Hacker's Diary

A rough account of what I did with Emacs recently.

September 30
How peculiar. Apple address the Bash security hole, but the fix is posted on their site as a download rather than being available through softwareupdate. Maybe softwareupdate was potentially compromised? Or maybe it's just avoiding load on one part of their infrastructure by pointing the Internet Firehose at another part?


September 27
Pacific Rim was basically meh. It's pretty much a Japanese Monsters Meet Mecha-Warriors movie, with all the clichés but none of the flair that makes a well-worn track enjoyable. The goofy scientists were too goofy, the belligerent asshole had no redeeming features whatsoever, the quirky love interest was ... I dunno, negligible? silly? In any case, stuff exploded, and then we were done. Skip it, really.

September 22
Still watching Sopranos episodes. Approaching the end of season five at this point.

September 21
Attempting to figure out cross-device podcast syncing for Mrs. Waider. Apparently the Official Answer is to have iTunes constantly running on a PC somewhere; the more useful if less official answer is to use Downcast. Why Apple couldn't do this, after the much-bragged-about untethering of iPhones from desktops, I have no idea.

Because it's been annoying me for a while, I finally taught my Mac that when I say, "eject /Volumes/GARMIN", what I really mean is "diskutil eject /Volumes/GARMIN".

Damned thing still didn't want to eject, though.

The above is, of course, another round of trying to update a GPS device. Run the Garmin software, it says there's an update but my (connected) device isn't connected. In trying to diagnose, suddenly get a prompt to install a new version of the Garmin software. Install the new version. This seems happier to tell me it's noticed my Garmin. Ask it to update. It says I need to connect a device. Try to quit the updater. It says, "you shouldn't quit while your device is being updated". WTF, Garmin?

Attempting to disengage one iCloud account so I can use the other. Annoying that you can't add multiple iCloud accounts in the system preferences and select which features you want each to support, but there you have it. Also annoying that you can't merge two iCloud accounts.

More Garmin fun: Garmin browser plugin recognises the device on the test page, but not on the supposedly useful dashboard page.


September 20
Rewatched Galaxy Quest. What's funny about this, I think, is that to really appreciate it you kinda need to belong to the culture it's sending up - as someone with a level of familiarity with the culture, there's a depth to the movie that I'm only getting by reading the likes of IMDb's trivia section. Still, it's good for a laugh.

September 19
As alluded to somewhat cryptically on the twitters, today is the start of Year Ten.

(I realise that's not a whole lot less cryptic.)


September 13
This thing where iCloud/iCal/iWhatever randomly signs me up to a holiday calendar for a country I'm not in is getting tiresome. Cut it out, Apple.

September 10
...and happy birthday, nephew!


September 5
Captain America: The Winter Soldier wasn't quite as good as Avengers Assemble, and it does seem a little odd to put together a world-threatening conspiracy that the Avengers aren't around to handle (yes yes I saw the "explanation" for this), but it was still a bit of fun. Bad points: clunky dialogue trying to expound on the virtues of state-sponsored violence vs. FREEDOM™ (now supersized with free milkshake and extra fries). Good points: stuff exploding, enough witty dialogue to entertain without going overboard into Arnie/Bruce territory, a reasonable balance of good guys vs. bad guys, and the general pace of the whole thing. Having two "stingers" (is that what we call them? I don't really know) in the credits was mildly annoying; I'd certainly have been peeved if I'd gone to see it at the cinema and didn't see these little promos for the next movie. I don't much care to sit through pages and pages of credits for these. Anyway. Bottom line is that this movie is about what you'd expect from the Avengers franchise. If that's your thing, this is also your thing.

September 1
Happy Birthday, broey!

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It's that month where I forget my brother's birthday again.