Archive for June, 2007
…an unscientific survey on a keyboard with failing keys.
This one’s for Amy, but also anyone else who might be searching for this. There might be a few of you. I simply searched for “the key to happiness”, and these were the top nine most relevant and occasionally poignant results. In the order that I found ‘em:
- Remember that “You Deserve Happiness”
- You choose to be happy
- Consistently write down things you are grateful for and perform acts of kindness
- Learn to control your mind
- Do what you enjoy and enjoy what you do
- Gratitude
- Low expectations (as Alexander Pope put it, “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he is seldom disappointed.”)
- Visualization
- A sense of achievement coupled with the avoidance of instant gratification
I think they mostly speak for themselves. I mostly ascribe to the “expect little but hope for the best” school of thought, but I’m a born optimist. My advice ain’t gonna help you. I’ll throw a couple of more quotes out there on the subject, courtesy of the band Grandaddy (not to be confused with my own Grandaddy, who turns ninety soon(!)).
“I’ll paint the words ‘a simple wish for peace of mind and happiness’”. (El Caminos in the West)
“It’s happiness that matters anyway.” (Sarah 5646766)
June 26th, 2007
Getting let go from a job is like finding out you have a terminal disease, it turns out. You have a set amount of time to get your affairs in order, scrub the detritus from your company issued computer, burn all of your potentially non-disclosure-breaking files, and get a swift kick out the door to the great unemployment line in the sky.
Mixing metaphors is also fun. Next: the plunderathon! Yarrrrrr….
June 20th, 2007
Via my friend KK:
June 15th, 2007
The problem is thus: you’re using anything but Windows, and you need to access data from a Windows server; this means you’re probably dealing with MS SQL Server of one form or another. (If you’re lucky it’s something like MySQL, and then it’s painfully simple, but these things are never simple.)
The ultimate goal, in my case, was to bring the data from MS SQL Server over to my web application, running in PHP. Although I’ve struggled with the specifics in the past, the solution really isn’t so bad. What you need:
- ODBC connector setup on the MS SQL Server side, and remote access enabled; I’m by no means an expert here, so I’ll avoid the detail here where Google could server you better.
- FreeTDS installed. “…a set of libraries for Unix and Linux that allows your programs to natively talk to Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase databases.”
There are two configuration files you need to worry about for FreeTDS, and by default these are both in /usr/local/etc/: odbc.ini and freetds.conf.
freetds.conf: For this, you have to create your own section for the particular server, but any options that you don’t include will come from the [global] section’s defaults, and these seem to work just fine. In my own example, the only things I needed to set up were like so:
[Xirtam]
host = 172.30.80.42
port = 1433
nt domain = ZEE
The options there should be fairly self-explanatory.
odbc.ini: Here, you first define your server in the top section, [ODBC Data Sources], with an optional description, i.e. “Xirtam=MS SQL Server 2005 connection”. Then, in a section below, you define the gritty detail:
[Xirtam]
Driver=/usr/local/lib/libtdsodbc.so.0
Description=FreeTDS Connection
Trace=No
Servername=Xirtam
UID=administrator
Port=1433
The item identified in brackets above, “Xirtam” is the DSN. This is used in the final connection code, which you could test with isql or some other tool, or just jump straight to the PHP connection code:
$connect = odbc_connect($DSN, $user, $pass);
$result = odbc_exec($connect, "USE databaseOfDoom");
The rest is left as an exercise to the reader.
June 10th, 2007
Rant, Chuck Palahniuk.
Palahniuk definitely has a penchant for some graphic and graphically disturbing writing– not unlike a Paul Verhoeven of print. Rant is no exception. It explores familiar themes (for this author) of megalomania, urban distrust and unrest, and the dual beauty and grotesqueness of the life as a human, through spider bites, car wrecks and a touch of the fantastic. As you read this book, you will learn new things, about disease, about psychology, about cars, and about the nature of time itself.
They say magic happens at borders– at bayshores, in doorways, in the twilight hours…
Rant was an enjoyable read for me, more engrossing than his last full novel, Diary, and just ultimately an interesting story.
After Dark, Haruki Murakami
A solid and swift entry by a great writer, who often uses shades of fantasy to color his deeply introspective novels. One might liken a Murakami work such as Hard-Boiled Wonderland to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, in that respect. Nothing quite so grand here in After Dark, but it is a modest, thoughtful, and interesting read.
Dr. Strange: The Oath
I don’t get down to the comic store as often as I used to, but when I was younger, the character of Dr. Strange always allured me. “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” on the Wii? Yeah, that’s Doc on my team.(Northwest Avengers Assemble!) I almost picked up these comics individually, but I was glad to see that they put the story in one graphic novel, because the they didn’t have issue #1.
The Oath is just awesome. It is just clichéd enough to be the Dr. Strange you love, even to the verge of self-mockery at parts, but the story is novel and engrossing, with characterization built off of more than repeated one-liners. If you were ever a fan, pick this one up.
June 7th, 2007
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