It's getting really hard to ignore RIM. Their products are just too damn good.

Mr Balsillie? Is that you?

You have your root filesystem mounted read only and then run xfs_repair on it. Sometimes getting your root filesystem remounted read-only can be tricky, however. Sometimes this requires passing init=/bin/sh to the kernel, so you start with no other processes running. However you go about getting your root filesystem mounted read only, after you run xfs_repair(or e2fsck for that matter really) you reboot immediately.

Stop trying to oversimply things you don't understand.

Perhaps you don't understand things as well as you think you do. See the section below regarding the -d option to xfs_repair and the context in which you'd use it.

-d Repair dangerously. Allow xfs_repair to repair an XFS filesystem mounted read only. This is typically done on a root fileystem from single user mode, immediately followed by a reboot.

Same on a properly configured Linux system, really. If you get to the point where you are running into the Linux out of memory killer, you probably need more memory for what you are trying to do anyways. For a desktop I think the default Linux out of memory killer is okay, but for servers...disable that crap.

You can disable the oom killer on Linux and just panic on oom, if you want it to act more like FreeBSD. There is a sysctl setting called vm.panic_on_oom. Setting sysctl vm.panic_on_oom=2, will cause the kernel to panic on OOM regardless. That will give you a well defined behavior and not have to deal with the random process...errr..OOM killer.

No one could figure out what was wrong with the kid, even as far as making the kid take more of it. The kid died. That's how you accidentally overdose.

[citation needed]

Actually, that's interesting. Who is America's worst historical figure?

James Buchanan

And that will be the end... when we stay home because we prefer a machine. We'll give up on loving our own kind not because it is superior, but just because it is less "work".

How many men in the world will *need* a robot girlfriend, given the skewing of the male/female birth ratios towards boys. Too many men, not enough women...that doesn't bode well for social stability. Perhaps some sex bots can fill the gap...so to speak.

I've never met a Solaris cultist either. I'm counting myself lucky.

That's because they are SunOS cultists!

I meant SMS as in, the end user will see it as simply an SMS. The implementation on the network level of course will be a fair bit different I'm sure.

Even if they did sign up they might be hundreds of miles away where the alert is not relevant.

That isn't necessarily true, as you may have family/friends/property etc in that region as well, all things that alerts could be relevant for as well...

Long story short - why do they want a separate chip, exactly?

Nowhere on the fcc.gov site linked in the story does it say anything about phones requiring any sort of chip. Basically the important part of the system is the secure interface between government and the wireless providers. In short this is more like the EAS system, but for mobile phones. Chances are most network carriers *will* implement this over SMS.