My lame scriptlet to create thumbnails
for i in *.JPG; do cp $i thumb_$i; mogrify -resize 25% thumb_$i; done; mkdir Large; mv *.JPG Large
« June 2004 | Main | August 2004 »
for i in *.JPG; do cp $i thumb_$i; mogrify -resize 25% thumb_$i; done; mkdir Large; mv *.JPG Large
When playing back a recording, hit the following buttons on your remote, one at a time:
Select
Play
Select
3
0
Select
I just found out that there is a nice gui frontend to GNU parted. It is called qtparted.
From the EFF:
Join the Television Liberation Digital Front!
Today, you can use any device you like with your television: VCR, TiVo, DVD recorder, home theater receiver, or a PC combining these functions and more. A year from now, when the FCC's broadcast flag mandate [PDF] takes effect, some of those capabilities will be forbidden.
and also:
Here's where you can help. The folks at www.pcHDTV.com make an HD-capable (ATSC) tuner card with Linux drivers. The MythTV project has built a terrific personal video recorder (PVR) platform that gives a GNU/Linux PC features like TiVo's pause live TV and "season pass" recording. These are great for geeks, and we're looking for volunteers to help make the combination more accessible to the general public.
Here is another iteration of the recently ubiquitous Bottle cap tripod.
To use the ipconfig utility, go to the Start button, then select Run to open the window show below. Type
command
into the Open dialog box, as shown, and press OK or Run (varies depending up Window version).
An MS-DOS (Command) Prompt should open (below). At the dos ">" prompt, enter:
ipconfig /all
and press enter key.
A neat tool to foil spammers trawling your page for an email address.
The LA Times reports
that guidelines for acceptable cholesterol for high and moderate risk patients are changing.
Instead of receiving treatment only if their "bad," or LDL, cholesterol levels are 130 milligrams per deciliter or higher, they should be given the drugs at 100 or above, a panel of experts recommends.
In addition, the committee suggested a new treatment option for patients at especially high risk of having a heart attack within the next 10 years — reducing their cholesterol levels of LDL, or low-density lipoprotein, to less than 70 milligrams per deciliter.
An Irc Primer
I watched a show on MTV the other day. This in and of itself is a rarity. The show was called "True Life". It was informative and heartbreaking. I especially felt for Amy who during the course of the show underwent bariatric surgery. She also suffered from Lymphedema. The other two people profiled were interesting, but Amy was riveting. I know that obesity is seen as someones fault, but that is not always the case. In my case, I am overweight. I weight 220 and I am six feet tall. I have lost 45 pounds since my heaviest weight. I have lost it over the course of two years through exercise and changing how I eat. I just decided to eat more healthfully. I was lucky that I decided to own my obesity.
I think that no change Amy made would have helped. Medical issues would have precluded the weight loss she needed. I think some people get gastric bypass for all the wrong reasons, and without the commitment needed. I have a relative who had it done, and after initially losing weight he gained almost all of it back. GBP is not a quick fix and the results are guartanteed. Also, as Amy and the MTV special note, it is dangerous.
Best of luck in your journey Amy.
Advice I gave a friend:
They will give you free soft drinks (including bottled water) during the flight but I alway bring a bottle of water. I usually bring a bag lunch on the flight if there isn't lunch service (or breakfast depending on the time). Sometimes you can buy food on the flight. She can bring on a carry on bag and a purse. The carry on will need to fit in the overhead bin. The room in the overhead bins is limited so she will need to get on quickly if she want to use them (assuming the flight is full). Otherwise, her carry on will have to fit under the seat in front of her. If she can get away with just the carry on then she won't have to wait at baggage claim on the other end. I would make copies of my license and credit cards and keep them somewhere separate from a wallet or purse (like in baggage). That way if you lose them on the trip you have the information you need to get them replaced. The copy of the license and a police report would be enough to get back on the plane for the return trip.
Don't lock checked bags. The TSA will cut them off. There are TSA approved locks you can use, but I have heard of cases of those being cut off as well.
She can check in, confirm her seat, and print her boarding pass on line within 24 hours of her flight. That is a very good thing to do. Then all she will have to do is check her baggage (which she can do curbside) and then go to the gate. With the credit card used to buy the ticket, or the frequent flier card you can check in at the airport and print your own boarding pass. This saves time. If you don't have your frequent flier card, but you have the number you can type that in.
As far as going through security:
1. Wear shoes with no metal in them.
2. Wear shoes that slip off easily.
3. Everything else will have to go through the x-ray.
4. I would have the first person go through and be waiting on the other side before I put anything of value (like purses or laptops) on the conveyor belts to the x-ray machines. There have been problems with people putting stuff through and having it stolen before they clear through the metal detector. Usually it is laptops that are targeted, but I would watch anything.
The lines for security can run up to 2 hours at prime time. Prime time is usually 8am to 11am
Just saving this for my own records. The subject is diets.
Message: 7
Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 09:41:40 -0700
From: "Erik Peterson"
Subject: Low-Carb Diets
I've been hesitant to make a post like this, because a lot of people were
posting with very nice things to say about low carb diets, and I didn't want
to seem contradictory or argumentative. However, now that AB has posted and
changed the tone a little, I want to go ahead and do this. Please realize
that I'm not argueing with the people who've had good results with these
diets--I just want to voice the other side.
Here's way more than any of you probably wanted to hear about it.
Everything you eat is made up of five things. Proteins, carbs, fat, fiber,
and water.
Every gram of protein you eat contains 4 calories.
Every gram of carbohydrates you eat contains 4 calories.
Every gram of fat you eat contains 9 calories.
Fiber and water contain no calories.
If you eat more calories than you burn, you're going to gain weight. If you
eat fewer calories than you burn you're going to lose weight. Despite all
the different kinds of "trick" diets, "special" diets, whatever, this is the
basic formula for weight loss.
That's it. More = store, less = lose. It's that simple. It's science.
Okay, so if that's the case, you're left with two requirements if you want
to lose weight: You need to burn more calories, and consume less calories.
Naturally, the best way to burn more calories is by exercising. Not only do
you burn the calories you expend while you exercise, but if you get your
heart rate up to aerobic levels for twenty minutes a day, you can increase
your body's base metabolic rate for hours afterwards. So you'll burn a ton
of calories.
Weight training is also good. Not only is it good exercise, but if your body
has more muscle, you will burn more calories every day just by having it.
Muscle is high-maintenance tissue, and calories have to be burned just to
keep it going. Fat just sits there, requiring no maintenance at all.
You can also burn more calories based on what you eat. For example, if you
drink eight glasses of ice-cold water a day, your body will have to burn
calories to warm that water up to 98.6 degrees. You burn enough calories to
lose a pound of fat in two weeks that way.
Also, eating fiber can increase your metabolism. Fiber contains no calories,
yet requires energy to process. Hence some foods have "negative calories,"
like celery and other greens.
Or, eating multiple times throughout the day can keep your body in a
constant state of digestion. This digestion burns calories. But if you're
not eating a lot, it won't "weigh you down."
Some diets take this to an extreme, though, trying to regulate the entire
metabolic system entirely through food, without requiring exercise.
The Atkins plan is based on the idea that by eliminating carbs, your body
has to expend more energy in order to convert protein and fat into a
"carb-like" state, so it can use them for energy.
Does this work?
Well, if you eat one gram of carbs, there are only four calories. A gram of
fat has nine calories. So it will be harder to eat "less" calories of
something that contains nearly double the calories per gram.
Dr. Atkins will point out, though, that part of that nine calories will be
burned up just to get that fat you ate into a useful state.
This is true. However, it's only true if the fat calories get burned the
minute you eat them. If they don't, and the fat gets stored, all nine
calories get planted directly on your waist. It takes no energy to store fat
as fat.
On the other hand, while the carb calories do not require calories to be
made useful for energy, it does require calories to convert the carbs into
fat. So if you've had a little too much, not all four grams of carbs will
see their way to your waist.
Anyways, here's the big caveat--not all weight loss is good. Just because
pounds went away, doesn't mean you lost fat. You can lose water weight, you
can lose muscle, and you can lose fat. Really, the only one you're worried
about is fat. If the weight you're losing is muscle, that's actually bad.
And there lies the problem--fat is actually the hardest one to get your body
to burn. Right now, today, if you started starving yourself, your body is
not going to start using fat for nourishment. It's not.
If your body thinks you're starving, it's going to hold on to your fat like
mad, because it doesn't know how long this "famine" is going to last.
When your metabolism goes into Emergency Mode, it does everything it can to
avoid burning your fat. It generally plunders your muscles and the sugars
stored in your muscles first. So while the pounds DO come off, you're losing
muscle, not fat. And since pounds of muscle take up considerably less space
than pounds of fat, you're not going to get any smaller around the middle.
This "Emergency Mode Metabolism" is called Ketosis, and it's the direct
result of not having enough carbohydrates. For years, athletes used the same
"Ketostix" that Atkins dieters now use, but for the reverse purpose--in
order to AVOID Ketosis, because they knew it for what it was--not the time
when your body becomes a "fat burning furnace" but the time when your body
most stubbornly starts holding on to fat, and cannibalizing muscle.
Now, if you persist in a state of ketosis long enough (and you'll know when
you're in it, because, among other things, your breath will be unbearable)
your body WILL be forced to start burning the fat. And the inches will start
to come off behind the pounds. You'll think things are great.
But the problem is, your body is coming at your fat cells with a starvation
mentality. It doesn't know when it will see carbs again, and so it is still
yielding up the fat reluctantly. It's slowing down your metabolism, so that
you burn fewer calories a day, so it can tenaciously cling to as much of
that fat as it can.
But the worst comes when you end the diet. Because as far as your body is
concerned, you have just come away from a period of famine. And as far as
your body is concerned, another famine may strike again at any moment.
Consequently, it will vigorously begin to store as much food as it possibly
can as fat, saving up for the winter, so to speak. And you will actually
gain more weight than before the diet, because now your metabolism is
running slower, as I mentioned, and your body has less muscle on it, which
means it burns fewer calories to maintain the muscle.
The sad truth is that your body just doesn't want to give up fat easily. The
most fat you can hope to lose is 1-3 pounds a week. If you're losing more
weight than that, you're not losing fat. You're losing water and muscle.
A good, healthy diet should look something like this:
Exercise every day. Weight train a few times a week.
Eat small portions throughout the day. Either eat six small meals, or three
reasonable meals and have three small healthy snacks.
Eat unprocessed foods. In other words, foods that are as close to their
natural state as possible (A twinky, for example, is not found in nature).
Have some of each of the five things at each meal. (Protein, Carbs, Fat,
Fiber, Water.) Despite the Atkins people, your body really does need more
Carbs than protein.
What will happen? At first, you won't lose as muchweight. But you will lose
inches. Your clothes will fit better. This is because you'll be gaining
muscle as you lose fat. The muscle is denser, so you have the same number of
pounds in less space.
(Notice that this is the opposite of the Ketosis plan, where the pounds come
off before the inches. This time, the right weight is being lost.)
Then, pounds will follow. As you have a greater amount of muscle, your base
metabolic rate will increase, and you'll be burning more calories just
standing around.
Because you're constantly providing nutrients to your body, it won't feel as
obligated to store the fat as tenaciously. And since you're constantly
digesting, even that will burn more calories.
And then your body really will be a metabolic furnance. You really will be
burning more calories. At a relaxed, safe, calm pace. The same gradual
process that you took when you put the wieght on.
Since is the Good Eats forum, I don't hesitate to tell you that, rather than
a scale, you may want to break out a tape measure to track your diet's
progress. A good rule of thumb is 1 inch off the waist = 4 pounds lost of
fat. If pounds are coming off but inches aren't, you're losing muscle, not
fat, and you need to up your carb intake.
The good news is that the reverse is true as well--if the inches are coming
off, but the pounds aren't, relax. Your weightlifting is paying off.
You're gaining muscle at about the same rate you're losing fat. Your weight
may be the same, but your state of health definetly isn't.
__________________________________________
Now I know some of the hard-core Atkins folks out there are saying, "What
about the insulin response?"
See, when you OD on carbs, your body produces Insulin, a fat-storage
trigger. This is because the carbs get converted into sugar which goes into
your bloodstream, and your body wants to get your bloodsugar down. Hence
the insulin tells it to cart off some of that sugar and store it, to get it
out of the way.
Atkins says that by avoiding carbs, you're avoiding the insulin response.
No insulin = no fat storage, right?
Sort of. What Atkins doesn't tell you is two fold.
1. You need carbs. You just do. You need them for energy, you need them
to feel good, your brain needs them to think. So the logic of this is like
the logic of telling someone that since that crud in their car engine that's
slowing down performance is oil buildup, they shouldn't put oil in their
car.
2. There are other ways to limit the insulin response. If you mix the
carbs, either with fiber or with protien or with both (as is preferable) you
reduce the insulin response without elimating the carbs altogether. Since
the rate at which the carbs get absorbed is slowed down, your bloodsugar
doesn't spike as much, and you're okay.
___________________________________________
Also, as those of you who have nosed around looking for high-fructose corn
syrup have discovered, most sodas and juices are included. It's a good idea
for a dieter to avoid all liquid calories. They do contribute to your total
calories, and your body tends not to notice them (As in, they did a study
where they gave people 100 extra calories of juice of and 100 extra calories
of jelly beans a day, and they found that while the people who ate the jelly
beans adjusted what they ate the rest of the day almost subconciously to
compensate, the people who drank the juice did not).
Instead, drink lots and lots of water. At least 8-12 glasses a day.
___________________________________________
Another note: Some of this varies depending on how overweight you are, and
how old you are. Believe it or not, the more overweight you are, the easier
it is to lose weight. Your body will actually increase its base metabolic
rate as you gain significant weight because it really doesn't want to be
that big. So someone who is seriously overweight will experience better
results with ANY diet than someone who is simply trying to lose 10 to 15
"vanity pounds."
Also, the older you get, the more your basal metabolic rate slows down. So
somebody in their thirties is naturally going to get different results than
somebody in their fourties.
_________________________________________
So what's the cliff notes version, for those who skipped past this message
in the digest?
The basis of the Atkins diet--that Ketosis is good--flies in the face of
what most dieticians and physicians believe about eating. Most of us feel
Ketosis is bad.
Losing weight too quickly, and the wrong way, is actually programming your
body to become a fat storage machine.
And use the tape measure as much as you use the scale.
__________________________________________
If you read all of this, you are awesome.
Doc Magik
Checking `lkm'... You have 41 process hidden for readdir command
You have 41 process hidden for ps command
Warning: Possible LKM Trojan installed
./chkrootkit -x lkm
http://lists.samba.org/archive/linux/2004-March/010320.html
http://linux.cvf.net/installing_chkrootkit.html
There are some know false positives in chkrookit [1] and given the way it checks for some of the rookits it's bound to fail sometimes, also notice
that there are know issues with the latest kernel (2.6) and glibc (some processes will not show up no matter what). Also, nautilus and
mozilla-firebird seem to cause these false positives (as reported in bug #222179)
From hp.com
In HP-UX releases prior to HP-UX 11i v2 (B.11.23), the maxusers tunable was used to calculate the default values of nclist, nfile, and ninode, all of which control kernel data structures that determine the system resource allocation.
In HP-UX 11i v2 (B.11.23), however, no tunables depend on maxusers. All tunables that used to depend on it for default values have now been assigned individual numerical defaults. If you still have some need of maxusers it is possible to create user defined tunables using kctune -u. This tunable can then be used in formulas defining other tunables
From Linux tips"
When you boot Linux, the kernel turns off Num Lock by default. This isn't a problem if, for you, the numeric keypad is the no-man's-land between the cursor keys and the mouse. But if you're an accountant, or setting up a system for an accountant, you probably don't want to turn it on every single time.
Here's the easy way, if you're using KDE. Go to K --> Preferences --> Peripherals --> Keyboard and select the Advanced tab. Select the radio button of your choice under NumLock on KDE startup and click OK.
If you only run KDE and want Num Lock on when you start a KDE session, you're done.
Num Lock (.Xmodmap)
When you boot Linux, the kernel turns off Num Lock by default. This isn't a problem if, for you, the numeric keypad is the no-man's-land between the cursor keys and the mouse. But if you're an accountant, or setting up a system for an accountant, you probably don't want to turn it on every single time.
Here's the easy way, if you're using KDE. Go to K --> Preferences --> Peripherals --> Keyboard and select the Advanced tab. Select the radio button of your choice under NumLock on KDE startup and click OK.
If you only run KDE and want Num Lock on when you start a KDE session, you're done. Otherwise, read on.
To set Num Lock on in a virtual console, use:
setleds +num
If you choose to put this in a .bashrc file to set Num Lock when you log in, make it:
setleds +num &> /dev/null
to suppress the error message you'll get if you try it in an xterm or over an SSH connection.
Finally, here's the way to hit this problem with a big hammer--make the numeric keypad always work as a numeric keypad in X, no matter what Num Lock says. This will make them never work as cursor keys, but you're fine with that because you have cursor keys, right? Create a file called .Xmodmap in your home directory, and insert these lines:
keycode 79=7
keycode 80=8
keycode 81=9
keycode 83=4
keycode 84=5
keycode 85=6
keycode 86=plus
keycode 87=1
keycode 88=2
keycode 89=3
keycode 90=0
keycode 91=period
keycode 77=Escape
(from a Usenet post by Yvan Loranger:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=3BFD087F.2000300%40iquebec.com&rnum=3+)
The last line takes the now-useless Num Lock key and makes it an extra Escape key. If your favorite accounting software uses one of the F keys frequently, you might prefer that.
The number to the left of the equals sign is an X "keycode", the key on the keyboard you pressed, and the number or name to the right is an X "keysym", the character or function X thinks it is. You don't have to look these up in some X manual. To find out the keycode and keysym for any key, run xev in an xterm, move the mouse to the small white xev window and watch the keycodes and keysyms scroll by in the xterm.
http://ext2resize.sourceforge.net/
http://linux.msede.com/ext2/
and of course resize2fs
You can use vnc server if you're hosting a web conference or training class. Just tell the attendees to point their windows web browsers to http://hostname:5801
You can do -g 80% Rather than a specific geometry, it will just fill 80% of your screen.
The Observer discusses a recent study about "Poaching". This is the practice of stealing a partner from a committed relationship. Anyone easily led astray is not a good mate. Go figure.
Run from them.
The Seatle P-I has a tale of woe regarding Bariatric surgery
I understand how this can happen. I wonder if people going into these surgeries are naive, or if it is just impossible to guess the results. It seems like an extreme and dangerous surgery.
From the Washington Post
Bill Cosby delivered another tirade against the black community Thursday, telling a room full of activists that black children are running around not knowing how to read or write and "going nowhere."
He also had harsh words for struggling black men, telling them: "Stop beating up your women because you can't find a job.".
Other quotes:
"Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other [racial epithets] as they're walking up and down the street," Cosby said during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's annual conference.
"They think they're hip," the entertainer said. "They can't read; they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."
And finally:
"For me there is a time . . . when we have to turn the mirror around," he said. "Because for me it is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us. And it keeps a person frozen in their seat, it keeps you frozen in your hole you're sitting in."
He also chastised black men who missed out on opportunities and are now angry about their lives.
"You've got to stop beating up your women because you can't find a job, because you didn't want to get an education and now you're [earning] minimum wage," Cosby said.
He is making some people very nervous. I applaud him though. I must be hard to say. There are many legitimate areas of complaint about racism in this country, but it is also used as an excuse for a lot of people. At some point you have to give it 100% and try to rise above it. The key to this is education. Without that nothing else can follow. I understand where the anti-education subculture in the black community comes from. I know that some of it is a vestige of slavery, and also not wanting to be seen as selling out to THE MAN. It will take Cosby and many others standing up to change this.
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Will Durant (1885 - 1981)
"The great aim of education is not knowledge but action."
(Herbert Spencer)
"What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul."
(Joseph Addison)
I ran across a nice screen tutorial the other day. You can't beat screen for great session manager for terminal environments.
Excerpt:
If you have multiple screen sessions running and try to re-attach, you'll get something like this:
cm@square:~$ screen -r
There are several suitable screens on:
1699.pts-6.square (Detached)
20133.pts-23.square (Detached)
Type "screen [-d] -r [pid.]tty.host" to resume one of them.
cm@square:~$
As the message indicates, you can pick which one to re-attach by the PID (process id, 1699 or 20133 here), or the TTY (here that would be pts-6 and pts-23). So I could do...
screen -r pts-6
or
screen -r pts-23
or
screen -r 1699
or
screen -r 20133
to pick which session to re-attach to. If a session is already attached somewhere else, you can remotely detach it with:
screen -d
or
screen -d -r
to detach remotely and then reattach. Normally if you try to attach to a screen session that is already attached without detaching it first, it will tell you that it's already attached...
cm@square:~$ screen -r pts-23
There is a screen on:
20133.pts-23.square (Attached)
There is no screen to be resumed matching pts-23.
cm@square:~$
However, if you'd like, you can actually share a screened session without detaching it using:
screen -x
which will attach to an already attached screen. This actually lets people share a screen session. I find it useful for helping people remotely, so they can see exactly what I'm doing and I can see exactly what they're doing.