[ale] recovering an ext3 drive

[James P. Kinney III]

On Mon, 2003-01-20 at 03:24, ChangingLINKS.com wrote:
> I have a hard time understanding the opinion you have. I just don't get it. 
> Why not have the default a recycle bin to protect people from their mistakes?
> What are the costs?

More people who lack the fundamental knowledge that what they do DOES
have ramification that requires them to THINK and not just react. We
don't need more "I learned everything I need to know from television"
people.
> 
> You imply that making a mistake is "stupidity" and that there is some great 
> benefit for people suffering or being punished for accidents? Where does that 
> come from? (I hear some doctor in the background claiming your parents did 
> this to you).

The School Of Hard Knocks has as graduates some very competent people.
Actually, everyone is currently enrolled. It's just that this society is
working hard to hide that fact from us. Education does not end at 16, or
high school graduation, or college, or PhD. It is a life long adventure.
There is a saying "An intelligent person learns from their mistakes. A
wise person learns from the mistakes of others". A person who deletes
files they later need has an opportunity to be intelligent. They also
have an opportunity to be a slow learner.
> 
> Darwin's rules should be given a bigger priority than they currently do. 
> Why?

Darwin's main rule is that stupid dies. Now even in my most socially
sarcastic moments, I think that is pretty harsh for most people to
accept. But a good dose of reality every now and then is a healthy
thing. If someone consistently makes "mistakes", eventually they need to
get seriously "bit" for not thinking before acting. That is the root
cause of mistakes. 
> 
> We don't need to be protected from ourselves. 
> Why not?

If people are not given to opportunity to think for themselves, they
wont. That is a very bad thing. That makes those people an easier target
for the likes of Microsoft. I can hear the ad campaign now. "We know
where you are going today"
> 
> We sure don't need to be protected from our own stupidity.
> Why not?

The learning experience is a good thing. As Nietzsche said, "That which
doesn't kill us makes us stronger."
> 
> What is benefit of "delete" over "hide"?
> (I am thinking that if one really NEEDS something to be "gone" now they must 
> "delete" it and THEN write random information over the disk space several 
> times ANYWAY).

Language is the most important thing humans have developed. Pop culture
works very hard to undermine the efforts of previous generations of
linguists. The excessive abuse of attempted simile in all manner of
conversation ("It was so like not real..." GAG!) and the inversion of
meaning ("Man that car is BAD!" when the speaker really likes the car)
and especially the reality softening, politically correct terminology (
Downsizing, "rightsizing", "___ challenged") are all extreme examples of
fractures in communication methods. As computer systems are _supposed_
to be methods of communication, they need to have very well defined
terminology. A Microshaft user is lulled into complacency by the
improper use of "delete". Under most circumstances, when they "delete" a
file, it gets sort of parked in the trash can. They can "undelete" it
later. Then they "delete" a really big file and automatically hit the
friendly "OK" button. But this time, the dialog box was a warning that
said the file was too big to store in the trash can so it will get
really dumped. So Megaschlock covered their collective a$$ by making a
recovery tool to cover up their poor design and lexical incorrectness.
Thus lulling the inept deeper into the crypt of brain dead users.
> 
> I am glad that the way things are and the way things are going are contrary to 
> your position. 

I don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry using computers. Most of them are
not educated well enough to use a pocket calculator. So now we give them
the equivalent of a loaded gun (P4 128 MB RAM) and turn them loose on
the streets (DSL, cable modem, corporate offices). Microcrap did only
one thing good. They wrote such lousy software that it inspired Linus to
do better. And then they screwed themselves by having the balls to call
it "Intellectual Property" and attaching legal extortion threats to it
so that Richard Stallman came up with a better way to spread freedom.
> 
> James, you, Geoffrey and I all have something in common:
> 
>                         We all deleted data that we wanted back.
> 
> It seems like I am the only one who admits that there should be a way to get 
> the data back as easily as recovering a recycle bin. (I do believe that there 
> should be a "shred" that deletes sensitive data forever - with several 
> warnings that the data will be over-written and unrecoverable even to 
> government).
> 
> Re-reading your post over and over has left me with the conclusion that you 
> think we are all "stupid" and the data should have been unrecoverable in all 
> cases. 
> 
> Drew

I teach college physics and astronomy. Every day, I am reminded of the
lowering standards of intellectual achievement that pass as learning in
this country. I am doing every thing I can to reverse that trend. I
don't curve my grades. Last semester, there were no A's in one of my
classes. No one earned an A because no one learned more than 89% of the
material. I did record grades of F for two students. They earned them.

Not every one is going to be a rocket scientists. Just as I don't want
drunken morons driving cars, I don't want computer illiterates plugging
up to the Internet so the crackers and script kiddies can use their net
access to make my work any more difficult than it already is.

-- 
James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
President and CEO      \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244             \.___________________________./

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics) <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7 



 This is a digitally signed message part