Amy’s Journal

Computer Data and Backup

After the very close call earlier this year nearly costing me nine months of Lightroom data and work, I set out to make sure everything of value in my system has redundant backup. As of 12:02 am today, the final piece of my backup plan completed its first backup, and the new backup process is fully operational.

( Technogeek Backup Stuff )

I’ve been doing a comprehensive overhaul of my system backup process – and actually figured the new process was completed. However, late last week, one of my Time Machine drives unmounted itself. I did a power reset, and the drive mounted briefly and then unmounted itself again. After that, nothing I did would make the disk mount again, although the platter was definitely spinning.

( Applegeek Stuff )

Today’s Review of Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat by james_davis_nicoll was nostalgic, as I haven’t read the novel in many, many years. Somewhere in my library I have an old SFBC copy.

The information that caught me off-guard is that the book is available at Project Gutenberg. Really? So I went there and downloaded a copy of The Stainless Steel Rat.

I have a number of classics (Shakespeare, fairy tales, British writers) from Gutenberg, but no SFF at all. I actually have more ebooks downloaded from Standard Ebooks. Standard does very nice work.

So I went to browse Gutenberg’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Titles. The list was initially displayed in order of title popularity. Triplanetary by E. E. “Doc” Smith caught my eye, but the other Lensman titles weren’t nearby. I sorted by author so that like titles would be found together. It turns out they have over 4200 books in this category, so it took a while to scan the library, 25 titles at a time. The grid view is actually pretty easy to scan quickly.

I only wanted ebooks for titles I already owned and liked. I don’t need more new titles to read – although there were plenty to collect – if I had wanted. For well-known authors, it seemed that only lesser works had slipped into the public domain – unprofitable stuff that no one cared about.

Still, besides The Stainless Steel Rat, I snagged a copy of “The Marching Morons” by C. M. Kornbluth, and Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper. Most importantly, I downloaded the entire Lensman series by E. E. “Doc” Smith. Comfort space opera. Popcorn for the brain.

I then figured I should revisit Standard Ebooks. It turns out I already had a copy of The Stainless Steel Rat and Little Fuzzy – from Standard. Also, I had Standard versions of Triplanetary and First Lensman. I reviewed Standard’s list of SF books – there are under 100 – and there weren’t any new novels to download.

Anyway, these ebooks are just for backup – in case I’m stuck on a plane or train or some rundown motel. I’m more likely to re-read my physical books.

Last year I retired my iMac Pro because the end of Intel Macs is near. Tahoe (macOS 26) is the last macOS that supports Intel Macs. This fall’s macOS 27 will be Apple Silicon only. And the world moves on.

I get a lot of warnings from Tahoe saying that certain apps I run will stop working in future macOS versions – and that I need to upgrade them. Yesterday I decided it was time to do some serious app pruning.

( Legacy App Purge, Below This Cut )

I’ve got a few links I should clear from my browser.

Endgame for the Open Web by Anil Dash. Tangentially related: I quit. The clankers won by David Bushell.
The World Wide Web is a mess, filled with AI slop – and getting locked down behind walled gardens. I’m grateful for Dreamwidth being a safe haven (for now). Dreamwidth is the best of what’s left of the old open web.

Sort of related to the above links – last time I linked to Kagi Small Web. This time it’s Blogosphere. We could do more to find interesting blogs; they are out there!

For tech geeks (I used to be a programmer): Claude Code's Entire Source Code Got Leaked via a Sourcemap in npm, Let's Talk About it by Kuber Mehta.
There’s a bunch of interesting stuff here – and I’m happy to see some of the developers are having fun. They’re doing some things that I would have done. I had some fun Easter eggs in the code I wrote.

Artemis II Is Not Safe to Fly by Maciej Ceglowski.
This is pretty scary. Reminds me of The Slide That Killed Seven People. (I’ve used that slide when teaching people how to (and how not to) use PowerPoint.)

A lighter side of space... maybe you’d like your own Mars Perseverance Rover (working replica kit)? (Yanko Design always features awesome stuff – like this Tiny House with the Bedroom on the Ground Floor.)

After 11 Years, Naruto’s True Canon Ending(s) Have Aged Like Fine-Wine by Jason Hon at ScreenRant (WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE END OF NARUTO). Related article from 2024: Naruto Shippuden Ending Explained; How the Beloved Anime Changes the Manga, also by Jason Hon. (WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE END OF NARUTO)
The articles reminded me how much I loved the ending of Naruto – and I was motivated to rewatch the final arc, starting with Naruto Shippuden Episode 494 – Hidden Leaf Story, The Perfect Day for a Wedding, Part 1: Naruto’s Wedding. With the start of the new Spring anime season, this is a terrible time to watch more episodes in already full days – so I’m going to watch just one episode a night.

Speaking of anime, Random Curiosity has its Spring 2026 Preview posted. As usual, it’s full of good information.