US Death of a Computer

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The other day I was answering an email and copying a statement to use as an article starter. I will copy such onto an external hard-drive attached to my online computer, and then transfer the file to the computer that I only use for writing and posting on the back end of the site. People think this is stupid.

Well, maybe. I am a stupid man using a computer. Imagine the resentment, like an Ivy League Republican Pollster working as a dispatcher for a Nigerian taxi driver…

The computer died, as they always do, when doing something from the mail box or copying and pasting something from an online article, or clicking a history link, etc.

The only people in my life who are more computer literate than I am live in Baltimore, Oakland and Portland, and I am not there. Thankfully I did not take the advice of most people and use one computer for all of my work.

Was the computer dead?

Who knows?

If it did not die of natural causes, I slew it most cruelly.

It went blank, like they all do, eventually, after fighting off download after download of video games and online shopping adds and literally choking on Modernity’s all-invasive ether member.

This nice little HP note pad, I am told is not a computer, was given to me here, three years ago, in New Jersey, by a kind young fellow who heard about my computer woes, and who I like to think is a Creep State Agent. It served me well, protecting and filling in for more important machines.

My editor did warn me that if someone retrieved it, my passwords and financials—my vast empire of crackpot revenue—might be opened to attack.

I took it out back on the patio and beat it with a large rock.

I then ripped it in half and tore the wires and screen away from the battery and coppery stuff.

Star Trek looking squares and circuits glared at me from five panels, two being suspiciously big, with black slate pads which, in my ape’s brain, I supposed might store my information. I pried these away from the plastic housing and copper sheets with Rick’s leatherman multitool.

I put these in sandwich bags.

I took these down to the basement, placed them on the concrete floor and smashed them with a 20 lb steel dumbbell. The lady of the house said, “James, are you punching the bag?,” recalling in her mind, no doubt, my skinny arms and sunken chest and that hitting the bag hurts my eye, which she has been concerned about.

“Of course, Mary, it is too dangerous for me to hit mortal man, they might melt on contact, and I am a humanitarian after-all.”

She barked a sharp laugh, “You are such an ass! Can I get you anything at the store?”

I then drowned the victims in a bowl of hot water, soaked them, rinsed them, crushed them and threw them in the trash.

If the shadows of memories past and thoughts long passed survived that, then whoever retrieves them deserves to hack into my fortune.

Now, until Baltimore four weeks away, I have no access to the internet, which is okay. You see, I only need go on the back-end of jameslafond.com once per season, and in a single day, schedule three months worth of posts. Currently, fiction on weekends and non fiction on weekdays are scheduled out until September 7.

I am finally using strict time and motion inventory control such as I employed in Supermarket Management, in farming my own store of spent ideas. I am beginning to feel like a competent writer. This does not feel good, but appears as a haunting, a shade of dread whispering that the downside of the writing arc is a mere footfall beyond.

In July I will be able to use The Brick Mouse computer to schedule the rest of the year.

Currently, the Post folder contains:
Fiction, weekends, Ranger?: 25 posts
Nonfiction, weekdays:
Crackpot mailbox: 10 [with as many awaiting address in my forsaken email box]
History: 4
General: 3 + 1 = 4
Travel: 25

So that is 67 days of main site posting ready to go. Oh, yes, sorry, This Article, that is 68 days, including your untallied self.

Thank you all for your help and your patience. According to my Webmaster and my Slavemaster Incognegro, I am breaking all rules of online publishing courtesy by not engaging in comment banter and worse, not even reading comments sent in to the site by readers, to include, apparent viewers of Hobo History.

Sorry, there too, you deserve better.

You know, as I have to look at the creep I work for twice a day when he brushes his teeth and once when he shaves his head and combs his ill-gotton beard, I feel an empathy for the poor bastards that had to toil away pointlessly under his overseeing eye at Bel-Garden Bi-Rite, at 5950 Belair Road, from September 2006 thru July 5th 2010.

Working for this asshole is no picnic—which brings to mind, might these laptops be committing suicide?
 
It shocked me in the IT field how little people know about the computers they literally use every day. Now these weren't casual users(who can be just as bad). They were people in the company, who used computers 90% of the time every day for their job. They weren't in the least bit curious about any of the other buttons on the screen, and never asked what they did, even though most had a popdown explaining it. They were content with the 10% of knowledge they had, they weren't even interested learning about something they could've fixed themselves in 5 minutes. This was basic level software operation stuff BTW not router settings or god forbid, telling them whats inside the big box on their table.

You kind of step back and wonder how some people get through their lives. Is it just endless asking friends for help or tips on various tasks?
 
having a computer you work with which isnt connected to the internet is not a bad idea. keeping a computer isolated from the internet isnt a bad thing when you are concerned about privacy.

in fact it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have a computer which you only use for things like online banking. throw linux on it to eliminate 99% of the malware and shit on the net, you connect it to the internet just for banking, then disconnect it. you dont really do much else with it to keep it clean. you can pick up cheap laptops for next to nothing, so if you are concerned about privacy this is an option.
 
having a computer you work with which isnt connected to the internet is not a bad idea. keeping a computer isolated from the internet isnt a bad thing when you are concerned about privacy.

in fact it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have a computer which you only use for things like online banking. throw linux on it to eliminate 99% of the malware and shit on the net, you connect it to the internet just for banking, then disconnect it. you dont really do much else with it to keep it clean. you can pick up cheap laptops for next to nothing, so if you are concerned about privacy this is an option.
Sandboxing is a term for a reason. But a 'fully offline' computer can also not be fully offline these days. More and more insane techniques to find vulnerabilies continue to be applied that find shit like the wires in your pc being able to be reverse engineered as antennas to breach. Of course, stuff like that is pretty damn hard to actually do properly and it would mostly be easier to just walk up to someones computer and do what you want not to mention faster, but there are easier methods than that found before and computers become more full of holes as we go on, ignoring backdoors made on purpose by manufacturers.
 
It shocked me in the IT field how little people know about the computers they literally use every day. Now these weren't casual users(who can be just as bad). They were people in the company, who used computers 90% of the time every day for their job. They weren't in the least bit curious about any of the other buttons on the screen, and never asked what they did, even though most had a popdown explaining it. They were content with the 10% of knowledge they had, they weren't even interested learning about something they could've fixed themselves in 5 minutes. This was basic level software operation stuff BTW not router settings or god forbid, telling them whats inside the big box on their table.

You kind of step back and wonder how some people get through their lives. Is it just endless asking friends for help or tips on various tasks?
I love how many people use their phone to cap their screen when they have a key called "print screen" right in-front of them.
 
I love how many people use their phone to cap their screen when they have a key called "print screen" right in-front of them.
I want to throttle the life out of people who upload iPhone screen captures of videos. Just download the fucking video you're watching right now and upload that, you unfathomable retard.

Holy Christ.
both of these things make me want to shoot someone. god i hate these things so much. i understand the average person is a drooling retard, but does it really take that much iq to press the 'print screen' button?
 
Instead of smashing the whole ass laptop OP could have just smashed the HDD. Better yet, just install linux the slow way twice where it over writes every memory address with a 1 and then a 0.

Retards.
 
Instead of smashing the whole ass laptop OP could have just smashed the HDD. Better yet, just install linux the slow way twice where it over writes every memory address with a 1 and then a 0.

Retards.
Turns out most laptop manufacturers put access doors in for the drives and RAM these days. It's usually one of the only things that are simple to get to. If you're security-minded enough to air gap machines and don't want to spend a bundle of overwriters/degaussing machines, there's two preferred paths:
  • Physical Destruction- Itty bitty star bits are your friend. While you can get to the platters with any prying tool and enough gumption, the right way is actually the fastest way to get to them. Drilling through the stack works. Spring loaded center punches work even better. Have several random stacks where you separate the pieces. Each stack is disposed of at a separate location, intermingled with other trash.
  • Alchemy- ~2.95:1 Ferric Oxide:Aluminum Powder makes a standard thermite. This can be initiated via a blowtorch or magnesium ribbon. Cinder blocks in a hole will contain it long enough to reduce everything to slag. Equal parts clean sand (frequently sold as "playground sand") and plaster of Paris to make ghetto refractory cement. Let it dry ~48hrs minimum and do a warmup burn.
 
It shocked me in the IT field how little people know about the computers they literally use every day. Now these weren't casual users(who can be just as bad). They were people in the company, who used computers 90% of the time every day for their job. They weren't in the least bit curious about any of the other buttons on the screen, and never asked what they did, even though most had a popdown explaining it. They were content with the 10% of knowledge they had, they weren't even interested learning about something they could've fixed themselves in 5 minutes. This was basic level software operation stuff BTW not router settings or god forbid, telling them whats inside the big box on their table.

You kind of step back and wonder how some people get through their lives. Is it just endless asking friends for help or tips on various tasks?
The person they hired for are IT department at the local tard wrangling service I had the "opportunity" to work at was some random dude who was hired so I'm told because they knew how to program and operate a fucking smartphone that's it they're only qualification was knowing how to set up smartphones for the workers. Why you may ask because almost the entire staff didn't know how to properly set up their phones security purposes
 
What the fuck is wrong with whatever retard wrote this shit?

I don't know, but I wouldn't mind looking at those computer remains. 50/50 chance he didn't even destroy the hard drive and just destroyed the RAM chips or something.
 
The ramblings of a man who needs to take his pills.
 
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