Thursday, August 22, 2019

I need heating oil and a way to read a hard drive

I hate asking for money, and I especially hate it when it's such a large portion of what I've been doing.  It looks like, over the past three months, half of the things I've posted have included me asking for money.

I'd really rather be writing a ton and asking for money rarely (if ever.)

But, as you might guess from this opening, I need money.

Things have been deeply, terribly, fucked up.  The fallout from my pharmacy going out of business is still kicking my ass, I'm completely out of some of my most important medications, I'm not keeping up with bills well (late fees, where applicable, always suck) and I'm now out of heating oil.

Actually, I've been out of heating oil for at least a week (I think.)

The benefit of having this happen in August is that I can survive that.  If it were winter and I left the house without oil that long the water would freeze and break my heating system.  Last time that happened the cost to replace a heating system thus destroyed was $6,000.  It's been years, I imagine costs have gone up.

It's not winter, so that didn't happen.  What it does mean, however, is that I can't take a shower* and can't wash my clothes properly.  If I weren't out of dish soap anyway, it would also make doing the dishes significantly more difficult.

So, I need oil.  Ideally I'd fill the tank ($479.80 for 200 gallons) and be done with it, but at this time of year there's no great loss in doing the minimum order (100 gallons) instead.

My cash on hand is about fifty cents. ten cents.  (I was way off there.)

So, yeah.  I need money.  There's the tip jar in the upper right hand corner, this goes to the same account and should work just as well if not better: paypal.me/ChrisTheCynic

Paypal has, historically, utterly failed to process recurring donations for me.  Someone would try to be nice by setting up a monthly donation, and instead of it working I got a monthly message that Paypal couldn't process it because *mumble*mumble*.  (Seriously, they never gave me any information on why it might be going wrong or what might be done to fix it.)

So if anyone does decide that they want to give me monthly money, I'd point you to my patreon, but with the warning that I've been in a massive creative slump for two and a half years, and the past year and [third? quarter?] has been even worse than that.  Content isn't exactly common.

(Though today I did put up an early access post with bunch of links to hideously rough in-progress work on google docs, because if I'm not going to finish anything, that kind of seems like the most I can do.)

-

Ok, thing two.  Secondary computer died.  Completely died.  I think that all I need to do to fix it remove the power socket, buy a replacement, solder the replacement onto the mother board, and put it back together, but until such time as I learn to solder (it is on my list of things to do) the computer is a paperweight.

Plugging it in provides zero power (for obvious reasons) and the battery has run out.  As such, it is incapable of doing anything remotely computer like.

There was warning that secondary computer was on the way out, and I have a replacement secondary computer because of that warning.**  There was not, however, warning that it was imminent.  A lot of stuff did get backed up, of course, but all of the stuff that was in progress didn't, because it was more recent than the most recent back up.

So, what I have right now is a 128 gigabyte SSD --a SanDisk SDSA5.JK-- with really important stuff on it, and nowhere I can plug the damned thing in.

You see, secondary computer was a faithful companion and lasted a very long time.  I'm pretty sure, though not completely sure, that that's why I can't plug the damned thing in anywhere.  It's old as dirt.  Primary computer is new.  Primary computer has a slot where I can insert a second SSD, but old as dirt SSDs need not apply.

So, I need a way to read this fucking hard drive.  Ideally I'd like to be pointed at a cheap (but not so cheap as to damage shit) SSD to USB adapter that will work for this thing (or something like that.)

I know nothing about such things.  Help?


-

* It seems kind of weird that I can't given that I need everything else to be cold as cold can be, but I seriously can't take a cold shower.  If there were a lake I could jump in, all would be fine, but I live by the salty ocean instead.

That's how I can interact with cold water.  I can immerse myself (or part of myself) in it, or I can't fucking take it.  (It'd probably be less unpleasant to bang my head into a wall repeatedly, than it is to try, and inevitably fail, to withstand a cold shower.)

** Though, I kind of fucked that one up.  I was not in a good head-space when I ordered it, and by the time I recovered enough to go "This really isn't what I should have gotten" the time during which I might return it had passed.

It's a perfectly good computer, but it's not what I want in a secondary computer.  A secondary computer should be sleek, light, and maybe smallish.  This thing is more like if I put the processing power (and other capabilities) of a secondary computer in a body the size of a primary computer.  It's all wrong.  (None the less, I'm getting used to it.)

3 comments:

  1. I think probably something like https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-10Gbps-Adapter-Cable-Drives/dp/B00XLAZODE/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Startech+USB+3.1+Gen+2+%2810Gbps%29+Adapter+Cable+for+2.5%22+SATA+Drives&qid=1566565964&s=gateway&sr=8-1 should work, but I'd need to know more about the model of your SSD disk to be certain.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As near as I can tell, "SDSA5.JK" is the model number. (With three sub-models depending on how much storage space the drive in question contains.)

      Put that into Google along with the brand name (SanDisk) and I definitely get my drive back, which would be great if I wanted a replacement drive, but for some reason I can't find anything that will tell me "uses/requires a [thingamabob] connection."

      (And, of course, maybe everything is telling me that, and I just can't tell because I almost never need to swap around internally mounted SSDs and thus don't understand the terminology.)

      At this point I feel like I'm just expected to eyeball the connection and find one where I can say, "Yeah, I feel like my drive would probably fit in that slot," then order it and hope for the best, which I refuse to believe is how this is actually meant to be done.

      Delete
  2. You just need an enclosure to put it in so it can be read via usb, something like https://smile.amazon.com/Sabrent-Tool-free-Enclosure-Optimized-EC-UASP/dp/B00OJ3UJ2S/ref=asc_df_B00OJ3UJ2S/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309743296044&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18443646278511840697&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9015314&hvtargid=aud-801381245258:pla-343408318932&psc=1&sa-no-redirect=1

    ReplyDelete