Lettre 13

This is a way cool podcast. Amit Singh, of kernelthread.com fame, manager of Macintosh Engineering at Google, author of MacFuse (which let you mount a remote directory via sshfs), talk about its last book, Mac OS X Internals. He debate about the misuse of Unix to characterize OS X, the way MacFuse use nfs locally to mount remote directory via sshfs and many other interesting topics. Amit Singh is very open-minded, far from OS sectarianism and provide an all around conversation on the basics of OS X.

Technometria: Mac OS X Internals, ITConversations.com (mp3)

If you install MacFuse, you should get MacFusion, which is a nice front end GUI for MacFuse. [via Infinite Loop]

Well, I have been contacted by one folk from Panic regarding my last post on Coda, asking me to download the last Coda release (1.0.1) (zip file) to check if the terminal bug I was talking about was fixed. The terminal bug is definitely fixed. I must say that the Coda terminal is also very nice. And, I’m totally impressed by the Panic folks.

* I’m not a customer of Panic.

* I didn’t write to Panic about this bug.

* I run an obscure blog.

* I said that Coda was not for me (well, I could buy a Coda “light”).

* But they contacted me to see whether their fix for the terminal was working.

So, in the end, Panic really digs the web and all that stuff about the “market as a conversation”.

On OS X, tuck this function in you .bashrc file to open from Terminal.app a repertory in Path Finder.

function pathfinder {
	open -a "Path Finder" $1
}

Then in terminal, to open the current directory do
% pathfinder .

You can open also a specified directory:
% pathfinder /Users/me/Desktop

Since Path Finder can call appropriate applications or open in itself different type of documents, you can also do the following:
% pathfinder ShellScripting.pdf

Well, like everybody, I’ve been impressed with the eye candy of Coda. Its nice to have everything bundled in one window. Unfortunately, for me, the bundle is not right because the text editor is not good as TextMate or BBEdit, and the CSS editor doesn’t look good as CCSEdit. And missing in action are bookmarks for the Web browser and bookmarks for the books included.

Also, the terminal have problem with my FreeBSD server. If I load my .bashrc config or launch vim, I get a garbled screen. And then, the only way to really quit the terminal, is to quit Coda, closing only the window seems not to work, because when I launch a new terminal, I get again the old window.

My mini reviews sound very negative, but in fact, Coda is very nice. I could use it as a sysadmin. I like very much the integration of a SFTP browser, a terminal window, a Web browser and a good editor. I can foresee a use to edit configurations files on the server, or do a quick modification on a web page. But I don’t see myself working all the day in Coda. I think Panic could do a “sysadmin” version, less expensive, with just the FTP/SFTP browser, the Web Browser, the text editor and the terminal, getting rid of the CSS editor and the included books on Javascript, CSS, HTML and PHP.

For a full fledged review, see Daring FireBall.

You must listen to this if you don’t know or never heard of the theremin, one of the strangest musical instrument in existence. It’s the only musical instrument that you don’t touch to play it.

Leon Theremin [Vincinnati / Flickr]

Open Source with Christopher Lydon, Passion: The Theremin (mp3)

An articulate and informed discussion on applying the word “apartheid” to the situation in Israel and Palestine. This review of President’s Carter last book by Joseph Lelyveld of the New York Reviews of Books shows the limitations and analogies that can help or impede the discourse when Israel is considered like an apartheid state. Although, I think that the comparison of Israel with South African apartheid is not an equivalence, it still contains underlying truths. Yet, this advice by Meron Benvenisti cited by the author nevertheless makes some sense for me.

Meron Benvenisti, who has been intrigued by the comparison to South Africa over the years, now calls for a rhetorical cease-fire. The use of the term “apartheid,” he wrote back in 2005, has become in Israel a “mark of leftist radicalism,” while its denial stands as proof of “Zionist patriotism.” Objective comparison or discussion of the validity of any comparison is “nearly impossible.” Anyone who goes into the question, Benvenisti wrote, “will be judged by his conclusions.” The choice, he said, is between being called an anti-Semite or a fascist. The occupation should be seen in its own harsh light, he concluded, rather than subjected to a comparison.

Joseph Lelyveld, Jimmy Carter and Apartheid, The New York Review of Books

It’s also worthwhile to listen to J.J. Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Forward on Zionism. Too much people equate zionism to racism or apartheid while this word cover many different realities and historical contexts.

J.J. Goldberg, But Is It Good for the Jews?, truthdig.com (mp3)

This is funny. With Launchbar, I start MarsEdit with “me”. Hope you get it .

You have to wonder why the BBC journalist Alan Johnston is still a hostage in Gaza. I have seen a number of its pieces on BBC News, and you can say that he is not an advocate of the Israeli intervention in Gaza. Quite the contrary. He is one of the occidental journalism that was able to give you a taste on how Israel was conducted itself as a ruthless killer in Gaza. I have in mind a particular segment where Alan Johnston was hiding on the top of the roof of a building, while Israeli drones where humming, trying to find a target. You could feel how frightening the situation was, with the BBC journalist whispering, trying not to attract the missile carried by the Israeli drone.

Now, clearly this journalist is in the hand of a gang of mobster. You have to wonder why either the Fatah or Hamas are not capable of liberating someone that you perfectly know in what hands he is. This show the limit of the power of the government in Gaza. In my opinion, the culprit is Israel which attacked what have been proto state entities, capable of imposing the law, and the Fatah and Hamas themselves that have, by corruption (Fatah), maximalism (Hamas), and infighting, discredit themselves to the point that they are no more capable to impose their legitimacy and will to mobsters carrying actions that are detrimental to the Palestinian cause.

Martin Fletcher, Mafia-Style Violence in Gaza and BBC Reporter, NBC News

The Observer, Feuding clan holds key to kidnap riddle, The Guardian

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a Muslim issue. It is a dispute over land, it is about an occupation that must end and it is about a people who deserve a state. But it is not a religious dispute. Clerics, rabbis, priests and any one else who claims religious authority for his opinion should stay out of it. As a Muslim, I’m particularly eager to keep our clerics away from Palestine.

The conflict has been one of the most jumped upon bandwagons in both the Arab and the Muslim world – but framing it in religious terms serves no one’s interest, least of all the Palestinians. With the Islamist Hamas at the helm of the Palestinian government the temptation is great to lose ourselves in the religious kaleidoscope they would love to wrap around the conflict. But just as Islamists are more about power than religion, so is the conflict less about religion than land.

Mona Eltahawy, Qaradawi Damages Palestine’s Cause by Turning Global Issue Into Islamist Weapon, muslimwakeup.com

Somber assessment on Iraq by Thomas Ricks, the Washington Post correspondent in Iraq. He thinks the American have no control on the events, and that they will be there for two decades. And last, but not least, there is no easy solution for this fiasco, and that’s why he thinks that Iraq is a tragedy.

On Point with Tom Ashbrook, Thomas Ricks on Iraq Today (mp3)