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Ronkonkoma History

Ξ January 27th, 2012 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

Legend of the Lake:

NBA - Digital Whistles

Ξ January 27th, 2012 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

I just learned that the ref’s in the MBA use digital whistles that are linked to the score board.

NBA Technology

Been Coding

Ξ January 26th, 2012 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

I’ve been hammering away at some code. I decided to use the IRC server as a message bus for server monitoring. I’m using the standard EFnet IRC server ircd-ratbox written in C as a bus, then writing clients in Java that act as nodes and as controllers. Nodes being a standard machine on the network, and controllers as gathering info and publishing.

Anywho, it’ll take me a few more weeks before I can pop it onto sourceForge. I’ve been thinking of calling it IRCmon, but I’m not sure yet.

I finally did it.

Ξ January 26th, 2012 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

I knew it would happen sooner or later .. but today (just now actually) I’ve reached the end of the Internet. http://blackacrebrewing.com/hey.swf

New Years Day 2012

Ξ January 2nd, 2012 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

New Years Day is a great time to reflect on the year behind and to make resolutions for the year ahead. 2011 was a good year for me. Work was exceptional, I took some time off of school and vacationed in some interesting places. We recently stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Punta Cana and had a really great time. We’re already planning several more trips back. In 2011 I slaked off at the gym a bit. I’m still wearing the same size clothing, but for 2012 I’m planning on making much more frequent and regular visits to the gym. I’ve always liked working out and I miss it. For 2012, it’s also time to get more serious about my diet. Holiday season aside, I was actually eating better in 2011 then I had been, but it still wasn’t enough. I’m going to have to start making some serious changes to my diet. The folks on http://www.reddit.com/r/loseit have inspired me.

School - I’ll be taking Parallel and Distributed Computing. I’m looking forward to this one. It’s basically focusing on software development in Cloud and Grid infrastructures. Over the summer I’m hoping to take at least one Math refresher course. I’ll be trying to spend 2012 preping for the MS in Applied Mathematics program at CUNY.

Vacations - I’m interested in spending a little time on the Mexican Riviera, particularly this place:http://www.palaceresorts.com/aventuraspa/. We’re in negotiations for selecting other destinations in 2012. Last year we decided to travel a bit more often.

Leisure Time - For 2012 i’m hoping to do a bit more fishing and hiking. I’ve been toying with the idea of taking up surf casting (any excuse to hang out at the water). I’d like to see a few more of the state and county parks out here, and possibly convince a few family members to come out and explore a bit with us.

Projects - I’m starting an opensource project off the ground this winter. It should be in full swing by spring. Details to follow.

Day After Christmas

Ξ December 26th, 2011 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

Christmas is my holiday. I get all giddy around the holidays. I love looking at the lights, and remembering the magic that Christmas held for me when I was a kid. As an adult I love tracking Santa’s journey on the NORAD website (http://www.noradsanta.org). The day after is kind of a downer for me. I can’t wait till next year!

Scientific Linux

Ξ December 17th, 2011 | → 0 Comments | ∇ GeekSpeak |

I decided to move off of Fedora Linux to Scientific Linux at home for a few reasons.

- I just can’t keep up with the 6 month development life cycle. Every 6 months a new version comes out

- Scientific Linux is very close to the commercial version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux

- Scientific Linux is maintained by CERN and Fermilab, check out the history: https://www.scientificlinux.org/about/history.long

To make the transition easier, I wrote up a guide/script to install all the cool things I like on a Linux Distribution after it’s installed: http://biff.freeshell.org/personal_scientific_linux_install.html

Screen / Byobu

Ξ November 13th, 2011 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog, GeekSpeak |

Screen is one of those UNIX utilities that I’ve sort of overlooked in the past. Yea, I’ve known about it, but I’ve stupidly neglected to use it until recently. If you’re not familiar with it, some of the finer points are:
1- lets you disconnect from a terminal, and then reconnect to it later. Say you’re at work and you kick off a program that is going to run for several hours. You can disconnect from the terminal, and from home, log in and reconnect to see the progress of the program is going,

2- lets multiple users join a terminal session,

3- allows you to move from session to session on a single terminal. I can have numerous shell sessions open and switch back and forth between them. Sure, you can do that with gnome-terminal, but you can do it with screen also.

4- you can split the screen into multiple sessions. At work I have my terminal set up to split into three sections the first 5 lines I use to monitor an application, the next 5 lines I use to tail syslog and the rest of the screen I use to do my work

GNU Screen.

Byobu is an enhancement to GNU Screen. They work together.

Byobu.
instead of running “screen” at the command line you would run “byobu”. This would reference your screen settings and apply some customizations, better key bindings, and a snazzy menu (F9) to make some of the configuration easier.

Auto-tune

Ξ November 13th, 2011 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

I may have written about auto-tune in the past, but its one of those things that drive me bat shit crazy. How can a singer be a singer if (s)he needs a software product to keep him/her in tune? That’s your flippin’ job .. to sing. If you can’t do that right, how are you a singer? Time did an article on the product called Auto-Tune: Why Pop Music Sounds Perfect. It’s about the missing “grit” of a singer when he or she is belting out a few notes. Just listen to Janis Joplin. Auto-tunes would have stomped all over this.

And what about singers who can actually really sing? Check out Freddie Mercury:

That guy didn’t need any stinkin’ auto-tune. Auto-tune makes a listener think that someone with a mediocre voice is actually as great as Freddie or a Frank Sinatra. It’s crap.

Hudson - Against the Grain

Ξ November 13th, 2011 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog, Music |

Hudson - Against The Grain from Dropbear on Vimeo.