1. cd /dev/ <return>

2. ls - | grep disk <return>


Take note of the disks displayed.  Provided you have no other external hard drives attached, your culprit disk is probably going to be disk1.

Again in the terminal, execute the following:

diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ <desired hard drive name> disk1

This invokes the Disk Utility, commands it to erase the disk disk1, rename it as <desired hard drive name> and format the drive as HFS+, or MacOS Extended Volume Hard Drive Format.

Note:  Use HFS+ if you intend to use the hard drive on Mac only.  If you want to use it on PC or PC/Mac, you’re going to have to choose another option.  For more detailed information, check out the Apple developers website.

“He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars: General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars.”

– William Blake

I think it very pertinent in this day and age to meditate on the wisdom contained in these words.  In this era of intangibles, we must all demand Minute Particulars.

For those who demand “change,” what specifically do you want changed?  How are you going to change it?  What are you going to change it into?  What is the specific purpose of this change?  Who is going to pay for it?  Who is going to be screwed over, and how badly, in the name of your change?  Are you OK with this?

For those who think we need to round up all the illegal aliens and ship them back to “wherever they came from,” I ask “how?”  How are you going to accomplish this?  How are you going to find them all?  How much loss of life and property do you expect to cause?  What will it cost?  Who is going to pay for it?  Are you fine with tearing families apart?

If you don’t know, admit ignorance and do what you can to fix it.

All I ask for is Minute Particulars.

1. Go to Settings -> Security & Location and make sure that Enable GPS satellites is checked.  You can also check “Use wireless networks,” but I find that to be less than accurate.
2. Turn phone completely off and go outside.
3. Turn phone on.
4. Leave phone sitting outside under a clear, obstruction-free sky for as long as it takes to reestablish its connection to GPS satellites.  This could take several minutes.  If you’re in Arizona and/or it’s over 100°F, I suggest you wait until evening so as not to turn your smart phone into a pop tart.
5. Open the Maps application, hit the Menu button, and select “My Location.”

Hopefully, your device will now be communicating with GPS satellites properly again and will give a much more accurate reading of your current location.  Feel free to comment or drop me a line if you have anything to share.

GOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!

It’s FIFA World Cup time again, and like all red-blooded ‘Muricans, I have been waiting in anticipation for each and every game of the World Cup so that I can ignore each and every game of the World Cup.

This is ‘Murica!  Who do we think we are now?  Part of the world?  You don’t see Brasil (they can’t even spell “Brazil” correctly) playing in the World Series, do you?  No!  That’s because we don’t need ‘em!  Just like the song says, “we are the world.”

Let’s face it.  We know that soccer is way cooler than our ‘Murican version of football.  If that weren’t bad enough, the entire rest of the planet has the gall to call soccer “football.” Let’s get something straight, planet.   We don’t care if your version of “football” is, like, way older than ours.  We’re ‘Muricans!  When we name something, we ‘spect it to stay named!  And don’t even get me started on your strangely-named games like “Australian Rules Football” and “Rugby,” both of which make ‘Murican football players (or “footballers” in worldy lingo) look like a bunch of pansies in PVC armor and spandex groping for each others Hacky Sacks whilst watching a special double feature of “Mamma Mia” and “Sex in the City 2″ in a dark movie theatre full of sailors.

Anyhoo, soccer sucks… blah, blah blah.

K-Jong-Dizzle and Posse

So, there I was, happily ignoring the World Cup, when I heard a story on the news about the ragtag team of North Koreans that really tugged at the ol’ 심장 strings.  Not the actual team, mind you.  By “team,” I mean the North Korean fans.  And by “North Korean fans,” I mean “Chinese actors hired by the North Korean government to pretend to be North Koreans because the North Korean government won’t let North Koreans out of North Korea for fear that they (North Koreans) might see how the rest of us live and have to go home (to North Korea) really, really bummed.”

What really gets me angry is that they hired unknowns.  Think of how awesome the World Cup could have been had they hired the following:

• Jackie Chan – totally would’ve ass-whooped everyone, while drunk, using improvised weapons like clay wine bottles and vuvuzelas, all while making comical faces and pretending to have hurt his fist after punching big guys in the face.
• Jet Li – totally would’ve ass whooped everyone, but looked like an angry bad-ass while doing it.  No weapons needed.  Just pure bad-assery.
• Chow Yun Fat – totally would’ve ass-whooped everyone, except with guns and a shaved head.  And you’d totally want to do him, cuz he’s so freaking cool.
• Stephen Chow – Um… “Shaolin Soccer“… every heard of it?  Hello?
• Diana Pang – Mrowr [1].

North Korean Cheerleaders

While I’m at it, and not that it has anything whatsoever to do with what I’m talking about, why doesn’t soccer have cheerleaders?  Wouldn’t it make the sport even more awesome?  Can you imagine how sweet a hooligan cheerleader fight would be with all the mud, pom poms, and broken teeth?  Anyway, to sorta bring this back to the topic at hand, can you imagine what the North Korean cheerleading team might look like?  My money would definitely be on them to beat the crap out of all the other cheerleader hooligans.

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  I’m not watching the World Cup because I’m a ‘Murican, and ‘Muricans don’t like stuff that’s cooler than our stuff.  The end.

[1] Diana Pang = mrowr.  See right.

Comrades, feast your Vulcan squinties on this sparkly bastard!  Available for a limited time, in a limited test run, in a limited joint venture between The Belgian Mint, The Kremlin, and The QVC, we present to you the “United Future World Currency!”  The UFWC is minted in Brilliant Uncirculated .999 pure Gold-Pressed Latinum, and is available now, to you, our home viewers, for the low-low-low price of just 666 installments of $99,999.95!

Just think of the world peace… of MIND… you’ll be carrying in your pocket!

At long last, we God-fearing American folks have a common currency to link us together with our fellow peace-loving brethren and sistren in the ginormous world family that is North Korea [1], Iran, Rwanda, Sudan, Cuba, and many, many other failed experimental socialist welfare states in Europe [2] and Asia [3]!

Not only is the name not ridiculous at all, this coin is guaranteed [4] to erase all guns, bombs, ninja throwing stars, nuclear power, war, crime, oil, the combustion engine, global warming and/or cooling and/or staying the same, poverty, starvation, blight, drought, hatred, genocide, racism, fascism, prism schism, cultural and linguistic differences, slavery, everything interesting, and the radical extermination of liberty everywhere!

Just think!  No more funny languages to learn in high school!  Learning is hard, right kids?  And what’s with all that crazy-looking money from other countries?  Say goodbye, colorful designs!

But wait!  That’s not all!  No need to fear, white people!  We haven’t forgotten about you!  Everything on the coin is written in splendid English, the language of hygiene and tomorrow!

HOORAY!  ¡Hurra!  Yaşasın!  Hoan hô!  УРА!  만세!  الصيحة!  萬歲!  הידד!  やったー！

Don’t worry… we promise [5] you won’t confuse these damn things with the pile of Sacagawea dollars you already have lying at the bottom of your piggy bank.

1. Technically, North Korea will not be playing.  This is purely the fault of the Imperialist American government and its South Korean puppets.  친애하는 지도자는 당신을 사랑.
2. Or failing.  Failed:  Greece.  Failing:  France, Great Britain, Portugal, California, et al.  Don’t mind Europe… We here in the Good Ol’ US of A, with our Good Ol’ ‘Murican know-how, can do it right!  We won’t fail like every other socialist nation and state on the planet already has!  USA!  USA!
3. Except China.  They seem to be doing pretty well.  Totalitarian control, child slave labor, sweatshops, WalMart, and owning 73% of the United States doesn’t hurt.
4. Not really.
5. Not really.

I only noticed one bug: using the Digg Digg plugin (which I love) causes chunks of jQuery code to display at the beginning of every archived story when viewing by category.  My fix?  Go into Settings->Digg Digg. Under “Buttons allow display in,” make sure that Category and Archive are deselected.  Fixed!

This is a sudden drop in blood pressure when you stand up from a sitting position or if you stand up after lying down. Ordinarily, gravity causes blood to pool in your legs whenever you stand. Your body compensates for this by increasing your heart rate and constricting blood vessels, thereby ensuring that enough blood returns to your brain. But in people with postural hypotension, this compensating mechanism fails and blood pressure falls, leading to symptoms of dizziness, lightheadedness, blurred vision and even fainting.

Postural hypotension can occur for a variety of reasons, including dehydration, prolonged bed rest, pregnancy, diabetes, heart problems, burns, excessive heat, large varicose veins and certain neurological disorders. A number of medications can also cause postural hypotension, particularly drugs used to treat high blood pressure — diuretics, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors — as well as antidepressants and drugs used to treat Parkinson’s disease and erectile dysfunction.

Postural hypotension is especially common in older adults, with as many as 20 percent of those over age 65 experiencing postural hypotension. But postural hypotension can also affect young, otherwise healthy people who stand up suddenly after sitting with their legs crossed for long periods or after working for a time in a squatting position. Postural hypotension is generally harmless in young people.

[Courtesy of MayoClinic.com]

Creepy much?

Just about everyone I know has been asking the same question lately:  “Huh?  ‘Karate’ Kid?  Shouldn’t it be ‘Kung Fu’ Kid?”

With the massive ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, controversy over illegal immigration, high unemployment, the still-tanking world economy, collapsing European nations, growing government bureaucracy, multiple wars, poverty, starvation, and Lindsey Lohan, America is getting bored and needs something real to worry about.  Enter “The Karate Kid.”

Why “Karate” instead of “Kung Fu?”  It’s obvious that it was done for brand name recognition.  Hollywood normally presumes that most Americans is even stupider than they is, and don’t want to bewilder the monkeys.  Can you imagine the confusion over naming a remake of “The Dukes of Hazzard” something like “Them Crazy Rednecks?”  What would’ve happened had the writers of “The A Team” remake not inserted the line “… this Alpha Unit, or ‘A-Team’” so that the viewing public wouldn’t get uneasy with all that jargony Army stuff?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the makers of “The Karate Kid,” hip to the throngs of people asking why it isn’t “The Kung Fu Kid,” didn’t throw in some dialogue to placate the herd:

• Fresh Prince, Jr.: “Hey, you’re just like Mr. Miyagi, and I’m like the Karate Kid.”
• Jackie Chan:  “No.  Not Karate.  Kung Fu.  See, Karate comes from Okinawa.  The Japanese later adopted, Japanized, and spread the art through the world, but it’s originally an Okinawan art (which, by the way, originally came from China).  Kung Fu means ‘hard work’ in Chinese, and it is a Chinese art.  I am Chinese.  I speak Chinese.  We are filming in China.  Do you understand the words that are coming outta my mouth?”
• FPJ: “Whatever, man…  you crazy.”

Or something like that.

Here’s a history/language lesson for those who give a crap:

Karate was originally developed in Okinawa, but has strong Chinese roots.  In fact, the Chinese characters originally used to write it are 唐手, which means “China (T’ang Dynasty) Hand.”  (Interestingly, the Koreans still use this nomenclature in the form of Tang Soo Do – 唐手道 – way of the China Hand.)  In most areas in Okinawa, the art was often referred to by the name of the region in which it was practiced, e.g. Naha-Hand, Shuri-Hand, etc.  After Funakoshi Gichin brought the art to Japan, the Japanese said, “Uh… yeah… we’re not comfortable with all that ‘China’ stuff, so if you could just go ahead and change that first character, that’d be great, mmmkay?”  So, it was decided that they (the Japanese) would use another character which was (and still is) also pronounced ‘kara.’  Enter 空手 (empty hand).

Kung Fu is written 功夫 in Chinese, and basically means something like “skill earned through hard work.”  I like to think that this name actually originated from a joke.  Imagine some white tourists shlepping around the Chinese countryside, when they happen upon some monks training in the fields.  One corpulent tourist asks the tour guide, “Hey… what’s that stuff?”  The tour guide replies, “Kung Fu (snicker).”  The tourist is so pleased with his new knowledge, that he fails the notice the tour guide elbowing the bus driver in the ribs, saying, “Did you hear that?  I told him it was ‘hard work.’  Now he thinks that’s what the art is called!  BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA…”

Wushu is more likely what they’re doing in the movie (just speculation, as I haven’t seen it yet.)  This is where things get weird.  Wushu is written 武術 in Chinese.  (In Japanese, that word is pronounced Bujutsu.)  Wushu literally means “martial art,” but is more often used today to describe the showy, gymnastic-y, flashy stuff that came about after the Communists killed off, or drove into exile, all the truly powerful Chinese martial artists, only to later realize that they needed something culturally uniquely Chinese in nature to show the world how awesome they are.  In China, Wushu is for showing off athleticism.  In Japan, Bujutsu describes the “old school” combat systems.

I blame Mao.

Let me run that past you again in case you missed it:  SIXTEEN spy agencies.

Interestingly, the Intelligence Community’s own website lists 17 foreign and domestic spy agencies and organizations:

• Air Force – Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency (AFISRA) – formerly known as Air Intelligence Agency (AIA)
• Army – Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM)
• Central Intelligence Agency
• Coast Guard Intelligence
• Defense Intelligence Agency
• Department of Energy
• Department of Homeland Security
• Department of State
• Department of the Treasury
• Drug Enforcement Administration
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Marine Corps Intelligence
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
• National Reconnaissance Office
• National Security Agency
• Office of Naval Intelligence
• Office of the Director of National Intelligence

I’m guessing that the “Office of the Director of National Intelligence” doesn’t really count because isn’t an “agency” so much as a bureaucracy.  OK, I’ll buy that.

Why do we need 16 separate agencies to spy on people?  How much waste and duplication of effort exists?  Can some agencies and responsibilities be combined?  I do understand that, per Executive Order 12333, foreign and domestic intelligence needs to be kept separate.  But hasn’t DHS added a lot more gray to that crayon box anyway?

I really don’t want to get started on Homeland Security… but I’m going to.  Isn’t DHS just an “umbrella agency” that oversees the United States National Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the United States Coast Guard (weren’t they already listed?), U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the United States Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration, and Civil Air Patrol?  Were these agencies not competent to oversee themselves?  (Heh… forget I asked that.)  Did they not play well together at spy agency family reunions?

Unnecessary, repetitious redundancy.  Why is Customs and Border Protection a separate agency from Immigration and Customs Enforcement?  They both have “Customs” in their names!  Immigration and Customs Enforcement and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services both share the word “Immigration.”  What are these people doing?  Can you imagine the savings on business cards alone?

Wait… Civil Air Patrol…?  [twitch]

834b.  (a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.

What this paragraph means is that California police (all of them, at every level) are required (that’s the “shall” part) to comply with Federal immigration laws and authorities in the event that they suspect someone they have arrested is in the country illegally.  How they are to ascertain someone’s status?  Is California racially profiling? Where is the paragraph that specifically makes it illegal to racially profile, as is contained in Arizona’s S.B. 1070?  Very naughty, California.

(b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the following:

“Suspected” on what basis?  That they are a different color?  That they speak with an accent?  That they don’t understand English?  It sounds to me like racial profiling could easily creep in here.

(1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding documentation to indicate his or her legal status.

“Papers, please.”

(2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or leave the United States.

“Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws” means that the arresting agency has to tell the illegal alien that they are, indeed, an illegal alien.

(3) Notify the Attorney General of California and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal status and provide any additional information that may be requested by any other public entity.

The arresting agency also has to report the arrest to state and federal officials.

(c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city, county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly prohibited.

By law, no other California state authority or law enforcement agency can stop another agency from carrying out this law [waves at San Francisco].

The rest of the section goes on to explain the process of notifying the appropriate authorities from the country of origin for said alien.  Feel free to read it if you like, but it isn’t really germane to this conversation.

So.  Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and West Hollywood are boycotting Arizona, with other cities considering it.  Perhaps the leaders of these communities should make sure their own ships are watertight before lobbing cannon balls across the border.

Something I’ve noticed is that, while these cities don’t want California money going to Arizona, they sure don’t seem to have a problem with Arizona money going to California.  But perhaps that is beginning to change.  According to Sign On San Diego, “The San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau and several hotels report receiving e-mails and letters from Arizona visitors saying they intend to change their plans to travel [to San Diego]” because of the boycotts.  The number of reports is relatively small so far (probably fewer than 30), but for every person who goes out of their way to make their position known, how many are there who choose to remain silent about their decision?

Another thing that I found particularly telling lies in one the comments on the Sign On San Diego article:

“I hope you succeed; there are plenty of places in the country that would like economic growth instead of stagnation, bankruptcy, and unemployment… I hope they get your business, and you get your way. Everybody wins, right? Other places get your business, and you go bankrupt… who could ask for more?”

This commenter has actually devolved to fighting perceived hatred with actual hatred and the desire for an entire state and her population to wither and die.  Good choice.  One thing I’ve learned from the “California” mindset (with apologies to my many sane California friends) is that it’s OK to hate, as long as you hate the correct people or things.

Whether you agree with these laws or not, all I ask is that you do your due diligence and educate yourself thoroughly before the pot goes calling the kettle racist.  Emotions alone do not cut it.  This goes for both sides.