December 2008

There were 82 posts published in December 2008 (this is page 6 of 9).

A penguin roosts in the Mac Mini

For over a year I’ve had my Mac Mini’s tiny 40 GB drive partitioned to dual-boot Linux one day. Yesterday was that day. While this may be nothing to those Intel Mac Mini users, to get my PowerPC running the latest Ubuntu was a bit of a challenge. There is no official Ubuntu release for the PowerPC: instead its a port. Also, each time I tried installing Ubuntu on this machine using our HDTV as a monitor, the HDTV would refuse to display anything from the Mini. Apparently, the video modes the Mini pushes while in Linux’s framebuffer mode were out of the range of my Toshiba flat-screen. So, a few days ago I tracked down the port of Ubuntu 8.10 for the PowerPC and borrowed my desktop’s monitor to see what was going on.

I also ran into a bug where the Mini’s ATAPI cdrom drive – the most common CDROM drive in the PC world – was not recognized. The solution is to switch to another virtual console (CTRL-F2, for instance) during the install and run modprobe ide-scsi.
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Mystery woodpecker

Last Saturday afternoon I spotted a woodpecker in our yard that I couldn’t identify. Both my Audubon Society field guide and the Cornell University Ornithology site had nothing that looked like it.

Any of you birders know what it is?


Update 11 PM: Most of the folks on the CarolinaBirding mailing list think its a yellow-bellied sapsucker, though not everyone agrees. According to the Cornell site, these birds are supposed to have a distinctive white stripe running down their side. Also, this one’s crown is black rather than red. Other than that it looks to be a female YB sapsucker, perhaps an immature one.

Jeff Pippen said this:

Wow Mark, that is one funky woodpecker. Perhaps a Hairy X Y-b Sapsucker hybrid?

Dave Magpiong of Bellmawr, NJ had this to say:

At first look, the overall impression (shape, posture, majority of plumage, etc.) comes across as female YB sapsucker. However, there are variations that I’m not familiar with – i.e. black on crown, missing that trademark white patch on the wing coverts.

My gut call goes for YB sapsucker but very curious to hear what others think!

Here’s a photo of a similar YB sapsucker also missing the white stripe (but including the red crown). Maybe mine is a mutant after all.

Thanks to everyone for weighing in!

Health care is broken

We got our quote back for our own Blue Cross health insurance plan, independent of $FORMER_EMPLOYER. The bill was sky-high! Apparently because I’m now into my second bottle of cholesterol medicine the premium for me alone has tripled. Just like that.

They’re crooks, I tell you. Health care in this country is majorly, seriously broken.

Self-changing socks

I’ve been dreaming up interesting product ideas in my Now Truly Copious Free Time(TM), some of these ideas I may actually try to patent. One that might not make it to the patent office but is interesting nonetheless is my idea of self-changing socks. Since almost no one reads MT.Net, I can share my idea with you.

Here’s how it works. Simply take a pair of cotton dress socks, let’s say they’re blue, and put them on in a room illuminated by fluorescent lighting. Then walk out into daylight, or to a room with incandescent lighting. Voila! Your blue socks have changed to brown. Or your brown socks have changed to blue. Socks that change themselves!
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Hit the street, dog!

Just because I can’t scold my dog for leading me on a neighborhood chase Tuesday doesn’t mean I couldn’t exact some revenge! So, yesterday afternoon I hopped on my mountain bike, leashed Rocket up, took my life in my own hands, and took off through the neighborhood as fast as he could run.

My original plan was to take him on the Middle Crabtree Creek greenway, where I could ride and he could run for 11 miles without turning around. Instead I turned him around before we got within a quarter-mile of the greenway. He was winded and not used to this kind of exercise. On the trot back home he was putty in my hands: something I haven’t seen much of since we got him.
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Jailbreak

Tuesday afternoon Travis had gone outside to sweep the driveway, with me about a minute behind him. The dog had been with me, and as I rounded the kitchen corner I saw the outside door had been left wide open. Rocket was galloping gleefully down the street.

After calling him a few times with no effect at all, Travis and I hopped into the car and followed him. I parked Travis and ran through neighbors’ backyards while our grinning dog happily raced ahead. Very Bad Words were forming in my head as I stormed back to the car. If he wound up at the troubled apartment complex a few blocks away I would have to abandon the search.
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A shower of feathers

I walked onto our deck this morning just in time to see nature at work. Some sort of commotion was taking place in the trees in front of me. Before I could blink I saw one bird flying terrified out of the woods with a much bigger bird in pursuit. As I stood dumbfounded, the bird of prey sank its talons into the smaller bird, sending a shower of feathers raining to the ground. In an instant it was all over.

Yeah, I thought as the reality sunk in. Its true that bird just became breakfast, but what a spectacular way to go out.

The balance of nature. The circle of life.

Moments later I saw the victor return: a Great Horned Owl that settled onto a branch in my neighbor’s yard. He looked around casually as a juvenile hawk nearby complained loudly about the invasion of his territory. I’d heard the owl one night this past summer but this was my first look. There’s no recession for this bird: he obviously is eating well.

No wonder I’ve not seen as many birds at our feeder as I used to.

The Byrne Identity

I thought there would be at least one David Byrne sighting when he played in Raleigh yesterday and I was right. N&O music guru David Menconi gave Byrne directions to the Raleigh Times yesterday, where Byrne ordered a salad. No word on whether Byrne brought his bike with him.

While I would’ve been thrilled to meet him, I certainly couldn’t afford the $47 ticket price, especially after my concerns in mid-October about the economy came personally, painfully true. Still it would’ve been interesting to meet a talented, unassuming, veteran rock star like Byrne up close.

Probation series

MT.Net readers know I like to take swipes at the News and Observer, but I have to applaud the paper for spotlighting the state’s broken probationary system. Far too many convicted criminals go back to their criminal ways upon leaving prison. While probation officers can’t turn those ex-prisoners into saints, they can at least keep tabs on them – information that might prevent the next crime.

I hope the attention the probation system is getting spurs our legislators to fix it. Thanks, N&O, for spreading the word!