Leopard, Blade Runner

So the new MacOS 10.5 “Leopard” seems to have an interesting launch-on-demand feature, whereby if you try to read from a specially-named directory, it can trigger an application launch. For instance, even without launching X11.app, my $DISPLAY variable is already set to /tmp/launch-3DxFQw/:0. This file exists as the typical named-pipe, just as it would in /tmp/.X0-unix/ on XFree86 systems, but there's nothing on the other end of it until you try to open it, at which point it automatically launches X11.app. That's pretty neat, although it causes my startup scripts to go crazy because they assume that if $DISPLAY is set, you're already inside X11.

Also, it looks like Blade Runner: The Final Cut is playing in the city at the end of November. I'll probably go see it, if I can remember to. Calendars are my enemy.