They’re our servants, tools

"You can see that our real problem is another thing entirely. The machines only do figuring for us in a few minutes that eventually we could do for our own selves. They’re our servants, tools. Not some sort of gods in a temple which we go and pray to. Not oracles who can see into the future for us. They don’t see into the future. They only make statistical predictions—not prophecies. There’s a big difference there, but Reinhart doesn’t understand it. Reinhart and his kind have made such things as the SRB machines into gods. But I have no gods. At least, not any I can see."

The Variable Man, by Philip K. Dick

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note to self - emergent behavior

An emergent behavior or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviors as a collective. How does it apply to distributed systems?

creating org-mode TODOs from wanderlust emails

If you are one of those five people in the world who use Emacs' wanderlust for email and org-mode, then you might find this tip useful. To create TODO items from emails, use the org-capture template. Below is the template that I use

(setq org-capture-templates '(("t" "Todo" entry
                              (file+headline "~/org/mygtd.org" "Tasks")
  " TODO %^{Brief Description} %^g\n%?\nAdded: %U" :prepend t)
                             ("j" "Journal" entry
  (file+headline "~/dump/journal.org" "")
  "\n %^{topic} %T \n%i%?\n" :prepend t)
                             ("e" "Email Todo" entry
                              (file+headline "~/org/mygtd.org" "Tasks")
                              "* TODO %^{Brief Description}\n%a\n%?Added: %U\n" :prepend t)
      ))

When you are reading an email and you want to create a TODO item from it, just do M-x org-capture and select the Email Todo (e).


gitosis hint: does not appear to be a git repository

You have successfully installed gitosis, and you have been able to add users into gitosis. Now, on a remote computer, you try to checkout.

tearlayneed-lm:tmp rshekhar$ git clone ssh://stormcrow@home:221/gitosis-admin
Cloning into gitosis-admin...
fatal: '/gitosis-admin' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
I am running the ssh server on port 221 and my username is stormcrow. If your reaction is WTF!, then I can sympathise with you. The correct clone command is
git clone ssh://stormcrow@home:221/~/gitosis-admin
Cloning into gitosis-admin...
remote: Counting objects: 24, done.
If you failed to notice, there is a ~ required.


rants by Kapil Sibal, with lolcats

Kapil Sibal, India's Telecoms minister has prompted an uproar after it was revealed he met with executives from Google and Facebook to pressure them into screening 'objectionable' content.

A side effect of Kapil Sibal trying to censor the internet is that he has been given a goldmine of comic quotes. And any quote looks adorable with a kitten. I converted his quotes to lolspeak and put them with pictures of cute kittens. The kittens should countereffect the increased blood pressure caused by his idocacy.

Without further ado, here are the cats with Kapil's quotes

U go and delete information on the Internet that might offend the sensibilities of people in India

U go and delete information on the Internet that might offend the sensibilities of people in India

We have to take care of the sensibilities of our people. Cultural ethos is very important to us.

We have to take care of the sensibilities of our people. Cultural ethos is very important to us.

There is some content on the Internet.. that any normal human being would be offended by

There is some content on the Internet.. that any normal human being would be offended by

I have seen subject matter which was so offensive that it hurt religious sentiments of large sections of community

I have seen subject matter which was so offensive that it hurt religious sentiments of large sections of community
I decline to define what, exactly, is offensive content I am not offensive

Image credits


audit for incorrect engine

If you use innodb engine exclusively, and want to audit your databases for any tables that might have an incorrect engine, use the command below -

mysql -u root -p  information_schema -e \
"select TABLE_SCHEMA,TABLE_NAME, ENGINE from TABLES where\
 ENGINE != 'Innodb' \
 and TABLE_SCHEMA not in ('mysql','information_schema');"


a bag of tips

When you require a fake US address, use the one below. It should clear validity filters
123 Fake Street
Compton, CA - 90222

In linux, to find files modified today, use find . -mtime -1 \! -type d -exec ls -l {} \;


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