Rick Swift & Apple & Embedded I make things. Sometimes, I’ll talk about it here.

My Gorram Frakking Blog

Caving Trip

I went caving with some friends over the labor day weekend. It was surprisingly more fun than I had expected. We wore helmets and headlamps, and knee pads, for protection. In some places you had to inch your way forward on your stomach. Sweaty work, but the caves were a cool 55 - 60 degrees F.

I highly recommend the trip. We stayed at the Indian camp ground in the Lava Beds National Monument. It's a long drive, but well worth it. On the way back, stop by the Sundial Bridge.

Followup: MacBook Pro Kernel Panic with External Monitor

Some time ago I wrote about how my shiny new MacBookPro crashes whenever I plug in an external monitor. Turns out, Apple displays don't make it crash.
I wrote a bug about it, and Apple responded well. They gave me a tool to use to record information about the monitor.
Interestingly, I no longer have privileges to read or append to the bug I originated, and neither does my friend at Apple. I finally wrote a new bug referencing the old one to try to get some info, but it's been four months (and a few updates) without a fix.
Also, I'm on my third MBP since then, and it still crashes, so I'm fairly certain it wasn't a hardware defect (but it could be a hardware design flaw).

A Season is 22 Fucking Episodes

NBC (USA, Sci Fi), your so-called "seasons" of The Dead Zone, The 4400 and Stargate (both series) are a joke. 10 episodes? 12? 13? Cheap bastards. Those are good shows, they deserve to run for a consecutive 22 (or more) episodes.
Advertising and ratings suck.
You know what else sucks? "Pro" wrestling. That crap doesn't belong on the Sci Fi channel. Put it on the channels that the trailer trash who watch that shit watch. Fox, or QVC. Fuck you.

Tesla Motors

I've added a clickable ad for the Tesla Motors electric sports car. I'm not getting any money for doing this, but I believe very strongly in this thing. It's incredibly fast, beautiful and has excellent range for a high-performance electric car. If I had $85,000 to spend, I'd get one in a heartbeat.

Leopard

There are some cool things coming in Leopard (Apple's newest version of OS X). I recommend you take the time to watch the Keynote Address. As usual, there's a bunch of eye candy/fluff in Leopard, and it'll be interesting to see if they fix any of the numerous bugs that have been around since day one.

Mail

So, they've added a bunch of wizzy stuff in Mail that I could care less about. The ToDo thing might be cool; we'll see. I really want to know if they fixed the URL-splitting bug. My insider friend tells me that bug is fixed in Leopard, but it wasn't mentioned in the keynote (had it been, it would've received the loudest applause).

More

There's tons more cool shit. Watch the video.