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Hacking the Macbook Pro

I have a 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro (2007) with a 160GB internal drive. However, I only had 2GB free disk space left. My Aperture library with my 7495 photos was taking 80GB of the 160GB. And I knew I would be bringing back another 20GB of photos from London this July. ITunes took another 20GB.

So, to treat myself after a depressing week of rumors at work, I bought a new 320GB internal drive. I planned out the replacement carefully, gathering all my passwords and serial numbers so that I could quickly build up the system from scratch.

There were only two hitches. The first was that I never got around to buying any Torx screwdrivers. In the past, I was able to get around this limitation with a flathead screwdriver that would fix in the star pattern. However, once I had the laptop open, the final two screws would not come out using this method. I was in my office at work, and it was after 7:30pm on a Friday. I ran down to all of the labs in the building to see if anyone was still around, or if there were any obvious open toolboxes where I could borrow a Torx T-6. It took my 30 minutes before I found one soul still in the lab working late, and he loaned me his Torx T-6. I completed the replacement (and put the old drive in an external USB enclosure) and closed up the computer.

Next was to reinstall MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard), and then all of the software. Everything went smoothly until I hit the second problem when installing Adobe Photoshop CS3 (which was one of the last applications to install). I found out that Photoshop CS3 does not support the MacOSX Extended case-sensitive filesystem, which was the format I choose at the very start of the MacOSX installation. I still can’t believe that the CS3 installer chokes on a case-sensitive filesystem – in 2009? Good Grief!

So Saturday morning, I had to start from scratch again by re-formating the drive, installing MacOSX, all of the applications, patch everything, put in the serial numbers and finally copy over some of my old preferences and email databases.

I was finished Saturday night. I also bought a set of Torx screwdrivers at Canadian Tire. Aside from the two snags, the replacement went very smoothly.

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Web master

I’ve been working over the past few weeks to complete re-vamp the web site for Les Petits Ballets, one of Rosa’s ballet schools. I was totally unhappy with the first redesign from 2007, but never had enough time to spend to bring it to the level I wanted.

But this year, I’ve had more time. I’ve already completed my personal site (this site). And as I am not the chief organizer of the MCO Race School or Secretary of the Meet for the 2009 Ted Powell Memorial Race weekend, I am having time to branch out to work on other items on my to-do list.

I am proud of the look and feel of the new Les Petits Ballets website, and all of the additions that were made, including adding Les Petits Ballets as a Facebook group.

One item that was especially fun was that I had to create a new web gallery theme in Apple’s Aperture software to fit with the new web site. That took a lot of hacking, as there is no public interface for doing it.

I will work with the Director of Dance to put more picture in the Gallery (which is where I used the new Aperture theme, based on the existing “Picture” theme). So far, the web site does not use any of the photos I took. I’ve taken over 700 photos for the school; most of them are not very good (out of focus, wrong framing, bad background, someone has their eyes closed). Getting feedback on what makes a good ballet photo is critical for my development.

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Microsoft Outlook 2

Of course, I realized the solution was one I was using all along. I don’t know what I was thinking yesterday – d’oh. Just accept the meeting invite tentatively, but click the “Don’t send a response”. That way the meeting shows up in my calender, but the meeting organizer does not expect me to come.

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Microsoft Outlook

I wish that Microsoft Outlook had a way to decline a meeting invite, but that would still keep it in my calendar.

I don’t want to set expectations that I will attend, but I want to keep the meeting invite so that I can see the agenda for the meeting. Often the meeting invite has information not covered by any other emails, and I want to keep that record (or as a way of keeping a  note of when the meeting was scheduled). I often use “Tentative”, but I don’t want anyone to mistakenly assume I might attend the meeting.

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Updated the essay

I thought of one more case I wanted to cover in the essay Why I am An Atheist. The case is a corollary of Clark’s Third Law – a sufficiently advanced being having local control over the evolution of humanity.

The case does not change the thesis, as the lack of free will comes from this, and without free will, I can declare myself an atheist because it’s all I could possibly be.

The essay has now been updated and re-published.

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Why I am An Atheist

I’ve been an atheist for as long as I can remember. Over all these years, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this subject. My reasons are mostly gut-feeling – I just don’t believe in God. I never have.

Bethlehem
Bethlehem

I’ve spent weeks on finally putting down my thoughts on this subject. The desire to write this essay was one of the driving forces for creating this web site – so that I could have an opportunity to put down on the page all these ideas I’ve had in my head for years.

I don’t intend that this will change anyone’s personal belief. It is only my thoughts, and there are no other expectations. I feel strongly that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, just as I reasonably expect that others will allow me to have mine.

The essay is called Why I am An Atheist.

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In the Shadow of the Moon

I watched the documentary “In the Shadow of the Moon” last night. I have been fascinated by the Apollo program for a few years now. What an amazing achievement. Incredible to put those 12 men on the moon, so long ago. It almost brings me to tears that we (humanity) can achieve something so remarkable.

I was too young at the time – I was only 2.5 years old when man last walked on the moon – I don’t remember any of it. All that work, effort, skill and astounding results happened before my time. Today, I realize that I am only a few months younger than Neil Armstrong was when he went to the moon (38y 9m; Neil was 38y 11m during the first landing).

What a moment in time. As they said in the video, the astronauts were approached by people who didn’t say “American’s went to the moon”, they said “we (humanity) went to the moon.” For one shining moment, the world came together to celebrate what man is capable of doing.

Today, 35+ years later, the world is less united than any previous point. Ethnic, religious and economic differences between people have widened. We came through the Cold War without incinerating ourselves, and now seem bent on destroying ourselves through pollution and hatred because we cannot work together.

We were once here
We were once here

But no matter what happens now, nothing can take away those footsteps on the distant world. Our presence is there permanently, and nothing we do now (or fail to do) can ever take that away.

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Plate Tectonics

If the Earth has been slowly cooling over its history, presumably this means that the crust must be getting thicker too, right? How would that effect plate tectonics? Would the continental plates be thinner in the past than they are today? What about mountain building (from plates colliding) – if the plates are thinner in the past would mountains be smaller (because there is less material) or taller (because the plates move faster and there is less material to lift at the collision point)? Would the plates move faster in the past, since they were thinner (and lighter)? Would the thinner crust allow more volcanic activity to reach the surface, adding more material and slowly thickening the plates until they reach a thickness that would be constant between different geological times?

Or has internal radioactivity in deep in the Earth allowed the surface of the planet to be roughly constant over geological time? Over time, the amount of radioactive materials in the Earth (keeping it warmer) should decrease, which should lead to the same cooling effects, although over a longer period of time than if there were no radioactive materials in the Earth.