Lost Things, The laptop has died, long live the new laptop Options

[Ancient History]

Yesterday morning, my laptop passed away. The witch doctors offered to insert a new, bigger brain into its weatherbeaten shell, but instead I opted for a new one.

It's been some time and more than one reformatting since I started freelancing, and I've gotten better at backing things up, so this particular dataloss wasn't quite as bad as it could have been. Still, there are a few things I've been working on lately, and a couple really weird bits from the crooked, dusty corners of my brain that I never got around to saving to my portable harddrive and are gone forever, barring whatever I can remember of them. Which is what brings us to this point! There are some strange, strange things I should share with you before I forget them completely.

All material is strictly non-canon, and strictly for your edification and enjoyment. Since I'm mentioning it here, don't expect to see it in print, ever.

Seeks-the-Nuyen was an urban tribal shaman destined to be caught and killed by Kenneth Brackhaven while breaking into the governor's mansion in Seattle. The fiction was never finished, but the basic idea was for the sorcerer-thief to bust in, trusting to magic and her satchel of devices to get her in and out past the mansion's security - well, she made it halfway. The governor, reading his son a story at bedtime, shoots her with a dart filled with ekyelebenle venom, which renders the subject blind. This would give Kenny the opportunity to rant to the boy while the "helpless" magician thrashed about on the floor, unable to get a spell off. The big reveal was that the boy would turn out to be a nine-year-old clone of Kenny himself, natch.

Desiree Demijour from the recent SR4A book (the magic chapter intro fiction) was actually originally planned as occult detective Lakesha Dee, who worked in and around New Orleans, and whose primary sidekick was a "drummer adept" named Pedro. Their original case was to be a stolen antique Yoruban ceremonial drum (nonmagicial). Most of the rest of the case - and a couple other details invented for their planned series of short fiction adventures - were mashed down into the short story you get in SR4A.

I had orichalcum on the brain for a long time, and this was especially noticeable in my earlier freelancing days. I proposed that Wuxing-DeBeers and Snowdonia would pool their massive orichalcum stores to create "Wuxbux," an orichalcum-based currency (the idea being that these were essentially orichalcum certificates, convertible to a certain mass of the mystic metal no matter the current price), which took a long time to die. I proposed an orichalcum currency for Tir Tairngire in Runner Havens (quite literally, 1 gram of orichalcum foil sandwiched between octagonal slabs of synthetic quartz), which was thankfully left out, and then there was space orichalcum, which was blissfully red-inked out of an early draft in Street Magic. You're all welcome.

The Wake was the first piece of decent SR fiction I ever wrote - fanfiction, really, though I was nominally a freelancer at the time, nothing I had done had been printed and my name hadn't graced a sourcebook (besides SOTA, which doesn't count). It was literally the wake of Captain Chaos, which took place in a Link club so that deckers from around the world could attend. All in all, I think Happy Trails came out better, which is why it was put out there and The Wake was not. Anywho, it's really gone now.

Libra is probably the most embarrassing thing I ever wrote, and it happened right here one dark and particularly depressing Hallowe'en on the Dumpshock forums. It was so bad, in fact, that when it was pointed out I immediately erased it. Now even my final, hideous copy is gone. For those morbid few who are interested, the basic plot is about an assassin who creates a sympathetic link to his victim by cosmetically altering a look-alike. Which is what he did here - he altered a girl, seduced her, and in an act of tantric ritual magic killed her, using blood magic so that her death powered the spell that killed his targeted victim. Why Libra? He had a dead twin brother who's ghost would possess him (or whom he would channel, it was more than a little vague). Yeah, not my best moment.

Speaking of sometimes going beyond the pale, every now and again I venture too far outside what is acceptable for Shadowrun. There are no hard-and-fast rules, so it's feel-your-own territory, as you can read here (adult content). There have been other incidents than that one, however, and they went with my old laptop. Don't think you're missing much, the most significant fragment was an entry on an actual rape gang - considering the small use for such groups in most SR games, I don't feel bad it was cut or that it's gone.

Gangan was not even a fragment, more like a character sketch with partial attributes. I have a particular habit of rooting for the underdog, and this character was an attempt to see what you could do with the Astral Sight quality. The results...eh. Could have been better. I had plans for the character, but they never materialized.

Speaking of general voodoo-related stuff, back when Street Magic was in development we had planned a Hallowe'en-themed piece of fiction featuring some of the characters in the book. I had planned for Johnny Vendredi, Papa Dimanche, and Abracadavre to work together as a small voudoun society - initial ideas for foes were shedim and a free spirit named after a minor loa, but the story eventually lost momentum and ended up in a pile of lost story ideas, now sadly toast.

The original draft for Neo-Tokyo in Corporate Enclaves included a brief entry on the Yasakuni Shrine, which generally glossed over the controversy and involved a shadowy anecdote about the new Emperor entering the shrine to quiet some unquiet spirits. Our Japanese translators requested we remove the mention, and it was agreed - not least because the particular write-up wasn't terribly good. I mean, I fought tooth-and-nail to keep the placenta-eatery in there. You gotta have standards.

What I read at any given moment can have a significant influence on me. I think I was double-dipping Global Frequency and Planetary at the time, but I had the idea that the UCAS Army had experimented with cyberzombies, and one of their original examples was being kept alive by a pacemaker powered by a natural plutonium radical reagent from the Oklo Natural Nuclear Fission Reactor. I went so far as to start a short story with an old, grizzled general at a bar, drinking straight rum and coke with peanuts...yeah, I don't know where exactly I as going with that either, and it died a quiet death.

Ye gods, what else...some rules fragments that I can't remember verbatim and most of you wouldn't be interested in, except for some items left out of manatech in Arsenal. The Biofiber Mantlet was probably the stupidest idea I had, and it lasted until surprisingly late in the draft process - basically, it was a mantlet (shield on wheels) full of biofiber. This was nominally supposed to protect you from enemy spells, but let's be honest: if you're hiding behind the mantlet they can't see you anyway. The OuijaDeck is actually possible, if silly and expensive: if was a psychoscope (basically, a variation of a ouija board witn an independently-moving pointer of some kind) enchanted as a vessel, with a lucifier lamp installed. You turned it on, waited for a passing spirit to possess the board, and deliver it's message. Naturally, this was a bloody stupid idea - it's the occult equivalent of hoping to get hit by a lightning bolt, or taking the gamemaster's last beer. Build your own if you dare.

Many great authors tend to cannibalize themselves. I'm not a great writer, but I tend to cannibalize too. You'd be amazed what I'll chop up and rehash to get a short story in when given almost no notice. The reason this works is that I always have half a story sitting in a document file somewhere, which will never be used until I had a sudden need, dust it of, whip it into shape and send it in. Anywho, this crash wiped out my stock...but don't worry, I still have pages of handwritten half-finished stories, and the ones that didn't make it weren't shaping up to well. I remember in particular was about a street adept with psychometry that went barefoot all the time, because he could tell what was happening on the street...or possibly learn a lot about a person by breaking into their apartments and putting on their shoes, I tend to forget; in another Sticks spent three weeks sleeping under an overpass pretending to be a homeless guy in order to infiltrate some bum fights being organized underneath a nearby soup kitchen.

Anyway. All of that is stuff you won't have to deal with any longer. You're welcome.

[nezumi]

d00d, googledocs. We use it religiously.

But thanks for sharing, and hope your new lappy lasts a little bit longer.

[Naysayer]

But isn't there that thing about googledocs where it gets to own part of your work (or was it your soul? Both?)?
That could make it awkward if you used it to do comissioned work, I guess.

And thanks for sharing, AH!

[Mercer]

They may not have all been winners, but we mourn the fallen all the same.

[Matsci]

You couldn't recover the HD? If the it was just the CPU that failed, you could pop the Hard Drive out and turn it into a External hard drive, and recover all the data.

I've done that to all my laptops that have failed, save the 1 that was destroyed by Beers.

[The Jake]

But isn't there that thing about googledocs where it gets to own part of your work (or was it your soul? Both?)?
That could make it awkward if you used it to do comissioned work, I guess.

And thanks for sharing, AH!

That's correct. Google has a standard Terms of Use which is very umm.. Shall we say controversial view of intellectual property. They claim it's standard for all their apps. I'd be very wary of using it for anything commercially sensitive.

- J.

[TheOOB]

9.4 Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Google, you agree that you are responsible for protecting and enforcing those rights and that Google has no obligation to do so on your behalf.

11. Content licence from you

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11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.

[hobgoblin]

You couldn't recover the HD? If the it was just the CPU that failed, you could pop the Hard Drive out and turn it into a External hard drive, and recover all the data.

I've done that to all my laptops that have failed, save the 1 that was destroyed by Beers.

I suspect by brain he talks about the HD, as swapping CPU on a laptop is anything but trivial...

And with a HD failure i suspect hardware failure, so that the plate(s) will not spin, or the reading arm(s) no longer moves...

Recovering from that is possible yes, but that most likely requires the services of a dedicated company, with clean rooms and similar facilities to dismantle the drive.

[Ancient History]

It was a hardware failure of the harddrive, yes. For what they wanted to replace it and reinstall the operating system I could have bought a new laptop...so I did (granted, I spent more money, but the new laptop is much nicer).

[hobgoblin]

just like how if one bought a car in parts, it would come out maybe 10x the cost of the equivalent car new from the lot...

[BookWyrm]

Congrats on the new laptop. I know you've probably heard this all before, but I cannot stress it enough;

Update your firewall, anti-spyware, anti-virus to the point of religeous paranoia. And even then, take a half-step further. Multiple layers will help.

Have the reminders on automatically, but do the downloading yourself manually.

DO NOT use Yahoo as your main browser. Already my GF's laptop nearly crashed because Yahoo attempted to rewrite her settings. She called me two days ago angry that this happened to her (even though she herself updates all her software constantly), and after dumping Yahoo as her browser, all is well again.

Make sure your anti-virus and all anti-malware scanners are set to ACTIVE, so they scan everything that comes in and goes out.

Make sure anything you want to keep is backed up on CD-Rom archive (if you have a CD-Rom burner) or somewhere offline safe. WIPE YOUR TEMP FILES at the end of your session. EVERY session.

"A little paranoia is a healthy thing...."

[Ancient History]

Yeah, the whole thing were every frickin' piece of software wants you to load a toolbar and change your homepage these days is maddening. Y'all're lucky your commlinks don't come with built-in malware.

[hobgoblin]

There is a reason why staying out of the corps influence is a good idea (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[paws2sky]

Yeah, the whole thing were every frickin' piece of software wants you to load a toolbar and change your homepage these days is maddening. Y'all're lucky your commlinks don't come with built-in malware.

Yeah, they just install malware in their programs, activated when you don't allow auto-patching.

-paws

[Prime Mover]

I made a horrible mistake with the first computer I ever owned....it died and I lost years worth of material. Since then We've always had two or more boxes on our network and back up files that way. Recently one or our two pc's died a horrible death (board died). I got an enclosure and put the HD in it, everything backed up on separate drive now. Best $25 I've spent in awhile. (One day a week *fri* I update all folders on backup drive, if didn't do it that way I'd procrastinate and never get it done.)

[Chibu]

Actually. I don't ever recommend installing all of those kinds of programs mentioned above. I mean, if you like slow computers with all of the resources used up "protecting" it, then sure go for it. But really... Isn't is just easier to NOT instill toolbars and download viruses? I ran an anti-virus program once... then I removed it after a week for being annoying and slowing down my computer. Since then (that was 5 years ago I think), I've not used anything like that. I forcibly kill all firewalls and "protection" features on those computers I use that run windows.

And yet, I don't get viruses, I don't have wtfeveryouwanttocallit-ware. To save yourself some trouble, stop using Outlook. Other than that? Just... don't install things unless you know it's not bad. I've really never understood why everyone has problems with this.

Anyway,

Thanks for the post AH. I had fun reading it.

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, people complaining that their internet connection speed sucks elf-ass to me . . and when i ask about their computer, they brag about it being 100% secure. Router, Hardware-Firewall, Switch, Norton internet Security, ZoneAlarm, Free AV . . all at once . .

[paws2sky]

Yeah, people complaining that their internet connection speed sucks elf-ass to me . . and when i ask about their computer, they brag about it being 100% secure. Router, Hardware-Firewall, Switch, Norton internet Security, ZoneAlarm, Free AV . . all at once . .

ZoneAlarm should die in a fire! My cousin talked my parents into installing that POS (and a couple other "security" programs) on their computer and it caused so many more problems than it ever solved. My dad actually stopped using the computer because of ZoneAlarm's constant pop-up alerts.

I've been using Spybot Search & Destroy on my computer for a while, but its detection library is getting bloated to the point of uselessness. And Teatimer has been pissing me off tremendously, enough that I'm seriously considering uninstalling. Other than that, I have a router for the home network and I hit up Trend Micro a couple times a year. Just in case.

blah blah blah

Since we're pretty much off topic anyway... Anyone have any suggestions for a shared network drive? I've been wanting to get one (.5 TB or, maybe, 1 TB) for a while, but not sure what sort of specs I should be looking for.

-paws

[tsuyoshikentsu]

I actually would have been interested in seeing those rules fragments.

[Stahlseele]

@Paws:
IcyBox < = Probably the best you can get in NAS-Technology nowadays.
Or Qnap.
Else, try and get a Router with USB and try to get a usual external HDD to work there.


Yeah, most of us would have liked to see that stuff. Because most of the stuff Uncle Ancient cranks out reeks of the Awesome.

[deek]

Actually. I don't ever recommend installing all of those kinds of programs mentioned above. I mean, if you like slow computers with all of the resources used up "protecting" it, then sure go for it. But really... Isn't is just easier to NOT instill toolbars and download viruses? I ran an anti-virus program once... then I removed it after a week for being annoying and slowing down my computer. Since then (that was 5 years ago I think), I've not used anything like that. I forcibly kill all firewalls and "protection" features on those computers I use that run windows.

And yet, I don't get viruses, I don't have wtfeveryouwanttocallit-ware. To save yourself some trouble, stop using Outlook. Other than that? Just... don't install things unless you know it's not bad. I've really never understood why everyone has problems with this.

Anyway,

Thanks for the post AH. I had fun reading it.

I'm glad someone beat me to it.

I don't run firewalls, virus scanners, malware checkers, nothing...I use Yahoo! as my main search engine (Google on occasion) and outlook to run my email. In the last, say 15 years I've been using computers and an internet service, I've had one "virus/malware" and that was two years ago when I got a little click happy when a bunch of pop-ups came up on my screen on some crappy porn site.

You just have to be aware of the stuff you are clicking and installing. I agree with Chibu, if you don't know what you are installing, don't install it. If you don't know who the email is from, or it looks suspicious, just delete it or use a browser-based client instead.

As for hardware failures, I've had two in the last 20 years...one was an LCD on a laptop about a year ago and the other was someone else's hard drive I was cleaning up as a favor. Now I do have an external harddrive that we use to save photos of the kids and CD backups as well, but my wife does all that.

I don't know, common sense has served me well for 15+ years...don't have any reason to change it now!

[nezumi]

That's great if your computer is always 100%, super-up-to-date patched, and you never visit questionable sites or download stupid stuff you really shouldn't. But keep in mind, there are exploits out there that can infect you even if your computer isn't actively doing anything except sitting online. And there are enough files bouncing aroudn with viruses that, unless you do little more than check your news and your e-mail (and even then) the odds of your getting infected are certainly not small enough to ignore.

On the flip side, Windows comes with auto-updating features (still a little behind discovery) and a default firewall. So even a system with nothing on isn't actually naked, unless you actively turn it off. In about six years of running a system with non-automatic patching and ZoneAlarm, I've gotten two viruses. I run a virus scanner now because I have the processing power, we download more files, and I have a toddler on the computer. But before it wasn't really necessary.

I will also say, you can turn off the pop-ups on Zonealarm by clicking 'stop showing these messages' or 'always allow this connection'. I've been using it for six years, and with the exception of one version I didn't care to learn, I've had no real trouble.

Three or four firewalls is a bit excessive, and virus scanners not programmed aroudn your actual usage habits is a waste of resources. But going with everything just flapping in the wind isn't exactly prudent either.

[hobgoblin]

i think i read a test ones that showed a clean install of windows getting infested by a worm within 15 mins of being connected to the net...

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, but is that with 15 minutes active surfing and outlook usage, or 15 minutes just sitting there connected to a router that's online?

[hobgoblin]

iirc, the latter...