Herewith a tale of immense tragedy filled with perseverance and dedication but which nevertheless results in terrible destruction, heartbreak and despair. In other words, it's a Russian story ... but ... it happened to me.
Cutting an important appearance with my home kit has always been vital to me and this explains why my desk was made up of two file cabinets with a household door across them. The computer kit on the desk included a Mac Pro, a couple of large monitors, and various peripherals such as disk drives, etc.
On this joyous day, a new Mac Pro arrived and these are large heavy units so I put one on each side of the desk. When I was satisfied everything was properly-placed, I sat in front of the primary monitor and got ready to start configuring the new system.
This is when I realized there was one aspect of my preparation which had not exactly achieved nominal performance and that, specifically, was the position of the door relative to the file cabinets beneath it. Noooo, I did not realize the door was now sitting much more back on the cabinets so much of its width extended behind them. Much of the weight of the re-distributed equipment was over them as well.
So I began to use the system and I noticed the desk was starting to list. It wasn't clear at first what was happening but then I realized the back of the desk is sinking. I then quickly realized a move is required immediately or everything on the desk will end up on the floor resulting in an explosion they would probably hear in Cincinnati. I was in Rhode Island at the time.
Various forms of calculus flew through my head as I couldn't put enough force down on the desk to stop it from going up on the front and at the same time the equipment was sliding toward the back. After some time I got things to a stall point at which it couldn't tilt any more unless I let go. The desk was tilted at least 30+ degrees and the equipment had slid up against the wall behind it. So long as I held onto it, the situation would stay stable.
There was a problem with this particular situation as there wasn't anyone else there. I had two cellphones but I couldn't reach either one of them. The soundproofing was pretty good so no-one would have heard if I shouted out. No-one could get inside without passing several security doors before even having a chance at the apartment. Ain't no-one goin' come.
Consider, if you will, the plight of the plaintiff as these were Apple's most powerful machines, two of them. It was the same with the monitors as I need the largest possible monitor for video plus an ancillary monitor for windows to use in the edits. There was all this gloriously-powerful equipment, perfect for my video purpose ... all about to hit the floor in a glorious cacophony of bending metal and broken glass.
This was one of those magical metaphysical moments in which you're absolutely screwed, there's nothing you can do about it, but there's this time ... just before the falling safe lands on your head.
Perhaps we might use this time to consider just what all that kit cost but let's go simply with one hell of a lot.
And then there was nothing for it, you've got to let it go or they will find your skeleton here years from now.
Describing the damage serves no purpose and I really don't want to think about it. This is when all the video from prior to that time was lost. The last choice was save the video or the music. I'm still playing but it was one hell of a price to pay.
The part that amuses me is that it was so ridiculously stupid and it took down a highly-sophisticated, high-tech kit.
(Ed: what's the moral of the story?)
Don't eat the clams. They're awful. You can get the same texture and more taste, although not a very good taste, from chewing a rubber band. Don't tell anyone you don't like them as you have to be careful with those New Englanders. They burn witches up there.
Cutting an important appearance with my home kit has always been vital to me and this explains why my desk was made up of two file cabinets with a household door across them. The computer kit on the desk included a Mac Pro, a couple of large monitors, and various peripherals such as disk drives, etc.
On this joyous day, a new Mac Pro arrived and these are large heavy units so I put one on each side of the desk. When I was satisfied everything was properly-placed, I sat in front of the primary monitor and got ready to start configuring the new system.
This is when I realized there was one aspect of my preparation which had not exactly achieved nominal performance and that, specifically, was the position of the door relative to the file cabinets beneath it. Noooo, I did not realize the door was now sitting much more back on the cabinets so much of its width extended behind them. Much of the weight of the re-distributed equipment was over them as well.
So I began to use the system and I noticed the desk was starting to list. It wasn't clear at first what was happening but then I realized the back of the desk is sinking. I then quickly realized a move is required immediately or everything on the desk will end up on the floor resulting in an explosion they would probably hear in Cincinnati. I was in Rhode Island at the time.
Various forms of calculus flew through my head as I couldn't put enough force down on the desk to stop it from going up on the front and at the same time the equipment was sliding toward the back. After some time I got things to a stall point at which it couldn't tilt any more unless I let go. The desk was tilted at least 30+ degrees and the equipment had slid up against the wall behind it. So long as I held onto it, the situation would stay stable.
There was a problem with this particular situation as there wasn't anyone else there. I had two cellphones but I couldn't reach either one of them. The soundproofing was pretty good so no-one would have heard if I shouted out. No-one could get inside without passing several security doors before even having a chance at the apartment. Ain't no-one goin' come.
Consider, if you will, the plight of the plaintiff as these were Apple's most powerful machines, two of them. It was the same with the monitors as I need the largest possible monitor for video plus an ancillary monitor for windows to use in the edits. There was all this gloriously-powerful equipment, perfect for my video purpose ... all about to hit the floor in a glorious cacophony of bending metal and broken glass.
This was one of those magical metaphysical moments in which you're absolutely screwed, there's nothing you can do about it, but there's this time ... just before the falling safe lands on your head.
Perhaps we might use this time to consider just what all that kit cost but let's go simply with one hell of a lot.
And then there was nothing for it, you've got to let it go or they will find your skeleton here years from now.
Describing the damage serves no purpose and I really don't want to think about it. This is when all the video from prior to that time was lost. The last choice was save the video or the music. I'm still playing but it was one hell of a price to pay.
The part that amuses me is that it was so ridiculously stupid and it took down a highly-sophisticated, high-tech kit.
(Ed: what's the moral of the story?)
Don't eat the clams. They're awful. You can get the same texture and more taste, although not a very good taste, from chewing a rubber band. Don't tell anyone you don't like them as you have to be careful with those New Englanders. They burn witches up there.
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