To use sudo (superuser do), you have to have an administrative account. Regular users cannot use it. OS X apparently (I haven't taken a look at the actual file) automatically places "Admin" users in the sudoers file:
sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user, as specified in the sudoers file. The real and effective uid and gid are set to match those of the target user as specified in the passwd file (the group vector is also initialized when the target user is not root). By default, sudo requires that users authenticate themselves with a password (NOTE: this is the user's password, not the root password). Once a user has been authenticated, a timestamp is updated and the user may then use sudo without a password for a short period of time (five minutes by default).
(from the man page on sudo on a FreeBSD system on which I have a shell account.)
The fact that OS X is based on FreeBSD may very well keep this hole from becoming as damaging as it is on Windows. Unless you're logged in as root or an Admin user -- always a good idea to be a 'normal' user whenever possible -- I don't know how damaging a malicious program can be. It'd have to get around some pretty strong security.
To what extent do others out there think this fact might "save" IE from being the terrible security disaster under OS X that it is on Windows?
I've got it on my 10.1 system, but I never use it; Mozilla 0.9.4 is far nicer (to me, anyway.)
... is another fine work by the same author. It's not quite as detailed and extensive, but this is caused in part by the "quality" of the source material. I enclose this word in quotes because I'm not saying that Anne McCaffrey doesn't write well; in fact, she's one of my favorite authors. But she was not an academic by training -- in fact, she dabbled in the performing arts before becoming a writer -- so the extensive notes that Tolkien created while working on his series don't exist for the Pern universe. (Tolkien was a linguist, which is part of why there's such polish in that part of the Rings series.)
Fonstad did a good job anyway, using as much source material as she could find and most likely author interviews as well. The resulting maps are well detailed and wouldn't look out of place in a cartography book.
Of particular interest to me (a die-hard space buff) was the section that showed Pern from space rather than the Mercator projection maps (which are notorious for distorting polar regions) and the section which depicted the landing craft that the settlers when they arrived from their colony vessels. Interestingly, the design looks like a lengthened Space Shuttle orbiter, which makes sense to a point (why reinvent the wheel?) but isn't what I'd choose for such a job; the Shuttle's not designed to make repeated trips in just a few short days. I would have instead adapted some of the designs I've seen for manned Mars flights. (Hmm, such a thing might prove of interest to Ms. McCaffrey or some of the Pern fan web sites out there. Note to self: Design landing craft.) Oddly, the image in the book is missing any kind of propulsion system... strange for a skilled cartographer to miss that detail, but then again, engineering drawings and maps aren't the same thing.
(The descriptions of the Shuttle in The White Dragon are well done -- for 1978, three years before Columbia ever flew.)
I have a copy of this book, acquired from the Sci-Fi Book Club some years ago, but it seems to now be out of print. Expect to pay at least $50 for one; I saw one on Amazon.com (used) going for $100!
Anyone else read this wonderful series and taken a look at the atlas? If so, what did you think?
It never had one. It was most likely used for wind tunnel, weight, and fit checks along with fitting test payloads into the bay. This is what it originally looked like.
The Buran design was patterned after the US shuttle intentionally. When design work started, the Soviets realized that it would be more efficient to re-use the designs for ours, which were never classified and proven to work since the first tests of an air-dropped full size Orbiter in 1977. Thus, the result was a craft that resembles the Rockwell International design in many ways. (See here for some photos of another Buran test article, this one full-sized, on display in Sydney; an Australian friend donated the photos and is visible in one of them.)
This page has information about the Buran program in depth, including engineering background and a number of illustrations, including a few showing Buran docked to Mir. This, of course, never came to be following the program's cancellation after a single flight in 1988. The U.S. shuttle did visit in the mid- to late 1990s, however, as a prelude to the ISS program.
This may be a photo of the model that is on eBay, but I can't be sure. This might be, too -- in fact, the probability is rather high.
From the site:
"There was severe criticism of the decision to copy the space shuttle configuration. But earlier studies had considered numerous types of aircraft layouts, vertical takeoff designs, and ground- and sea- launched variants. The NPO Energia engineers could not find any configuration that was objectively better. This only validated the tremendous amount of work done in the US in refining the design. There was no point in picking a different inferior solution just because it was original."
Actually, it was filmed in letterbox originally with the intention of eventually using the letterboxed version on digital TV, which uses an aspect ratio like that of movie screens (about 16:9) rather than the current 4:3 ratio. But until the Sci-Fi Channel started airing the show, we only saw the pan-and-scan version.
Interestingly, the effects on the show were done with the off-the-shelf Lightwave 3D software, which I've been playing with off and on along with some ship models downloaded from the Net.
The series is still shown, in letterboxed form, on the Sci-Fi Channel -- and I'm eagerly awaiting the Rangers film. Hopefully, the series will continue through to a theatrical film as some say it will.
Just because a show isn't in production any longer doesn't mean that it's not worthy of contention. By the way... I think the new Trek series' re-use of the Akira-class ship design was a cop-out. I wanted to see something fresh and new along the lines of Earth Alliance vessels with a Trek touch...
On my OS X Apache box on my desk at work, default.ida is now a copy of http://www.hideaway.net/newsletter/iis_ida_overflo w.txt...
If I keep getting garbage in my server logs, it may become a 10MB text file of nothing but repetitious copies of the alert... though I'm not sure how much it'd help.
You want it? You got it...
It is important to note that this was a suborbital test flight. The orbital test is set to go ahead later this year, provided what happened this time (to cause the excessive vibrations that overrode the separation command) can be determined.
That honestly would depend on how fast the vehicle would be moving by the time the sun's influence was negligible. I admit that I don't have the figures handy, nor do I know the formulae that would be needed to calculate, I understand that a properly designed solar sail craft could travel ten times as fast as the Voyager probes -- which are about to become the first interstellar spacecraft.
It is an interesting idea -- if it can be made to work...
While this mission was not a success in that the spacecraft did not separate from the third stage of the launcher -- currently, it is believed that the separation command was overridden by the control computers due to excessive vibration in the vehicle, which is by design -- it is a success in other, more important ways.
First, it helps to bring the concept of the solar sail as a valid idea to the public eye. Solar sails have been something of a mainstay in some science fiction series as a way of getting to other planets and have even shown up in some popular sci-fi series (one episode of Deep Space Nine, for instance, showed an old Bajoran solar sail vessel, albeit with far too little sail area to accelerate as "fast" as more serious concepts would). However, other more conventional systems (by far the chemical rocket, but followed to a lesser extent by nuclear rockets (does anyone recall the NERVA program that might have sent humans to Mars by the 1980s?) and ion propulsion: how many of you knew that the term TIE Fighter from Star Wars stands for "Twin Ion Engine"? Star Wars never stated what gas was used in those systems, but the gas that has been used in the Deep Space 1 mission and in the Artemis commercial spacecraft. Now that the Planetary Society, which is a well-respected organization, has attempted to actually fly a solar sail, the public will become aware of the possibility.
It helps to bring the existence of such organizations into the spotlight as well. The Planetary Society has been active for decades -- it was founded by Carl Sagan -- and there are others, including what is perhaps the best-known of these groups: the National Space Society. Others, far less well known, exist, ranging from fan clubs for shows like Babylon 5 (which I applaud for showing what space exploration will be like in perhaps a few decades once we've gotten the hang of building spacecraft with rotating gravity sections to avoid the problems that long stays in microgravity cause) to other grassroots groups that give more or less anonymously (that is, they don't get press coverage) to serious efforts.
And it also helps to give people like us the idea that we might eventually actually get to go to space ourselves. If someone can spend $20 million for a ride on a Soyuz capsule, and if a non-profit organization can launch a solar sail, then what could happen in fifty years?
Partially true. While it is indeed correct that the "thrust" that a solar sail can take advantage of (photons striking the sail surface) decreases as the vessel moves away from a star (our sun, for instance), one must remember that according to the Laws of Motion, an object that is in motion will remain in motion unless an external force acts on it. This means that even after there is relatively little motive force (photons) to be used to accelerate the craft, it will not decelerate either as it passes through interstellar space. Essentially, there would be no positive or negative acceleration during the cruise phase to another star, but as the craft approached that star, the photons that it emits can be used to slow the craft down -- and final deceleration and orbital entry could be accomplished by nuclear or chemical rockets (or even ion propulsion.)
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
It is from an address given at Rice University in Houston (where Mission Control is located) on September 12, 1962. This is also the speech that contains the phrase "We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people."
I look up to Kennedy because he was so truly enthusiastic about the space program like no President since has had the guts to be.
I had the exact same thing happen for the domain I wanted, except it never expired, but snapped straight from showing NSI info only to being registered in Korea -- this despite daily checks. I am quite annoyed as now it won't expire until 2002 and I have to do the daily dance again next summer! And it resolves to nothing where I have plans for it.
I transferred my domain name to Register.com last summer after getting tired of Network Solutions and learning in a Slashdot article that you could indeed do transfers of existing names. I had to sign a fair bit of paperwork and have it notarized, which seems to indicate to me that Register.com has plenty of proof I wanted the transfer. Not only that, but my bank has my name in the register book showing that I did indeed request the transfer. Unless Register.com changed the "proof" requirements, I don't know how NSI can raise slamming charges. And I still have all the originals of the documents (I submitted them via fax) as proof.
It took a couple of days for the transfer to go through, but Register.com assured me that there would be no trouble with any refusals for NSI. I never got any email from NSI asking for any kind of confirmation. And I definitely never got a "the request was denied by NSI" notices from Register.com! There shouldn't be any trouble.
Register.com has been nothing but helpful when I've needed to interact with them. NSI never answered any email. They deserved to lose my business. And where are the security upgrades? The web-based administration? I'm still waiting to see any on their site.
"How would you plan on watching a PAL video cassette?"
I work in a lab at a university that deals with a lot of video stuff. We have a deck that can play not just NTSC but PAL and SEACAM and whatever is out there. If it's on VHS, I can play it.
But I'd like to get the US versions because the British tapes won't have closed captioning.
It is true that you could drop the 1.8T into a 2.0 Golf. In fact, you could drop in the VR6 -- the GTI is just a two-door Golf, after all -- or even the TDI (we do get that as a factory option). Europe gets several TDI engines, a V5 (!), and a V6, though I don't think they get the exact same 2.0 we do. In fact, I've even heard of someone sticking an Audi engine in there. So if you wanted to be gutsy, you could get a cheap 2.0 Golf, then do an engine swap.
The 2.0 gets called the "2.Slow" on the owners' forum I use by people with 1.8T or VR6 engines, but I'm delighted with mine. I don't care what other people think!
"You can get any color that the maker offers for any of their brands.. As long as you special order it... If you pushed hard enough I bet you could get a Golf GTI in the Beetle's Reflex color."
Not in the US, you can't special-order a VW.
VW does not allow customers to order cars from the factory the way they do in Europe. When you "order" a car, your dealer either tries to dealer-trade for it or keeps an eye on what is in the production pipeline and does their best to get that car for you. However, if on the way to your dealership it gets bought by someone else (I've heard stories of them getting bought off the truck at the dealer before the buyer's on the truck's route) or another dealer trades for it before you, you're stuck.
In Europe, you can specify exactly what is on the car from the ground up, and it is built just for you. You want a 4Motion four-door Golf GTI with HIDs and navigation system? Fine! If you ask for that here, not only are the AWD, GPS, and HID headlamps unavailable, you wouldn't be able to "lock" the car down to yourself. VW also doesn't do European delivery right now... believe me, I looked into it!
When I bought my Golf, I originally wanted black. My dealer found a black 2000 four-door GLS with all the options I wanted plus the extra of the Monsoon sound system, in the interior color I wanted. Unfortunately, he said it was sold before he was able to contact the dealer who had it. This can either mean that's what actually happened (VW dealers aren't known for being forthcoming) or the dealer who had it didn't want to trade. Since I had given a list of colors that I wouldn't mind, in my preference order, the sales guy went down the list. On the dealer's other St. Louis lot was a white Golf with black interior, lux package, cold weather package. They simply drove it from one lot to the other -- I had to buy it from that dealership due to the way my car broker works -- and I had my car in about a week or so from when they started looking.
Turns out that black VWs are a pain to keep clean and scratches show up far more easily. I'm glad now that I got white -- there's not many white Golfs/Jettas on the VW enthusiasts' site I use. I'm somewhat unique.:)
However... the Golf and GTI are already available in silver!
I'm a die-hard Babylon 5 fan, and I've been waiting to hear about the DVD release of that series for quite some time. I caught the show when it was shown on TNT, but unfortunately, the Sci-Fi channel has captioning missing from most of its episodes (I got lucky and turned it on for the first time in weeks when the one they had on was captioned). So taping those is pretty pointless for me. I'm going to go out and see what's on store shelves by way of VHS versions, but I'm not sure of how optimistic to be.
Does anyone have information on which episodes will be released on DVD? I know that In The Beginning and one of the other feature films are hopefully to come to DVD later this year, though I've heard they may hit the UK (Region 2) first, which is of no help to me. (I hate regions. They're useless.) I want the full series and all the feature films. Any info would be appreciated.:)
The 1.8T engine was available on the Mk4 Golf for the 2000 and 2001 model years. I researched this a bit also and found that about 10,000 2.0-liter Golf GLSes (the four-door) were sold here, compared with about 2,500 1.8T GLS models. That told VW that there wasn't enough interest in continuing to sell them. (I admit that I bought a 2.0, but I didn't want to pay extra for an engine that has more potential problems -- yes, I know it's covered under the powertrain warranty, but that's still downtime -- and requires fuel that costs 20 cents per gallon more -- 91 vs. 87 octane.)
You can get the 1.8T engine for 2002 in either a Jetta Wagon (which offers the cargo room it seems you may be looking for) or in a GTI or in a Passat, though I agree with what I think you're thinking: the Golf is pretty rare but shares parts with the Jetta, so it's not difficult to keep in good order, looks distinctive from all the sedans and the increasing number of wagons on the road, and can still carry an amazing amount of stuff.
That, and it's still the only four-door hatch that I know of that's sold new in the US, though Ford will be bringing its four-door ZX5 Focus hatchback to the US starting this fall.
Now if they'd bring the V6 4Motion Golf GTI here, I'd be set for life.
The Mojave Beige color (the white one in the background is mine; the beige one is my boss') will be available on the Golf starting in 2002. Previously it was a GTI-and-Jetta-only color.
The blue on the eGolf is probably either Galactic Blue or Indigo Blue (medium lovely somewhat-deep blue and a deep blue, respectively.) Though there's a chance that it's Jazz Blue, which is an iridescent blue that was only really imported into North America in Canada, though there are a few running around the US.
Blue Jetta of Death? Actually, that would be BGoD -- Blue Golf of Death.
The Jetta (called the Bora everywhere but North America) is built on the Golf IV platform. So is the New Beetle. So is the Audi TT (surprise!). You can get far, far more aftermarket parts for a Golf than you can for a Jetta simply because of the fact that the Golf vastly outsells its Jetta counterpart in Europe -- I have some lovely aftermarket taillights (not Altezzas; you're safe!) on mine that look very tasteful and were made by Hella, who made the OEM units. The Golf is also more practical and has more rear-seat headroom because the roof doesn't slope down at the rear as it does on the Jetta.
In fact, the Golf and Jetta are so closely related that you can switch the front bumper, grille, headlights, hood, and front fenders between a Golf and Jetta and wind up with a pair of "Jolfs" -- a Jetta with a Golf front end and a Golf with a Jetta front end. I've seen it done both ways.
The US Jetta Wagon is just that -- a Golf Variant with a Jetta nose grafted on it. Why? Because the Jetta is better-known to US buyers and VW reasoned that it would sell better that way. True, I suppose, but the Golf has far superior headlights and you can get aftermarket fog light kits from Hella for the outer grilles -- not so for the Jetta, whose bumper is slightly different.
I am indeed the proud owner of a 2000 Golf GLS. Love it!
"MB still sells diesel autos - my dad bought a turbodiesel from Mercedes about 14 months ago, and he loves it big time."
Where are you located? They certainly do still make diesels -- a friend of mine in Scotland has one in the family as of last year -- but they don't sell them in the United States anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that OS X is based on FreeBSD may very well keep this hole from becoming as damaging as it is on Windows. Unless you're logged in as root or an Admin user -- always a good idea to be a 'normal' user whenever possible -- I don't know how damaging a malicious program can be. It'd have to get around some pretty strong security.
To what extent do others out there think this fact might "save" IE from being the terrible security disaster under OS X that it is on Windows?
I've got it on my 10.1 system, but I never use it; Mozilla 0.9.4 is far nicer (to me, anyway.)
Fonstad did a good job anyway, using as much source material as she could find and most likely author interviews as well. The resulting maps are well detailed and wouldn't look out of place in a cartography book.
Of particular interest to me (a die-hard space buff) was the section that showed Pern from space rather than the Mercator projection maps (which are notorious for distorting polar regions) and the section which depicted the landing craft that the settlers when they arrived from their colony vessels. Interestingly, the design looks like a lengthened Space Shuttle orbiter, which makes sense to a point (why reinvent the wheel?) but isn't what I'd choose for such a job; the Shuttle's not designed to make repeated trips in just a few short days. I would have instead adapted some of the designs I've seen for manned Mars flights. (Hmm, such a thing might prove of interest to Ms. McCaffrey or some of the Pern fan web sites out there. Note to self: Design landing craft.) Oddly, the image in the book is missing any kind of propulsion system... strange for a skilled cartographer to miss that detail, but then again, engineering drawings and maps aren't the same thing.
(The descriptions of the Shuttle in The White Dragon are well done -- for 1978, three years before Columbia ever flew.)
I have a copy of this book, acquired from the Sci-Fi Book Club some years ago, but it seems to now be out of print. Expect to pay at least $50 for one; I saw one on Amazon.com (used) going for $100!
Anyone else read this wonderful series and taken a look at the atlas? If so, what did you think?
It never had one. It was most likely used for wind tunnel, weight, and fit checks along with fitting test payloads into the bay. This is what it originally looked like.
This page has information about the Buran program in depth, including engineering background and a number of illustrations, including a few showing Buran docked to Mir. This, of course, never came to be following the program's cancellation after a single flight in 1988. The U.S. shuttle did visit in the mid- to late 1990s, however, as a prelude to the ISS program.
This may be a photo of the model that is on eBay, but I can't be sure. This might be, too -- in fact, the probability is rather high.
From the site:
So there you have it.Actually, it was filmed in letterbox originally with the intention of eventually using the letterboxed version on digital TV, which uses an aspect ratio like that of movie screens (about 16:9) rather than the current 4:3 ratio. But until the Sci-Fi Channel started airing the show, we only saw the pan-and-scan version.
Interestingly, the effects on the show were done with the off-the-shelf Lightwave 3D software, which I've been playing with off and on along with some ship models downloaded from the Net.
The series is still shown, in letterboxed form, on the Sci-Fi Channel -- and I'm eagerly awaiting the Rangers film. Hopefully, the series will continue through to a theatrical film as some say it will.
Just because a show isn't in production any longer doesn't mean that it's not worthy of contention. By the way... I think the new Trek series' re-use of the Akira-class ship design was a cop-out. I wanted to see something fresh and new along the lines of Earth Alliance vessels with a Trek touch...
On my OS X Apache box on my desk at work, default.ida is now a copy of http://www.hideaway.net/newsletter/iis_ida_overflo w.txt ...
If I keep getting garbage in my server logs, it may become a 10MB text file of nothing but repetitious copies of the alert... though I'm not sure how much it'd help.
You want it? You got it...
It is important to note that this was a suborbital test flight. The orbital test is set to go ahead later this year, provided what happened this time (to cause the excessive vibrations that overrode the separation command) can be determined.
It is an interesting idea -- if it can be made to work...
First, it helps to bring the concept of the solar sail as a valid idea to the public eye. Solar sails have been something of a mainstay in some science fiction series as a way of getting to other planets and have even shown up in some popular sci-fi series (one episode of Deep Space Nine, for instance, showed an old Bajoran solar sail vessel, albeit with far too little sail area to accelerate as "fast" as more serious concepts would). However, other more conventional systems (by far the chemical rocket, but followed to a lesser extent by nuclear rockets (does anyone recall the NERVA program that might have sent humans to Mars by the 1980s?) and ion propulsion: how many of you knew that the term TIE Fighter from Star Wars stands for "Twin Ion Engine"? Star Wars never stated what gas was used in those systems, but the gas that has been used in the Deep Space 1 mission and in the Artemis commercial spacecraft. Now that the Planetary Society, which is a well-respected organization, has attempted to actually fly a solar sail, the public will become aware of the possibility.
It helps to bring the existence of such organizations into the spotlight as well. The Planetary Society has been active for decades -- it was founded by Carl Sagan -- and there are others, including what is perhaps the best-known of these groups: the National Space Society. Others, far less well known, exist, ranging from fan clubs for shows like Babylon 5 (which I applaud for showing what space exploration will be like in perhaps a few decades once we've gotten the hang of building spacecraft with rotating gravity sections to avoid the problems that long stays in microgravity cause) to other grassroots groups that give more or less anonymously (that is, they don't get press coverage) to serious efforts.
And it also helps to give people like us the idea that we might eventually actually get to go to space ourselves. If someone can spend $20 million for a ride on a Soyuz capsule, and if a non-profit organization can launch a solar sail, then what could happen in fifty years?
This was, like Apollo 13, a "successful failure".
Partially true. While it is indeed correct that the "thrust" that a solar sail can take advantage of (photons striking the sail surface) decreases as the vessel moves away from a star (our sun, for instance), one must remember that according to the Laws of Motion, an object that is in motion will remain in motion unless an external force acts on it. This means that even after there is relatively little motive force (photons) to be used to accelerate the craft, it will not decelerate either as it passes through interstellar space. Essentially, there would be no positive or negative acceleration during the cruise phase to another star, but as the craft approached that star, the photons that it emits can be used to slow the craft down -- and final deceleration and orbital entry could be accomplished by nuclear or chemical rockets (or even ion propulsion.)
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
It is from an address given at Rice University in Houston (where Mission Control is located) on September 12, 1962. This is also the speech that contains the phrase "We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people."
I look up to Kennedy because he was so truly enthusiastic about the space program like no President since has had the guts to be.
I had the exact same thing happen for the domain I wanted, except it never expired, but snapped straight from showing NSI info only to being registered in Korea -- this despite daily checks. I am quite annoyed as now it won't expire until 2002 and I have to do the daily dance again next summer! And it resolves to nothing where I have plans for it.
It took a couple of days for the transfer to go through, but Register.com assured me that there would be no trouble with any refusals for NSI. I never got any email from NSI asking for any kind of confirmation. And I definitely never got a "the request was denied by NSI" notices from Register.com! There shouldn't be any trouble.
Register.com has been nothing but helpful when I've needed to interact with them. NSI never answered any email. They deserved to lose my business. And where are the security upgrades? The web-based administration? I'm still waiting to see any on their site.
Indeedy... I'm Buran on there. Big surprise. :)
But I'd like to get the US versions because the British tapes won't have closed captioning.
The 2.0 gets called the "2.Slow" on the owners' forum I use by people with 1.8T or VR6 engines, but I'm delighted with mine. I don't care what other people think!
VW does not allow customers to order cars from the factory the way they do in Europe. When you "order" a car, your dealer either tries to dealer-trade for it or keeps an eye on what is in the production pipeline and does their best to get that car for you. However, if on the way to your dealership it gets bought by someone else (I've heard stories of them getting bought off the truck at the dealer before the buyer's on the truck's route) or another dealer trades for it before you, you're stuck.
In Europe, you can specify exactly what is on the car from the ground up, and it is built just for you. You want a 4Motion four-door Golf GTI with HIDs and navigation system? Fine! If you ask for that here, not only are the AWD, GPS, and HID headlamps unavailable, you wouldn't be able to "lock" the car down to yourself. VW also doesn't do European delivery right now ... believe me, I looked into it!
When I bought my Golf, I originally wanted black. My dealer found a black 2000 four-door GLS with all the options I wanted plus the extra of the Monsoon sound system, in the interior color I wanted. Unfortunately, he said it was sold before he was able to contact the dealer who had it. This can either mean that's what actually happened (VW dealers aren't known for being forthcoming) or the dealer who had it didn't want to trade. Since I had given a list of colors that I wouldn't mind, in my preference order, the sales guy went down the list. On the dealer's other St. Louis lot was a white Golf with black interior, lux package, cold weather package. They simply drove it from one lot to the other -- I had to buy it from that dealership due to the way my car broker works -- and I had my car in about a week or so from when they started looking.
Turns out that black VWs are a pain to keep clean and scratches show up far more easily. I'm glad now that I got white -- there's not many white Golfs/Jettas on the VW enthusiasts' site I use. I'm somewhat unique. :)
However... the Golf and GTI are already available in silver!
Does anyone have information on which episodes will be released on DVD? I know that In The Beginning and one of the other feature films are hopefully to come to DVD later this year, though I've heard they may hit the UK (Region 2) first, which is of no help to me. (I hate regions. They're useless.) I want the full series and all the feature films. Any info would be appreciated. :)
Or, failing that, how about mail order ... ?
You can get the 1.8T engine for 2002 in either a Jetta Wagon (which offers the cargo room it seems you may be looking for) or in a GTI or in a Passat, though I agree with what I think you're thinking: the Golf is pretty rare but shares parts with the Jetta, so it's not difficult to keep in good order, looks distinctive from all the sedans and the increasing number of wagons on the road, and can still carry an amazing amount of stuff.
That, and it's still the only four-door hatch that I know of that's sold new in the US, though Ford will be bringing its four-door ZX5 Focus hatchback to the US starting this fall.
Now if they'd bring the V6 4Motion Golf GTI here, I'd be set for life.
The blue on the eGolf is probably either Galactic Blue or Indigo Blue (medium lovely somewhat-deep blue and a deep blue, respectively.) Though there's a chance that it's Jazz Blue, which is an iridescent blue that was only really imported into North America in Canada, though there are a few running around the US.
The Jetta (called the Bora everywhere but North America) is built on the Golf IV platform. So is the New Beetle. So is the Audi TT (surprise!). You can get far, far more aftermarket parts for a Golf than you can for a Jetta simply because of the fact that the Golf vastly outsells its Jetta counterpart in Europe -- I have some lovely aftermarket taillights (not Altezzas; you're safe!) on mine that look very tasteful and were made by Hella, who made the OEM units. The Golf is also more practical and has more rear-seat headroom because the roof doesn't slope down at the rear as it does on the Jetta.
In fact, the Golf and Jetta are so closely related that you can switch the front bumper, grille, headlights, hood, and front fenders between a Golf and Jetta and wind up with a pair of "Jolfs" -- a Jetta with a Golf front end and a Golf with a Jetta front end. I've seen it done both ways.
The US Jetta Wagon is just that -- a Golf Variant with a Jetta nose grafted on it. Why? Because the Jetta is better-known to US buyers and VW reasoned that it would sell better that way. True, I suppose, but the Golf has far superior headlights and you can get aftermarket fog light kits from Hella for the outer grilles -- not so for the Jetta, whose bumper is slightly different.
I am indeed the proud owner of a 2000 Golf GLS. Love it!
Try Audion 2, which works in OS X and 8.6/later. It's got Ogg Vorbis support built in, supposedly (I have not tried it.)