anagramofbrat: (pissed aku)
anagramofbrat ([personal profile] anagramofbrat) wrote2011-08-08 01:08 am

VREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

okay, I have to bitch about something weird now.

I worked in a graphics lab at Smith at the turn of the last decade. Not quite the prehistoric era as far as current computing is concerned but back there. Antiquity, maybe. Anyway, back before USB made everything plug and play-licious we had these things called SCSI chains to attach external devices, and in the lab I worked in at the time, the main things at the ends of said Scuzzies were scanners (hey, at least they were one pass scanners by that point - they were 3 pass still five years before that) and more importantly Zip drives, because long before this bright halcyon time when $120 spent wisely could buy you a terabyte of storage, not to mention $7 can get you a 4GB drive you can fit on a keychain, we had 100MB chunky disks that if you were into any kind of graphics or video you carried around and thought you were all hot shit because you could fit about 99 3.5 floppies onto them. (Jesus. Remember 3.5" floppies? How about 5.25"? lol). Graphics nerds with Zip disks were such hipsters, man, and I say that fully knowing that includes me... hell if I dug in my Box of Random Computer Junk I probably could still find the pile of Zip 100s and Zip 250s containing all my 3D modelling and old graphic crap. But I digress. I was going somewhere with this, I promise.

Anyway, in the aforementioned lab, all of the computers had Zip drives. Regardless of whether they were external (usually) or internal (only on the lone PC, oddly enough), Zip drives made a distinctive, high-pitched "vreeeee" noise when reading data off of Zip disks. It got to be one of those ubiquitous background noises particular to this lab and for the most part I learned to tune it out, but on occasion during a bad day for whatever reason that "vreeeee" sounding over and over would set my teeth on edge.

Now the point of this little bit of nostalgia: There's a fucking colony of bugs outside, crickets or something, that make the exact same "vreeeeee" noise at the exact same frequency, over and over and over and over AND OVER again, all night long. Given the story I just told, you understand why I currently have a low grade headache and a rising need to repeatedly stab the next person that pisses me off. The odds are very much against my darling Manbeast right now, so if it hits the news that he was murdered by a rampaging Negress tomorrow morning, y'all will know to blame the bugs... and by extension, the iomega corporation, if they even still exist at this point.

*sigh* Summer cannot end soon enough. Strongly considering earplugs until it does.

[identity profile] telepresence.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 11:38 am (UTC)(link)
My main memory of Zip media was them making a click click click noise as they failed to read the disks, then or ever again. F'in razza frazza *shakes a fist*. And my main memory of SCSI is something, somewhere in the goddamn room has to not be terminated properly! But where? Wheerrreee?!?!?!

[identity profile] telepresence.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 11:40 am (UTC)(link)
(keeping in mind that as a support guy I tend to see technologies in terms of all the ways they broke, more than anything.

[identity profile] anagramofbrat.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 12:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah yes, the Zip click of death. Good times. /sarcasm

[identity profile] harinezumi.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 02:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Not 4MB, but 4GB, and not $25, but $7!

[identity profile] anagramofbrat.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 03:18 pm (UTC)(link)
damn it *edits*

[identity profile] ggirl.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I sleep with earplugs in every single night. Works wonders ;)

[identity profile] anagramofbrat.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
just mad because normally I don't need them. these bugs need to die.

[identity profile] ggirl.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 03:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, I quite agree. And I also hate summer and wish it would end NOW.

[identity profile] anagramofbrat.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 03:42 pm (UTC)(link)
well, as we discussed before, summer in NYC is kinda like spending three months in Satan's unwashed boxers.

[identity profile] ggirl.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 03:46 pm (UTC)(link)
LOL. Yeah. Very much so :( :(
ext_7899: the tenth doctor stands alone (Default)

[identity profile] rhipowered.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 07:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, the WAG. Oh, ZIP DISKS.

[identity profile] avalon616.livejournal.com 2011-08-08 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
My freshman year of high school I did a science report on Zip disks, about how they worked, and how they were *the future* of storage for computing, and soon all computers would have them.

I have an Iomega t-shirt still kicking around somewhere, I used to use it as a night shirt.

[identity profile] nireena.livejournal.com 2011-08-15 02:51 pm (UTC)(link)
yeah, i remember the WAG. and the zip drives. (i'm somewhat embarrassed to admit my tower is old enough to still have a zip drive. i think i still have a disk or two kicking around someplace. ought to remember to transfer everything off it before the drive or the disks do the click of death...)