It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the Dune series by Frank Herbert. Here’s a choice quote I came across recently while re-reading Heretics of Dune:
“Some people never observe anything. Life just happens to them. They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.”
It’s hardly groundbreaking, but the ‘Finder’ app in Mac OS X has a sweet feature for mounting remote file shares. Just switch to Finder, hit Command+K, and then specify the remote server. Your remote path might look something like:smb://remote.machine.name/share_name/
or…ftp://192.168.10.20/
If credentials are required, you’ll be prompted for these after you attempt to connect. This method will work for both Windows (SMB) and FTP shares. Happy mounting! (snicker)
I recently stumbled upon two really awesome songs that everybody should check out right now:
‘Hard Sun’ by Eddie Vedder (which also has a really good fan-created music video)
Edit: Fixed the links
Robotman neatly sums up the personal anguish I face with every new My Little Pony forum that I join:
This is just too good not to share:
Yes, these are actual quotes from work. Quotes from someone claiming to visionary computer professional. I’ll let you be the judge.
I‘ll leverage it any way I want!
I have a healthy ego.
Apache for Windows??? What?!?
That comes from my experience. That’s wisdom.
They asked their question. I answer the question. Whether it’s the question they asked, who cares.
We are constantly in secure security mode around here…
That’s all authentication is, it’s trying to extract pieces of quote you, and transfer those from the analog to the digital domain.
It’s like, hey, short of cloning, i’m me.
It’s so easy to trick the computer because of the way that information is leveraged.
Why do we go to the digital world to do something that is done better in person?
If you can trust video, you should just authenticate everyone through video.
There needs to be another computer security model, that’s all. Not based on identity.
If you buy and sell real estate, you leverage a lot of big ticket items.
You need to open your mind to how you can leverage the data.
From my experience, most people are below average.
Just in the work, the career area, most people are below average.
Most people aren’t living up to their potential.
Most people are mediocre.
…it’s the fire that tempers you, that strengthens you, and it’s how you leverage that…
What are hashtables normally used for, other than cracking passwords?
It’s no secret that Scientology has been a popular target on the internet lately. From the Tom Cruise videos, to the online declaration of war by the group simply known as ‘Anonymous’, there’s certainly plenty of material for entertainment and ridicule. But all of that pales in comparison to what you’re about to see.
These videos are from the deposition of Steven Fishman, a former Scientologist who was arrested for securities fraud, and subsequently ordered by the Church to commit suicide in order to hide their involvement. There really isn’t any description I can give that would do the videos any justice, so just check them out and see for yourself. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7
You can check out my latest YouTube favorites using this link, or the one at the top of the page. These embedded videos are made possible by the awesome TubePress plugin, which comes courtesy of ehough.com.
I managed to pull off the smoothest move of my life the other day when I dropped my iPod 4 feet onto the kitchen floor. Turned it on and it kept playing the song I was listening to. Next song? Clicking, whirring, and beeping. No, it wasn’t Aphex Twin. It was a dead hard drive. Since it was no longer under warranty, I figured it would be cheaper to just replace the drive myself. After reading this blog post, I found that it would be a pretty easy task.
First thing was to open the iPod up and pull out the old drive. This proved to be doable with a small, thin screwdriver. The trick is to slowly wedge it between the plastic front bezel and the metal backplate. With a little work, and probably a few nicks to the plastic, you can work the screwdriver all the way around and pry the plastic bezel off. After that, it’s pretty straightforward. You’ll see the 1.8″ hard drive attached to a little orange ribbon cable. Unplug the drive, and then carefully remove the padding and rubber covering the drive. You’ll need it later.
Now the trick is to find a replacement drive. Luckily, I found an awesome vendor called eWiz. They sell on eBay, and actually sell new iPod drives for way cheaper than I found anywhere else. I have a 40GB 4th generation iPod, which apparently has two options for drive replacement. You can either replace the stock 40GB Toshiba MK4004GAH, or upgrade to a 60GB Toshiba MK6006GAH. The two drives are virtually identical, the main difference being the capacity. So the decision was pretty obvious.
My brand new 60GB drive showed up two days later. From there, it was just a matter of attaching the padding and rubber bumpers from the old drive with some rubber cement, reattaching the drive to the ribbon cable, and snapping the plastic bezel and metal backplate back together. Next, plug the iPod up to your computer. iTunes should recognize it as being unformatted, and begin formatting it and updating the firmware. Once that’s done, you’ve got yourself a perfectly good iPod with new life and 20 extra gigs breathed into it. And be sure to check out the pictures I took of the whole process.
Well, it’s pretty obvious why my old iPod drive crapped out. I decided to open it up and take a look, and found that one of the read-write heads on the drive arm was dangling down at about a 30 degree angle. Moving the arm out over the platters manually causes the broken head to snag on the side of its platter, and then snap into place over the platter as the arm is pushed closer to the spindle. So, no getting around it. This drive is done for. At least I managed to get some good pictures out of it.
Found some good Mark Twain quotes recently. I’ve posted some of my favorites here. You can find more of em here.
Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest.- Education and Citizenship speech, 5/14/1908
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927
In religion and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination.
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.