Sync directories using lftp and sftp

By Brian on April 30, 2010 10:55 AM in category | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Linux Forums:

Install lftp and create a cron job that looks something like this:

0 15 * * 0-5 lftp -f list.x

Then create the list.x file to look something like this:

open sftp://user:password@host mirror -c /source /destination
exit

The Hard Way

By Brian on April 29, 2010 5:09 PM in category Read | No Comments | No TrackBacks

The tenth Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child.

Young Miles

By Brian on April 26, 2010 5:09 PM in category Read | No Comments | No TrackBacks

A Miles Vorkosigan novel by Lois McMaster Bujold

Google SkyMap for Android Puts Detailed Star Gazing in Your Pocket - Android - Lifehacker

By Brian on April 26, 2010 1:11 PM in category Mobile | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Lifehacker:

Android: If you thought exploring the night sky with applications like Stellarium from the comfort of your computer was cool, Google SkyMap gives you real-time and directional star gazing. Point the phone at the sky to see exactly what's up there.

Install Google Sky Map for Android on your phone and you don't just get a chance to scroll through the heavens--although you can switch it to manual mode for fun zooming around--you actually get to see the celestial sphere as you would see it with perfect telescope-vision. Check out the video below to see it in action...

Continue reading...

Coffee People Kona Blend Extra Bold K-Cups for Keurig Brewers Packed 50 | Single Serve Coffee - SingleServeCoffee.com

By Brian on April 26, 2010 9:47 AM in category Drink | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From SingleServeCoffee:

It sounds like a lot of K-Cups to buy at one time, but at just $21 these K-cups are only $.42 a piece, and come in frustration free packaging. We've had this Kona Blend from Coffee People a bunch of times, and we often experience the caramel, served with a bold slice of paradise flavors they tout. Go ahead and try them, you won't be disappointed.

FSI Language Courses - Home

By Brian on April 25, 2010 9:01 AM in category Education | No Comments | No TrackBacks

The U.S. Foreign Service Institute's language courses are now available online.

http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php

Welcome to fsi-language-courses.org - the home for language courses developed by the Foreign Service Institute.

These courses were developed by the United States government and are in the public domain.

This site is dedicated to making these language courses freely available in an electronic format. This site is not affiliated in any way with any government entity; it is an independent, non-profit effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages. Courses here are made available through the private efforts of individuals who are donating their time and resources to provide quality materials for language learning.

BBC - Languages

By Brian on April 25, 2010 8:59 AM in category Education | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/

Audio and video language training courses and related materials, from the BBC.

Pdf To Djvu GUI

By Brian on April 25, 2010 8:57 AM in category Web | No Comments | No TrackBacks

PDFtoDJVU GUI

Pdf To Djvu Gui is a freeware win32 and linux application that converts any pdf into Djvu. Djvu files are generally smaller than the pdf files and are good looking. Pdf to Djvu Gui from the version 2.0 and above is portable (does not need any instalation). Pdf To Djvu Gui is based on pdf2djv.

The Death of High Fructose Corn Syrup | BNET

By Brian on April 22, 2010 2:43 PM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From BNet:

The back-to-back, double whammy announcements that PepsiCo (PEP) is ditching high fructose corn syrup in Gatorade along with the results of a scathing new study from researchers at Princeton make it official -- allies of the controversial sweetener have lost the war.

For years, the Corn Refiners Association, a trade group consisting of companies like Cargill and ADM (ADM), has been hammering away at the bad press gushing out about high fructose corn syrup. In ads, in the press and online, they argue that the sweetener is a perfectly natural product and that it is no worse for you than regular old sugar.

Continue reading...

YouTube - Roberto Carlos The Impossible Goal (HD)

By Brian on April 21, 2010 10:58 AM in category Soccer | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnXA0PoEE6Y

A truly amazing goal.

Free Online MIT Course Materials | Mathematics | MIT OpenCourseWare

By Brian on April 20, 2010 1:12 PM in category Education | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/index.htm

Leon Timmermans at blog.perls.org: Why Perl 6 is different

By Brian on April 20, 2010 10:18 AM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From blogs.perl.org:

Let's be honest. Perl 5, Python, Ruby, they're almost the same. There are some differences, but when your compare them with C, Java, Haskell or some such they suddenly feel rather superficial. They suitable or unsuitable for pretty much the same tasks, occupying a niche that Perl pioneered: that of a high manipulexity and whipuptitude.

They each operate at the same abstraction level. Even if a language is lacking a feature that the others have, it's easily implemented using other constructs. There are plenty of valid reasons to prefer one over the other (taste, library availability, programmer availability), but they all offer the same power. Perl 6 is going to change that.

Continue reading...

Food for The Eagle - Adam Savage's speech to Harvard Humanism Society- Boing Boing

By Brian on April 19, 2010 10:14 AM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Via BoingBoing:

Here are a few things I've learned.

Prayer doesn't work because someone out there is listening, it works because someone in here is listening. I've paid attention. I've pictured what I want to happen in my life. I've meditated extensively on my family, my future, my past actions and what did and didn't work for me about them. I've looked hard at problems and thought hard about their solutions.

Continue reading...

Browse Icon Packs - FindIcons.com

By Brian on April 19, 2010 10:05 AM in category Web | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://findicons.com/pack

Five Destructive Company HR Policies - BusinessWeek

By Brian on April 19, 2010 6:43 AM in category Workplace | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Theft-of-time, no-references, and certain other HR rules take the "human" out of "human resources" and drive talent to your competitors

From Business Week:

Thinking about the problems facing the business, a CEO is likely to pinpoint such bogeymen as competitive pressures and labor costs. The organization's internal policies aren't likely to make the list of things that keep a leader up at night. Maybe they should. Most organizations of more than a few hundred people are burdened by unfortunate and misguided policies that serve to slow operations and drive away talented employees.

Overwritten or heavy-handed policy manuals hurt your business in three ways. First, they take your employees out of the realm known to sports psychologists as The Zone--the most productive mental place to be. It's the arena where staffers can push your agenda in a fully engaged, minimally distracted way. Bad policies force an employee to stop and look up a rule or consult a manager, slowing down the action. Second, policies are expensive to disseminate and costly to administer. Third and most destructive, policies speak loudly about CEOs' trust in themselves and their management teams. Where trust abounds, policies are few. In organizations where trust exists, leaders have confidence in themselves to hire and manage team members without minute-to-minute supervision. In fear-filled environments, policies rule the day.

Continue reading...

Napkin Folding Instructions: 27 Photographed Napkin Folds

By Brian on April 16, 2010 8:36 PM in category Fun | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.napkinfoldingguide.com/

The Blork Blog » I am an introvert (here's what you should know)

By Brian on April 16, 2010 8:30 PM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.blork.org/blorkblog/2007/10/18/i-am-an-introvert-heres-what-you-should-know/

I am an introvert, and I'm OK with that. No, I'm way ok with that. It's who I am, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's not like "I have only one arm and I'm OK with that because I've adapted." There's no adaptation needed with introversion. It's the way I am, and ever since I came to understand it better, I realize it's not only who I am, it's who I prefer to be.

Introversion has nothing directly to do with shyness. Shyness is on a whole other scale of things, although it is true that introverts often seem to be shy (and in many cases really are shy). But they are not the same thing, not at all.

Introversion and extroversion are personality types. One is not better than the other, although people who belong to one group often think less of the others simply because they sometimes have trouble relating to them.

Essential Life Lesson #1: Over is Right, Under is Wrong « Current Configuration

By Brian on April 16, 2010 8:29 PM in category | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://currentconfig.com/2005/02/22/essential-life-lesson-1-over-is-right-under-is-wrong/

As part of our ongoing effort here at Current Configuration to make your life not only better, but also 10% more crunchy, we're offering you this first installment of what will be an ongoing series of Essential Life Lessons. Kicking off this series will be a critical but even-handed examination of a common misunderstanding that occurs in a realm of many misunderstandings: the bathroom.

Put simply, there is a right way to hang the toilet paper, and a wrong way. Read on to determine the status of your own roll.

Essential Life Lesson #1: Over is Right, Under is Wrong « Current Configuration

By Brian on April 16, 2010 8:29 PM in category Fun | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://currentconfig.com/2005/02/22/essential-life-lesson-1-over-is-right-under-is-wrong/

As part of our ongoing effort here at Current Configuration to make your life not only better, but also 10% more crunchy, we're offering you this first installment of what will be an ongoing series of Essential Life Lessons. Kicking off this series will be a critical but even-handed examination of a common misunderstanding that occurs in a realm of many misunderstandings: the bathroom.

Put simply, there is a right way to hang the toilet paper, and a wrong way. Read on to determine the status of your own roll.

"Electricity" Misconceptions Spread By Textbooks

By Brian on April 16, 2010 8:26 PM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/miscon/elect.html

How does 'electricity' work? If you've learned about electricity from grade-school textbooks, then first we have to do some "debunking" and find out how electricity DOESN'T work. Sorry if the following is a bit contentious at times. I wrote it in an attempt to get some things off my chest. If you keep watching this site, I'll probably clean it up and make it sound a bit more professional. Also, this file is still under construction and is being written, edited, corrected, etc. It does currently contain some mistakes of its own. I placed it online as a sort of 'trial by fire' in order to hear readers' responses and target weak or unclear sections for improvement.

bramcohen: Great Programmers

By Brian on April 16, 2010 8:22 PM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/4563.html

I've seen a lot of discussion of great programmers, usually centering on how to find them, but usually what people really want to know is how to become one. Since I'm widely considered to be a great programmer, I'll give some advice.

First of all there's raw coding ability. For this, practice makes perfect. Implementing lots of algorithms from, say Introduction to Algorithms can help sharpen your technical abilities, but really the important thing is to have some experience. Anyone with enough natural talent will get good at basic raw coding.

There are only two coding skills which mostly people who are completely self-taught as a programmer miss out on: proper encapsulation, and unit tests. For proper encapsulation, you should organize your code so that changes which require modifying code in more than one module are as rare as possible, and for unit tests you should write them to be pass/fail so that all unit tests can be run as a comprehensive suite. And now you know everything you need to about those two things. Anyone who is taught the above guidelines, and decides they really want to learn those skills, will with sufficient practice become good at them.

Coding skill is all well and good, and you can't become a great programmer without it, but it's far from everything. I'm decent at raw coding, but I know many people who are better, and some of them are abysmal programmers. I in particular can't deal with being tasked with fixing up spaghetti code. My brain simply locks down and refuses to make any modifications which it isn't convinced will work, which is of course impossible when the source material is an incurably bug-ridden mess.

Dr Dobbs - Software Engineering != Computer Science

By Brian on April 16, 2010 8:20 PM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/217701907

Software engineering will never be a rigorous discipline with proven results, because it involves human activity.

ssh without password

By Brian on April 16, 2010 3:25 PM in category Linux | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://wiki.freaks-unidos.net/ssh%20without%20password

Autodesk Homestyler - Free Online Home Design Software

By Brian on April 16, 2010 8:31 AM in category Windows | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Autodesk Homestyler

Use Autodesk Homestyler free* online home design software to create and share home design ideas for your dream kitchen, room addition or interior design project. View floor plans and interior designs in 2D and 3D. Experiment with different styles. Save and share designs with friends. Make decisions with confidence.

Continue...

OMG! Ubuntu!: 15 New wallpapers land in Ubuntu 10.04

By Brian on April 16, 2010 8:28 AM in category Linux | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From OMGUbuntu:

The winners from the Ubuntu Artwork Flickr pool submission contest have been chosen!

The following 14 photographic wallpapers will be included by default on all installations of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.

Triple play

By Brian on April 15, 2010 9:47 AM in category Fun | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Mind games: Keeping your brain sharp through play | Psychology Today

By Brian on April 14, 2010 1:14 PM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Psychology Today:

As I've mentioned in several previous postings here, mental and physical activity are the best ways to keep your body, including your brain, in top shape. This week I examine the specific contributions that leisure pursuits can make to optimal functioning throughout life.

First, I'd like to point out that the very fact that you are online and interested in maximizing your brain's potential by reading this blog is a good sign that you are headed in the right direction. Based on the feedback I've gotten through comments and online quizzes, the people reading my blog are of all ages, from high school students to retirees. Although sitting down at the computer is not exactly physical exertion, if you combine the mental stimulation you are getting now with a good workout later in the day, you are taking important steps to keep your synapses clicking.

Now let's get on with the scientific evidence on the topic of leisure pursuits and health, starting with general physical functioning. The ultimate measure of physical functioning is mortality: if you are in good physical health you will most likely live longer. In 2009, a team of Swedish researchers at Upsalla University led by Liisa Byberg reported on the results of a major study

that more or less proved the point.

Continue reading...

Astronomers find 9 new planets and upset the theory of planetary formation

By Brian on April 14, 2010 10:17 AM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From eurekalert.org:

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- The discovery of nine new planets challenges the reigning theory of the formation of planets, according to new observations by astronomers. Two of the astronomers involved in the discoveries are based at the UC Santa Barbara-affiliated Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT), based in Goleta, Calif., near UCSB.

Unlike the planets in our solar system, two of the newly discovered planets are orbiting in the opposite direction to the rotation of their host star. This, along with a recent study of other exoplanets, upsets the primary theory of how planets are formed. There is a preponderance of these planets with their orbital spin going opposite to that of their parent star. They are called exoplanets because they are located outside of our solar system.

These and other related discoveries are being presented at the UK National Astronomy Meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, this week. This is the first public mention of the new planets and the research will be described in upcoming scientific journal articles.

AddThis - The #1 Bookmarking & Sharing Service

By Brian on April 14, 2010 10:16 AM in category Web | No Comments | No TrackBacks

AddThis

One Shot

By Brian on April 13, 2010 3:09 PM in category Read | No Comments | No TrackBacks

A Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child

Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Feast or famine?

By Brian on April 13, 2010 11:17 AM in category Books | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Jo Walton on Tor:

In my post on re-reading books I dislike, I mentioned that I grew up with a finite supply of books that I'd re-read, and several people responded that on the contrary they grew up with an infinite supply of books they felt they could never get through.

Continue reading...

Explore. Dream. Discover...

By Brian on April 12, 2010 3:58 PM in category Quotes | No Comments | No TrackBacks

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

Please do not change your password - The Boston Globe

By Brian on April 12, 2010 9:10 AM in category Workplace | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Confirmation of what we always suspected: mandatory password aging doesn't work.

From The Boston Globe:

Please do not change your password

You were right: It's a waste of your time. A study says much computer security advice is not worth following.

To continue reading this story, enter your password now. If you do not have a password, please create one. It must contain a minimum of eight characters, including upper- and lower-case letters and one number. This is for your own good.

Nonsense, of course, but it helps illustrate a point: You will need a computer password today, maybe a half dozen or more -- those secret sign-ins that serve as sentries for everything from Amazon shopping carts to work files to online bank accounts. Just when you have them all sorted out, along comes another "urgent" directive from the bank or IT department -- time to reset those codes, for safety's sake. And the latest lineup of log-ins you've concocted won't last for long, either. Some might temporarily stay in your head, others are jotted on scraps of paper and stuffed in a wallet. A few might be taped to your computer monitor in plain view (or are those are from last year's batch? Who can remember?).

Continue reading...

Stand-alone jemalloc 1.0.0

By Brian on April 12, 2010 8:48 AM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Transcendental Technical Travails

Stand-alone jemalloc 1.0.0 is finally released. There are many interesting features to talk about at some point (thread-local caching, heap profiling, introspection, yet another red-black tree implementation, etc.), but in the meanwhile, enjoy!

CSSDesk - Dynamic CSS Sandbox

By Brian on April 12, 2010 6:21 AM in category Web | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://cssdesk.com/

Geek to Live: Firewall your attention at the office - Feature - Lifehacker

By Brian on April 12, 2010 6:14 AM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From and older lifehacker:

Many modern office spaces today are "open" and "promote interaction between departments" - which means they're set up to interrupt and distract you, all day long. Low-wall cubes, side-by-side desks, required use of instant messenger all make for an interrupt-driven instead of a task-driven workday. Not to mention some hair-brained management scheme to mix department personnel that seats people who need to do involved mental work - like programming or number-crunching - next to loud sales people yammering away on the phone.

For anyone who doesn't have their own office with a door that can be closed, getting actual work done at the office can be a serious challenge. Co-workers stopping by, IM windows popping up, the constant e-mail BING, getting dragged off to meetings or hijacked to deal with the latest department crisis are all time-sucks that can leave you worn out at 6PM, wondering where the day went.

When you're just a cog in the machine, changing your office's culture might not be possible. But for your own sanity and productivity, do what you can to firewall your attention, blocking out all the extraneous interruptions and letting in only the important ones at the office.

Continue reading...

The Floating-Point Guide - What Every Programmer Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic

By Brian on April 11, 2010 7:53 PM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://floating-point-gui.de/

World War II Weapons Manual | Crack Two

By Brian on April 11, 2010 7:49 PM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From cracktwo.com:

World War II Weapons Manual Infographs by Max Gadney

The HTML5 test - How well does your browser support HTML5?

By Brian on April 11, 2010 4:20 PM in category Web | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://html5test.com/

The HTML5 test score is only an indication of how well your browser supports the upcoming HTML5 standard. It does not try to test all of the new features offered by HTML5, nor does it try to test the functionality of each feature it does detect. Despite these shortcomings we hope that by quantifying the level of support users and web developers will get an idea of how hard the browser manufacturers work on improving their browsers and the web as a development platform.

Abusing Amazon images

By Brian on April 11, 2010 11:56 AM in category Web | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From aaugh:

Amazon.com feeds out a lot of product images, putting out the same book cover (say) in a variety of sizes and formats. By experimentation, I found that they don't actually have all the sizes and formats stored. Instead, they have a system that generates each requested image. The details of size and format are built into the image's URL. What that means that, if you want, you can create URLs that generate odd and unlikely Amazon images (you can see my gallery of images here). The proper combination of product choice and added elements and effects could create an interesting visual. What you see here is my best understanding of things based on trial and error and messing with various example URLs I've found. Hover over the example images to see the full address of the image.

Continue reading...

Running A Software Business On 5 Hours A Week: MicroISV on a Shoestring

By Brian on April 11, 2010 11:34 AM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Kalzumeus:

Some four years ago, I started Bingo Card Creator, a business which sells software to teachers. At the time, my big goal for the future was eventually making perhaps $200 a month, so that I could buy more video games without feeling guilty about it. The business has been successful beyond my wildest expectations and has made it possible to quit my day job at the end of this month. The amount of time I've spent on it has fluctuated: the peak was the week I launched (50 hours in 8 days), a very busy week in the last few years spiked up to as many as 20 hours, and the average over the period is (to my best estimate) about 5 hours.

During the majority of the time I've had the business, I've also been a Japanese salaryman at a company in Nagoya. For those of you who are not acquainted with the salaryman lifestyle, I leave the office at 7:30 PM on a very good day, and have an hour and a half of commute both ways. In our periodic bouts of crunch time, such as the last three months, I end up sleeping at a hotel next to the office (about 25 times this calendar year).

Continue reading...

GoFit.Net - Home Fitness Equipment

By Brian on April 10, 2010 11:44 AM in category Fun | No Comments | No TrackBacks

My wife has one of their fitness balls, and loves it.

GoFit.net

Home Aluminum Anodizing

By Brian on April 10, 2010 9:32 AM in category tcfjr | No Comments | No TrackBacks

A complete set of instructions on how to anodize aluminum at home, from thefintels:

Anodizing aluminum is another one of the projects I wanted to try. After reading up on it, it seemed fairly straight forward to do. Being in the grips of a Midwest winter, it seemed like a good time to get started. That, and the fact that I'm using aluminum more and more with each new rocket project.

Why anodize aluminum? Three reasons:

It increases the surface hardness of aluminum.
Anodizing protects the aluminum from corrosion.
It's the best way color an aluminum part.

For my first attempt I'm going to use the absolute basic approach. I'll use sulfuric acid as the electrolyte, Rit brand dye and the boiling water seal method. I picked up a five gallon container of battery acid, which is about 50/50 sulfuric acid and water mix from an auto parts store. The Rit brad dye is available from pretty much any grocery store. A 10 gallon Rubbermaid plastic tub was purchased for the anodizing tank as well. Total cost, about $30.

Continue reading...

Businesses You Can Start at Home - Entrepreneur.com

By Brian on April 9, 2010 10:57 PM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From

Entrepreneur:

Home-based businesses are proving to be a great solution for many women today, either as a part-time supplement to their family's income or as a full-time alternative to the 9-5 lifestyle. Could you be the next successful business owner? Consider the following service-oriented and product-oriented businesses.

If you opt for a service business, you can perform the service at home (word processing, tutoring, bookkeeping or child care) or at another location (interior design, home organizing or consulting).

Free Secure Email Certificates Digital Signature for Email Security

By Brian on April 9, 2010 10:06 PM in category Web | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.instantssl.com/ssl-certificate-products/free-email-certificate.html

The 10 Essential Rules for Slowing Down and Enjoying Life More | Zen Habits

By Brian on April 9, 2010 10:00 PM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From zenhabits:

It's an irony of our modern lives that while technology is continually invented that saves us time, we use that time to do more and more things, and so our lives are more fast-paced and hectic than ever.

Life moves at such a fast pace that it seems to pass us by before we can really enjoy it.

However, it doesn't have to be this way. Let's rebel against a hectic lifestyle and slow down to enjoy life.

A slower-paced life means making time to enjoy your mornings, instead of rushing off to work in a frenzy. It means taking time to enjoy whatever you're doing, to appreciate the outdoors, to actually focus on whoever you're talking to or spending time with -- instead of always being connected to a Blackberry or iPhone or laptop, instead of always thinking about work tasks and emails. It means single-tasking rather than switching between a multitude of tasks and focusing on none of them.

Embedded Systems Design - Embedded.com

By Brian on April 9, 2010 9:57 PM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From embedded:

A couple of months ago, I ate a pleasant lunch with a couple of young entrepreneurs in Baltimore. The two are recent computer science graduates from Johns Hopkins University with a fast-growing consulting business. Their firm specializes in writing software for web-centric databases in a language called Ruby on Rails (a.k.a., "Ruby"). As we discussed many of the similarities and a few of the differences in our respective businesses over lunch, one of the young men made a comment I won't soon forget, "Real men program in C."

Clever though he is, the young man admitted he wasn't making that quote up on the spot. That "real men program in C" is part of a lingo he and his fellow computer science students developed while categorizing the usefulness of the various programming languages available to them. Exploring a bit, I learned the quiche-like phrase assigns both a high difficulty factor to the C language and a certain age group to C programmers. Put simply, C was too hard for programmers of their generation to bother mastering.

» How Does the IRS Pick Tax Returns to Audit?

By Brian on April 9, 2010 9:50 PM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From

:

Doing your taxes is never fun. Even if you ignore how you must spend a couple hours filling out boring forms, finding documents, researching deductions, blah blah, there's always the fear that you'll be audited. I remember having the most vanilla tax returns back when I was a teenager, the 1040-EZ, and even then I was irrationally concerned about an audit.

The reality is that very few people get audited, just a couple percent each year, and some of them deserve it. As much as we may like to think of the IRS as some cruel, emotionless monster trying to make the lives of hardworking Americans as miserable as possible, they're not. They're trying to collect tax revenue so the government can continue to provide the services hardworking Americans need.

So how do they decide who to audit? It's actually very straightforward...

Coding Horror: Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Mistakes

By Brian on April 9, 2010 9:46 PM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From codinghorror:

I don't usually do news and current events here, but I'm making an exception for the CWE/SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors list. This one is important, and deserves a wide audience, so I'm repeating it here -- along with a brief hand-edited summary of each error.

Your problem with Vim is that you don't grok vi - Stack Overflow

By Brian on April 9, 2010 9:31 PM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From stackoverflow:

Your problem with Vim is that you don't grok vi. You mention cutting with yy and complain that you almost never want to cut whole lines. In fact programmers, editing source code, very often want to work on whole lines, ranges of lines and blocks of code. However, yy is only one of many way to yank text into the anonymous copy buffer (or "register" as it's called in vi).

The "Zen" of vi is that you're speaking a language. The initial y is a verb. The statement yy is a simple statement which is, essentially, an abbreviation for 0 y$:

0 go to the beginning of this line.
y yank from here (up to where?)
$ up to the end of this line.

This can also be expressed as dd P (delete the current line and paste a copy back into place; leaving a copy in the anonymous register as a side effect). The y and d "verbs" take any movement as their "subject." Thus yW is "yank from here (the cursor) to the end of the current/next (big) word" and y'a is "yank from here to the line containing the mark named 'a'."

If you only understand basic up, down, left, and right cursor movements then vi will be no more productive than a copy of "notepad" for you. (Okay, you'll still have syntax highlighting and the ability to handle files larger than a piddling ~45KB or so; but work with me here).

Movie Review: Date Night with Steve Carrell and Tina Fey - TIME

By Brian on April 9, 2010 7:49 PM in category Movies | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Carole and I met Mandy at the Mall this afternoon to see this one. I liked it. A lot.

From Time Magazine:
date_night_0419[1].jpg

Every weekend all across America, couples find a babysitter and head out for a romantic evening, intent on creating "us time" amid the distinctly unromantic morass of parenting. At some point, almost everyone does it, from suburban spouses to Michelle and Barack Obama. As a concept, then, director Shawn Levy's film Date Night is genius: not only does it validate this parents-need-playdates-too impulse, but it also gives such couples something to do on an actual date night. The movie is like cinematic happy hour for Mom and Dad. It barely needs a pulse to draw an audience.

Fortunately, Date Night has a bit more than a pulse. It's a lively, often astute piece of marital sociology wrapped up in an action frolic involving an extremely average New Jersey couple. Claire Foster (Tina Fey) is a real estate agent, her husband Phil (Steve Carell) a tax consultant. They wake too early, make lunches, pack their two kids off to school and themselves off to work and return home at night too exhausted for anything but sleep.

Lost? Rescue Balloon is literally a big arrow pointing right at you | DVICE

By Brian on April 9, 2010 3:47 PM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From dvice:

Do you enjoy taking long, meditative strolls in remote, forested areas alone? If you answered yes, you might be a candidate for the Rescue Balloon.

Designer Jaeseok Han wasn't fooling around when he created this compact kit -- intended for hikers who get lost or injured in the wilderness and need to signal aerial search teams. It comes complete with a small, lightweight helium gas cylinder and a long, inflatable red balloon that can peer out from the tree canopy and flag down appreciative rescue workers.

Since it doesn't bet your life on flare guns, cellphones and fancy GPS devices that can run out of ammo or batteries, we love the simplicity of this concept. For the sake of seasoned adventurers and the navigationally challenged among us, we hope the Rescue Balloon makes it to production someday.

Sharing Widget, Sharing Button, Sharing Plugin - ShareThis

By Brian on April 9, 2010 10:59 AM in category Web | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://sharethis.com/

Tagxedo Generates Stunning Custom Word Clouds - Lifehacker

By Brian on April 9, 2010 10:27 AM in category Web | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From lifehacker:

Tagxedo is a word-cloud generator that pulls out all the stops with customization of over a dozen variables for truly unique and catchy word clouds.

If you liked previously reviewed Wordle, you'll absolutely love Tagxedo. It's like Wordle on steroids. You can load text from a website--for our sample picture above we used the front page of Lifehacker--or you can paste in your own text. Tagxedo has settings for color, theme, font, text direction, layout refresh, shape, aspect ratio, history, and advanced settings like the word spacing and maximum word count. The history function is especially impressive, we were having quite a bit of fun playing with Tagxedo as by the time we got to the screenshot above we'd tried out over 150 variations and all were available in the history pane.

Tagxedo [via TechCrunch]

localhostr uploadr - share instantly

By Brian on April 8, 2010 1:14 PM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Lifehacker:

Windows only: Free, portable application Uploadr takes screenshots or shares files on file sharing site Localhostr with a simple drag-and-drop interface--and it even has Jump List support for Windows 7 users.

Once you've installed the application or launched the portable version, you can simply drag files onto the interface to immediately upload them to previously mentioned file sharing site Localhostr. You can upload single files, or even entire folders of files, as long as they fit inside the 50MB total limit.

You can also use Uploadr to take screenshots of windows directly, and immediately upload them. Once you've done so, you can copy the URL to the clipboard for sharing, or if you head into the options you can enable automatic copy of the URL. Uploadr is a free download for Windows only.

Localhostr Uploadr

Brunswick Gardens

By Brian on April 8, 2010 11:48 AM in category Read | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Interesting, but a little slow, almost plodding at times. Still, an enjoyable read.

Whatever happened to programming? « The Reinvigorated Programmer

By Brian on April 8, 2010 10:30 AM in category Programming | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From reprog:

I've been posting much longer articles than I meant to, so today's will be short. [Later: but, as it turns out, not as short as I intended.]

When I was fourteen, I wrote space-invader games in BASIC on a VIC-20. If you were interested in computers back in 1982, I bet you did the same. When I was 18, I wrote multi-user dungeons in C on serial terminals attached to a Sun 3. When I was 22, I worked deep down in the guts of a text database system -- still C, now on a Sun 3/80 of my very own, with one of those HUGE bitmapped screens with a million black-or-white pixels. I was in touch with my friends from university: we were going to write compilers and operating systems and cool stuff like that -- and to some degree, we did. We sent each other our in-progress code, complained about each other's programming-language designs, and laughed at how inefficient each others' completely unnecessary reimplementations of malloc() were. [I remember a friend's implementation achieving something like 18% occupancy.]

That was then.

Today, I mostly paste libraries together. So do you, most likely, if you work in software.

Happy Friday! - PBH3

By Brian on April 8, 2010 9:57 AM in category Fun | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From pbh3:

Fire official racks up $26,000 in fines misusing toll roads

By Brian on April 7, 2010 12:25 PM in category Interesting | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From The Daily Pilot:

Newport Beach divisional fire chief racked up more than $26,000 in fines and penalties over a two-year period by using toll roads without a Fastrak transponder and while driving a city vehicle, toll road and city officials confirmed Tuesday.

Paul Matheis, the Fire Department's Training Division chief, had been using the toll roads to commute in his city-issued vehicle, said Lisa Telles, spokeswoman for the toll road agency that oversees Southern California's toll roads.

Matheis was unavailable for comment Tuesday. Published reports indicate that Matheis had accumulated many of the fines on the 241 Toll Road, which runs from San Clemente to the 91 Freeway.

The Thrill of Flying the SR-71 Blackbird - Blackbird - Gizmodo

By Brian on April 7, 2010 10:04 AM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From gizmodo:

I can tell you about the SR-71 Blackbird's titanium frame, its Pratt&Whitney J58-P4 engines, or its genesis. But that's not important. What really matters is the thrill of flying it in an extremely dangerous mission, as remembered by this pilot.-JD

In April 1986, following an attack on American soldiers in a Berlin disco, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Muammar Qaddafi's terrorist camps in Libya. My duty was to fly over Libya and take photos recording the damage our F-111's had inflicted. Qaddafi had established a 'line of death,' a territorial marking across the Gulf of Sidra , swearing to shoot down any intruder that crossed the boundary. On the morning of April 15, I rocketed past the line at 2,125 mph.

Indexed » Lost & Found.

By Brian on April 7, 2010 9:48 AM in category Fun | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From thisisindexed:

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner Bends But Doesn't Break || Jaunted

By Brian on April 7, 2010 8:11 AM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Jaunted:

Since we last left the 787, the new plane has been through even more and more tests. It still sounds like the plane will make its first commercial flight later this year, but we're more interested in when we can see the bird in Continental Airlines livery.

The most recent milestone for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the wing stress test. During this test, engineers pretty much attempted to break the wings of the airplane by bending them upward with a tremendous amount of force. The wings went about 25-feet higher from their normal position, and the plane appeared to handle everything without a problem. This was not the case when the Boeing 777 first received a similar test.

Despite all the good news, Boeing has not yet released a firm date for when its new bird will begin the FAA in-flight certification process. Sure the airplane is flying around, but until the government says it's safe and satisfactory the plane is a no-go for launch.

Space shuttle photo - the blue line is the earth's atmosphere

By Brian on April 7, 2010 7:28 AM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Programming Books, part 4: The C Programming Language « The Reinvigorated Programmer

By Brian on April 7, 2010 7:27 AM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From reprog:

It's 32 years old, and it remains the single greatest book ever written about a programming language. Its crown is secure; even if you'd not already read the title of this article, you'd know what book I'm talking about. It's the only language-specific book in Top Five programming books of the Programming Reddit's FAQ. Co-written by Reinvigorated Programmer regular Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, it's not just the definitive book about the language in question, it's the book the rewrote the book on what it means to be definitive. Step forward, please, The C Programming Language!

Why understanding REST is hard and what we should do about it - systematization, models and terminology for REST « Ivan Zuzak - blog

By Brian on April 7, 2010 7:25 AM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From izuzak:

This post is about understanding REST, the software architectural style behind the World Wide Web. My Ph.D. research, which I'll write about some other time, pushed me on the road of REST and over the last year I've been reading lots of research papers, lots of blogs, lots of mailing lists, lots of tweets, lots of videos, wikis, books and IRC transcripts on REST and I've also recently started the This Week in REST wiki and blog. In other words, I've read almost everything I could find on REST.

Introduction to Computer Science and Programming | MIT Video Course

By Brian on April 6, 2010 9:00 PM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From academicearth.org:

Course Description

This subject is aimed at students with little or no programming experience. It aims to provide students with an understanding of the role computation can play in solving problems. It also aims to help students, regardless of their major, to feel justifiably confident of their ability to write small programs that allow them to accomplish useful goals. The class will use the Python™ programming language.

Miro Video Converter - Free! Convert any video to MP4, OGG Theora, iPhone, Android, iPod, and more, based on FFMPEG.

By Brian on April 6, 2010 11:51 AM in category Media | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.mirovideoconverter.com/

A super simple way to convert almost any video to MP4, Ogg Theora, or a specific phone or iPod.

Grounded submarine photographed with sonar

By Brian on April 6, 2010 10:13 AM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Wired UK:

This eerie wreck image is not computer generated. It's the sonar image of Russian nuclear submarine B-159 (called K-159 before decommissioning), which has been lying 248m down in the Barents Sea, between Norway and Russia, since 2003. The Russian Federation hired Adus, a Scottish company that specialises in high-resolution sonar surveying, to evaluate if it would be possible to recover the wreck.

"The operation was complicated as the submarine was very deep, so we had to use the sonar equipment mounted on a remotely operated vehicle, (below)" says Martin Dean, the managing director of Adus and a forensic-wreck archaeologist. "We also had a problem with the surveying due to the density of north Atlantic cod attracted to the sound of the sonar and the light of the cameras. So at the beginning we had to turn off the equipment for 40 minutes and wait for the fish to go."

Toward a New Land Speed Record: A Day in the Life of the North American Eagle "Turbojet Car" | Xconomy

By Brian on April 6, 2010 10:01 AM in category Fun | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Xconomy:

It was just after 10 a.m. on a hazy spring morning as Ed Shadle drove a trailer the size of a semi-truck to the far end of the Spanaway Airport, a quarter-mile active airstrip located 15 miles south of Tacoma, WA. A handful of his 44-person crew, which includes his son Cam and eight-year-old grandson Alex, had already arrived and were busy setting up for the day--a table of coffee and donut holes for the crew and onlookers, a Subaru converted into a mobile data acquisition center, and several barrels of fuel at the ready.

For Shadle, 68, and his partner and co-owner of the North American Eagle, Keith Zanghi, 55, the day's engine test was just one stop along a more than 11-year journey to build the fastest land vehicle in the world. The goal: 800 miles per hour.

Shadle and his crew, all based in Washington state, were busy lowering the Eagle, a 56-foot-long tubular car forged out of the fuselage of a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, from the trailer. The nose and tail cones had been removed for transport, reducing the car to 48 feet in length--just short enough to fit inside the trailer. Other crew members busily prepared the steel cables that would anchor the car to two gravel-filled trucks, weighing 80,000 lbs in all, and to a nearby tree with deep roots--a "safety precaution," the crew said. This setup procedure was nothing new for them.

Don't be a dick license from SFEley's candy - GitHub

By Brian on April 6, 2010 9:54 AM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://github.com/SFEley/candy/blob/master/LICENSE.markdown

This is a proposed draft of the Don't Be a Dick license for open source projects. The purpose of this license is to permit the broadest feasible scope for reuse and modification of creative work, restricted only by the requirement that one is not a dick about it.

Oooh, Architecture-y: A LEGO Fallingwater - Geekologie

By Brian on April 6, 2010 9:50 AM in category goption | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From Geekologie:

Matija Grguric's minifig scale creation of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater portrays the beauty of the architecture amidst the backdrop of a snowy winter. The 45″ X 30″ creation took 7 months and uses about 15,000 bricks.

Cobra Weave Key Fob - Instructables

By Brian on April 5, 2010 1:23 PM in category Knots | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.instructables.com/id/Corbra-Weave-Key-Fob/

10 Second Paracord Handcuffs

By Brian on April 5, 2010 1:22 PM in category Knots | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Second-Paracord-Handcuffs/?download=pdf

Media Manager for Movable Type and Melody | majordojo

By Brian on April 5, 2010 11:31 AM in category Technology | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.majordojo.com/projects/movable-type/media-manager/

James Bay Road website - James Bay Road

By Brian on April 5, 2010 11:06 AM in category tcfjr | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.jamesbayroad.com/jbr/index.html

Welcome to ShaveMyFace.com - The world's most comprehensive guide to the art of shaving and men's fine grooming products

By Brian on April 5, 2010 10:54 AM in category goption | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.shavemyface.com/

Safety Razors & Blades

By Brian on April 5, 2010 10:53 AM in category goption | No Comments | No TrackBacks

http://www.classicshaving.com/catalog/item/522941/343463.htm

An Easter suggestion: French macarons - latimes.com

By Brian on April 1, 2010 11:34 AM in category goption | No Comments | No TrackBacks

From the LA Times:

Call me a heretic, but I've been thinking it's about time the Easter Bunny spruced up his product line. Eggs are fine and Peeps are cute, but as Thumper's 21st century image consultant, I'd advise he hop on the French macaron trend. He wouldn't even have to change the colors in his paint box: Macarons come in every shade imaginable and some yet to be imagined. And although there's no chicken-and-egg riddle surrounding them, macarons have their own mysteries.

Continue reading An Easter suggestion: French macarons - latimes.com.

Kumho Road Venture APT KL51

By Brian on April 1, 2010 10:12 AM in category goption | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Kumho Road Venture APT KL51

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Theft-of-time, no-references, and certain other HR rules take the "human" out of "human resources" and drive talent to your competitors

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You were right: It's a waste of your time. A study says much computer security advice is not worth following.

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