Author: paddlefish

Mac Classic Troubleshooting – Lesson 2 – Zapping the PRAM
To zap the PRAM:
Press and hold COMMAND OPTION P R during startup
Continue holding down all four keys until you hear your Mac reboot four times
Release COMMAND OPTION P R

Mac Classic Troubleshooting – Lesson 2 – Zapping the PRAM
To zap the PRAM:
Press and hold COMMAND OPTION P R during startup
Continue holding down all four keys until you hear your Mac reboot four times
Release COMMAND OPTION P R

From Justin Blanton | OS X Tip: Verbose Boot
sudo nvram boot-args=”-v”
this will scare your spouse if you do it to their machine. perfectly harmless, although it looks like the world is ending whenever they boot or shutdown.
Why did I find this just now? My computer at work has developed a bad USB bus, I fear. So I’m doing a lot of rebooting and not so much working.

You wanted ’em:
Maine Slideshow

Here is some example source code for how to use libcurl to upload a file via FTP: curl: curl/docs/examples/ftpupload.c Mac OS X comes with libcurl, so this is a way an application written in C, or Objective C can upload files via FTP.
Ironically, Apple’s own CFFTP functions, which are part of the CoreFoundation are crippled: They can’t create a directory on the server. Pretty useless if you’re trying to put up a web site, for example. This reminds me of Apple’s support for mounting an FTP filesystem in the Finder. Not only is FTP via finder *slow*, but it is read-only. WTF? Usually Apple does a good job of providing fully functional solutions…. but when it comes to FTP they’ve fallen on their face twice.

If enough people see Serenity then maybe Joss will make another movie….
Serenity was an awesome movie. W00T!
How many times have you seen Serenity?

Had a plugged drain, so Roto-Rooter came to fix it. I found a coupon link on Google, and saved 10$. But now Roto-rooter has my email address — they’ll probably spam me with ads for their drain cleaner solution montly.
The sad thing is: The image for the online coupon is not secured. After you fill in the form to gain access to the image, if you were to tell your friends about the image URL, they could save $10 from Roto-rooter without ever having to send them an email address.
See?

It just goes to show how subtle the concept of “security” is on the internet. They’re relying on security through obscurity. But now that the truth is out, they might have to employ more rigorous security to protect their coupon.

I support a variety of Intelligent Design known as FSM. Please call your School Board today.

We’re back from our trip to Maine, so here are a few pictures.

It had been a while since I’d clicked over to “The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”. I was dismayed to see that this journal, which is published by the national academy, has gone to a subscription only model. For a long time it was unique in that it didn’t demand high fees for spreading the word or science. I could understand how commercial publishers would justify charging for subscriptions — they had expenses to meet. But the National Academy? Their sole purpose is to spread science around, so why are they closing it up?
The tragedy is that science is supposed to be an open community that welcomes scrutiny. By refusing to open their works to the whole world, it becomes an inbred group of backscratchers fawning over each others uninspired work. Well, okay it *might* become that.
Consider the use of Jargon in science writing. Since Jargon is only understood by a select group, it is an indication of that the writing is intended for a closed audience. Oh sure, my PI used to argue that every word was at a premium, and it was sufficient to simply use phrases or words from previous publications to convey the argument presented in that publication.
(of course, you couldn’t really understand a paper without reading all of its references. Oh and by the way, those publications are published in other journals, each of which has a separate subscription fee.)
I was attempting to read this article on two-dimensional vibrational spectroscopy. It sounded pretty cool. Instead, this is what PNAS gave me:
PNAS — Subscription Status