After reading this snippet from shell-fu.org, I was curious where it was getting the quotes from - I'm not terribly familiar with curl, so I didn't know the options offhand. I thought I had to be reading the man page wrong when it said -I just includes the headers and HTTP response. But, no. Have a look:
mike@aji:~$ curl -Is slashdot.org HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:34:00 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.41 (Unix) mod_perl/1.31-rc4 SLASH_LOG_DATA: shtml X-Powered-By: Slash 2.005001246 X-Fry: Sweet justice! Sweet, juicy justice! Cache-Control: private Pragma: private Connection: close Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1They actually went through the trouble to include a random Futurama quote in their HTTP header. Hilarious.
There's something satisfying about seeing something you helped to start doing well, even after you're not nearly as involved.
I graduated from Wayne State in August 2008, and to be honest, I was a little apprehensive about what would happen with the LUG there when I did. That August two of the main three people that started the LUG graduated at the same time, leaving one of us actually able to be an officer. While we're still both active in the group, there's just some things we can't really do, both because we're not students and due to time constraints. The group from the beginning had a large percentage of its active membership in the form of non-student members, but it was drastically becoming a larger percentage.
So far though, especially recently, they seem to be doing plenty well to overcome that. The February meeting was astonishing - at least around thirty people showed up, when I was used to seeing sometimes as few as half a dozen people come to a meeting. In March, it was probably twenty or twenty-five, with a presentation on Zimbra, and it's implementation at the University ("real soon now").
Jason seems to be doing great, and from what I can tell, has some good people helping him. I recently (I think) got myself volunteered to be the advisor to the group, which is kind of nice - I like being in the loop.
Maybe some of the recent increase is at least partially from recent collaboration with the campus Sun person (representative or something). I'm lucky enough to be able to duck out of work a bit early to go to their upcoming joint event based around MySQL.
I'm just glad that something I (mostly silently) was concerned about dying out has in fact done the opposite. I expect that growth for something like this, especially in an environment as active and rich in people as a university, is exponential, as people who find out about it and get to like it in turn tell their friends and colleagues, and I'm really interested to see where this goes.
I graduated from Wayne State in August 2008, and to be honest, I was a little apprehensive about what would happen with the LUG there when I did. That August two of the main three people that started the LUG graduated at the same time, leaving one of us actually able to be an officer. While we're still both active in the group, there's just some things we can't really do, both because we're not students and due to time constraints. The group from the beginning had a large percentage of its active membership in the form of non-student members, but it was drastically becoming a larger percentage.
So far though, especially recently, they seem to be doing plenty well to overcome that. The February meeting was astonishing - at least around thirty people showed up, when I was used to seeing sometimes as few as half a dozen people come to a meeting. In March, it was probably twenty or twenty-five, with a presentation on Zimbra, and it's implementation at the University ("real soon now").
Jason seems to be doing great, and from what I can tell, has some good people helping him. I recently (I think) got myself volunteered to be the advisor to the group, which is kind of nice - I like being in the loop.
Maybe some of the recent increase is at least partially from recent collaboration with the campus Sun person (representative or something). I'm lucky enough to be able to duck out of work a bit early to go to their upcoming joint event based around MySQL.
I'm just glad that something I (mostly silently) was concerned about dying out has in fact done the opposite. I expect that growth for something like this, especially in an environment as active and rich in people as a university, is exponential, as people who find out about it and get to like it in turn tell their friends and colleagues, and I'm really interested to see where this goes.
What do Facebook, MyShit (er... myspace, sorry), Orkut, and all the
other major social networking apps have in common? They're all closed
off, like islands.
Imagine for a moment email weren't the way it is now. Imagine that when you signed up for a Gmail account, you could only send email to other Gmail users. If you had a friend on Yahoo Mail, you'd have to go sign up there, and use that account to talk to them. It sounds absurd, but this is essentially how social networking apps work now - if I'm on Facebook and you're on Orkut, there's an ocean between us. So why do we accept this from sites like Facebook, one of the most visited sites on the web?
What's needed is an open source site, based around an open standard, that bridges the islands. By standardizing the way that the information is accessed and displayed, and through the use of open standards and microformats like FOAF, XFN, and others, sites can interact.
I recently heard about a project called NoseRub that is working on exactly this. The main focus is the protocol, but there's an example implementation as well, written in PHP, and they seem to have a pretty good installation at identoo.com, too, if you're curious to see what it's like, or to start using it. It's a little buggy, but entirely usable, and has incredible potential. If something like this takes off, it very well could change the way we connect with each other on the web, and very much for the better.
I'm hoping to start going through their code and contributing a bit in my spare time - this is just too cool of a thing to pass up. If anyone I know has or makes an account on Identoo, by the way, be sure to let me know.
Imagine for a moment email weren't the way it is now. Imagine that when you signed up for a Gmail account, you could only send email to other Gmail users. If you had a friend on Yahoo Mail, you'd have to go sign up there, and use that account to talk to them. It sounds absurd, but this is essentially how social networking apps work now - if I'm on Facebook and you're on Orkut, there's an ocean between us. So why do we accept this from sites like Facebook, one of the most visited sites on the web?
What's needed is an open source site, based around an open standard, that bridges the islands. By standardizing the way that the information is accessed and displayed, and through the use of open standards and microformats like FOAF, XFN, and others, sites can interact.
I recently heard about a project called NoseRub that is working on exactly this. The main focus is the protocol, but there's an example implementation as well, written in PHP, and they seem to have a pretty good installation at identoo.com, too, if you're curious to see what it's like, or to start using it. It's a little buggy, but entirely usable, and has incredible potential. If something like this takes off, it very well could change the way we connect with each other on the web, and very much for the better.
I'm hoping to start going through their code and contributing a bit in my spare time - this is just too cool of a thing to pass up. If anyone I know has or makes an account on Identoo, by the way, be sure to let me know.
So, it's been on slashdot already and everything, so everyone and their brother already probably knows, but I thought I'd mention that Higher-Order Perl, a book by Mark Jason Dominus, has been released as a free-as-in-beer download on the internet. Very nice, I'll be flipping through it over the next few days.
I've recently been introduced to Medievia, and I don't know that I'll ever get anything productive done again. So far I'm a level 18 cleric, and just yesterday was in my first formation with a mage named Solen who just happened to notice we were around the same level. Quite interesting. It kind of reminds me of multi-player Nethack, except I don't have to check every little thing I pick up for curses before putting it on. Oh, and it doesn't feel like there's some sadistic guy watching me while I play, just waiting for the worst possible moment to hit the "Kill Player" button.
My only complaint so far is that in a form or other such situation, there's a lot of text flying by. Makes it very difficult to keep up and keep on top of things. Still, it's fun anyway.
Here's my character thusfar:
Anders the Bishop Level 18 Cleric Age: 30 years old Hit Points: 164(319) Mana: 427(427) Movement: 66(490) Str: 17 Armor Class: 24 Int: 18 Wis: 18 Hitroll: 12/0 Dex: 14 Damroll: 7/0 Con: 18 Sta: 13 Quest Points: 0 Vitality: 100% Fae Magic: 0 Gold Coins: 43,830 Practice Sessions: 5
What's more frustrating and infuriating than one hard drive dying while you suddenly realize that you don't have recent backups? Having the second hard drive that you reinstalled on also die a little over a week later.
At least this time I've reinstalled on a new drive. Ugh.
At least this time I've reinstalled on a new drive. Ugh.
Global Bugjam 2008 happened, and the Michigan LoCo was no exception. Some photos taken there can be seen at snap-l’s site. It was pretty good, I learned a bit more about bug handling in Launchpad and how to work with them, things like that. I find it amusing though, that instead of solving any bugs, I ended up filing one.
Continue reading Global Bugjam 2008.
I normally write about more technical things, and still intend to keep to that, but for a moment I thought I'd do something slightly different and turn to something a bit less computer-related, and instead talk about books.
I don't think I've ever met someone that I would describe as "intelligent" that didn't read at least occasionally, and I don't think it's surprising. While I'm not saying there is no such thing as a good television show or a good movie, they just generally pale in comparison to a well written novel in terms of complexity and depth. This is doubly true when it's considered that nearly all television is drivel that insults the viewer's intelligence at least once every ten minutes. Watching TV really does have to be the lowest form of popular entertainment.
Books also are one of my only financial vices. I'm cheap by nature and I hate spending money. It's fortunate, because tuition is expensive and so I can't afford to have expensive taste. Still, I genuinely think that if I made six figures, I'd still agonize over spending $10 on anything non-essential. An exception to this, though, is books. While I still rarely buy new books, instead preferring used books sales and (even better) library sales, books are one of the few things I love to get more of, whether I have the time to read them or not. There's just something satisfying about a shelf full of hardcovers that I couldn't begin to verbalize.
So, I thought I'd do a mandatory blog post about my favorite books, and a little about them. These aren't in any order, or even really my "top ten" or anything of that sort, because that changes constantly. Really, they're just the ones that come to mind immediately while I write this, so if you ask me about this next month, I may very well list an entirely disjointed set. It happens.
I don't think I've ever met someone that I would describe as "intelligent" that didn't read at least occasionally, and I don't think it's surprising. While I'm not saying there is no such thing as a good television show or a good movie, they just generally pale in comparison to a well written novel in terms of complexity and depth. This is doubly true when it's considered that nearly all television is drivel that insults the viewer's intelligence at least once every ten minutes. Watching TV really does have to be the lowest form of popular entertainment.
Books also are one of my only financial vices. I'm cheap by nature and I hate spending money. It's fortunate, because tuition is expensive and so I can't afford to have expensive taste. Still, I genuinely think that if I made six figures, I'd still agonize over spending $10 on anything non-essential. An exception to this, though, is books. While I still rarely buy new books, instead preferring used books sales and (even better) library sales, books are one of the few things I love to get more of, whether I have the time to read them or not. There's just something satisfying about a shelf full of hardcovers that I couldn't begin to verbalize.
So, I thought I'd do a mandatory blog post about my favorite books, and a little about them. These aren't in any order, or even really my "top ten" or anything of that sort, because that changes constantly. Really, they're just the ones that come to mind immediately while I write this, so if you ask me about this next month, I may very well list an entirely disjointed set. It happens.
Continue reading Books.
Something that happened at Penguicon that I hadn't mentioned before was my coming on a small paper pamphlet titled "Twelve Virtues of Rationality". I skimmed over it briefly, then tossed it into my bag for further reading in its entirety later. Then, as I often do, I entirely forgot about it until emptying out my bag later on that week.
I've actually read it now, though, and it's a very nice little treatise on twelve main points of rational thought, written by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, and posted on his website (linked above, if you didn't already figure that out). I'd recommend reading over it to anyone, and while it's not earth-shattering (any reasonably rational mind should be saying to themselves "well yeah, that makes sense" while reading it), it's a nice and concise bit of writing on the topic. Sometimes even for material you know, a well-organized and succinct outline of main points makes it easier to fully digest and remember in day to day life.
Also, if you're not a fairly rational person at least... please stop being a burden to the rest of society, and read it twice.
He's kind enough to release it under a creative commons license (attribution, no derivatives), although the fact that he uses a traditional copyright symbol on the same page in reference to the same work is ambiguous. In any case, I thought I'd take advantage of his generosity and post it here as well, hoping to have a few more people read it. Enjoy, and spread it yourself as well.
Thank you, to whomever printed it and left it on tables at Penguicon, you at least got it to one interested party, and I'm sure others.
I've actually read it now, though, and it's a very nice little treatise on twelve main points of rational thought, written by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, and posted on his website (linked above, if you didn't already figure that out). I'd recommend reading over it to anyone, and while it's not earth-shattering (any reasonably rational mind should be saying to themselves "well yeah, that makes sense" while reading it), it's a nice and concise bit of writing on the topic. Sometimes even for material you know, a well-organized and succinct outline of main points makes it easier to fully digest and remember in day to day life.
Also, if you're not a fairly rational person at least... please stop being a burden to the rest of society, and read it twice.
He's kind enough to release it under a creative commons license (attribution, no derivatives), although the fact that he uses a traditional copyright symbol on the same page in reference to the same work is ambiguous. In any case, I thought I'd take advantage of his generosity and post it here as well, hoping to have a few more people read it. Enjoy, and spread it yourself as well.
Thank you, to whomever printed it and left it on tables at Penguicon, you at least got it to one interested party, and I'm sure others.
Penguicon was this past weekend, and lived up to my expectations, which was itself expected. I certainly wasn't the only one enthusiastic about it, because this year, with over 1,000 attendees, we clearly have outgrown the hotel. It's been a nice hotel and everything, but it's just not quite big enough for such a large group. Next year will be in Romulus, so that problem should be alleviated, though.
I managed to get Adam from WSULUG to come along for most of it, and Eric (also from WSULUG) made it out for Saturday and Sunday. Friday night Chris came out as well. Other than that, I mostly tended to hang around the Ubuntu Michigan LoCo Team, most of whom I had talked to countless times in IRC, but had never met in person. I also met a girl there, with whom (as she pointed out) I may have the greatest possible "how we met" story - we met while trying to devise a way to create a velociraptor from assorted garbage and tape. It's a long story, but it has to do with the author of xkcd being there. Readers of it can guess at the intention.
Other highlights of the weekend include hot sauce tasting with ESR (I love spicy food, and the guy has great taste in hot sauce, I learned), and the Giant Singing Tesla Coils. Hell, the tesla coil concerts (there were two, at least) were worth the price of admission alone. Even the hotel employees would sneak out to see them when they could.
I'm not sure if it was the additional people this year or not, but Saturday night seemed even more energetic and bigger than last year. I often describe Penguicon to those who haven't been there as "a 72 hour-ish long party, reverting to serious stuff when the sun comes out", and this year exemplified that. I didn't stick around all night, but based on some of the stories I'm hearing, I think next year I will.
So for those that didn't come - you missed out. A lot. From what I'm hearing, 2009 will be even bigger and even better. There's no reason for you not to go.
I managed to get Adam from WSULUG to come along for most of it, and Eric (also from WSULUG) made it out for Saturday and Sunday. Friday night Chris came out as well. Other than that, I mostly tended to hang around the Ubuntu Michigan LoCo Team, most of whom I had talked to countless times in IRC, but had never met in person. I also met a girl there, with whom (as she pointed out) I may have the greatest possible "how we met" story - we met while trying to devise a way to create a velociraptor from assorted garbage and tape. It's a long story, but it has to do with the author of xkcd being there. Readers of it can guess at the intention.
Other highlights of the weekend include hot sauce tasting with ESR (I love spicy food, and the guy has great taste in hot sauce, I learned), and the Giant Singing Tesla Coils. Hell, the tesla coil concerts (there were two, at least) were worth the price of admission alone. Even the hotel employees would sneak out to see them when they could.
I'm not sure if it was the additional people this year or not, but Saturday night seemed even more energetic and bigger than last year. I often describe Penguicon to those who haven't been there as "a 72 hour-ish long party, reverting to serious stuff when the sun comes out", and this year exemplified that. I didn't stick around all night, but based on some of the stories I'm hearing, I think next year I will.
So for those that didn't come - you missed out. A lot. From what I'm hearing, 2009 will be even bigger and even better. There's no reason for you not to go.
