kiss the sun and walk on air

• 16:15 Playing taxi driver (no, iPhone: not taco) to three house guests without {motor,bi}cycles. I hate cars and parking. #
• 17:17 I love this city: sitting in dolores park, I just signed a petition to rename our sewage treatment plant after George W Bush. #

(posted using LoudTwitter)

Due to Bay to Breakers on Sunday, expect Muni to be hosed. Have fun walking, or paying $7 to ride.

This last week when I've been watching DVDs I've noticed that the video quality is suffering for some reason. Frames are being dropped pretty frequently, though the audio plays back fine. When there is any sort of movement on screen it becomes very irritating to watch. My amateur estimation is that about 3 or 4 frames are being dropped per second.

I've tried playing the DVD in both Front Row and regular old DVD player- both behave exactly the same. I uninstalled Perian (as I was running out of ideas), and all that did was make it so that now I can open fewer types of video files, and didn't make any changes to my dvd problem for the better or worse.

I've experienced this on the last 3 DVDs i've watched, so its not just one disc. However they all were from the same TV series on DVD (Dexter). I briefly searched for any kind of issues other people might have had with these particular DVDs, but out of 300 Customer reviews on Amazon, only 10 people rated them negatively, and only one of those mentioned it being "choppy", and frankly his description of the product didn't match up with what i'm experiencing.

I've also checked Software Update, and there's nothing new for me there. I've checked everything I can think of, does any one else know what might be going on?

I travel to Israel quite a lot, and I've found the street art scene there to be really vibrant and thriving. So I've got some pictures (linked to Flickr) here to share that I took over December:



( More under here... )

I'm still in the process of uploading my pictures from last month, but they're getting onto my Flickr slowly but surely. Nicsaurusrex@ Flickr .

hi there, the show's coming up and i need to know if there will be an opening band. i don't really know where to find out, since my internet-fu is weak and i am not turning up any results.

http://thismodernworld.com/4319

Gillian Anderson’s “Doodle Day” charity auctions end on Sunday (my contribution is here).
adding: since the price of my little doodle is getting up so high, I’m going to throw in a signed print for the winner as well.

I've been having trouble lately with playing DVDs on my laptop, which runs Fedora Core 8. No matter if I tried mplayer, xine or vlc, I got the same errors in dmesg when trying to play video DVDs:

Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 321
Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 322
Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 323
Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 324
Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 325
Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 326
end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1464
end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 25376
end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 25416
end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 25460
end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 155408

I checked, and all the software I ought to need was installed, and all the rpm dependencies were present and satisfied. So, I thought it might be a hardware problem, maybe with DMA, as did google searches. Cue lots of prodding of libata options, different kernels etc. Didn't help.

Eventually though, I stumbled upon the answer. On Fedora, installing libdvdread isn't enough. If libdvdcss isn't installed, then it'll silently carry on without it, and access to css protected bits of the disk will fail with drive errors. No warnings, no messages, no dependency checks at install. Just cryptic failures that make you think there's a low level problem.

Doing a "yum install libdvdcss" fixes the problem nicely. Quite why it couldn't give me a nice friendly message to tell me to do that I don't know, or even just have it as a dependency. Bah :(

are there any bars in SF that lets you smoke inside?? what's the point of going to a bar if you can't smoke??

I can has milestone! ...Not a point milestone, unfortunately (I would have loved to have had 25k points exactly, but I don't), but a temporal milestone. Which, technically, is more of an anniversary, but I like saying "milestone" better, because it sounds cooler, or something.

And no, this isn't in the wrong community. :)

Six years ago today, I got two emails, both telling me I had shiny new supporthelp privs: one in comms, and one in general/unknown. This came out of nowhere -- oh, I'd been quietly doing support for a while, but I wasn't expecting a promotion -- and I was quite literally bouncing off the walls the entire day because of it.

Mind you: This was before interims, which meant that the jump was from complete screenie to complete SH. (It was a ritual of sorts to go back through old requests, once you got SH, to look at the approval comments and ICs.) So I still had a bit of a heart attack when I opened my first SHable request and saw all the various options. But it was awesome.

I will admit to being a dorky SH at times*. On what I think may have been my first approval, I very carefully copied out the (Approving answer #xxxxx) that I'd seen in other approval ICs. I also remember one of my first self-approvals in comms, where I wrote a freaking /novel/ about why I was doing my own answer rather than contacting the volunteer who'd written an existing-but-flawed answer. And so on.

[*or, y'know, pretty much always. *grin*]

And slowly, I gained more privs, until I achieved total world domination, by which I mean privs in all public categories at the time, somewhere around September 2003, two years after my first touch. Solar-system domination also happened for a time -- some of you may recall me being an admin at one point (for clients, and then clients and syn, and then styles) -- but then I reverted to mere world domination.

Over the last six years, I've seen a lot. I've seen empires categories rise and fall: split, combine, die (cust is dead, long live cust), get created, change, lose admins, gain admins, explode, implode, and be generally misused (YARTINE!). There are lots of things I remember, lots more I've forgotten: Changes in support policy (first best!) and in site policy. Renames, before the rename plague became a Thing. People whose awesomeness I don't have enough words for (and I'm not going to start listing them because I'll forget some). Tools and toys and in-jokes that have long crumbled to dust. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. I suspect I'm the oldest person (support-age-wise, not RL-age) still in support; I suspect also that on the high scores list I'm (at least at the moment) the highest person who has never been an employee or done abuse. (...25k points for position 10. Man, when I was young, 500 points could get you rank 50. Now you need 5k. Inflation!)

Now, some of you may be wondering why I'm posting this in lj_support rather than supportlounge. (...some of you aren't wondering, because you already know, but never mind that.)

This is why:

Because I can. Because I never used the free post that comes with being an admin. Because it felt like the right place for this. And because I'm stepping away from support. Not as a temporary break, but actually for-real quitting. (Which isn't to say that I definitely won't ever come back, but it's definitely a quit rather than an extended hiatus.)

This isn't a decision I came to easily. (Some of you know this more than others. *wry grin*) LJ support has meant so very much to me over the past six years, been such a large part of my life, that I don't even know where to start. And even though I've kind of been on the fringes of the social aspect of the volunteer community, even though some of you don't know who I am ... this is home, in ways I wouldn't have expected.

It's just... there's this whole Real Life thing that seems to be happening (more or less). If I had infinite time and energy (and patience), I probably wouldn't be posting this, because I wouldn't be quitting. But I don't; no one does. Walking away isn't easy, but it's what I need to do. I'll miss doing support, and maybe support will miss me, but it's time for me to move on.

So, to sum up: It's been a damn long time. I love you all. And, as I can't think of anything pithy to end on, have a Winnie the Pooh quote: "Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would I'd never leave."

<3

If you have movies in a folder on an external drive (as opposed to in your iTunes Library folder) and you click 'Consolidate' in iTunes, it'll copy them into your Library folder. What happens if you eject the external drive before clicking 'Consolidate'?

I have some questions about Time Machine (TM) that I was hoping someone here could answer. Firstly, on the subject of older backups - I have around 200GB left on my external drive, so obviously I'm not too worried about it filling up in the near future. However, when it does get full, it will start to delete older backups. So, say that the first backup I made was backup1, the second was backup2, and so on - when it deletes backup1, will it move all the files that backup1 and backup2 had in common into backup2's directory and delete only the files that had changed between backup1 and backup2? That would seem most sensible, but I have no idea whether I'm on the right track or not.

Secondly, is it possible to tell TM not to archive specific files, as opposed to folders? I have some DVD rips in my iTunes library, and I don't want TM to archive them, but I also have some VHS rips, and since they're such a pain to rip, I'd like TM to archive them. Since they're all in the same directory, it would be a major bonus if it were possible to select individual files not to be backed up.

Thirdly, and lastly, there is a file on my TM drive: /private/tmp/tempVM/vm/swapfile0 (no other files or folders are on the drive outside of the Backups.backupdb folder) - does this have anything to do with TM? If it doesn't, does anyone know what it is, and what it's doing there? It's 64MB.

EDIT: Thanks to wibbble for helping me out!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh the fog is in, at least for now. So it might not turn out to be a beach day, but I woke up without a migraine for the first time since Tuesday.

...



...

how you keep from going under???

heh...

life...

so upon lots of careful deliberation, and searching through others, i think after our lease term is up here, i am going to be moving to Nashville, TN... the scene is alive and upcoming there... only to go up, as it matures... in its 95% DRUG FREE self ness... yea... thats right... a fucking rave scene that is *gasp* ACTUALLY ABOUT THE FUCKING MUSIC!!! :)~~~

and its all hard dance... so thats an even greater plus...

so yea...

one more click closer to canada...

http://thismodernworld.com/4318

In 1973, Victor Jara was Chile’s leading singer/songwriter, the local equivalent of Bob Dylan and more.

When Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s coup came — September 11th, 1973 — tens of thousands of people considered threats to the regime — activists, union organizers, teachers, playwrights, and many who had nothing to do with politics at all but [...]

Recently I was very happy to find Sunscreem on iTunes. But then after purchasing serveral of their songs, I found them to be scratched imports that crack and pop when you listen to them. Even the comments on the When Single says the last two songs are messed up. Click here to read for yourself.

I've looked all over itunes and I can't find any place to report broken content in itunes.

Another song that's broken is Sunscreem - Secrets - (Picchiotti Dub Mix) -- you can hear it in the sample as well.

So how do I inform the itunes folks that several of the Sunscreem recordings on iTunes are broken and messed up and need to be re-imported? And when they fix them I shouldn't have to pay to re-download them given the versions they posted are messed up to begin with.

... who forgot to set the thermostat, this time?

http://thismodernworld.com/4317

Who else is attacking their domestic political opponents for failing to wear a flag pin? Lawrence of Cyberia has the extremely enjoyable answer here.

bigger versions here

Hi, I have two questions:

1. Is there any good website (or any other such thing) where I can find out about events happening in San Francisco? -- stuff like festivals, film screenings, art shows, etc.

2. Are there any good places for free wifi in downtown SF, besides coffee shops?

Thanks!

This Sun at Art Space Gallery

Come see cool art and drink wine and eat cheese, while helping kitties in need!

I made steel kitty candle holders for this, and there's a bunch of other awesome stuff.

http://thismodernworld.com/4316

Gillian Anderson’s “Doodle Day” charity auctions end on Sunday (my contribution is here).

All,

Can anyone give me a hint on how to move the Logic Studio "media" files from the installed hard disk to another volume? They're on my boot disk and I don't want time machine to back up these files. The solution is to move them to an external volume that contains static application files.

This is possible at installation however I don't know how to do it post-installation.

-- Speaker

UPDATE!!

I'm reposting this now that the situation is officially out of the bag.

The laptop and the iPhone that were stolen have been recovered!!
I will post more details as they come in!!


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Original Post)

Here's an interesting situation:

My friends MacBook was stolen out of her truck last week.
I happen to have a dot.mac account as well as a user account
on her laptop.
I can and have been able to pull up the screen when whomever has
the laptop now is using said laptop and connected to the internet.
(i can also access files without sharing the screen via Finder)

Anyone have any suggestions on ways to locate the laptop without
alerting the person that I am on to them?

I've thought of starting photobooth to have a look at who's at the keyboard,
but that would show my hand right away. The other problem is the damn
criminal is too cheap to have their own internet and is leeching a weak wireless
connection, so screen sharing is hit or miss at best.
I have admin access and I have my friends password (i asked her if she wanted
me to delete any files and thankfully she has nothing to dear, besides photos and the like, on the laptop).

Any suggestions for retrieval, or at the very least, making it more difficult for the thief to use the laptop?


edit - update 4-10-08

So i've been watching this guy, he has managed to change the username and password, but i still have admin access via my account on the computer. this guy has no life and apparently no job because he never seems to leave the computer, but at this point he is mostly running limewire. here's some screenshots:





EDIT - UPDATE

I have his IP address:

67.169.177.49



Comcast Cable Communications, Inc. ATT-COMCAST (NET-67-160-0-0-1)
67.160.0.0 - 67.191.255.255
Comcast Cable Communications, IP Services BAYAREA-8 (NET-67-169-128-0-1)
67.169.128.0 - 67.169.191.255



EDIT - UPDATE

Well, after spending much of the day on the phone with various Santa Cruz Police officers, who while very friendly and professional, sort of listened to me as if I was describing some kind of black voodoo magic, I got a call back from a very enthusiastic detective who realized exactly the repercussions of the info that i was relating to them. In essence, once he gets Comcast to release the physical address related to the IP address (how awesome was it to finally get an officer on the line who actually knew what an IP address is!!), he can call me, have me pull up the screen to confirm the laptop is on and in place, and basically they can go in with a warrant and take the laptop back.

That is if everything goes in a best case kind of scenario (and when does that ever happened?). The biggest bummer is every single person I've talked to has repeated that even on a rush job, it could take a week to get an IP warrant. Well, that's some seriously inefficient red-tape. That being said, this jerk-off with the laptop doesn’t appear to be moving around to much as he has pretty much set up the thing to rip dvds (HandBrake) and run LimeWire. In the meantime, I will continue to post screenshots and continue to update here in this thread. I’m still very much open to ideas that anyone cares to offer and thanks to everyone for their support!!

I’ll be cross posting screenshots here:

http://public.fotki.com/joeyrenza/help-find-kims-laptop/


EDIT _ UPDATE 4/11/08



Sometime last night around 10pm EST the laptop went offline and has been offline since.
This could mean several things, it might be as simple as the guy closed the laptop and has been busy doing other things. He may have found an OSX disc and did a clean install, he may have erased my user account, or maybe he got tipped off and realized he was being watched. Hopefully the laptop will pop back up soon, but even if it doesn't we have an IP address which wil hopefully lead to an actual address, and we have a picture of the guy, and Santa Cruz is a very, very small town.


EDIT - UPDATE:

The laptop popped up online briefly this afternoon. Our boy has changed the name of the laptop to DRxFUCKYOU, but thankfully he hasn't deleted my account yet, though he does seem to be getting more savvy, so that could happen soon. I wasn't able to connect to the laptop this afternoon due to shitty internet, but i'll keep an eye this evening and try to get some more screenshots posted.


EDIT - UPDATE 4/12/08

Huge score today!!
For the time being i'm not going to release exact details
because this info i'm finding out is very sensitive and i
want to give the police the best shot they can get at catching
this guy. That being said, today I found out this guy is:
27
an ex-con
i know his DOB
his mom's maiden name (thanks e-bay!!)
(he has been shopping ebay for a police scanner...
i wonder why?)
he belongs to local sex/date hook up site
his email address
and today i snapped a screen shot so clear
that you can read the lettering on his ink

I'm not sure how much more i can do for the SC police
i'm pretty much serving this guy up on a platter...


EDIT - UPDATE - 4/13/08

Well, in a testament to how easy Macs are to use, even this dumbass can firgure out how to delete a user account. So the screen sharing game is up sadly, though i can still connect to the public folders, so that's at least some consolation. Yesterday, despite losing my account on the laptop, was a huge day in terms of finding out info on this guy. I will eventually post the snaps, but I can't stress just how clear of a pic photobooth served up of him.
I'm going to give the SC police a couple days to show some signs of movement on this case, and if there's no development then I'll release all the info I have on this guy and the internets can have it's way with him /chan style. Once again thanks to everyone for their interest, we've had a set-back, but the game is far from up.


EDIT - UPDATE 4-14-08

The warrant / subpoena process has begun...

EDIT - UPDATE 4-23-2008

So Comcast has been served the necessary papers, they should have the address by the end of the week. In the meantime, the police have identified the guy and checked all his known addresses, but alas, he was not present (the police also checked the addresses for the wireless network "GrossNetwork" which is the wi-fi network he is using the laptop on.
Dect. Eveleth received the cdr of screenshots i mailed him (around 100 or so that i took) and he has informed me that he will call as soon as they get the go-ahead to serve the warrant.
So the game is still on!!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

as always, more to follow.

thanks to everyone for their great suggestions!

-Joey