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.