Monday, September 18, 2017

The wisdom of the old?

Lying around, pondering the problems of the world, I realized that at my age I don't really give a damn anymore.

If walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal -- but not now that he uses a bike.

A whale swims all day, only eats fish, and drinks water, but is still fat.

A rabbit runs, and hops, and only lives 15 years, while a tortoise doesn't run and does mostly nothing, yet it lives for 150 years. Yet they tell us to exercise? I don't think so!
from young to old
Now that I'm older here's what I've discovered:

1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
2. My wild oats are mostly enjoyed with prunes and all-bran.
3. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.
4. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.
5. If all is not lost, then where the heck is it?
6. It was a whole lot easier to get older, than it was to get wiser.
7. Some days, you're the top dog, some days you're the hydrant.
8. I wish the buck really did stop here; I sure could use a few of them.
9. Kids in the back seat cause accidents.
10. Accidents in the back seat cause kids.
11. It is hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.
12. The world only beats a path to your door when you're in the bathroom.
13. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he'd have put them on my knees.
14. When I'm finally holding all the right cards, everyone wants to play chess.
15. It is not hard to meet expenses . . . They're everywhere.
16. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth..
17. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter . . . I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I'm "here after".
18. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.
19. It is a lot better to be seen than viewed.
20. Have I sent this message to you before...or did I get it from you ?
Old man sign

Windows system restore point files can consume HUGE amounts of disk space

Beware, this might well happen to you on a Windows system!

Refer to the following Microsoft Community user query:
Windows 7: System Volume Information has many large files ...

image

Today I just noticed on my Windows 10 Pro system that my 250 GB Samsung SSD was unexpectedly running out of space. I assiduously do a disk cleanup every few months, but today I discovered only about 12 GB was left when I would normally expect around 70 GB of free space.

A little analysis showed a similar situation to the screenshot above, there were more than 80 GB of system restore files.

I suspect that the System Restore settings might have been changed during a recent Windows update. I have no proof of this, but I certainly didn't myself make any change to the settings.

All that I had to do to make lots more space available was:

  1. Open the System Protection tab of Disk Cleanup and click the System Restore button.
  2. Move the Max Usage slider slider across to the left as far as I felt satisfied with. (I chose 30 GB, for no special reason, just an estimate that this would be sufficient to store the latest four or five restore point files.)
  3. Click the Apply button.

image

Note that I did not have to reboot Windows 10 or do anything else. The space was immediately freed up, and now there’s 90 GB available on the C: drive.

Monday, September 04, 2017

A shocking example (of lightning during a dry thunderstorm)

dry-thunderstorm-lightning-river-strike

Dry thunderstorm lightning causes the majority of forest fires.

It seems this video was from a fixed camera, as a human operator may not have survived this strike. Watch (at 7 seconds, of 56) how the lightning first strikes the river bank, then into the river and downstream with much turbulence.

Glad I wasn't swimming or fishing or boating there!

(Sorry, I’m not clear about the attribution of this video.)