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I wrote about reclaiming memory from Firefox’s memory leak problem. But apparently this supposedly memory leak is really a feature:

Excerpt from the Slashdot article:

“The Firefox memory leak is not a bug. It’s a feature! The ‘feature’ is how the pages are cached in a tabbed environment.” From the article: “To improve performance when navigating (studies show that 39% of all page navigations are renavigations to pages visited less than 10 pages ago, usually using the back button), Firefox 1.5 implements a Back-Forward cache that retains the rendered document for the last five session history entries for each tab. This is a lot of data. If you have a lot of tabs, Firefox’s memory usage can climb dramatically. It’s a trade-off. What you get out of it is faster performance as you navigate the web.”

Someone on that thread also found a way to remedy this memory leak once and for all…

1. In the Firefox URL box, type about:config
2. Look for browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers and set it to “0″ (default should have been “-1″ )

According to Firefox’s online documenation, setting the value to “0″ disables page caching and will damatically increase the time it takes to go back to a page using the back/front buttons (yeah, if you on dialup). But the documentation also gives guidelines on what values to set for the level of page caching you can tolerate (proportion to the memory Firefox will use).

Murdza sent me this pretty neat link to some classic keynotes of Steve Jobs back in the days…. The one in 1997, his return to Apple, was probably one of the best ones. He pretty much laid out the road map that Apple has been doing, except at the time it all sounded like secret codes that only he and the Apple board understood.

For you diehard Steve Jobs fans, this is a great place to collect those speeches that you’ve always regretted not having a copy of (I know Murdza and I now have a copy!). For you new comers to the Mac, this was the Second Coming of Steve Jobs…

OH, and the site also has pretty much all the classic Apple commercials from the old days… Fun!

UPDATE 02.27.2006: Another site filled with Appple ads.

I noticed one of the YouTube videos this site was referencing was missing. So I went to YouTube and checked out what was going on… But I found this amusing placeholder instead…

We all have seen Tom Cruise in that futuristic science-ficition thriller set in the not-too-distant future, “Minority Report“. Remember the scene where he goes through hundreds of video archives looking for that segment of evidence to arrest someone of a “pre-crime”?

Well, I guess maybe that’s not too science-fiction after all… The clip shown below demonstrates what’s called a “Multi-Touch Interaction” technology for touch screens. Most touch screens today can only accept one user input at a time. But this new technology recognizes and is able to interpret multiple user inputs at any given time.

Apple has reportedly applied for a patent that covers similar technology.

To get ready for a Linux class I am taking, I have to put Linux back on the old Dell I have abandoned ever since moving Grace to the Mac. I decided to try the latest flavors out there — Ubuntu 5.10 and Fedora Core 4.

Linux has been great as a server environment for me. But I have been frustrated with it since the Redhat 8.0 days (precursor to the current Fedora project). Nothing has been intuitive in almost every aspect of the Linux wold. Everything from application naming convention (WTF is “Gimp” if you don’t Google it?), install, setup to the simplest things such as application upgrades. I have picked up quite a bit of Linux just from Googling and learning everything myself with occassional Q&A sessions with Kyung. But it never seems to get any easier.

Ubuntu
Start with Ubuntu, the latest and the greatest and the most recent “king of ease of use”. Sure enough, the entire installation and setup process was seamlessly fast — took less than 3 hours with everything installed and done. It was as easy to install as the Windows installation process, I thought. And all it took was one 700MB disc. Easy! I liked the experience so far.

But it sucked when it came to upgrading Firefox from the default 1.07 to the latest 1.5.0.1. I had to download Firefox, extract the file to some other directory, make symbolic links in one directory while changing other files and variables to make everything happy. Screw that. I tried using apt-get to update the software automatically, but then I was too lazy to figure out where to fix the repository list so that it’d get the latest Firefox, so I ditched Ubuntu.

Fedora Core 4
On with Fedora. I have used it quite a bit before. But that didn’t make the experience any easier. Upgrading Firefox was a bit simpler. But I still had to go through similar hoops. The main stumbling block on Fedora was trying to get VNC server to work properly (so that I can free up the monitor for my laptop). To demonstrate how much crap I had to do to make it work, here’s what I did…

1. Install VNC server by issuing this command yum -y install vncserver
2. Check to see if vnc server has the right runlevel: /sbin/chkconfig --list | grep vnc;
but I got this:
vncserver 0: off 1: off 2: off 3: off 4: off 5: off 6: off
(hint: runlevel 5 should be on)
3. Change runlevel: /sbin/chkconfig --level 5 vncserver
4. In ~/.vnc/xstartup file, uncomment these two lines:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
5. From the menu, go to “Applications > Preferences > Remote Desktop” and change options to allow remote users to control the workstation
6. Change rules in the iptables file (Linux version of a firewall) in /etc/sysconfig/iptables by adding a new rule:
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 5900 -j ACCEPT (5900 being the port I need to open to allow VNC to accept communications through that port)
7. Restart iptables: sudo /etc/init.d/iptables restart
8. Start VNC server: sudo /etc/init.d/vncserver start

Yeah sure, I have everything in one place now. It sure took me some work and digging to put all the pieces together. Can an average Joe get VNC to work not knowing all this? The answer is obviouly a NO. And I rest my case… Unless things drastically change in simplifying the environment, it will never be in the mainstream.

UPDATE 06/14/2006: More info on how to set screen resolutions for vncviewer.

Bryan got four more immunity shots last week. He was supposed to get all cranky with fever and all that good stuff that comes with having side affects from those shots… but nada… He slept through the night without any problems…

As he gets older, he seems to understand more about the idea of “getting shots”. Grace said he cried a hell lot more this time around. But the trieds were quickly replaced with laughters from mommy’s warm comfort.

We went to Baby’s-R-Us yesterday. Bad idea. There were so many damn people that it made me want to smack every insensitive idiot in the aisles for wanting plow his/her oversized shopping cart through all the baby-carrying parents. Idiots. I think shopping over the weekend anywhere is just a bad idea in general, especially in the malls. Just being in the vicinity of a mall makes me nervous because of all the traffic. I like people watching and everything (because people do amusing things), but the hassle of having to look for a parking spot among 50,000 shoppers is not particularly a fun experience.

Why are Americans so obssessed with battery-powered “things”? While looking for a plastic bib for Bryan, we saw this mixer for blending formula evenly with water… Um, so… what’s wrong with moving the wrists a little? What do they even want to consider buying a power mixer for baby formula!?! Mixer/blender for juice, yes. For baby formula, why? And then of course, just about every other item sold at Baby’s-R-Us requires some form of battery or electrical outlet.

What?

Hey… don’t look at me. Blame your elected officials. Write a letter to your congressman or something…

It’s a surprising twist that nobody talks about, even the nosey media…

The most important reason is a government policy that, amazingly enough, seems almost intended to undercut the benefits of efficient cars. In 1978, Congress set a minimum corporate average fuel economy, known as CAFE, for all carmakers. Today, the minimum average for cars is 27.5 miles a gallon. (For SUVs and other light trucks, it is 21.6.)

You can guess what this means for hybrids. Each one becomes a free pass for its manufacturer to sell a few extra gas guzzlers. For now, this is less true for Toyota’s cars, because they’re above the mileage requirement. But Toyota’s trucks and the American automakers are right near the limits. So every Toyota Highlander hybrid SUV begets a hulking Lexus SUV, and every Ford Escape–the hybrid SUV that Kermit the Frog hawked during the Super Bowl–makes room for a Lincoln Navigator, which gets all of 12 miles a gallon. Instead of simply saving gas when you buy a hybrid, you’re giving somebody else the right to use it.

The hybrid, then, is just about the perfect example of what’s wrong with our energy policy. It’s a Band-Aid that does a lot less to help the Earth than we like to tell ourselves. When Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed conservation as “a sign of personal virtue” a few years back, a lot of environmentalists were disgusted. But that, sadly, is what a lot of well-meaning hybrid owners are driving: an expensive symbol that they’re worried about our planet, rather than a true solution.

Tricky tricksters…

I was looking for more variety of colors other than the standard web-safe colors provided by BBedit, my preferred plain text editor for programming on my Mac. I found a pretty damn cool site that converts Pantone colors to RGB and Hexdecimal colors.

This color conversion tool allows you to convert Pantone® Spot Colors to RGB (sRGB) color values (Red/Green/Blue) and Hexadecimal color values (Hex). You can also view a Web Safe Color Palette and X11 Color Keywords with RGB, Hexadecimal and CSS Shorthand Hex color values.

It’s unfortunate that the combinations of web browsers, monitors and operating systems all treat colors differently. There’s no real way to have a uniform color palate… But the website is pretty cool nonetheless.

This is by far the best and funniest article I have read in the recent years.

An excerpt:

Look, you can pester me all you want, mock my stubbornness, and even point at me and laugh, but one thing is certain: I’m not buying a Mac.

For more than 20 years, I have used only MS-DOS- and Windows-based computers. During that time, I have purchased enough Microsoft software to feed a small family for a year — assuming that I could somehow transform 600-page manuals and stacks of 3.5-inch floppy disks and those annoying “Certificates of Authenticity” into edible human nourishment.

To date, I have endured 1.4 million system crashes, watched 19,874 word processing documents vanish into the ether — many of which would certainly have won prestigious literary prizes — and directed 455,391 expletives at “Bill Gates” and “Michael Dell” and “any human being remotely involved in the creation of this hideous device.”

Despite all this, every few years I replace my outdated PC with a new one. “I already know how to do everything on a PC,” I say, echoing the most popular explanation for not switching to Apple.

Meanwhile, since the mid-1980s I have seen Mac users walk around as if they don’t have a care in the world. With a playful jauntiness in their step, and noticeably fewer forehead lines, they boast about the “coolness factor” of their iMacs and iBooks and G4s. And from what I can tell, their lives are as clean and uncluttered as Apple’s elegant user interface, all smooth and logical and perfect.

Make sure you read the full article to get a good chuckle out of the column. His other articles are also peppered with great insight and original humor.

The author, Bill Shein, is the Winner of the 2005 National Press Club Award for Humor.

via [MacDailyNews]

From NPR:

All Things Considered, February 8, 2006 · The Bush administration has canceled funding for the most ambitious study of children’s health ever designed — prompting outrage among scientists and public health officials. The study was to investigate the causes of widespread obesity and asthma, among other childrens’ health problems.

Hmm.. So, tax cuts for his friend was a go. Invading Iraq costing American people billions was a go. But Jesus Christ, what does America need healthy children for!?

The full audio clip is available at NPR.

Slashdot has an interesting article referencing the possibilities of time and space travel:

“The bad news is that time does not change. Spatial velocity is given as dx/dt. Velocity in time(dt/dt) is nonsensical. As simple as that. In other words, no time travel to the past or the future, no motion in space-time, no wormholes and no hanky-panky with your great, great grandmother. There is only the changing present, aka the NOW. The good news is that distance is an illusion and we’ll be able to travel instantly from anywhere to anywhere.”

Just the kind of language to impress a hot date.

An excerpt about the concept of “space”:

The Nasty Little Truth
Physical space is given as a collection of positions. The idea is that, in order for any physical entity or property to exist, it must exist at a specific position in space. But if a position is a physical entity that exists, it too, must exist at a specific position. In other words, if space exists, where is it? As with time, one can posit a meta-space but this quickly turns into an infinite regress. The nasty little truth is that there is no such thing as space.

Interesting theories. I haven’t had time to look into the author of the site yet. But he has all kinds of crazy stuff (and of course, “crazy” is a relative term).

via [Slashdot]

Amazing article/audio from NPR once again.

Morning Edition, February 8, 2006 · Some scientists have proposed that when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or a daughter, but a gift of cells that stays behind and protects her for the rest of her life. That’s because a baby’s cells linger in its mom’s body for decades and — like stem cells — may help to repair damage when she gets sick. It’s such an enticing idea that even the scientists who came up with the idea worry that it may be too beautiful to be true.

Link to the audio.

via [Slashdot]