Obsessive compulsive(ness)

I got some nice looking external hard disk enclosures last year, and have been struggling with them since then. Ultimately it was a chipset problem.

They were using the infamous Prolific chipset which often resulted to inconsistencies in performance. One day they’d be working fine. The next, they wouldn’t mount. Sometimes you’d have to power-cycle them to get them working again. Other times, you’d have to take them apart and massage the cables a little (I have no idea why this would work, but I was out of options and tried it – and it worked) Sometimes if it wouldn’t load on USB, switching to IEEE1394 would solve it.

They were more reliable in Windows than they were in the Mac. If your machine goes to sleep with them connected, don’t expect them to wake up along with it.

A few days ago, I decided to replace them with these babies:

December 4, 2006February 10, 2017

During the weekend

Everyone knows that a lot of things happened during the weekend. The whole Super Typhoon Reming issue was enough to keep everyone busy.

Palawan

We were slated to have a concert in Culion, Palawan, and Jowi, Jampao and I went ahead of the group… about a day before – this was before Reming was even a problem.

The group was scheduled to leave on a Friday. Sure enough, their flight was cancelled – and tension rose for the three of us in Culion (well, actually only Jowi was stressed since she was the point person for this, Jamps and I were just taking it easy). Would there be a possibility that the group not make it at all?

One joke we had was actually pulling off the concert with only three of us – after all we had a guy, a girl, and a pianist. So if we switched repertoires to all solos it would’ve been quite feasible. Still, nakakahiya sa mga organizers, since they booked and paid for everything – the prospect of a half-assed performance [with only about a fifth of the members] wasn’t an option.

Fortunately God as usual, seemed to be on BP’s side, and the rest of the group was able to reach arrive the next day, and everything fell into place afterwards.

Now I’m back and I have a fever… I’m hoping it’s just due to fatigue over the weekend, and not symptomatic of more a serious illness (e.g. Malaria, Dengue, etc.)

No regrets though, we had a blast – and have pictures to prove it! Read More

November 27, 2006

Debate on Religion

Here’s an interesting debate between an atheist and a conservative talk show host. I have to say it’s hard not to be biased in favor of the atheist. After all, debates are for rational discussion – and while the believer did try his darndest to rationalize his faith, everyone knows it’s simply impossible… that’s why it’s called faith bub.

Now after acknowledging the advantage the atheist had over the believer, I still have to say that the atheist still wins the debate. He didn’t really have to exert himself too much, yet he still was able to utterly destroy any argument the believer had.

Despite the fact that the setting seems to be on uneven ground – this debate certainly is good for raising awareness on how ridiculous structured religion can get. The reason why I’m at odds with my (and any other) “faith” isn’t because it proposes the existence of a supreme being, but because of the arrogance it tends to exude when presenting the idea. To claim anything definitive about something they clearly do not understand, and worse, to govern worlds by it is really preposterous.

November 26, 2006

BP Concert – Carmona, Cavite

Wow, the title was almost a complete alliteration!

Anyways, our group had a concert yesterday. Pictures of which I posted in the gallery.

I’m so out of practice with my photography; my hands aren’t as “steady” as they used to be – which was a pain in the ass since I was retarded enough to decide not to bring the flash. I had so many soft shots even with the 50-prime for crying out loud!

Enough bickering though. As far as the concert goes, we braved the challenging conditions we were faced with, and it turned out pretty well. Again, the Holy Spirit seemed to lend the group a helping hand.

November 24, 2006

Most recent incarnation of my home made protectors

Following up on my “Do It Yourself Laptop Wrist Rug” post, I’ve added protection for the other parts of my MacBook Pro.

As I stated in the picture’s Flickr page, there have been quite a few nice additions:

The wrist rugs now go all the way; flush to the edge of the keyboard.

Trackpad and button are now protected as well

Apple logo is now protected as well.

Images are level adjusted (and sharpened) to exaggerate the contrast of the texture and edges of the vinyl. On normal usage, they’re not that noticeable.