Mircea Bardac /random_thoughts

I tried getting my paralel Windows installation ready to finish a homework for tomorrow. Unfortunately, it froze (just as my Linux), giving a “Cyclic redundancy error”. Rebooting in Windows didn’t work.

Therefore, I ended up with an almost dead HDD. There is a slight chance of me being able to recover the data on the Linux partitions. About the Windows partitions, I don’t know. Unfortunately, I think there’s a problem with the HDD that causes data corruption. A colleague of mine has the same type of HDD (Maxtor, SATA, 120GB, 8MB cache) and he also had such a problem with his HDD. I managed to fix it by filling it up with zeros. The bad sectors were gone and data didn’t get corrupted afterwards. Pretty strange.

The HDD is less than 6 months old, but my supplier doesn’t sell this type of HDDs anymore. I wonder why. I plan getting a Seagate HDD now, either instead or next to my almost-dead HDD. I will try recovering my data when I find some HDD to backup it first (create an image of the damaged partition).

Expect low-Internet-activity these days, also because my mid-term exams are starting.

My Linux frozen today (something very unusual) when I tried starting Win4lin.
Rebooting showed me that the root partition is corrupted. Unfortunately, the /home partition is also corrupted. Both are reiserfs3.

There is a tool reiserfsck which is said to repair corrupted reiserfs partitions. I won’t use it though, not until I backup the partitions first. Unfortunately, it seems I need another HDD, since my home partition is quite big - 40 GB.

Let’s hope for the best. My activity is extremely affected by a not working system.

I have returned home this morning from a party. It was about 7am.
I was impressed by the quiet nature that surrounds Bucharest’s concrete buildings. The sky was red, with some scattered clouds here and there. Fresh air. Walking was a pleasure.

I took the bus home. In the bus I found a teenager sleeping. He didn’t appear to be a homeless because he was well dressed. I have remembered that waking up in unknown places is not very idealistic (:) ) so I’ve decided to wake him up. He told me he had to get down at University Square. I told him where we were and he said “Oh, this is where I got up“. Might seem funny, but you wouldn’t wish that to happen to you.

The return home was one of the most interesting and pleasant walks of my entire life. I had forgotten of the stress in Univerisity and I was enjoying each and every bit of the morning. I should try to enjoy some more mornings from time to time…

I was out tonight, spending some time on the streets of Bucharest, together with some friend.
We were on the Magheru Bulevard when we have noticed a weird display of some artwork. There’s a gallery somewhere between Univeristy Square and Romana Square. Some plastic curtons (I might say) were hanging from the ceiling and they were lighten on the floor by some colourfull neon lights.

Curiosity lead us in. We asked what those things meant. We were explained by the author that, on the floor, we will see a fingerprint. The artwork represents that the life of each individual is like a maze. The particularities of the individuals are characterized by the fingerprint. Nice idea, isn’t it?

On top of all this, the artist (it was a she) described some of the concepts behind and things she found out about life. One major thought involved the fact that some American phychologist (I think) thought at some moment What if I would study healthy people, unlike everyone else? How’s a normal human being?. The conclusions of this study were that people are a lot more different than animals. The comparison with animals is totaly wrong. The society we’re living in makes us compare ourselves with animals, instead of making us think positive and adopt a more relaxed perspective.

I believe I’m missing some ideas here, mainly because of my computer science oriented thinking. Anyway, listening to her ideas really made me think…

Writing this made me think wether somebody else thought about this or not. Here’s what Google revealed to me. Check the first few links. Interesting projects. Enjoy some deep self-reseach on the nature of the individual now…

I want you to imagine a spring day… Very good.
Now, make it a little bit cold… it’s been a long winter and the temperature is still low for this period.
Now, add some memories: 1st/8th of March - true winter days (lots of snow).

You are today now and you’re going to school… everything is dry around you. You know that an important footbal match is going on tonight and you might even have a chance to see it on TV if you don’t fall asleep.

During a break, you are pointed to look at a window. Guess what? It is snowing heavily (very dense). It is noon.
You leave the University at about 6pm local time. Everything is dry, . There are only some tiny spots where you can see there was some snow today.

You’re at home, where it’s warm. You’re happy another day ended.You eat something, read e-mails, write e-mails… and… somebody comes and tells you to look outside. You get up, walk to the window and look. Surprise!. Everything is white… really really white. Dense snowflakes are pouring in. It is like a fairy-tale picture, just like on 1st/8th of March. In only 1-2 hours everything got white.

Of course, at 8pm local time, when the football match was supposed to start, we had a 5cm thick snow layer covering everything. The match was postponed for March 16th. It’s still a white score…