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Rescuing data from my IBM ThinkPad 755CE
Some time ago, my dad brought me some of my old stuff that’s been bothering him back at our family home. It seems storing some of my things in this big place really is to much, so now I get something brought back every other visit.
Anyway, one time I got this old laptop briefcase and it had the Thinkpad Laptop that I had been using as my main machine around the turn of the century. It’s an IBM ThinkPad 755 CE that I bought used from my uncle Michael, who got it as his work machine during his time at IBM, so it had a lot of stuff like a docking station, mouse, PCMCIA Ethernet and modem cards (which I remember purchasing myself).
When I got it back a few weeks ago, I figured I’d boot it up and look around for whatever I had left on there. I’m very much a data hoarder, so the thought of doing some file archaeology on myself turned me on somewhat.
The Laptop did boot up, but couldn’t get to the Windows 95 desktop for whatever reason. I gave up.
In the back of my mind, the thought of unsalvaged personal data kept gnawing though. I figured I’d attach the hard drive to my Mac and copy the files I found by hand. Got out the drive, which was amazing because the machine is so modular and servicable it’s unconceivable in the modern day. The 2.5″ IDE drive was in a plastic caddy, with protective stickers and everything. Carefully took it apart and detached the proprietary IDE-to-whatever adapter it had on it. Ordered the cheapest USB 2.0 adapter I found on Amazon.
Today I put everything together and made images of the two partitions (lol) on the 1.4GB drive with Disk Utility. Took about 10 minutes total. Drive didn’t die, all data copied, great success!
I did a tiny bit of spelunking, too, and found some real gems in there. The oelna.de website from about 1999. A single MP3 file. My entire AOL Instant Messenger chat history! School papers in .doc format. Files in my proprietary .tx2 format (which is a renamed .txt file). I’ll see if I can declassify more embarrassing findings in the future, but I’ll leave it at that for today. I’m thinking of a FBI-Epstein-file release cycle, a few at a time, slowly peeling back the curtains and revealing ever more horrendous teenage angst. Stay safe out there!
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At the movies
Gerade musste ich eine Umfrage für die
FHHSTechnische Hochschule Mannheim ausfüllen, in der nach meiner Beziehung zum Medium Film gefragt wurde. Ich musste kurz etwas reflektieren, aber ich habe mich ziemlich schnell an meine Studienzeit erinnert.Mit dieser Zeit verbinde ich viele liebevolle Erinnerungen in Bezug auf Film. In dieser Zeit kam nämlich irgendein Genie beim CineMaxx Mannheim auf die Idee, man könnte doch die schlecht besuchten Spätvorstellungen ein bisschen boosten, indem man Studierenden ab 22 Uhr einen günstigeren Eintrittspreis anbietet; wenn ich mich recht erinnere, 3 Euro nur?!
Das war eine Zeit, in der gegenüber vom Kino noch die Koeripike (Currywurst und Pommes Experience) existierte und das Wittkoop (einer der ersten richtigen Burgerläden der Stadt. Nicht vergleichbar mit heute, aber damals eine Nummer!)
Jedenfalls war das damals eine Gegend, wo man sich auch abends einen Moment aufhalten konnte in Verbindung mit einem Kinobesuch.
Man kann sich vorstellen, dass junge Leute, die nachmittags und abends zusammen in einer WG in Neckarau abhängen, sich auch gerne mal einen Film reinziehen. Und dass vor 21:30 von denen sowieso niemand richtig einen Plan für den Abend gemacht hat. Wenn jetzt noch jemand sagt, passt auf, wie wär es, wenn statt 12 Euro für den Eintritt ihr nur 3 Euro zahlen müsstet … man würde wo vorher die Leute waren nur noch eine abgeranzte Eckcouch sehen mit ein paar schwitzigen Po-Abdrücken.
Jedenfalls war ich zu dieser Zeit im Durchschnitt drei Mal pro Woche im Kino. In wechselnder Konstellation, mal die ganze Gang, mal nur Max. Was wir für einen Scheiss angeschaut haben, einfach, weil es die günstigste Art war, einen Abend zu verbringen! Es war echt die beste Zeit. Ein Abend Iron Man, der nächste dann White Chicks 2. Es gab keinerlei Qualitätsansprüche. Man hatte irgendwann alle Filme gesehen, die aktuell überhaupt liefen. In quasi leeren Sälen!
Heute existiert an der Stelle nur noch eine Ruine des einstigen Palasts, in der man knapp 20 Euro dafür hinlegt, dass einen der Hintermann mit Corona in den Nacken hustet. Und draussen hat das Soban schon um 22 Uhr dicht gemacht. Es ist einfach nicht mehr das Gleiche. Aber ich denke gerne an die Zeit zurück, in der ich völlig on top des Mainstreams war.
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Getting back into StarCraft
I have been playing and watching StarCraft since it first came out. When its successor StarCraft 2 came out, I also increasingly watched matches and big tournaments. It was a great time. JustinTV became Twitch, the Day9 dailies were … daily and there were a number of iconic players, as well as casters.
Over the years I’ve had favorites, mostly Protoss players such as MC, HuK, sOs and Classic, but also many others.
In the last decade, the spark has somewhat fizzled and I quit playing myself and only sometimes watched tournament finals, mostly cast by Tastosis, which was the defining casting duo. When they quit GSL, I also did.
Until recently, when in my boredom Youtube suggested I watch Harstem’s channel. I only knew him as a pro player from the Netherlands who sometimes came up in tournaments. I did not know much about him. I seem to have missed out!
His Youtube channel posts daily. Mostly a curated few games of high-level SC2 play, narrated by himself, and boy is he hilarious! I am totally hooked and usually start my evenings by watching him play delicious cheeses against grandmaster opponents.
If you have nostalgic feelings for StarCraft 2, be sure to pay his channel a visit. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I do. Hashtag not sponsored ofc
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Agata: Lost vs. Breaking Bad
Gestern musste ich auf die schnelle eine neue Umfrage raushauen. Wenig Zeit, falsche Stifte dabei und ein spannendes Thema mit simplem Logo-Artwork rausgeballert, aber immerhin. Better done than perfect, oder?
Breaking Bad ist schon echt gut, aber ich finde, LOST hatte auch seinen Moment in der Sonne. Was denkt ihr?
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Base
Today I finally caved and purchased the full version of Base, a SQLite database editor for Mac.
It’s by no means cheap, but after just having used ChatGPT to update a table schema manually via the sqlite3 CLI, I was fed up when I realized I had to to it all again once more, on another table.
Bought the In-App Purchase and did it in the GUI app in 1 minute. Can’t say it felt great forking over almost €35, but I hope it’ll be of use in the future. After all, I convert almost all of my WordPress installs to SQLite, since MySQL is such a pain to deal with. This works because the sites I make usually aren’t very traffic-heavy and I can get away with it.
I used to use a third party plugin for this, but since WordPress Studio came out, I have been using their sort-of official MU plugin. Works great until it doesn’t (enable log files in WP to figure out), but Base sorted this out for me.
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Response
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… liked this!
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@oelna Hi, I’m the author of Base. Thank you for supporting the app, and do get in touch if there’s anything I can help with. Glad you find it useful :)
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… reposted this!