Kharaku.com

Recently I was discussing with a Russian friend about cars.  Specifically we were discussing the prevailing American attitude that upon one’s 16th birthday one is entitled to a car.  My friend had been exposed to this through films, and MTV.  (She did marvel at the spoiled arrogance of the folks featured on shows like “My Super Sweet 16″.  Luckily the last time I watched MTV, which was about 2 years ago, I did see a few episodes of this repulsive program or I’d have been less able to understand my friends thoughts.)

All this said I didn’t get a car at age 16, I got one around 17 (Thankfully my Dad traded a beat up White Dodge Omni with a blown engine for a Pontiac Fiero).

By 1997 your average Fiero was worth about 300$.  Again luckily, mine was an 1988, but we’re still talking about a car old enough to be my little sister.  I did mention to my friend that even if free I certainly paid for it in full given the parts I replaced over the next several years.  I still love that car but eventually parted ways with it; you can only call into work so many times on account of your car being broken.

And so I figured I’d post a couple photos of the old car.  And note that (even though a Russian Lada probably still costs more used  today that than what I paid over the years, not ever 16 year old America get’s a free new car, nor the opportunity to complain they wanted a Ferrari not a Porsche.

For Mac Users out there note: I had to convert this from PICT format which Preview.app doesn’t support, and it’s likely scanned because I know darn well I hadn’t heard of digital cameras in 97.

If you have the ability to change the world.  To ‘put a dent in the universe’.  To change all the rules so that everyone is better.  Then to not seek out and destroy anything that is keeping you from doing so is the worst sin ever!

It is a sin against whatever caused you to be.

It is a sin against yourself and the potential you possess.

It is a sin against the people you know, and it is a sin against those you do not but should.

Your unrealized potential is not just hurting you.   It is literally hurting everyone who has done so much to make your existence and way of life possible, and everyone who will in the future suffer from your non-contribution and have to, quite literally, have to die waiting for it.

Make today matter.

Make that contribution you know darn well you can, and take every piece of fire you have and make a dent in the universe.

Make everything better that you can.

Do not relent until you have done more than you can!

Give it 110%

I am certainly often perceived as a political conservative (though frankly I consider myself a paleoconservative, leaning towards libertarianism).

There is some bizarre drive in conservative circles to blame Obama for the recent spill in the gulf, and handling thereof. Perhaps this is driven by liberal accusations when the woefully non-conservative Bush Jr. was in office. I do not see how holding Obama accountable for this is at all tenable. Certainly Obama personally is about as capable of stopping the spill as BP’s highest trained folks (due specifically to the obvious incompetence not some specific knowledge of drilling mechanisms on the part of the president). That is about the only way I could find any fault with how he has addressed this specific issue.

That said I am more shocked every day that this ‘spill’ (or in plain words underwater oil geyser caused by drilling into the earth and not having a nicely sealed pump attached before oil began spewing about) cannot be adequately addressed by BP, British Petroleum. Yet the Western Media were all abuzz when the Russian Government thought they were incompetent on a recent project and handed it over, after massive cost overruns and setbacks, to locals. Maybe when we look at the big picture, rather than simply finding any excuse to assail Vladimir Putin, the truth is BP isn’t very good at what they do (ostensibly drilling and harvesting natural resources), but is very good at convincing similarly closely held British media to shout loudly that Putin is the new Stalin.

The shame on this spill rest squarely with BP, and I rather hope this will be remember BOTH when they attempt to use corruption and coercion to assail foreign leaders in general into supporting their projects as well as the next time the average Brit or American shows up at a pump with a BP logo. Further, I hope more than likely will pay attention to the company behind the ‘brand’ when BP does what they inevitably will; change the name to something that confuses the average consumer.

There is a PHP Pear Package called HTTP_WebDAV_Client which allows PHP to access a WebDav disk (like an iDisk!)

The following is the typical example posted to several forums which does NOT work to upload a file:



This will fail every time.  Firstly there is no way within the package to set the username and password which are essential to connect to a disk with authentication.  Secondly the stream_open function attempts to check WebDav options on the (not yet existent) file you wish to upload.  While it IS typically bad manners to simply run on into a package and edit stuff willy nilly it is sort of necessary in this case as the author has dropped off the face of the planet, the package is not fully functional, and no one has picked up the project.  (No I don’t plan to pick it up either I have enough to do thanks).

Thus to get it working I did 3 things:

1. I added a ‘set_user’ function to the Stream.php found within the package.  You should be able with very very basic PHP skills figure out how to do this.

2. I added a ‘set_password’ function to the Stream.php found within the package.  You should be able with very very basic PHP skills figure out how to do this.

3. I commented out ‘if (!$this->_check_options())  return false;’ in the stream_open function.

The fixed client code is thus:

Okay so you want to backup your database with a customized script on your GoDaddy account rather than using their hokey account manager.

If you’re staring at this you have probably noticed that just calling mysqldump does not work.  In fact correcting to the full path does no good either; you still get nothing.

Here’s some food for thought; GoDaddy’s databases are hosted on a separate server from the web server where your site is hosted.  You should know the host since this is your site and all and if you’re backing up a database chances are you’ve managed to connect to it.  Try the following.

shell_exec('/usr/bin/mysqldump --add-drop-table -h hostaddres -u databaseusername -pdatabasepassword databasename > filenameforbackup.sql');

Note the spacing is correct, and rather critical.

Hey all,

It took me a while to figure this out so I figured I’d pass it along.

I wanted to keep an offsite backup of some files on my MobileMe iDisk.

iDisk Uses the WebDav protocol so you can use this to access the disk.

There is a great Perl Module that let’s you accomplish this called PerlDav or HTTP::Dav

Just go to CPAN at the command line and type ‘make install HTTP::Dav’ or install it in the Perl Modules section if you’re working on a CPanel server.

Then just follow these steps to upload a file:
use HTTP::Dav;
$idisk = new HTTP::DAV;
$url = "https://idisk.me.com/YOURMOBILEMEUSERNAME/Documents";

$idisk->credentials( -user=>"YOURMOBILEMEUSERNAME",-pass =>"YOURMOBILEMEPASSWORD", -url =>$url);

$idisk->open( -url=>"$url" ) or die("Couldn't open $url: " .$d->message . "\n");

if ( $d->put( -local => "trs.sql", -url => $url ) )
{
print "Uploaded File\n";
}
else
{
print "Upload Failed\n";
}

The new Doctor Who season is approaching and I remembered a conversation I had last season about ‘The Crucible’ (The massive plot instruments the Daleks were attempting to use to take over the universe). A lot of folks were asking just was crucibles were.

He’s a photo of one:

Ceramic Crucibles

I got to take a tour of Blasch Precision Ceramics in answer to this question, from a friend who works there!

When Apple first opened their Crossgates Mall store I was one of the sales folks.  (Been there done that and I wear the shirt when I do laundry since I am contractually forbidden from wearing it elsewhere…)  Recently I stopped down there to have my (second!) MacBook power supply replaced.  I happened to ask a sales guy (not even a Mac genius guy) for help and he gladly started to swap it out.  I commented ‘Is this one any less likely to fray’, and he helpfully offered a few tips on it (including not really).  Apparently there’s stuff you can do involving looping the ends (fear not I’ve a MacRelations tutorial in mind).  Then when looking up my serial number he pointed out you DO NOT have to launch full on System profiler for a number.  Just click a few times at “About this Mac” and it cycles.

Maybe I’m bitter that I didn’t already know that but there was still a tad bit of “hey thanks by the way what do you think about the IPHONE APP I WROTE LAST NIGHT there”.

Ta think.  Told by a sales guy secret Mac tips.  I AM getting old.

I just bought the Gorillaz ‘Plastic Beach’.

Really good album actually.

I was looking forward specifically to the tune itself since it features 2 members of the Clash working together for the first time since the ’80s.  The album is great and the tune is great but much less Clashy than I was hoping for.

Albarn is much more Jones than Strummer so it wasn’t like him getting these guys together was gonna make for a 3/4 Clash tune with synths. (Yes I was sorta hoping)  It beats the heck out of all the junk Carbon/Silicon has tossed on the market.  (Sorry it just isn’t good… even at it’s worse Big Audio Dynamite was listenable, Carbon/Silcon seems to have captures the worse aspects of both their originators and reminded eveyone why ‘The Clash’ rather than London SS made it big.

Looking forward to a Jones, Simonon, Headon reunion… breath not held.

Let me preface this by noting I did used to work with Primerica and do not now.  I have no ill will toward the company and actually really like their approach and education.

It came to my attention that they changed their logo, which they also had done while I was working with them, when Citigroup sold the famous Umbrella back to Travelers.  I still love the umbrella. I don’t love Primerica’s new logo though.  (Go to their web site if you wanna see it).  They added some weird collection of multi-colored rings to the left of the old Primerica logo which just featured their name.  Given as Primerica is often called a multi-level marketing company I think a bunch of interjoined rings may encourage the idea that they are roping people into a system into which they become a trapped ring.  That just doesn’t say financial freedom to me.  At best it says weird varient of Olympics.  I’d have stuck with the previous logo.

Secondly the design features a very large bold border which at least on their site is cut off on the left due to how Adobe PhotoShop treats such files.  I say Adobe PhotoShop because I’d be very surprised if Adobe Illustrator (which is pretty well the standard when making a scalable logo) was used in creating this.  If you cannot make this collection of multi-color rings you have not used Adobe PhotoShop before.

I have no idea what the company is up to or who felt the need to change the logo but it seems both a poorly thought out decision, and a poorly implemented one.  I would be surprised if it is not replaced sooner than later.