Jet stowaway dies en route to JFK...

By John McDaid | Wednesday, 8 June 2005

From New York Newsday: "Pam Hearne of Floral Park said she heard a "thunk" outside her home shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday, but she thought it was the usual morning ruckus caused by neighbors loading heavy stuff onto trucks."

But it was actually the leg of a stowaway, falling from the wheel well of a plane inbound to nearby JFK airport in Queens. And while this is a truly sad and horrific story, it also should scare the heck out of anyone living in the approach pattern of a major airport.

Someone, presumably unauthorized, managed to climb onto and conceal themselves inside a commercial jet. While there wasn't quite enough space there for a live human, there would plenty for, oh, a few kilos of plastique or a home-made dispersal device full of nasty bugs designed to crop dust Floral Park.

It's a good thing the TSA checks people's shoes. Sure makes me feel safer...

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OS X on Intel -- tactical or strategic?

By John McDaid | Tuesday, 7 June 2005

Not like anyone was surprised yesterday; Apple has clearly learned from the W-house and Wöllstrasse that one must leak trial balloons to cushion the market from shocks of this magnitude. But is it such a shock, really?

Steve Jobs has clearly seen the future, and it is Windows v. *nix, embedded in devices. If you can drive consumer ease-of-use into phones & cars, while carving out the position as best *nix GUI, you have a shot at surviving -- and perhaps evolving into a lifeform with more than an arboreal niche at the edge of the savannah.

Oh, I will miss the religious warfare over processor speeds as much as the next geek. But when Steve gets up and says they have a roadmap for somewhere that PPC chips won't go, I know he isn't *just* blowing smoke...

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