The Web Made His Computer Slow
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As IT professionals, we are usually called for tech support by the mortals when they think their PC's are broken. Everybody deals differently with this, and my way to keep relatives, friends and neighbours at bay is charging 50 dollars per hour for a support job, no matter how simple. When my father intervenes, though, I end up doing some free service.
And yesterday an uncle of mine needed help. His PC at home had been crashing a lot, restarting or shutting down at random. He had a fresh install of Vista and Office and no malware. I told my uncle it could be some overheating problem, but he disagreed because he had a ventilator pointing at the computer case.
It was a 1 foot fan, 3 feet away from the front of the case. The case itself was in a tight opening in an armoire, with the back vent against the wall.
Still, my father used to have a PC set up in such a way before too, minus the external fan, and it wasn't as unstable as my uncle's. So I decided to check for a faulty cooler on the processor. We got the PC on a table and popped the hood... And then we found a family of spiders had moved into the case and spinned enough web in it to make a silk glove. Seems like occasionally, one member of the family woud sit on the processor cooler's fan, and if it was unlucky enough to be there when the PC was turned on, it's corpse would grind against the fan, making it less effective.
I've heard stories about people opening PC's to find roach carcasses. There's even some urban legend around about someone who found a rat in a PC. This case wasn't as gross, but I saw this live, and helped cleaning up the mess. I had a spider getting stuck at a power supply fan once, but I never found a spider zoo inside a machine before. Someone should invent a device which emits lethal radiation inside the PC case to avoid this kind of thing happening again.
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Someone should invent a device which emits lethal radiation
inside the PC caseanywhere humans live because spiders are fucking awful and should all die to avoid this kind of thing happening again.[/quote]FTFY.
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@morbiuswilters said:
lethal radiation [...] anywhere humans live
Why is it that humans always seem to have a problem with this?
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]And then we found a family of spiders had moved into the case and spinned enough web in it to make a silk glove. ... I've heard stories about people opening PC's to find roach carcasses... This case wasn't as gross, but I saw this live[/quote]
Wait, did you just say that a dead roach is more "gross" than a whole family of spiders? WTF, man? I hate spiders! Hell, depending on the kind of spider, I'd even prefer the rat. I assume they weren't black widows, were they?
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@Zylon said:
Morb is human?
No, he/she/it proposed it, he/she/it couldn't be human.
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]I've heard stories about people opening PC's to find roach carcasses.[/quote]
I've seen several metric fucktons of (live and dead) roaches in a single case*, but never spiders. Honestly, after that I'll take a swarm of spiders any day. You got lucky.
* It was so bad I pulled half the parts out and instructed the owner to cover the bottom in whatever poisonous substance she had. There were also a ton of viruses which I said I'd come back for and never did.
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@Zylon said:
No, he refers to the radiation, which obviously is meant to kill Morbius, which therefore most likely is a spider.@TarquinWJ said:
Why is it that humans always seem to have a problem with this?
Morb is human?
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@Huf Lungdung said:
[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]And then we found a family of spiders had moved into the case and spinned enough web in it to make a silk glove. ... I've heard stories about people opening PC's to find roach carcasses... This case wasn't as gross, but I saw this live
Wait, did you just say that a dead roach is more "gross" than a whole family of spiders? WTF, man? I hate spiders! Hell, depending on the kind of spider, I'd even prefer the rat. I assume they weren't black widows, were they?
[/quote]Well, it's times like these that make me glad I don't live in Australia. They were just small house spiders, non venomous, and even if they had some venom they couldn't bite through someone's skin.
@Zylon said:
@TarquinWJ said:
Why is it that humans always seem to have a problem with this?
Morb is human?
I always imagine people posting in forums as if their posts were being said aloud by their avatars. So I think of him ('cause I think he's a guy, after all there are no women in the internets) as the girl in the avatar speaking with a male voice. And yes, that is fucking disturbing.
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Everybody deals differently with this, and my way to keep relatives, friends and
neighbours at bay is charging 50 dollars per hour for a support job, no matter
how simple. When my father intervenes, though, I end up doing some free service.[/quote] I'm seeing a different WTF here...
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Everybody deals differently with this, and my way to keep relatives, friends and neighbours at bay is charging 50 dollars per hour for a support job, no matter how simple.[/quote] Maybe I should try that. I have a cousin that wants me to add localisation to Wordpress.
On a different note, I don't get all this arachnophobia that's going around. They eat bugs. And every one they eat is one less horror I have to deal with.
I never kill spiders, I pick them up with something and throw them out so they can continue god's work.
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@DOA said:
On a different note, I don't get all this arachnophobia that's going around. They eat bugs. And every one they eat is one less horror I have to deal with.
Insecticides also kill insects. But usually not spiders. Spiders are creepy and intelligent. They will inject you full of venom that can kill or harm you. I've been bit by brown recluses twice. It's almost impossible to completely kill them all.
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Well, it's times like these that make me glad I don't live in Australia. They were just small house spiders, non venomous, and even if they had some venom they couldn't bite through someone's skin.[/quote]
Sure, those huntsman spiders look big and hairy, but about the only worry is where the other one might be (they often travel in pairs). They're not dangerous to humans, they're scared of us, they're big so you can find them easily, and you won't get random leg segments breaking off and having to be cleaned up.
I'd much rather find one of those inside a case than a family of small spiders, which would be hideous to clean up, or one of these spiders that are not only deadly but territorial and aggressive.
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@DOA said:
On a different note, I don't get all this arachnophobia that's going around. They eat bugs. And every one they eat is one less horror I have to deal with.
I never kill spiders, I pick them up with something and throw them out so they can continue god's work.
A phobia is by definition irrational, so guess how effective rationalising it will be. What's next, telling people with hydrophobia that its just water?
On a related note, spiders are the devils work and they should all die, fuck the circle of life, I'm pretty sure we can work out a solution in which creepy bugs don't have to exist, for gods sakes people, we have the technology.
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Fear of spiders is rational. Especially in Australia where we have those territorial, agressive ones that have a habit of wanting your shoes to be part of their territory. and they can kill you.
A fear of buttons is irrational.
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@aimee said:
Why? If fearing something that can kill you is rational, well, there's at least two little red buttons out there that could kill 99% of the planet stone dead in around four minutes... what's not to fear about that?Fear of spiders is rational. Especially in Australia where we have those territorial, agressive ones that have a habit of wanting your shoes to be part of their territory. and they can kill you.
A fear of buttons is irrational.
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]
Well, it's times like these that make me glad I don't live in Australia. They were just small house spiders, non venomous, and even if they had some venom they couldn't bite through someone's skin.
[/quote]
Nah, those things are pets. We have them wandering around the house, they catch the odd roach and eat all the daddy longlegs spiders. Besides, ferreting around inside some place dark, you're more likely to encounter one of these which can really leave a mark (or worse -- they can actually kill you). I'm careful how I open the screen door at the back due to a few of those hanging out catching insects by the back door, and apparently the weatherboard about door handle height is prime real estate for that.
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@morbiuswilters said:
I've been bit by brown recluses twice. It's almost impossible to completely kill them all.
So you get bitten in your brown recluse? Twice? How did you do that?
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@aimee said:
Fear ofConcern for spiders is rational. Especially in AustraliaFTFY.
Fear is always irrational, by virtue of being an emotional state. But you can be aware of venomous spiders without freaking the shit out.
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@aimee said:
Fear of spiders is rational. Especially in Australia where we have those territorial, agressive ones that have a habit of wanting your shoes to be part of their territory. and they can kill you.
QI Series G Episode 1The thing that makes Australian spiders so dangerous is because you do not expect them. No-one has died of a spider bite in Australia since 1981 since antivenoms where introduced. The main cause of death from spiders is when they surprise you in cars, and thus you are in such a panic you crash the car. There are two poisonous spiders in Australia - the funnel-web and the redback.
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@steenbergh said:
@morbiuswilters said:
I've been bit by brown recluses twice. It's almost impossible to completely kill them all.
So you get bitten in your brown recluse? Twice? How did you do that?
Once while I slept, once when I was moving boxes and it jumped out onto my arm. I've also seen brown recluses the size of a half dollar.
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Well, it's times like these that make me glad I don't live in Australia. They were just small house spiders, non venomous, and even if they had some venom they couldn't bite through someone's skin.[/quote]
As someone else has already said, the scary ones here are not the big ones. I think the scariest are the white tail spiders which, like brown recluses, can cause necrosis.
[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"] I always imagine people posting in forums as if their posts were being said aloud by their avatars. So I think of him ('cause I think he's a guy, after all there are no women in the internets) as the girl in the avatar speaking with a male voice. And yes, that is fucking disturbing.[/quote]
+1 for the epic mindfuck imagery
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[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]I always imagine people posting in forums as if their posts were being said aloud by their avatars.[/quote]I still think of morbs as looking as his last avatar, that guy from MFD. I believe that appearance suits his personality nicely.
But, of course, he needs to hide behind an avatar that is minimally alluring to children, otherwise he may starve.
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@Zecc said:
I still think of morbs as looking as his last avatar, that guy from MFD. I believe that appearance suits his personality nicely.
But, of course, he needs to hide behind an avatar that is minimally alluring to children, otherwise he may starve.
Exactly. But a younger version of the MFD guy, with all his hair still on his head instead of the city's sewage system, as had earlier revealed himself to be one o' them idiot youths.
