Building PIL-1.1.6 on Mac OS X 10.6

I was trying to get the Python Imaging Library installed on Snow Leopard. (This is for a "Python from python.org" environment separate from Apple standard and Macports.) I read a number of posts on the net, but it took a combination of ideas I found to arrive at a solution that worked.

Prerequisites: Install Xcode from the Snow Leopard disk. As you do that, make sure you check the box that enables continued 10.4 SDK support.

Then:

$ curl -O http://effbot.org/downloads/Imaging-1.1.6.tar.gz
$ tar zxf Imaging-1.1.6.tar.gz
$ sudo bash
# cd Imaging-1.1.6
# export ARCHFLAGS="-arch i686"
# export CFLAGS="-arch i686"
# python setup.py build
# python setup.py install
# exit

I don't like the cheap trick ("sudo bash"), but I found I needed the ARCHFLAGS and CFLAGS settings for both the build and install steps.

See also Rich Atkinson's use of pip on his blog post. That might be all you need.

Unhappy with HealthAmerica

I am very unhappy with HealthAmerica, our college's health insurance provider. Our son had an ingrown toenail and the toe was infected. He was in great pain and was treated in January. Then we were billed the full amount. HealthAmerica said this was not covered. They have gone out of their way to wiggle out of paying anything. We appealed, they sent it to their Complaint Committee, and the committee sent us a final letter denying coverage for the procedure ("You have exhausted your complaint rights"), saying that "routine foot care" is not covered. The letter says that by exception "Medically Necessary surgery for ingrown toenails" would be covered. They didn't judge the relief of our son's pain or infection to be medically necessary. If you ever want to get a parent mad, that's it!

Other than helping my friend Dr. Ogan Gurel with his 700 mile Walk for Healthcare, I've been too passive in the ongoing debate about health care reform. The arrogance of companies like HealthAmerica angers me. I must and I will write my congressman and senators and urge them to vote for solutions that regulate such corporations more strictly and give Americans a public health care option. I have no confidence that HealthAmerica would actually cover us if something more serious were to occur.

2000 cricket bats

We have an exchange student, Rachu, staying with us from Chennai, India. He told us he regularly played cricket with his friends on the beach on Sunday mornings, along with thousands of others. On the morning of 26 DEC 2004, he and his friends did not play cricket, because they had to study for exams. That was the day of the tsunami. After it hit, Rachu said 2000 cricket bats washed ashore. Each cricket bat represents six players.

Apple/Allstate Did Not Make My Day

I used to tell people, get AppleCare. Now I've found out when AppleCare is no help. I walked into my college office, and saw a pile of books sitting on my MacBook Pro's display. A bookshelf support gave way, and the books came tumbling down. AppleCare doesn't cover that, but they gleefully told me they could fix it for $1360.

The college where I work can't help pay for the damage. They have a deductible that far exceeds the amount I'm stuck with.

For a while Allstate (my homeowner's) held out hope that I'd get some reimbursement because the damage involved "a falling object." But they just called to say that since the object (falling books) did not fall out of the sky, I'm not covered.

The total was $1228.38. The one bright spot is that Leading Electronics did a first class job fixing my computer.

Falling Incomes

Lou Dobbs talks about "The War on the Middle Class." That prompted me to look at my own income 1978-2008.

XO via Mac Parallels v3

Wrote: Step by step instructions for getting XO emulation up on a Mac using Parallels v3.

DrScheme on OLPC XO

My children got OLPC XOs for Christmas. The first request by son William (8) was that I put DrScheme on his XO. I tried a standard build and it almost worked, but for a few missing libraries. I got on the PLT horn and very quickly Matthew Flatt, Noel Welsh and Grant Rettke offered help. Mako Hill of OLPC and FSF also pitched in. Grant has created several images that work on the XO, all of which work well. Our next task is to put a wrapper on the image to make it an Activity we can post on the OLPC wiki.