iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

Two weeks ago Apple released the latest revision of their PowerBooks. I bought mine at the end of the summer, and I don’t feel like I missed out on this update. I’m happy with the 1.3 GHz processor I have, and the speed-bump of 1.5 GHz that my machine would have got doesn’t bother me. That said, the feature that makes want to trade up is the scrolling track pad.

The idea is you get the functionality of the scroll wheel on many mice, but you don’t have the dead space you have on PCs with a scroll section. Just place two fingers on the pad and drag them in the direction you want to scroll.

Thanks to the Open Source core of OSX (called darwin) your too can compile (or download a pre-compiled) version of the driver that makes the new systems work. I found the hint on MacOSXHints.com at 11:30PM and had it running by 11:33PM.

Here’s the MacOSXHints.com
article, and Daniel Becker’s actual description of how to do it.

Two years ago Hans Blix gave a 45 minute presentation to the UN that concluded that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Two years and a day later North Korea openly claims to have Nuclear Weapons (maybe 2 years to the day if you are generous with the international date line). This is the consequence of this New American Century style foreign policy of using America’s might to crush countries that could never fight back in the first place.

Forget the obvious consequences of dismantling a state and trying to rebuild it from the ground up. What we have to worry about now is leaders like Kim Jung Il figuring out that as soon as you go nuclear America can’t just invade and remove you and destroy your state.

Rumsfeld has apparently stated that he is not sure if North Korea has the nukes or not: if Rumsfeld previous intelligence is any indication, we should take North Korea at their word. We had to listen to Colin Powell talk about tubes and show us pictures of blurry trucks, and a few circumstantial wiretaps, claiming these items posed a real threat to America. A country now claims to have weapons of mass destruction and Rumsfeld thinks we should sit around and hope that they are bluffing?

When you label someone as a real and immediate threat and do nothing about it for over two years it sends a signal. America’s complete lack of interest in negotiations has demonstrated that the only way Bush will ‘solve’ a problem with a foreign nation is to invade it. So as long as America’s Army is otherwise disposed rouge nations clearly need to build their army to ensure that when America is ready to engage them the task is too large. Five years ago the Clinton administration had North Korea talking, and was placating their need for resources and pacifying them. Ironically, four years ago when Bush came into office North Korea might have been the one rouge nation that might have been solved militarily – if any one cared about it.

Kim Jung Il, the nut who the Daily Show has taken to referring to as ‘Bouffant Hitler,’ has bested America at their own proliferation game.

Hasbro has reissued the Millennium Falcon! The greatest toy I have ever had, and thusly the one which I probably abused the most, is born again. I’ll have to go out and get one, and perhaps treat this one a little better.

If I’m really going to geek-it-up I should buy a Mac mini and install it into the Falcon! Ohhhh the nerdy fun I could have!

The Stop Ashlee Simpson Petition sucessfully had the annoying star thrown out of our galaxy. The people have spoken.

Now Google officially can do everything Yahoo! can do, and do it better!

Google just launched a beta of it’s Google Maps site. You can drag around the map with your mouse! No more clicking on stupid arrows to find out what you’re looking for isn’t over there. You’ll also notice in the image below that Markham appears before St.Catharines does, must be the 200+ population in the ‘town’ of Markham versus the 60+ in St. Catharines.

Only time will tell what it’s results are like, but here’s hoping.

Like always, I learnt this from Slashdot, but what I really wanted to share is this person’s post:

Re:Google will never stop… (Score:5, Funny)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 08, @08:07 (#11605396)

Thats nothing. Try this on for size:

I don’t know how long it will be before someone at MSN notices that a whole lot of people are interested in this trip; this has appeared on many newsgroups already.

1. http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
2. Plan a trip from Haugesund, Norway to Trondheim, Norway
3. Laugh

I followed his instructions for you: