How American Health Care Killed My Father - The Atlantic (September 2009)

How American Health Care Killed My Father - The Atlantic (September 2009): "After the needless death of his father, the author, a business executive, began a personal exploration of a health-care industry that for years has delivered poor service and irregular quality at astonishingly high cost. It is a system, he argues, that is not worth preserving in anything like its current form. And the health-care reform now being contemplated will not fix it. Here’s a radical solution to an agonizing problem."

assertTrue( ): The UNIX Way

assertTrue( ): The UNIX Way: "
1. Small is beautiful.
2. Make each program do one thing well.
3. Build a prototype as soon as possible.
4. Choose portability over efficiency.
5. Store data in flat text files.
6. Use software leverage to your advantage.
7. Use shell scripts to increase leverage and portability.
8. Avoid captive user interfaces.
9. Make every program a filter
"

機械式駐車場が超カッコいい - ひろゆ記

機械式駐車場が超カッコいい - ひろゆ記: "人がでてからどうなってるのかなと昔から気になってたけど、そうかカメラを置いて行けばよかったのか！！！"

Appy framework

Appy framework: "pod (python open document) is a library that allows to easily generate documents whose content is dynamic. The principle is simple: you create an ODF (Open Document Format) text document (with OpenOffice Writer 2.0 or higher for example), you insert some Python code at some places inside it, and from any program written in Python, you can call pod with, as input, the OpenDocument file and a bunch of Python objects. pod generates another ODF text document (ODT) that contains the desired result. If you prefer to get the result in another format, pod can call OpenOffice in server mode to generate the result in PDF, DOC, RTF or TXT format."

Love is a Fallacy

Love is a Fallacy
by Max Shulman

"Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute—I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, precise as a chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And—think of it!—I only eighteen.

It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect...."

Althouse: "[T]he inspiring figure progressives thought they had elected comes across, far too often, as a dry technocrat..."

Althouse:
"Saw a recent show with author Jim Collins on his book How The Mighty Fall

He lists 5 stages:

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success
Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More
Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril
Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation
Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death"

COMPUTERS: THEIR BUILT-IN LIMITATIONS

COMPUTERS: THEIR BUILT-IN LIMITATIONS: "Computer programing is self-inflicted torture. The problem is to make a mindless machine behave rationally. Before you can tell the machine how to solve a problem, you must first figure out how your own brain solves it—every step, every detail. You watch your brain as it effortlessly snakes its way along some line of reasoning that loops back through itself, and then you try to draw a diagram showing how your brain did it, and you discover that your brain couldn’t possibly have done it—yet you know it did. And there sits the computer. If you can’t explain to yourself, how are you ever going to explain to it"

COMPUTERS: THEIR BUILT-IN LIMITATIONS

COMPUTERS: THEIR BUILT-IN LIMITATIONS: "The computer rooms disintegrated in panic. Engineers leaped with trembling screwdrivers at the machine’s intestines. The director stared fish-eyed at a mathematician. A key-punch girl yattered terrified questions at a programmer. Young Madison Avenue types rushed in and out, uttering shrill cries. And the computer just sat there."

SkillBuilders: Oracle10g PL/SQL Programming Workshop Outline

SkillBuilders: Oracle10g PL/SQL Programming Workshop Outline: "Topic Summary

* Introduction to PL/SQL
o What is PL/SQL?
o Why Use PL /SQL?
o PL/SQL Program Structure
o Anonymous Blocks
o Compile Errors
o Sending Output to SQL*Plus
o Introduction to Procedures
o Procedure Compile Errors
o Procedure Compile Warnings (10g)
o Introduction to Functions
o Introduction to Packages
o Querying the Data Dictionary
o Introduction to Triggers
o Tools for PL/SQL Development
o Working in SQL*Plus"

Oracle 10g Flashback Versions Query, Drop Table and Recyclebin Management � H.Tongu�Yılmaz – Oracle Blog

Oracle 10g Flashback Versions Query, Drop Table and Recyclebin Management � H.Tongu�Yılmaz – Oracle Blog: "Oracle Flashback Versions Query is an extension to SQL that can be used to retrieve the versions of rows in a given table that existed in a specific time interval. Oracle Flashback Versions Query returns a row for each version of the row that existed in the specified time interval. For any given table, a new row version is created each time the COMMIT statement is executed."

Pixar’s Brad Bird on Fostering Innovation

Pixar’s Brad Bird on Fostering Innovation: "Steve Jobs hired him, says Bird, because after three successes (Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Toy Story 2) he was worried Pixar might struggle to stay innovative. Jobs told him: “The only thing we’re afraid of is complacency—feeling like we have it all figured out,” Bird quotes his boss as saying “…We want you to come shake things up.” Bird explains to McKinsey how he did it — and why, for “imagination-based companies to succeed in the long run, making money can’t be the focus.”

The piece is behind McKinsey’s pay wall, but we extract its 9 key lessons below."

Skulpt

Skulpt: "Python. Client side.

Skulpt is an entirely in-browser implementation of Python."

Obama Press Conference Videos - How to Answer Questions Like Obama - Esquire

Obama Press Conference Videos - How to Answer Questions Like Obama - Esquire: "Because sometimes life can feel like a White House press conference — or, worse, a town-hall shouting match about health care. And if there's anything Barack Obama has mastered in the last 200-or-so days — and the last week in particular — it's maneuvering his way through almost any inquisition."

2276 Compound Words

2276 Compound Words: "2276 Compound Words"

Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft): "I have been thinking a lot about what a new version of this test would look like, given what I've seen work and not work in startups. Like many forms of progress, most of the items on the new test don't replace items from Joel's - they either supplement or extend the ideas on which the original is based."

glasses for computer use

If you want glasses simply for helping other programmers, get a pair
of single-vision glasses for the over-the-shoulder distance. Here are
two ways to figure out what prescription you need. You'll need to know
about how far it is from your eyes to the screens you can't read, and
you'll need your "driving" prescription.

Method 1. Use the following guideline: If the screens you have to read
are 3 feet away, add +1.00 diopter to your driving glasses
prescription's spherical correction. If the screens are 2 feet away,
add +1.50 diopters. If they are 1.5 feet away, add +2.00 diopters.
Most likely they are no closer than that, given that your computer
glasses aren't working for this.

Method 2. Put on your driving glasses and visit the reading glasses
section of your local drug store. With luck, they will have glasses in
every strength from +1.25 to +2.50 (in increments of 0.25). Try on
various strength reading glasses *over* your driving glasses until you
can read at the over-the-shoulder distance. Whatever works is what you
need to add to the spherical correction of your driving glasses.

IMPORTANT: Be sure you're adding a positive number to your driving
prescription, not a negative number. You're a programmer, so I'm sure
you know that when you add +1.00 to the number -2.25, you get -1.25,
*not* -3.25!

If you want a single pair of glasses that will allow you to help
others, but also to see your own screen, for days when you're back and
forth a lot, I suggest getting a pair of "monovision" glasses, with
one lens optimized for over-the-shoulder and one lens optimized for
your own screen. In other words, add +1.5 (or whatever you got above)
to the spherical correction of your driving prescription for one eye
only. Choose the eye based on which eye has the best view of the
screen when you're doing the over-the-shoulder thing.

For the record, I teach Computer Science and have to do a lot of over-
the-shoulder myself, but I also have to see students from the front of
the classroom. So my monovision glasses have one lens of "driving"
prescription and one lens of "over-the-shoulder" prescription. My
guess is that you want one over-the-shoulder lens and one "your own
computer" lens.

If your two prescriptions have slightly different PD values, don't
worry about it. Either will work - my pick would be the larger of the
two (probably the driving prescription).

Another great speaker at Fool HQ

Another great speaker at Fool HQ: "Adding to our recent string of great speakers visiting Fool HQ, Randy Nelson, the former dean of Pixar University, spoke with us today. Basically, he was in charge of in-house education efforts at Pixar (now part of Disney), the creators of Toy Story, Ratatouille, etc.

Short summary: Amazing speaker."

OmniGraffle Pro Insists on Saving .graffle as a Directory

OmniGraffle Pro Insists on Saving .graffle as a Directory:

>Always flat:
>defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniGraffle PrivateGraffleFlatFile 0
>
>Flat unless there are images (the normal behavior):
>defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniGraffle PrivateGraffleFlatFile 1
>
>Always as a package:
>defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniGraffle PrivateGraffleFlatFile 2

(Use "OmniGraffle" or "OmniGrafflePro" as appropriate.)

Oracle deadlocks - what happens?

Oracle deadlocks - what happens?:

"# Oracle does not kill the session.
# Oracle does not kill the transaction.
# Oracle only kills the statement.
# Oracle does not rollback the statement.
# PMON (Process Monitor) does not clear out the locks.

It is the responsibility of the session that detects the “ORA-00060 deadlock detected while waiting for resource” error to trap and handle the error by issuing a rollback (or a commit) command. Only once this has been done will the other session be able to continue."

Using Python to detect the most frequent words in a file | Zen and the Art of Programming

Using Python to detect the most frequent words in a file | Zen and the Art of Programming: "Let’s consider the small task of printing a list of the N most frequent words within a given file:"

mr boss' design lair: Everything I Learned About Game Design I Learned From Disneyland

mr boss' design lair: Everything I Learned About Game Design I Learned From Disneyland: "As promised, here are the slides from my GDC talk. We had a 'sold out' crowd and I got to meet lots of nice people after the talk. Please share these with your friends and co-workers. According to show officials, video and audio will be available after the show. I'll post more info when I know it. Enjoy!"

PaperBack

PaperBack: "PaperBack is a free application that allows you to back up your precious files on the ordinary paper in the form of the oversized bitmaps. If you have a good laser printer with the 600 dpi resolution, you can save up to 500,000 bytes of uncompressed data on the single A4/Letter sheet."

Why I am Not a Professor

Why I am Not a Professor: "OR
The Decline and Fall of the British University"

Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) Support - Urban Airship

Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) Support - Urban Airship: "We deliver a scalable, easy-to-implement solution that allows you incorporate Apple Push Notification Service into an existing app. Best of all, instead of taking weeks, it takes minutes. Using our open source libraries, you’ll be up and running within hours. And integration? Our RESTful APIs makes it a snap. With Urban Airship, you’ll be pushing messages to your apps and engaging with your users as never before—without all of the headaches."

AC Power Control through USB

AC Power Control through USB: "Second Implementation: User space

* libusb library
* usb_control_msg: USB_PORT_FEAT_POWER"

"THE YEAR OF SPAGHETTI by HARUKI MURAKAMI

Nineteen-seventy-one was the Year of Spaghetti.

In 1971, I cooked spaghetti to live, and lived to cook spaghetti.

Steam rising from the pot was my pride and joy, tomato sauce bubbling up in the saucepan my one great hope in life."

Python Module of the Week - Python Module of the Week

Python Module of the Week - Python Module of the Week: "The Python Module of the Week series, or PyMOTW, is a tour of the Python standard library through short examples."

Conway's Game of Life - Experiment Garden

Conway's Game of Life - Experiment Garden: "Finally, I recorded an amazing video of a complex spaceship construction device running in Conway's Game of Life. The device is made up hundreds of modified Gosper guns synchronized so that they shoot the right gliders and spaceships at just the right time such that when they collide it creates a larger traveling spaceship."

Blunt warning about greens under the bed | Antonia Senior - Times Online

Blunt warning about greens under the bed | Antonia Senior - Times Online: "Britain is, thankfully, an ideologically barren land. The split between Right and Left is no longer ideological, but tribal. Are you a nice social liberal who believes in markets, or a nasty social liberal who believes in markets? Anthony Blunt’s memoirs, published this week, reveal a different age, one in which fascism and communism were locked in a seemingly definitive battle for souls.

Blunt talks of “the religious quality” of the enthusiasm for the Left among the students of Cambridge. There is only one ideology in today’s developed world that exercises a similar grip. If Blunt were young today, he would not be red; he would be green."

Installing Oracle 11g on CentOS under VMWare on a Macbook - Oracle Wiki

Installing Oracle 11g on CentOS under VMWare on a Macbook - Oracle Wiki: "Here is how I’ve set up my Macbook to be my DBA Playground. You can have Oracle 11gR1 and 10gR2 installed on two operating systems, Red Hat Linux 4 and Solaris 10. Both are 64bit and both can be running simultaneously for easy comparisons. This guide shows you how to install Oracle 11g on CentOS under VMWare Fusion on a Macbook."

Booklets by Professor Solomon

Booklets by Professor Solomon: "Free Download:
Flying Saucer Travel Tips"

Instapundit � Blog Archive � INDEED: “A rule we can rely on to be unfailingly applied is this: No matter how much the government…

Instapundit � Blog Archive � INDEED: "A rule we can rely on to be unfailingly applied is this: No matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom that remains.”"

61 essential postmodern reads: an annotated list | Jacket Copy | Los Angeles Times

61 essential postmodern reads: an annotated list | Jacket Copy | Los Angeles Times: "Below is our list of the 61 essential reads of postmodern literature. It's annotated with the attributes below -- the author is a character, fiction and reality are blurred, the text includes fictional artifacts, such as letters, lyrics, even whole other books, and so on."

10 Business Lessons I Learned from Playing Dungeons & Dragons | JavaWorld's Daily Brew

10 Business Lessons I Learned from Playing Dungeons & Dragons | JavaWorld's Daily Brew: "Throughout my 20s and 30s, I played D&D and other fantasy role playing games at least once a week. Doing so did more than teach me the rules of combat or proper behavior in a dragon's lair. I gained several skills that truly did help me in my career."

just ping - Online ping - Online web-based ping: remote ping a server or web site using our network with 37 checkpoints worldwide

just ping - Online ping - Online web-based ping: remote ping a server or web site using our network with 37 checkpoints worldwide: "Online web-based ping: remote ping a server or web site using our network with 37 checkpoints worldwide"

Cars-Pixar

Cars-Pixar: "The Renderfarm at Pixar is a computer cluster that is used to render computer generated imagery for their animated films. We made this two-sided sign that hangs above the main entrance to the Renderfarm using 10mm, 8mm and 7mm tubing."

Python Package Index : pudb 0.92.2

Python Package Index : pudb 0.92.2: "PuDB is a full-screen, console-based visual debugger for Python.

Its goal is to provide all the niceties of modern GUI-based debuggers in a more lightweight and keyboard-friendly package. PuDB allows you to debug code right where you write and test it--in a terminal. If you've worked with the excellent (but nowadays ancient) DOS-based Turbo Pascal or C tools, PuDB's UI might look familiar."

Hadoop Training: Virtual Machine | Cloudera

Hadoop Training: Virtual Machine | Cloudera: "n order to make it easy for you to get started with Hadoop and complete our various training exercises, we have created a virtual machine with everything you need. The VM includes Cloudera's Distribution for Hadoop, all of our example code, as well as eclipse and other standard tools."

EWD Mathematics Inc Papers

The following are Documents regarding Mathematics Inc.

EWD442. Inside ``Mathematics Inc''
EWD539. Mathematics Inc., a private letter from its chairman
EWD743. A new policy for Mathematics Inc.?
EWD1224. Hm++, a new Professional Standard (From the desk of the chairman of the Board of Mathematics Inc.)
Randell.pdf. Revenue Sharing Agreement (from counsel to the chairman of the Board of Mathematics Inc.)

George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior @ Foundations Magazine

George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior @ Foundations Magazine: "By age sixteen, Washington had copied out by hand, 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. They are based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. Presumably they were copied out as part of an exercise in penmanship assigned by young Washington's schoolmaster. The first English translation of the French rules appeared in 1640, and are ascribed to Francis Hawkins the twelve-year-old son of a doctor."

Perforce Knowledge Base: Working Disconnected From The Perforce Server

Perforce Knowledge Base: Working Disconnected From The Perforce Server: "How can I reconcile my workspace once I am reconnected to the server?"

Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science

Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science: "Below this short table of contents is an expanded table of contents including sections within each chapter. Click on the chapter name to jump down. You can also download the complete text of each chapter in PDF format for elegant printing, or browse the HTML version. Part introductions are included in the PDF of the following chapter. Projects are included in the PDF of the preceding chapter."

Reverse Engineering a Data Model using the Oracle Data Dictionary

Reverse Engineering a Data Model using the Oracle Data Dictionary: "All of the above tables (the USER_* tables) only contain objects defined by the current Oracle user. Oracle also maintains a set of tables of identical structure that start with ALL_*. These show you every object that you have access to, regardless of whether you created that object (e.g., our beloved friend DUAL). Similarly, Oracle provides DBA_* tables that contain info about all users' objects, but this group of tables is only accessible to the database administrator."

cdto - Google Code

cdto - Google Code: "Finder Toolbar button to open a Terminal window"

Python Call Graph

Python Call Graph: "pycallgraph is a Python module that creates call graphs for Python programs."

Bootleggers and Baptists � Brad Taylor’s Blog

Bootleggers and Baptists � Brad Taylor’s Blog: "Indeed, the pages of history are full of episodes best explained by a theory of regulation I call “bootleggers and Baptists.” Bootleggers, you will remember, support Sunday closing laws that shut down all the local bars and liquor stores. Baptists support the same laws and lobby vigorously for them. Both parties gain, while the regulators are content because the law is easy to administer."

Battle of Gonzales

Battle of Gonzales: "Recall of the Gonzales Cannon. As part of the disarmament of Texians or the consolidation of armaments for suppression of Federalist sentiments by the Centralista (Santanista) dictatorship, the military authorities in San Antonio requested the return of a cannon which had been 'loaned' to the DeWitt Colonists in 1831 for protection against Indians."

Drawger.com

Drawger.com: "Welcome to The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies... where tools of the trade that have died or have just about died a slow slow death are cheerfully exhibited."

Bruce Yandle on Bootleggers and Baptists | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty

Bruce Yandle on Bootleggers and Baptists | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty: "Bruce Yandle of Clemson University explains why politics makes such strange bedfellows and the often peculiar alliance of self-interested special interests with more altruistic motives. He uses his insights to explain some of the seemingly perverse but politically understandable effects of the Clean Air Act, the tobacco settlement and other regulation."

Identity Generator

Identity Generator: "generate plausible data"

iText, a Free Java-PDF Library: Home Page

iText, a Free Java-PDF Library: Home Page: "iText is a library that allows you to generate PDF files on the fly."

CS145 - Autumn, 2007

CS145 - Autumn, 2007: "Oracle gives mysterious error numbers when you do something wrong. Using the error-messaage number as a Google query often gives you an answer from some newsgroup that has discussed the problem."

Installing Oracle 11g on CentOS under VMWare on a Macbook - Oracle Wiki

Installing Oracle 11g on CentOS under VMWare on a Macbook - Oracle Wiki: "This guide shows you how to install Oracle 11g on CentOS under VMWare Fusion on a Macbook."

13 Enabling Advanced Features of Oracle Net Services

13 Enabling Advanced Features of Oracle Net Services:

"What TAF Restores

TAF automatically restores some or all of the following elements associated with active database connections. Other elements, however, may need to be embedded in the application code to enable TAF to recover the connection."

Business soaring at Oakland's Fenton's, thanks to 'Up!' - San Jose Mercury News

Business soaring at Oakland's Fenton's, thanks to 'Up!' - San Jose Mercury News: "The ice cream parlor is the most recent in a long line of local connections integrated into Emeryville-based Pixar's films. 'The Incredibles' featured a police chase down San Pablo Avenue, which runs from Oakland to West Contra Costa. Much of 'Monsters vs Aliens' took place between San Francisco and Modesto. Even the flying house from 'Up!' is based on a Victorian in West Berkeley."

xdotool - fake keyboard/mouse input :: semicomplete.com - Jordan Sissel

xdotool - fake keyboard/mouse input :: semicomplete.com - Jordan Sissel: "This tool lets you programatically (or manually) simulate keyboard input and mouse activity, move and resize windows, etc"

wmctrl - A command line tool to interact with an EWMH/NetWM compatible X Window Manager.

wmctrl - A command line tool to interact with an EWMH/NetWM compatible X Window Manager.: "The wmctrl program is a UNIX/Linux command line tool to interact with an EWMH/NetWM compatible X Window Manager.

The tool provides command line access to almost all the features defined in the EWMH specification. It can be used, for example, to obtain information about the window manager, to get a detailed list of desktops and managed windows, to switch and resize desktops, to make windows full-screen, always-above or sticky, and to activate, close, move, resize, maximize and minimize them."

Oracle: tracing a session

Method A (for your own session):

SQL> ALTER SESSION SET SQL_TRACE={True|False};


Method B (for your own session):

SQL> EXECUTE dbms_session.set_sql_trace ({True|False});


Method C (for super user to trace other sessions):

SQL> EXECUTE dbms_system.set_sql_trace_in_session (sid,serial#,{True|False});

Taco Sauce

Mild version:

3c water
2t cornstarch
1 6-oz can tomato paste
3T white vinegar
4t chili powder
2t salt
1t cayenne pepper

Dissolve cornstanch in water in medium saucepan.
Add remaining ingredients and stir well. Bring to a
boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer for
5 minutes. Cover till cool, refrigerate.

Makes 3 cups.

Hot and spicy version:

1 6-oz can tomato paste
3c water
3T white vinegar
3t minced jalepeno
1T chili powder
1t dried minced onion
2t salt
2t cornstarch
1t cayenne pepper
1t sugar
1/4t onion powder
1/4t garlic powder

White House Chocolate Chip Cookies

3c + 3t all-purpose flour
1t baking soda
1/4t salt
1c (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1c granulated sugar
2/3c packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/4c molasses
1T vanilla extract
2c (12 oz bag) chocolate chips
1c chopped walnuts

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium mixing bowl.

Cream together butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar. Beat in eggs, molasses and vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Chill dough for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat pads.

Drop heaping tablespoons or No. 40 ice-cream scoops of dough 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, flattening slightly by hand.

Bake until just light golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool cookies for 5 minutes on baking sheets before transferring to wire rack.

Cookies will keep in an airtight container for 2 to 3 days.

Advance Preparation: Place balls of dough on parchment and freeze. Balls may be stored frozen in freezer bags for up to 1 month. Place frozen cookies on prepared sheets as above, and defrost on the counter for 30 minutes before baking.

Mark's Famous Chili

Famous on three continents!

"Chili meat" is coarsly ground beef. You can substitute any kind of ground beef if you can't find the chili grind.

1 onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 lb chili meat
1 Tbsp paprika
5-6 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp cumin
1 tsp ground oregano
1 can tomato sauce
1 cup water
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, to taste
1/2 tsp jalepeno pepper, to taste

Brown chili meat. Add all ingredients except peppers. Simmer 1 hr
covered. Add peppers. Simmer 1/2 hr covered. Serve with pinto
beans if desired. Garnish with chopped onions and grated cheese.
If in competition, defer adding spices until just before judging.

Pachelbel Bedtime lyrics

Bathtime and Bedtime at the Crawford house inspired this little ditty.

Why don't you wanna say goodnight
Why is it that you do not go to your bed and sleep tight
until the morning light is coming,
casts its face upon your eyes,
and then you wake to greet the day God has made
and rejoice that you are part of it.

Why do you insist upon the crying and the moaning
and the whining and the screaming and the tantrums and the yelling
and the kicking and the smacking and the biting and the hissies
the one more drink of water and the "one more book please daddy"

and now,

I just want you to go to sleep, I don't want to hear a peep,
from either one, the day is well past done.

And I'm about to lose my mind,
Im gonna tear up your behind,
So nighty night,
Aand don't let the bedbugs bite.

Now it is so quiet and so peaceful
In this once chaotic house
We are are sleeping and we're dreaming
And it's as quiet as a mouse
But what is that familiar sound tiptoeing nearer?

Little steps approaching closer,
No, it can't be what i'm fearing

And it's not - it's just the cat
And she is purring so contently
and she snuggles at my feet,
to be sure it's quite endearing,
my lids relieve my eyes of all the stress that they were feeling
and i turn my head to sleep
but i feel somebody staring
and it's - augh!

She's staring right at me
her eyes are glazed with sleep,
I nearly wet, the sheets upon my bed,
Her lips, are trembling as she speaks,
Now there's color in her cheeks,
She looks so frail,
my heart begins to swell

Now she lays beside me and
she breathes so easily
her dreams are happy
and she sighs a tender sigh so peacefully
she knows her mommy and her daddy and her sissy love her greatly
and we sleep throughout the nighttime
never ever more sedately

and now

morning casts its light upon the pillow
where her head begins to stir
I try to wake her so her kind and gentle dreams
I don't disturb
but as I pull her from her slumber
ever slowly
I know in my heart of hearts exactly where this all is going

and the crying and moaning
and the whining and the screaming and the
"Daddy, you're so mean, how could you interrupt my dreaming",
the brushing of the hair,
and then the clothes they hate to wear,
i need to check the (?) and care
I gave her teddy bear.

And a son, in din in her own school, ???
all the work i travel to,
my mind's a wreck,
i keep hearing songs from Shrek,
I work all day and then go home,
all my stress is mostly gone,

my kids I see, and i pull them in closely,

then we start to do the homework
and the dinner must be started
and gymnastics and piano
and then groceries must be carted
and the smallest one is crying, "won't you hold me" like she's dying
and the oldest one's frustrated with her homework
though she's trying

and dinner's on the table but it's cold
because we waited for the children to get back
from practicing all their cheerleading
now the brocolli is so nasty,
the macaroni's pasty, the meat is tough as leather,
really nothing is quite tasty

so the crying and moaning
and the screaming and the whining
start again, but now the target is asleep
and sometime dining(?)

And I raise my hand in wonder
as I look around the table
how can anyone survive,
is anyone out there enabled

and I think about the laughter, when times are not so hectic,
and I know that though my stomach can get slightly nongo(?) peptic,
when I see their smiling faces when on swings I push them gently,
when I hold their little hands, life could not go more contently,

So the crying and the moaning and the screaming and the kicking
play a very tiny part of all the time my life is ticking,
and the good outweighs the bad, I am more happy than I'm sad,
For all of this I should be glad, I've had it better than my Dad,
You bet I have.

Mark Harrison - Google Profile

Mark Harrison - Google Profile: "Programmer at Pixar
Piedmont, CA"

Hardware/software co-debugging in a hardware description language Nils Endric Schubert et al

Hardware/software co-debugging in a hardware description language Nils Endric Schubert et al:
"

Patent number: 7240303
Filing date: Jun 6, 2003
Issue date: Jul 3, 2007
Inventors: Nils Endric Schubert, Kenneth S. McElvain, John Mark Beardslee, Mario Larouche
Assignees: Synplicity, Inc."

Ironic Sans: Celebrity Patents

Ironic Sans: Celebrity Patents: "So, inspired by Google’s new easy-to-use patent search, I decided to dig up some of the celebrity patents that have been issued over the years. The following 18 20 patents are all by celebrities not usually known for being inventors. You can follow the links to the actual patents to learn more about each one."

Font Generator - Make Your Own Handwriting Font With Your Fonts

Font Generator - Make Your Own Handwriting Font With Your Fonts: "YourFonts.com is an online font generator that allows you to create your own OpenType fonts within a couple of minutes. Go make your own handwriting as a font!"

Font Garden | Download free fonts | Unique Handwriting Fonts

Font Garden | Download free fonts | Unique Handwriting Fonts: "This is where I write about fonts, me, web design, things I found useful and font deals I find."

Live Interactive Ships Traffic Worldwide Map

Live Interactive Ships Traffic Worldwide Map

Weed, Booze, Cocaine and Other Old School "Medicine" Ads - Pharmacy Technician Schools

Weed, Booze, Cocaine and Other Old School "Medicine" Ads - Pharmacy Technician Schools: "Granted, hindsight is 20/20, but some awfully strange substances have been used for pharmaceutical purposes in the past -- and some might argue, continue to be used today. Here are some vintage advertisements touting items that we might balk at taking today."

working with stackoverflow xml dump

Even though the extension says .zip, it is actually 7zip.

Add some newlines to make it easier to fiddle with:

mh@schrute /Volumes/data/Users/mh/so/xml --> cat splitxml.c

#include
int main()
{
int c;
int first = 1;
while ((c = getchar()) != EOF) {
if (c == '<') {
if (first == 1)
first = 0;
else
putchar('\n');
}
putchar(c);
}
}

python xml.sax reports errors on these chars:

grep -l '&#x[0-9][0-9];' *.xml

to fix:

perl -pi -e 's/&#x[0-9][0-9];//g' *.xml

Principles of XML design: When to use elements versus attributes

Principles of XML design: When to use elements versus attributes: "The oldest question asked by adopters of XML is when to use elements and when to use attributes in XML design. As with most design issues, this question rarely has absolute answers, but developers have also experienced a lack of very clear guidelines to help them make this decision. In this article, Uche Ogbuji offers a set of guiding principles for what to put in elements and what to put in attributes."

GovTalk – e-Government Schema Guidelines for XML

GovTalk – e-Government Schema Guidelines for XML: "This document contains guidelines for developing XML Schemas for e-GIF compliant systems. These guidelines include mandatory requirements for XML Schema structure and content, as well as best practice recommendations for schema design."

Fantasy literature: Some magical offerings | The Scriptorium Daily: Middlebrow

Fantasy literature: Some magical offerings | The Scriptorium Daily: Middlebrow: "“Sing, O Muse, of Gollum, of Mr. Tumnus, of Pantalaimon, of the Dementors, of the elfstones, of the black cauldron, of the Old Ones, and of the Aes Sedai”!
What would Homer and Virgil have thought of that?"

'How the Mighty Fall' - MarketWatch

'How the Mighty Fall' - MarketWatch: "Given the sad fate of General Motors, Fannie Mae, Bear Stearns and scores of other companies that fell on hard financial times, it's a smart time for a best-selling business writer to pen a book titled 'How the Mighty Fall.'"

killing session with instance id

SQL> select inst_id,sid,serial# from gv$session where username='SCOTT';

INST_ID SID SERIAL#
---------- ---------- ----------
1 130 620

SQL> alter system kill session '130,620,@1';

The Volokh Conspiracy - -

The Volokh Conspiracy - -: "Exposure to the wider world, however, has left me persuaded that abstract libertarianism must sometimes give way to the realities of cultures and actual conditions."

Easter Eggs in Pixar’s Up | /Film

Easter Eggs in Pixar’s Up | /Film: "Pixar loves to hide Easter eggs in their films, little references to movies and characters from the animation studio’s past and future. Last year we put together a compilation of WALL-E easter eggs, so I thought we’d do the same thing for Pixar’s new film Up. If you haven’t seen the film, be warned that this article references scenes from the film which may be considered spoilers."

Pixar perfect: The people at this studio have important lessons to teach - Kansas City Star

Pixar perfect: The people at this studio have important lessons to teach - Kansas City Star: "Pixar has refined a way of working and living that should be obvious, but that so few other movies - that so few other human beings - are able to follow: Work hard. Surround yourself with the brightest people you know, and put your faith in their opinions. Check your ego at the door."

Tryit Editor v1.4

Tryit Editor v1.4

nice env to experiment with css

Re: Select failover ORA-25401 when data is imported from an export on a RAC cluster - oracle-l - FreeLists

Re: Select failover ORA-25401 when data is imported from an export on a RAC cluster - oracle-l - FreeLists: "The first issue is that in 10.2, the server-side service-level settings will override the client-side settings. So, you'll need to consult the DBA_SERVICES view (specifically the FAILOVER_TYPE column) to determine if the IUAT_TAF1.ascentanalytics.com service is configured for SELECT failover. If you need to modify the service, consult DBMS_SERVICE.MODIFY_SERVICE."

Publications : Ardent Performance Computing

Publications : Ardent Performance Computing: "This is a collection of links to various guides, articles, papers, and presentations related to Oracle which I have written."

Spotify vs OllyDbg

Spotify vs OllyDbg: "sudo dtrace -n 'syscall::write*:entry /execname == 'Spotify' && arg0 == 2/ { trace(copyinstr(arg1)); ustack(); }'"

Gamedesign - Free games and Flash games

Gamedesign - Free games and Flash games: "This site offers Flash and other types of games that are free to download."

Lileks, Friday, May 22

Lileks, Friday, May 22: "Live long enough, and you’re guaranteed to see the next new thing arrive, thrive, and die. And then comes the next new thing, heralded by those who believe the world began yesterday."

� Blog Archive � Friday, May 22

Lileks: Friday, May 22: "To quote 10 eminent economists: duh."

TAF References

TAF References: "Metalink Notes

97926.1	Failover Issues and Limitations (Connect-time failover and TAF)
231996.1	Quickstart Guide: Setup of Transparent Application Failover (TAF)
276225.1	JDBC Sample on How to Implement OCI TAF callbacks with DML and PL/SQL
226880.1	Configuration of Load Balancing and Transparent Application Failover
404644.1	Configuration of Transparent Application Failover (TAF) with server-side service
453293.1	10g: Configuration of TAF (Transparent Application Failover) and Load Balancing
460982.1	How to Configure Server Side Transparent Application Failover
271297.1	Troubleshooting TAF issues in 10g RAC
337178.1	Which are the Oracle Errors (TAF Events) to be handled for RAC Failover
415245.1	How to make a PRO*C application TAF/RAC aware
428515.1	How to use TAF with instant client
399453.1	How to set up Database Link for Connect Time Failover or Transparent Application Failover
205637.1	Data Guard 9i: Configuring Transparent Application Failover in a Data Guard Environment

"

Letter from Japan: I ♥ Novels: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Letter from Japan: I ♥ Novels: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker: "The cell-phone novel, or keitai shosetsu, is the first literary genre to emerge from the cellular age. For a new form, it is remarkably robust. Maho i-Land, which is the largest cell-phone-novel site, carries more than a million titles, most of them by amateurs writing under screen handles, and all available for free. According to the figures provided by the company, the site, which also offers templates for blogs and home pages, is visited three and a half billion times a month."

Famous People Painting with Wiki Links | Historical Figures With Image Mapping

Famous People Painting with Wiki Links | Historical Figures With Image Mapping:

"Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante
Painting by Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi, and Zhang An, 2006, oil on canvas - Image mapping with titles and wikipedia links"

Toilet Valves, HydroClean, Toilet Parts, Toilet Plumbing, Water Conservation – MJSI

Toilet Valves, HydroClean, Toilet Parts, Toilet Plumbing, Water Conservation – MJSI: "The HydroRight quickly and easily converts your toilet into a water-saving dual flush toilet. Quick flush for liquids and paper. Full flush for solids."

IEEE Spectrum: 25 Microchips That Shook the World

IEEE Spectrum: 25 Microchips That Shook the World: "For each chip, we describe how it came about and why it was innovative, with comments from the engineers and executives who architected it. And because we’re not the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, we didn’t order the 25 chips chronologically or by type or importance; we arbitrarily scattered them on these pages in a way we think makes for a good read. History is messy, after all."

Learning Python, Linux, Java, Ruby and more with Videos, Tutorials and Screencasts

Learning Python, Linux, Java, Ruby and more with Videos, Tutorials and Screencasts: "Showmedo is about learning and (Free and) Open-source software (FOSS). We were inspired to start Showmedo by watching some very effective web video-tutorials/screencasts. These convinced us that web-videos can be a great way to quickly and efficiently acquire knowledge. It can even be fun, or at least painless. For some things there is no substitute to seeing it done."

Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition

Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition: "Here we illustrate the face mining concept for the TV series Star Trek. Specifically, we applied our state-of-the art algorithms in face detection, face tracking and face recognition to 67 Star Trek episodes over three seasons. This process automatically extracts all visible face tracks, and clusters these into a small number of same-person groupings. Currently, we recognize frontal or near-frontal tracks. In the near future, we will extend our results to non-frontal tracks as well.

Given our face mining output, it took a person less than five minutes to assign names to all the main characters (Kirk, Spock, Mccoy, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu and Chekov) and a couple of minor ones (Janice, Nurse Chapel) across all 67 episodes."

Reading for Pleasure and Instruction - John Derbyshire - The Corner on National Review Online

Reading for Pleasure and Instruction - John Derbyshire - The Corner on National Review Online: "Reading for duty is a miserable business, from which little is gained. It's much better, certainly for teens, to read second-rate stuff that engages one's attention, than classics that leave you cold."

The Corner on National Review Online

The Corner on National Review Online: "Reading for duty is a miserable business, from which little is gained. It's much better, certainly for teens, to read second-rate stuff that engages one's attention, than classics that leave you cold. In my own teens I read almost nothing but science fiction." - John Derbyshire

Exclusive Toad World Freeware

Exclusive Toad World Freeware: "The PL/Vision Code Library provides over 1,000 PL/SQL functions and procedures that extend the capabilities of the PL/SQL language."

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Fiscal Responsibility

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Fiscal Responsibility: "To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By $3 over the course of the year--approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year."

OTL 4.0, Example 585 (Oracle Change Notification via otl_subscriber)

OTL 4.0, Example 585 (Oracle Change Notification via otl_subscriber): "This example demonstrates Oracle Change Notification Interface via otl_subscriber."

understanding hype cycles

understanding hype cycles:

A Hype Cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies.

1. 'Technology Trigger'
2. 'Peak of Inflated Expectations'
3. 'Trough of Disillusionment'
4. 'Slope of Enlightenment'
5. 'Plateau of Productivity'

Building Ruby on Rails with Oracle Instantclient

- build ruby, gem, rails as per http://rubyonrails.org/download

build ruby
build gem
use gem to install rails

- get instantclient

instantclient-basic
instantclient-sdk

note: build against this, ok to run against the .so's in /usr/lib

- on mac, make this link

cd .../instantclient_10_2
ln -s libclntsh.dylib.10.1 libclntsh.dylib

- build ruby-oci8 from http://ruby-oci8.rubyforge.org/en/index.html

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=.../instantclient_10_2
ruby setup.rb config
ruby setup.rb setup
ruby setup.rb install

- test (this is on one line)

ruby -r oci8 -e "OCI8.new('nm/pass@db').exec('select * from user_tables') do |r| puts r.join(','); end"

- Install the activerecord-oracle_enhanced-adapter gem, NOT, as many pages out-of-dately specify, activerecord-oracle-adapter

gem install activerecord-oracle_enhanced-adapter

config/database.yml:

development:
adapter: oracle_enhanced
database: orcl # or, host:
username: scott
password: tiger

- do that sweet rails thing:

rails mhtest
cd mhtest
ruby script/generate scaffold comic title:string issue:integer publisher:string
rake db:migrate
ruby script/server

- hooray, it works

http://localhost:3000/comics

- references:

http://emphaticsolutions.com/2008/05/22/connecting-to-oracle-from-ruby-on-rails.html
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/saternos-ror-faq.html
http://drawohara.com/post/37166893/rails-unsucking-oci-oracle-on-rails-2-1
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/haefel-oracle-ruby.html

HowStuffWorks "How Corrective Lenses Work"

HowStuffWorks "How Corrective Lenses Work": "Corrective lenses can be made with glass or plastic, but nowadays, plastic is the most common. While several different types of plastic are used in making lenses, all of them follow the same general manufacturing procedures. Most of the steps outlined also apply to glass, although a few important differences are noted at the end.

A lab, even an automated one, follows 12 steps to make prescription lenses:"