Ruby and Mac OS X Lion

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When Apple switched from GCC to LLVM in Xcode 4.2, they made it significantly more difficult for me to run ruby 1.9.2. (What are the odds this will get easier with Mountain Lion?)

I was using rbenv and its rbenv-build plugin to install ruby 1.9.2 and it told me this:

$ rbenv install 1.9.2-p320

ERROR: This package must be compiled with GCC, but ruby-build couldn't
find a suitable `gcc` executable on your system. Please install GCC
and try again.

DETAILS: Apple no longer includes the official GCC compiler with Xcode
as of version 4.2. Instead, the `gcc` executable is a symlink to
`llvm-gcc`, a modified version of GCC which outputs LLVM bytecode.

For most programs the `llvm-gcc` compiler works fine. However,
versions of Ruby older than 1.9.3-p125 are incompatible with
`llvm-gcc`. To build older versions of Ruby you must have the official
GCC compiler installed on your system.

TO FIX THE PROBLEM: Install the official GCC compiler using these
packages: https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer/downloads

You will need to install the official GCC compiler to build older
versions of Ruby even if you have installed Apple's Command Line Tools
for Xcode package. The Command Line Tools for Xcode package only
includes `llvm-gcc`.

Note: when you install that, it doesn’t (appear to) provide an uninstaller. Instead it says this:

If something doesn’t work as expected, feel free to install Xcode over this installation.

Once installed, you can remove Xcode completely with the following:

sudo /Developer/Library/uninstall-devtools –mode=all

Bummer for me, huh? Mercifully, the GCC installation package doesn’t mess up the llvm-gcc link in /usr/bin/gcc. But that means when I do the ruby build, I need to add:

export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-4.2

Mountain Lion

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So I looked at the list of 200 new features in Mountain Lion and … meh.

If there’s a company in the world that they didn’t pick in preference to Google, though, I couldn’t figure out what it is. I mean, really: a feature to let you access Vimeo?

I wonder how much of that linkage is built on APIs where you can connect to other alternative services? I understand that Apple feels threatened by Google (why, I can’t imagine, except their legendary paranoia) and wants to partner with everyone else. (Vimeo!?) But I want to put together a best-of-breed workflow. I don’t want a Safari reading list, I want Instapaper. I don’t want Safari bookmarks, I want Pinboard. But I’ll get what Apple thinks I should have, which means the services that are dumbed down enough for computer novices to use on their phones.

Except when those services are business partners of Apples. Like Facebook. I don’t want or need hooks to Facebook, but I’ll be surprised if any way to turn them completely off, either. I wonder how much of my activity leaks over to Facebook, and how does much does Apple get for selling to to them? (And since when does Apple overhang the market like this? Fall availability? Why wasn’t it ready in time for the general release of Mountain Lion?)

As for iCloud…. I’d love it if iCloud did what I want, though. I’d love to share calendars with my family members. I can do that now with Google Calendar. Apple says I will be able to do it now with iCloud. That would be a welcome improvement. It’s not clear that you can do that with your contacts, bookmarks, notes, and reminders, though.

(That is another problem with all the social-media linkage, as well. The social media sites all want me to have one persona. What good is it if Twitter is linked into everything I do, so long as it’s just one Twitter account? And Facebook won’t even let me have multiple accounts.)

Whatever.

Too Much Pizza

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If you saw the ads for Taco Town on SNL, this won’t be anything new to you. But if you didn’t, you might enjoy this over-the-top pizza ad (via vanderleun).

(Sadly, the language in that ad is NSFW. It’s a shame that so many people lack the vocabulary, wit, and subtlety to express themselves without resorting to profanity. They do with their language what they accuse Pizza Hut of doing with food. There’s more to communicating than intensity.)

If those aren’t enough, you might also like the (slightly less vulgar) South Park Chipotle Away commercial.

Tab Sweep

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Charles Murray talking to Reason Magazine about his book Coming Apart. (My link is to a point 20 minutes in that I found compelling.)

The Institute for Justice asks if you should need the government’s permission to work?

A dozen extremely disappointing facts about popular music.

There’s a vulgar expression about pulling one’s head out of someplace else. But the anatomy doesn’t really work. In fact, the brain began to grow 2.5M years ago, when our ancestors started walking upright. Scientists now think that we solved the problem with our flexible skulls.

Appropos the previous item, in The Lost World, Michael Crichton once likened humans to marsupials. What do you think?

This USGS illustration shows how much water there is on earth. (“How deep is it?” “Deep enough to drown in.”)

Reading is Probably Good

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What’s with this poster?

Is it supposed to encourage kids to read? Then why talk to their parents (“your kids on books”)? Is there anything that would turn kids off quicker than telling them their parents want them to do it?

Is the poster supposed to encourage parents to allow their kids to read? But is that really a problem? Are there still a lot of parents out there who don’t want their kids reading?

Let’s assume there are such parents. Who are they?

From the poster, I’d guess they’re not conservatives. One of the children is shown with a witch’s hat and wand, a la Harry Potter.

Is that an outcome that would encourage conservatives to permit their kids to read? Not if the stereotypes are correct.

Also, note that while there are four children, the two girls are inspired to imagine more macho roles: an underwater explorer and a knight in armor. The boys become … well, I think it’s a pirate, but it might be a colonial American or possibly someone from the old west. The other is the aforementioned witch. Again, if the target of this ad is a stereotypical conservative, those are probably outcomes to be avoided.

I’m all for kids reading (Harry Potter and all). But this poster seems to be a plea for liberals to allow their kids to read, which makes me wonder if it’s a sort of Freudian slip.

Brain and Brain. What is Brain?

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A new hypothesis says that humans are so clever because our brain cells are the result of a copying error, or, really two copying errors:

The second, more recent, duplication seems to be incomplete, with only part of the gene being duplicated. The researchers think this partially duplicated gene is able to interfere with the actions of the original, ancestral copy of SRGAP2. When the researchers added the partially duplicated gene copy to the mouse genome (mice don’t normally have it) it seemed to speed the migration of brain cells during development, which makes brain organization more efficient.

Do It to Julia

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The Obama campaign introduced a new message showing how Obama policies—interestingly, they’re calling the Affordable Care Act “Obamacare” now—have benefitted an everywoman they call “Julia.”

Good luck finding it on the website. Julia seems to have been disappeared, probably because it has drawn fire from both sides of the aisle. An example from the left is the Washington Post‘s “Fact Checker” explanation of its “misleading” “campaign trick” on Social Security. Still, it’s worthwhile to look at the campaign yourself.

Even more worth looking at, however, is Iowahawk’s send-up of the Julia messaging. My favorite line is the last one.

Out for a Jog

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News reports say that even a little jogging can make your life longer. Except if you do it on a street in Saudi Arabia, as this bird found out:

I don’t know precisely where in Saudi Arabia this video was taken. Google Translate appears to say it was on King Fahd Street in Abha Abha(?). Since I’m not a Muslim, I guess I’ll never have the opportunity to check it out first hand, but actually it looks like a pretty squalid place. The streets are paved, but only just barely, and the buildings all look like they should say “Checks Cashed Here” or (ironically) “Liquor.”

(The video link comes from JWZ, who titles it “buzzard bait.” Judging from how careful the drivers are to avoid the ostrich, he may be right. But it’s fun to watch the bird just trotting along. Wikipedia says they can run up to 43 mph. Based on that, I’d guess the bird in the video isn’t even breaking a sweat.)