Doesn't Exist

Hackintosh Install Log

2012-01-30T02:55:00.000-05:00

I'm rather late to the Hackintosh scene (technically, super early because I hackintoshed while in 7th grade and then took a long break), but since I feel the steps are still ill-documented, despite efforts such as InsanelyMac and other sites, I have decided to write up my comprehensive install log for my system configuration.

System

Intel Xeon E5540 2.53GHz @ 3.96GHz, 80W
24GiB DDR3-1600MHz
Nvidia 8800GTS 320MB

Prerequisites

A bootable flash drive imaged with the Snow Leopard installer and iBoot.
A hard drive just for Mac OS X
A working knowledge of Mac OS X and operating systems (good for debugging)

Log

In the BIOS, change the SATA configuration to AHCI and sleep/suspend to S3. Possibly turn off overclocking to eliminate a confounding variable. Change the boot order such that the flash drive is first.
Boot the computer. iBoot should show up with a choice for Install Mac OS X. Select it and press enter.
Go through the installation as you would on a normal Mac. You may have to run Disk Utility and format the disk prior to installing.
After installing, the system should reboot to the flash drive. Now iBoot should show two options, Macintosh HD and Install Mac OS X. Select the former.
Go through the setup assistant.
Download the Mac OS X 10.6.8 combo updater from Apple's site and MultiBeast from tonymacx86. Run the system update, but do not restart. Then run MultiBeast with the following options selected: EasyBeast and System Utilities. Eject and remove the flash drive installer. Now restart.

Well, that's unfortunate. Looks like EasyBeast kernel panics when trying to boot. At least it boots with iBoot.
Install custom sound and ethernet drivers according to step 7 in Lifehacker. Reboot.

Guess what, it hangs again. I rebooted with -v and it stops at USBMSC Identifier... Let's actually partition the disk into two partitions so that we can use one of them as a Time Machine backup so we don't have to reinstall every single time.
To get sound, use the VoodooHDA.kext in the Post Install folder in Lifehacker.
To get graphics, use OSX86Tools to retrieve the hex codes for boot.plist. You'll probably also need to do the same thing for networking (otherwise the App Store does not work), but the process for two devices is different: save the hex codes of each to respective plists and use the built-in utility to merge the plists into the boot.plist
Reboot and voilà! Well sort of; the information in About the Mac is hilariously wrong.

Credits

Lifehacker, http://lifehacker.com/5672051/how-to-build-a-hackintosh-mac-and-install-os-x-in-eight-easy-steps

Year in Review: 2011

2011-12-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

Well, 2011 has been quite the year! I'm getting the hang of surviving at MIT, especially with my masochistic nature. Although IAP at the beginning of the year was miserable, the year progressively got better and climaxed in the summer. Sophomore year has been going well, although I didn't have much time to breathe this fall. With that said, I'd like to get a few thoughts off my head.

This summer has been incredible! If you're a seasoned reader or stalker of this blog, you probably know that I interned at Apple this summer. Initially, my primary motivation to go was to satisfy my inner Apple fangirl, but everything changed when I arrived. I thought life couldn't get any better when I got a day pass to Apple's annual developer conference. However, upon learning my boss was a car geek (and an amateur photographer), I thought I found heaven. We'd talk about all things (super)cars, computers, and cameras when we occasionally bumped into each other in the stairwell, and enjoyed thrilling rides on traffic-less highways in exotic supercars. It was an incredibly refreshing and uplifting experience coming from a year being surrounded with math nerds.

I've been increasingly going out of my comfort zone (read: my room) this semester. In particular, I've been hanging out at MITERS more than I did last year. I even attended this term's MEETERS, the semesterly project showcase, even though I had nothing to show. That concluded with a copter flying melee, comprising of a mini quadrotor, a massive quadrotor, and a unique trirotor. Speaking of that, I should upload the video in the near future.

In addition, I made an effort this semester to go out and shoot at least once a week, for about an hour. It sure is fun standing in the cold for an hour! (actually, no sarcasm intended) I've posted some shots on this blog; more can be found on my flickr.

I've also decided to double major in math, rather than EECS. Watch me officially declare Mechanical Engineering next year.

Here's to hoping 2012 is even better!

Fall 2011 End of Term

2011-12-29T19:35:00.001-05:00

This term has been incredibly busy and academically rigorous! Here's a brief recap of what I've been up to:

6.01 Intro to EECS I: This introductory class is based around writing Python code and building circuits for programmable robots. It covers a potpourri of topics from object oriented programming to Bayesian updates, but none in depth. The class also has standards: if you're not careful, you just might get a lower-than-expected grade.

6.828 Operating Systems: This rigorous semi-lab class is awesome for one (and only one) reason: building your very own operating system! I was not a fan of using a toy operating system to teach operating system concepts since I had very little background prior to taking the class, but the case studies covered in the second half of the class were cool. This class easily becomes a time sink: a small bug from a previous lab can add another ten hours of debugging to your time spent on the current lab.

15.279 Managerial Communication: This class teaches strategic communication using a variety of contrived exercises. Sadly, this class does discourages an appreciation for thoroughly researching and knowing subjects of importance.

15.437 Options and Futures: This class covers futures, options, and credit derivatives. The first two topics were hot, the last one was not. I also wish this class went more into modeling, but that's what 15.450 is for.

18.440 Probability and Random Variables: This class is basically Art of Problem Solving Intermediate Probability and Combinatorics. And random variables.

IAP To-Do List

2011-12-25T09:44:00.000-05:00

Hopefully this won't sprawl into a gigantic list like last year's:

SCOOTER!: I have not a clue about how long this will take. Probably will consume my life, but that's okay.
Work out: I'm hoping to go at least five days a week. 5hr/wk
BattleCode infrastructure: This is actually mandatory, but my health (and scooter) comes first :P ~20hr/wk
Power Mac G5 case mod / Hamburger rebuild: This is going to be EPIC! It's been about four years since my last build, so it's time for an all-out upgrade! I'm going to do a very faithful G5 mod to appease my inner Apple fangirl. I need to order that hex-core engineering sample and buy a few standoffs and screws at some point. 7hr/wk
Power Mac G4 Cube case mod: I've already gutted the unit and dremeled the back to make way for the ports, so all that's left is mounting the motherboard and making a carrier for the second hard disk. 3hr/wk
Holy Balls: The game I've been working on with my bestest friends at MIT <3 4hr/wk
Move to BigRoom: I got a bigger room, so I'll need to move. 'Nuff said.
Mystery hunt: MIT's annual puzzle hunt held on a weekend, starting on Friday.

Spot the Stupidity: Give me a sign

2011-12-20T22:17:00.002-05:00

Spot the stupidity!


 for (unsigned x = 0; x < GridSizeX; ++x) {

  for (unsigned y = 0; y < GridSizeY; ++y) {

   if ((unsigned)abs(x+y) % 2 == 1) {//modulo 2

    glColor4f(1.0f,1.0f,1.0f, alpha); //white

   } else {

    glColor4f(0.0f,0.0f,0.0f, alpha); //black

   }



   glNormal3f(                  0,                  0, 1);

   glVertex3f(    x*SizeX + world.minX,    y*SizeY + world.minY, 0);

   glVertex3f((x+1)*SizeX + world.minX,    y*SizeY + world.minY, 0);

   glVertex3f((x+1)*SizeX + world.minX,(y+1)*SizeY + world.minY, 0);

   glVertex3f(    x*SizeX + world.minX,(y+1)*SizeY + world.minY, 0);



  }

 }

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should not code at 3am.

Nightlife@MIT

2011-11-18T14:44:00.001-05:00

Get Fever, Do Housekeeping

2011-10-26T17:36:00.000-04:00

That's pretty much the only thing besides read ``Steve Jobs'' while I'm sick, right?

Much cleaner than before.

Closeup.

RIP Steven P. Jobs

2011-10-05T20:08:00.000-04:00

“Team,

I have some very sad news to share with all of you. Steve passed away earlier today.

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

We are planning a celebration of Steve’s extraordinary life for Apple employees that will take place soon. If you would like to share your thoughts, memories and condolences in the interim, you can simply email rememberingsteve@apple.com.

No words can adequately express our sadness at Steve’s death or our gratitude for the opportunity to work with him. We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much.”

Tim

Thanks for revolutionizing the last ~thirty-five years of the personal computing world and, more importantly, inspiring me to dream big. May your philosophy and visions live on within the rest of the Apple community.

[Edit] Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA has dedicated a concrete tile as a tribute:

MiniHack: Shelf G5

2011-09-24T00:24:00.000-04:00

So how did that get up there?!

A much larger scale and more public hack

UPS Shipping Fail?

2011-09-21T22:28:00.000-04:00

I really doubt this is the most efficient routing path; maybe there's a bug in USPS/UPS's package router?

The reason that I needed a second graphics card to drive my triple monitor setup

New [School] Year, New Setup

2011-09-19T22:54:00.003-04:00

I had these nice IPS screens laying around, so why not use them? (Please don't remind me of my lack of mini DisplayPort -> * adapters [1])

Triple displays driven off a...Power Mac G4 [2]?!

I ought to do ``real work'' instead of reading random papers...

[1] Over the summer, I acquired a Biostar Radeon HD 6870, which did not come with any mini DisplayPort adapters. Last week, I ordered a handful adapters, but they have yet to arrive despite the 3-4 day shipping. I longed for the setup ever since leaving Apple (where I had a dual 27" + 21" setup -- a glorious six megapixel arrangement), so initially I tried using my crufted Matrox DualHead2Go Digital, but that didn't work because the highest analog resolution the 6870 supported over DVI was 2048x1536, which was a few pixels short from the requisite 2560x1024. I then asked a friend for a PCIe x1 card since my mATX motherboard had a free and unobstructed x1 slot, and lo and behold, I am running a Nvidia Quadro NVS 290 to drive the Dell U2211H and the Radeon to drive the Apple Studio Displays (which, by the way, the one on the right is my personal hacked monitor -- shameless plug for myself).

[2] I ought to write up my Power Mac G4 case mod someday. Maybe on Wednesday, which is a student holiday for me!

[EDIT 20 Sep 2011] Yes, I'm running Windows. No, I don't have the time to fix my Linux partition and pray for both Nvidia and ATi drivers to work together peacefully. Nor do I have time to hackintosh. Any more questions?

Attention To Detail: Apple Photographer Screws Up

2011-09-01T11:20:00.000-04:00

For a company that prides its unrelenting attention to detail, why is Eddy Cue positioned in the opposite direction?

(Eddy's shoulders are pointed from the bottom left to the top right, whereas everyone else's shoulders are either neutral or pointed from the bottom right to the top left.)

I can forgive Jony Ive for not smiling: he probably was upset that the camera was poorly designed.

Compiling SDL on Lion

2011-08-28T10:52:00.001-04:00

I ran into this problem while trying to compile Gingerbread on Lion, figuring that the existing SDL was a 64-bit library and Android wanted the 32-bit one. I grabbed the source from the SDL website and tried to compile using the -m32 flag in gcc, which resulted in several assembly errors. It turns out that this is a known incompatibility with llvm-gcc. [1] However, changing CC to gcc-4.2 wasn't good enough; ltmain.sh complains that it can't infer the tag configuration. [2]

Here is how I solved the problem: In build-scripts/makedep.sh, every time --mode=compile appears, put --tag=CC next to it. Then, in libtool, add a gcc-4.2 entry to the case statement in func_infer_tag() as follows:

case "$@ " in

It compiles! Install the library with sudo make install.

Unfortunately, the vanilla SDL and SDL used for the Android emulator aren't the same; besides the Android one being two releases earlier, I'm not too sure what the other differences are. The steps outlined above are not sufficient for building the SDL needed for the Android emulator. I'll report back if and when I get that working.

[1] https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/pull/4693

[2] http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13540

Long Live Steve Jobs

2011-08-24T20:10:00.006-04:00

“To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”

Steve

2011: Year of the copycats?

2011-08-18T17:32:00.003-04:00

Apple said the phrase first back in March this year regarding tablets, but turns out it's true for cars too (who would have guessed?)

Here's the leaked picture of the 2012 Lexus GS:

Photo credit: LeftLaneNews

And here's the F10 5-series:

Photo credit: AutomotiveRoom

Here's a cursory list of similarities:

Layout of the vents with respect to the strip of wood. Both cars have the peripheral vents above the wood and the IP stack vents adjacent to the wood.
Layout of IP stack: Screen above vents above CD player above climate, with the gear shift to the left of the entertainment controller.

Has Lexus lost its touch of uniqueness? Sure, these cars probably have been in development for several years, but this layout is certainly not the only way to layout a mid-level luxury sedan.

[EDIT] Seems like the original leaked GS interior image has been pulled, but no worries! It has been cached.

Homage to the Classic Mac

2011-08-01T23:36:00.003-04:00

Today, Apple released iCloud web apps in beta form. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect is the ``Cookies Required'' page:

You may think that the eyes and the nose of the cloud look familiar. You're not mistaken. Voilà, exhibit A, the classic Mac icon:

How Do I Use a Computer?

2011-07-10T18:28:00.000-04:00

I posed this question to myself amid the paradigm shifts happening in the ~~desktop~~ computer world.

To start off, I had been using various Wintel boxes ever since I was a little squirt. I got my own Dell box in 6th grade. The computer was a portal to the internet, so the handful of windows I had open were Internet Explorer and probably AIM instances. I may have had a couple of Internet Explorer instances open at once, but that became history when I discovered Firefox and tabbed browsing. I rarely had a need for minimizing windows. Simple and clutter free.

I got a Mac mini in 7th grade. With it came iLife, the consumer media applications suite, which I used to manage my family's photographs and learn more about and have been engrossed in the creation of digital media ever since. Unfortunately, the mini was underpowered so running more than a couple of apps would cause it to page out. Thus, all of my open windows could neatly be contained on one desktop. Since the Mac is application-based, I could easily hide applications I wasn't currently using, which more or less eliminated the need for minimization.

Another year passed and I discovered Ubuntu, which introduced virtual desktops, among bring back the taskbar and other things. They were decent, but I was never a fan because I never had a large number of open windows at once. I don't remember using the command line much either. In any event, Ubuntu became irrelevant when I acquired my trusty MacBook Pro, picking up where I had left off in the Mac world.

Two things happened in sophomore year of high school: I started programming in Java and C++ and Apple released Mac OS X Leopard, which included Spaces. Programming introduced me to the wonderful land of the Terminal (with a capital T!), which I actually have come to love. It was so simple, so clean; unlike a Windows or Linux GUI, it didn't immediately show you all the available options unless you asked for it. As for Leopard, it reunited me with virtual desktops, which I actually started to use because I had a more capable computer and thus built up more desktop clutter.

In my junior year of high school, I dual booted Linux on my desktop and tried out XMonad per a friend's suggestion. I don't remember how I quite felt about it ever since I broke it, other than it was simple and clean, but wasn't for me because I didn't need to see all of my windows on a virtual desktop at once. XMonad might have had layers within a desktop at the cost of adding complexity, so I never took advantage of it. Then I came across EvilWM, which I loved because it was so simple. The minimalist controls just included basic window manipulation: terminal spawn, moving, resizing, alt-tabbing; I do not use move-in-front or move-behind controls. Combined with a lack of a file manager (good riddance, Nautilus), my computing experience became minimalist, lightweight, nonintrusive, and almost eerily Mac-like [1].

Come 2011: I finally acquired an iPad to complement my relatively nascent MacBook Air. It handled most of what I did on my Air with aplomb, save for remote coding and photo post-production jobs with Aperture. It was even less obtrusive and had even better battery life, at half the weight of my laptop. When I was traveling from Cupertino back to Boston for the holidays and had noticed the weight of my backpack (which contained a change of clothes, headphones, iPad, MacBook Air, and its charger), this question occurred to me: How do I use a computer, and did I need what I was carrying?

[1] By Mac-like, I mean that it adheres to nine of Dieter Ram's ten design principles

Happy Independence Day!

2011-07-05T02:48:00.001-04:00

Man, if only I had brought my tripod and held the exposure longer would I not have had to jack the ISO up to 2500. Next year!

[edit] The photograph was untouched except for the watermark.

Probably the Best Use of the Golden Ratio

2011-06-20T02:19:00.003-04:00

I am consistently amazed by Apple's attention to detail.

[source]

Adventures at Apple [Part I]

2011-06-18T22:46:00.002-04:00

It's amazing how much more you'll experience by getting to know some people.

``Oh, baby!'' is right!

Yup, I got a ride in this monster to a coffee shop! After discovering that I was a car geek at heart, her owner invited me for a spin. I was blown away by its raw speed and prowess on the road; it was pinned to the road at all times (much unlike the rental Prius my family had for vacation did). The engine roar was harmonious; the echo is amazing if revved under a bridge or inside a garage. (protip: this will set off car alarms!) Above all, it was equipped with a stick, for a truly engaging driving experience.

The ~~two~~three-hundred large one pays not only acquires a spectacular handcrafted driving machine (hey, this ain't a Bimmer!) but also a richly upholstered cabin. The leather-wrapped dash is met with tasteful carbon fiber trim in the center stack and an Alcantara swathed headliner. Extra bolstered seats sitting low on the floor in the style of a sports car supported the driver and passenger in tight turns. All in all I was amazed by the dynamics that a car could have (this statement speaks volumes of what sorts of cars I am used to riding and driving).

[EDIT] Ha, two hundred large for this baby? Add a few options and it easily becomes $300k!

WWDC 2011!

2011-06-11T01:06:00.000-04:00

I thought I would never have the opportunity to attend this much vaunted event, perhaps now the biggest Mac community gathering, but hey, Apple employees get to visit for a day (or a half)!

Perhaps my biggest display of fangirlism ever, besides the time that I met Steve Jobs?

(The Green badge is for Apple Engineers -- I went as an iOS Engineer)

But that's pretty much all I can say. You know why. :-)

I'll hopefully get to posting my Power Mac G4 case mod in the near future.

Yosemite

2011-06-02T21:58:00.000-04:00

Gorgeous as always.

Taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with 24-105 f/4L lens.

Andrew Lo: What a boss

2011-05-11T19:18:00.000-04:00

``If you have no interest in money or don't care about making money, talk to me after lecture and I'll fix that.'' --A. Lo

Andrew Lo, a renowned finance professor, talked about how we could use financial engineering to solve society's three biggest problems (cancer, global warming, and one more that I forgot). His plan is similar to what MIT did to win the Darpa Network Challenge: to incentivize people who give money to solve problems, essentially relying on human greed, which has always been and will continue to be a part of human nature. (Fear, another powerful tool, only works in the short term; if one is constantly afraid of something, then he is not capable of surviving.) Lo gave the following example:

Suppose that, for a pharmacutical, developing a drug for cancer cost $500M, had a cycle of 10 years, and a 5% success rate. A successful drug would make $2B a year. If we only invested in one pharm, then they would have a pitiful return. However, if we invested in forty pharms, then our probability of having at least one successful drug is 1-(1-0.05)^40, or 87%, which is much higher than 5%. We would then need $20B, which we can get from one-tenth of America families if each family contributes $2,000. We can further incentivize by deducting this amount from the family's tax.

This $20B we get from taking advantage of people's inherent greedy nature is supplemented by donations from the altruistic, which amounts to $25M. Of course, this is a very simple model, but if we learn to take advantage of greed and focus it like a giant laserbeam to benefit society, say curing cancer, then we are capable of achieving great things.

Edit: typo in math; 0.87 = 1-(1-0.05)^40, not 1-0.05^40.

Nyan Cat Alarm

2011-05-09T12:34:00.003-04:00

This is quite possibly the silliest project I've done. Besides nchoosethree.com. Anyway.

The project was simple: to set up an alarm that would wake me up to the tune of nyan.cat every morning. Since I had just set up my lovely iMac G4 earlier that day, complete with my JBL Creature II speakers, I had something that could autonomously play loud and annoying music every morning, at the expense of my roommate's sleep. I could have done this two ways: (A) command line with cron and mplayer, or (B) with builtin Mac OS X apps. I chose the latter because I was lazy. So the troll begins:

Get an MP3 of the Nyan Cat song of nontrivial length. I ripped mine from here.
Create an Automator workflow as follows:

Set system volume to some annoying but tolerable loudness.
Tell iTunes to get the selected song (Nyan Cat, in this case).
Tell iTunes to play the selected song.
Then save the workflow as an Application.

Create iCal events at the time when you wake up. Set an alarm to 0 minutes before and open up the Automator application. You may want to test this before going to sleep.

There you go! Troll in a box in five minutes! Unfortunately for me, I forgot that my Mac's clock was ahead by three hours, so creating wake-up events at 8:00am meant waking up to mute the speakers at 5:00am. Whoops!

End of term evaluation

2011-05-07T10:08:00.001-04:00

It's the end of another term at MIT, which means that I'm very close to have finished freshman year! (all that's left is two finals and a problem set) The semester was quite a ride; I did not do as well as I had hoped, but in the end, I think I learned all the material the classes asked me to learn. Without further ado, here are my opinions on my classes this term:

15.401 Finance Theory I (MW8:30-10, F8:30-10): This class is mostly memorization based; one only needs basic mathematical skill and intuition to do well (of course, economical intuition is highly recommended). It's easy to lose points here and there because of silly mistakes and can cause one's grade to drop quite easily, in fact. However, this class is a great introduction to the world of quantitative finance. Professor Stephenson isn't the best lecturer, but he gets the point across well.

15.053 Optimization Methods of Management Science (MW2:30-4): This class is also memorization based; same thoughts as above. It's a good introduction to Linear Programming, optimization algorithms such as Dijkstra and Max-Flow/Min-Cut/Min-Cost, and NP-completeness (although referred to as "really hard problems" in class). Again, silly mistakes will kill you. Professor Orlin, a renowned researcher of flow, inserts humor into an otherwise basic ((and boring) course.

14.01 Principles of Microeconomics (MW1, F1): This class is more math based than I thought, after doing almost no calculus in its sibling, 14.02. Your grade is basically determined by how silly you are on tests. Professor Harris is quite eccentric, which makes his lectures worth attending.

6.004 Computational Structures (TR1, WF2): This class was a lot of fun (one gets to build a 32-bit RISC microprocessor! (except in software, boo)), except for the quizzes, which actually required studying. (wait, what kind of statement is this?!) Ward is a great lecturer and injects humor into his lectures. But please, STOP WITH THE COMIC SANS!!11!!1

6.046J/18.410J Design and Analysis of Algorithms (TR9:30-11, F3): This class is one of those "rites of passage" for any decent math/computer science nerd at MIT. It wasn't particularly fun; absolutely no implementation was required: the entire class was very mathematically rigorous and proof-based. The take-home was lots of fun; it's rewarding when you solve a (hard, not NP-hard :P) problem you haven't seen before. Professor Leiserson is a great lecturer and knows how to use humor, unlike Professor Moshkovitz, who does very intense and dry math-based proofs (and in turn, loses half the class).

All in all, classes weren't as fun as first semester, probably because there was no software coding involved (no, those 6.004 bits do not count). I was also less bored because I spent more time learning and reviewing the material for classes, so I think I did better grade-wise this term than last term. However, I was still sufficiently bored at times, suring which I could have spent extending class material, such as working out proofs or reading papers on Google Scholar instead of staring blankly at a wall. What's done is done; grades have basically been decided, and although I could have gotten more As, I don't regret my decisions because (1) what's done is done; regretting will only waste CPU cycles, and (2) I needed to experience how a typical "lazy student" did and learn to not take this path again. Here's to a more exciting and more academically successful term this fall!