LG WH14NS40 1.03

 Finally downgraded the firmware to 1.02

Hopefully there are many more years to come for VLC, MakeMKV and LG to live happily ever after.

macOS 10.15.7 Supplemental Update

Apple released this update on 11/5.  It wouldn't be a pain if your Mac is supported.  For me running on macpro3,1 with unsupported GPU, it's a major pain.

Maybe one day I will finish this update or maybe not.

Or maybe I will get a Mac supported GPU so I can do the boot screen thing when updating.

Too much work for me.

Post Stamp

Once upon a time when I studied law, the post stamped date determines the date of acceptance, not the date of receipt.  That's if one actually can read the stamped date on the envelop and the mail is delivered promptly without undue delay like a year later or never.

I don't know what is the rule for the US Election, it seems like people make up the rule as they go.  My initial impression was the ballot mailed on Election date should be counted even it came after the Election date.  Mail in ballots are a little mess given that plenty of people can't follow instructions, mostly people do not sign the envelop or cross the ovals instead of filling the ovals . . . .  When one casts the ballot on site, those errors can be avoided or corrected right away.  If you take any public exam in multiple choice format, those answers would be discarded as you can't follow the instructions.  I don't know how those ballots would be treated like without signature or marking it kind of wrong.  Or "lost in mail" or "stuck in the post office" or simply delivered days late or no clear readable postal stamped date on it.

Perhaps these errors, if any, may not be statistically significant to be important to the outcome of the race.

Catalina 10.15.7

 Even Mojave has some supplemental update and security update.

After a few months I itch to upgrade again.

No surprise, the Catalina patch still won't go through the second phase.

Every time I do this I do this in a feverish pace and in the end, I don't know what I am doing.

But I have to say I am calm and a little bit more prepared.  When it failed to boot up to continue the second phase.  I was able to recover from the Mojave recovery snapshot though I forgot the details.  But it certainly emboldened me to go really to Catalina instead of just going update Mojave as I know initially I was able to upgrade to Catalina but somehow in subsequent update I wasn't able to complete.

No surprise I wasn't able to go to the second phase of the patch to complete but then it didn't destroy the last bootable OS I was able to boot back holding the Alt or Option key.

So here are the steps

Download the latest Catalina patch from dosdude1

Make the USB drive

Boot from the USB drive (for me I have to switch back to the supported GPU card, otherwise I can't do this ALT boot sequence)

The installation reboot and back to the USB installation screen and in some instances it gives me the mouse setup, just click Next or similar to back out

Reboot holding down Alt key, you should see the Install partition of whatever it's properly called, you should see the USB and other possible Boot EFI from previous failed upgrades but pick the installation thingy you've never seen before that was just created in the first phase of the update

This should complete the second part of the installation.

Once it reboots you should be home free 

Good luck.

PS:  you won't be able to stream Netflix on Safari, but Chrome is perfectly fine.

Catalina 10.15.6

 I have bad experience with Catalina hack with my MacPro3,1.  But that's a hack so I can't really be too angry with things don't work out.

My MBP mid-2012 is officially supported and the update is officially approved.

It took forever to update and when it's done the system is crawling and worse the system refuses to charge the battery.

I re-install the macOS hoping that it may correct something.  I started the re-install in the afternoon, maybe around 4PM it just won't finish, and at 6AM the follow day it was still updating.

When it finally finished, the same thing.  The system is crawling and the system refuses to charge the battery.

I think this is the worst ever upgrade I've ever experienced.

LG WH14NS40 NS50 ROM VER 1.02

I thought I have it set for a long time.  I even ordered a couple more Blu-ray.  Then one arrived and the disc doesn't mount.  I thought it was a bad disc.  It happens.  But then I tried others, didn't work either.  I know there is a problem.  But where exactly I wouldn't know.  The drive seems to be spinning just fine.  I took the drive apart and cleaned it twice.  The lenses don't look dirty at all.

The fact that I am running a few hacks on my system doesn't help.

The original Superdrive works somewhat but over time, it would just disappears, so I don't know what the deal.

I was planning to bite the bullet to get another one but it's just hard to be all that lucky to be able to get one with the exact firmware I want without flashing.

Anyway to be continued.

High Speed Sync

I always thought the built-in flash of my Nikon cameras can do high speed sync on its own.  Wrong!
How often do I flash?  Not too often.  And when I flash I either flash using the SB-800 or my Sunpak 120-J.  And honestly I seldom use high speed sync and when I do it's with an external Nikon flash like the SB-800 or my broken SB-600 if I ever did.  But I always thought it can be used with the internal pop-up flash.

Well today I tried because I was too lazy and too weak to carry an external flash and a battery pack let alone any trigger or light stand.  It's not worth it.

So I thought that little flash can sync above 1/320.  Wrong.  The fastest it goes is 1/320.  So the pictures can't be too crispy.  But then again it's not at all that bad if you manage to catch the right moment and don't look at it at 100%.

Right now I almost think it's imperative to shoot with a flash otherwise the pictures look kind of flat and lifeless.  But that's just one man's opinion.

Mojave 10.14.6

After downgrading this back to 10.14.6 it has been solid.  No more booting up to recovery or can't wake up, which I think is related to APFS not being supported in MacPro3,1 and somehow the patch can't handle it.

I need to resist the ever desire and urge to upgrade to the latest patch.

Convert MKV to M4V

It took longer than I'd like.
The MKV is > 2 hours and has a size of 36GB.
The M4V is 4.46GB and it took almost 3.5 hours to convert ...

VLC plays Blu-ray disc

Finally got VLC to play blu-ray disc on my MacPro3,1.  Sure you need MakeMKV in order to make all this work.
My next frontier is to play 4K UHD disc on it.

MacPro3,1 10.14.6

Downloaded JRE 8 something something and now the Blu-ray menu can be played.  I understand my player can even play 4K though I have yet to own any 4K monitor but I'm interested to see a scaled down 4K picture on my monitor.  It's hard to believe Blu-ray is only 1920x1080.

The temptation to upgrade to the latest is always there.  I am still itching to update to 10.15.4 but past experience really left me with a bitter taste.

10.14.6 seems to be very stable for what I do and experience.

macpro3,1 Mojave 10.14.6

I demoted the OS back to 10.14.6 Mojave

For some reason 10.15.4 Catalina just wouldn't stick.

I've spent a few days trying to fix that but no luck.

One good thing came out of this is with the latest vlc 3.0.10 and MakeMV, I can finally made Blu-ray disc playing a reality.  I don't know if I overlooked previously.  Or 3.0.10 is really a new new one, or MakeMV.  It was just a feature in MakeMV to allow itself shared the decoding libraries or something.  Previously, I mean the sticky note on MakeMV forum still has that old information.

So it couldn't be simpler.

macpro3,1 Catalina 10.15.4

I think I somehow destroyed the system.

When you trouble shoot late at night and end up regreting.

I think the SSD is kind of sort of not doing its job but there is no way I can find out what causes the OS couldn't see it.

So against my better judgement I opted to re-install the OS on a separate HDD and in the course of the installation, the HDD got wiped.  And so went my data.  Except there is a copy in my Time Machine, hopefully.

You know there is something wrong just not know what.  In the middle of data migration, the system re-boot itself so in the end, I gave up migration.

I wish I'd stay in MOJAVE.  But I know I'd never learn.

macpro3,1 Catalina 10.15.4

mac went to sleep, wake up screen OK, good sign.  But once entered password, the beach ball keeps spinning.  I guess that's the state of affairs now.
On the other hand my MBP 2012 seems to be just fine with 10.15.4.

At least when I did a reboot I got right back to the login unlike previously when the SSD basically couldn't be read when mounted on drive bay one.

Short sleep doesn't seem to affect the login but a protracted sleep causes the problem.

macpro3,1 macOS10.15.4

The machine has been booting to recovery mode pretty consistently and alarmingly.

So I thought there is something wrong with the file system or something.  But I have a hunch.

So I removed the SSD from the drive bay 1 totally.  And surprise, the mac still boots up what I think it's the recovery mode.  It asks for Language that goes to Utilities.  Apparently the recovery mode is running off entirely from its own, probably from the Time Machine's recovery I imagine but I don't know.

I plugged back the SSD to the optical bay drive via the secret SATA port and power.

Bang, the system goes back to regular login with 10.15.4

So something is wrong with drive bay 1 or how things are connected together I guess.

There are lots of strange thing that I never thought make sense or a difference but it does.

Now the GTX 770 is working the way I expect it to work.  The sleep and wake up seems alright.

At some point I was prepared to make another bootable USB stick to re-install macOS.  The strange thing is I made the stick on my MBP and when I plugged the stick to my MacPro, it doesn't recognize it in recovery....

Too many things I can't explain.

If overnight, the system still boots OK, I will try to reconnect the Blu-ray drive.

Unrealized Gain and Loss

No matter.  Still realizing gains and holding on losses, hoping wishing the losers may one day come back or black.  Not a sound investment strategy.  Take the loss and move on.

macpro3,1 maOS 10.15.4

There is a good chance, I won't say for sure, that if I unplug the power cable, then reconnect and boot, my chances of booting back to normal is 100% or close to 100%.  So there is some state stored in the memory that tells the OS to reboot to Recovery inadvertently or what I think it is inadvertently.  By unplugging the power cable I sort of clear that so the system starts anew.

I try to make sense of the scenario the best I can by making up stories the best I could.

The things that could go wrong:-
This is a 2008 macpro3,1 so it's not even supposed to be running 10.15.4 which was make possible by running dosdude1's patch since Mojave
The GPU is not supposed to be the PC version like I have installed.  Without the EFI from Apple, I don't see the boot up screens except the very last stage where I was prompted to enter my login and password.
Wired the one internal SATA to a Blu-ray drive and re-connected the EIDE superdrive, though presently disconnected to narrow down the problems for troubleshooting purpose.

To recap:
The system has been very stable starting Mojave.
Then comes Catalina 10.15 which was still stable for me.
Then I put in the Blue Ray and moved things around ... my SSD used to be using the internal SATA and put in the empty drive bay.
When I tried to connect the SSD and the Blue Ray drive using the SATA ports, it gives my problem, the system won't boot up.
In the end, I was able to put the SSD to drive bay 1 using some caddie, put all the HDDs onto bay 2 and 3.  The BR and Superdrive into the optical drive bay.
By and large it's working except after a while the superdrive would disappear.  But I can live with that.
Then somehow somewhere along the line, it develops this boot and sleep and wake up problem.  I decided to upgrade it to 10.15.4 to see if that removes the problem, alas it didn't.
Overnight, the system rebooted itself into recovery, it actually prompted the mouse setup and language setup before getting into recovery.  There were instances when the wake up screen appeared but after entering the login and password, the beach ball appeared and spins it went then it just froze.  Maybe something to do with the AFPS script boot or some kernel text with the patch ...

When the system is up and running it pretty solid.  Just don't let it go sleep or shut down.  Chances are it may boot to recovery.

macpro3,1 macOS 10.15.4

I left the machine sleep and then the next morning it rebooted into recovery mode, waiting for me to click next like setting the mouse (which is actually a trackpad) and selecting the language.  So I started the day with a bummer.  I thought with the optical drives unplugged I have it "fixed."  The thing is it's relatively more reliable to boot to the OS and sleep and wake up to the regular OS.

I wonder if a genuine or flashed GPU would make any difference.  The secret SATAs and power for the BR and Superdrive can't of destabilize the system I believe.  Removing them gives it a more sleep and wake up.  I suspect maybe the circuit or power don't quite support the drives to sleep and wake up in macOS 10.15.4 rendering the system unstable or rather unpredictable.  Mojave is the last stable macOS I have on my unsupported mac.  I understand it's on borrowed time.

MacPro3,1 macOS 10.15.4

After fixing it for two days, I finally got a handle of the situation.
I updated the patch and installed 10.15.4 on my macpro3.1 But the sleep and wake up problem won't go away.  It was just bad, at some point the mac simply boots to recovery mode and I can't see to do anything about it.

Because I am running the PC GTX 770 so I can't trouble shoot using the keyboard combination keys as there is no EFI rom on the GPU.  I needed to switch back to the stock GPU which is pokey and barely runs.  Even with the stock card I got into same problem, it just boots to recovery.

So that was no good.

In the end, I unplugged all the optical drives, the SATA BR drive and the stock Superdrive.  And so far I manually reset twice and the Mac boots back to 10.15.4 as solid as before.

I long suspected the optical drives, as from day 1 there seems to be some problem with the power after plugging them in and the stock superdrive would disappear after an hour or so.  So I don't know if starting 10.15.2 that problem manifests to sleep and wake up problem.  After I updated to 10.15.4 the OS doesn't even want to boot up normally as if it's damaged but it is not as it boots and reboots normally.

With the library closed for more than a month, I see no immediate need to use the optical drives at this point.  Oh well.

Hopefully it stays solid ...

Without a solid EFI graphic card it's just a pain to trouble shoot.  Open the case, get the card out, put the stock card back in, testing, wait to reboot.  Just lots of BS.

MacPro3,1 Catalina 10.15.2

Things started to go downhill ... The sleep and wakeup didn't work.
Since my system got through so many patches, software and hardware wise, I am losing count on what's what when it comes to isolating the problems.
Oh well is the only things that seems appropriate now.

I did the 10.15.4 update hoping that the sleep and wake up thing would go away, alas, it didn't.

The most frustrating part was to make enough room for the SSD to install the update.  It took me forever to squeeze enough space.  Because of Time Machine and all those snapshots so the Disk Util reports a vastly smaller storage available.  It took me many many trials to actually get rid of the Time machine snap shot restores.  I mean the actual delete takes seconds.

Anyway, still too much troubles.

I found out physically unplug the cable actually helps resetting the system to boot to macOS 10.15.4 otherwise the system just boots to recovery...Strange but true.

Mac Storage space can vary a lot, I mean a lot between Disk Util and Mac Storage

If you can a meager size SSD and some 4TB HDD and use time machine, you will have a hard time when try to re-install the OS to the SSD with you simply delete files or moving files around.  No matter how hard you try or how much free space you you squeeze out on storage, it doesn't matter as long as Disk Util says you only have a few GB available.  Even after you disable Time Machine along the way.

I'm sure I found a similar solution but I just forgot and in retrospect that might not be as effective as this one here.

https://youtu.be/JfvYkhXrqAs


Terminals codes - sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots / com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-19-151241 com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-19-151441 com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-19-153720 tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2017-12-19-151241


this frees up the space.

MacPro 3,1 on 10.15.2

I have no intention to upgrade to the latest 10.15.4, at least not now or maybe ever.  The system has been solid, that's until a few days ago.  If I could recall any changes it would be the updated Xcode.  Ever since that, I experience some wake up issue.  Given that my keyboard and trackpad are bluetooth only.  Plus my GPU is PC based without the EFI rom or some shit like that.  But I swear, once in a while I do see the Apple logo booting up, that the weirdest shit.

Short of updating the software or removing the Xcode as a trial and error, I proceeded to change the button battery inside.  I don't know but I think this little guy was there from day one so I just changed it now.  Maybe that would help with the sleep wake up issue as the battery is supposed to keep the state of some ROM, or whatever it's called.  I have some faith not a lot that it might just take care of the problem.

Well this whole thing is a hack on borrowed time anyway.

UPDATE:  Well it didn't help...

Country of Origin

Years ago, when Blundstones started manufacturing in China, I kind of got the impression they simply just don't want to talk about it at all.  They talk about tradition and all marketing material simply points to its Australian root.  If the brand has a problem, image wise, in telling people upfront the products are proudly manufactured in China, what do you expect the consumers to react.  Even the brand doesn't believe in that.

When I look at kitchen knives, if they say anything except country of origin, I can pretty sure that they are ashamed that their knives are manufactured in China.  They may have a Japanese name, Japanese steel or German steel or Sweden steel but the actual manufacturing is done in China and they are ashamed of it.  Again, how can I as a consumer buy it if you the brand doesn't even believe it yourself.

Stock Market

Is this the once in a century buying opportunity?  Know yourself.  If you are extremely risk averse or have hypertension or heart disease then it may not be a good idea to go all in even if this opportunity to buy low is once in a century.

It seems like the market is really propped up by a few big name companies, like MAGA or FAAG.  The Dow maybe in a rally and yet your stock might still get stuck in the mud for a long long time.

Iced Coffee or Cold Brewed Coffee

If you want to be scientific about it, I don't necessarily object as everything is kind of scientific.

But sometimes I just find it a little bit inconvenience when people say 3/4 of cups of coffee to 1 cup of water.  Wow, so I have to do fractions to make coffee?  Why at least say 3 cups of coffee to 4 cups of water?

Chances are when if comes to serving the cold brewed iced coffee you would add ice cubes and milk to it.  I see less of a problem if you make a stronger brew to begin with than a weak brew because you can simply add more water or ice or milk to dilute should the brew turn out to be too strong for your taste or mental health.  If you have a weak brew to begin with, then there is little you can do.

Overtime you will find your optimal coffee to water ratio.  I say 1 part of coffee to 4 parts of water is not a bad starting point.

Kitchen Knife

I own a set of Wusthof knives I bought many years ago.  I think I can substitute many with twenty, or more than twenty.  The knives are still functioning like the day I bought them with minor cosmetic degradation.  The chef knife is the one that I use the most, the black handles, over the years, seem to develop some very minor gag, like hairline gap with the full tang inside.  It's not so noticable if you don't look for it.  I haven't used any other knives in any meaningful way other than the Wusthof so I really can't comment on others.  Over the years, I always want to buy some other brands of knives just to have a change, to spice up the cutting a bit if you will.

I imagine any other knife without a full tang, both length and width wise won't be as stable as the Wusthof.  I believe it really gives the knife its stability and heft.  I tend to cut with a rocking motion, probably influenced by watching too much foodtv years ago and also the shape of the Wusthof.  It has a rounded blade, a wide enough blade so my knuckle won't touch the cutting surface.  The knife doesn't look too exciting but it's very practical for what and how I cut things.  I don't really do any chopping motion.

I feel that the steel is pretty hard but then I think I read that it's not that hard.  So I don't know.  I don't think it's too easy to sharpen but not difficult either.  I use a whetsone from JA Henkels, most likely not the best but I am OK with it.

I wonder what the carbon steel can do with sharpness.

I like to try knives from Japan or France.  But then they don't necessarily fit the way I cut, not wide or curve enough to allow rocking motion.

With limited money to dispose, I still only have one set of knives.  They are good though considering I have been using them for over twenty plus years.

VLC and Blu-ray

Despite what's said online, my experience is it doesn't work.  I am running vlc 3.0.8.  Many of those howto's are just copies from one another.  Maybe they worked at some point but not now not for me.  All of them give you very similar instructions with the database and the dynamic library.  And then towards the end it tries to sell you another software.  Well people need to make a living so I don't really blame them for that.

Google Sheets vs Excel 360

My understanding is Excel 360 still can't enter array formula.  I believe, which can be utterly wrong, many companies are still entrenched in the Excel environment.  I can enter with array formula in Google Sheets which is tremendous.  Don't know why Excel 360 can't, perhaps to make people upgrade to the desktop app.  Wouldn't know.

EDIT:  it's been too long ... what I meant was Excel for the Web.  I thought Excel 365 = Excel web version.  It isn't.
EDIT:  OK, it's called Excel 365.

MAGA and FAANG

MSFT
AMZN
GOOG
AAPL

FB
AAPL
AMZN
NFLX
GOOG

For some inexplicable reason, I invested in some weed stock, and I am having a negative return of more than 34%.  I know I know should have sold them.  Hoping NOKIA to bounce back on the rumor that the US may pick it up to fend off Huawei.

Corona Virus and Bad News

In whatever society, nobody likes bad news, or the bearer of bad news.  Some just don't broadcast bad news out of ulterior motives, like the person needs a promotion, a bonus, or just keeping his job.  Or people take it personally, bad news don't reflect well on one's ego.
I have seen little or practically no mechanism in any organization to report bad news.  OK, the suggestion or complaint box.

Google Statistics

There used to be this Add-on to sheet called something like Google Statistics.  Alas, they shut it down and the add-on is no longer available.

There's gone the box plotter.  The baked in candle stick chart is NOT a box plot chart.  Sometimes you just don't know why Google ripped that thing apart and made it unavailable.

macpro3,1 2008 hidden sata and power

it seems like i can limit 2 HDD on the HDD bays if i connected the hidden sata cables and use the ATA power.
Anyway.  I think figured out how to resolve or at least work around this problem.

Present configuration that works

Inside the 5 1/4 drive bay
1 Blu-ray drive connected to hidden sata port, with power from the original power molex to an adaptor to the drive
1 Superdrive, the stock one.  Once I connected with the ATA cable and power I was able to bootup the whole thing, even with 3 drives in the drive bays.
Drive Bays
1 the boot SSD drive
2 HDDs in drive bay 2 and 3.
Before connecting the superdrive I wasn't able to make the 3rd drive to work, I mean the system won't even bootup.

When I got this system, the superdrive was there but not connected.  Initially when I put my SSD into the 5 1/4 drive I just snaked 2 SATA cables and never bother to reconnect the Superdrive and at one point I even removed it out of the caddy.

It seems like I need to complete some circuit or something for the system power to work correctly.  Otherwise some sata won't work as previously.  I know it doesn't sound very scientific but I am not a science guy.  No excuse though.

Mac3,1 2008 Power

I am not technical enough to know for sure what goes wrong.

At some point I am able to run the following at the same time
SSD as the macOS
Blu-ray drive
The above are parked at the 51/4 drive bay with SATA connections snaked from the board and power from the original drive bay.
Originally I have the power split cable connected to the SSD and the BR drive but it won't boot up so I bought another one with no split and everything works.

The 4 HDDs bay only has 1 4TB drive running.  At some point one of the 4TB turned bad and the OS couldn't use it.  I don't know if at any point all the drives were working.

But I am sure the SSD, BR and one internal 4TB and one 2TB USB drive were working happily together.

Then came the replacement of the 4TB.  When I plugged it into one of the 4 HDD bay the Mac won't even boot up.  Nothing.  Initially I thought it's the replacement drive but I know it can't be right.  It's supposed to be a new replacement.  Not that new new but new replacement like new refurbished.  So I swapped it with the USB.  And viola it works.  So I know something is wrong with the system but not the HDD per se.

It seems like I can't have all the drive running at the same time.  Mind you I don't ever have drive bay 3 and 4 mounted.

So I took the SSD down mounted it on the HD1 bay and the 2 HDD on bay 2 and 3.  So the 5 1/4 only has the BR drive.  Still won't boot up until I unplugged the BR power.  That's very odd.

I don't know if there's anything with the Y splitter cable even I only use on end of it.  So I am ordering another one without the split.  Or the BR drive drawing too much power?  I have no idea.  It seems like if I only put 1 HDD into the drive bay then it would boot up when the SSD and BR are plugged in and powered.

This is just a bit weird to me.

ACHN

I bought this at $6.21 and admittedly I didn't do enough research or follow up.  The company was acquired by another for $6.30 and was supposed to close in early 2020.  There hadn't been lots of movement except on the downside.  I held on to it and set a limit at $6.30 to sell.  Then on 1/27 the stock shot up on the open bell.  It was so up that I got it sold at 6.96, not the highest but way higher than my limit.  I lucked out.  Then I think it just got stuck at $6.76 or there about until the company no longer trade as it's acquired by another company.

2019 was a good year for equity market for the most part.  2020 is going to be crazy.

Sunk Cost

Once upon a time, I learned this concept of sunk cost which supposedly shouldn't be something that influence your decision.  This is hard for me to grasp still.

I have all my in use gears in Nikon I would be hard pressed to switch to another brand.  Though in reality my go to camera and lenses are quite limited, 2 bodies and 2 lenses for 99% of my shoots.  The rest are just for fun pretty much.

After shooting with a motor drive for years I find it hard not to.  The balance without the grip is just not right.  The motor drive works just fine provided I don't need to hike up and down for a long time.  Except for the F5 I still don't own any camera with integrated grip.  Whenever I see a camera with integrated grip I am interested.  I instantly recognize it as a high quality build camera.  So naturally I am fascinated by the Olympus flagship whatever OM-D blah blah is and the soon to be released rumored Fuji for the 2020 Olympics.

Clear Duplicates

I haven't worked on a spreadsheet in a commercial setting for a long time.  Now people just call it data analytics or some variations thereof.  I just call it spreadsheet or quantitative analysis.  My understanding of the field is limited.  Back I had to deal with data and invariably the data were crap, and dealing with duplicates were inevitable and common.  I would just basically sort the data, then compare rows by doing a boolean if they return T then I just deleted one of them.  I was careful to keep the original order of the dataset all in all.  Now I just found out there is an add-on in Google Sheet to do just that Remove Duplicates.  Ha ha.  There is also I found out a fascination of graphics.  I think it's not exactly new but with new software like Tableau I think and that's just my opinion, probably biased and uninformed, the graphics just go a bit overboard and crazy.  When I did spreadsheet I never bothered with graphics for my purpose, I just did the numbers.  For one thing I didn't need to present anything to anybody who needed to see the big picture or trends.  It seems to me nowadays people are just obsessed with charts.

Leather Jacket

Google bot knows I'm searching leather jacket when I am online.  I got feeds from advertisers all over.  One of the retail brands carries a few brands like Schott, Ralph Lauren RRL and some Japanese brand.  The point I am trying to make is that who in the right mind would buy a RRL moto jacket.  For an imposer like myself I am looking for quality, realist garment RRL is not the right choice.  And more importantly, the quality looks sub par.  There is no football pits; the back panel is by 2 pieces of leather, the quality is questionable compared to Schott and the Japanese brand.  The manufacture origin is not so proudly only listed as Imported.  Come on, have some pride in where you source your material or manufacturing.  And yet the garment is selling for $1900 when a Schott is $900.  The Japanese branded is north of the $1000 as well but it looks like it gives more thought and quality than the RRL one.  The front closure has zip that goes both ways so when you sit down or actually ride, you can open the jacket from below and prevent the jacket from bulging out like as if you are pregnant without making the jacket short.  There are similar gussets on both sides of the jacket for that similar purpose as well.  Who in their right mind would buy a RRL moto jacket for $1900?  It looks sub par all around compared to others.

CVS pharmacy

CVS pharmacy wins in giving out the longest receipt ever.  You bought a Hallmark card, and you got a four feet long receipt.  You thought you're going to use the coupons there, but you never did.

CVS offers on site digital print service I have no doubt their machines are very capable.  What I don't have faith or empirically speaking is the staff manning the machine.  Not enough training or simply don't care.  I have yet to have any satisfactory prints from the shop close by.  There is ghosting to the image so something is not aligned right or something something.  So after maybe two trials I gave up on them.

MacPro3,1 can't split power from the 4-pin molex

I got one of those splitter but it won't work.  There are two 2 4-pin molex power plug in the drive bay of the MacPro3,1.  But you need 2 power adapters to convert the 4-pin molex to SATA power.  No luck with the Y splitter for that.  My boot drive, no ask me why, resides on that drive bay, using the power from the Y splitter when both are attached won't even boot up the MacPro3,1.  I mean using the Y splitter is totally fine as long as you only use one of the Y splitter but that defeats the purpose totally, doesn't it?  Got another adapter cable and now the BR drive and the SSD draws power separately and they work at the same time.  Hooray.

2.5" SSD on MacPro3,1

I have been running a 250GB SSD inside a MacPro3,1 for more than a year.  It's not an elegant solution like as if I know what elegant is.  I chucked the card into the empty drive space where the 5 1/4" drives are.  I ran a couple of SATA cables and power adapters in there to provide power to the SSD.

So, there comes a time I want to put it where it belongs, sort of.  But since it's 2.5" as compared to the drive bay for 3.5" so some sort of adapter is in order.  I ordered a couple and I thought it was a slam dunk,  Unfortunately, that is not the case.  Oh well, I just waster some $20.  Maybe I'll try again one day.

My HGST 4TB died on me after just 6 months but miraculously, the warranty still works.  But I would believe it when I actually get a replacement or a fixed drive back in hopefully less than a few weeks time.

The LG BR drive works as in it reads BR all right.  To play BR disc you need the right SW.  It's complicated.  VLC lacks AACS as BR disc are protected from all kinds of whatever.  MakeMKV comes with all kinds of goodies to decrypt.  So perhaps vlc can use them AACS from MakeMKV.  That was indeed the case but unfortunately comes the latest version of vlc, the library of AACS need to be authorized and so the old way of symbolic linking the library no longer works.  So to play a BR disc directly from vlc seems somewhat impossible now, at least for me.  But some MakeMKV can rip whatever apart so the solution is obvious . . .

The picture quality is very nice at 1920x1080, and I am not even talking about ultra high def as in 3840x2160.  MY monitor only display 2560x1080 anyway.

I rewatch Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster.  I think it's the bomb in many if not all aspects of filmmaking.  It stands up for repeat viewing.

IT Chapter Two sucks balls.  So glad I didn't go to see it on big screen like I did with the first one.  The first one is pleasant, not great.  The second one is just like walking dead, run of the mill terror flick.  Very empty and soulless.

Blu-Ray on MacPro3,1 2008

There is no straight answer as life is kind of messy.
Can you install a BR drive on a 2008 MacPro3,1?  Absolutely.
Can you make it play a BR disc?  Maybe or maybe not.  If you have older version of VLC and a copy of MakeMKV, probably.  Not if you are on the latest version of VLC with "hardening" which I take it it means it needs authorized or signed library.  BR's encryption is a roadblock to many who would love to play BR on 1080P or even UHD.  You can still play the movie, such as by ripping it first then play the file accordingly.  One can just decrypt the disc into a mkv file and then you can play the mkv using vlc or have the mkv transcoded to some other file format you like.

MacPro3,1 and Catalina macOS10.15.2

Everytime there is an update pushed out by Apple I tend to apply it and update my system.
My system being a MacPro3,1 early 2008 with a half ass supported or not quite supported graphic card is really a pain in the rear end when it comes to upgrade.  Mainly, I can't get in all those necessary reboot modes without the EFI or boot rom for the graphics.  So I have to pull the card and plug back in the original card which is mildly painful.  Everything adds up.  And in the end, what seems like a rather straight operation invariably ends up like life or death, at least for the system, operation.  Usually it spans for hours to get it done.

Again, it's a dosdude1.com patch.
download the patch
download the full Catalina install from Apple via the patch
create a Catalina bootable USB finger using the patch
reboot from the USB
And good luck.

Somewhere along those steps something will happen I guarantee you that.

I am not on macOS 10.15.2 after hours of patching ...

USPS and UPS

I don't know which is worse.  I guess your experience may vary.

The USPS just finished a postal audit in northern Brooklyn where an office is found guilty I guess.  Maybe it's fun to work there pre-audit.  Now the operation is blown, the good old days are over.

Before USPS has tracking, I think people pay extra for UPS for features like tracking.  Not anymore.  I think the UPS service can be extremely slow, I am not impressed.

Clint Eastwood and Brad Pitt

Growing up, I was exposed to American cinema and that is Eastwood's westerns.  For me, he is the archetype of American rugged good look.  Dude is now in his late 80s and is still cranking out movies one after another like clockwork before and behind the camera.

Few days ago I watched the Golden Globe, Pitt won Best Supporting Actor in Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood, Tarantino's tribute to Hollywood.  It's a very mellow take on that period and Pitt and LDC nailed it.  I went back to the time machine that's Youtube and saw some old clips of Pitt from interviews to paparazzi video clips; dude seems like an easy going guy without some major temper to the gutter press and all.  Anyway who knows the real Pitt.  I saw him in True Romance, Thelma and Louis, Se7en, Fight Club . . .  Dude doesn't make tons of movies but he sure has some good ones like Se7en and Fight Club above.

Need to check out Fight Club again in some bullshit UHD if only my cable and shit arrives one day.

Random thought on suit and tailoring . . .

Now that I am giving some thought on this topic, I actually had suits tailor made.  It was such a long time ago.  Of course that came with being part of the job in the old days.  If I were to spend thousands of dollars on a suit I'd opt for tailor made from beginning to end.  And yet, I saw on Youtube people are just happy to buy a suit from say Tom Ford or other designer brands, that's like a $6,000 dollars suit with free champagne included.  But then the suit is not even well fitted or tailor made for your body and you have to get it altered either in-house or let your own tailor fix it.  I mean come on now?  For me it doesn't make sense at all.  I mean even after the alteration the jacket still pulls in the front; doesn't drape well.  And then the dude opts to narrow the legs more.  I mean OK if you have the body and money by all means.  He sure has the money.

It's generally agreed that it's a faux pas to fasten the bottom button of a jacket.  It just ruins the drape and the movement of the jacket.  And yet, you see it quite often that some dude actually fastens all the buttons.  I mean I saw it in some avant-garde Japanese designer who has her model wear the jacket like so on the runway or for photoshoot.  So rules are made to be broken.  That being said I think it's a good reasoned rule.  I personally wouldn't button up the the bottom button it just looks restrained and constipated.

And then there are questions about the belt.  I mean if you have your shit tailor made do you actually need a belt?  Or you just want it for the look?  Any serious looking pants or suit are sans belt like tuxedo.  But then I don't have any money to have my pants or suits tailor made so some sort of belt is in order . . . .

MacPro 2008 Blu-ray

Got myself a LG Blu-ray player blah blah blah.

Chuck the thing inside the MacPro3,1.  Unfortunately the machine doesn't want to boot.  After some mildly painful troubleshooting, I think it's the power.  I ran a power splitter from one of the 2 4-pin power cable for the EIDE drive.  It is running OKAY as long as only one of the splitter is in use.  Once I plugged the other end to the Blu-ray SATA, the SSD won't boot.  I guess there is no power going there.  I vaguely remember reading somewhere a year or 2 ago something to that effect.  The traditional or old Blu-ray standard is only 1920x1080, but the newer one can go up to double that, i.e. 3840x2160 or called UHD.  Though my monitor only goes up to 2560x1080.

So I ordered a 4pin molex to 12 pin Sata cable.  Let's see if it works.

When I plug the splitter to both the SSD which is my boot and the BR drive, the BR seems to get the power OK as I was able to see the light and open the tray.

Before I proceeded to install the drive, I needed to remove the front plate from the drive which is a bit of a pain as people mentioned it but there was no clear shot as to exactly how it's to be done.  Well I am guilty of that as well.  All I can say is you need to be careful and do not force it.

Since I can't get the machine to boot if the drive is power plugged in so I can't really test it yet.  Judging from what I read, this model with the 1.02 firmware may just even read the UHD BR disc as well.

UPDATE 1/11/2020:
I am happy to report that, what I thought was right.  The 4-pin molex won't split power.  With separate adapter to the SATA to the SSD and the BR drive, both of them work now.

Genuine Leather

Genuine Leather as a specific designation is rather misleading in my mind.  You think it's a good thing but it's not.  In the world of leather, it's in the lower echelon if quality is the major concern.  Full grain is the preferred type.

Then there is the fake leather that marketed as high end alternative for those who like the look of leather but despise the animal component of the leather.  It doesn't necessarily mean they are cheap as marketing can turn this into a positive.

IBM and T

I know one shouldn't trade based on emotions.  But then again "should" is a word I despise.