Yesterday I fried my first processor.

I know that this not the earthshattering news that you, kind noder, normally expect from a daylog, as a node like this normally deals with teenage angst, death, loss and other significant life events.

Still, I have to find closure and I am a teensy weensy bit pissed off, as:

  • a) there is the obvious financial loss. A new AMD Athlon 2400 sets you back 150 NZ $, and I have to order the bloody thing again (in the sleepy town of 12000 inhabitants you will probably find only 10 people who know what an Athlon actually is), and at this moment I don't even know whether my Motherboard (A MSI KT 600 A) is fried as well.
  • b) I am obviously annoyed with myself, as it was completely and utterly my fault:

You see, I thought after building, er, four Athlon based computers running OpenBSD, Ubuntu Linux and Mepis here in the privacy of my own home I thought I'd already achieved ultra l33t hackz0r status and the next machine was going to be the machine that I was wanting to potter around with, running obscure OS's like Plan 9, SkyOS, ReactOS and Syllable on my first overclocked machine. Everything was going smoothly, I had a very nice case, an old PCI graphic card, enough ram and HD's to set up the IT infrastructure for a medium-sized third world country like New Zealand. Looking at the CPU - frequency jumpers and my enormous taiwanese processor cooler, I set the jumpers to 200 MHZ. As my other Athlon's were running smoothly on ca 160 MHZ with their normal bog standard fan's, I thought, hey, what can happen. Unfortunately I interrupted the assembly process for half an hour to have a coffee, and when I came back I forgot about the custum cooler and whacked the normal AMD fan on the processor.

So, everything happened as it had to: The machine booted fine, I switched into the BIOS setup utility and there the machine froze. Repeated booting with all other hardware disconnected and featuring a different videocard did not bring solace, so now I have to give the bloody shell to my local PC-workshop so the other geek in town can have a look with his multimeter to see what exactly went wrong.

Sigh.

And the moral of this little epic? Ultra - l33t Hackz0r status can't be achieved without embarassing setbacks.

Sex, Philosophy, and Saturday Morning Cartoons

L: Babies die with the teeth of possibility still inside their gums. Possibility does not require Life. The milk of the stillborn's Mother still comes in. And so God demonstrates how hard Hope dies in the heart of a woman. The World sharpens its teeth on children. Because children have no choice. They are not free. They say the Truth shall set you free. But Mothers still lie to their children. Without these lies, children do not feel safe which is the same as not feeling loved. And so God demonstrates the price of Freedom.

I say these things because they are True.

I say them out loud because I love you.

You can collapse the suffering of years into a single moment. An image can scald the retina like a ritual branding. And everything is viewed through the shape of it ever after.

J: I will not endeavor to tell you of my moment, you have your own and that is all a person should be made to bear. I speak of the water I tread, and now you have the taste of it in your mouth. These are the kind of truths, these moments, that give shape to the ache that we all share. There is a mystery to the universe, and it revolves around why we stepped outside of it. Like a toddler from a gun out the open door and right into traffic, our leaving left monkeys who question everything they do, rather than just doing it.

There was a time when a successful mother was one whose offspring lived long enough to reproduce. Our cultural evolution has left us with a fractured and hopelessly complex matrix of care, fear and concern. Grief is inevitable,
pain inescapable,
betrayal unavoidable,
frustration and rage like a river.

Now the success of the young depends upon the ability to build within them the foundation for internal structures that can deal with these aspects of existance. It is as important as the ability to gather food and sense predators.

L: Human predators. All just one heart break away from the witch's oven. The Truth shall set you...not get you like the closet monster your eyes make in the dark. Out of a basketball, a hamper, and a scarf hung over the door.

Misery loves company. While Joy is a private affair. Quality, not quantity. Polygamy is for people who do not want what they have, but are too afraid to leave it. Hedge Betters. They are like indoor / outdoor cats with a second family. Indoor / outdoor cats, on the whole, do not go come home to die. Because they have more than one home and only one life to give.

The Key: Find a lover, in whose arms occurs The Great Unknowing. Arms in which you know nothing of Betrayal. Nothing of Pain or Regret. Like a child, who understands the worth of being a child. This is a love that costs you nothing. Not even what you've already paid. This is what is meant by, Free.

J: And the Truth shall set you...

down on the road heading out of town, locked in two, locked into arms that will carry you when you tire, and pet you while you sleep.
Out and into the trees, always back to the trees, that is where you go after you have learned all you want to from the crush of humanity. The flock of sheep that end up being more and more wolves as the years wear on. The task is to find a true lamb and then make for the woods before she is eaten alive.

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