michael's blog

How needlessly complicated can you make one thing?

From Wikipedia: "An esoteric programming language (sometimes shortened to esolang) is a programming language designed as a test of the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, or as a joke. There is usually no intention of the language being adopted for mainstream programming, although some esoteric features such as visuospatial syntax have inspired practical applications in the arts. Such languages are often popular among hackers and hobbyists. This use of esoteric is meant to distinguish these languages from more popular programming languages."

It basically is just saying that we sometime do stupid crap, "just 'cause." This is one of those times. If you ever read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you'll get this.

Nginx is one of those things that many people want to try but don't. Why? Because it's scary. Well... Nginx itself isn't scary, but all of the poor guides out there make it a nightmare. The first step in making Nginx work for you is to not follow 95% of the guides found on Google. That sounds backward from what you usually hear and I do hate giving that advice. While many of the guides out there will get you going most of the time in most situations, they tend to be suboptimal. Many of these configurations tend to focus on reproducing how Apache does things.

Understanging who you are is an integral part of understaning where you have been and where you are likely to go. How much do you really understand who you are? After some recent events, I decided that I really need to take a look at who I really am.

It's always great to have the latest and greatest gadget. That new netbook is so small and everyone else has it. The Droid does so many cool things, even SSH. I deserve to have all of this cool stuff.

I'm getting rather annoyed with is attitude. Sure, I really want a Droid. They are really amazing. My fiancée no doubt gets tired of hearing me talk about things I'd like to have. However, I would only 'like' to have these. I'm not one to go on and say I 'need' or 'deserve' them. When I talk about them, I'm describing what I would probably do with unlimited money.

"See that no one repays another evil for evil."
[ I Thessalonians 5:15 ]

This is so easy to understand. It just says that if someone does an evil act, don't react with yet more evil.

Let's break it down though. How ofter have you been angered in IRC, on the phone with technical support, or elsewhere. You feel they're just being morons and you want to punch them. It happens to me a lot.

This is probably an odd concept. Maybe I'm alone. I really hope not.

I've found that online it seems many people announce themselves as Agnostic or Athiest. I used to be in that group. After meeting my girlfirend (soon to be wife) over four years ago, I started to attend church. Although I had very little religion in me, I chose to attend with an open mind.

With my mind open, I learned a great many things that opened my mind even further. Most noteably, I learned how to better manage my life. I also learned how those management techniques can help me get better with technology.

So are lawyers the worst thing in the world? Do they really not stick their hands in their own pockets until it's 40 below freezing? I've heard a lot of bad about lawyers and that's all I've had to go on for the longest time. I'm really not so convinced anymore.

OK! We all know Nginx is amazing and extremely light. I've been having the need lately to quickly get the IP address of a location. There's "whatismyip.com" but that's an ugly bloat. Look at how much you download to just get a small string of numbers.

To get around this a lot of people run their own website that displays the IP address. This is usually done by passing the connection from Apache to HTTP which has code similar to the following in it.

<?php
        print(getenv(REMOTE_ADDR));
?>

Every six months these articles become popular. I've been using Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) for a few months now and I thought I'd share what I thought.

For most users

Step 1:
Install Ubuntu 10.10

Step 2:
Install the little extras you might want, such as Thunderbird, Galeon, etc.

Step 3:
Enjoy!

For cli users

Step 3:

apt-get install aptitude
aptitude purge vim-tiny
aptitude install vim

Step 4:
Enjoy!

For psychotic users like me

Step 1:
Grab Alternate CD

We tech geeks start early. I programmed my first VCR at five years old. Many of my buddies dang near wrote their first C program before leaving the womb. I just referred to people I've never met as buddies.

I'm one of the tech types that never really spent much time socializing. My parents divorced when I was about 10 if I can recall correctly. What did this do to me? I could lie and say not much.