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Yearly Archives : 2010

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Yavin 4 = Tikal

On December 25, 2010, Posted by , In Travel, By , , With No Comments

This morning while watching Star Wars, Episode 4, I noticed the skyline of Yavin 4 – the rebel base from which was launched the final attack on the Death Star – was familiar. It is a view from the top of one of the stepped pyramids at Tikal in Guatemala….

Fear begets subjection

On December 6, 2010, Posted by , In Op-Ed, By ,, , With No Comments

In Dune Frank Herbert wrote, “fear is the mind killer.” Humans are designed to fear; it is a good evolutionary trait that kept us alive and away from velociraptors. However, it is reactionary and comes with the cost of loss of prescience. I would go so far at to surmise…

What I learned today

On December 3, 2010, Posted by , In whatilearned, By , With No Comments

When typing in a bash shell, one can fix typos on a previous line with the ^ symbol. For example, “^wong^wang” will replace “wong” with “wang” in the last command and re-execute it. That’s amazing! http://lifehacker.com/5698494/quickly-fix-command-line-mistakes-with-the–symbol heh…wang.

What I learned today

On October 27, 2010, Posted by , In whatilearned, By , With No Comments

If one picks a number at random from the universe, there is a 30% chance that the first digit will be 1. How awesome is that? For example, pick up any science text and tally the occrances of each of the nine digits starting a number (0 does not count)….

Today I learned

On October 13, 2010, Posted by , In whatilearned, By , With No Comments

Today, I learned the awesomeness of the “*” printf formatting rule. printf(“%*c”, 5, ‘t’) will print 5 tabs. Behold, I no longer need employ loops for indenting!

I dream of diff e q

On October 13, 2010, Posted by , In Science, By ,, , With No Comments

One of my dreams last night involved me solving a partial differential equation in extensive detail. That is pretty nerdy by itself, but the result of completing the derivation was unlocking some sort of pornography.

Today I learned

On August 25, 2010, Posted by , In whatilearned, By , With No Comments

I learned that the Cromwell Diner has the spiciest omelet I have ever eaten – spicy in a way that melts intestines.

Pass It On

On August 11, 2010, Posted by , In whatilearned, By , With No Comments

An older gentleman made me smile today. It was a powerful, ear-to-ear grin, and entirely unexpected. Today I learned that I need to make people smile more often so I can pass it on.

What I Learned Today

On August 9, 2010, Posted by , In whatilearned, By , With No Comments

I learned to trust my instincts and use raid 1 when I deem it appropriate instead of raid 0 as was suggested – especially when the hard drives are crappy.

What I learned today

On August 7, 2010, Posted by , In whatilearned, By , With No Comments

Today I learned that too much alcohol can increase your stress levels but just enough will lower it. So, drink more, but not too much — just enough.