~ Ezra Moore ~

…with Cash For Clunkers.

I really thought I liked the idea until I watched this video.

That car doesn’t look old enough to participate in the program to me, and it seems like instead of taking old beat up buckets of bolts off the road, they’re taking decent used cars that people could either use or scavenge parts off of. I realize that this whole program is designed to ‘stimulate’ the business of selling new cars. However, I can’t help but feel that they are ruining the business of affordable cars for young or disadvantaged people who can’t afford a new vehicle, even with CFC rebates and other discounts. On top of making affordable cars harder to access, they are ruining plenty of parts that could be used to maintain older cars, or repurposed by enthusiasts.

I’m not buying into the environmental angle either. PLEASE! Watch that video and tell me if you think standing by with a fire extinguisher putting out engine fires is promoting environmentalism.

When this program was promoted by similar legislation in other countries it sure looked like people were turning in clunkers, not perfectly good, running Volvos that were obviously FAR from being worn out.
What a joke.

I’m posting this because I could not find the solution to this problem anywhere online, and I hate having to call into customer support to get a step-by-step answer.

I purchased a Mac Mini for use in my home theatre around the same time that my Boxee (www.boxee.tv) beta invitation came in, so naturally, the first thing I did was install it. I never bothered to test Watch Instantly functionality in the browser before I tried it in Boxee. Upon attempting a Watch Instantly session in Boxee I was greeted with the famous ‘Individualization Failed/Error: 8152′ message. This error seems to be primarily affecting Hackintosh users, but a few of us with legitimate Apple hardware are getting it too.

It has to do with how Silverlight verifies your network interfaces. If your wired interface, regardless of whether you are using it to receive Watch Instantly traffic, is not interface ‘en0′, Silverlight fails to authenticate with the Netflix DRM server correctly.

• To verify which network interface is assigned ‘en0′ do a Spotlight search for and open: ‘Network Utility’. On the first page/tab (Info) you will see a drop down box with an entry for each of your network interfaces. The ‘en0′ interface should show drivers for a wired NIC. If you are having trouble identifying which interface is the wired NIC, check the ‘Vendor’ information. The Airport (which should be assigned to ‘en1′) has Apple listed as the vendor, the wired NIC in my Mac Mini has a chipset made by Marvell.
• To correct this issue you need to delete two .plist files, they are both located in ‘/Library/Preferences/’
• Delete: NetworkInterfaces.plist, and preferences.plist
• Reboot your machine. These two files will automatically be generated with their default (and correct) settings upon rebooting.
• Now try and log into Netflix Watch Instantly.

FWIW: I had to click to reconnect to my wireless network, this will deleted your preferred list, but it should not delete your login info from the Keychain.

Please let me know if you have anything to add, or if I have forgotten anything.

Alright, I’ve been slacking. There is no way around that.

I’ve got a lot of free time on my hands now (anyone have a job for me?), so I’ve been working on my home theatre in my room. I’ve had a spare Optoma HD70 sitting around forever that I picked up off of eBay for $200, and it has been in need of a bulb for a while now.

I finally procured one ($243), along with a Logitech Harmony 880 remote ($90), a mount ($15), 3 yards of blackout cloth ($20), and three yards of mid-grade velvet ($36). Tomorrow, I plan to pick of some wood and ‘L’ brackets to complete the screen. The mount should be in tomorrow, and up it goes on the ceiling.

Will try and keep things more updated!

I always remember after I complete a project that I would like to have some before/after photos. WTF?

Either way my room is clean.