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  1. Re:Is it suddenly less windy? on Flowers' Smell Not Traveling As Far · · Score: 1

    In order for the RTFA joke to have any currency, some of us must continue to *not* RTFA. I'm just trying to help you all out here...

    Thanks for the explanation. Now I don't need to RTFA.

    cr

  2. Is it suddenly less windy? on Flowers' Smell Not Traveling As Far · · Score: 1

    How does this study stand up to any scrutiny? (he asks while not RTFA.)

    I'm sure the pollen is still traveling the same distance that it used to unless pollution has also made it less windy (sure...). I bet what they meant to say is the scent is less noticeable at greater distance due to being overpowered by scents caused by pollution. I could believe that statement, but to say that pollution is preventing the smell from traveling is just goofy.

    cr

  3. Re:The Millennial Project on MIT Team Designs a New, Sleek, Skintight Spacesuit · · Score: 1

    In Victor Koman's KINGS OF THE HIGH FRONTIER he also describes spacesuits very similar in scope and technology to the original post. BTW, great all around book about a private space race which we are *finally* seeing come to fruition.

  4. Revolutionary! on The Mind of an Inventor · · Score: 1

    This is going to revolutionize politics!

  5. Re:WTF are apple up to? on Darwin 8.0.1 Available · · Score: 1

    Darwin 8.0.1 is Darwin 8.0.0 with some/most of the Carbon/Cocoa dependencies stripped out. Apple has to make some modifications to Darwin to get it to compile and boot without all the "other" libraries.

    When 10.4.1 is released, it will ship with Darwin 8.1.0. When they do a Darwin only release, you'll then see Darwin 8.1.1, etc.

    Nothing to see here....

  6. Re:How are they going to eat ? on Google Founders Cut Salaries to $1 · · Score: 1
    You can make this point all day long. It's correct but only partially answers the questions raised in the story submission. There is no FICA (Social Security tax) withheld from selling stock. $0. Social Security is a separate tax and does NOT get funding from the General Fund. However, any surpluses collected into the Social Security fund do get pushed back into the General Fund where they pay for other things. That's why SS is in a crisis. There is no trust fund.

    When you post your answer for a fourth time, make sure to add this in there. Then you'll be more correct. :)

  7. Re:Four letters on Is Apple The New Microsoft? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Crippled? Care to explain how? You can run http://opendarwin.org/ on more models of Macintosh than you can run OSX out of the box (utilizing XPostFacto). Plus, you can run it on several different x86 motherboards. It has a fully functional X system too for all the GUI goodness you could want. It has a rich and growing ports http://darwinports.org/ collection.

    If OpenDarwin is crippled, then so is every *Linux and *BSD distribution out there.

    Yeah, you definitely put your foot in your mouth.

    cr

  8. Like Brave New World on Defining Google · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I remember a passage in Aldus Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD where a character asks why the government didn't just breed all Alphas. In this ficticious universe, they tried an experiment where they put all the biggest brains on the island of Crete and observed them. They were all so smart, every single one of them wanted to be an engineer or a philosopher or a politician or a CEO (you get the idea). Not a single one of them signed up for garbage duty, raising children, maintaining the water supply, growing and harvesting the food...

    Is Google going to run into the same problem? Don't they need some "drones" who are just solid workers instead of super-geniuses? Who will get the work done while all the geniuses battle over the cool new projects (and skunks works)?

    I sense Google going in the direction of the early 90s Apple (not a good thing).

    cr

  9. Re:Consumericanism. on 40GB RCA Lyra: Apple Fans Needn't Fret · · Score: 2

    (obligatory ad-hominem)
    You're a dumb ass.

    cr

  10. Re:not quite on If Mac OS X Came to x86, Would You Switch? · · Score: 1

    I/O Kit is part of darwin. I support a "fat" driver that works on both PPC and x86. That particular part of the system requires no port.

    cr

  11. Re:30 Second Commercial Spots on Dave Barry on Electronic Voting · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Like those Swift Boat Vet adds. They have been completely discredited, but many people will never learn that part of it and only remember the adds themselves.
    But they haven't been completely discredited.

    And since you didn't offer any proof of your assertion, I won't either. nyah nyah.

    cr
  12. Re:Giving the GOP a giant gift on Hackers Take Aim at Republicans · · Score: 1
    The GOP occupation of NYC is not just designed to exploit 9/11. It is a careful and deliberate attempt to provoke protest. Preferably large, frightening, unruly protest. The more masturbatory rage they can stir up in the city, the louder they'll be laughing on their way back to the white house.
    What?? As I recall, both parties wanted to hold their conventions in NYC. The Democratic Party wanted the city to guarantee they would be given exclusive right to hold their convention there. When NYC didn't agree and allowed the Republicans to hold it there too, the DNC went away in a huff and moved the convention to Boston.

    Perhaps that's a non sequitir to your original contention, but it gives context. As far as anyone knows, the Republican Party hasn't done a thing to encourage violent protest. If you know of something specific and documented, please speak up.

    For the record, I think you're blowing hot air.

    cr

  13. Re:Question on OpenDarwin 7.2.1 Released · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes, OpenDarwin is a usable OS all by itself.

    There is no default GUI other than X and whatever window manager you decide to install. You can use fink or darwinports to install a whole bunch of different ones (AfterStep, BlackBox, twm, etc.).

    The Finder is not included. This isn't MacOS X; just the UNIX bits underneath it.

    cr

  14. Re:Darwin on x86 -- QUESTIONS on OpenDarwin 7.2.1 Released · · Score: 2, Interesting

    True, but I believe the "unwritten, no promises" plan is for even that rc.* script to go away. Shouldn't take much more to eliminate it altogether.

    cr

  15. Re:Can somebody test it under vmware3? on OpenDarwin 7.2.1 Released · · Score: 1

    I believe vmware emulates a DEC 21040A. I haven't added support for that one yet. Feel free to send me a patch. :)

    cr

  16. Re:Can somebody test it under vmware3? on OpenDarwin 7.2.1 Released · · Score: 4, Informative

    I haven't verified this myself, but I hear it hangs under vmware because opendarwin requires VESA 2.0 compliant video. Apparently vmware doesn't emulate VESA 2.0 and is not quite fully compliant which causes the framebuffer code to choke.

    I ran into a guy at WWDC who was planning to rewrite the framebuffer code to work with vmware. I've got his card around here somewhere...

    cr

  17. Re:Darwin on x86 -- QUESTIONS on OpenDarwin 7.2.1 Released · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is no advantage to opendarwin on x86 over the others mentioned. It's maintained primarily to act as a way to validate that code is written correctly (by compiling for two different architectures and verifying it doesn't expose any bugs).

    OpenDarwin isn't intended to be very speedy and reliable on x86 hardware. We have FreeBSD for that.

    OpenDarwin isn't intended to support every x86 motherboard or weird peripheral. We have NetBSD for that.

    OpenDarwin isn't intended to be the most secure OS out there. We have OpenBSD for that.

    OpenDarwin isn't intended to form the center of a large and growing religious cult. We have Linux for that. :-)

    Use OpenDarwin if you want to check out the foundation upon which OSX is built. It has some very cool technologies that other OSs do not.

    For example, it replaces rc.* scripts (BSD) and run-levels (SysV) with SystemStarter. Second, the driver model was designed with OOP in mind and has been branded I/OKit. Third, instead of littering the filesystem with lots of "dot-files" it uses the SystemConfiguration framework to store configurations.

    Using OpenDarwin-x86 + GNUStep + WindowMaker (or AfterStep) gets you a machine that looks like OSX on x86.

    Take a look. You might like what you find.

    cr

  18. Re:POSIX? on OpenDarwin 7.2.1 Released · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's as POSIX compliant as OSX 10.3.2. If you find that out, then you've answered your own question.

    cr

  19. Re:Works in reverse, too...I think! on Use x86 Boxes to Compile Mac OS X Binaries · · Score: 5, Informative

    Specifying '-arch i386' on MacOS X doesn't work though. OSX doesn't ship with fat libraries, so it isn't possible to generate an x86 executable using the gcc switches. To make this work, you need to recompile several system frameworks and libraries and install them on your box. This is hairy. I saw instructions on how to do this about 2 years ago somewhere...

    Compiling ppc on x86 or x86 on ppc is actually a bit easier using OpenDarwin. You can run this fat on your hardware and emit fat executables just as the man page suggests.

    cr

  20. Re:What about Darwin? on Apple Developer Profile Changing? · · Score: 1

    You are wrong on both details.

    It works just fine with IDE drives (what I assume you mean by non-SCSI disks). Perhaps you are referring to darwin-x86. It is true to say it has some weak hardware support, but x86 != ppc.

    Also, it has *better* Mac hardware compatibility than OSX does. Er, at least opendarwin does (www.opendarwin.org) via the XPostFacto utility. This utility brings back some older hardware support that Apple is no longer interested in maintaining in the mainline trunk codebase.

    cr

  21. Re:Confidential files on Electronic Burglary in the Senate · · Score: 1
    A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties -- even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password.
    This is in the last paragraph of the article referenced by the slashdot story. If true, this clearly says there was no "hacking" or "cracking" involved. It was a shared server for both parties. The network share was unprotected and could be mounted by anyone who (essentially) clicked on the drive letter to map it to their box. That is neither hacking nor cracking by any definition.

    This may be an ethics violation, but it certainly wasn't computer intrusion. You may use the tired, old analogy that compares this to entering an unlocked house and swiping something. I don't think that comparison fits here(reasons left as an exercise for the reader!).

    cr

  22. Re:Good on Star Trek: Enterprise in Danger of Being Cancelled · · Score: 1

    I agree. I am happy to see the franchise come to a close on television. I haven't been satisfied with ST in many years, mostly due to what I viewed as a huge creative slump. They haven't taken any chances in a very long time (save for a nice, long storyline on DS9).

    The genre needs a kick in the pants. With ST out of the way, perhaps some new show can gain an audience.

    cr

  23. Re:Has it occurred to anyone... on USA To Return To Moon By 2015, Then Mars · · Score: 1

    My God, you're right. George W. Bush is the only president with rich friends our country has ever elected.

    I know this to be a fact since there isn't a single millionaire or billionaire that votes Democrat. And if we had a Democrat for a president, I hope he would do everything he could to destroy all those rich fat cats and run their corporations right out of town on a rail. We don't like their kind around here.

    I'm with you 100%.

    cr

  24. Firewire corruption issue specific to FW800 on Panther Problem Roundup · · Score: 2, Informative

    I can confirm this bug exists in Panther. If a FW800 drive (usually an Oxford 922 controller) is plugged into a FW400 port, the drive will be irrecoverably corrupted upon reboot.

    Plugging the same FW800 drive directly into a FW800 port on the machine skirts the problem (though the damaged filesystem is still lost forever).

    Plugging FW400 into a FW400 port has no problems.

    In sum, this is specific to FW800 enclosures plugging into FW400 ports under Panther.

    cr

  25. Who *really* got him fired? on Microsoft Fires Mac Fan For Blog Photo · · Score: 1

    Judging by the posts on his blog, I'm surprised he hasn't blamed his dismissal on Pres. Bush. I'll check his blog in a few days to see if he has corrected that oversight.

    cr