On a recent trip I met up with an old friend and his wife for dinner. As conversation progressed, I mentioned my wife and I have been watching M*A*S*H on Netflix. Waxing nostalgic for a moment, he told me that his parents let him stay up to watch the series finale in 1983. And then …
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please reply at top
There is a constant war over top-repliers, bottom-repliers, and inline-repliers. If you’re replying to an email, reply at the top. Unless there is some overarching need to reply inline (hint – it is very very rare). Bottom-replying makes me have to reread all the crap that has been left from previous messages before I get to what you …
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ifttt & box drive my desktop backgrounds … with a little cron happiness
I love that {{OS X}} lets me change my background on a schedule (I use every 30 minutes now). But I don’t like having to find pictures to populate my desktop menagerie with. Enter completely SFW backgrounds via RSS feeds! Using IFTTT, I watch for new items from a variety of daily photo feeds, and …
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seems i’m not the only one who thinks apple could make cars
Dallas News ran a story recently on Apple being positioned to be a car maker. Their reasoning: Cash (~$180B) It’s “ultimately” mobile They have “car guys” already Strong retail network They’re already global I think it more likely they’d buy an existing manufacturer, and then Apple-ify them – but the arguments are strong that an …
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my tech predictions for 2015
I put these up as a comment on Cringely.com – but they deserve sharing here, too. In no particular order: – {{AIX}} EoL’d – {{HP-UX}} retired – {{Itanium}} EoL’d (perhaps on an accelerated schedule) – Solaris truly open-sourced / abandoned by {{Oracle}} in favor of OEL – HP spins-off more business units – IBM loses …
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merging centos iso images
Thanks to @Anon on Unix.SE for the pointer on how to do this. And to @Andy‘s comment on @mmckinst‘s answer for the warning about additional packages you may need. As my three readers know, I run a {{CentOS}} mirror. One of the idiosyncrasies of CentOS, like its upstream {{RHEL}}, is that DVD ISOs aren’t always just one image – …
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columnar “email”
There needs to be a better way of handling group conversations. IRC uses the constant scroll mentality. Email has reply-at-top, reply-at-bottom, and reply-inline. Forums, reddit, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and the like have a scroll-like view – every new post is merely sequentially listed after the last. This can all lead to highly confusing digital conversations. …
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what should an “ideal” support ticketing system provide?
If you were going to create a support ticketing system from scratch – what would you put in it? My initial list of needs (some of which derive from my book, Debugging and Supporting Software Systems, and other from my experiences in ticket smashes): “long” title support (HP truncates at 80 characters – give me at …
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fix ibm – hire me as your ceo
Robert Cringely has written myriad times on IBM. His most recent post was titled, “How to fix IBM”. His solution is simple and easy: “Go back to customers being a corporate priority.” But IBM, as it stands today, will never get there. And all the “leadership” they’ve brought in over the years has only compounded their …
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assume formlessness – law 48 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 48 By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as …
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charge for carry-on luggage
Airlines over the past several years have begun charging for all kinds of things that used to be “free” (they weren’t ever “free”, they just hid the cost in your ticket price). One of the worst offenders to this list of fees, though, is the inane charge for your first checked bag whereas carry-on baggage …
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do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop – law 47 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 47 The moment of victory is often the moment of greatest peril. In the heat of victory, arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you had aimed for, and by going too far, you make more enemies than you defeat. Do not allow success to go to your head. There is no …
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never appear too perfect – law 46 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 46 Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead …
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draft day – the second football movie of the year
And while not as good as {{When The Game Stands Tall}}, still a very good movie. The parents’ guide warnings from IMDB may be helpful – there’s more language than needed for the story-telling, though I guess that’s what brought it into the PG13 range instead of PG. I’m not a huge fan of sports …
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fallen angels by walter dean myers
When I reviewed {{Germline}} by {{T C McCarthy}}, I mentioned it reminded me of a scifi-ified version of a book I’d read years ago about the {{Vietnam War}}. I came across that book today, and it is entitled “”{{Fallen Angels}}” by {{Walter Dean Myers}} (which, ftr, I only bought in the first place because he …
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preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once – law 45 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 45 Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt. If you are new to a position of power, or an outsider trying to build a power base, make a show of respecting the …
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disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect – law 44 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 44 The mirror reflects reality, but it is also the perfect tool for deception: When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out your strategy. {{The Mirror Effect}} mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion …
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welcome to laas technologies – purveyors of the latest paas techniques
Are your wigs in need of whitening? Do your dentures need to be dusted? Is your peg leg prematurely languishing? Do I have great news for you! Hello, and let me be the first to welcome you to LaaS Technologies. We are the true PaaS specialists – here to cater to your every whim and …
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work on the hearts and minds of others – law 43 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 43 Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you have seduced becomes your loyal pawn. And the way to seduce others is to operate on their individual psychologies and weaknesses. Soften up the resistant by working on their …
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Acts ongoing
Or, to quote J B Philips, “The Young Church in Action“. We continue chapter 2 on 6 Sep.
strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter – law 42 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 42 Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual – the stirrer, the arrogant underling, the poisoner of goodwill. If you allow such people room to operate, others will succumb to their influence. Do not wait for the troubles they cause to multiply, do not try to negotiate with them – they …
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7 things employees wish they could tell their boss about salaries
LinkedIn had an interesting article Friday whose title I snagged for this blog post. The 7 items are: We don’t care about pay scales Forget policies. We talk. We think about our pay a lot. We will sometimes let you take advantage. When we have to negotiate … we both lose. No matter how much we earn, …
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avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes – law 41 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 41 What happens first always appears better and more original than what comes after. If you succeed a great man or have a famous parent, you will have to accomplish double their achievements to outshine them. Do not get lost in their shadow, or stuck in a past not of your own making: Establish …
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Acts starts 9 August
As mentioned last time, we finished our study through Daniel. We are moving now into Acts – not sure how long this book’ll take us, but it’s going to be exciting to delve into the first years of the church!
bglug presentation – 04 aug 2014 – basics of initial centos/rhel 6.x server configuration
Attached is the presentation for my talk on initial CentOS/RHEL 6.x server configuring. bglug-2014-08-04-myers