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Title change: Watch a FedEx truck fail on Vail Pass!

AlphaDogg

AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
Hello forum!

I am on my 13" MBP with my 3g connection from my iPhone 3GS tethered to it (MyWi), on a 3 hour bus ride into the Rocky Mountains from Denver. I am going on this bus ride to see my school's basketball team play in the semi-finals. I will be staying in the mountains for 3 hours, and it will be another 3 hour ride back to Denver. I am bored. Give me something to do! I can take pictures of the scenery if you would like me to.

I have one fear: I believe that I will be going above 10,000ft of elevation. IIRC, my HDD has an operating requirement of 10,000ft or lower. What will happen if I am using my MBP above 10k feet? Will it just kernel panic and be unusable when I go above 10k feet?
 
Where in the mountains are you going? Your laptop should be fine. Watch a movie, read a book, talk with friends, sing songs, play a game, tweet every time you see an animal, update the weather on your facebook page, etc.
 
ucfgrad93 said:
Where in the mountains are you going? Your laptop should be fine. Watch a movie, read a book, talk with friends, sing songs, play a game, tweet every time you see an animal, update the weather on your facebook page, etc.
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Thanks. I don't use twitter, though. I am going to Gypsum, CO. I am not sure if I will be going over Berthoud Pass (not sure if I spelled it right) or not.

Update: I lost 3G, and am on EDGE.

I am just leaving the Foothills right now.

More pics to come.

Update 2: I just went through Eisenhower tunnel, and apparently, it's snowing :eek:
 

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Play Punch Bug with your seatmate. It works better if they don't know you, and you don't tell them that you are playing .... :D

I'm not surprised it's snowing. There's a big ski hill on the other side of the pass. Even I know that, and I'm way up here in Canada (luckily in the part where it's not snowing).

I suspect the 10k limit on the HDD is conservative (after all, you wouldn't want to tell people that it was OK to use your HDD at 9990 ft, and it's not.)

I also suspect that if you exceed the height limit you will get a HDD crash, not a kernel panic. The HDD heads are kept off of the platters due to air gap that the spinning platters create. However, as you go up there is less air and at some point there will be not enough air to create the gap and you will drag the heads across the platter.

This is just a hypothesis... I don't know for sure you will crash your HDD. But I would be careful about that height limit if it were me.

Have fun. Hope you packed some winter gear.
 
snberk103 said:
Play Punch Bug with your seatmate. It works better if they don't know you, and you don't tell them that you are playing .... :D

I'm not surprised it's snowing. There's a big ski hill on the other side of the pass. Even I know that, and I'm way up here in Canada (luckily in the part where it's not snowing).

I suspect the 10k limit on the HDD is conservative (after all, you wouldn't want to tell people that it was OK to use your HDD at 9990 ft, and it's not.)

I also suspect that if you exceed the height limit you will get a HDD crash, not a kernel panic. The HDD heads are kept off of the platters due to air gap that the spinning platters create. However, as you go up there is less air and at some point there will be not enough air to create the gap and you will drag the heads across the platter.

This is just a hypothesis... I don't know for sure you will crash your HDD. But I would be careful about that height limit if it were me.

Have fun. Hope you packed some winter gear.
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I think I will be fine. If I go above 10k feet, it will only be for about 45min. If I go on berthoud pass, I will be at ~11,500 feet. I think that Gypsum is around 8,000ft. Also, my winter gear consists of a sweatshirt and jeans lol.

I attached a picture that I took about an hour ago. I think it is a very nice picture. :)

Edit: I am going to be taking a nap, so no updates for a while.
 

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I just got 3G back. I lied. I actually just went through Eisenhower tunnel about 20min ago. Eisenhower tunnel is long! It must have taken forever to excavate it!
 
The traffic on Vail Pass has been soooo bad. We got on it before they closed it. It was awful. There were cars sliding around everywhere. Some of them collided. There was a FedEx Ground truck that was carrying two trailers that has chains on its tires. It was digging into the ground and going nowhere. The tires were even smoking. It was so awful. But now, we're moving and alive. ;)
 
RITZFit said:
Glad you're safe but...pics?
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I have a video of the FedEx Ground truck digging up the ground. When I get home (in about 6 hours), I will upload it to PhotoBucket and show you guys.

Edit: I have attached a photo of the snowy mountains.
 

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My MBP actually kernel panicked while I was editing my previous post. I read the panic log, and it cited the com.apple.IONetworkingFamily.whateverfileextensionitwas, so I think it was a networking driver issue with 10.7 Lion or an issue with MyWi, not an HDD error. I am at the basketball game right now, and luckily, I found a place to plug in my MBP. There is someone sitting near it, and I asked them to watch it for me, and they said of course! They are parents of one of the team members from my school. Also, when we got stuck on Vail Pass, I opened up my computer because my friend's iPhone 4 said we were at 9850ft of elevation. I was willing to risk it. It was a huge risk especially because I don't have a backup of my data (I has to reformat my backup HDD and never got a chance to clone my HDD back to it).
 
iJohnHenry said:
Alas, to late to the party, again.

See a moose, moon it.

Or any wildlife for that matter.
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Haha I haven't seen any wildlife. The game just ended. We lost, 50 to 55. The referees made some bad calls. Anyway, it's 7pm noe, and we have to go around Vail Pass. It will take like 4-5hrs to get back home.

Edit: Can anyone identify what caused my kernel panic earlier? (See attached kernel panic log)

Edit 2: I am uploading the video to photobucket right now, because I won't be home until like 12:30 am.

Edit 3: Photobucket keeps crashing flash, so I am using dropbox. At the rate it's going, it will be uploaded in 2 hours. But I will be in a bus, moving, so it will be like 3 hours.

Edit 4: Vail Pass just opened. We will be leaving the school that our basketball team played. We are expected to be home at around 11PM. I canceled the upload because I just realized that I have a 2GB capped data plan, not unlimited. It is a 130MB file, and I don't feel like opening iMovie to make it smaller. I will upload it tomorrow afternoon.
 

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I just got home.... At 1AM. That changed from a 9hr trip into a 12hr trip.... Good thing I don't have to go to school until 9:45AM! Now to wash my school colors facepaint off of my face.... Ughhhh :mad:

I used 500mb out of my 2gb of data that I am allotted for the month today, which is the third second day of my AT&T billing cycle :( :mad: Maybe I shouldn't have watched Modern Family on Hulu..... :rolleyes: That alone used 350mb.
 
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AlphaDogg said:
I just got home.... At 1AM. That changed from a 9hr trip into a 12hr trip.... Good thing I don't have to go to school until 9:45AM! Now to wash my school colors facepaint off of my face.... Ughhhh :mad:

I used 500mb out of my 2gb of data that I am allotted for the month today, which is the third second day of my AT&T billing cycle :( :mad: Maybe I shouldn't have watched Modern Family on Hulu..... :rolleyes: That alone used 350mb.
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Better use wifi alot for the rest of the month.;)
 
I forgot to mention this: my friend who was on the bus said (regarding the FedEx truck) "if it was an Apple truck, it would have flown!"
 
Detach yourself completely from this ridiculous compulsion to "NEED" to be in contact with every single corner of the planet, wherever you are, whatever you're doing. It's so pointless. Exist in one space and time at a time, enjoy it thoroughly by focussing ONLY on it. Drop the MacBook off a cliff - you'll benefit from the silence, and the wider world will benefit from your lack of constant tweets etc, no offence.

Technology - PAH - since when did it become a "need" to perpetually relay your every movement and thought to random bods online? So stupid.
 
glossywhite said:
Detach yourself completely from this ridiculous compulsion to "NEED" to be in contact with every single corner of the planet, wherever you are, whatever you're doing. It's so pointless. Exist in one space and time at a time, enjoy it thoroughly by focussing ONLY on it. Drop the MacBook off a cliff - you'll benefit from the silence, and the wider world will benefit from your lack of constant tweets etc, no offence.

Technology - PAH - since when did it become a "need" to perpetually relay your every movement and thought to random bods online? So stupid.
Click to expand...

Actually, when I went to Simi Valley, CA (about 3 weeks ago) I didn't have any cell phone service. It was a very nice break from the internet. It broke my reliability on the internet. I just started this thread because I thought people might benefit from the pictures of the scenery and such.
 
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