The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
The Schilliger Xmas display was cute but a bit subdued compared to previous years. Given how shite 2020 has been, it’s a bit hard to work up a full heas of seasonal cheery steam. We’ve decided to push back our flight to the UK from December to next July, in the hopes that things will have improved by then and we won’t need to quarantine on both ends. We’ll be here for Swissmas. Pray that we don’t kill each other. Ho ho oy.
Reminds me of Dennis Leary’s “Downtrodden song”:
Everything is horrible, yeah, really really really terrible
I’m really depressed, I’m really downtrodden
I’m downtrodden square, uh-huh
The whole world is doomed, yeah. We’re all gonna die.
Twenty-five thousand four hundred and seventy-two people die every single minute, uh-huh oh yeah
Seventeen hundred and fifty people just died
Cancer, death, AIDS, inflation, taxes, George Bush
Hell, Satan, cancer of the face
Cancer of the colon
Cancer of the wrist
And John Denver on compact disc
Well fuck.
I’m one fell swoop, I managed to delete 1.7TB of data from my media streaming PC. I was trying to do something that would save me a few MB, if that, and fix a minor source of irritation. It ended up biting me quite stupendously in the ass.
Note to future self. When using Linux 1-liners,please be wary of positional arguments and always RTFM!
find /multimedia -name *.txt -delete
: removes all text files found under path /multimedia
find -delete /multimedia -name *.txt
: removes 1.7 TB of data
From the find(1) man:
Warnings: Don’t forget that the find command line is evaluated as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to delete everything below the starting points you specified.
And then you cry.
But what about your backup, you ask? Well, I do have one, but it’s 6-month out of date, which is not a major thing, and it’s also currently in a location that is difficult to access. Alternative measures are being taken to restore the data.
It’s not a critical loss. I’ll get most, if not all, the data back. Its just incredibly frustrating and involved a serious sphincter-clench, followed by an Oh-shit-I’m-stupid moment I could have done without.
But I’m not sure…
I know that all the broadsheets have a media bias, on either side, but it really seems that the tabloids just aren’t even trying anymore. The Sun, particularly, doesn’t disappoint in spoon-feeding garbage to its target audience. I mean, come on, could they pile it on any thicker?
At least not tonight.
Flight got canceled, woohoo! To make things even more fun, apparently Barcelona is hosting several large events/conferences this week and hotels are booked solid. The easyjet staff were walking up and down the queue of already happy people informing them that, yes, they could wait to get to the head of the line, but there was no guarantees that easyjet would be able to find them a hotel room by then. If we could find something on our own, we could get it reimbursed later.
I am SO happy that I finally got a corporate credit card just before my trip to Brussels. It’s already proven to be worth its weight in gold for occasions just like this. So now I’m I a very-nice-but-overpriced hotel room for tonight and I’m hopefully flying back tomorrow at noon.
Project mid-term review done. The project is seen in a very positive light within EIT circles. Positive initial feedback, good explanations, clear need, desirable, consortium seen as responsive. We will get the full feedback in a couple of weeks. I spent the afternoon walking around La Rambla and areas.
I’m at the airport now, but my 2050 flight has been delayed twice and is now showing for 2300. I’ve had fun, but I want to go home now.
