Category Archives: Personal

Stranger Things

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This weekend Cristina and I watched the first season of “Stranger Things” a new original from Netflix. I’ll try to avoid any spoiler so  this post might be a little short, still I think it deserves a recommendation from my part.

So, where should I start?. The story, again, no spoiler. The story is great, so far the eight chapters (around 1 hour each one) had us trying to figure what is coming in the next chapter. Is definitively not boring and in my opinion is quite well placed, a small town in what I believe is around the 80’s. Being an “80’s” drama, all the town must look like an 80’s town, so cars, TVs, radio and other stuff is pretty much accurate although there are some mistakes.

Next the actors, kids and the characters are good, Winona Ryder definitively made a good paper as a desperate mom trying to find her kid. The chief is also a great character and is well performed by David Harbour, the kids do it great too, I think Dustin Henderson is my favorite, and although they are kinda needed, I don’t really like the teenagers performance. They were like just filling the hole.

I like the idea of having a season two, but I don’t know if it will work the same, I mean, it can’t be just more of the same, it has to change and I’m not sure if those will be good enough.

I highly recommend it, go watch it and let me know if you like it.

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The man died trying to kill, the bull killed trying to stay alive

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Sad the bullfighter died. Now the bull has to die and all its family (quite probably this already happened). I don’t see a reason to keep this kind of events alive. What’s the reason to have to kill an animal that doesn’t know that the hell is happening. Just by sport?, feeling superior to other species?

It’s not fair, most adults have the ability kill a bull (with a weapon), I don’t see something respectable in fighting a bull that has been bleeding, that was deteriorated before the “fight”, a fight that is expected to lose. The only way to win is to provide a “good” show, but the bull doesn’t know about that, it is not trained to do that and the chances to do it are pretty low.

It’s definitively not fair, that if the bulls kills the bullfighter then the bull and all its family is killed, but if the bullfighter kills, he and his family remains alive!, I don’t see anything  honorable on that.

I’m completely against this kind of shows, the bullfighting, dog (or any other animal) fights, any kind of animal suffering  just for entertainment is wrong and should be treated like a crime.

I do think there are other ways to create a good “show” with bulls, like doing a bullfight without making the bull suffering, letting the fighter prove his manliness by fighting a 100% complete bull, again, without suffering. “Dancing” when the fighter evades the bull, respecting it. Then, let both animals remain alive, I’m sure that a trained bull will give a better show, a show that proves the respect between humans and animals, that fills the hearts of the audience with good, with love, the audience will leave the place feeling great because they were witness of a good example of human kindness.

Please, stop all bullfights.

There is a good video (in Spanish, the author of the video is Spanish), but I’ve have the link in the blog here

 

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Playing Asphalt 8

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Yesterday I was playing Asphalt 8 in the iPad, unfortunately the video is not recorded with the same sharpness as the video game and I had to change the music because of a youtube claim about it. I’ll have to do those records without music in the future.

 

 

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The best MacBook Pro is the one that is obsolete

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As you might noticed from this blog and my twitter account, I have (and love) my MacBook Pro, is not the new one, is actually an “obsolete” one, the MacBook Pro 13″ that is not retina display.

It has been failing to me in the last couple of months until now that is completely death. So long my beloved MacBook Pro 13″ (early 2011). Five years straight. There is still a chance to get it back if I can get a new charging sensor circuit, but I don’t rely on that.

So, I have to get a new one. And I’ve got: The MacBook Pro 9.2 (Late 2012). As you can see, is a bit “old” (although this one was built on March 2016).

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Now you might be wondering why I choose an (again quoted) “old” MBP instead of one of the new Retina Display super shiny or the super light MBA (I won’t consider the MacBook 12″ because although is Retina Display the CPU and storage is definitively not what I want).  So, lets start with the MacBook Air.

The MBA is somewhat the MacBook that is going off the line as soon as the MacBook gets mature enough (and can finally add a few ports more and a decent camera). But the problem with the MBA is the price, the MacBook 2012 is cheaper that the MacBook Air (actually is the less expensive), and that in a relation with what the computer can do I have the feeling that I’m getting more with the “old” MBP than with the MacBook Air.

So, continuing with the MacBook Pro Retina Display. This one is so fucking expensive that I don’t consider it either. but most importantly, I can’t fucking upgrade it. No new SSD, no more RAM, no SuperDrive (although I won’t use it either, but I like choices), no nothing, I can’t upgrade it, and repairing a MBP Retina Display is far expensive than a MBP 2012.

So, the good part of the 2012 MBP.

Now, the MBP is again “old” (4 years now), it has one hard drive, 500GB which is more in terms of what the base of any other MacBook (Air/Pro) offers, but it is slow. So, you get storage, but slow storage. 4Gb of RAM (half of what the MBP RD have) and an Intel Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor.

 

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Now, let me tell you, the bottleneck of this computer is (you know it) the 5400RPM hard drive. The only thing you need to upgrade to this thing is that, you can just upgrade it and you will feel how fast it is, the OS loads in seconds (less than 15 seconds I’m pretty sure). Well, not the only one, you can upgrade the RAM too, up to 16GB DDR3 @1600MHz.

 

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Even better, since nobody is using the SuperDrive, you can replace it with a Caddy and get the original 500GB hard drive (or bigger) there and have a massive storage in your computer or even super better, another SSD Drive and create a RAID, you will get SUPER FAST access to your data.

I don’t have that SSD drive so I put the original 500GB HDD.

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What can I do with such computer?.

Well, I assume that I can do what I did with my 2011 MBP:

  • Programming (vim, PyCharm, Eclipse)
  • Multimedia
    • Playing Music/Videos local and from internet with absolutely no issues.
    • Audio/Video editing with no issues.
  • One external monitor with no issues, basically because it have only one lightning port, if I wanted to have two monitors I’ll have to use two Apple Cinema Display (or the equivalent in new models).
  • Some Games (quite probably the HD4000 performs better than the HD3000) although I wont count the heavy ones, but I don’t use the laptop for gaming.
  • Virtualizing, I’ve run Windows 7 / 10 and played Company of Heroes with no issues.

So it fits perfect to me.

 

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Back to the Mac 

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It’s alive !! Although with issues, right now (and in the picture) the battery is not charging, actually, for the system it is not present. I think the problem might be a fuse that burned, I as thinking that the power center was defective and was not providing enough power to charge the battery, but more probably the issue is with the fuse and the SMC is preventing the power to reach the logic board, then battery is not charging.

So, under normal operation the battery is not charging and the power supply is not providing any energy, how is that the computer is on?. No, is not on the leftover of the battery.

Its a small trick to boot without taking care of the SMC, the good is that it boots and is letting me work, the bad is that no battery or any other sensor works, is like if the SMC were just not present.

And if the sensor are not present then there are no thermal indicators and the system fan goes to 6000 rpm to keep the computer cool, but noisy.

So, for my next trick I need a Torx screwdriver, take the motherboard apart and try to find the burned fuse.

Ho, for those that don’t know how to boot on this mode:

  1. Unplug the MagSafe connector from the Mac.
  2. Press the power button and keep it pressed for 10 seconds.
  3. Connect the MagSafe connector.
  4. Keep the power button pressed for another 10 seconds.
  5. Release de power button.
  6. Turn the computer ON, if the fan goes to maximum immediately then you made it.

Update: The procedure to start without checking the SMC was wrong.

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