Since my shiny new Macbook Pro arrived on Tuesday, I’ve performed roughly two installations of Windows XP, one installation of Windows Vista, two installations of Ubuntu Linux, and four installations of OS X (one of which is running right now). … And this is the easy part — I haven’t even tried to compile LFS yet.

If any of the above was confusing to you, try reading the introductory post about this project. If you’re still confused in a “what the heck is Ubuntu Linux” way, you may want to skip the rest of the post. The next one will include the beginning of a step-by-step guide to setting up a quad-boot Macbook, in language catered to the technically inept.

Things that don’t work:

• rEFIt’s EFI shell. For some reason, it continually freezes for me even on a vanilla OS X installation.
• Windows XP without Boot Camp. The first several attempts failed for various reasons, but using the Boot Camp Assistant (despite having the understanding that it wasn’t required) seemed to solve them. I’d still like to avoid using Boot Camp if possible.
• OS X 10.4.10. My installation DVD’s contain 10.4.9, which is a solid, stable release — very fortunate based on the number of times I’ve had to reinstall it. However, the one time I dared to update to 10.4.10, several bizarre things started to occur, not the least of which nearly prevented me from being able to repartition the drive! Obviously, I can’t completely narrow down the issue to the 10.4.10 patch, but I’ve heard of enough problems that I’m going to hold off on it for awhile.
• The Ubuntu GUI. I admittedly haven’t put much effort into fixing Ubuntu, since I won’t be keeping it on the “final” version of the system. However, I was a bit surprised by the inability to even start GDM.

Otherwise, I’ve been extremely happy with the new laptop. Contrary to my original anticipations, OS X is very fast, slick and intuitive to use. It’s only taken me a couple of days to get used to the interface, despite hating the fact that I’m limited to a one-button touchpad. (I think an external mouse is in the works…) Linux and Windows have also been very quick to install and run, and I’ve been able to get three of the four OS’s concurrently installed (albeit not necessarily running). Next time, I’ll write a more organized update with some step-by-step instructions. Stay tuned!

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Imagine a scenario in which we have a five-person Mini-Congress which votes on various issues. The issue at hand is one of great importance — we must decide on our national fruit. The vote is to be decided by simple majority; it takes three votes to win the selection. Unfortunately, it looks like you and I are currently in the minority. The Stooge Party, consisting of Senators Larry, Curly, and Moe, plan to stay within party lines and make the Sillyfruit our new national symbol. You and I, as respected members of the Ape Party and fans of the Banana, can do little but watch this– err… silliness unfold.

So, what exactly is the problem with political parties? Suppose that neither Larry nor Curly actually wanted to vote for the Sillyfruit, but did it merely to remain in good favor with Moe (the Majority Leader). Suppose that Larry was in favor of the Cashew (he always was a little nutty), while Curly wished to nominate the Snozberry. Since they would obviously have a hard time rallying support for either of those fruits, both of them would have considered voting for the Banana as a second choice. However, doing so would have signaled weaknesses in the party line… and possibly cost them the next election. Thus, the Sillyfruit, an option disliked by four of the five Senators, wins the vote.

It doesn’t take a political pundit to see how the elimination of parties could have ensured a better choice for everyone involved (except maybe Moe). Instead, “silliness” prevailed — and the same thing happens in the real world, probably more often than we’d like to believe. Rather than letting the Congressmen think for themselves, the political world forces them to choose between two sets of ideas, deciding which set most closely matches their beliefs, and basing their entire career around a set of ideas of which they may only agree with a few. Of course, the general public is no less guilty; anyone who dares to challenge the two-party system has only a small chance of even appearing on the mainstream radar, much less getting elected.

Form camps around issues, not stereotypes.

What is information? What is it good for? What is its market value, and how much does it cost to produce? What are the drawbacks of faulty information? Is information subject to laws or other restrictions? Should it be?

None of these questions are trivial to answer, but I’d like to encourage you to look at them from what may be a new viewpoint for you. (more…)

Slumps — those annoying periods of time when we seem to… suck at life, for lack of a better phrase. From athletes to chefs, politicians to poker players, nobody is safe from the occasional slump. In fact, I seem to be having a slump of my own this week; careful scrutinizers will note that I not only skipped a workout day on Wednesday, but on Friday I also failed to write a post in accordance with the Supreme Laws of Write, Write, Write!

While annoying to perfectionists, slumps prove that we are merely humans, and none of us are perfect (or at least very few of us ).

I can’t say for certain that slumps can be readily avoided, but the best way to pull out of one is to apply some motivation. Obviously, someone in a slump is going to have a hard time finding that motivation. You can start by reading some other posts which weren’t written while I was in a slump of my own.

Yesterday, I got into a discussion with a friend about the viability of non-traditional education; specifically, “Sudbury schools,” in which students essentially teach themselves. I had read this article a few months ago (and here is the website of the school mentioned), and that was primarily the center of discussion. I’d highly recommend giving it a read as well.

Personally, I couldn’t agree more with many of the points brought up. Contrary to popular belief, children don’t need adults standing around telling them what to do and how to do it. Heck, Charles XII became the King of Sweden at age 15. If children desire instruction, that should of course be available to them; however, they should be free to learn what they view as important. The article theorizes (and in my experience, this strongly holds true) that humans learn much more quickly and efficiently when they have a reason to be interested in the material. Personally, I think I would have thrived in a “Sudbury” school. I especially like this statistic near the end: 42% of graduates go on to become entrepreneurs.

What do you think?

Okay, technophiles, this is the project you’ve been waiting for. If you could conjure up your perfect “Dream Machine” computer (your only limitations being that you must use components that actually exist), what would it look like? Most tech-savvy people I know would think of a monstrous, top-of-the-line gaming PC, complete with a 40″ LCD (maybe even twin-screen), wireless Surround Sound speakers, and about 20TB (roughly 20,000 gigabytes) in disk space.

I, however, have other ideas…

This Dream Machine will be:

• Portable (in other words, a laptop)
• Powerful (with higher-end specs)
• Flexible (hardware and software incompatibilities should be nonexistent)

The requirements are straightforward, but my standards are high. In a nutshell, I want this laptop to be able to handle anything and everything that I might throw at it from now through the foreseeable future — and to do it quickly and easily. In an ideal world, I would be able to buy this computer and not even need to make a project out of the whole thing. Not that I won’t enjoy this, of course. Unfortunately, no vendor exists which sells a universally flexible laptop (I’ll go into more details on that later), so I’m going to have to build one… however, not in the case-modding, massive desktop-constructing sense; my definition of “build” might correspond with anyone else’s definition of “organize.”

The Laptop:

• 15″ Macbook Pro
• Quad-boot:
• OS 10.4 “Tiger”
• LFS, a “roll-your-own” distribution of Linux
• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Virtualization:
• Windows-on-Mac
• Windows-on-Linux
• Mac-on-Linux
• Linux-on-Mac
• (For security, stability, and sanity reasons, I’ve chosen not to do any “X-on-Windows” virtualization)

The Project:

• Target completion time — Two weeks
• As tech-dummy friendly as possible! (I will need feedback on this!)
• … I’m serious. What good is a fantastic project if nobody else understands it?

Premonitions of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers):

• Why a Macbook?
• In the end, I made this decision primarily because of OS X. Yes, I am aware of the OSX86 Project (a project to make OS X run on non-Apple hardware). I really wanted a strong “base system” in the event that something goes wrong and I need to reformat the hard drive (which will happen at least once during this project). The Mac hardware/software combination is the only one which provides this; Linux is known to have questionable driver support when it comes to laptops, and Windows… well, let’s face it — I just really don’t like Windows. With the Macbook, if I need to revert back to a 100% working laptop, all I need to do is format and reinstall OS X.
• Why quad-boot? What on Earth are you going to do with four operating systems!?
• OS X: Media of all sorts (image/video editing, etc.), website work, daily use
• Linux: Daily use, schoolwork (mostly technical assignments), pretty much everything
• Windows XP: MS Office (OpenOffice is nice, but sometimes just doesn’t cut it), non-Vista-compatible software
• Windows Vista: … Games.
• How is all of this going to change the world? It sounds more like a “fun project” for Scott.
• “Fun project,” huh? Well, let’s be honest… that’s a big part of it. However, I’m hoping that a new computer, especially with OS X, will allow me to add some different types of media to the site. The Linux desktop on which I’ve been working, being three years old and also the same computer on which this site is hosted(!), is somewhat limiting in terms of how much power is at my disposal. I love writing, and I’m sure you all (occasionally) love reading it, but there are larger steps to be taken on this path…

I placed the order yesterday. The project will officially commence once the laptop hits my doorstep. Until then, may your world-changing efforts go well and may your Windows laptops survive another week.

I’ve written a bit about personal growth, and it’s a topic that will probably be featured here much more. What follows is a blog entry I wrote on April 16th, 2006 (before this site existed). This was a highly stressful period in my life, during my sophomore year of college, suffering the pre-finals crunch at the end of the spring semester.

I’ve often tried to pinpoint when exactly my goals in life shifted from something like, “study Engineering, make big bucks, marry hot chick” to “study everything, devote life to improving the world, marry decent-looking chick who agrees with those plans.” This entry may provide some insight…

My suitemates are in the common room laughing loudly at something most likely vulgar and obscene on the TV. They sound like a bunch of stereotypical, lazy college guys. A year ago, I’d probably be going out there to see what was so entertaining. Right now, though, it’s just kind of pissing me off - and I’m not even doing homework. How can people waste so many hours of their lives engrossed in watching a colored screen, without any sort of interaction or mental stimulation? Sitting on a couch, absorbing the things someone else took days/weeks/months to create, regurgitating various phrases over alcoholic drinks and pretending it’s actually cool.

… What’s happening to me?

While the tone is fairly negative, looking back on it, this was a time of trials with a very positive outcome. Moral of the story: Things will get worse before they get better… and they always get better.

I haven’t slept for a full cycle in three nights… and so far, I’m feeling just fine. This isn’t exactly polyphasic sleep again (yet), but I’m feeling that hyper-awareness state coming on.

What’s this all about? Just another experiment, mostly. I’m using a software-based alarm that plays music and resets itself every 23 minutes around the clock, kind of like an extended snooze button. Even if I sleep through once, it won’t be long until it attempts to arouse me again. And again. And again. I should mention that this music gradually builds up to full volume, and the only way to “hit the snooze” is to wake up and log into the computer; actually shutting the alarm off requires typing commands, something I’m not likely to be able to figure out in a zombie state.

Yes, it’s probably more complicated and geekish than it needs to be, but I thought the concept was worth a mention since I’d never heard of anyone else attempting it — a 20-25 minute snooze button that never gives up! The goal of this would be to first train oneself into sleeping entirely in naps before ever attempting deprivation. Assuming someone could adjust to taking 4-5 naps each day and enduring the constant reawakening at night, it would be extremely simple to cut out that extra sleep at night. The only problem I can foresee would be that simply awakening every 20 minutes wouldn’t be enough to bring someone completely out of sleep (hence immediately returning to a normal sleep cycle rather than “resetting” to a new nap). I guess the best way to test this would be an EEG, wouldn’t it? But where will I ever find one of those…

“The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.” –Unknown

That must mean we crazy world-changers are just fools, right?

In all seriousness, this is something I’ve grappled with on more than one occasion. It’s quite fantastic wanting to change the world and all of that jazz, but in exactly what ways should it be changed? It’s easy for me to point at a major global problem and say, “This is wrong. Let’s fix it.” Someone else, however, may see that problem as less serious than a different one — or not even a problem at all. How can I be so arrogant as to say that my perception of an ideal world is identical to the perception that others might hold? And how can we effectively improve the world when we might not even know what “improving” means?

The questions delve into the deepest crevasses of philosophy, and I have no answers to them. Perhaps someday I will.

Ten years ago…
Do you suffer from heartburn more than once a week? It may not be just your diet… you may have Acid Reflux Disease!

Today…
Do you have trouble sleeping at night and a constant urge to keep moving? It may not be just hyperactivity… you may have Restless Legs Syndrome!

Ten years from now…
Do you suffer from unusual hair color and a tendency to be bratty? It may not be genetics… you may have Redhead Disorder!