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Carbon Copy Cloner, Firmware

For the past few days have been working on establishing a Mac cloning system for the Greenhouse, which involved creating perfect, virginal OS9 and OSX installs packed with all the apps, drivers, and configuration we need for the mulitmedia skills classes. Once built, we’ll be using Carbon Copy Cloner to wipe the drive of Macs that tire of student abuse and reinstall the whole schmoo in 20 minutes.

What threw me was the fact that 5 of our Macs wouldn’t boot from the FireWire drive containing the clone, while the others were perfectly happy. The bad ones would see the FW volume, start to boot from it, then hang. Took half a day and several false starts to figure out that this was a Mac firmware problem. Updating firmware throughout the lab allowed all machines to boot from FW.

Our army of clones is almost complete, bwa ha ha ha ha!!!

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SliMP3

Have been lusting after a SliMP3 home stereo MP3 component for nearly a year, and finally ordered one during MacWorld. Couldn’t resist the show discount, which left it costing almost exactly what I earned for my PHP/MySQL appearance. A fair trade. We’ve been playing it pretty much constantly for the past few days. Read on for impressions so far.

Music: John Zorn and Luli Shioi :: Kleine Leutnant Des Lieben Gottes, Der

Continue reading “SliMP3”

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Kids, Kids

Didn’t see it, but heard that CNN has accused FOX of wanting to “own coverage of the war” – which is probably true, but even if so, CNN would do better to inspire by example and rise above the pettiness than to engage in public fisticuffs. In response, Fox apparently ran an ad in the NY Times denying that they were interested in owning the story. On the brink of war, our two primary news outlets are having a credibility war. Except that instead of both outlets proving themselves with quality of coverage, they try to convince us by shouting more loudly than the other “Over here! Look at us! We’re the credible ones!”

This may be our most post-modern war yet!

Benjamin corrects me: “Actually, CNN proclaimed itself as wanting to “own the story.” The full page Fox add in the NYT was answering to that by saying “We report. You decide.” The implication is that they (Fox) wold not be so arrogant as to want to own the story because after all Fox is fair and balanced.

That’s what I get for posting things I didn’t experience first-hand. :(

Music: The Last Poets :: White Man’s Got A God Complex
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Shut Up and Code

I am fortunate that the “Shut Up and Code” mantra does not affect my current job (much). I actually am consulted in most technology decisions, and implementations often follow my recommendations. But I’ve seen this at more than one organization:

The “shut up and code” philosophy is nothing new — I’ve seen it since becoming a developer in 1984. The “shut up and code” philosophy dictates that the IT manager first asks developers for input into what tools they will use, then disregards all that advice in favor of advice from one of his golf buddies.

Music: Lyres :: I’ll Try Anyway
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Full Frontal (Well, Semi)

Watching a show on Discovery about nurture / nature, and at one point the camera ends up, as it tends to do in so many documentaries, in sub-Saharan Africa. Observing a tribe of villagers going about their dailies, we see several women without tops, breasts swinging freely … during prime time … and not on Pay-Per-View. What circumstances make full-frontal prime-time female nudity kosher? Can you imagine suddenly seeing the breasts of any American female sitcom character? Front page news. If a culture is sufficiently removed from the mainstream, we treat them with different rules. You can’t explain this by saying that tribal women don’t mind being seen without garments – there are plenty of Western women who feel the same, but that fact doesn’t lift the taboo.

Music: Musci – Venosta :: Malangaan
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SETI Orphans

A couple-three years ago I was into sharing CPU cycles with the SETI project, and was racking up points for Team BeOS. Yesterday I got a message from someone congratulating me for getting back on board and checking in new units. Huhn? I haven’t run a SETI client for at least two years, but sure enough, it shows fresh units from me being checked in as of last night. Two theories:

1) Someone hijacked my SETI account … but why would anyone do this? There’s no incentive.

2) One of several old BeOS/Windows/Linux machines I’ve sold or given away long ago has been booted into BeOS for the first time in a long time recently, and is happily crunching keys in the background, unbeknownst to the new owner. Heh. Thanks, whoever you are, wherever you are… ;)

Music: Astrud Gilberto :: The Gentle Rain
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Peter Palmquist, Goodbye

Amy received some sad news today – photographic historian and friend Peter Palmquist was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Emeryville today. Probably never knew what hit him.

Palmquist had created the world’s largest collection of photographs of early California, and had catalogued and described them meticulously. He was in the process of turning his immense collection over to Yale University. We visited Palmquist in his home in Arcata last July, and spent days going through his amazing archives – he had built six libraries on his property just to house the collection.

He also sponsored Amy’s book of photographs, Surrogate, simply because he believed in her and her work. He chose one unknown artist per year to sponsor, and asked nothing in return.

Amy has had a difficult evening. So many true and poignant cliche’s here, about the way the people who contribute the most to the world are taken from us before their time, about the need to carpe diem because tomorrow you may be hit by a bus, about the tenuousness of life, about the need to tell people whom you appreciate how much you appreciate them…

Palmquist is one of those people most will never hear of but who made their lives count, and who enriches the lives of generations to come by his contributions.

Music: The Last Poets :: True Blues
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Cat5

Spent almost the entire weekend freelancing – tweaking on Matthew’s iMac (turns out that 2nd memory slot is hidden beneath the processor card – the original 32MBs isn’t soldered on, but you have to dig to find it), fixed a crashing issue on the landlord’s Mac, then setting up DSL in a client’s home — I suggested they have ethernet laid in the walls during their remodel – now we’re putting it to use… but SBC screwed up and wasted my time and theirs … there is still no signal going into the home… trouble ticket time, will finish the job during the week.

Sick of paying CompUSA’s extortionist prices for Cat5 cable every time these jobs come up — $22 for a 6′ cable! Just amazing they can get away with it. Decided it was time to learn how to make my own Cat5. Bought a crimper, terminators, and 50′ of 5e at The Shack. Looked up some sites on the subject, wasted 3 or 4 terminators getting the hang of it, and am now posting through my own homebrew cable. “The man” got nuthin’ on me, hyunh. However, making cable isn’t quite as lickety-split as I thought it would be, so have to be careful that labor time doesn’t cancel out the savings. For longer runs it will definitely be cheaper. For shorter jobs it probably would still make more sense to stock up on misc bits from cables.com.

Music: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan :: Meri Ankhon Ko Bakshee Hain Aansoo
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Just Pretending

Quite a bit of interesting discussion tagged onto the end of my Unreal Tournament post. Without trying further to identify ambiguous forces like “the cause of violence in America” (note that I never said “the cause” but only implied that it was undoubtedly a cause), I want to ask an honest question of everyone who thinks it’s acceptable for children to play violent video games:

What’s worse: Rape or murder?

If you think murder is worse and you let your kids play games that involve pretending to murder humans or humanoids by the hundreds, then surely you would have no objection to a video game where your character ran around raping women or girls, right?

Those of you who have posted here in defense of murder games: I would very much like to hear your defense of rape games, and to learn why you intend to let your children play them.

Music: King Crimson :: Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part Two
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Sentences Commuted

Amazed at this turn of events in Illinois, where Republican Governor George Ryan has decided to commute the sentences of all death-row inmates in his state. His speech on the subject, delivered to Northwestern University, is long but articulate and impassioned. No matter one’s stance on the matter, it would be impossible to read his words without having their convictions challenged. Glimpses of civilization. Thanks Benjamin.

Music: Shuggie Otis :: Rainy Day