iPod surgery

I just replaced the battery in my 3G iPod. The patient has a scar, as I started cracking open the case with a metal screwdriver as the supplied iPod prysticks were just bending under pressure. When you start opening the case you have no idea how much force it will take to get the back off, so I misjudged and the screwdriver skidded off and gouged the metal case. But it's a battle-scarred iPod anyway. Only the first scratch matters :). Ask my MacBook Pro.

So a burkha is a whiskas bag?

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,20647626-948,00.html

Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly makes the argument that men, in his own community, and probably outside it, are no smarter than tomcats. Like stray cats, it's probably much too difficult to train them otherwise after years of reinforcement by their communities and men like the Sheik himself.
If you are a meat product (veal, chicken, steak, woman - though pork is probably safe) and traditional Muslim dress is not available, foil or cling wrap would work pretty well in a pinch to prevent sexual assault (and would hold in freshness).
Also, we quite often euthanaize stray cats, and few would be terribly sorry to see it happen to rapists as well, Muslim or otherwise.

C0rruPti0n

I really have no explanation for this. My MacBook Pro froze up on me, posted below is what I found in system.log after a reboot. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I've pretended those kernel panics didn't happen. And as for that occasional video corruption - who isn't a bit confused when they first wake up? The whining I could ignore.

And the TmOP errors I got with the hardware test after that time Deus Ex crashed on me... well, it might have been overworked.

Ok, I really didn't want to bring it in to get fixed. What if it comes back scratched, whinier, or boomerang shaped? But I can't put it off any longer.

Oct 18 11:54:14 Caffeine /Applications/smcfancontrol_1_1/smcFanControl.app/Contents/MacOS/FanControl: removeDisplayMapping: _CGSUnmapFramebuffer returns -536870206 Oct 18 11:54:14 Caffeine /Applications/Adium.app/Contents/MacOS/Adium: removeDisplayMapping: _CGSUnmapFramebuffer returns -536870206 Oct 18 11:54:14 Caffeine /System/Library/CoreServices/rcd.app/Contents/MacOS/rcd: removeDisplayMapping: _CGSUnmapFramebuffer returns -536870206 Oct 18 11:54:14 Caffeine FrontRow[1471]: removeDisplayMapping: _CGSUnmapFramebuffer returns -536870206 Oct 18 11:54:20 Caffeine loginwindow[93]: removeDisplayMapping: _CGSUnmapFramebuffer returns -536870206 Oct 18 11:54:20 Caffeine loginwindow[93]: removeDisplayMapping: _CGSUnmapFramebuffer returns -536870206 Oct 18 12:20:17 Caffeine /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine: CGContextSetFillColorWithColor: invalid context Oct 18 12:20:17 Caffeine /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine: CGContextSetStrokeColorWithColor: invalid context Oct 18 12:20:18 Caffeine /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine: CGContextSetFillColorWithColor: invalid context Oct 18 12:20:18 Caffeine /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine: CGContextSetStrokeColorWithColor: invalid context ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@

(It does this for a while. I had to cut it out because it breaks the formatting on my blog. Below is the log as the machine then reboots......)

Oct 18 14:01:38 localhost kernel[0]: hi mem tramps at 0xffe00000 Oct 18 14:01:38 localhost kernel[0]: PAE enabled Oct 18 14:01:38 localhost kernel[0]: standard timeslicing quantum is 10000 us Oct 18 14:01:38 localhost kernel[0]: vm_page_bootstrap: 254336 free pages Oct 18 14:01:38 localhost kernel[0]: mig_table_max_displ = 71 Oct 18 14:01:38 localhost kernel[0]: Enabling XMM register save/restore and SSE/SSE2 opcodes Oct 18 14:01:38 localhost kernel[0]: 106 prelinked modules 54%

Writing With a Scalpel #2

I'm trying to cut out sluggish exposition. This means I write the version where everybody explains things first, then I hack the action and dialogue down to the what audience should be able to understand by inference.
Also, House gets away with a one-scene introduction because people have no problem believing in hospitals, doctors, or jerks.
I went back and watched pilots for genre shows, and the first episode is always thick with awkward exposition. In fact mid-arc episodes can also be thick with exposition.
(It seems the most important rule of diplomacy on Babylon 5 is not to start mentally re-organizing your wardrobe when anybody starts a sentence like - 'On *my* homeworld.....'
This goes double for Sheridan. )

Writing With A Scalpel

I'm doing some serious writing at the moment... and the gears are very, very rusty. I've also discovered that some ideas don't come out without a lot of writing to dislodge them.
Basically, I need my stuff there on paper so I can understand exactly how crap it is, and how it would be better if character y didn't do z.
And then the ideas come.
I can remember being able to dump whole stories out of my brain and onto paper but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
So these days its braindump to notebook (paper, the visceral thing seems to help. Also, unlike my laptop, if it got stolen I'd feel sorry for the recipient). Then scalpel it until the redundancy is excised.

I'm re-watching the House pilot because there are things I can learn from it. If you watch the first scene featuring House himself (along with Wilson), you learn pretty much everything you need to know about the character. You can make a list, and then check it off as you go through that first scene.
Then, just in case you missed that he was *smart*, the Scoobies re-iterate that he is smart in *their* first scene.
That sort of economy looks like genius when you've re-written your opening scenes several times over and the dialogue is *still* stilted.