Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire, with not dying as the boobie prize.
- Charles Stross, describing Egan’s book Blindsight
If that description doesn’t immediately make you drive to your local library or bookstore to find this book, there’s something seriously wrong with you. (or you can download a copy from FeedBooks.com.)
My new laptop from HP has been plagued with issues from day one. The optical drive didn’t work, had to be sent back, Windows 7 has been buggy at best (I’m the administrator! I will save files and open folders wherever I damn well please!), etc. Well… it got to the point where I had to do a factory reset. Bad news.
The recovery manager failed. So I tried from the recovery discs that I created when I got the machine. Failed again. Tried from the hard drive again. Failed again. No helpful messages, just failed. So I get on HP’s site and try out the HP Support online chat.
ISSUE DETAIL: System recovery runs but fails each time. Have tried once from recovery discs and twice from hard drive partition, and all three times it fails with “incomplete” message.
Michael Smith: From your issue description, I understand that you are not able to perform the system recovery using the disc or partition. Am I right?
Me: um, correct.
Brilliant minds they have there. Wait… is there a mind there at all? Not sure. Couple minutes later, disconnected while I ran a hard drive diagnostic as requested. Signed back on and got this guy:
ISSUE DETAIL: System recovery manager will not successfully complete. Have tried several times, from both hard drive and recovery discs.
Samson Roy: Could you elaborate the issue?
Me: Sure. I had to do a system recovery, but the process will not complete successfully. i’ve tried several times, from both the hard drive partition and from the recovery discs, and each time it ends with an “incomplete” message. my only options are “details” “save log” or “retry.”
Samson Roy: Thank you for the above information.
Samson Roy: From your issue description, I understand that you are unable to do system recovery. Am I right?
Me: yes, you are correct
SERIOUSLY? At this point, I’m convinced that at no time did I actually converse with a human being. Even someone who doesn’t natively speak the language (I’m going to assume that all the discussions I’ve seen are true and HP outsources 100% of their tech support to India) should be able to handle these issues a little more smoothly. And these were just the intros.
I was debating whether to just outright ask “ARE YOU A COMPUTER?” but figured it might be even more unproductive than just sticking with it. So now I’ve had to order new recovery discs from HP (at cost to me of course), and while they’re in transit I have a very expensive paperweight on my desk. AWESOME.
Just more reasons to never ever again buy HP, and to convince everyone I know never to buy HP. Ever.
Designer/infographic guru Nicholas Felton released his much-anticipated Annual Report today, and the internet marveled. For the last few years he’s put out a summary of his year’s activities – the number of hours worked, number of drinks enjoyed, etc. While it might sound boring at first (”who cares how far this guy drove last year?”) it’s put together in a pretty impressive display.
While I think his 2008 Annual Report was a little cooler-looking, this year’s Annual Report (compiled from over 500 survey cards he handed out over the year) is still very well-done. Bravo, sir.
Check out the Feltron 2009 Annual Report.
It makes far more sense that Mario is psychotically delusional and Princess Toadstool and Bowser are peer monarchs courting amicably. While she’s out on dates this quixotic plumber is murdering and looting across her entire demesne.
This has been around for a while apparently, but I just found it so screw you it’s new to me. @tyler_thompson got fed up with the crappy user experience forced on him by the sub-par design of his airline boarding pass, so… like any good geek, he set out to make a better one.
And holy crap.
His handful of redesigns, followed by a couple takes by other intrigued and like-minded travelers, are awesome. Even taking into account the things that the current printing machines just can’t practically handle, these are a thousand times better than the current situation.
I’d almost consider flying more if boarding passes were designed like this. It’s 2010 for cryin’ out loud… when is the future going to get here? We live in a disgustingly old-fashioned world for living in the future.