Monthly Archives: October 2007

Leaped to Leopard

Posted on October 31, 2007 by Kelson

Mac OS X LeopardThe new Mac OS X disc arrived in today’s mail. I opened it up to make sure everything was there, and was surprised to see that Apple has really cut down on packaging. Instead of the ~8×10″ box with folds to keep the disc and manual in place, they’ve gone to a small box the size of a cardboard CD case. Just enough room for the DVD and the “manual” (which is mainly a “Look what’s new!” booklet).

“So,” I said. “I have to ask myself. Do I feel lucky?”
“Well,” Katie replied. “Do you? Punk?”
“What the heck.”

I’d done some research on application compatibility earlier this week, and the PowerBook looked ready. Katie’s desktop is going to need further study. The Mac Classic environment will no longer run under Leopard, and she’s still got a couple of Classic apps she pulls out occasionally. Also, Photoshop 7 is reported not to run under Leopard, and Adobe isn’t testing or updating anything older than CS3.

But the laptop? No critical data to back up (it’s all duplicated from the desktops), and everything we actually use on it has been tested on at least a pre-release.

So I fired up Netscape 4 for old times’ sake (and discovered that this theme is completely unreadable in it; then I switched the CSS around so that Netscape 4 won’t even try). Then I popped in the disc, selected some options, and let it install during Pushing Daisies.

No problems so far. Disk space is running low, but it’s a 3-year old laptop (so the drive is small) and I did an Archive and Install, so it has a backup of the old OS. Once it’s clear that everything works, I can free up ~6GB right there. It may also be time to wipe the Yellow Dog Linux partition. I haven’t used it in over a year.

Some highlights: I really like finally having virtual desktops (what Apple calls “Spaces”). The new search highlighting, previously seen in the Safari 3 beta, appears in other apps as well. Heck, Safari 3 is a big jump itself. (Hey, Apple, where are the Windows and Tiger releases?)

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Ashen Mountains

Posted on October 29, 2007 by Kelson

Things are starting to get back to normal, at least for those of us not directly affected by the Santiago Fire. There was a layer of haze coating the mountains Monday morning, but the air smelled normal, and the sky, when the clouds broke up, was blue.

Layer of smoke in front of backlit Saddleback

My co-worker who stayed behind in Silverado came back to work today, and had all kinds of stories about everything from rescuing kittens from burning houses and repairing a radio repeater to holding off advancing flames with a length of PVC pipe (using it to break apart the brush ahead of it).

The air was clearer even than usual, affording a detailed view of the hills and Santa Ana Mountains. The clouds made patterns of light and dark on the landscape. The hills looked better in sunlight than in shadow, with the light brown (dirt?) dominating over the charred stubble. In the shade, the hillsides simply looked blackened.

The mountains, on the other hand, looked better in shadow. As silhouettes, they looked no different than on any hazy day (except for the one plume of smoke still rising). In sunlight, however, they looked gray (normally from this distance they look brown) from all the ashes. From what I read, there are places where every bit of vegetation for acres has burned. My co-worker said areas of the mountains looked like a moonscape.

Gray mountains covered with ash

I actually saw, from a long distance, a helicopter (presumably) dropping red flame retardant on the mountains to create a fire line.

Red flame retardant dropping into the mountains

Late in the afternoon I actually spotted some faint Anti-crepuscular rays (think Thomas Kinkade, but in the direction opposite the sun) looking out the window. They were too faint to get a decent photo, though.

Sometime, maybe this weekend, I plan on driving out to see the landscape more closely.

Golden Sunset

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Compensations

Posted on October 29, 2007 by Kelson

Losing a tree to last weekend’s Santa Ana winds means there’s no more shade in the afternoon. Not an issue most of this past week, but Sunday was both sunny and hot, and with the window closed and the blinds open, all that heat went straight into the living room.

On the other hand, it does have its compensations:

Orange clouds at sunset

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Flash Movie Runs Through Another Director

Posted on October 29, 2007 by Kelson

[Flash Logo]Well, MTV is reporting (possible spoilers for JLA movie) that David Dobkin has taken over as director of the still-vaporware Flash feature film. Dobkin replaces Shawn Levy, who himself replaced David Goyer. Keeping up?

Goyer has long experience with super-heroes, having written or co-written Batman Begins, two of the Blade films and the TV show, the second Crow movie, and even did a long stretch on the JSA comic with Geoff Johns. Levy is best known for Night at the Museum and the remake of Cheaper by the Dozen. Dobkin? Wedding Crashers and Fred Claus.

I’m getting the feeling Warner Bros. doesn’t take the character seriously, despite their protestations.

Flash: Terminal VelocityOf note: The film is now being billed as a spin-off of the Justice League of America movie that’s getting lots of press right now. And while JLA apparently features Barry Allen, Dobkin stated the solo outing will definitely feature Wally West. Draw your own conclusions.

Also of note: MTV’s post uses a section of the cover for the Terminal Velocity trade paperback (shown at left), drawn by the late Mike Wieringo.

More info: Flash Movie page at Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning.

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Clouds Replace Smoke

Posted on October 27, 2007 by Kelson

The change in the weather has brought in clouds today (Saturday), and even the occasional sprinkle of rain. It apparently helped slow the Santiago Fire considerably.

I went into work this morning to deal with some network problems (you may have noticed that this site was down for a while), then went over to the Spectrum to grab lunch and take a look at Leopard. (Incidentally, my plan seems to have failed: Amazon shipped the box yesterday, so I’ll have it in just a few days. And I’ll really want to put it on the PowerBook.) I went up to the top of the parking structure to take a look at what was visible.

Saddleback Smoke and Clouds

There’s considerably less smoke than yesterday, and you can see the beginnings of a layer of haze below the hills. The cloud of smoke peeking out from behind the lower peak just in front of Saddleback stayed there, without getting visibly larger or smaller.

The air’s been relatively clear, except for the fertilizer smell when I walked out of the office. People were out shopping and sitting at outdoor tables. I saw one woman walk by with a face mask, but everyone else seemed to be taking things as normally as possible.

The apartment complex cleaned out the pool, which a few days ago had intricate patterns of ash lining the bottom.

Ashes at the base of a swimming pool

Orange SawdustThey also finally cleared away the remnants of the tree that collapsed on Sunday. They chopped it up into smaller pieces, and moved it off the sidewalk, but left the stacks of logs, branches, the stump and piles of sawdust sitting on the lawn for the rest of the week. After a day or so, the sawdust turned almost bright orange. My best guess is that they ran the sprinklers.

Of the two co-workers who live out in Silverado, one cleared out on Tuesday, while the other stayed to help out with, well whatever he could. Putting out spot fires, rescuing animals, scouting. His wife has been sending out email updates whenever he manages to contact her. I ran into the one who evacuated at the office today (he frequently comes in on weekends). At the time, the prognosis didn’t look good, but now it sounds like the canyon homes were spared for another day.

It still wasn’t encouraging when, walking to the Corner Bakery at the Tustin Marketplace tonight, Katie and I were again able to see a red glow in the mountains. We went looking for a spot where I could both steady the camera and see the glow, and finally set it up on one of those waist-height light poles lining the entryways to the parking lot.

The glow brightened and dimmed several times while we paused.

Fireglow above the hills, framed by trees

This is a 10-second exposure taken around 8:50 PM. You can see how well-lit the parking lot is by looking at the trees. I suspect the Marketplace is the primary reason we can’t see as many stars from home as I’d like.

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Shift

Posted on October 26, 2007 by Kelson

Winds have shifted northward. The good news: my workplace is no longer drenched in smoke from the Santiago Fire. I can see blue sky and wispy clouds, terrain back to the nearby hills, and the twin peaks of Saddleback rising above the smoke. Reportedly the northern peak (the one without all the radio transmission towers) has burned, though it’s hard to tell at this distance. The bad news: it’s sending the flames straight at Silverado Canyon, which was spared earlier this week when the fire raced past it eastward. Once again, worried about the co-worker who stayed behind and spent the last few days rescuing animals and relaying information.

Smoke rises from in front of Saddleback

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Random Tech Bits

Posted on October 26, 2007 by Kelson

Taking a break from the fire commentary:

Mac OS X LeopardApple: Finally pre-ordered Mac OS X Leopard, removing the temptation to run out to an Apple store or Fry’s this weekend (though I’ve been meaning to put some more RAM in the Windows box). Saved a few bucks by ordering from Amazon ($10 off the family pack, would’ve been $20 off the standard box), and picked the free shipping so that I won’t be tempted to install it until there’ve been a few days’ worth of bug reports.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering when Safari 3 comes out for Windows and Tiger. Tonight at 6:00? Monday? I’m looking forward to this putting some of the new CSS3 capabilities into the hands of potentially 5% of the web audience.

[Opera Logo]Opera: Speaking of web browsers, Opera 9.5 beta came out yesterday. In addition to lots of work on rendering & site compatibility (as seen through the last few weeks’ worth of alpha releases), they’ve launched a new service called Opera Link. It’s primarily a bookmarks sync service, plus a web-accessible interface. So you can automatically sync multiple copies of Opera—including Opera Mini—and also be able to access those bookmarks from Firefox, IE, or a computer where you’re a guest (friend, computer lab, cafe, etc.). I think the biggest impact here is going to be syncing between the desktop and phone, like Safari on the desktop and the iPhone.

On the other hand, imagine adding a bookmarklet or Firefox extension to more easily update from—or even fully sync with—other browsers. Or better yet, a way to synchronize Opera Link with, say, del.icio.us, which can integrate fully with both Firefox (via an extension) and Flock.

Spam: I’m astonished that, with the amount of comment spam that hits this blog (many thanks to Bad Behavior and Spam Karma for helping stem the tide!), I’ve only netted 7 comment spammers for Project Honeypot since they started tracking comment spam 6 months ago. I guess the software is smart enough to only hit the real forms?

WordPress: Just released version 2.3.1 with a bunch of bugfixes and (of course) a security fix. Updated.

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A Breath of Fresh Air. Please.

Posted on October 26, 2007 by Kelson

The Santiago Fire has moved up into the mountains, raging through the Cleveland National Forest. The canyons are still under evacuation, but out here in the Saddleback Valley, it just looks like a really smoggy day. With yellower-than normal sunlight. It was actually cold this morning, for the first time in well over a week.

Things were just clear enough at home last night that we opened the windows for about an hour to air the place out. Then the smell of smoke started drifting in again.

Because there hasn’t been much to see since Thursday, I haven’t been taking as many photos. So instead I’ll point you to a couple of nighttime photos I found on Wikipedia’s article on all the fires. The one on the left is a view from Aliso Viejo across the valley (the Washington Mutual building at the lower left is half a block from the comic store I frequent) by Wikipedia user Bighead. The one on the right is a view from Mission Viejo by Kevin Labianco. His other photos on Flickr are worth looking at as well.

Santiago Fire from AV Santiago Fire from Mission Viejo

Map: Santiago Fire Progression from Sunday through ThursdayThe OCFA has posted a nice map showing the progression of the fire. Since they replace their maps every day or so, the thumbnail links to a local copy of the map. (via AerynCrichton)

I’ve noticed people starting to speculate on terrorism as a possible cause of the fires, because it’s awfully suspicious that they’d all break out at once. Well, no, actually: it isn’t suspicious at all. Southern California is a very dry region. It rains in the winter (well, usually), then dries out in the summer. By the end of summer, the grasslands and brush are basically tinder. Then the Santa Ana winds blow in, usually in October: high speed, high temperature, low humidity. They dry things out even further, spark power lines, and once a fire has started (by arson, accident, etc.), make it spread rapidly. To make matters worse, there’s that drought I mentioned last week.

So if conditions are ideal (so to speak) for fire in one place, they’re usually ideal all over the region. We get wildfires every year, often two or three at once. They don’t get the headlines when they’re out in the wilderness, only when they encroach on cities and homes. And sometimes, when conditions are really bad, we get massive fires across the region. It’s happening now, it happened in 2003 (with the Cedar Fire being the largest), it happened in 1993 (the nearby Laguna Beach fire being only one of several).

In short, California burns regularly. People can help that process along, but it happens. Could terrorists have started some of the fires? (So far, only the Santiago Fire has been identified as arson.) Possibly. But it’s hardly the most likely explanation.

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Fire by Night

Posted on October 24, 2007 by Kelson

With the winds dying down, the smoke from the Santiago Fire clung loosely to the mountains most of the day. Unfortunately, smoke from the new fires down on Camp Pendleton drifted up the coast to take its place, bringing back the yellowish sunlight. Also, without the wind to clear them away, ashes left a thorough coating on anything outside. Work was somewhat calmer, with everyone (and their houses) finally accounted for. Power kept flickering throughout the afternoon, though. Between 4:30 and 5:00, something massive flared up, sending a new plume of smoke into the sky.

Orange MoonI ended up leaving the office after dark, giving me a chance to take some pictures of the orange moon (it was actually a bit past first quarter on Sunday, and it’s not quite full today*).

I also went looking for spots to take pictures of the red glow coming from the mountains. There’s a bridge near the office where I frequently take pictures of the hills, and I managed to find a spot where I could set up my mini-tripod and still have a view of the glow. There was one brighter patch which seemed to be changing shape, which I figured might actually be flames.

Mountain Glow

Afterward, I drove up to a cul-de-sac on Quail Hill which I’d discovered at lunch. I just parked my car at the end of the road, put the camera on top of it, and started trying shutter speeds.

Santiago Canyon Glow

The vantage point gave me a better sense of geography. The Irvine Spectrum area lies in the foreground, with the 4 tall office buildings (the two in the middle are under construction) and the bright neon proclaiming the movie theater. The shopping center stretches off to the right. The empty area behind them consists of undeveloped land from the former El Toro Marine Base and the hills that burned earlier this week. The clusters of lights about 1/3 of the way up are, I think, Foothill Ranch. That places the glowing area in Santiago Canyon.

Even though some of the houses up on Quail Hill seemed to still be under construction, they had an efficient neighborhood watch going. I must have been there only 3 minutes before a van pulled up into a nearby space. A guy stepped out. No labels, no uniform. I said something along the lines of, “Hello, I’m taking pictures of the glow from Saddleback.” He said, “It’s still going, huh?” “Yeah.” I muttered something about exposure times, and he got back into his van and drove off.

*Strangely, I just discovered that my Nightmare Before Christmas calendar has the phases of the moon shifted… well, out of phase. It lists a new moon for Friday instead of a full moon. Everything else is consistent with this placement. Except reality.

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Smoky Sky

Posted on October 23, 2007 by Kelson

Had a chance to run through all my Santiago Fire photos from the last few days with Katie and my parents, and they picked out a few favorites that I hadn’t already posted.

This first one was Monday morning around 10:30, as I drove into the region covered by the smoke plume.

Entering the smoke plume

Just a few minutes later, I had parked at work, deep within that plume. he sky was a hazy orange-brown, and the sun was bright orange, as you can see looking up at this tree.

Orange Sun & Tree

This next picture is yet another view of Monday’s sunset, seen from the 405 near Sand Canyon. This shows more variation in color, with a distinct cone of bright yellow surrounded by red, bounded by gray on the sides and fading to blue above.

Vulcan Sunset

Finally, here’s a view from the Quail Hill area on Tuesday just before sunset. This was taken from Knollcrest Park, roughly the same view as last month’s lenticular cloud photos. This is looking across the Saddleback Valley toward the Santa Ana Mountains. The smoke has cleared enough to see silhouettes, though the light has faded too much to see any more detail. The large plume is rising from Mt. Saddleback, the highest peak(s) in the range. The sun is very close to setting: the houses nearest the ridge are already in shadow, with the next row still in light.

Looking across the valley

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