Day: June 8, 2014

I’ve been busy.

Turns out my computer was dying a slow graceful death. I’ve seen this before with Apple Machines. I don’t know if it’s by design, or I’m just damn lucky, but I’ve had machines that developed serious problems continue to operate when by rights they should have folded.

My computer had been glitchy and getting glitchier but I figured it was something I’d done during one of my forays into writing code. I’m a terrible hack and it’s a wonder that my code doesn’t cause machines to burst into flame. 

(I’ve actually seen that; a machine bursting into flame, but it wasn’t due to my poor coding skills. Another story for another time.)

My computer told me it was having problems when the camera failed.  I probably wouldn’t have noticed for a long time except that I wanted to make a FaceTime call and couldn’t.  As I investigated I came to the conclusion that whatever the problem was, it was something that I couldn’t fix without help.

This led to the call to Apple. During that call, I discovered that the internal diagnostics were apparently corrupted and the Apple support person said I needed to return my baby to the Mother Ship.  The internal diagnostics are part of the firmware of the machine. If they’re not available, it suggests that something really bad has happened to the firmware which means it’s sort of amazing that the computer is still booting or running.

This unexpected turn of events led to a mad dash to backup everything, and finish then publish some things I’ve been working on riky-fuckin-tick.

Which explains my lack of posting. I’m writing this post on my iPad. My computer is expected back sometime next week.