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July 22, 2005

Adventures with Bruce - Chaos Theory

by Ferdinand T Cat

Chaos theory states that a small change can have big effects. This is undisputably true. Thanks to a combination of small annoyances-- person A had to go to a funeral, person B forgot to do a backup, person C had a configuration problem-- a multi-million-dollar research project ground to a halt and the only person who could save it was a fifty-year-old guy with a sleep disorder who talks to cats.

This is how I came to be separated from Bruce for over 36 continuous hours.

It's funny how things work out. Bruce's research group manages genetic databases. The original reason for putting him on the project was so that he could get the database to work under Windows. So all hell breaks loose because the only copy of some critical data is on a Windows machine and everybody else is using a Mac.

This would not be nearly so big a problem were it not for the fact that the data in question occupied 80 billion characters. Even by today's standards, that requires a pretty big hard drive, and of course, the big Terabyte drive they'd purchased for emergencies was busted and the repair order was still crawling through the many layers of bureaucracy surrounding government projects.

Affirmative action is a wonderful thing, but every now and then it's important to fix the stupid thing RIGHT NOW instead of trying to find a minority-owned business whose hourly rate is less than 20% higher than the prevailing rate charged by non-minority firms.

Also, Best Buy should stay open longer. By the time you're so desperate that you're willing to go out and BUY a new hard drive with your own money, 9pm is only a dim memory.

Bruce passed outAnyway, here's a picture of why we don't have a cat blog today. Even biting his foot didn't wake him up, so it's going to be a while before things get back to normal.


Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat


# At Fri 8:38 AM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (3) | More Adventures with Bruce

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Tracked on July 23, 2005 8:54 AM

Comments

I recognize that profile from my Corporate America days. lol


Posted by: FTS at July 22, 2005 3:19 PM

I feel your pain Bruce. My server at work had a meltdown a couple of weeks ago.


Posted by: seawitch1261 [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 22, 2005 10:11 PM

My sympathies. Chaos theory indeed.

I have often speculated that government employees start stealing in order to get their jobs done, and once they've mastered the art sooner or later a bad apple realizes that the same skill set could be used to liberate cash for less work-related purposes.


Posted by: MaxedOutMama at July 23, 2005 1:17 AM

HTML is not allowed in comments; however, if you put in a raw URL (http://www.somewhere.com/page.html) it will automatically be converted to a link.. Also, it is likely your comment will not appear unless you refresh the page manually after posting it.

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