an oldy, but a goody An annotated thermometer (degrees Fahrenheit) +50 New York tenants turn on the heat Minnesotans plant gardens +40 Californians shiver uncontrollably Minnesotans sunbathe +35 Italian cars don’t start +32 Distilled water freezes +30 You can see your breath You plan a vacation in Florida Politicians begin to worry about the homeless …
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despise the free lunch – law 40 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 40 What is offered for free is dangerous – it usually involves either a trick or hidden obligation. What has worth is worth paying for. By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit. It is also often wise to pay the full price – there is no cutting corners …
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Daniel is coming to an end
We’ve definitely covered Daniel proportionately-quicker than we did Matthew, but it has been a great study. 26 Jul will be our last session in Daniel, as we cover chapter 12 (the end of the 3 chapter prophecy and interpretation). Next up: Acts.
apps on the network
{This started as a Disqus reply to Eric’s post. Then I realized blog comments shouldn’t be longer than the original post 🙂 } The app-on-network concept is fascinating: and one I think I’ve thought about previously, too. Hypothetically, all “social networks” should have the same connections: yet there’s dozens upon dozens (I use at least …
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stir up waters to catch fish – law 39 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 39 Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage. Put your enemies off-balance. Find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings. –{{Robert Greene}}, …
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Daniel 12 (NASB)
{Daniel 11} “Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, …
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Daniel 11 (NASB)
{Daniel 10} “In the first year of Darius the Mede, I arose to be an encouragement and a protection for him. And now I will tell you the truth. Behold, three more kings are going to arise in Persia. Then a fourth will gain far more riches than all of them; as soon as he …
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think as you like but behave as others – law 38 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 38 If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think that you only want attention and that you look down upon them. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior. It is far safer to blend in and …
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who wants an “all-star team” anyway?
A friend sent me this job listing recently, and I see it suffers from a wrong-headed (though well-intentioned) institutional fixation that hiring managers seem to have: that of wanting an “all-star team”. “we are building an all-star team” Sigh. This mentality is promoted by smart, successful people like Joel Spolsky: “You’re going to see three …
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Daniel 10 (NASB)
{Daniel 9} In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar; and the message was true and one of great conflict, but he understood the message and had an understanding of the vision. In those days, I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks. …
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create compelling spectacles – law 37 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 37 Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power – everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then, full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing. –{{Robert Greene}}, {{The 48 Laws of Power}} …
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a sample cfengine promise bundle – delete “large” files
body common control { bundlesequence => { “file_remover” }; } bundle agent file_remover { vars: “bigfile” int => “1g”; files: “/home” delete => tidy, file_select => files_too_big, depth_search => recurse(“inf”); reports: “Deleted files over $(bigfile) in size from /home”; } body depth_search recurse(d) { depth => “$(d)”; } body delete tidy { dirlinks => “delete”; …
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wait, what?
My wife has done a far more excellent write-up* than I could hope to – but the short version is that I’m now a dad 🙂 We got an out-of-the-blue call a couple weeks ago that there was a ~3 month old baby boy being put for adoption, and did we know anyone who would …
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Daniel 9 (NASB)
{Daniel 8} In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans — in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah …
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my theory of social networking
I know lots of folks who like to have everything they share on one social network (eg Google+) magically appear on all others they use, too (eg Twitter & Facebook). While I sometimes share identical content out to several networks, I rarely want precisely the same thing going everywhere all the time. In fact, while I …
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disdain things you cannot have: ignoring them is the best revenge – law 36 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 36 By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you …
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soup to nuts mirroring of centos
I run a CentOS mirror. Have for a couple years. But I never stopped to see just how long it takes to start becoming a mirror. In case you wanted to know, I created a quick DO VM and ran the rsync mirror job yesterday. The results? At ~2.5MB/s, it took just over 8 hours to download …
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to wear a watch
I love wearing a nice watch. Years ago, I would only wear a digital watch in 24hr mode. Then I switched to using my cell phone. Now I prefer an analog watch with metal band, and no numbers (ie hour indicators) on the face. The one I wear now is a Pulsar with a silver …
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a public – or white-labelable – rfe service a la uservoice, but easier to use
I’ve seen some services that utilize uservoice to handle requests for features, functionality, etc. And I have seen companies have formal Request For Enhancement / Enhancement Request / etc processes (generally culminating from support cases (hopefully from good ones)). What I don’t see, though, is a way to either limit who can submit requests (uservoice, for example, …
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Daniel 8 (NASB)
{Daniel 7} In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar the king a vision appeared to me, Daniel, subsequent to the one which appeared to me previously. I looked in the vision, and while I was looking I was in the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam; and I looked …
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sending email in python with gmail
A {{Python}} nugget from {{Programming Your Home}} (review) I wanted to share from p97: import smtplib def send_email(subject, message) recipient = ‘your_email_recipient@domain.tld’ gmail_sender = ‘your_gmail_account@gmail.com’ gmail_password = ‘your_gmail_password’ #use tls gmail_smtp = smtplib.SMTP(‘smtp.gmail.com’, 587) gmail_smtp.ehlo() gmail_smtp.starttls() gmail_smtp.ehlo() #login gmail_smtp.login(gmail_send, gmail_password) #message formatting mail_header = ‘To: ‘ + recipient + ‘\n’ + ‘From: ‘ + gmail_sender …
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Daniel 7 (NASB)
{Daniel 6} In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as he lay on his bed; then he wrote the dream down and related the following summary of it. Daniel said, “I was looking in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of …
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how can a Christian tell if they are “called to the ministry”?
There is no shining light that will surround you like Jesus did to Saul on the way to Damascus. There is no envelope that will arrive by owl. There is something far simpler – there is Jesus’ own last command to His disciples: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go …
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master the art of timing – law 35 – #48laws by robert greene
Law 35 Never seem to be in a hurry – hurrying betrays a lack of control over yourself, and over time. Always seem patient, as if you know that everything will come to you eventually. Become a detective of the right moment; sniff out the spirit of the times, the trends will carry you to …
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setting-up etherpad in centos 6
To add to my tutorial collection, here’s how to setup EtherPad on CentOS 6 (x64). As in the IRC tutorial, I used a Digital Ocean VM for this 🙂 What is EtherPad? It’s an open-source collaborative text editor that works like Google Docs – ie, all editors/viewers can see changes from everyone else in realtime. …
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