The Null Device

This Sunday was the Walk for Capitalism, a mass protest in defense of the global capitalist economic system against the dreadlocked menace who wish to rob us of our Big Macs and Nikes and herd us into Soviet-style collective farms. Well, not exactly a mass protest; in Auckland, only 25 people showed up. The protesters recited quotes from Ayn Rand and "tied blue ribbons to Starbucks cafes as a gesture of thanks"; thanks for what, for the mediocre coffee?

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The Greens have won a second Senate seat, with their NSW candidate, Kerry Nettle (who, at 27, is one of the youngest senators ever, if not the youngest, and who's also one of Peter's friends, putting her in my second degree) taking a seat from the Democrats (the former Party of Yoof). I believe that the Greens also stand a chance of picking up seats in other states, among them Victoria. Bravo, I say.

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Academics and analysts in the US are talking about bringing back the draft to fight the War On Terrorism. Conscripts, the argument goes, would be needed to patrol airports and such (something reservists cannot do, having full-time jobs); not to mention the eventuality of a massive invasion of Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Cuba or any other evil enemy state. So far, the White House is ruling out the draft. (via Orwell Today, which you should probably add to your reading list)

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Does anybody know of a good way of copying Macintosh disk partitions under MacOS 9? (Entire partitions, including desktop folders and other things, and not just the files that are in them.) I recently upgraded my Linux box's hard disk to 40Gb, and want to put the old 10Gb disk in my studio Mac, replacing its old 4Gb disk. However, since it's an oldish Mac, it can't have more than 2 IDE devices, which means that I have to move everything over from the old disk to the new one. (The plan of action involves: a) replacing the CD-ROM with the new disk; b) copying everything over so that it boots and works properly, and c) replacing the old disk with the new disk and putting the CD-ROM back where it was.)

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