Firewire Disk Mode

Last night I helped a friend recover his Mac after a system crash. (**)It happens – in this case probably due to a USB problem and OS 9.2 getting corrupted. DON’T UNPLUG USB DEVICES WHILE THEY’RE RUNNING.

But that isn’t what I wanted to tell you about. To recover, I used “Firewire disk mode” which is useful for this as well as just plain data transfers.

0. Get 2 relatively recent Macs, with Firewire connections. If you don’t have one, both the new iBook and the new iMac are amazing and (relatively) inexpensive.
1. Get a firewire cable. This needs to be a cable with two “big” ends (camera cables have one “big” and one “small” end so that won’t work). These are expensive, like $30, but worth it. If you have an iPod (…you lucky sod) this is the same cable.
2. Shut down the “target” machine. Doesn’t really matter which, but in general it’s the machine you want to copy “from”. Connect the Firewire cable between the two machines.
3. Start the target machine while holding down its ‘T’ key. You should see a big ‘Y’ shaped symbol come up. On the other machine, the target’s hard drive should appear (on the desktop).
4. Copy away. Copies over firewire are a LOT faster (between 4x and 40x) than over ethernet.
99. When done, “throw away” the firewire drive on the main machine (drag it to the trash and don’t give me any guff about that, I didn’t invent it). Then shut down the “target” by its power button.

By the way, USB 2.0 sucks. Just take my word for it. And it isn’t any faster, it just claims to be. Poor solution looking for a problem.

Separation of Church and State

It’s about time, although not necessarily for the reason I would have used.

For the first time ever, a federal appeals court Wednesday declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the words “under God” added by Congress in 1954.

Although I agree with the court’s ruling, my complaint here has always been with the LOCATION of the added phrase. When spoken, “…one nation, under God, indivisible..” becomes “..one nation under God indivisible…”; indivisible sounds like it’s modifying God (God is indivisible?) and takes away from the original meaning, one nation indivisible (which you may recall was the subject of the Civil War).

(P.S. Speaking of which, the annoying neighbors have a U.S. flag in front of their house – with a Harley-Davidson on it.)

Got Obtainium?

When I registered obtainium.org I decided to grab obtainium.net while I was at it. So the other day I got email from a Burning Man person who wanted to set up a place to trade stuff, and wanted to know, since obtainium.net wasn’t being used… See if you can figure out the self-reference here.

So check it out; they’re still working on graphics and setup and all. One of the first “real” messages to post was this morning: Looking for Rebar in All the Wrong Places.

Family Medical Leave Rant

Listening to KPBS on the way in to work this morning they were talking about a new “Paid Family and Medical Leave Act” that’s “working its way through” the California legislature at the moment. For only $40/year, shared between employees and employers, we may get some portion of our pay back if we take leave to assist a sick family member. (http://www.equalrights.org/legislat/sb1661.htm)

Just what we need, another tax. Call me a raving Libertarian (I generally consider myself a liberal Libertarian, or perhaps an anarchocapitalist) but I think that the government already takes way too much of my income away for questionable schemes. Why aren’t the politicians working on ways to reduce our tax load (easy answer, because money==power, and the more taxes, the larger the government, the more powerful the politicians).

I know taxes can’t be eliminated, and I have some pet projects of my own – I think the government should pay for NPR, sidewalks, efficient public transportation, and basic health care for the poor (because that costs us less than having them use the emergency facilities). And condoms for whoever wants them but can’t afford them (which costs a LOT less than the alternative).

People seem to think that businesses are there just to provide them with benefits and somewhere to sit around surfing the internet all day – when in reality, every employee has to EARN about 150% of their salary, just for a business to keep the doors open. I took a single day last month for jury duty (to sit there and not be selected) – I got a check from CA for $1.50, and it probably cost my employer $150 to have me gone (assuming there weren’t any major crises that day).

But there’s way way too much money being taken out of our pockets to pay for things like sports stadiums (tax everyone to support the super-wealthy?), wildly overpriced electrical power contracts, and bombing the poor in countries on the other side of the world – any yet when we’re forced to overpay income taxes, people think they’re being given a gift when they get a little bit of it refunded the next year.

I Predicted It First!

Los Angeles Times, Liz Smith, 6/24/2002:

Casting About for a Dirk Pitt
NEW YORK – Author Clive Cussler has been in Hollywood looking for the perfect actor to play Dirk Pitt in the coming film adaptation of his bestselling novel “Sahara”. […] No word yet on which star will get to wear the orange-faced Doxa wristwatch featured in Cussler’s story. But to play Dirk Pitt, let us make a suggestion: Brad Pitt?

Parking

There’s plenty of street parking in my neighborhood – but everyone has too many cars. My neighbors to the left (husband and wife) have a Mustang, a pickup, a “hot rod” and a camper van; the new neighbors on the right (two guys) have a Neon, a pickup, an old Jaguar, and two motorcycles. And of course I’ve got the Pinz and the Rover.

Street parking is, of course, public parking – you can park anywhere you’d like if you get there first – but common courtesy dictates that you should park near your house causing as few problems for neighbors as possible.

The “lefts” have a single space in front of their house and have always parked their van there; they park the Mustang in the space in front of my house (and the other two fill their garage). I have the space taken by the Mustang and another 24′ space that’s about halfway in front of my house, and halfway in front of the “rights” (Pinz in the driveway touching the garage door; neither will fit into the garage thanks to a short door). They also have 35′ (two spaces) on the other side of their driveway in front of their house.

A few months after they moved in, they appropriated the space that’s partway in front of my house with their giant (16′) pickup. So I’ve been parking in front of my driveway (driveway is only 10′ long; Rover is 14′), or in the Mustang’s space (when I could get it), or wherever else I can find a space. Have discussed this situation with both neighbors, to no resolution. Have also researched and found that parking in front of a driveway (even your own) is ticketable (I once got a ticket for the Pinz blocking the sidewalk when I had left it out far enough to open the garage door).

I seem to always get home last, so have to park wherever there’s space left. The other night I came home late, and the partial space was taken (they like to park the pickup so it’s right up to their property line, leaving me about 8′ on my side). So I parked the Rover in front of their house.

All this by way of setting up for the note I found on my car the next morning (grammar errors and ridiculous nicknames SIC):

 

Good Morning Fred
I was surprised to come home from a business meeting late last night to find your rover parked on our property. Obviously you may have mistaken. Whatever. Popeye and I have bent over backwards, so to say, to accommodate your wishes, as well to be good neighbors. Actions such as this does not and will not resolve any issue.

A fact here. Popeye’s truck is parked within “our property” boundaries of which we rightfully lease. He has never parked on your property. We have a right to park our vehickes where they are and will defend that right if need be, rest assured. We are not at fault that your neighbor parks on your property to accommodate storage of his RV, that is between you and him, NOT US.

I ask you again, to be a good neighbor and follow your own rules. Call if you have questions.

Thank you.

Too Cool

Trailmate

One of the things about Burning Man is that you can rationalize buying, building, scavenging, or “turning into art” nearly anything.

For years I’ve had a picture in my mind a four-wheeled pedal car. And of course I’ve never seen one that matched the picture – either they’re kiddy cars, or modified wheelchairs, or super-high-end-ultra (Which are very cool. And $5000 and up.). A pedal car (my thoughts went) would be great for Burning Man, because it should work better in the silty parts of the playa than a bicycle, but more imporantly, there isn’t the tenative am-I-stopping-here-or-not you get when you’re standing straddling your bike. Besides which it’d be cool to turn into art.

So I was going to build myself one. Somehow. I have no experience welding, but I can turn a wrench and I’m not bad when it comes to plywood and 2x4s. Fortunately, I never got to that.

Because one day while “surfing” I stumbled across the Trailmate Xcelerator. Which, as far as I could tell from what I could read about it, exactly perfect. I called the company and verified that it would work for a 6′ tall, 250 lb desert freak; then ordered one through my local bike shop.

That was about two months ago. Trailmate isn’t exactly speedy, and I ordered a custom paint color (green), and they have to ship it out ground, in a huge box. It arrived yesterday!

I took off work early (if you know me, you’ll be amazed at this), and drove the Pinz out to pick it up. It fits me perfectly, and its one gear (the three-speed would have been too difficult to install, they tell me) was great for flat, a bit much for a steep uphill, but otherwise perfect. I circled around in the parking lot, spun out a few times (the hand-steering is very cool, but a bit to get used to), and took it home.

So I was showing off for my neighbors (not the parking problem neighbors, the other ones) who were sitting out having their afternoon beers – let them try it out. Then I got in and raced down the street and back a few times, and was coming back; spun out and rolled it! Damage to vehicle – a few plastic spokes broken (which may be fixable with the wondrous five-minute epoxy aka liquid duck tape). Damage to me – a little road rash on the hands (builds character!). So much for the stress testing!

I’m planning to take PVC, zip ties, and garbage bags, and make wings and a tail so it looks like a stingray, then if I can find it, EL wire so it’ll light up at night. More pictures to follow, of course!