the problem.

Administrator! Hope please!
posted by bonaldi at 8:49 PM on June 4, 2004

ethylene, have you met thomcatspike? I imagine you guys having a very chummy high noon zen showdown at the streams of conciousness ... :)
posted by elphTeq at 8:56 PM on June 4, 2004

blah blah blah should have backed up. blah blah data recovery. blah blah blah post doesn't belong here ....

Now that that's out of the way here ya go. I went through my archives and pulled out a bunch of stuff. Most of it I either snagged from Metafilter or it ended up here anyway.


6'5", 6'9" with afro

Druid Porn

X-entertainment reviews My Little Pony

American Crusade Trading Cards

Hot AT-ST on AT-ST action

Rejected He-man action figures

Human virus scanner

The Art of Alice Kelly

Physics inside a Microwave Oven

Blood Type

Columbus's Competition

Drug Slang

The abstract sculptures of George Hart

Updated pulp scifi covers

Home Depot marathon

Butt Candle

Weird band names

Ftrain's Baffling Cuteness

Lego Old Testament

Your life path

Classify or Identify craters

The Art of Jim Warren

Demographics by zipcode

Smashing Peanuts

Was Jerry Garcia born before the invention of the aerosol can?

B3ta's top ten web games

The Internet Sacred Texts Archive

Interview with the Soup Nazi (and recipe for crab bisque)

Engrish

The '80s Tarot Card Deck

The Art of Mear

The Fake Detective

Inexplicable Objects

The Star Wars Holiday Special

The Secret Fun Spot

Cute pussy pics

Bloodninja: The cybersessions

The Evil Overlord List

American Dialects

20 Q
posted by euphorb at 8:57 PM on June 4, 2004

Ethylene is my new favorite MeFite.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 9:17 PM on June 4, 2004

Ethylene is my new favorite MeFite.

And mine.
posted by trharlan at 10:44 PM on June 4, 2004

ethylene is the name of a duck

i know
posted by Satapher at 12:20 AM on June 5, 2004

Reminds me when I used to post drunk....


sinfest comic strip

Hubble Deep Field images (very cool)
posted by Keyser Soze at 1:55 AM on June 5, 2004

Where's evanizer when you need him?
posted by iconomy at 10:59 AM on June 5, 2004

this might be good for a few chuckles...
posted by quonsar at 12:02 PM on June 6, 2004

Thanks euphorb, it's nice to see someone read the post and tried to offer her what she was looking for. i've seen these 'best of MeFi' posts come up before and since i can't spend every waking moment in the Blue (much to my dissapointment), i look forward to them as the introduce/ reacquaint me with some great links.

Sorry some of us were so hard on you ethylene i hope you get your Mac working and are able to resurrect your lost data.

Oh, and i [heart] quonsar for reminding me of sinfest. i forgot how much i love that comic.
posted by quin at 2:40 AM on June 8, 2004