TECH: Apple’s Snow Leopard bug is a “serious screw-up.” Meanwhile, backup!

A bug in Apple’s Snow Leopard OSX upgrade that “wipes out” the home folder of the principal account user has caused upwards of a hundred users of Snow Leopard to lose data, according to Wired magazine. The BBC reports the number suffering data loss is more than a hundred.  Apple reportedly is working on a fix. The bug irretrievably “wipes clean” users home file where personal documents, images, and videos are stored, and reverts the home file to default settings, causing data that is not backed up to be lost forever. Information security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski, quoted in Wired, calls this bug a serious “screw-up”  and an “embarrassment” for Apple.  Meanwhile, if you upgraded to Snow Leopard, backup, backup, backup!

OMG! Whitening the Clouds?

Artist's rendering of a proposed wind-powered sea vessel that injects sea salt into the air to "whiten" the clouds. reflect the sun's rays and cool the planet!

Whoa! I’m all for ending global warming… but spraying sea salt into the air to whiten the clouds?? The idea is that the salt particles in the air will reflect the sun’s rays and could cool things down, according to physicist Alan Gadian, a senior research lecturer at the School of Earth and the Environment at the University of Leeds, UK. He makes the argument in a BBC News op ed piece that time is running out and that “cloud whitening” is a solution that should soon be tested.  Yikes!  I like my skies blue, thank you.  And in Baltimore we have enough cloudy, hazy days.  Hope there’s enough time to come up with another solution.