Wednesday, 30 November 2005
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Milling Around
I just bought gas for $1.99.
Not $1.999. Not even $1.989. Just $1.99. No mills, just cents. Weird.
If I've ever bought gas without the obligatory nine mills on the end of the price, I've never noticed it before.
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶No Bones About It
From The Daily Mississippian:
As the skeleton of the new ATO house rises, so do the spirits of the ATO members and pledges.
In August 2004, a fire destroyed the former ATO house, killing three fraternity members.
OK, maybe this is just me, but I think in the lead for a story dealing with a fire that killed three people, I might have used "framework" instead of "skeleton." But maybe I'm just being picky. (Or maybe it's just the fact that not only is it the third word of the story, the first sentence is basically "As the skeleton ... rises, so do the spirits..." Kinda macabre.)
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶DiMac Update
I made a bit of progress last night on saving my iMac, kinda. I managed to get it to boot from one of my external Firewire hard drives. I also managed to get it to boot from the iBook, which was cool though ultimately pretty useless. I had to do the system install on the hard drive from an old OS version (Panther, I think?) which has caused compatability problems, and, for some reason, I'm having trouble mounting disk images, but I managed to get around that by moving them to the iBook, and then moving the software from them back onto the drive.
After several attempts at accessing the internal hard drive, which shows up as varing degrees of dead depending on how I try to access it, I discovered that I could get to the OS X partitition on it if I booted from the OS 9 partition. I spent a good bit of time last night copying files from the internal drive to the external drive, a process that ended up being far more labor intensive than I hoped, since I could only do a portion of the drive at a time, and had to click OK every time it encountered a file that couldn't be copied because of the drive damage; which, in some places, was all-too-common.
I have a bit more copying to do; it wouldn't let me move the whole Applications folder, so I'm having to go through one-by-one and decide which apps are worth copying. That'll be my task for tonight. At that point, I should be ready to let the internal drive die and run from the external.
At this point, I've booted from the external drive, so I know it won't be a complete failure; but I've encountered enough problems, even in the limited stuff I've done so far that I know it won't be a complete success. After moving the rest of the applications, the next trick will be distributing files (mostly in the Users folder) to trick the new drive into thinking it's the old drive. My goal is to be able to open, for example, Mail, and have it look like it did this weekend (well, plus new messages). We'll see.
I believe, though, but haven't confirmed, that I did manage to pull off most of the stuff I wanted to save before the drive failed completely. I really was not too keen on the idea of losing all the info that I had put into Quicken over the past year, a lot of which couldn't be reconstructed at this point. Again, we'll see tonight.
Then, once I'm up and running in stop-gap mode, it'll be time to revaluate the future, both in terms of whether to speed up getting my next machine and what to do with the G4.
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶McCallum Like He Sees 'Em
SciFi.com recently published a post-DVD-release
interview with Rick McCallum about the ROTS disc and the future of Star Wars. A few highlights:
- On the live-action TV show:
We know it's going to be darker, much edgier, and with a totally different kind of sense of humor, a different look altogether, so it'll be much more dramatic [than the films]. But there's no plan to follow Luke and Leia as they're kids growing up. There will probably be some kind of reference to them, you know, to keep it all in the same feel of what's going on, but so far it'll be basically with characters that you're not that familiar with, and we'll be exploring everything that's going on during that 18-year period.
...
We wouldn't even start shooting it until 2007. George is finishing up the script for Indiana Jones IV, and then we'll start on the TV series.
- On the cartoon TV series:
...it is being done here at the Ranch, and I'm very excited about the guys that are working on it. I think the first real episode will start being made in end of March, late April [2006].
- The context here is talking about a future super-high-capacity media that could hold tons of the raw footage shot for ROTS, but I'm choosing to take this quote as indication that there's at least a small chance that we'll someday get the Peter-Jackson-esque Extended Edition of Episode III that I want:
... one day I'm hoping we can go back in and edit all that footage we have. We're trying to get that together, but that'll be a couple years in the future.
- On the 3D versions of the OT:
The 3-D, it's a wonderful post-production process. It's done by a company called N3. We've been working with them for about 4 years. We gave them about 10 minutes' worth of Episode IV a couple of years ago, and they came back with this completely immersive 3-D technology where they take any 2-D film and turn it into a 3-D image that you can be the architect of, because you can go in and change virtually every effect that you put into a frame and move it closer or pull it back, and even change the perspective of it. The wireless technology for the glasses allows you to see this [immersive experience] from any seat in the theater, without getting any eyestrain.
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Nap Time
In case you missed it, there's new content on
Joe's blog, which apparently has now recovered from Hurricane Katrina.
Since Joe's sort of hit-or-miss about responding to comments on his blog, I'll post here that I'd really like to see him put together a list of 10 or so recommended (non-Joe, since all of his are highly recommended) tracks from MacJams that would be a good starting place for tyros to download.
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶iShirt
What better gift this season than the gift of an an
manga Steve Jobs t-shirt? Other than maybe the Jobs-and-Woz-manga shirt? (Or the forbidden fruit shirt on the seller's site?)
Tuesday, 29 November 2005
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶diMac
It appears that my aging G4 iMac may be dying.
Disk Utility told me last night that my internal hard drive has a fatal error, and is failing. I'm not sure what the problem is, but from the noises I'm hearing, it sounds like hardware.
So where does that leave me? I have absolutely no experience in trying to set up an external boot disk. If that would be possible, it seems like that would be the ideal stopgap -- copy the contents of the internal over to the external and run from that. Assuming, of course, the internal drive is still in good enough shape to copy everything from it. That's my biggest concern -- I hate the idea of losing all the files I've got stored on there.
The other option is to go ahead and get a new machine. I'd been looking at doing that eventually. Questions about the financial issue aside, though, my biggest problem there is that I had decided to hold off on buying a new iMac based on the rumors that the Intel-based machines will be announced in January. I had to buy a computer now that will be an entire general obsolete a month later. And, again, there's still the issue of whether I'll be able to save anything from the G4.
OK, this is officially a pointless entry. If anyone has any thoughts/suggestions, though, I'd be interested in hearing them.
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶MSX
When I was listening to the radio morning show on the way to work yesterday, they had a Microsoft rep on promoting the Xbox 360. A few notes that I found interesting:
- Someone asked her about the glitches that have been being reported in the machine. Sticking to the company line, she reported that the number of reported problems had been minimal. In fact she was only aware of five problems -- that had been mentioned to her personally.
- Another caller asked about how the new Xbox compared with the next generation of Playstation. The MS rep responded that the biggest difference is that the Xbox is out now, while the next Playstation won't be out until next year. As far as specific features, she noted that the Xbox is upgradable, and the specific features for the PS3 have not yet been announced. So, when those are released next year, new features can be added to the Xbox through upgrades.
Yep -- according to a Microsoft spokesman, the company's policy is to release a minimal product, wait for the competition to innovate, and then copy what they did. Which, I'm sure, comes as a complete shock to most of the readers of this blog.
- She also explained that there are two different models of the Xbox out now, the basic core system, which is about $300 (I believe), and another version, that, for $100 more, includes a hard drive. The rep noted that the pricier version is a good deal, 'cause $100 is a great price for a 20-gig hard drive like that.
Monday, 28 November 2005
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Success?
After a series of problems, Japan's
Hayabusa spacecraft appears to have succeeded when it really mattered -- its primary mission to collect the first-ever samples of asteroid material. While JAXA is still awaiting official confirmation, an agency spokesman said that the probe appears to have successfully collected the samples during a landing on Saturday.
Now, of course, they must be brought home safely.
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶The Big Egg
In a way, it's understandable. Forgivable may be reaching, but understandable, certainly.
There was, for example, the whole Phi Beta Kappa thing. Apparently, there were plenty of naysayers that thought Ole Miss could never earn a chapter of the honor society. But, practically through sheer force of will, they did. And that's just the most shining example of all that has been accomplished at Ole Miss in the past several years.
So, sure, you can kind of understand where Chancellor Khayat and Pete Boone could get together and decide they would do the same thing with athletics. Where they might be convinced they would recruit a nationally competitive experienced head coach to take over after Cutcliffe the same way they awed Phi Beta Kappa. Unfortunately, it turns out that big libraries are more convincing for honor societies than head coaches.
So, understandable, certainly, but not forgivable. Anyone with any sense of history about Ole Miss football in recent years could see the flaw in the plan. Even this blog, which doesn't claim to know anything about sports, knew their decision was flawed. They weren't going to get a head coach of a program better than Ole Miss's. It just wasn't going to happen.
Instead of moving up from Cutcliffe, they got, on paper at least, the exact same thing again -- an assistant coach from a national championship team, with great expertise in his area, but untried in running an entire program. A wild card.
By the time of Orgeron's hiring, however, there was a difference -- Cutcliffe, by then, had experience as a head coach. He had proven himself. He knew how to be a head coach.
The same doesn't appear to be true as yet for Ed Orgeron.
That's not to say Cutcliffe was perfect. In my mind, aside from the stumbles that all coaches make, all good-but-not-great coaches at least, he made one fatal mistake that cost Ole Miss heavily in its then rock-bottom 4-7 2004 season. And that mistake had already been made by the time the season started: In 2003, he refrained from seasoning a new quarterback in favor of letting Eli break records. There were plenty of times that the second-stringer could have gone in with no risk of losing the game, but Coach Cut let Eli keep going, keep racking up stats.
Also understandable, if not forgivable. Manning made a major contribution to the respectability of the program (a contribution that Khayat and Boone unfortunately have since completely squandered), and one can understand Cutcliffe thinking he owed Manning something. Arguably, though, his first loyalty should have been to the team rather than to any one player. As a result of that mistake, and the mistake of overconfidence in a player that seemed assured of being the next big thing, Ole Miss entered the 2004 season completely unprepared in the all-important quarterback position. And it cost them, heavily.
And while we're on the subject, let's deal with the Manning issue. Those who have defended the firing of Cutcliffe by attributing all of his success to the talent of Eli Manning. (And in response to Jordan's remark about Eli's decision being purely a result of Archie going to Ole Miss; it's important to note that Archie's background didn't stop Peyton from going to Tennessee, and that Eli's decision to go to Ole Miss was likely influenced by his brother's experience there with Cutcliffe as by his father's experience at UM.) But the fact of the matter is, Cutcliffe had winning seasons before Eli. He had already proved himself more than capable of winning games without a Manning on the roster.
The problem last year was not the lack of Eli, it was, among a few lesser issues, the aforementioned lack of a decent quarterback at all. And that also bears looking at, since it reflects another issue of Cutcliffe's worth. Sure, he could win games with Tuberville's recruits, and with Eli, but could he recruit? Those who saw Spurlock's performance at Ole Miss would probably answer in the negative.
But if it was a mistake, I would have made the same one. I followed Michael in high school; heck, I encouraged his mom that he should go to Ole Miss (within NCAA regulations, of course). As The Clarion-Ledger reported in a story on
leading high school prospects:
Michael Spurlock (6-0, 190, 4.5) from Indianola Gentry, Mississippi may be one of the biggest surprises in the South. He also has not gotten the publicity that he richly deserves with the incredible numbers that he put up in the last two seasons.
In two unbelievable games this year, Spurlock passed for 544 yards and seven touchdowns in one game and ran for 511 yards and seven touchdowns in another game.
Locals who had seen them both play said that Spurlock played more like Archie in high school than either of his sons did. So what happened? I have no idea. Perhaps the pressure of the expectations was too much for him. Perhaps family life distracted him. Three seasons with only five minutes off the bench couldn't have helped. But you recruit based on potential. And Spurlock had it.
So mistakes were made, and the team suffered for it in 2004. It should have been obvious (again, if this blog realizes something, anyone should) that 2004 was going to be a rebuilding year. Instead, some were expecting it to be a continuation of the previous season. If you lose talent and don't prepare people to fill in those holes, you're not going to do as well. Clearly, a big part of 2004 was going to be letting people get the experience they didn't get in 2003.
But Pete Boone decided that one 4-7 season was unbearable. And he fired Cutcliffe. In a move that utterly failed to shock this blog, things didn't get better. I have to admit I was a bit surprised that they actually got even worse. A 4-7 season is bad. The worst season the team has seen in 18 years, that's impressively bad. That takes some doing. But Boone managed to get it done.
As much as part of me would love to see Cutcliffe brought back, that wouldn't really help, and, besides, it's too late. As of today,
Cutcliffe is expected to be working again. And I'm happy for him:
David Cutcliffe's return to Tennessee is expected to become official today when he's introduced as the Vols' new offensive coordinator.
Tennessee, coming off its first losing season in 17 years, is glad to have him back:
Cutcliffe, 51, was Tennessee's offensive coordinator under Fulmer from 1992 to 1998. The Vols haven't won an SEC championship since he left.
Sure, it's not a head coaching position. But it wouldn't surprise me at all to see Cutcliffe pay some more dues with Tennessee and earn his way back up to the top. He's talented, and classy.
Speaking of classy, by the way, here's
a nice bit about our current head coach:
Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron was apparently at the center of Tulane's tampering allegations, and among his top targets was Green Wave quarterback Lester Ricard.
...
"In the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, you have to stoop pretty low to do that," Scelfo said. "You're lower than dirt."
Fills you with pride, doesn't it?
If blood had to be spilled to atone for last year's 4-7 season, then should there be a price for an even worse season this year? I've said all season that I don't know that there's anything to be gained from firing Orgeron at this point. I'm less certain now. It would assure the team another bad season next year, but I'm not convinced that's not assured now anyway. Last year was should have been a rebuilding year, but the firing of Cutcliffe assured that there would be little rebuilding carried over into this year. This year should have been a rebuilding year, but I haven't seen much progress. Certainly the team that played Saturday's game didn't seem much better than the team that played the first game of the year.
But, with the Cutcliffe-comes-back option out of the way, while it's not hard to imagine someone doing better than Orgeron, it's hard to imagine Ole Miss hiring anyone better. This blog predicted that the manner in which Cutcliffe was fired would make the school even more unappealing to coaching prospects, and this year seems to have bore out that prediction. Firing another coach a year later would only make it even harder to hire a quality coach.
But if Cutcliffe had to pay the price for a 4-7 season, what does that say about this season? And I'm not talking here about Noel Mazzone. I'm not going to judge whether he should have been fired or not -- there's too much blame to go around to say how much should fall on someone like that -- though I will say that the way in which he was fired didn't seem to do the team much good.
No, it's clear who the architect of Ole Miss worse season in 18 years is; who is fully responsible for the dismal performance this year. And that is Pete Boone.
In Pete Boone's own words:
I asked Coach Cutcliffe after the Auburn game; there were a couple of weeks there in which I had developed an evaluation sheet and forms and some opinions backed with facts and figures and some statistics. And I wanted him to start thinking about, which I would assume that he would and I think that he was, about the program, strengths and weaknesses of the program, his analysis of the program, and develop a plan that he and I could look over and address any of those concerns that he and I may have at that time, and how he would address those concerns.
In the end, we could not agree on the solution to some of the problems that we thought were there. He preferred a status quo, keeping things as they were with a greater challenge to the players and coaches. I felt like that approach was not the long-term solution we needed to have.
He made a comment, and it was certainly a trying time between us, and you know Coach Cutcliffe has a very gentlemanly like approach with never raising voices, but sitting there listening to each other, obviously disagreeing on a few things, but always done in a very professional way. But his comment was that `I have to be true to my heart. I need to make decisions based on how I feel.' And I respect that. That tells you a lot about the man. It also made me think too. This not about Pete Boone, it is not about David Cutcliffe - This is about Ole Miss. I have got to make decisions based on my heart, and my heart is red and blue.
The decision I make is for Ole Miss to be better tomorrow than it was today. So those are the issues and philosophies that we have come up with.
Last season, he decided that he could run a football team better than Cutcliffe. And when Cutcliffe disagreed, Boone, in a move of pure arrogance, fired Cutcliffe for thinking a coach could coach better than a banker. Looking back, it appears maybe Cutcliffe was right.
And for Boone's ego gratification, Ole Miss has paid the price. "The decision I make is for Ole Miss to be better tomorrow than it was today."
Perhaps it's time for Boone to be held accountable for that decision.
Saturday, 26 November 2005
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶MS Whoops
Per The Washington Post:
ASHINGTON -- Microsoft's Xbox 360, the much-anticipated video game system that made its debut this week, apparently is experiencing some technical glitches -- screens freezing minutes into a game, for example -- and that has left some users pretty upset.
At gamer-oriented Web sites, Xbox 360 owners have reported system crashes in games such as the space-marines-vs.-aliens title "Quake."
One owner complained that his new console tries to read the shooter game "Perfect Dark Zero" as a DVD movie. Another posted a video file of the game "Project Gotham Racing 3" freezing up before the player had finished even the first lap of the driving game.
Microsoft describes the glitches, which one report says one in six users have experienced in the few days since the machine's release, as "isolated" and experienced by "a very small fraction" of users. Kinda says something about Microsoft that they're actually
pleased that
only 16 percent of the shipped product is defective.
Friday, 25 November 2005
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶Blogpoint Opportunity
OK, let's get this over with.
10 Blogpoints to the person who most accurately picks the winner and score of Saturday's Egg Bown between Ole Miss and Mississippi State. Picks must be entered before tomorrow's 1:30 kick-off.
