Posts by Vargs

Global warming stopped in 1998? No it didn't. If you say that, you're going to prison

Deforestation must be "Green"

Interestingly, a large chunk of the deforestation is caused by bogus "sustainable" policies.

Mandatory biodiesel requirements in the EU and US have led to the clearance of vast swathes of native rainforest for palm oil plantations.

The almost bizarrely insane conversion of, previously unsubsidised and cost-effective, coal-fired power stations to burn wood chips leads to heavily subsidised generation at the cost of bulldozed US hardwood forests.

Neither policy leads to any reduction in CO2 emissions and may actually emit more.

Renewable energy 'simply won't work': Top Google engineers

Re: reducing energy consumption

No, it's the very poorest. You know, those without electricity or running water or healthcare or sufficient food.

Apple Watch: HOT WRIST ACTION plus slim $1299 MacBooks - and HBO TV

Re: Pointless

I think you, and several other commentators of an Android persuasion, are missing the point. This expensive thing is not especially about functionality (except for those who are worried about their health or obsessed with their fitness). It's about ergonomics.

I think the intention is that you can keep up with your online life by glancing at it, rather than having to fish around in your pocket and then authenticate on a phone to see what's coming in.

Typical El Reg commentators often focus on the hardware or back-end twiddling which they can't do. Apple has always been about the interface and convenience of use for ordinary people of their equipment.

Apple finally patches Bash Shellshock vuln that WAS NOT A WORRY, OK?

Re: Not available

Yup /bin/sh and /bin/bash are both slightly different executables of Bash. Although (if you have Macports) the new Bash you just built will be at /opt/local/bin/bash, and your log-in shell will pick that before the /bin/bash. Background process don't have their PATH set that way and will execute /bin/sh.

Incidentally, I wouldn't recommend that sequence of port commands. Best practice is to do

# port selfupdate

# port uninstall inactive

# port upgrade outdated

That way, if a port upgrade is borked, as they sometimes are, you can roll back to the previously working version.

Why Bash at all?

What baffles me is why some Linux distros and Mac OS X would use such a heavyweight shell as /bin/sh. Bash is supposedly a drop-in replacement for the Bourne shell but with loads of enhancements to the user interface -- which are surely not necessary for background use.

If background scripts want to use Bash's programming functionality they can have themselves run in it using a hashbang directive.

The FreeBSD userland (which is upon which Mac OS X is based) takes exactly this approach. It has a lightweight POSIX Bourne shell at /bin/sh, and requires system scripts to stick to core syntax.

Recommendations for private cloud software...

Confidential Document Exchange

Sounds like our system (http://confdex.co.uk) is exactly what you need. We specialise in health and social care but also have a music business customer who moves big stem files between producers and musicians using it. This system is in use across the whole of Public Health England.

Massive study concludes: 'Global warming is real'

Puzzling headline -- doesn't match the story

You don't seem to understand skeptics at all.

Very few think that the world isn't currently in a warming period, they are skeptical as to the degree of its attribution to CO2. Skeptics often point to periods in human history when the world was cooler and warmer than it is now, and to prehistoric times when it was much warmer. Many skeptics are concerned that the line between science and anti-industrial environmental activism seems blurred and are suspicious of the confirmation bias that this may introduce into climate science and the temperature record. That's what these studies are set to address.

The reports are clear that they have little bearing on the core CO2 debate, although the one on decadal temperature oscillations in the oceans points to it being a much smaller component of the recent temperature trend than is currently thought in the "settled" science.

"Global Warming" is shorthand for the whole package of beliefs about industrialisation, fossil fuels and climate change. These reports address only a small part of this -- that relating to the instrumental data. Skeptics are not confounded.

Mac OS X 10.6.8 hails from Paleolithic era

Downloads generally

They so have to sort out both this, and the AppStore™ download capability. There's a flood of complaints on the XCode 4.0.2 page. Some minor tweaks and bugfixes and you have to download the whole thing again (not a small issue at 4.6GB a pop). What's worse, it seems to frequently cop out after a few hours on what passes for (not very) rural broadband in this benighted country. You then have to restart from the beginning because it won't resume!

I'd believed that the horrors of non-resumable transfers remained solely a feature™ of the appalling native IIS FTP server.

Even if I splashed out for a satellite connection it would quickly use up my monthly allowance just updating the system.

You'd have to be mad to use iCloud if this is the best they can do...

If they really intend to roll out Lion exclusively on AppStore™, they're effectively saying you can only be a Mac owner if you're also Metrosexual. Hmmmm