Hard to imagine that i have made 500+ posts on this site. I guess that’s what happens when you post self-indulgently for a decade! There are still piles of drafts that might be useful if i ever get around to finishing them. Not no bad, only 72 out of 501 posts are pointless.
Author: be3n
I've been working with, playing with, thinking about, building, or demonstrating the wonders of technology for decades. I am a freelance consultant in Los Angeles supporting some of its most creative residents and businesses. This is a writing exercise and in truth I don't know if I will lean more toward the technical or the bizarre. Either way, expect to see some technical writing here in the near future. This is just a place for me to ramble, rant, rave, or reticulate. Got something to say about it? leave a comment.
Open source artisanal iOS Jailbreak released using only grass fed locally sourced exploits.
A long time in the works, this is the first completely open source jailbreak to be released for an almost current version of iOS (11-12.1.2). This is an interesting jailbreak. It is semi-tethered, but unlike previous jailbreaks, this can at least be untethered from the device itself. Using Cydia Impactor, you can side load the unc0ver app and install the jailbreak directly from the app. it also allow the easy rejailbreak upon reboot or battery drain. Great work all around despite the remaining bugs and instability (it is still beta. Huge thanks to the efforts of @pwn20wnd and @sbingner). To be honest, there are very few tweaks and apps that are ready for iOS 12, but i am excited to see the tradition of jailbreaking continue. I have cydia again! For the first tine since I closed down my own cydia repo. C’mon developers, do you thing!
UPDATE: This problem was resolved in b38.
2019 Storage upgrade phase 2 begins!
Now the waiting truly begins. fingers crossed against additional failures. On the next upgrade i’ll be able to test to see if the Drobo Pro (the original Drobo 8 bay) supports disks greater than 4TB. Apparently, no one has tested that. I honestly wonder how many of these are still in use? I have now replaced every drive in my Pro.
Update: I have been informed by @mistacabage that the Drobo Pro will not accept drives larger then 4TB. The official documentation just said it was untested.
Cleaning out my office I found an ancient Asterisk Box!
Originally my router/PBX this Dell P4 was installed with some of the earliest Digium PCI analogue cards. This card supported both FXS and FXO modules, and i used them both in various configurations. One of the FXS modules is what allowed my housemate’s old rotary phone to connect to the house phone system. I loved testing the system by ringing his phone. The ringing of its actual bell, was a delight. That dell survived the infamous flood (by already being decommissioned). I think I paid over $200 for this card alone. Now i run Asterisk off my Raspberry Pi with a total hardware cost considerably less than that.
Waiting for new backups to complete before repurposing old backup drives.
After installing the new backup disks, i must wait the interminable delay for the new backup to complete. Every step in this upgrade is going to take forever! In the end, it will upgrade 3 different arrays with new life and storage capacity.
Chinese New Year celebrated in Los Angeles!
We missed the parade, and even worried that the celebration might be winding down. Luckily it turned out that the celebration was not even slowing. Confetti cannons continued to fire, gathering so much on the ground that children were playing in it like snow. Confetti angles, confetti ball fights, there were even some industrious youths that managed to relaunch a massive pile back into the air and onto the heads of celebrants. Amazing food, performers, music and art. Not to mention the typical chinatown fair. I watched performances by dragon dancers, contortionists, martial artists, traditional chinese music as well as contemporary chinese pop music. It was a great way to bring in the year of the Boar!
More photos from Stan Lee tribute
Incredibly, we were provided with a seemingly endless supply of White Castle Burgers. These delicious tiny devils were a delight. I ate too many. #noregrets
Amazing art was on display prominently featuring Stan. The honors kept coming. The army provided a color guard with taps. Celebrity panels and pre-recorded messages from people across the spectrum of entertainment media. Even the mayor of Los Angeles presented POW Entertainment with a specially produced key to the city. The documentary and other videos offered incredible insight into the history of Stan and his many many creative endeavors. I probably watched 45 minutes of Stan Lee cameos. In fact, I am grateful that I had watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse before coming to this event. I teared up during Stan’s particularly moving cameo. I doubt it would have had the same impact seen out of context. I met many incredible people. From fans to speakers and even the event staff were all comic (or comic based movie) lovers. This was an experience I will never forget.
I’m at the Stan Lee Tribute in Hollywood!
This is an amazing crowd. Everyone here was inspired by the worlds and characters created by Stan. Many have even made careers out of his creations. More.
Visiting iFixit and finally fixing my laptop!
I got the full tour, the place is amazing and far tidier then any workshop I have been in. They have pieces for nearly everything and almost everything in pieces. I got to try out their tools. I even touched their flame thrower!
It turns out this little bugger was the cause of all my problems or at least my technical ones. Once I got this guy replaced, my 2011 MacBook Pro was back kicking ass. Thanks Daniel you are awesome!
I brought this gift to show my appreciation, I hope you like it. It is TechStep diagnostic tool from Apple for testing and diagnosing vintage Macs. I don’t even remember what i traded it for nearly 20 years ago, but i never once used it. I hope you enjoy it and maybe even do something cool with it. I cannot wait to come back.
Pilgrimage to the Internet Archive
The offering I brought was nearly 100 lbs of technology from my childhood. I met some amazing staff and volunteers (they even archive their employees). Even visited the blinking lights of their servers. They archive even more then I knew. More then web, old software and films, they even archive music and have an impressive collection (i found several rare or out of print artists and albums in their archive).
