ProteinSpill.com

Eclipse on Mac OS X (Intel)

What a pain this was. For those of you who don’t know, Eclipse is an integrated development environment written in Java. Java is supposed to be “write once, run anywhere.” Not exactly the case here, and not clear if you try to download it for your shiny new Intel Macintosh.

I downloaded the latest stable release, 3.12 and installed it on my MacBook. When I went to run it, it throws up the splash screen and looks like it’s going to run and then a simple messagebox with a message to look in ~/Documents/workspace/.metalog/.log for details.

java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError:
/Applications/eclipse/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/
bundles/63/1/.cp/libswt-pi-carbon-3139.jnilib:
at java.lang.ClassLoader$NativeLibrary.load(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary0(ClassLoader.java:1586)

There’s actually a lot more to it than that, but that’s all the details I had to go on. I’m not exactly familiar with Java so I don’t know how to decipher this. I decided to try jEdit instead. Nice editor, but I’m using Eclipse at work.

I searched Google for days using keywords like “eclipse mac” or “eclipse error jini” or “eclipse error install” which didn’t turn up anything useful. It was beginning to look like I was the only one to get this error. Today I searched for “eclipse unsatisfiedlinkerror” duh! I got a link to Steph’s blog which pointed out another stupid assumption. I’m not going to take the entire blame here though—remember, Java isn’t supposed to be platform-specific.

It turns out that there is a newer (unstable?) release of Eclipse that supports the Intel Macs. I’m in the process of downloading it now.

It works!

Puppy-mover Monorail

Very important work is being done for puppy mobility. Thanks to emily for bringing this to our attention.

Accidental Haiku

I love haiku. Especially when I write it by accident. I was chatting with emily recently about a recent visit to Independent Bar in Orlando (much better experience than Tabu, btw, but still smoky. I’m spoiled by PI in that respect). We were talking about a trio of girls who were wearing boots and vaguely 80’s outfits dancing together. [edited somewhat]


me: Yes. I was watching them closely. Especially the one with the brown dress.
em: ha
em: i dont remember the colors of their dresses so i have no idea which was which
me: One blonde two brunettes
em: im sure it was one of the brunettes
me: yes
me: she stole our candle while you all were dancing
em: sounds like a line from a song
em: or a poem
em: so emo
em: you should write it
me: "Then she stole my heart" LOL
em: "fuck you for not dancing with me!" could be the chorus
me: whoa it's already haiku!


she stole our candle
while you were out dancing
then she stole my heart

Anyway, it was fun. I’d go to I-Bar again.

$100 Computers!

Property Control has some old PCs available for sale pretty cheap. If all you need is something to knock around online and such, I will pick one up, install an operating system (your choice, Linux or Windows 2000) and package it with a 15″, 17″ or 20″ monitor (whatever they happen to have at the time ), keyboard and mouse for $100. The specs are 733MHz Pentium III, 128MB RAM, 10GB disk—or better. E-mail me for more info.

Pixie Dust

Every time I don’t get a professional job at Disney I console myself with the same thought: if I take a salaried job then I can’t work in the park. At least having a bill-paying job outside Disney allows me to do what I like on the weekends. If only I didn’t have to drive to Tampa for it.

It’s been a month…

since I’ve written anything and people still come to the site. Amazing. Thank you, and keep clicking those ads. I mean, if you’re interested of course.

I don’t really have a lot of Disney news to write about. I’ve transferred to Space Mountain and so far I’ve completed one day of training. I’ve been sick Just a few more days before I can’t switch back. I hope I don’t have to; I may find out tomorrow (I’m having lunch with someone from my employer. He says it’s nothing bad but I’m paranoid.)

I had an interesting interview for a programming job back at Disney. It was with Disney Worldwide Shared Services. I was really excited to learn about this group of developers… they do the same sort of work I did back at AT&T years ago. Automating people out of jobs. Hehe.. I love that. At AT&T I saved the company $1 million a year. That was in 1993 dollars so that’s gotta be a few billion with inflation. Unfortunately (as usual) I didn’t get the job because I don’t already know Visual Studio / C#/ Visual Basic/ blah blah. Nevermind that I’m an awesome developer with 14 years experience and SIX YEARS experience doing exactly the kind of work they do. “We chose a candidate with more experience in the field.” Uhhuh.

Anyway, I do hope to continue my training at mountain with Pam. She’s cool. It was interesting walking around under the track, seeing the tower and such. I’m not a big fan of the ride and I’m not crazy about working there, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I do technical, boring insurance work all week.. I don’t want technical, button-pushing roller coaster work on the weekends. I was hoping for the chaos of 1100 lb. cars going 7mph or so piloted by 8-year-olds! Yeah! Soon, soon.

Maggots in your Cast

No, not your fellow Cast Members. Well, maybe, if they have a wet, plaster cast. Go ahead, scroll about halfway into that article.

Casts that aren’t waterproof can get moldy, and Crotty said he’s “seen maggots crawling out of casts” that kids got wet.

I don’t really see this as a problem. In fact, as gross as it sounds, it might be a Good Thing. Seriously.

Maggots … eat dead tissue

I’m fortunate to have never broken a bone. My brother has, and I remember him complaining about the itch and digging out dead skin with a pencil. If he had maggots in there, maybe there wouldn’t have been any dead skin? I dunno about the itching though, with a bunch of fly larvae squirming around in there

If I ever do break or sprain something important, I think I’ll go for the removable cast. Keeping it clean solves the problem without having to resort to using maggots.

Using cellphones while driving

I’m reading this discussion about using cellphones while driving over on Slashdot and I think everyone there is missing the point. Those that fund and write the studies included.

The problem with idiots talking on their cellphones while driving isn’t whether the phone is held to your head or on hands-free.. it’s the IDIOT. Ban idiots from driving cars and the accident rate will go down significantly.

I suspect that people who have eaten bread are just as likely to be involved in a traffic crash as those who use their celly in the car. Maybe we should ban bread.

Apartment Hunting

Yesterday I took a look at this condominium in Celebration. It’s the top, middle unit.

I didn’t think the inside was too spectacular. Perhaps I was put off by the all-white walls, the lack of nice furniture (or presence of furniture at all) and the fact that the agent seemed a little rushed. Hopefully they will let me throw up some paint.

Tracy and I had gone out there the night before and walked around the place. The location is ideal: it faces west and across the street is a small wooded park (for Tekey!) and right around the corner is a community pool and soccer fields. There are walking trails to the east. The building has an elevator that opens up right to my front door. The outside felt homey, hopefully I can make the inside feel homey. That is, assuming they let me have it.

Server Move

Have you noticed that my entries here aren’t nearly as funny as they were when I was working in Monorails?

A few days ago, my only Windows machine, squit, had a network card pop. Unfortunately my most recent Quicken data is sitting on there. Rather than buy a laptop or upgrade my Mac Mini (lady) to do the Boot Camp thing I decided to promote slappy (file server) to my desk and install vmware.

While installing vmware, I was also trying to learn how to configure porterhouse (the Sun Fire server). I set it up in what was formerly Tracie’s room because it’s so loud.

As if that wasn’t enough going on, Ryan and I were doing last minute configuration on chuck (my new-to-me Dell Poweredge 1650) and moving shank (a virtual machine that hosts proteinspill.com and several other sites) over to it. Hopefully nobody noticed the 20 minutes or so of downtime while the vm was copied over.

Yesterday I emailed Karin to ask about the possibility of going part time here at work. I’m working so much even my fun time looks a lot like work. She suggested that maybe I cut Disney.. what?! That’s my sanity break there. If I were to leave Disney completely, I’d have nothing to say to you people but stuff about traffic on I-4 and plugging computers together. Bleh