Trimming the Tree

Posted on December 21 2003 by Mickey
    I’ve been surprisingly industrious for a Sunday. Not only did I wrap most of the presents but I edited another video entry.
    The footage was actually shot the morning of the 19th, when a county crew came to cut down all the diseased ash trees on my street. The crew only works on Fridays and they managed to take down and clear away a half dozen trees in only a couple hours. One doesn’t usually see trees being felled when one wakes, so I figured it was worth taping. The resultant QuickTime file is two minutes long and 4.6 MBs in size.
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QuickPar

Posted on December 20 2003 by Mickey
    Now that, following last week’s hardware tragedy, I’m limited to only the Windows 2000 part of my dual-boot system, I can’t believe how far to seed I let the old place go. Somehow I managed to load and run that OS without bothering to include any of my usual programs. And I’ve spent the week trying to track down Exact Audio Copy, the WinRAR trial version, and freeware for FTP, MP3 encoding, and SHN decoding. (I paid for these programs for Windows XP, but they and my registration information are lost — and I don’t feel like paying for them again!)
    Another program I find I need is QuickPar. It appears to be only available from one site, http://www.pbclements.co.uk/QuickPar, but for some reason that page is frustratingly out of service. I managed however to track down the program through Usenet, and since it’s such a helpful little download aid I might as well mirror it here. [Link since removed.]
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A Large Reverberating Smacking Sound

Posted on December 19 2003 by Mickey
    Huzzah, at last. A three-judge Appeals Court panel today gave the whiny crybabies at the RIAA “a long awaited kick to the groin in its pursuit of file swappers, saying the music label lobby group can no longer force Internet providers to turn over their customers’ names.
    This decision overturns a district court ruling earlier this year which required Verizon to provide customer information when subpoenaed. According to Verizon’s counsel, “Today’s ruling is an important victory for Internet users and all consumers. The court has knocked down a dangerous procedure that threatens Americans’ traditional legal guarantees and violates their constitutional rights.”
    As the appeal concluded the RIAA shrank back into the shadows, and reportedly raised a tentative yet defiant fist. “Your small words may have won the day,” it said, its voice rising. 𔄬But don’t think you have seen the last of me!” Its shriek was punctuated by a blast of lightning from without the chamber. Then with a wild sweep of black robe and a final jeering laugh, the RIAA scampered furtively past the archway, and slinked into the storm-ravaged night.
    Read the ruling here, in PDF format. (Link via the Milwaukee Channel.)
Posted in Links, Music, News | 1 Comment

The End of All Things

Posted on December 17 2003 by Mickey
    I’m glad cooler heads prevailed. My friends…okay, make that friend…all right, imaginary friend and I were joking that the release of Return of the King was such a culmination of our hopes and expectations — after close to a thirty year wait — that there was nothing left to look forward to now. We might as well commit ritual harakiri as the credits rolled. Lucky for me, I was reminded that there was still the Extended Edition release coming up. Plus rumors of a movie version of The Hobbit. So maybe I’ll do myself in around 2006 or 2007.
    I just came back from the 4:00 PM showing at the Star Taylor. I feel quite drained. I don’t know whether to grin at how wonderful these last three years have been or to weep that the adventure is over and our heroes have sailed Into the West. The filmmakers completely botched Denethor and I would have easily taken seeing Saruman’s denouement over a return to Osgiliath, but in all other regards the film is jaw-droppingly good. I raise a bottled water to Peter Jackson and the amazing team of artists, craftsmen, and technical wizards he assembled. I look forward to seeing them receive many many Academy Awards in a few months. It’s been an amazing adventure.
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A Message from Joe (2003/12/17)

Posted on December 17 2003 by Mickey
    My nephew Joe is taking an international studies course in Ecuador. Here’s his latest message.
From: Joe
Sent: Wednesday, December 17 2003   06:48:22
Subject: Montanita

nHello again friends,

Classes are winding down here. I have one more final and then I’m free from this terrible university. I guess I shouldn’t complain, we did take some amazing trips with my classes and got to see Ecuador in a way that would be impossible for just any tourist.

Speaking of seeing Ecuador, last weekend I had the amazing luck of being able to go to Montanita, a little beach town just above Guayaquil, peopled entirely by hippies. Basically, Montanita is a surfer town, but actually not terribly popular with tourists, either because it isn’t well known, or possibly because the waves are so freakin’ huge that they verge on dangerous. Anyway, my group of about 7 friends and myself headed down, taking a bus 8 hours through the night. After being stuck in Quito for so long, it was amazing to see bright blue waters and smell the salt water washing up on shore. After finding our hotel we ran straight to the beach and swam the day away.

While the swimming and the beach were awesome, there was an even cooler part. After walking north about 10 minutes you come to this rocky point that looks like it was created by a lava flow. Walking around this point for about 15 minutes on painfully sharp rocks (my sandals had broken earlier in the day) you arrive at a little rock that juts out a bit further than the rest. If you walk up onto this rock, the waves rush at the “mini-cliff” in front of you and break in huge walls of water that come crashing down on top of you. I have never felt the pure power of the ocean so much in all my life. When I brought people back to the spot I had found, Corinne got so excited that she ran up without me being able to warn her about the waves. Well, sure enough a large one came as she was walking out there and knocked her flat. Honestly, it looked like she was flying. I ran over and looked down at her, and she was lying there just smiling. That’s how amazing this place was.

Anyway, I could go on and on about Montanita. Let’s just say it was my favorite single spot in all of Ecuador.

I hope everything is well with all of you, and that you are all having equally amazing experiences.

Love always,

Joe
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Return of the King Eve

Posted on December 16 2003 by Mickey
    My local paper this morning gave Return of the King four out of four stars. The review also couldn’t resist taking swipes at the third movies of other trilogies, such as The Matrix and even The Godfather. I really don’t want to get in the position of defending The Matrix but it really seems unfair to compare the The Return of the King and The Matrix Revolutions as far as how successfully they cap off a trilogy.
    For example, The Lord of the Rings was a fully fleshed-out story before cameras ever began to roll on the first take of scene one. Tolkien had fourteen years to work out the intricacies of plot and character development; unlike the Wachowski Brothers, who painted themselves into a corner after film one and then had to try their best to come up with something satisfying. Or George Lucas, whose latest trilogy reworks his Star Wars universe so much there are rumors of even more substantial makeovers to make the original three movies fit.
    But soon maybe all the film critics will view the movies as intended, as one story. And they won’t carp on the “multiple endings” of the third film, since it isn’t bringing to close a 3.5-hour-long movie but a 9.5-hour-long one. (And maybe they also might get it straight that Éowyn is not King Théoden’s daughter.) A co-worker will be seeing ROTK tonight, and I’ll be seeing it tomorrow. I still have to get my Legolas costume together. I found a nice blonde wig but it’s a bit curly, and I fear I might look more like Teri Garr than Thrandúil’s heir[b]*[/b].
    By the way, I just found out something very cool: if you buy Howard Shore’s The Return of the King score from iTunes, you can burn it to specially designed CDRs!
    Here’s something else I found. Sideshow Weta is giving away one of their cool Balrog statues. Sign up to win!
    * I’m kidding. I’m dressing as Prince Imrahil, as a sign of protest over how his character was left out. (I was originally going as Treebeard, but the costume is difficult to sit down in and there was also the risk of poking fellow moviegoers in the ears.)
Posted in Links, LOTR, Movies, Music | Leave a comment

A Christmas Present

Posted on December 16 2003 by Mickey
    Now this is a nice way to take my mind off my woes. Ruben, the child I sponsor in Bolivia, sent me a Christmas present.   [9:58 AM]
    Update: This, on the other hand, or in fact any of these, should never be a Christmas present.
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Bad SATA

Posted on December 15 2003 by Mickey
    I just got back an estimate on repairing my drive. It will cost between $4,000 and $13,000. That means I’m completely screwed, and everything from August is lost forever. Not only that, since my RAID was so spacious I had moved old archived stuff over to it, and that’s gone forever now too.   [1:31 PM]
    Update: Just got another quote. This one is for $5,500.
    I found a nice resource of data recovery sites to try, so I guess I’ll be sending out e-mails all day in hopes of finding a more realistic price.   [3:49 PM]
    Update update: Some more estimates came in. A place near me, in Southfield, said it would be $2500. (I also got a call back from another place saying it would be a minimum of $900, but would need to send my drives in first for a full estimate.)
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Blog Within a Blog: My New Computer 6.0

Posted on December 14 2003 by Mickey
    It’s been while since I shared an update about my new computer. Frankly, it’s been awhile since I’ve done anything new with my new computer. I felt like setting aside this morning, though, to make some slight changes. A couple things were bothering me: one was that my audio card was exhibiting a hum. I wanted to move it farther away from my ATI video card, just to be on the safe side. The problem, I’d been told, about clear acrylic cases is that there is no EMI/RFI shielding, so I was wondering if I might be experiencing interference within the case more than from it. (Similarly, I can’t get Channel 2 to show up on my ATI’s TV feature.)
    I tried to move the sound card to a different PCI slot, but this also meant I needed to lower the Sound Blaster EX panel. I’d put it at the top of the tower, out of the way. Lowering it would provide some slack in its ribbon cable and audio wires, thus allowing the audio card to be lowered too.
    After lowering the Audigy panel, I discovered I could not move the sound card after all. The IDE cables for my fourth hard drive and my CDRW drive were in the way, so the audio card was as low as it could get. I was at least able to straighten up a bit inside, vacuuming all the dust out; so it wasn’t a total loss.
    I put the side panel back on, powered up the beast, and discovered one of my drives was not showing up. The second half of my SATA RAID was not being detected! I was striping the RAID, not mirroring it, so if the second drive didn’t show up the first drive was useless too. This meant I couldn’t get into Windows XP at all. I have no idea how this might’ve happened, since I did nothing with the hard drives. (And, yes, I did unplug the computer while I worked on it.)
    I made sure the power connector and the ATA connector were secure. I even tried using the other (first) SATA drive’s cables on it. I even plugged the SATA drives into the others SATA sockets. There was no change.
    No matter what combination I tried, the best I could get was only one drive showing up. At least I knew it wasn’t the cables. Those worked on the first drive at least. And it was the SATA socket, since that worked with the first drive. The second drive remained and remains undetected. And it looks like the problem resides in the drive itself.
    Anyone know how to turn a SATA RAID into a single drive without losing data?
    Fortunately my plain old IDE drive, my original drive, is still up and running. All the data — and at 300 GBs, I mean all the data — under Windows XP are inaccessible, but I’m able to at least get into my Windows 2000 drive.
    And I can find out from my daily blog reads that Saddam Hussein has been captured!!!
               
Left: Don’t mind the dust. I hadn’t vacuumed yet.     Right: The Hellmouth: the SATA sockets
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First in Flight

Posted on December 11 2003 by Mickey
    Once again another historical fact I was taught in school is now suspect and under attack: now they’re saying it was a Brazilian man, not the Wright Brothers, who was first to fly a plane.
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