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If you have a Mac and you’ve used the Terminal application to run Unix scripts, here is a useful tip for you. Everyone has used the cp command to copy files from one path location to another. However, many files in the Mac have so called resource forksassociated with the files that do not get copied along when using the cp command. Briefly, ditto is an Apple-developed tool for copying entire directories. Most important, ditto has a -rsrc option flag that ensures resource forks as well as creator/type codes are preserved in the copies. For example, this command will copy the Office X Identities directory from my home directory to the Backup directory on the external drive “Secondary”:

ditto -V -rsrc ~/Documents/”Microsoft User Data/Office X Identities” “/Volumes/Secondary/Backups/Office X Identities”
The above command is all one line.

Reference: http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/07/02/terminal_5.html

Canada wins 3-2! Just finished watching the final. It wasn’t as entertaining as the last game that Canada played against the Czech Republic but it was a good one nonetheless. Four Calgary Flames players were in the roster for both Canada and Finland. Mikka Kiprusoff and Ville Nieminen for the Finns. Jarome Iginla and Robyn Regehr for the Canadians. Should be interesting Flames locker room chat if a NHL season ever gets underway. I just can’t believe that the players union and the NHL cannot reach an agreement. So much is at stake. Both sides will lose big time if there is no season. Oh well… greed only begets greed.

I’m not a normally interested in politics, but here’s an article I found on the internet that raised my eye brows. It basically talks about how the Bush campaign on terror never really worked and in fact has created more terror attacks world wide than before September 11, 2001. An interesting excerpt from the article reads.

As nihilistic as it may be, al-Qaeda, from a business point of view, is a major success: three years after September 11, it is a global brand and a global movement. The Middle East, in this scenario, is just a regional base station. This global brand does not have much to do with Islam. But it has everything to do with the globalization of anti-imperialism. And the empire, whatever its definition, has its center in Washington. Bin Laden is laughing: Bush’s crusade has legitimized an obscure sect as a worldwide symbol of political revolt. How could bin Laden not vote for Bush?

Reference: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FI11Ak03.html

You gotta check out this cool gadget! I want one for Christmas.

Enough said. Buy me one at http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/6ba5/.

I just found this interesting article as referenced in Slashdot and the NY Times online. The background on Mr. Paul Samuelson is quite distinguished. He is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to economists, he is quite respected. Anyway, I just thought his quote was quite an eye-opener and looks like he isn’t afraid to tell it like it is.

“The new labor-market-clearing real wage has been lowered by this version of dynamic fair free trade,” Mr. Samuelson writes. But doesn’t purchasing cheaper call-center or programming services from abroad reduce input costs for various industries, delivering a net benefit to the economy? Not necessarily, Mr. Samuelson replied. “To put things in simplified terms, he explained in the interview, being able to purchase groceries 20 percent cheaper at Wal-Mart does not necessarily make up for the wage losses.”

Reference: An Elder Challenges Outsourcing’s Orthodoxy – Steve Lohr

As I was looking around the internet for economic news, I ran across this interesting article and report from the Congressional Budget Office that says the tax burden fell for those making $1M, but increased for lower levels. If you read the article, it would explain why I (as a part of the middle class) was paying more in taxes each of the last two years. Now, how is President Bush going to explain that come November?  

Reference: http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/13/news/economy/election_taxes.reut/