Something that may interest the .0000001% of my readership that cares about such things:
The Fink project warns users not to upgrade to XCode 1.5, because the gcc upgrade contained therein “is known to produce incorrect output from c++ code under certain circumstances.”
Torque That Torx!
Following up on this entry, the hard drive upgrade was a success! I’m now looking at Finder windows that tell me I have 52 gigabytes available, instead of 400 megabytes. The new drive is quieter and doesn’t seem as hot, though I can’t really say for sure. Eventually I’ll see the speed increase of a 5400 rpm drive over 4200; for now it’s just a happymaking thing.
I’m going to post a more detailed version of how this all went down, but here’s an amusing anecdote for the non-tech-heads out there:
The service manual says that I need a T8 to get into my iBook, for seven different screws (of the 34 I’ll remove and eventually replace). Having taken Macs and other laptops apart before, I know the importance of the Torx.
I think to myself: Why should I go to my storage unit and hunt for what is almost literally a needle in a haystack? It’s a tiny screwdriver the size of my thumb. Screw that, as they say; these little screwdrivers cost $3 at most. So I went to Sears, whose warraneed Craftsman tools I like. Because of the strange nature of my sleep schedule at the moment, I got there at 9:12 AM.
I know I have to go to a certain aisle (the one where I got a T8 the last time), but from ahead I hear a ‘thhh-CRASH!’ Then again… ‘thhh-CRASH!’ There’s a Sears employee taking single-package socket wrench sockets and tossing them up to the top of the display, into a metal bin. ‘thh-CRASH!’ I stand there a while. He’s obviously just woken up. His coffee hasn’t kicked in. He hates being here right now. So he’s tossing sockets around.
I say, jokingly, “It’s nice to see you treating them gingerly..” I make eye contact with him and smile. He looks back at me like a guilty murderer. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
I tell him I need a T8. I have to repeat it a few times, in different ways, before he understands what I’m saying. They’re all out of T8s, though. Not a single one in the store. There’s a $20 combo pack of Torx screwdrivers, but someone has swiped the T8 and T10 from it. Finally, though, he finds a Torx driver marked T8. We rejoice. Well, I rejoice; he just saunters off.
I pay. Go home. Of course it’s not a T8. More like a T4. It’s mislabeled. I eventually find an allen wrench I can use to open the computer. I also tear up a 00 flathead screwdriver on the hard drive rail assembly, which needs a T6, despite what the service manual says.
OK, maybe it’s not that amusing an anecdote.
A Bird From The Bush Is Worth What, Exactly?
This picture, by the way, is from video taken while Bush was governor, getting ready for an appearance on a TV show.
And here’s a web site full of ‘switch’ ads. It’s sponsored by MoveOn PAC, and created by the guy who did Apple’s switch ads. Only this time, instead of ex-Windows users, it’s Republicans who are pissed at George W. Bush.
I especially like Deb Wood, Richard Dove, and Willie Rios.
A ‘blog about how to survive being homeless. Everything from psychology to hygiene.
I’m about to embark into the darkest realms of computer geekdom… A journey from which I might not return. A boat trip up the Mekong delta to find and destroy the Colonel Kurtz known as…. iBook Hard Drive Replacement! The 10 gigs it came with are not enough.
I’ve cracked open my iBook before, to see if I could fix the Airport antenna cable. It turns out that since I researched that, a lot of people with my vintage of iBook have reported problems with Airport reception and fritzed-out video. Apple designed the iBook display hinge poorly, so that video and antenna cables passing through it end up being strained over time. I haven’t had the video problems, but I now know where to get a spare cable if it goes out.
But all that aside, the reason I’m posting this is to link to some iBook stuff that might come in handy to someone out there, and very likely to myself as well, later on, when I’m scrambling to find that web site I found on my iBook, but which I can’t get to because my iBook is in a million pieces on the kitchen table.
A disassembly guide: http://yourmaui.com/ibook.html
Downloadable Apple Service Manuals: http://home.earthlink.net/~strahm_s/manuals.html
This post will likely be updated as time goes by. 
Specialized Torx screwdrivers: In storage unit. Fug!
The Rude Pundit has the best why-you-should-vote-for-Kerry plea, and it would do it a disservice to quote any of it without quoting the whole thing. So just go read it.
Note: He’s called ‘The Rude Pundit’ for a reason. I don’t think I have any f-word avoiders in my readership, but your virginal eyes will read dirty, dirty words if you go there.
Y’know what I want for my birthday? I want TV-B-Gone. Never again stuck in an airport waiting area, forced to listen to CNN tell me that the world is about to end!
That reminds me of the time I went to the Mexican corner of the food court at a local mall. It was 2pm, the mall was empty, there was no one around. I was the only customer. I had ordered a beer, so I had to sit in the special yes-I’m-an-adult area, but it turns out that the adult area has a big screen TV blasting ESPN. Had I realized this beforehand, I wouldn’t have ordered the beer. Its relaxative qualities were more than offset by the TV shouting at me. I would have post-traumatic stress disorder on the way home.
So I got up, walked over to the TV, and turned it down. It wasn’t playing a game or anything, just mindless chatter, some scores, and lots of ads. I sat back down at my table and breathed a sigh of relief. All would be fine now. That’s when the Mexi-corner manager came out and turned it back up, to be just as loud as before. He just walked out the little door and turned the corner, giving no indication that he even knew I was there, and turned the thing back up. A Budweiser commercial echoed through the empty food court. He quickly went back in, again having not seen me.
I could have said, “Hey, uh… I’m trying to eat over here…” but it’s in my nature to, as my newagey friends say, embody the coyote archetype. So I turned the TV completely off and waited.
Dude came back out again, looked around, didn’t see me again, and turned it back on. I did this four or five times. It was much more entertaining than simply sitting there and eating my burrito, TV sound or no. He never let on that he saw me, and he never wavered in his slavish devotion, not only to the big screen TV, but to the big ugly sound that came out of it.
I invented this little story where his location of this chain restaurant had sold the most burritos and so won a prize: A big screen TV with which to attract beer-swilling ESPN-watchers (at 2pm on a weekday). Or another one where there were a bunch of Mexicans in their restaurant uniforms on the other side of that wall, smoking grass and listening for scores from the TV, each of them holding a glass to their side of the wall, a half-dozen of them with their ears to a glass in a smoke-filled room, trying to contain their giggles.
Whatever was really going on, I eventually finished my beer and moved to another table across the mall.
From boingboing:
It’s a movie of a cat being tossed around in zero-G, presumably to find out if it can land on its feet. It should be wrong, yes, yes, it should. Note extremely poofed-out tail.
Update: According to boingboing, the Air Force removed the movie from the web site, but some other folks have mirrored it. Because, like, that’s how things happen on the internet. If you can’t figure out how to get to the boingboing post from here, then you don’t deserve to see the cat being tossed around in zero-G, so I won’t tell you.
I’m sitting here trying to write anything. I want to write more
writerly stuff, instead of just linking. But I’ve been learning a bunch
about the stock photo biz, and for me, learning about something means
being obsessed about it. So there’s not so much room for writerly things inside my head.
Except that last night (‘night’ being a relative term) I had a really
funny dream. Funny in some ways, creepy in others, like a good Twilight
Zone episode from back when Rod Serling was writing them.
I was in a grocery store, with some friends, and we were looking for
something specific; I can’t recall what it was. We got to the produce
aisle and the produce was all unripe or rotten, or overpriced. There
was just something wrong with everything there. We started pointing
this out to each other, and noticed that there were plenty of customers
buying this crap.
The manager came over. He said, “Excuse me folks, but could you please
step this way?” He motioned to the back of the store. I turned to look,
and when I turned back, he was gone, along with my friends. I went to
the back of the store, and there was a nurse, holding a huge syringe,
who I just barely saw as she rounded a corner.
I looked at all the other shoppers… They had band-aids on their
necks! They were shopping happily, eager to consume the produce before
them. They were having discussions with each other about the relative
merit of Brand A over Brand B, of Granny Smith versus Jonagold, of
canteloupe over honeydew.
I ran to the front of the store, the checkout area. The manager was
chasing me down. He cornered me behind the customer service counter,
holding something in the one hand behind his back. I saw my friends at
the checkout lane, swiping their card through the credit machine,
chatting happily with the cashier.
I was cornered! I had no allies! What would I do? The manager
approached steadily, a genuinely congenial smile on his face. “Don’t
worry. This’ll be over in an instant, and then things will be much
better.”
In a panic, I looked around. The PA system! I grabbed the microphone,
pushed the button, and shrieked “Don’t buy this food! You’ve all been
drugged! It’s food for God’s sake! You can grow it in your yard!”
The manager leaned forward. “They can’t hear you…”
Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, that’s a dream Homer would have.’
