Email Forever
Posted by Eric Stein - December 21, 2007 CE @ 03:29:09 UTC
Dhirender Nirwani over at Wild Blue Skies has an interesting idea - that email may be on the way out due to the increase in messaging over social networks. I disagree - this is just another proof of Zawinski's Law:
Most platforms try to keep the user within them - and as long as everyone the platform's users wants to contact and interact with are within the walled garden, it can succeed. The problem social networks face if they aim to replace email is that there are so many, and most of them hold onto their status as a walled garden very dearly.
Facebook and Google are trying to make social networks a more open platform for interaction, but they have not gone anywhere near as far as the old standby, email. SMTP is one of the oldest protocols still in use on the Internet today - it was originally specified in RFC 788 way back in November 1981. Anyone can set up and completely control their own little piece of the email universe, which will interoperate with all the other email servers and services out there. Until social networks create something that makes this universal interoperability with no penalty a reality for their users, email will last.
To the comments...Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
Most platforms try to keep the user within them - and as long as everyone the platform's users wants to contact and interact with are within the walled garden, it can succeed. The problem social networks face if they aim to replace email is that there are so many, and most of them hold onto their status as a walled garden very dearly.
Facebook and Google are trying to make social networks a more open platform for interaction, but they have not gone anywhere near as far as the old standby, email. SMTP is one of the oldest protocols still in use on the Internet today - it was originally specified in RFC 788 way back in November 1981. Anyone can set up and completely control their own little piece of the email universe, which will interoperate with all the other email servers and services out there. Until social networks create something that makes this universal interoperability with no penalty a reality for their users, email will last.
64 bit linux flash on Gentoo
Posted by Eric Stein - November 26, 2007 CE @ 10:15:44 UTC
emerge netscape-flash nspluginwrapper
That is all.
Amarok now playing... to remote irssi.
Posted by Eric Stein - July 26, 2007 CE @ 19:10:27 UTC
I've got frustrated typing out now playing information in irssi when I'm using my laptop. Today I fixed the problem.
On the laptop:
On the server side, the script is very simple - all it has to do is cat the file into the current irc channel:
To the comments...On the laptop:
#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
while (true) {
system('echo "playing: `dcop amarok player artist` [`dcop amarok player album`] - `dcop amarok player title`"|ssh toba.ath.cx "cat > priv/playing.txt"');
echo "sent info...\n";
$c = array();
$t = array();
exec('dcop amarok player totalTime', $t);
exec('dcop amarok player currentTime', $c);
$c = explode(':', $c[0]);
$t = explode(':', $t[0]);
$w = intval($t[0]) * 60 + intval($t[1]) - intval($c[0]) * 60 - intval($c[1]) + 1;
echo "waiting " . $w . " seconds...\n";
sleep($w);
}
?>
How it works: get current playing information from Amarok, and write this to a file on my server. Ask Amarok how long the track is going to play for, wait until the next track will have just started. Rinse, repeat.<?php
while (true) {
system('echo "playing: `dcop amarok player artist` [`dcop amarok player album`] - `dcop amarok player title`"|ssh toba.ath.cx "cat > priv/playing.txt"');
echo "sent info...\n";
$c = array();
$t = array();
exec('dcop amarok player totalTime', $t);
exec('dcop amarok player currentTime', $c);
$c = explode(':', $c[0]);
$t = explode(':', $t[0]);
$w = intval($t[0]) * 60 + intval($t[1]) - intval($c[0]) * 60 - intval($c[1]) + 1;
echo "waiting " . $w . " seconds...\n";
sleep($w);
}
?>
On the server side, the script is very simple - all it has to do is cat the file into the current irc channel:
/alias m exec -o cat priv/playing.txt
It works like a charm:[15:10:06] <@Toba|BSD> playing: Duran Duran [Greatest] - Is There Something I Should Know?
Big 'ol pile of CIA documents
Posted by Eric Stein - June 27, 2007 CE @ 05:12:43 UTC
As everyone knows, the CIA isn't exactly the most pleasant agency of the US government. I've got here a nice big archive, about 12,000 pages, of declassified CIA documents.
For information about the Family Jewels files, check CNN.com.
Torrent it all!
To the comments...This collection of declassified analytic monographs and reference aids, designated within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directorate of Intelligence (DI) as the CAESAR, ESAU, and POLO series, highlights the CIA's efforts from the 1950s through the mid-1970s to pursue in-depth research on Soviet and Chinese internal politics and Sino-Soviet relations. The documents reflect the views of seasoned analysts who had followed closely their special areas of research and whose views were shaped in often heated debate.
For information about the Family Jewels files, check CNN.com.
Torrent it all!
Things that piss me off
Posted by Eric Stein - March 18, 2007 CE @ 23:45:38 UTC
- Morons who use human antibiotics which are increasingly the last line of defense against mutilple-resistant bacteria to make farm animals grow larger. As cannot be ignored, bacteria evolve to be more resistant when they are constantly deluged with one antibiotic in a re-infecting environment. For more information, visit http://www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/factsheets/antibiotics.asp
- People who don't finish blog posts
- I'll find something to put here
Why Adobe isn't one of the 'good guys'
Posted by Eric Stein - March 16, 2007 CE @ 18:13:08 UTC
Sometimes companies that have a facade of good deeds and practices will do things that nobody really likes... but most people won't notice. Slight little incompatibilities with the company's own published standards is a fun trick to compete unfairly with other software.
I think this stands for itself, from pdf2ps:
Why, Adobe, why?
To the comments...I think this stands for itself, from pdf2ps:
**** This file had errors that were repaired or ignored.
**** The file was produced by:
**** >>>> Acrobat Distiller 7.0.5 (Windows) <<<<
**** Please notify the author of the software that produced this
**** file that it does not conform to Adobe's published PDF
**** specification.
**** The file was produced by:
**** >>>> Acrobat Distiller 7.0.5 (Windows) <<<<
**** Please notify the author of the software that produced this
**** file that it does not conform to Adobe's published PDF
**** specification.
Why, Adobe, why?
Linux disk space
Posted by Eric Stein - March 2, 2007 CE @ 07:04:06 UTC
On my *nix boxes, I often find myself using df to check my free space. Unfortunately the Linux pseudo-filesystems such as /dev and /dev/shm clutter up the space with useless info. As usual, it took me a year to realize I could do something about it, so it wasn't until now that I wrote this shell script:
Using this script, you will see the same thing as the output of df -h, but showing only the filesystems that are 'real' (a device or file is mounted, not a kernel structure or network filesystems.
Much prettier, no?
#!/bin/sh
mount|egrep "^/"|cut -f3 -d' '|xargs df -h
mount|egrep "^/"|cut -f3 -d' '|xargs df -h
Using this script, you will see the same thing as the output of df -h, but showing only the filesystems that are 'real' (a device or file is mounted, not a kernel structure or network filesystems.
eastein@glamdring:/home/eastein$ ds
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda4 63G 29G 35G 46% /
/dev/sda3 7.7G 139M 7.6G 2% /tmp
/dev/hdc 150G 138G 12G 93% /home
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda4 63G 29G 35G 46% /
/dev/sda3 7.7G 139M 7.6G 2% /tmp
/dev/hdc 150G 138G 12G 93% /home
Much prettier, no?
Last Edited February 7, 2011 CE @ 06:51:32 UTC
To the comments...del.icio.us Firefox search hack
Posted by Eric Stein - February 22, 2007 CE @ 07:28:26 UTC
When I installed del.icio.us, I did it to replace the annoyingly 1995-style Firefox bookmarking system. Seriously, who wants to go through a slow and badly designed menu with 400 items in it when you can just type a tag in and get your results?
Anyways, all was well and good until I realized that 99% of the time when I do a del.icio.us search from the search box in Firefox, I want MY tags, not everyone's. You can't really configure the search thing to do that, though. So I did my own configuring. Here's how you can do the same!
Voila! You are now searching your own bookmarks, not Joe Schmo's.
To the comments...Anyways, all was well and good until I realized that 99% of the time when I do a del.icio.us search from the search box in Firefox, I want MY tags, not everyone's. You can't really configure the search thing to do that, though. So I did my own configuring. Here's how you can do the same!
- find your profile directory (on Linux, this will be ~/.mozilla/firefox/[something])
- enter the searchplugins directory
- open the delicious-tag.xml file in your favorite text editor
- make these lines look like this (obviously use YOUR username):
<SearchForm>http://del.icio.us/eastein/</SearchForm>
<os:Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://del.icio.us/eastein/{searchTerms}">
<os:Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://del.icio.us/eastein/{searchTerms}">
- save the file
- restart firefox
Voila! You are now searching your own bookmarks, not Joe Schmo's.
Dual core... it's a beautiful thing
Posted by Eric Stein - February 15, 2007 CE @ 16:49:21 UTC
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
30373 root 25 0 209m 186m 17m R 50 9.3 0:02.60 cc1plus
30379 root 25 0 123m 108m 10m R 50 5.4 0:01.50 cc1plus
30370 root 25 0 227m 204m 17m R 49 10.2 0:02.96 cc1plus
28130 eastein 35 10 114m 104m 1508 R 33 5.2 2:21.01 pisg
30373 root 25 0 209m 186m 17m R 50 9.3 0:02.60 cc1plus
30379 root 25 0 123m 108m 10m R 50 5.4 0:01.50 cc1plus
30370 root 25 0 227m 204m 17m R 49 10.2 0:02.96 cc1plus
28130 eastein 35 10 114m 104m 1508 R 33 5.2 2:21.01 pisg
I just thought I'd share how wonderful it is to see that in top.
RSS
Posted by Eric Stein - February 12, 2007 CE @ 07:41:31 UTC
For the last 2 months or so, I've been using an RSS reader (talk about getting on the bandwagon late, eh?). It's the best thing since sliced bread. I don't have to wander the web trying to remember that site I wanted to come back to sometime; I can check 40 websites for updates in under a minute.
I'd feel guilty about not having an rss feed on my own site if anyone actually read this blog. Right now I have no indication that anyone does, so I am not really stressing about it... but eventually (in all that free time I have) I'll be rewriting my site with a database backend and RSS and comments and maybe even a cure for cancer.
Until then, my nonexistent readership, bookmarks are your friend.
To the comments...I'd feel guilty about not having an rss feed on my own site if anyone actually read this blog. Right now I have no indication that anyone does, so I am not really stressing about it... but eventually (in all that free time I have) I'll be rewriting my site with a database backend and RSS and comments and maybe even a cure for cancer.
Until then, my nonexistent readership, bookmarks are your friend.
