Nick's Computer Problem

[Michael Stevens]

Wow, Jack! I’m glad there’s somebody more knowledgeable than me on this list! 

—Mike Stevens

Berkeley

On Apr 27, 2016, at 7:05 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
[hidden email]

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
[hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
[hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
Today's Topics:

  1. Re: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18 (Jack Stafurik)
  2. Re: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18 (Michael Stevens)
  3. Re: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18 (Gillian Densmore)
  4. Re: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18 (Gillian Densmore)
  5. Re: Origins of Life (Robert Wall)
  6. Re: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18 (Nick Thompson)
  7. Re: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18 (Robert Wall)
  8. Re: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18 (Gillian Densmore)

From: "Jack Stafurik" <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Date: April 26, 2016 at 9:46:41 AM PDT

To: <[hidden email]>

Nick

Actually, this is simple. I've done it several times. You need a drive dock
(I have one) and the right software. I've used Acronis software, which costs
about $20 - 40, but there may be free stuff available to do this on the web.
You plug the drive dock with your new drive into a USB port, start the
software, and a few hours later replace your old drive with your new one.
All your software, files, and probably viruses and malware are right there,
ready to go. However this may also transfer over any errors, etc. You can
run CHKDSK to find out if there are any disk errors you need worry about.
Also, there are free or trial versions of disk checking software you can get
to test. I've used Hard Disk Sentinel.

Alternatively, if you have your OS disks you can (maybe, with some
manufacturers) do a clean install on the new drive, download the OS
upgrades, copy over the files you want and reinstall the applications you
want. This is a pain, but gives you a cleaner, faster system without worries
about errors, malware, etc.

Good luck. I can lend you my drive dock if you want, and help you with the
transfer.

Jack

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
[hidden email]
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 10:00 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
[hidden email]

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
[hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
[hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."


Today's Topics:

  1. Sober, clear advice needed (Nick Thompson)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 12:17:38 -0600
From: "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]>
To: "Friam" <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Sober, clear advice needed
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi, everybody, 



A substantial family calamity occurred in Massachusetts on Friday, on the
same day that a technician who replaced my motherboard here warned me that
my hard drive is on its last legs.  I have a new hard drive sitting on my
desk from HP and HP will come install it, but under my circumstances I
cannot afford any break in my communication with My People in Massachusetts.




Here is where I need your advice.  I keep being told that it is possible to
make an "image" of one's hard drive.  I imagine this means, I pay a hundred
bucks for a black box, I plug the black box into my computer, I let it whir
for a night, and then there is a copy of my hard drive on the black box.
Then, when my present hard drive dies, I have HP replace it, I plug the
black box into the computer again, let it whir for another night, and when I
wake up in the morning, resume my life exactly as it was.  



Is such a thing possible? Could it be done by a "citizen" (as Owen calls us)
who is much distracted by other things. Can you recommend a particular black
box.  One problem that DotFoil has suggested is that my old hard drive may
have errors on it, and that transferring an "image" (if such a thing is
possible) will transfer those errors, with possibly fatal consequences.
Should I perhaps run error correction software somewhere in that process.  



Please advise, 



Nick



P.S.  Everybody's safe.    



Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20160425/17d1edf
f/attachment-0001.html>

------------------------------

Subject: Digest Footer

_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
[hidden email]
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


------------------------------

End of Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18
**************************************


-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7539 / Virus Database: 4563/12108 - Release Date: 04/26/16

From: Michael Stevens <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Date: April 26, 2016 at 9:47:50 AM PDT

To: [hidden email]

Nick,

   If you wanted to transfer only “files,” like the text of a paper, photographs, a spreadsheet, etc. there are plenty of ways to do that. (You probably know this, I’m not trying to insult your intelligence!) However, if software is involved, e.g. Word, Excel, etc., I think it’s much more complicated. What you have heard about an image is correct, but I wouldn’t recommend that as a do-it-yourself project, particularly in a distracted state of mind with family troubles. There are just too many little things that could go wrong. My advice is to hire someone. Price range would most likely be $100 - $150, but that’s only a guess.

Best of luck,

Mike Stevens

Berkeley

On Apr 26, 2016, at 9:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
[hidden email]

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
[hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
[hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
Today's Topics:

  1. Sober, clear advice needed (Nick Thompson)

From: "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] Sober, clear advice needed

Date: April 25, 2016 at 11:17:38 AM PDT

To: "Friam" <[hidden email]>

Hi, everybody,

 

A substantial family calamity occurred in Massachusetts on Friday, on the same day that a technician who replaced my motherboard here warned me that my hard drive is on its last legs.  I have a new hard drive sitting on my desk from HP and HP will come install it, but under my circumstances I cannot afford any break in my communication with My People in Massachusetts. 

 

Here is where I need your advice.  I keep being told that it is possible to make an “image” of one’s hard drive.  I imagine this means, I pay a hundred bucks for a black box, I plug the black box into my computer, I let it whir for a night, and then there is a copy of my hard drive on the black box.  Then, when my present hard drive dies, I have HP replace it, I plug the black box into the computer again, let it whir for another night, and when I wake up in the morning, resume my life exactly as it was. 

 

Is such a thing possible? Could it be done by a “citizen” (as Owen calls us) who is much distracted by other things. Can you recommend a particular black box.  One problem that DotFoil has suggested is that my old hard drive may have errors on it, and that transferring an “image” (if such a thing is possible) will transfer those errors, with possibly fatal consequences.  Should I perhaps run error correction software somewhere in that process. 

 

Please advise,

 

Nick

 

P.S.  Everybody’s safe.    

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
[hidden email]
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

From: Gillian Densmore <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Date: April 26, 2016 at 12:04:30 PM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

ForWhatIt'sWorth

Nick I don't know if you're still following this thread or found a fix:

ForWhatItWorth:

There's a few shareware things that can do something like Arconis wich says to the hard drive that has issues lets makea photocoppy to start fresh.

The anoying news is Windows(up to 10) is reely bad about not having a baked in back up and fresh clean start system I have no idea why.

The Good news though is that I have used two: There's Macron(however it's spelled) reflect Xclone and a few others that work

There's a article about shareware Windows Back Up and freshstarty kind of stuff at places like life hacker.com:
http://lifehacker.com/5839753/the-best-disk-cloning-app-for-windows

ForWhatIt'sWorth CaspersTimeMachine is free and works pretty well 

I've used hdclone one my (infamously problative Del) 

You can get it here I thought it was so cool that it was shareware with a free give this a tree hit go and have a backup kind of thing:
https://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html

It's free version while slow was good enough to make sure I didn't loose stuff (art, articles etc)  

I thought XMLDrive was a little awkward to use but worked and as far as I know you can use Hdclone and Macriums Reflect while using the the computer wich is handy.

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 10:46 AM, Jack Stafurik <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick

Actually, this is simple. I've done it several times. You need a drive dock
(I have one) and the right software. I've used Acronis software, which costs
about $20 - 40, but there may be free stuff available to do this on the web.
You plug the drive dock with your new drive into a USB port, start the
software, and a few hours later replace your old drive with your new one.
All your software, files, and probably viruses and malware are right there,
ready to go. However this may also transfer over any errors, etc. You can
run CHKDSK to find out if there are any disk errors you need worry about.
Also, there are free or trial versions of disk checking software you can get
to test. I've used Hard Disk Sentinel.

Alternatively, if you have your OS disks you can (maybe, with some
manufacturers) do a clean install on the new drive, download the OS
upgrades, copy over the files you want and reinstall the applications you
want. This is a pain, but gives you a cleaner, faster system without worries
about errors, malware, etc.

Good luck. I can lend you my drive dock if you want, and help you with the
transfer.

Jack

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
[hidden email]
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 10:00 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
        [hidden email]

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
        http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
        [hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
        [hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."


Today's Topics:

   1. Sober, clear advice needed (Nick Thompson)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 12:17:38 -0600
From: "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]>
To: "Friam" <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Sober, clear advice needed
Message-ID: <008a01d19f1e$c09090b0$41b1b210$@earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi, everybody,



A substantial family calamity occurred in Massachusetts on Friday, on the
same day that a technician who replaced my motherboard here warned me that
my hard drive is on its last legs.  I have a new hard drive sitting on my
desk from HP and HP will come install it, but under my circumstances I
cannot afford any break in my communication with My People in Massachusetts.




Here is where I need your advice.  I keep being told that it is possible to
make an "image" of one's hard drive.  I imagine this means, I pay a hundred
bucks for a black box, I plug the black box into my computer, I let it whir
for a night, and then there is a copy of my hard drive on the black box.
Then, when my present hard drive dies, I have HP replace it, I plug the
black box into the computer again, let it whir for another night, and when I
wake up in the morning, resume my life exactly as it was.



Is such a thing possible? Could it be done by a "citizen" (as Owen calls us)
who is much distracted by other things. Can you recommend a particular black
box.  One problem that DotFoil has suggested is that my old hard drive may
have errors on it, and that transferring an "image" (if such a thing is
possible) will transfer those errors, with possibly fatal consequences.
Should I perhaps run error correction software somewhere in that process.



Please advise,



Nick



P.S.  Everybody's safe.



Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20160425/17d1edf
f/attachment-0001.html>

------------------------------

Subject: Digest Footer

_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
[hidden email]
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


------------------------------

End of Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18
**************************************


-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7539 / Virus Database: 4563/12108 - Release Date: 04/26/16


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

From: Gillian Densmore <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Date: April 26, 2016 at 12:21:18 PM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

As to citizen lol yeah Pa is smart and has opinions. He also helped practially invent the modern computer so that's also why I suspect he thinks the rest of us are mere mortals.

The fancy Word thing though is That a Image is basically realy reely reeely small coppy of you hard drive. It's basically ment to take kind of a snapshot of the hard drive. and does so to save space. (Arconis for instance does this)

Where as Hdclone as far as I know tries to make copy of the harddrive. So as that what ever is there you get onto the new disk. It seems pretty good at helping with freshstarts (awsome) and quite usable. It doesn't bother trying to save space though. I've used a few times and couldn't get a usb-drive to boot from what it created, but as far as I can tell all the stuff was there.

As to Error I have no idea that's honestly more of an opinion kind of thing possibly ie I don't know if it's your hard disks motovitator unit etc. 

I hope that made things a more like clear as green tea rather than clearer as mud. 

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Gillian Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

ForWhatIt'sWorth

Nick I don't know if you're still following this thread or found a fix:

ForWhatItWorth:

There's a few shareware things that can do something like Arconis wich says to the hard drive that has issues lets makea photocoppy to start fresh.

The anoying news is Windows(up to 10) is reely bad about not having a baked in back up and fresh clean start system I have no idea why.

The Good news though is that I have used two: There's Macron(however it's spelled) reflect Xclone and a few others that work

There's a article about shareware Windows Back Up and freshstarty kind of stuff at places like life hacker.com:
http://lifehacker.com/5839753/the-best-disk-cloning-app-for-windows

ForWhatIt'sWorth CaspersTimeMachine is free and works pretty well 

I've used hdclone one my (infamously problative Del) 

You can get it here I thought it was so cool that it was shareware with a free give this a tree hit go and have a backup kind of thing:
https://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html

It's free version while slow was good enough to make sure I didn't loose stuff (art, articles etc)  

I thought XMLDrive was a little awkward to use but worked and as far as I know you can use Hdclone and Macriums Reflect while using the the computer wich is handy.

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 10:46 AM, Jack Stafurik <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick

Actually, this is simple. I've done it several times. You need a drive dock
(I have one) and the right software. I've used Acronis software, which costs
about $20 - 40, but there may be free stuff available to do this on the web.
You plug the drive dock with your new drive into a USB port, start the
software, and a few hours later replace your old drive with your new one.
All your software, files, and probably viruses and malware are right there,
ready to go. However this may also transfer over any errors, etc. You can
run CHKDSK to find out if there are any disk errors you need worry about.
Also, there are free or trial versions of disk checking software you can get
to test. I've used Hard Disk Sentinel.

Alternatively, if you have your OS disks you can (maybe, with some
manufacturers) do a clean install on the new drive, download the OS
upgrades, copy over the files you want and reinstall the applications you
want. This is a pain, but gives you a cleaner, faster system without worries
about errors, malware, etc.

Good luck. I can lend you my drive dock if you want, and help you with the
transfer.

Jack

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
[hidden email]
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 10:00 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
        [hidden email]

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
        http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
        [hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
        [hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."


Today's Topics:

   1. Sober, clear advice needed (Nick Thompson)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 12:17:38 -0600
From: "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]>
To: "Friam" <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Sober, clear advice needed
Message-ID: <008a01d19f1e$c09090b0$41b1b210$@earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi, everybody,



A substantial family calamity occurred in Massachusetts on Friday, on the
same day that a technician who replaced my motherboard here warned me that
my hard drive is on its last legs.  I have a new hard drive sitting on my
desk from HP and HP will come install it, but under my circumstances I
cannot afford any break in my communication with My People in Massachusetts.




Here is where I need your advice.  I keep being told that it is possible to
make an "image" of one's hard drive.  I imagine this means, I pay a hundred
bucks for a black box, I plug the black box into my computer, I let it whir
for a night, and then there is a copy of my hard drive on the black box.
Then, when my present hard drive dies, I have HP replace it, I plug the
black box into the computer again, let it whir for another night, and when I
wake up in the morning, resume my life exactly as it was.



Is such a thing possible? Could it be done by a "citizen" (as Owen calls us)
who is much distracted by other things. Can you recommend a particular black
box.  One problem that DotFoil has suggested is that my old hard drive may
have errors on it, and that transferring an "image" (if such a thing is
possible) will transfer those errors, with possibly fatal consequences.
Should I perhaps run error correction software somewhere in that process.



Please advise,



Nick



P.S.  Everybody's safe.



Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20160425/17d1edf
f/attachment-0001.html>

------------------------------

Subject: Digest Footer

_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
[hidden email]
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


------------------------------

End of Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18
**************************************


-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7539 / Virus Database: 4563/12108 - Release Date: 04/26/16


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

From: Robert Wall <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Origins of Life

Date: April 26, 2016 at 4:52:41 PM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Cc: Stephen Guerin <[hidden email]>

Stephen,

Your discussion with Nick Thompson on the essence of Evolution sounds remarkably similar to the pre-Socratic arguments "between" Heraclitus and Parmenides on Being and Becoming.  The modern version of this eternal discussion seems to have manifested in the metaphysical propositions of Process Philosophy that are substantially promoted in Alfred North Whitehead's seminal Process and Reality (1978).

​"​

Modern philosophers who appeal to process rather than substance include Nietzsche, Heidegger, Charles Peirce, Alfred North Whitehead, Alan Watts, Robert M. Pirsig, Charles Hartshorne, Arran Gare, Nicholas Rescher, Colin Wilson, and Gilles Deleuze. In physics Ilya Prigogine^[3] distinguishes between the "physics of being" and the "physics of becoming". Process philosophy covers not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and science.

​" - Wikipedia on Process Philosophy​

I tend to lean in the same direction as you on this topic and I think that is why I have become a devoted student of complexity science (and process philosophy) and the idea of emergence; as Thomas Nagel argues in his Mind and Cosmos: Why the materialists Neo-Darwinian conception of Nature is almost certainly false (2012), not everything is reducible to Substance (atoms ... Being) as an explanation of its essence. 

It seems to me that the "far-from-equilibrium surprises" that evolve through the unpredictable, stochastic process of evolution validate the idea that we live in a non-deterministic reality; but then this gets us into a long discussion or the essence of randomness--or is it just complexity? (local author George Johnson gets into this though in his Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order (1996) :-)  And the nature of Time gets muddled into the discussion as well-- see Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe (2014) by physicist Lee Smolin.

​"​

Now that we have more modern descriptions of living systems and explanations of origin of life, shouldn't our descriptions and explanations of Evolution change along with it?

​" - Stephen Guerin​

This conclusion was also reached back in 1989 by Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine in their Exploring Complexity.  

"Our physical world is no longer symbolized by the stable and periodic planetary motions that are at the heart of classical mechanics.  It is a world of instabilities and fluctuations, which are ultimately responsible for the amazing variety and richness of the forms and structures we see in nature around us.  New concepts and new tools are clearly necessary to describe nature, in which evolution and pluralism become the key words." - Preface to Exploring Comnplexity (1989)

I like the series of books written by Nick Lane and see him as sort of the Carl Sagan of biological evolution.  This is a good thing I believe.  I have read some of them but not THE VITAL QUESTION: Energy, evolution, and the origins of complex life (2015).  However, this thread is good motivation to take the dive.   :-)

This is all very interesting.  Wish I knew more ... and probably said less ...

-Robert

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 6:04 PM, Stephen Guerin <[hidden email]> wrote:

I composed my email before seeing Eric's post. Having now read his email, I would say let's not get too distracted by Nick Lane's Vital Question for the task we set ourselves at FRIAM.

I think Eric's talks bests represents what I was calling the view of life as gradient dissipation and a property of the ecological whole and less a property of an individual. 

As a quick summary for the list, Nick and I have had a 10-year back and forth discussion on evolution since his arrival in Santa Fe. We are setting ourselves the task of coming to a common definition and perhaps explanation of mechanism. If we fail to come to agreement, we hope to at least be able to coherently state each other's position. 

In this context, I was arguing that evolution is a description of the historical change of the pathways of breakdown (and local buildup) of gradients and that organisms (and by extension, species) are less a focus in this description. Tangents on the list into the dynamics of vortices and tornadoes have been related to the these arguments about far-from-equilibrium explanations.

At FRIAM, I argued that we need updated descriptions and explanations of Evolution in the same way that Chemistry has changed each time we discovered new concepts like conservation of mass, thermodynamics, the atom and quantum mechanics. Now that we have more modern descriptions of living systems and explanations of origin of life, shouldn't our descriptions and explanations of Evolution change along with it?

_______________________________________________________________________
[hidden email]

CEO, Simtable  http://www.simtable.com

1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505

office: <a href="tel:%28505%29995-0206" value="[phone]" target="_blank" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;">[phone] mobile: <a href="tel:%28505%29577-5828" value="[phone]" target="_blank" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;">[phone]

twitter: @simtable

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 5:11 PM, Stephen Guerin <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick,

I downloaded Nick Lane's Vital Question book a couple months back. From a quick skim I got the sense it was a nice review of much of the work going on around non-equilibrium thermodynamic origin of life explanations by the "Seventh Day Ventists" (eg second law arguments for the emegence of life via gradient dissipation around deep sea vents). In addition to reviewing this work, Dr. Lane has original contributions as well. I would recommend it for anyone as a great introduction.

In fact our own Eric Smith and Harold Morowitz (who just passed last month) work is mentioned in Vital Question. You might check out Eric's recent talk at the Aspen Institute (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cwvj0XBKlE) which addresses a couple questions that came up at FRIAM yesterday.

In particular, I think the talk much more elegantly describes the shift to defining life as an ecological pattern from the prior emphasis on the individual organism.

on "are viruses alive" Eric challenges the meaning of a "living thing" 

https://youtu.be/0cwvj0XBKlE?t=48m21s

Also Eric's SFI public lecture from a few years back is very relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElMqwgkXguw

_______________________________________________________________________
[hidden email]

CEO, Simtable  http://www.simtable.com

1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505

office: <a href="tel:%28505%29995-0206" value="[phone]" target="_blank" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;">[phone] mobile: <a href="tel:%28505%29577-5828" value="[phone]" target="_blank" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;">[phone]

twitter: @simtable

On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 10:09 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Friammers,

 

Today’s meeting of the Mother Church got back to our old discussions of complexity, gradients, and the origin of life.   In that connection I urged everybody to read Nick Lane’s, THE VITAL QUESTION: Energy, evolution, and the origins of complex life.  The fundamental theory is that life was scaffolded by the microstructure and energy flows taking place in deep ocean vents called “white smokers”.   I am curious to know if others have read this book, and what you might think of it. 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

From: "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Date: April 26, 2016 at 8:31:53 PM PDT

To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'" <[hidden email]>

Hi, Michael, and others,

 

I would happily spend the money to have somebody do it for me, but I cannot give up my machine under the current circumstances for the 3 or 4 days that the services require.  I am thinking that if I follow Jack’s instructions, I can swap out the new hard drive and see if it works.  If it doesn’t, I am no worse off.  The transfer of files could be done overnight. 

 

All my data is up on Carbonite, but the last time I had to do this, it took two days to download over an Ethernet connection.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Michael Stevens
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 10:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

 

Nick,

   If you wanted to transfer only “files,” like the text of a paper, photographs, a spreadsheet, etc. there are plenty of ways to do that. (You probably know this, I’m not trying to insult your intelligence!) However, if software is involved, e.g. Word, Excel, etc., I think it’s much more complicated. What you have heard about an image is correct, but I wouldn’t recommend that as a do-it-yourself project, particularly in a distracted state of mind with family troubles. There are just too many little things that could go wrong. My advice is to hire someone. Price range would most likely be $100 - $150, but that’s only a guess.

Best of luck,

Mike Stevens

Berkeley

On Apr 26, 2016, at 9:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
                [hidden email]

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
                http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
                [hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
                [hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
Today's Topics:

  1. Sober, clear advice needed (Nick Thompson)

From: "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] Sober, clear advice needed

Date: April 25, 2016 at 11:17:38 AM PDT

To: "Friam" <[hidden email]>

 

Hi, everybody,

 

A substantial family calamity occurred in Massachusetts on Friday, on the same day that a technician who replaced my motherboard here warned me that my hard drive is on its last legs.  I have a new hard drive sitting on my desk from HP and HP will come install it, but under my circumstances I cannot afford any break in my communication with My People in Massachusetts. 

 

Here is where I need your advice.  I keep being told that it is possible to make an “image” of one’s hard drive.  I imagine this means, I pay a hundred bucks for a black box, I plug the black box into my computer, I let it whir for a night, and then there is a copy of my hard drive on the black box.  Then, when my present hard drive dies, I have HP replace it, I plug the black box into the computer again, let it whir for another night, and when I wake up in the morning, resume my life exactly as it was. 

 

Is such a thing possible? Could it be done by a “citizen” (as Owen calls us) who is much distracted by other things. Can you recommend a particular black box.  One problem that DotFoil has suggested is that my old hard drive may have errors on it, and that transferring an “image” (if such a thing is possible) will transfer those errors, with possibly fatal consequences.  Should I perhaps run error correction software somewhere in that process. 

 

Please advise,

 

Nick

 

P.S.  Everybody’s safe.    

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
[hidden email]
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

From: Robert Wall <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Date: April 26, 2016 at 10:57:48 PM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

Nick,

I have worried about the loss of my data as well and have searched for an economical solution. For me, losing a device (e.g., by a crash or by theft) is not nearly as critical a loss as losing my data.  Hardware can be replaced.  Lost data, likely, cannot.  But losing a hard drive also means the loss of your applications (not just data), which would have to be reinstalled unless you have a reinstallable image of your hard disk, including the operating system.  I have lots of applications, some of which are just downloads with not associated physical media, which is fairly typical now.

My solution, after doing the trade-offs and comparing reviews, was to go with NovaStor's NovaBackup (a new startup I think) for an introductory price of about $50 for the software, but including a year's worth of technical support.  What I liked especially is that they will help you set up a schedule of backups as part of the service over the internet--this support takes less than an hour.  This service is not like Carbonite or CrashPlan where your data (not apps) gets backed up to the cloud, though that would be just another layer of protection.  This solution is just the software to back everything up to wherever even Dropbox, software you will own forever (i.e., a one-time cost).  I chose to back up my data and my hard disk image to a USB-connected 2 TB hard disk that I purchased from Amazon for $75.  NovaStor will even help you create a boot "disk" on a flash drive if your hard disk actually crashes. Everyone should have a boot disk to recover from a corrupted operating system.

However, even in this seemingly robust set up you will still be vulnerable to the so-called ransomware attacks--which are on the rise--where everything (apps and data) local or connected by a network or by USB--gets encrypted.  The survival strategy for this kind of attack is to have an image stored offline [unconnected].  For this, NovaStor will show you how to save an image on a flash drive away from the attackers.  High-capacity flash drives are quite cheap these days.  I back up a new image to my USB-connected hard disk every week. I roll off another image backup to the offline flash drive every so often, just to be sure. 

In order to have NovaStor continue with support after the first year, I suspect I would have to shell out another $50, but I am not sure that I will need this.  This solution is just backup software. But if it works and you have your backup schedules set up, what more  needs to be done?  The updates would need to be fantastic!

Hope this addresses your question.  Be assured that I receive no compensation from NovaStor for this review. 😊  This solution just seems to "answer the mail" for me at least.

Cheers,

Robert

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 9:31 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi, Michael, and others,

 

I would happily spend the money to have somebody do it for me, but I cannot give up my machine under the current circumstances for the 3 or 4 days that the services require.  I am thinking that if I follow Jack’s instructions, I can swap out the new hard drive and see if it works.  If it doesn’t, I am no worse off.  The transfer of files could be done overnight. 

 

All my data is up on Carbonite, but the last time I had to do this, it took two days to download over an Ethernet connection.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Michael Stevens
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 10:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

 

Nick,

   If you wanted to transfer only “files,” like the text of a paper, photographs, a spreadsheet, etc. there are plenty of ways to do that. (You probably know this, I’m not trying to insult your intelligence!) However, if software is involved, e.g. Word, Excel, etc., I think it’s much more complicated. What you have heard about an image is correct, but I wouldn’t recommend that as a do-it-yourself project, particularly in a distracted state of mind with family troubles. There are just too many little things that could go wrong. My advice is to hire someone. Price range would most likely be $100 - $150, but that’s only a guess.

Best of luck,

Mike Stevens

Berkeley

On Apr 26, 2016, at 9:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
                [hidden email]

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
                http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
                [hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
                [hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
Today's Topics:

  1. Sober, clear advice needed (Nick Thompson)

From: "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] Sober, clear advice needed

Date: April 25, 2016 at 11:17:38 AM PDT

To: "Friam" <[hidden email]>

 

Hi, everybody,

 

A substantial family calamity occurred in Massachusetts on Friday, on the same day that a technician who replaced my motherboard here warned me that my hard drive is on its last legs.  I have a new hard drive sitting on my desk from HP and HP will come install it, but under my circumstances I cannot afford any break in my communication with My People in Massachusetts. 

 

Here is where I need your advice.  I keep being told that it is possible to make an “image” of one’s hard drive.  I imagine this means, I pay a hundred bucks for a black box, I plug the black box into my computer, I let it whir for a night, and then there is a copy of my hard drive on the black box.  Then, when my present hard drive dies, I have HP replace it, I plug the black box into the computer again, let it whir for another night, and when I wake up in the morning, resume my life exactly as it was. 

 

Is such a thing possible? Could it be done by a “citizen” (as Owen calls us) who is much distracted by other things. Can you recommend a particular black box.  One problem that DotFoil has suggested is that my old hard drive may have errors on it, and that transferring an “image” (if such a thing is possible) will transfer those errors, with possibly fatal consequences.  Should I perhaps run error correction software somewhere in that process. 

 

Please advise,

 

Nick

 

P.S.  Everybody’s safe.    

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
[hidden email]
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

From: Gillian Densmore <[hidden email]>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

Date: April 27, 2016 at 7:05:03 AM PDT

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

@Nick Or do more than one kind of backup.

If you use Amazon they have (had?) a bit of free space for there cloud stuff. Dropbox rocks for just files/pictures etc (only 2gigs though) SkyDrive is a bit bigger(8-10gigs). Also pretty cool for just files.
Pretty much anything internet and cloud related will be slow. A backup over USB is faster if you have one at your house.
 Your right that crashplan has a rep for being slow. Nova might be faster.

A couple of other choices to consider:

Rackspace:
https://www.rackspace.com/en-us/cloud/backup.

They have a rep for cloud backup that's super fast. Add used to even offer to send a helper wherever you were. Though I don't see that now.

And I used CloudHQ Once ages ago. Basecamp was pretty cool when I used it.  Canbackup to all kinds of places and was(is? ) free
https://www.cloudhq.net/backup-basecamp

Looking around for a userfriendly amazon cloud drive doodad. So as you can start backing up. and I so I don't overwhelm you with choices.
CloudDrive I used once- worked but a little fickle and slow:
http://download.cnet.com/Amazon-Cloud-Drive/3000-18500_4-75711094.html

RainbowDrive might also be a start because speaks the binary language of moister vaperators and profeciant in over 9M forms of back up:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/rainbowdrive/9wzdncrfj2c6

When I last used RainbowDrive it was a back-up-to anyplace kind of doodad and free. At the time was super fun and easy to use. 

Hopefully one of these options works out for you. My biased to shareware and free stuff is mostly so you can use whatever you already have while deeling with fam problems just to get started. 

Force be with you and yours!

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 11:57 PM, Robert Wall <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick,

I have worried about the loss of my data as well and have searched for an economical solution. For me, losing a device (e.g., by a crash or by theft) is not nearly as critical a loss as losing my data.  Hardware can be replaced.  Lost data, likely, cannot.  But losing a hard drive also means the loss of your applications (not just data), which would have to be reinstalled unless you have a reinstallable image of your hard disk, including the operating system.  I have lots of applications, some of which are just downloads with not associated physical media, which is fairly typical now.

My solution, after doing the trade-offs and comparing reviews, was to go with NovaStor's NovaBackup (a new startup I think) for an introductory price of about $50 for the software, but including a year's worth of technical support.  What I liked especially is that they will help you set up a schedule of backups as part of the service over the internet--this support takes less than an hour.  This service is not like Carbonite or CrashPlan where your data (not apps) gets backed up to the cloud, though that would be just another layer of protection.  This solution is just the software to back everything up to wherever even Dropbox, software you will own forever (i.e., a one-time cost).  I chose to back up my data and my hard disk image to a USB-connected 2 TB hard disk that I purchased from Amazon for $75.  NovaStor will even help you create a boot "disk" on a flash drive if your hard disk actually crashes. Everyone should have a boot disk to recover from a corrupted operating system.

However, even in this seemingly robust set up you will still be vulnerable to the so-called ransomware attacks--which are on the rise--where everything (apps and data) local or connected by a network or by USB--gets encrypted.  The survival strategy for this kind of attack is to have an image stored offline [unconnected].  For this, NovaStor will show you how to save an image on a flash drive away from the attackers.  High-capacity flash drives are quite cheap these days.  I back up a new image to my USB-connected hard disk every week. I roll off another image backup to the offline flash drive every so often, just to be sure. 

In order to have NovaStor continue with support after the first year, I suspect I would have to shell out another $50, but I am not sure that I will need this.  This solution is just backup software. But if it works and you have your backup schedules set up, what more  needs to be done?  The updates would need to be fantastic!

Hope this addresses your question.  Be assured that I receive no compensation from NovaStor for this review. 😊  This solution just seems to "answer the mail" for me at least.

Cheers,

Robert

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 9:31 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi, Michael, and others,

 

I would happily spend the money to have somebody do it for me, but I cannot give up my machine under the current circumstances for the 3 or 4 days that the services require.  I am thinking that if I follow Jack’s instructions, I can swap out the new hard drive and see if it works.  If it doesn’t, I am no worse off.  The transfer of files could be done overnight. 

 

All my data is up on Carbonite, but the last time I had to do this, it took two days to download over an Ethernet connection.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Michael Stevens
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 10:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 154, Issue 18

 

Nick,

   If you wanted to transfer only “files,” like the text of a paper, photographs, a spreadsheet, etc. there are plenty of ways to do that. (You probably know this, I’m not trying to insult your intelligence!) However, if software is involved, e.g. Word, Excel, etc., I think it’s much more complicated. What you have heard about an image is correct, but I wouldn’t recommend that as a do-it-yourself project, particularly in a distracted state of mind with family troubles. There are just too many little things that could go wrong. My advice is to hire someone. Price range would most likely be $100 - $150, but that’s only a guess.

Best of luck,

Mike Stevens

Berkeley

On Apr 26, 2016, at 9:00 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

Send Friam mailing list submissions to
                [hidden email]

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
                http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
                [hidden email]

You can reach the person managing the list at
                [hidden email]

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
Today's Topics:

  1. Sober, clear advice needed (Nick Thompson)

From: "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]>

Subject: [FRIAM] Sober, clear advice needed

Date: April 25, 2016 at 11:17:38 AM PDT

To: "Friam" <[hidden email]>

 

Hi, everybody,

 

A substantial family calamity occurred in Massachusetts on Friday, on the same day that a technician who replaced my motherboard here warned me that my hard drive is on its last legs.  I have a new hard drive sitting on my desk from HP and HP will come install it, but under my circumstances I cannot afford any break in my communication with My People in Massachusetts. 

 

Here is where I need your advice.  I keep being told that it is possible to make an “image” of one’s hard drive.  I imagine this means, I pay a hundred bucks for a black box, I plug the black box into my computer, I let it whir for a night, and then there is a copy of my hard drive on the black box.  Then, when my present hard drive dies, I have HP replace it, I plug the black box into the computer again, let it whir for another night, and when I wake up in the morning, resume my life exactly as it was. 

 

Is such a thing possible? Could it be done by a “citizen” (as Owen calls us) who is much distracted by other things. Can you recommend a particular black box.  One problem that DotFoil has suggested is that my old hard drive may have errors on it, and that transferring an “image” (if such a thing is possible) will transfer those errors, with possibly fatal consequences.  Should I perhaps run error correction software somewhere in that process. 

 

Please advise,

 

Nick

 

P.S.  Everybody’s safe.    

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
[hidden email]
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

_______________________________________________
Friam mailing list
[hidden email]
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com