Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with failure

want some cookies with your butter??

Juicy Avenger — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:24:59 -0800

Ruined cookies, ruined Christmas! Baking fail. So I've royally screwed up the directions on only the simplest of box cookies in the world. This Duncan Hines "family recipe chocolate chip cookies" calls for 1 egg and 1 TABLESPOON of butter, BUT deceptively shows a picture of a WHOLE STICK in the ingredients list. I'm a visual learner. And apparently a slow one. So I took it at face value and melted a whole stick in there, mindlessly, until I was like "huhhh these look a little greasy......D'OH!" So, now I've added a cup of flour to try to absorb the excess butter and am baking a test batch. Is there anything else I can do to try to salvage the rest? Master bakers, help?

How do I not feel like a failure?

biochemist — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:38:15 -0800

I failed high school -and- college. How can I not feel like such a failure/cheer myself up? In High School, I had problems with procrastination and completing work, which I attributed to living in an abusive household. I also had social anxiety, so all of my friends were online. I had zero real-life friends.

I ended up not passing. I took a year off before college and did the therapy/self-help thing, in hopes that I would get good grades and make friends in college.

I got accepted into numerous colleges because of my high GED/SAT scores, and I got over my SA. I felt like my life would finally turn around. I chose a college in a small, scenic area just outside of a big city, in hopes that would satisfy my love of nature as well as my love of big cities.

I get to college and attend all the social events, try to get people to hang out and what-not, but my social skills are still too subpar and I end up with just one friend. To top it off, Small College is -way- too small for me and I end up going stir crazy, yet can't afford to travel to Big City most of the time.

Work-wise, I put all my effort in and still get poor grades. I realize it's because my school goes for "understanding" and not "blind memorization." I start doing well, but then when exams roll around I run out of time on all but one. I feel like crap, the procrastination and etc problems set in again, and I start failing... again.

I go to the doctor to see what's up, because I thought those issues would go away once I was away from home. I'm diagnosed with ADHD and put on meds, but too late. I'm not allowed to come back in the spring, and my final grades will all be failing, or if I can get a medical leave (not likely) I'll have no records at all.

Which means that I am officially two years behind where I should be, which sucks because the only reason I took a year off was to ensure this -wouldn't- happen. The only good thing, I guess, is that I can use the spring to get a technical degree I'd had my eye on for years.

I feel like a failure. An utterly lonely failure. I haven't felt this bad since my four-year relationship broke up some years ago. I hate that I put so much effort into making friends and still failed, and that the work thing was just de ja vu.

There's no way I'd get accepted into another college, so I'm stuck going stir-crazy for another year while I make up my grades or moving back home with all the stresses there and going to the local community college.

How do I not feel so hopeless, lost, depressed, terrible, etc? I feel like I'm nothing. I'm in the exact same position I was in high school - the girl who is alone all the time, with no friends, who gets terrible grades.

I know I should see a therapist, but I've been to numerous therapists over my lifetime and only one has helped, so I'm not too keen on that right now.

Mystery noises and BSOD on my newish Acer Aspire One netbook. Am I screwed?

tealsocks — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:47:12 -0800

Mystery noises and BSOD on my newish Acer Aspire One netbook. Am I screwed? I bought an 11.6" Aspire One at Staples about a month and a half ago, and the night before last it started making a clicking sound followed by a beep which I can only assume is coming from the hard drive. Sometimes this sound is followed by a blue screen of death and sometimes i can just pick the computer up and it goes away. Is this the sound of a hard drive failing? I carry my netbook around a lot, but it's always in a padded laptop bag so I'm pretty sure I haven't damaged it in any way. Do I need to get a replacement?

Just ignore those Fs.

Zophi — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:57:07 -0800

Is it worth getting copies of my old transcripts now that I'm going back to school, even though I failed the last semester and my transcripts reflect that? Through a series of life events, some of my own doing, and some not, I've attended college in spurts. Over a span of about 10 years, I got about 1 full year finished. Both times I attended (most recently about 4 years ago), I couldn't handle the pressure of my life, working full time, and attempting to go to school. I've since completely overhauled my life, and after a year of letting my life settle out, I am mentally ready to go back to school. I've reached a point in my career where it's absolutely necessary to have the degree to move up it's been a long time personal goal to finally see this all the way through.

I enrolled in the local community college, and am getting everything together to register for spring. It would be great if I could use the 8 or so classes that I did finish and get good grades in, but will fact that I failed my last semester in both places do more harm than the good of feeling like I'm not starting over all over again?

Help me figure out a direction to go to figure out what's wrong with me?

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:53:41 -0800

Paging Dr. House. Medical mystery involving girly bits and hormonal madness lurks within. Probably SFW. YANMD, and probably YANAD, but my doctors are flummoxed and I'm desperate enough to go to the internet for help. I just want to know what the hell is the matter with me.

I'm 37 years old and I had twins in 2007. The babies were fine, but I ended up getting some sort of infection. About a week after the babies were born, I landed back in the hospital hemorrhaging with a high fever.

In spite of the hemorrhage, I was able to breastfeed to a point and did so until earlier this year. I didn't get a period until June but wasn't concerned because of the breastfeeding. In July, my period got wacky. I've been getting bleeding, at first just spotting and then like a regular period then back to spotting, for two weeks at a time. After two weeks of no bleeding, it repeats. After three months of this happening I got an appointment with a GYN.

The doctor ran some blood tests and found that I had lutenizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) in the normal range (I don't have numbers) but estradiol that was unmeasurably low. I got sent off for an MRI to see if I had a brain tumor, which I don't. Yay! In fact, the MRI results were entirely normal.

I was a little surprised about that, since several years ago I had an MRI done for a different condition and my pituitary was abnormally large. On follow-up, the gynecologist did a biopsy for uterine cancer and put me on a birth control pill - Lo-Estrin24. She said that there was little uterine tissue and said that I could have an atrophic condition linked to my low estrogen level. She also said that the Pill would regulate my odd bleeding, which it hasn't.

Along with the odd bleeding, I've also had fatigue, no sex drive at all, thinning hair, horrific night sweats (I soak the bed two to three times a night) and continuing weight loss. I've had night sweats since I was 29 but these are on a different scale of bad. I've lost almost 50 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, but much of that could be from effects of breastfeeding and being busy dealing with twin toddlers. My thyroid levels are normal. I'm being referred to an internal medicine doc to check me for lymphoma (!).

My first thought was premature ovarian failure, but the doc said that my LH and FSH should be higher for that. Some googling brought up the possibility of Sheehan's Syndrom (pituitary damage from postpartum hemorrhage) but the doctor said that I wouldn't have hormones in the normal range.

Other stuff that might make a difference:
-My short-term memory officially sucks. I thought it was just from sleep deprivation (twin babies and all) but as the twins have gotten older and I've gotten more sleep my memory has not improved.
-During my whole pregnancy I had hyperemesis.
-At the twins' c-section delivery I had a tubal ligation.
-My mother went through menopause early but after age 40.
-My dad's thyroid is having issues, just developed in the past couple of years.
-Was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis at age 12. I flare a few times a year.

Where should I go from here? Besides being evaluated for lymphoma, I mean.

Thank you for your indulgence. I'm trying to be as clear and calm as I can but it's some work right now, believe me.

Nowhere to go but up?

serazin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:37:06 -0800

How did you come back from miserable failure? My life was humming along more or less well until a couple weeks ago when disaster struck. I have, temporarily at least, failed out of school, which, beyond the obvious, has enormous financial and personal implications. I'm 35 and a single parent, so starting over, while possibly necessary, feels extra daunting. As often happens, this one disaster is causing me to see everything else in my life as a failure. In an effort to avoid spiraling into depression, I'm trying hard to keep my brain together by exercising, talking to friends, and seeking inspiration from other people who have had their lives fall apart and recovered. In short, I am seeking metafilter-flavored chicken soup for the soul. Can you tell me how you came back from totally fucking things up?

From Awful to Awesome

divabat — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:25:50 -0800

Are there any stories of people notable/talented/successful in their field who started out being completely crap? Most of the "roads to success" stories I've read involve the person having some form of latent talent at the beginning, or actually having talent but not being appreciated for it. But has there been anyone who was or is currently successful at something that started out being really really bad?

A sportsperson who was a total couch potato and could hardly run, or a painter that couldn't grasp technique, or a dancer that kept stumbling. But through effort and persistence they broke through and became a star.

Any stories along those lines?

Gimme an F! A! I! L! What does that spell?

freshwater_pr0n — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:04:55 -0800

Is there a way to tweak my personal psychology so that I perceive failure and rejection as neutral or even positive, rather than negative, events? Artistic failure, professional failure, personal failure - I'm interested in all of them. Some animals can be conditioned to perceive mildly painful stimuli as positive events - why not me?

Is there a magic gear I should switch into?

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:53:13 -0800

How the crap do you ride a bike? I didn't have a bike growing up but have been trying to learn. It is not going well. My bike has 1-3 on the hard gears and 1-6 on the lower gears. I am unable to get myself up hills at the same pace as people I am riding with (ie, barely keep the bike up pedaling as fast as I can manage; usually have to dismount and walk the entire thing). Going downhill, I go way too fast.

I have a light commuter bike and am good at doing bike machines and the like at gyms as well as jogging. Is this the wrong bike for me? Am I basically SOL until I move somewhere flatter and figure it out? For the record I've been biking almost daily for around 3 months now and in substantially better shape cardio-wise than the people I bike with. I feel like I am missing something.

What should I do, if anything, about old, unflattering transcripts?

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:15:54 -0800

I am planning to apply for one of the Fulbright teaching assistantships for the year after I finish my Master's degree. I am unsure of what to do, if anything, about my academic history. Is it worth it to try and bury old, unflattering transcripts? I went away to college when I graduated high school and suffered through a very severe depression, lasting for a couple years. As my depression and anxiety went untreated, I have a mountain of failures on my transcript from that school. I was dismissed from that school in 2000 for low GPA. Now, almost ten years later, I'm in graduate school, enrolled in a well-regarded program. I went back to school a few years after leaving the first time, gradually working my way back up from community college onward. I was awarded my bachelor's degree and graduated summa cum laude (3.92 GPA), receiving both departmental and university honors. My graduate department awarded me a first-term fellowship when I entered based on what they saw as my promise as a student. Since then my grades have remained very high, my teaching evaluations have been excellent (important because I'm going for the teaching assistantship and plan to ask my supervisors to be references), and I have several years of experience under my belt showing that I can be and am an excellent student.

However, I'm concerned about the effect of the earlier transcript, because things like the Fulbright mandate that you send all transcripts from all institutions attended, no matter how old. Every time I see that requirement for anything I'm filled with dread, because it forces me to remember a really dark time in my life, and to feel like I'll forever be judged for it. I really want this experience: I am a language teacher who has never actually been abroad; I've learned languages out of context, like systems to be mastered, and while that approach has taken me to a high level of proficiency I find that I am really missing the cultural experiences many of my colleagues have had, and I feel like it would be really important and beneficial to me as a teacher and as an individual to have this experience. As such, I'm trying to maximize my chances of getting it. I would think that my more recent accomplishments matter more than failures from ten years ago, but I'm still worried about them knocking me out of the running.

So, I've been wondering if I should write the registrar of my first university to see if I can get those records sealed or otherwise enact some sort of retroactive withdrawal. There's a part of me that thinks just letting it all out in the air and showing the whole story of my failure and recovery is better than just burying the old transcript, but the attitude I've seen displayed here in the past in response to academic questions like this one is that even one failure on a transcript is a horrible black mark, let alone a whole host of them. I realize that no one here can tell me anything for certain about the effects that my full undergraduate history would have on application reviewers, but I'm looking for experiences with this sort of thing. Is the "redemptive narrative" potent enough to just let things lie, or in the interest of maximizing my chances should I try and get rid of the black marks? I transferred some courses from this school to later institutions, too, so wiping out this particular transcript (if they even allowed me to do so) would not eliminate all references to it in later transcripts, and might raise questions. I'm trying to make this decision soon, because if I initiate this process it'll probably take a while (again, if it's even possible) and my campus's due date for the Fulbright application is 9/18, a month before the national one. There is not a lot of room to address my academic history in my personal statements for the grant, because they're limited to one page each and I've already strained to keep them within that limit just answering the questions that Fulbright suggests you answer, so the only place I would even have to address this would be in my campus committee interview, if I get to address it at all. I feel like the honest thing to do would be to just have my record speak for itself, but I don't know if that's the wise thing to do, because if this is gaming the system it's something people do all the time, as it's not at all uncommon at my current school for students to have retroactive withdrawals approved for courses they failed, even if they're made to jump through hoops to do it, raising the question of what that "honesty" is even worth in the first place, especially since it's uncertain as to whether I'll have the opportunity to contextualize it, and without that context, they're just letters on a page.

Thanks in advance for your input. I've been a member of this community for a long time, albeit mostly as a lurker, but I felt like this was the place to go for it. Asked anonymously because I don't know that anyone I know reads AskMe but in the case that they do I would prefer to keep my memory of this episode in my life private.

WTF, Mom?

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:57:50 -0800

Mom managed to make me feel like crap (again) during a family holiday. Do I confront now, confront later, or just let it go? While doing a craft project with my nephews, mom made yet another snarky comment about "putting my art school education to use" that she "paid $20,000 dollars" for. I've heard all this before, but she threw in a new twist this time, about how I "called home crying and wanted to come home" after 2 years. Um, no. The school was in danger of losing its accreditation and I was making what I thought was a smart decision at the time. I transferred to a (cheaper!) state school and finished my degree.

This was all nearly 15 years ago.

Meanwhile, I have a house and a husband and a job. Maybe not in my chosen field, but I know very few people who do. I even have savings, which is totally unheard of in my peer group.

I was a gifted "golden child" early in life, but I've been working very hard since then to get over feeling like a failure. Bitterness over not succeeding in the career of my choice led to a period of alcohol abuse that almost destroyed my marriage. (Mom doesn't know this.) I still have an almost paralyzing fear of failure, but I'm working on it and mostly doing OK. My husband is amazingly supportive. I know that the 17 and 18-year old me made the best decisions I could at the time.

I just keep replaying the incident in my mind. Every time she does this I tell myself that next time I'll say something, but this time my nephews were there, and I didn't want to start a scene. I told my side of the story (again) and then tried to pretend it didn't happen. The rest of the weekend went fine, and we hugged goodbye like always.

She lives about 3 hours away, in another state. I don't think I'll be able to talk about this to her without crying which is going to start a whole emotional meltdown for both of us. Do I try to deal with this over the phone? Wait for our next face-to-face visit? Write a letter or email? Or just let it go?

Throwaway email is momquestion@hotmail.com.

Failed to get a PhD, now what?

Anonymous — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:37:44 -0800

I just failed my PhD quals for the second time and they're going to kick me out of the program. Now what? To make a long story as short as I can, I work in an engineering field (aerospace) only vaguely related to my undergraduate and master's degrees. That said, I'm really good at it. To achieve a long-term career goal I need a Ph.D. In fact, virtually every every action I've taken for the past 15 years has been with that goal in mind. Those actions would include the city I live in, my current job, job assignments, hobbies and outside skills learned, and so on. So, several years ago, I applied to and was accepted into a Ph.D. program in aerospace engineering. I've taken over a year of unpaid leave from work, living off savings, to attend classes and do work associated with getting the degree. It has been a mighty struggle, not the lease of which is that I came into a field without the formal training (in this particularly subject) of my fellow engineering students. I even spent less time with my dying father than I could have in order to prepare for exams. Despite all that, I did well in my classes and made almost exclusively straight A's.

Well, I just found out that I failed the qualifying exams for the second time and they're not going to let me continue in the program. As you can imagine I'm pretty gutted. It's hard not to feel enraged at a system in which a person who aces his coursework is, statistically, very likely to fail exams where the only passing criteria appears to be "You pass if we think you passed." So yes, on one hand I'm clearly some sort of idiot unable to pass these exams, but on the other hand I'm convinced that the system is set up to screw over the maximum number of people possible. Last year, I happen to know, only one person passed out of a half a dozen or so people taking the exams in my specialization. And, it's hard to come to terms with having wasted years of my life and enough opportunity cost to buy a small house. And, while I always knew it was a possibility, I'm now about to turn 40 year old with the career goals I've spent every waking moment trying to achieve for the past 15 years having now gone virtually out of reach. There are secondary reasons for getting the degree, but the big one is now probably out of reach.

At this point, I think I may have the following options. I could try to salvage an MS but that may be impossible since I've now returned to work, the university is in a different city, and I'd probably have to take more classes to meet the minimum coursework hours requirement. Or, there is a very small chance I could to a different department, such as mechanical engineering, that is a little bit less crazy. I know of at least one student in my situation who has done that. Or, I could try to get into a different university, one where I live, and start a new Ph.D. program. Or, of course, I could just say "screw it" and walk away.

Making this more painful is the realization, with the recent death of my father, that life is indeed short. There's a lot of stuff I'm interested in doing that have nothing to do with that Ph.D. or my current career and I've been sacrificing all of it with my higher goal in mind. I've been a student, of one sort or another, for basically my entire life and every time go out to socialize in the evenings ("Sorry, I've got to study."), or have fun on the weekends ("Sorry, I've got to study."), or even talk about sitting on the couch and watching television ("Sorry, I've got to student.") it just kills me. I feel like I'm 40 years old with no life because I've been struggling so hard on this one goal for so long. So it's tempting, while I've still got some time and youthful energy, to just change course and career and do something else that might enable me to "have a life," as they say. So, at least at the moment, you can imagine that the idea of spending ANOTHER four or five years in a different Ph.D. program is just really painful.

Oh, did I mention that (against all logic) I feel as if I've let down my (deceased) father, who really believed in me?

Some advice or personal stories from anybody who's been in a similar situation would be really appreciated.

Grad school self-sabotage

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:47:25 -0800

Please, help me deal with a justified last-minute anxiety, regarding a Very Important oral presentation (end of the year research presentation), that will introduce a more than average research (due to personal problems, which interfered with academic work). Also, help me think about the right attitude to adopt towards my teachers on D-day. Hello, and sorry in advance for the length this may take. My story may be related to this one , this , and this as well

I am a student in my 1st year of grad school, in a country where university isn't expensive at all. My program doesn't make selections before accepting students in grad school, as their policy is to let them in and see their capacities, then selecting them for the next year (= about 30% of us end up making it into the next levels). In order to maximize chances to be selected, 1/3 of the students decide to divide the academic content of that first year, over 2 years, which I decided to do, very late last schoolyear.

Students are led to enroll in research and in the writing of something very similar to a scientific paper on their own, in collaboration with advisors as part of the credits, aside of full-time courses and internships 1 day a week. The program is known to be a tough one in its field. I made a research in collaboration with a very sweet and understanding advisor/researcher. She went along with the repetitive and irritating delays each of my writing pieces and experiments had to take, very gracefully, partly due to my sincerity and motivation towards work. These delays were the results of procrastination, and of a clouded mind about half of the time. These being heavily caused by social and performance anxiety as well as depression issues I have been dealing with in therapy, with medication, for 2 years now. It has gotten better, but my time management definately needs improvement
(These issues started showing up like never before only a few months into grad school.. which didn't leave me with a choice but to continue)
The problem is that all these delays got me horribly late for the presentation I needed to make at the end of the year (next monday to be precise), and as i had sent her the various parts of my writing separatel during the year, i ended up sending her the last and most important part exactly 2 days before due date, when all teachers would have access to it. Busy as she is, and having let me know that she wouldn't be very available these days, she trusted me to hand it it, and even found time to read it once, sending it back to me about 2 hours before i printed it.

Having dealt with my time as usual, and being too busy re-reading my 60 pages long paper, in bad need of sleep, with shaky hands, I was adjusting and checkig my graphics, etc... I was horrified to see that she had underlined a single thing in each paragraph, and was asking me to reconsider them, the way I had expressed certain ideas but also a few key elements (such as all the statistics I had done, including the ones that didn't show any significant results)... I couldn't have gathered and edited all this information by myself, in such little time. I did all that I could, but ended up giving back a booklet that bears every proof of me being somehow slack and uncaring, etc.... (for the second half of the paper.. the first half being of a good quality). Some pages don't match the summary, some elements are missing... Overally, it isn't entirely bad, except that my instructors are probably laughing at the moment, thinking I gave them a work that lacked an average week weeks of re-reading, editing / etc. They are strict, and by no means would I be able to fool them by saying that these errors were technical (as a friend suggested).

Presently, I feel devastated, as I have felt every once in a while since school started.... Too well aware that my relationship to deadlines and to the assignments that I am given by professors is compulsory. And I know that my reason to procrastinate is merely a fear of disapointing them. (usually, as soon as I hand my work in, I purposefuly stay away about the topic, and everything related, despite enjoying my work and having picked it myself out of many others........ because I have been so very scared by the whole "adventure".)

In case it is relevant, I am a 23y female, and I decided during the last 6 months to make a change of major, in which i have been accepted thanks to the grades i got in the last years....; So my future isn't at stake here, as I will start a new gradschool program next fall, in another city, and am forsaking this field of study for now, for valid reasons (the other field offers more stable jobs, has better recognition, and it will probably match my personality much better). I intend on making solid changes, documenting myself sufficiently on time management and the likes, and dealing with all the lessons I learned the hard way, during the coming summer.

As a side information, my university doesn't really put health services in touch with teachers as it is the case in america, in order to help them out in difficult times.

I know there is no easy way to go through next monday, and am scared to be overwhelmed by emotions, because I feel like I have never wanted anything like this to happen. I am scared to death of the reaction my teachers will have. They will probably only ask questions, be cold, and let me go. But... even though my conclusions are alright and can be justified, I am really shaky. There is no way I can justify the poor quality of my work, because my personal life isn't of any interest to them.

Do you have any advice on what I could do or say to balance my emotions and be at my best ? Also, would it be acceptable to hand in another paper, that would have been corrected ? I cannot ask my advisor anything regarding this, as she has said she will be unreachable until the day of the examination. Thank you in advance, hive mind.

Extra RAM destroys my PSU!

edbyford — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:31:32 -0800

I installed new RAM, and blew my power supply. Now, after installing a better power supply, the same symptoms which led to the broken power supply are happening again. What is going on? I recently ordered a pair of these to upgrade my computer from 2GB RAM to 6GB, after installing Windows 7 64-bit. This is what Crucial told me is compatible with my Intel DG965RY motherboard.

After turning the computer back on, I noticed that Windows hung on startup. I shut it down and ran Memtest86+, but that ran very slowly (although didn't show any errors).

I then restarted, and after a couple of beeps from the mobo, the computer wouldn't turn on. SO I ordered a new, more powerful PSU.
For comparison, the model I had originally was this one. It is 430W and has a max current on 22A across the +3.3V rail (I think this is important if you want to add more RAM, right?)

The one I have now is this one. This is 600W and has 35A across the +3.3V rail.

Just to be safe, I sent the RAM back and bought exactly the same type again. I installed it, and then ran both Memtest86+ and Windows Memory Diagnostic before attempting to boot Windows. They both showed no errors. When I then tried to boot Windows my computer froze! Scared of blowing my PSU again, I shut it down and removed the RAM. It now seems to work fine.

What can I do? Surely my power supply is more than adequate for some RAM?

Thanks in advance

Success after failure; after 40

FazioGazebo — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:09:12 -0800

Has anyone made a significant financial comeback after 40? Hi.

I'm a 42 yr old man. I've been financially successful but after starting a company, a tough lawsuit and over-leveraging myself I am deeply in debt and without work for the first time in my career.

I need to create financial abundance if I am to care for my two children and live the life I believe I deserve.

If anyone found themselves broke and despondent at middle age but turned it all around, I would love to hear your story.

Thanks.

Diagnosing Graphics Card Failure on MacBook Pro

potch — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:45:02 -0800

This evening, I've begun noticing intermittent graphics glitches and flakiness on my MacBook Pro. I'm well familiar with the slow and painful graphics card death that can plague Macs, and I'm wondering- What's the best to diagnose whether that's truly the issue? The details:

15" Macbook Pro, 2.4 GHz Intel processor (pre-unibody)
OS X 10.5.7

Began noticing screen re-painting glitches, and minor artifacting this evening, thought maybe just needed a restart, but now Photo Booth reports "The graphics card installed in this computer does not support Photo Booth".

Has suffered cosmetic damage from a drop in the past, but has shown no symptoms of any internal damage until now.

I'm quite diligent with backups, so that's all squared away.

The machine was issued my my company's IT dept, so I'm not cost-liable, but I want to be able to go to them fairly certain of the problem to minimize time lost at work.

Thanks much!

Who said this Swiftian quote?

telstar — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:25:22 -0800

"How can you say I am not a success? I have not been eaten and I have not failed to eat" (or words to that effect). Trying to find the source of this quote. I was thinking maybe Jonathan Swift, but my google-fu is failing me.

Diagnose my laptop...

geos — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:58:39 -0800

When I turn on my Asus A8Jm (NVIDIA go7600) laptop, I get a strangely beautiful cross-hatching of colored lines. This sounds like a fried video card, right? Luckily, the card is replaceable... how likely is that this is the only problem and replacing the card will fix things?

How to bounce back from Epic Fail?

Anonymous — Fri, 01 May 2009 06:16:07 -0800

How do you bounce back after taking a high risk opportunity that flops? Essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written:

"Many people do not realize they are getting a lucky break in life when they get it. If a big publisher (or a big art dealer or a movie executive or a hotshot banker or a big thinker) suggests an appointment, cancel anything you have planned: you may not see such a window open up again."

Growing up, you hear advice like this on seizing the day and not letting go. Which is fine if you want to believe in destiny but it seems like there is a shortage of corresponding advice on what to do when you "cancel anything you had planned" only to discover that your "window" is a portal to Epic Fail.

Maybe your "hotshot banker" turned out to be Bernie Madoff. Or the "big publisher" turns you into a failed author. Or your "movie executive" mangled the film you took years trying to make and no one saw it.

Let's say you're older now after relentlessly pursuing your "lucky break" that wasn't. Now your life has been led on a goose chase that has cost you time and confidence. By going through one "window" you paid the opportunity cost of not going through other windows. You now have some serious questions about the life logic they hammered into you in the third grade musical about never giving up on your dreams, no matter what, like Thomas Edison.

If you have spent several years trying for something only to fail in your quest...how do you dispense with bitterness and get back that fresh feeling of still having a dream? You hear people talk about how they wish they had taken more chances in life, but what advice is out there for when you did and it sucks?

Help me encourage a great future doctor not to lose faith in herself.

dorothy humbird — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:59:09 -0800

I'm out of fresh encouraging perspectives, and the stakes are higher than ever. Please help me figure out how to best be a supportive friend in the 11th hour of my pal's struggles with studying for the med school boards. So, my friend is a very intelligent and principled person, and has for most of her education been in honors classes and in other ways recognized for her commitment to learning and knowledge. She also happens to be one of the most caring people I know, and is absolutely one of my best friends. She is the sort of person who is keenly sensitive to the human element of any problem or situation, and for this reason I think she would be an invaluable addition to the field of medicine, which can sometimes be heavily populated by self-absorbed jerks and/or people who are only in it for the money.

But, as far as I can tell, she is burned out in the extreme from years of studying and studying, not to mention her family worries and expectations (she is a 1st gen daughter of immigrants from a country with pretty conservative expectations for offspring, and despite somewhat Westernized viewpoints on the part of her parents, there are still major friction issues). She has struggled this entire year, her second in med school, with getting herself to buckle down and study, and has been discouraged time and again even when she did with grades that fell below the median of her class - but she's scraped by. And now, with classes over so the students can completely focus on studying 10+ hours a day to pass the board exams, she is really and truly putting in the effort, only to keep getting dismal results on her practice tests for the boards.

She's discouraged. I'm discouraged for her. She's been seeing a counselor, but sometimes sabotages herself even there by not revealing the extent of her struggles, or not doing the tasks that the counselor suggests for her. It takes so much effort for her to just focus on studying these massive tomes of knowledge that she somehow has to ingest and immolate into her very core that when she doesn't make progress, she loses almost all faith in herself. She has mentioned to me that her brother, who also attended med school and is now in residency, did poorly in the books section too, but excelled once he was in a more hands-on environment doing rotations. So, I've been encouraging her to look ahead to that -- but the problem that she and I both obviously can't ignore is that she has to PASS the boards to get there.

I'm out of supportive words and phrases. Everything I can think to say, I've already said: just hang in there; quit beating yourself up; I BELIEVE IN YOU - YOU CAN DO THIS, BUT YOU NEED TO BELIEVE YOU CAN DO IT; it's okay to take more time (she is now pushing back the beginning of her 3rd year to give herself more time to study because her practice test results haven't been enough to pass), you are smart! you are intelligent! you of all people should be a doctor because you actually care about human beings!

I've said it all already, and I can't imagine that repeating this to her is any help at this stage.

I need insight into this experience; who out there in MetaFilter has had similar struggles in professional schools - med school, law school, anything else similarly demanding? I am meeting to have coffee with her this evening, and I just want to give her the most encouraging pep talk I can feasibly manage without personal experience of what she is going through. It would crush me to see her defeated by this, and if there is anything I can say or remind her of to help her avoid that, I want it in my bag of resources. Help me help her.

Where's Magneto when you need him...

SNWidget — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:35:21 -0800

I have an external hard drive that I'm sending back to the manufacturer due to an issue. I already have all of the data off of it, but (thankfully), a few days after I got the data, the thing is dead. The question: how do I erase all of the data off of it even if I can't boot it up? Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid, and the people at Seagate will just toss the drive, but I'm a bit paranoid.

Backstory: I've got a 500gb hard drive with a bunch of person information/pics/stuff I wouldn't want anyone else to have. The drive itself didn't fail: the USB connector became unsoldered and luckily, when I noticed this, I stopped moving the thing and had Seagate send me a new one so I could send this one back. I managed to keep it up and going long enough to get the data off, but now, it's done. I bumped it, and it seems to be gone. After spending an hour trying to dismantle part of it and get the usb connector out of the innards (it's pushed all the way in and loose), I give up.

Question: So how do I make sure they don't get my data? I mean, will they look at it? Or will the hard drive just get chunked? Any clue how that works? If the magnet approach is the only way, what kind of magnet do I need?

Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but eh. Any advice would be extraordinarily helpful.

How much would you give up starting your own business?

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:49:05 -0800

How much would you give up starting your own business? Part of this is a philosophical question, too, so my question may never see the light of day. Posted under anonymous because I am a bit embarrassed at the steps I am willing to take to try to launch this (see below).

In the last few months, I walked away from a fulltime job as a writer (2 years) and launched my own freelance writing business.

I know how to write material for my market, and how to do it well. In addition, I saved enough $ to last about 5 months with no projects. Also, I read forums and talked to several freelance writers, and thought I would be prepared for every possible scenario.

This hasn’t correlated to success in a small business. One month was spent chasing projects and prospective clients. This month has been spent chasing down the clients for pay (and some of these clients still owe me a lot of $).

Although I have several thousand dollars coming to me from the first few months of business, at this moment I have 2 months of savings left. Plus, I live in a major metropolis (NYC), and to be honest, until now I have been an idiot with money (not much savings, small retirement, etc.). If I am honest with the money that will come in – it equals ¾ of previous salary on a month by month basis.

I do see success in the long run, because I am learning what to do and not to do from experience; for example, I have more clients and I know who to talk to ASAP if the $ doesn’t appear in my hands (although I am still chasing it down, ugh). I have a vision, though, of eventually not only having a business, but having opportunities that I would not have in a work place, determining my schedule, and a freedom to work anywhere in the world. In the next few months, though, that probably means either using a credit card and/or cashing out what little retirement $ I had (I am 40 years old, by the way). I’ve also gone without health insurance the last few months.

What lengths would you go to try to succeed? A year of this?

I am also looking to hear from other people who have done the same. Did you launch a business that barely took off/went negative in the beginning but went well after a given amount of time? Or one that failed? What criteria did you use to assess the success of your business, and whether to fold or continue onwards? Were there things that you think you could have done to improve the probability of success?

If you have any ideas as to where I could look to for ideas or a good perspective (books/blogs), please share.

Thanks…I plan to give this a go, but I wonder if there are other perspectives I should think about it (I am afraid of throwing all rationality out the window, and at the end of this still having no money and will need to go back to a fulltime job).

Is this iBook toast?

clockwork — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:55:16 -0800

The hard drive in my girlfriend's iBook (12" G4 late 2004) died, or at least that's what I think happened. I want to cover all my bases and I need a little advice on best practices. A few months ago it would make a gnarly clicking sound, but only intermittently. We backed up all her data, figuring that the hard drive was going to fail pretty soon, but the clicking went away and everything was fine until this week when it seemed like it was running a little hot and then went totally catatonic.

After it first died, Disk Utility (running from OSX install discs) couldn't even see the drive and Apple Hardware Test returned a variety of Mass Storage "2STF" errors. After it cooled down, Disk Utility was able to see the drive, but it didn't return any errors and it passed the first Hardware Test but failed every subsequent time I ran it. I have been able to boot from the drive when the computer is totally cold, but I've never left it running for very long. I'm a little puzzled by the symptoms. I would expect the hard drive to stop working altogether.

Did I miss any totally obvious fixes? or troubleshooting steps that might indicate something other than the hard drive?

She would rather spend $65 on a new hard drive than $1k for a new MacBook. And while I have a vested interest in taking the thing apart, I don't want let my impulse to fiddle about inside the thing color my thinking about the problem itself. Thanks.

Hard drive fails SMART status.

ofthestrait — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:33:28 -0800

What to do about a hard drive failure? Disk Utility says my SMART status is failing. So I upgraded the hard drive on my 15" MacBook Pro. I installed a Samsung HM251JJ, 250GB/7200rpm SATA drive. When I went to Disk Utility after booting up it wouldn't let me partition the drive because the SMART status read: "failing". I downloaded SMART Utility for OSX and the specific problem is a high "Reallocated Bad Sectors" count. (1068, threshold is 10.) What should I do? I purchased the HD from Micro Computer Center.

1. Do I need to worry about this? Obviously it's telling me I have to replace the drive but it's working fine.
2. Is this my fault (something happened during installation, it was my first time opening up the MBP) or a preexisting problem with the drive? Will Samsung replace it for me or do I need to take it back to the store. I'd like to avoid taking it back simply because the store is in Michigan and I am in New York.

Thanks in advance.

How to twin/synch hard disks in order to avoid crying bad in case of unexpected failure and no fresh backups ready?

lion — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:53:35 -0800

Does it exist for consumer use? A storage device made by two (or more) twin synched separate hard disks, one for normal use and the other one for backup just in case something goes wrong? Or a software doing the same thing with two (or more) external hard disks? I would like to know if I can buy a product like the one I'm going to describe.

Premise: I have a laptop, and it uses its internal SATA hard disk.
I have a lot of stuff on it, and I have no time - and never will have - to backup everything, every day, on DVDs, external USB hdd, etc.

I would like to be very unlikely to lose some data (or everything).
I know some day the internal HDD, or the laptop, will fail. It's electronics. There are mech parts. It simply won't last forever, it's normal.

Ok, so: I would like some kind of device, which I could connect to my laptop and see it as a normal hard disk, a storage device.
But, it should be a special one: e.g. it should be composed by at least TWO separate hard disks (but it would be nice to have the possibility of adding as many as I can buy).
Let me call them the "main" and the "backup" disk.

The main disk should be used as I normally do with the internal SATA disk. But, there should be some kind of controller synching whatever changes on the main disk, on the backup disk.

This way, if laptop brokes, I still have all my data on the external disk. And if the main disk fails, I still have everything on the backup one: so I can replace the main with a new hard disk, press a (hardware or software) button, and everything from backup to new main is copied, and they start synching again. Or, if the backup fails, I'll replace the backup disk, press a button, and voila'.
And, if the device controller breaks, I can pick one of the disks and put it in a usb external disk case and continue working as nothing happened (or until I buy a new one of this kind of special device).

I don't know if my explanation is understandable, but I hope you got the idea and you know something similar I can buy.

Another solution, if you know of one, would be a software solution which I should configure for the same business, telling it two (or more) external hard disks I want to use as main and backup devices.

Or, if you can suggest some kind of hacker solution for Windows XP, with rsynch and such things, it would be ok too.

Free software would be appreciated, but eventually if some good commercial solutions exist don't exclude them.

Thanks