Had a great update this afternoon – one document we were convinced was wrong for our dossier has been verified to be acceptable! Woohoo.
golly, batman
My wife posted recently about the excitement of compiling our dossier. Last night we found out we are two documents (and immigration approval) away from document authentication and translation. At that point, we are going to be in the queue awaiting a referral. Woot!
fruitful city planning
Lots of cities have grassy medians on roads with trees planted in them, or on the sides of streets, in parks, etc. Since the basic cost for planting a tree is more-or-less constant (at a given size), and the cost of differing types of trees tends to be similar at any given size, why do …
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automation
I have been deeply involved in data center management and automation for well over 5 years. Most companies still view automation the Wrong Way™, though – and it’s a hard mindset to change. Automation is NOT about reducing your headcount, or reducing hiring. Automation is used to: improve the efficiency of business tasks improve employee productivity reduce human …
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asking the wrong question
A recent question (“Is it possible to trace someone using Google during an online exam?“) on superuser had me thinking about asking the right question again. I want to design an online exam for over 1000 students via around 50 computers right after the vacation ends. Now the problem is that I have heard that …
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2 years
Two years ago, at about 1430 EDT, I married the girl of my dreams – I love you, Christina 🙂
the dimensions and approximate weight of the Ark of the Covenant
Quoting from a reliable source, the Ark was made of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Also, the depiction here is highly likely to be wrong, especially since the rings are said to be on the feet! It was 2.5 cubits long, 1.5 cubits wide and high. Above the chest was the Mercy Seat, upon which …
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credit cards
If you overpay a credit card, they should be required to pay you the interest they would charge on a balance. THAT would help the ratio of consumer debt to assets.
a new blog!
My wife and I have just started a new blog together, Growing in Faith and Family, to document the process of adoption which we have just started. We have chosen Ethiopia as our source country, and have begun the 15-20 month process (including wait time) to enlarge our family via adoption. We would be happy …
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the pros and cons of “gamification”
Slashdot has a post on gamification in the workplace today. One of the myriad replies was from a poster, gomoX, who was pushing his company’s gamified tech support tool (invgate.com/en/service-desk/gamification). I’m all for product placement and pushing when it’s relevant (and here it most certainly was), but I don’t like the general concepts in that …
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on twitter and the police
Dave Winer had an interesting take on the recent Twitter-NYPD flare-up. Personally, the thought of any government organization demanding records without a warrant is abhorrent. However, since the entire point of Twitter is to make your tweets public … then what is there to subpoena? They’re all out there – visible to the world… Unless the user …
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some great finds
Diagram.ly – it’s sorta like Visio, but free, and web-based. Meetings.io – like webex, including conference calling and file and screen sharing. Qama – a calculator that doesn’t give an answer until you provide a “reasonable” guess. Udacity – a free computer science program. Urbanchickens – dedicated to raising chickens in “non-traditional” environments (like cities).
a plea for simplification
There has been a massive over-complexification that has taken place in modern [Western] “Christianity” that needs to be seriously and radically addressed. All throughout the Bible, God is portrayed as a God of exactness, precision, detail, and immense variety. He is also portrayed as a God who is very simple – infinitely powerful, wise, knowledgeable, …
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digital preservation
I have been an active member on the Stack Exchange family of sites [nearly] since StackOverflow started a few years ago. Recently a new proposal has been made for Digital Preservation. Many of the proposed questions are interesting (including one of mine) – and I would strongly encourage anyone interested in the topic to check …
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tax day
Tax Day in the US is “late” this year because the 15th of April was a Sunday. I was able to prepare and file my taxes early-ish (January) thanks to a proactive employer who got our W2s out quickly. Every month I look at my pay stub, and am appalled at how much the various …
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automatically returning a host to the unprovisioned server pool in hpsa
In conjunction with the customized PXE process I wrote about previously, it could be highly desirable to be able to return a server to the unprovisioned server pool in HP’s Server Automation. This is a specifically-Linux procedure: though I’m sure something similar can be done with Windows*. run an ad-hoc script against a target server that …
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baggage
I see Allegiant Air is starting to come around. For several years, many airlines have had checked bag fees – but carry-ons are free. But it’s having carry-on bags that slows everyone down while inept and hapless travelers try to wedge their carry-on and “small personal item” into overhead bins, under the seat in front …
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gee, thanks red hat, amd, and vmware
At least the publicly-searchable knowledge base had something. I tried searching for “Kernel panic – not syncing: Fatal Exception” and “RIP” and “cpuid4_cache_lookup”. And wouldn’t you know it! There’s a known issue if you try to install RHEL >5.4 x64 on ESXi 4.x if it’s running on AMD 6000 series CPUs. Guess what – we’re …
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not enough cpus
I found an interesting reference that indicates that for x86, the maximum number of CPUs the Linux kernel can handle is 255. I’d presume that it’s the same for Windows. I’m curious – right now this is a rather large limit: but it won’t be for long! 16 core CPUs are available from AMD today. I …
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symlinks and nfs
I recently discovered an interesting “feature” of symbolic links in conjunction with NFS mounts: they don’t work! For example, let’s say you have the following NFS export: /media/files Inside of that export, you have the following path: /media/files/isos/osmedia/linux/ubuntu In *this* directory, you have a symlink called ‘current‘, which points to a different location: current -> …
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mounting a cd in an rhel6 vm
Most typically in the past, I have seen mounts for CDs in RHEL work thusly: mount /dev/hdc /mnt In RHEL6 you need to do the following: mount /dev/sr0 /mnt I’d really like to know why Red Hat made the change, but knowing is useful 🙂
vmware tools can be quietly installed
Came across this little gem recently: /path/to/vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl –default EULA_AGREED=yes That’s been a life saver a lot recently 🙂
bagel [thin] burgers
Several years ago I had the good fortune to have a burger paired with cream cheese on a rye bun. And a few years later I had a burger on a bagel. I’ve also enjoyed bagels on Arnold sandwich thins. Combining the best of both of these ideas, try bagel burgers (or on bagel thins) …
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unbiblicality in the church
Over the years, I have witnessed many many churches doing things and performing activities both at the church and outside the church that have left me questioning “where did that come from – biblically”? From “worship experiences” to children’s church, seeker-sensitivity to ministry breakdowns for every conceivable age group | demographic – the modern church (and, I suppose, …
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creamy, cheesy baked potatoes
I don’t like sour cream (not when I know it’s there, at least). However, I do like creamy baked potatoes. And I like cheesy baked potatoes. My solution? Cream cheese instead of sour cream! Directions: bake potato(es) to desired doneness split in “Wendy’s” fashion (perforate with a fork, and squeeze the ends perpendicular to the …
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