Here's another shot:
June 16, 2012
I'm now getting somewhere on my project of erasing on the 9 defunct Macs...
... that have piled up at home and in the office since 1991 (when I got my first computer with a hard drive). Man, have I been putting off this task. Thanks to everyone who chipped in with tips on the previous post. But no one talked about the new paint colors on the second post.
Here's another shot:
Here's another shot:
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44 comments:
I haven't been paying close attention, but it's difficult to understand which paint is new, and which paint is old, in a picture.
The pink -- officially called "Incense" -- with the eggplant trim is what I picked out 20+ years ago. The new color is very dark gray and very light gray.
There is some red brick trim around the door and at the based of the house, and the windows have some gray lead around the panes (on top of the double-hung windows).
I like it. In the pictures it looks slightly green.
Nobody talked about the exterior paint job test!
OK I think it is too stark and cold. The black may work but the white seems to be too icy. You may not like it in a large piece. Perhaps just a bit warmer tone to the white.
Paint several tones of white and black (if that is what you are going to do)on a board and put it up against the house in several locations to see what it looks like in different lighting situations and different times of the day. We did this when deciding what colors to paint our house, trim and doors. It was surprising how different the colors looked in those situations and the color we thought would work for the doors looked really bad.
You should have a third color as well to relieve the monochromatic selection.
But...it is your house and if it makes you happy, then go for it.
"I like it. In the pictures it looks slightly green."
It isn't green at all, but the pink next to it creates that impression. It's very hard to correct it for color in the photograph.
"The black may work but the white seems to be too icy."
I think you're picking up something subjective that's happening because of the pink.
I hope those are steel doors. They'll last a long time.
Glad to see shades of gray, nothing in life should be strictly black and white. A warm shade of white wouldn't look right with the darker gray tones, keep cool tones together, IMO.
Should look interesting with the red brick trim. Brick red, cool tone or warm tone? What do I know?
The pink next to it does not Create the impression, it points it out. The green undertone is very real. When everything is painted over and there is no longer any pink, you may not notice it anymore. UNLESS, your neighbor or whatever else (brick?) that is also in your field of vision while looking at the house also points it out. Have a tulip poplar?
I always did think red and gray complimented each other.
Where's the pink? All I see is beige, dark green (don't let The Blonde know), and brick red.
Anywho, I was trying to figure out your problem, so I regarded the swatches as, well..., window dressing.
PS 9 Macs?
Honey, you were long overdue for a boyfriend.
"PS 9 Macs?"
In 20+ years... you're damned right. 6 are desktops. 3 are laptops. I never replaced anything that wasn't inadequate. It's the way it goes.
I'll bet I put in more hours on a computer in one year than most people do in 5 years (or more).
Back to house painting.
Initially, I was going to paint it 50 shades of meade. But it's a relatively conservative neighborhood - 50 shades would be about 48 too many.
There really is no need to sledgehammer them, is there? It's not like there's evidence of a crime on them. It's more like a big stack of papers that contains some person letters, and I've forgotten what is in the letters.
No. Just recycle them. If you're really concerned take the HDs and have Meade give each on a couple of whacks with a sledge hammer.
The aluminum in the HD cases is very high quality. Perfect for casting if you know someone who is into that.
I like the grays. You can't go wrong with gray. Gray guarantees that it won't turn out weird.
Meade is painting his "man-box".
Nine computers in 21 years is normal. I don't like that this reminds me of all the old computers that I need to go through. What a chore!
I'm not a tech person, but am a Mac person. Perhaps this idea might work: If you have the computers already linked up by Firewire, go to Finder of the working computer and open Applications, then go to Utilities, then open the Disk Utility App. You will probably be able to select the HD of the computer you want to erase, click it and you will see First Aid/ Erase/ RAID/ Restore -- click on Erase. That will give you options on how secure you want the erase to be. Hope that works.
Color wise, I think the contrast might be too strong between the values. That becomes a little harsh sometimes. It's hard to tell because I have no idea how large the color areas are. Good luck.
I take it that's the garage door. That's gonna be a lot of black.
But you could stencil Garage Mahal across the top to lighten it up.
Without knowing what the entire house looks like and how chopped up the building is by the trim, you might end up looking like a Mondrian painting. Which might be cool if the architecture of the house lends itself to such modern cubism.
Rabel, that is a brilliant idea. Only thing is I've met garage mahal and he's a pretty big guy. I'm not sure stencil would be strong enough to hold him up there. I'm pretty sure I'd have to use Gorilla Glue. Plus, I'm strong but not that strong. Maybe I could get Michael Haz to bring some heavy equipment over and help me lift him.
Meade,
Crazy Glue might be a more appropriate choice.
Ann Althouse said...
PS 9 Macs?
In 20+ years... you're damned right. 6 are desktops. 3 are laptops. I never replaced anything that wasn't inadequate. It's the way it goes.
I've had 4 in the same period, 3 of them sequentially.
No offense, but is the word "upgrade" verboten in MacLand?
Stark choices in color scheme but I approve. I have a black MacBook and a black car. My wife has a white MacBook and for years and years had a white car. We were color coded just like old-fashioned skates. She recently upgraded cars to a new gray-metallic so there's hope for nuance.
Leave it as is. Call it "unfinished chic"
I know it's hard to get the colors right on the screen, but my first thought is that it looked like it was lit by government mandated fluorescent bulbs. I'm sure Chip could make a gif of the colors flickering. I hope it looks great in real life.
SWAP will shred hard drives for departmental machines. There is probably a similar e-waste service available for personal machines through their vendor.
What paint are y'all using?
Brand, Product name, sheen.
BTW, painting your house black and white is (imho) the definition of boring. I thought that Meadehouse was opposed to boring.
I can picture the scene at the paint store, as Meadehouse looked over the color samples:
Meade: All these colors are awful, they're probably librul commie colors sent here to destroy hardworking Americans.
Althouse: Oh yes, but look at these white and black paint chips.
Meade: Perfect!
The contrast in the values appears to be extreme. What's the use of the room? If you want it to be more comfortable, make the values closer. Gray down the black or the light or both.
I like the dark green and brighter not-white.
It's gotten so that shades of tan and brown are depressing. They do look good when they're fresh, but they don't stay fresh.
Synovial
I feel the same about yellow. Yellow can be so pretty and delicate or it can look unbearable dingy. But then, every time I go to paint a wall in my house I end up going ever so slightly off white, so I'm not a reliable color guide.
We did renovations in the house and my new office/guest room is a few values softer than burn-your-eyes-out-acid-green. Not pastel! Light and bright and on the edge of glowing.
I love it. :-)
Um... dark gray and light gray? Pink and eggplant?
Nevermind. ;)
I can take care of your hard drive problem, Ann.
Pull the hard drive and hand it to someone with a cutting torch. Our shop foreman used to love to "erase" data this way. Be sure to watch.
FWIW, when I retire a computer, I make sure all the files are backed up and I hammer two nails into the old hard drives before tossing them.
When I have to retire a solid state drive, I'm just going to hook one lead from a car battery to the stripped data connection, and the other to the case. Then the nails.
Paint looks so weird when it's going on, and it's next to the old colors. Your eye doesn't know what to do!
I bet it will look amazing. Where I am right now, there are several black/dark grey and white houses and they are gorgeous. Plus, I remember Meade's place in Indian Hill and what great taste he had.
Mark said...
FWIW, when I retire a computer, I make sure all the files are backed up and I hammer two nails into the old hard drives before tossing them.
When I have to retire a solid state drive, I'm just going to hook one lead from a car battery to the stripped data connection, and the other to the case. Then the nails.
Just nuke it for 20 seconds. guaranteed not data will ever escape.
In New England, where I lived for several years, the older colonial style homes painted white with black trim around the windows and all black doors looked great. Roofs were usually blue-gray slate.
If you're of a mind to do so, and have the right screwdriver tips, you can take the hard drive apart. Then you can sand or torch the data surfaces and get a couple of really extraordinary refrigerator magnets.
9 computers in 20 years? Thats all?
Best way to scrub old hard drives - industrial shredder. The data is absolutely non-recoverable. And it's fun to watch.
I've seen some great art (great?well, interesting) made with old drives - clocks mainly. And also some were frames for pictures. And some were in assemblages - like "Twenty Years of Living with Mac", hard drives, pictures, torn brown paper.
Many of the older Macs are selling for nice sums on eBay. While Apple refuses to support the old Motorola chip versions of the Apple OS, there are Linux ports to the powerpc architecture that are still supported.
I know that a lot of companies and some people prefer physical destruction of old hard drives instead of multi-pass secure erasure, but I've always recoiled a bit at that. It reminds me a bit of the cash for clunkers program: destroy perfectly good hardware, rather than letting it find use in the used equipment market.
Interestingly, with the right tools, data often can still be recovered from drives that have been mutilated physically, while recovery from proper, multi-pass overwriting is extraordinarily difficult.
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