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.