June 20, 2008 at 4:06 pm · Filed under Personal
There has always been a great debate on if people were naturally good or evil. On one side of the argument is the mantra of those who have been hurt, beaten, and bloodied by the world they exist within. Polar to that position is the group of seeing beyond the evil things people do and hoping for the best inside of everyone. Glass half empty and full type of argument. Tonight I figured out how we know good is at the heart of us all.
Since I am a big dork with no time on my hands I am just now seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. As I sit here watching him go through horrible arguments and pain it is the final realization that it wasn’t so bad that he begins to run for the memories as they disappear. What I realized is that I write things down to avoid forgetting what it is I am running to or from. Then it hit me, we erase our own bad memories. Since the movie is primarily about relationships I will use those as the indicator of just what I am speaking to.
Think back to your last relationship. What was the first memory to pop in your mind? I would be willing to wager that it wasn’t the time she threw your stuff around or hurt you, no rather it was probably a smile or a great moment doing something together. Why is that? Why do we push away all the things that brought such pain in your life that you expelled the very source? It is my theory that the reason we get rid of the horrible moments in the past is our minds and souls are just notnaturally capable of storing them.
When your very existence is built upon the rock of goodness in your heart there is no way to store bad memories for a lifetime. There of course would be cases that negate that but even then I am sure like the exercise above, your first memory of the topic would not be bad. This is why it is so important for us to write down things and share what is in our past. Maybe someone close to you will store thatexperience for you or the paper will live on to the day you renege on the idea. There are days I think back to my divorce and wonder if the decision was one of intelligence and divine intervention. Nights are wasted inspecting the ceiling above head as I lay awake recounting the countless good memories. That is why my blog is filled with posts exposing the very root of my heart. It is important that in life we remember that not everything is of pure goodness. There are times when everything isabsolutely shitty. That is okay though, as it grows us to the person we are today. It is of great importance that we remember that through pain we grow, but our hearts yearn to forget the source of growth.
June 20, 2008 at 9:09 am · Filed under Techie
Why Linux and which one? Let me take a second to review:
Debian Stable 4.0 - Too old! You can’t expect me to be spoiled on my x86 architecture with the latest GNOME and Firefox and then jump back to Debian stable
Debian Testing “Lenny” - Too new! The kernel is a step ahead of the Mac-On-Linux folks and therefore negates my ability to still run MacOS in Linux. Also had a heck of a time with my 6200 Nvidia Card in framebuffer.
Fedora 9 - Will not boot the yaboot directory under \ppc\mac\yaboot from OpenFirmware. I am not usually a Fedora fan but was willing to give it a whirl. Didn’t work
openSUSE 11 - Great looking distro that took FOREVER to install. Also it is very heavy for older G4. The NetInst is a worthless adventure if you plan to go this route; download the DVD. It pains me to not continually be unhappy with SuSE. I still have a 4.8 box in my office here. Boy times have changed…To their credit, the only reason MOL is running on 2.6.24+ is one of their developers. Thanks to them for that!
Ubuntu 8.04 - Not an official architecture supported by Ubuntu. As much as I love Ubuntu, I refuse to run an unsupported arch as I would just end up compiling all the updates which brings me to my next choice
Gentoo 2007.0 - I have been a Gentoo guy for years. I still have a burn of 1.4 2003 release somewhere. The compiling by source is a real bear, but that was until GRP was created. Think of GRP as a shortcut. These are common packages already compiled and ready to go. They can get you running quick. This will not save you time when you want to compile something off the wall but it does get you a system up quick.
OpenBSD 4.3 - By trade I am an Information Assurance guy. If Mac-On-Linux ran on OpenBSD this tutorial would be dramatically different 
My main drivers were:
- Ability to run Mac-On-Linux
- Current main support architecture
- As light or heavy as I wanted
So in the end I decided on Debian Testing. What?! The reason being is that the only thing it didn’t do well was MOL and I can bypass that by running the kernel from Debian Stable. At the end of the day a good few distro’s can’t deal with the CD being Master in an MCE setup. Debian also has far reaching community support and is an official architecture. Off we go!
1. Download the first ISO. Debian will let you download all 9 of them if you are going off the net to install. I am going to guess that someone reading this has broadband.
Debian PPC Lenny Install
2. Burn the ISO. You will then place the Install CD in first and reboot the machine.
3. On reboot if you have the original OEM drive hold the “c” key and off you go. If you have upgraded to a SuperDrive (MCE or others) hold Apple+Option+O+F and you will be dropped into the OpenFirmware. Play carefully Enter:
boot hd:,\install\yaboot
4. Off to the races! At this point just follow the debian install screens. I wipped the whole drive as with MOL I can just run Mac in linux rather than rebooting.
5. After installing the X configuration will most likely not work. Login as root and type:
X -configure
mv /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
6. Next we need to add stable to the sources so we can grab a MOL compatiable kernel:
vi /etc/apt/sources.list
Add:
deb http://mirrors.xmission.com/debian/ etch main
7. Next lets update everything:
apt-get update
8. Now we need to install MOL:
apt-get install mol-modules-2.6-powerpc build-essential
9. Reboot!
10. After the reboot Hit CTRL+ALT+F1 and drop to a console. At this point login as root and stop gdm:
/etc/init.d/gdm stop
11. We will run the commands to get MOL working now:
apt-get install mol
12. After the install go ahead and configure MOL
molvconfig
Accept all the defaults for video modes unless you have some crazy CRT on your desk
13. MOL will now work! Go read their HOWTO for getting Mac Running! Congrats!
So Nick, what works and what doesn’t on a G4 Cube? So far, everything works. Including the Airport, sleeping, and iSight. It is a great load and Linux is MUCH MUCH quicker on the original 450 than OSX ever was.
June 13, 2008 at 11:44 am · Filed under Personal
One of my favorite websites, The Art of Manliness ran a great article today about things we learned from our fathers. I wanted to share a few of my favorites from the list:
- Whenever I struggled or failed, dad would always tell me “Stuck it up and go.”
- My dad taught me that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. It sure gets tiring, but he was right.
- Never start a fight, but if someone starts one with you, kick their ass and deal with the consequences later. It will teach them a lesson and show everyone that you are not one to push - because you will push back harder.
- My Dad taught me that your relationships with other people are the most important things in life.
- It is the role of a father to protect and defend his children, rationally. When times get rough when parenting, as they will, a father needs to be calm, learn all the facts, and act lovingly towards his children no matter what. Reacting emotionally and without details is always the wrong choice.
- Family dinner is not optional. The time to sit down, turn off the TV, and talk about each other’s day, politics, or anything else builds unity like nothing else. If that means that dinner is served at 8:30 or 9:30 every night, so be it.
- It is the role of a husband to never speak negatively of his wife. Any man who speaks poorly of his spouse to others is declaring himself a fool.
- My father once told me, “Don’t ever date a woman whose father called her princess.”
The last 2 are outstanding
