May 30, 2007
POSTSCRIPT
“Sasha,
Thank you for sending your RAID to us for data recovery service. We are sorry that successful recovery was not possible in this case. This report provides some information about the work that was performed.
The initial challenge in this recovery was accessing the data at a physical level from each of the four drives in the array. Unfortunately both drive #1 and drive #3 had suffered a massive head crash. (A head crash is when the read/write heads touch down on the patters inside of the drive and literally scrape away the data. These heads typically float magnetically just above the discs [+/-3 microns]. This occurred on two of the four drives in your RAID 0.)
The drives were opened and worked on in our Class 100 Clean Room but they were still not readable because of the severity of the media damage. Because the drives were in a RAID 0 configuration, it was necessary to access and save the contents of all four of the drives in order to save your data.
I am sorry that a successful recovery was not possible in this case, and I do wish you the best with the work that will be required to rebuild or recreate the data you need. If you have any questions about this service, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you again for giving us the opportunity to work on your drives.
Best Regards,
[redacted]
Data Recovery Advisor”
May 25, 2007
May 24, 2007
SEASON 4
1. I start a fund drive for a new head shot, setting the suggested donation at $1000.
2. I disconnect my phone.
3. I hire a robot to sit in my office and physically restrain me every time I feel the urge to post. He will ask, electronically but not without empathy, “What’s really good?”
4. I mount a fund-raising campaign to help pay the robot.
5. I hire a full-time assistant to handle reader emails, most of which are variations on “Are you retarded?” I fire the assistant after I realize that I can answer the emails with a single auto-response: “Dear Ardent153: Jacob told me to.” The ex-assistant, in turn, starts the “X/FJ” blog and posts copies of my prescriptions and particularly embarrassing emails.
5. The robot is amused by “X/FJ” blog and threatens to jump ship if I don’t buy him an ergonomic chair. To this end, I stage a C-list benefit concert at The Spiral, or whatever store is in the space formerly occupied by The Spiral.
6. I lose the new head shot because of hard drive failure.
7. I give up and turn to more important questions: Will Matthew Fox grow a decent beard over the summer so they can put away the spirit gum?
May 23, 2007
LISTEN TO MUSIC
The new Manu Chao single, "Rainin In Paradize," is available as a free download at his website.
May 22, 2007
RAP MUSIC
Prodigy. Alchemist. Potentially too conservative to jump over the flatline unsmiley face that is the city's straightjacket. But, as with other minimalisms, when their lines line up, you get a fast ride and a face full of wind. "Rubber bands on the handle—the New York grip."
May 21, 2007
SOFT DRIVES
If you are reading this, there are probably digital data in your life that are close to essential: photos, poems, MP3s, entire albums, movies you've made. You know that you need to make back-up copies of these data; what you may not know is that if you want the data to survive for more than a week, you should not store them on a LaCie drive.
In my experience, storing data on a LaCie drive means that you are going to lose those data. They will generally be lost for one of two reasons: the LaCie enclosure overheats and damages a section of the hard drive that it is "protecting"; or your data is stored in bits spread across multiple drive—in an enclosure containing either two or four separate hard drives—and one of those drives dies.
Several years' worth of photos I took with my Canon PowerShot S400—every photo taken between October 2003 and December 2005—are trapped inside a LaCie 1 TB enclosure containing four drives. Like all the other LaCie drives I have owned, it has failed. Motherfuck LaCie with a rusty fork.
If you want to back up your data, I suggest you buy Glyph drives—I love the GT050Q 320 GB: fast, quiet, well-cooled, reliable—or any of the MyBooks made by Western Digital (a company that makes many of the drives that end up in everyone else's enclosures).
May 14, 2007
TORI AMOS, SPOTLIGHT LIVE, TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2007
Many gigs have been seen and noted, but most remain unreported. Here’s a strike against delinquency:
Tori wore tight white pants and straddled the bench while facing front, hands out to either side for the piano and Rhodes, wearing the red “Tori” wig and performing strictly new songs for thirty minutes. (She played one short, possibly improvised song about her band—“the boys”—and how they are all going to learn piano.) She bowed once upon entering, and once upon leaving. Hers was the only gig that week I would have doubled in length.
May 13, 2007
May 08, 2007
May 03, 2007
BJÖRK, RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL, WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2007
Björk's show last night felt a lot like Christina Aguilera's show at MSG in March: a big voice, too few killers, too much sound, and a stage set-up that did more for her than us. (Christina, at least, changed outfits.) The final quarter of the set—"Wanderlust," "Joga," and "Pluto"—kicked in, especially the last two minutes of "Pluto," when the lows (808s), mids (Björk), and highs (brass) each found a spot, held fast, and hammered the assignment. It was a chest-punch, an adrenaline syringe. And then it stopped. Hey!
Before that, though, we got a long stretch of that high-spirited wandering she's been doing for ten years now. ("The Dull Flame of Desire" is a ghastly, plodding thing, not worthy of either voice.) I think this wandering is linked to her lovable equanimity, if I can mind-read a little. She enjoys her journeys and seems to worry little about how we feel about them. This is probably a healthy life model.
SHOW NO SHAME
Dave Tompkins has been working on his vocoder book for a long time. A really long time. There have been many, many different titles, and many phone calls about rare Miami Bass 12-inches, some of which I got to hear. (At one point, Dave asked me if I knew of any good Stalin biographies. I did not. But I asked someone who did.) Here is the first public glimpse of the Vocoder Werk.