Yee-Haw!

No need to post a link to that New Yorker article, Uncle Ken.  I think I found it online but it had a different title, Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds but it was the same author.  It starts with discussion of a study about suicide notes, correct?  Heady stuff; I'll have to read it again to fully understand it but one of the closing lines rings true. "These days, it can feel as if the entire country has been given over to a vast psychological experiment being run either by no one or by Steve Bannon."  I can't disagree with that assessment.

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We had some discussion about machine learning and Artificial Intelligence a while back, didn't we?  Looks like you guys are at the forefront, getting bitten in the ass by Cortana.  I don't have it on my machine, but I'm still running Win7 and am  satisfied with it. 

Maintaining computers is still a pain in the ass, although a lot of processes are now automated.  I run utilities once in a while to check the registry, defrag the hard drive, check for malware, stuff like that but not as often as I should.  There is a nice 2TB external portable drive I use for backups, but again, not as often as I should, only a couple of times a year.  Better than nothing, I guess, and the backup has saved my bacon a couple of times.

Before Mr. Beagles relies too heavily on CD backups he should do a Google for "disc rot."  CDs are not bulletproof archival media and data may be lost, forever.  I'm not saying he will have problems but a visual check of the CDs can indicate possible issues; it's worth looking into.

One good method I've used for transferring files is to yank out the hard drive of the old box.  There is a gizmo you can get that plugs into the drive and uses USB to connect to the new box which recognizes the drive and you can copy/move files at your leisure.  The gadget I have is called a "SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter" and it's almost 100% foolproof.  It wasn't that expensive and you may not need it but if you do, it's worth it's weight in gold.

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I can't wait for the next installment of Uncle Ken's Texas saga.  So far, every boss he's had has been fired.  I can imagine other bosses quaking in fear once word of "that guy from Illinois" gets around; if he gets assigned to your section you might as well start updating your resume.

So, Uncle Ken, why Austin?  Did you throw a dart at a map or did you always want to be a cowboy and Austin was the coolest city in Texas?  Isn't Austin the place with all the bats?  I know one of the Texas towns is renown for it's bats; maybe it's San Antonio or Galveston.  I'm still trying to picture Uncle Ken with a proper Resistol hat, Tony Lama boots, and a pickup truck but the image can't quite come into view.