This Weekās Horrible-Scopes
Itās time for this weekās Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesnāt matter. Better yet! Check out āHeart of the Game, Fredoniaā - they can sell you those D12ās with the symbols on them! Get in contact with them on Facebook, shipping to the U.S. only, and tell them āShujin Tribbleā sentcha. āHail, Hail, Fredonia!ā Home of the Blue Devil!
These āScopes are due to release just in time for the first week of March, so weāre paying special HAPPY BIRTHDAY⦠to My Computer - āBOXā! Now, yes. Boxās actual birthday is hard to nail down since, you know, it was a pre-built HP machine sold through āWorst Tryā, and parts of it have been replaced over the years, but itās still chugginā along! So with a nod to Markiplierās reliance on The Ship of Theseus, letās enjoy memories of 2013.
You get to start us off with realizing that BOX is Twelve Years Old! Not quite untested but not yet a teenager. Thereās been some growing pains over the years, but at least itās unlearned many of the things it was taught at birth, like running Windows 8! These days itās mainly Ubuntu Linux and Windows 10, and with what itās lacking in hardware thatās about as far as Windows will progress for it. So This Week⦠For those about to Age Out of Windows 10ās security umbrella who have no upgrade path beyond it, nowās the time to consider making a Linux Bootable Thumb Drive and testing out everything with it. You might be pleasantly surprised.
From its storage to its brain, BOX went from being a 6-Core computer to an 8-Core, which most folks would say is a great upgrade. But the problem is it was an AMD āFXā chip. For those not in the know, these chips were, shall we say, āInelegantā. Think of going to the grocery store, but in a fuel-sucking muscle car instead of a more conservative hybrid. So This Week⦠The best time of year for you is the winter. Your core body temperature is naturally high, so itāll be good to cool down naturally. As for the CPU, it wonāt matter. The stock cooler sucks anyway.
Letās talk about that CPU a little bit more, though. What do you do with an old one? You use it to upgrade a different computer, of course! In this case it went to max out someone elseās computer, taking them from four cores to six, freeing up THAT one for a higher purpose yet to be described. So This Week⦠You really need to remember to take out the recycling. Itās easy - just set it next to the door so you take it with you as you head out for the day. And donāt just forget it in the back seat of your car this time.
Weāre getting you something math related that will make very little sense. Computers are binary devices, so they work in multiples of two. And, subsequently, so would RAM as well. So youād expect it to start with two, four, eight, or even sixteen Gigs of it, and youād be wrong. It came with TEN Gigs. And before you say, āwell maybe it was shared with videoā, no - that was its own separate board. So This Week⦠Itās OK for you to feel off-kilter; it happens. Just take it easy, take it slow, and center yourself before you make any big moves.
Remember how we told you about the Wil Wheaton Dice Curse last week? Well weāre using that again to finish the tale of the CPU Swaps. That four-core CPU finally found its way into Icarusā infamous home server, āHexadecimalā AKA āThe Queen of Chaosā. She was named that because no matter what server OS was attempted to be loaded into it, it failed. It took finally trying Ubuntu Desktop to make it work - which made zero sense because the Desktop and Server versions are basically identical. So This Week⦠You know what Hex is missing, still? A SCSI (āSkuzzyā) card. Oh, thereās at least one iOmega-Branded one available from Adaptec, but who still uses them anymore?
If weāre going to talk about the computer naming adventure, it seems only fair that we get around to explaining how BOX got its name. Previous computers were named based on other computational gadgets from science fiction - so the laptop Icarus had was named āT-W-1-K-1ā, āTweekyā, from the old Buck Rogers TV series, which the smaller Netbook was āDr. Theopolisā, the round face-thing Twiki carried around on his chest. So This Week⦠Go back to 1978 and watch āJason of Star Commandā. Thereās one more āW-1-K-1ā robot to be found. And heās CUTE!
One thing we know you love is music - so itās almost a given that youāll get information about BOXās sound. Normally itās a given that computers these days have on-board sound and donāt need a specific add-in card to handle it; not like the days of yore. But this machine is weird in many ways, not the least of which is how it makes Old Man Body Sounds when thereās no sound to be playing. If you listen closely to headphones or speakers you can almost hear the motherboard talking to the other parts of the system. So This Week⦠Turn on Closed Captions for your YouTube surfing and see how that works for you. And if you want a challenge, change it to a different language.
Ok, ok. Weāll let you in on the secret to BOXās name. Believe it or not it comes in two flavours, both are factual, both are accurate, and both can be denied when pressed for the other. The mundane answer is because desktop computers are often referred to by the term, āboxā - kinda the same way that Cylons and Protogens are sometimes called ātoastersā. But the more fun one, and harder to just stumble across, is the character from the 1976 movie āLoganās Runā named āBoxā. It was a cyborg covered in disco-ball mirrors who was tasked with freezing food for a post-apocalyptic Earth. So This Week⦠There was an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where they encountered a capsule with people cryogenically frozen from the late 20th century. The ship's name was the āS.S. Birdseyeā. Remember to eat your vegetables.
You might like to know a little something about the computer that preceded BOX. It was named, āFrankenPuterā, because it was cobbled together from a lot of spare and old parts. And before you think the name was just for fun, the chassis and original parts were literally picked up on the side of the road that someone was throwing away. It worked well enough until the memory controller ate itself, which made BOX a necessity. So This Week⦠You know how thereās the old adage that The True Treasure Is The Friends We Make Along The Way? Well, FrankenPuter was not a friend and not a treasure. Sometimes you just have to replace the riff-raff you accumulate when you didnāt know what you were doing.
Being almost done with the boring parts of that computer, itās time to give you something wild to consider: from the front it almost looks like the Knight Industries Two-Thousand. The cassis is glossy black with silver trim and a bright red bar light across the middle. The only thing missing is any motion in it from side to side. So This Week⦠Thereās a semi-official Universe Canon that says that āKnight Riderā exists in the same universe as āBattlestar Galacticaā because of āBattlestar Galactica 1980ā! If you want it to be worse in your head, go watch the movie āMegaforceā and watch the motorcycles.
Instead of giving you boring minutia, weāre treating you to the cake! The best damned ice cream cake you could ask for; home made and not just out of the freezer from Carvel. Itāll take a while to make the ice creams, since weāre doing Vanilla and Coffee Chocolate, but itāll be worth every drip off your spoon. So This Week⦠If you have the ability to make your own ice cream, do that. Yes itās still winter, but why not have a little fun, right?
Well, not only is it the computerās birthday, apparently somepony VERY close to you is sharing a birthday as well⦠Basically =YOU=! So Happy Solar-Orbital Natal-Reset Moment to you! The question is - whatās funnier? Turning forty years old⦠or REFUSING to turn forty? And now you understand why Jack Benny's running gag worked for literal decades! Because everyoneās just a little vain for themselves. So This Week⦠Cake is wonderful, but how about splurging on excellent quality food for one full day? Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner - and none of them came out of a frozen box. Letās start with a Western Omelette and add, get this⦠Extra Bacon! Happy Birthday, my fellow Fish Faces! And thanks for being good to each other.
And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, weāre obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone elseās, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know - or check out the Ko-Fi page ( https://ko-fi.com/icarusthelunarguard )! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Facebook, Ko-Fi, Discord, and BLUESKY.