A pack of pandas
Nice bug in the Mists of Pandaria beta caused a bit of a commotion on the test realm:
iMac screen freezes caused by faulty hardware
The title basically spoils the ending, but here's how my dealings with Apple went regarding the freezing iMac.
To recap the issue: ever since 10.6.3 some Macs produce video freezes where the computer remains running but cannot be interacted with. Screen can black out, white out, show stripes or just an endless beachball. The only solution is to hard reset or - occasionally - use ssh to log into the machine and issue a reboot command. The kernel.log is usually flooded with a particularly disgusting GPU dump.
There is a fairly extensive discussion about this problem on the Apple Support Communities board which started in March 2010: 24" iMac Screen Freezes since 10.6.3 update - pls help!
People in the thread determined that something in the video drivers cause the freezes and that the relevant kernel extensions can be swapped to their 10.6.2 counterparts which stops the lockups. Of course one loses two years worth of video driver updates this way. Regardless, I've been doing this for every OS X update since then.
Feeling that I exhausted all available options one day in February I was just fed up enough to exasperatedly email Tim Cook. After all some people did get a reply...
To my huge surprise I did actually receive a response from an Executive Relations representative who forwarded the issue to a Senior Apple Care Specialist. Although the warranty on the iMac has long been expired, they agreed to deal with the case based on the assumption that it is a software problem. I was quite hopeful we could finally find out the cause of this issue together.
Over the phone I was instructed to set up a separate partition with a fresh install of OS X Lion to prove that none of my installed third party software are the culprit. For weeks I was trying to reproduce the freeze on that installation with little success almost losing belief that it would occur until finally it did freeze out on me, classic rainbow cursor style. Logs and system information were gathered and sent over in hope.
Only the reply I got a week later was a major letdown: the engineers allegedly determined that the root of the issue is malfunctioning hardware. I was told that since the warranty had expired they are unable to offer a replacement video card or any other free solution. What's infuriating about this is that my iMac is an early 2008 model; 10.6.3 came out on 29 March 2010, meaning I was most likely out of the 1 year warranty when I even had the chance to find out about the problem. Along with several others I was sold a computer with allegedly faulty hardware, with said fault well hidden during the time covered by warranty. That, or everyone's video cards just fried the day 10.6.3 came out...
I seem to recall that replacement programs have been started for much less. Also we are talking about a company with enough cash to buy my home country's national debt. And I still get to use a computer with a broken video card.
Vivicittá '12
Photo at the finish line, yours truly in green. The official time was 1:41'54", which is still a personal best ran at a competition with chip measurement.
Our President
"In the world of sports there is a zero tolerance policy for cheaters. The gold medals are taken from those who break their wows to gain unfair advantage. This expression is better be learned. There is no exception for lying and fraud. Immediate and strict punishment is to be introduced and executed without compromise in order to adequately achieve deterrence."
VM
I watched a lot of Lost so imagine my surprise when seeing this in the Donut Run:
The 90 Club
The Vivicittá half-marathon will be held on next Sunday. It's going to be interesting since I didn't have much time to run lately. However, I spend an hour every day riding the bike to work, more than 20km a day. Apples and oranges, of course, but it may help with endurance.
And because there has to be a goal, let it be in writing. The next step would be gaining membership in The 90 Club, which requires a sub-90 minute half-marathon. Last year my time was 1:44' and last autumn at another competition I was timed at 1:40'. Ten minutes is a lot, so it probably won't happen anyway.
神戸ポートタワー&ハーバーランドライブカメラ
I found this today at work: a webcam aimed at Harborland with the Port Tower and the Maritime Museum visible. If you search for these keywords here, you'll find memories.
23 and 1/2 hours
I ride the bike to work every day, which is 30 to 40 minutes one way. On top of that, all the running. I suppose I must be in the 53%. Plus the video does say that there is a diminishing ROI.
God is an Astronaut
A couple of days short a year later life found me at a God is an Astronaut show once again. A lot has happened in that time but ironically how I felt was very much unchanged.
This has nothing to do with the music, of course. This is how Age of the Fifth Sun sounded:
Marge at Sirály
Who would have thought I'll see these two playing together.
The question remains however, that if these latest shows are meant to introduce the second album, then where is it? I couldn't even find out the title of the song I recorded.