◆ PARALLAX

Thank you dear, that is kind, but I do not think you quite understand. It was working perfectly on Sunday afternoon. I did the church newsletter on it. Then on Sunday EVENING it would not come on, and you have said yourselves that is when you moved the server. I have kept a diary for fifty-one years and I do not write down coincidences because there is no such thing.

I do not need a grandchild, I need the big computer to come back on, and you seem to be the people who turned the computers off. David is very stressed about his thesis. Please could you just put it back the way it was on Saturday. I will of course pay any fee.

Marjorie, I believe you that it died Sunday evening and I am so sorry, that is a horrible fright with David's deadline coming. Can I try once more, a different way? Your computer and this website are like two completely separate telephones. We unplugged OUR telephone and plugged in a better one. Your telephone at home is on a different line entirely -- we could not reach it to switch it off even if we wanted to.

Sunday-evening deaths are usually the power supply (a little box inside that gives a faint burning-electronics smell) or, this time of year, a thunderstorm spike. Did you have any weather Sunday night? And -- this matters -- David's files are very likely fine and still sitting safe on the hard drive even though the machine will not turn on. Please do not let anyone tell you they are gone. A repair shop can usually get them straight off.

We did have a bit of a storm Sunday, but we have storms every week and the computer has never minded before, so I do not see why it would be the storm THIS time and not the other times, when the only other thing that was different this time is that you moved your server. I am sorry to be a bother but I am quite worried now.

The telephone explanation is very nice but my telephone still works, it is the computer that does not, so I am not sure the telephones are the same as the computers. Could you not just try moving it back for one day and we will see if my computer comes on? That would settle it.

Marjorie, I am the board's designated wet blanket, so let me try the version I would want if it were my mother. Two things happening the same evening does not mean one caused the other -- a rooster crows every dawn but the rooster does not raise the sun. You had a storm AND a server move AND a computer that died, all on Sunday. Two of those three are the kind of thing that kills a home PC (the storm, and simple old age). The third (our server, in a basement in another state, on no wire that reaches your house) physically cannot. The storm is the rooster you are not looking at because it is boring and the server is the sunrise you ARE looking at because it is in front of you on this screen.

I know that is not what you want to hear. The fastest road to David's files is a local repair shop, today, not us, who would change nothing for you even if we set the basement on fire.

Marjorie love, I am the last man on this board who trusts a coincidence, I have built my life on the things the experts swear are unconnected. And even I have to tell you these two are not connected. I have stood in a server basement. The wire goes to the wall, the wall goes to the phone exchange, the phone exchange does not go to your study. There is no copper between their box and your box. I would know. I have followed worse wires than that to worse places.

guys she found it. THE LINK. for four years we argued about whether this board is a fed op and Marjorie cracks it wide open: the server reaches into your HOUSE and turns off your PC. forget Carnivore. forget ECHELON. they have the BIG COMPUTER OFF button. nobody is safe. i for one welcome the basement.

(marjorie i am being a pig, i am sorry, it is the storm or the power supply, please get the nice nurse's advice and take the tower to a shop)

[staff] Enough of that, Cyrus. She is a member asking for help in good faith and the ridicule stops here -- I have trimmed two nastier replies. Marjorie, I am sorry; some people get funny when they cannot fix a thing. Everything NightShiftNurse and Occams told you is true and kindly meant: separate machines, your son's files almost certainly safe on the drive, a local shop is your fastest path. We cannot turn your computer back on by moving our server because we were never able to turn it OFF. The offer of help with the actual fault stands, from people who are very good at it. The "move it back for a day" test, I am afraid, would prove nothing except that your PC is still broken, because the two were never linked.

Well. I can see you have all made up your minds and that I am being a silly old woman about the telephones and the roosters. I will take David's computer to the man in Montpelier as you say. I still think Sunday is Sunday and I do not believe in coincidences, but I can see I will get no further here, and I do not want to be a nuisance in your bug thread.

If it turns out the man in Montpelier moves something and it comes back on, I shall come and tell you, and you may all explain to me again about the roosters. Thank you to the kind ones. Good day.