📅 November 2011

Or so it seems today.

l stare at this building everyday and I couldn't help but notice that they added another beacon light on its rooftop. It's almost like a discotheque now.



If you can't clearly see the gaudy three lights in the super crappy picture that my phone has taken, the new light starts off as yellow, slowly turns a dark bright orange and then dims to a low green. The older two lights were red and yellow. That's quite a spectrum there.

Did they receive complaints from the pilots of random helicopters that keep zooming around the place? Or maybe they are jazzing it up for thanksgiving. Or maybe its an alien spaceship sending signals that Buffalo is safe for landing?

Back when Google introduced the Google Bookmarks Lists, I should not have jumped at it.



But I did. BIG mistake. Now ALL my zillion bookmarks are stuck in lists without ANY way of exporting them anywhere. The export-bookmarks function only works for bookmarks that are NOT in lists.

This is so annoying. I hate you, Google Bookmarks List makers. Haven't you ever heard of the data liberation front, your company's own sister concern????

Aaaaarrgh.

I read this article today (poorly written and not very informative. Don't bother reading).

Tchantchaleishvili V, Schmitto JD. Preparing a scientific manuscript in Linux: Today's possibilities and limitations. BMC research notes. 2011 Oct;4(1):434+. Available from: .

The table at the very end summarizes the format in which top biological sciences journals prefer to receive submissions.

• New England Journal of Medicine(34) PDF*, DOC, WPD, TXT, RTF
• Cell(37) DOC, RTF, TXT
• The Lancet(38) DOC
• JAMA(39) DOC, WPD
• The Journal of Biological Chemistry(35) PDF***
• Circulation(40) DOC, WPD
• ===
• Nature(29) DOC, TEX**
• Science(30) DOC, TEX**, RTF*
• PloS ONE(31) DOC, TEX, RTF
• PNAS(32) DOC, RTF, TEX
• BMC Journals (33) DOC, RTF, TEX

[* Some restrictions apply]
[** TEX files must be accompanied by a PDF version of the same text for visual reference 19 ]
[*** Although manuscripts must be submitted in PDF format, Microsoft Word is recommended to prepare the manuscript text]

Look at the sheer proliferation of M$hit formats on that list. The 1st preference is always doc. Wherever PDF is accepted, M$hit is recommended to make that PDF.

Even if you want to change *they* will not let you.
Ugh.

Am I in the wrong field or what? Nevermind content, even submission guidelines are so proprietary, backwards-thinking and insular.

Sometimes, I accidentally move files into folders. However, I am uncertain what files I moved (because I wasn't paying attention when my stylus accidentally dragged and dropped that file into some nearby folder). So I know that something has changed in the directory but I am not sure about what has changed. In windows, I could easily right click and undo whatever the last action was - rename/delete/move. Where is this undo functionality in Linux??

If there isn't a way, is there at least a log that logs all these events so I could check it and see what was changed?

Am I missing some obvious way to do this? Ctrl-Z does not cut it.

Ikea might have turned down Buffalo but two canny blokes from our city spied the Ikea-craziness haunting everyone's eyes and decided to do something about it. Take a guess? No, they didn't rush out and buy mass tranquilizers to shoot at everyone. Your guess was fun but thankfully, wrong. The truth is less dramatic. They set up a website called myikeaplace dot com instead.

And how did I know about this charming entrepreneurial story? They left no apartment building behind. I have been seeing their flyers and hearing hushed whispers about my ikea place dot com ALL over my building, and beyond today. I can even hear the lady who hangs out in the balcony in the next building (a.k.a, beyond) smoking like a chimney and talking about it.

So I had to go and check out their website and it is quite an interesting business model. You just submit your ikea orders on their website. They go all the way to Pittsburgh, do the shopping for you and bring back whatever you wanted with them. You can then go fetch whatever it is you ordered in your ikea-craze from their garage professional storage rental on Ellicott.

What a nifty idea... I think I can definitely push my rickety cart from their warehouse to my flat. Maybe I should stop bitterly stalking the ebay seller who ditched my sale and get those LED lamps I want from our very own buffalo ikeamongers.

Continuing the "mastering first grade when you are in graduate school" series.
The 18 table.

1. Starting with 18
2. 36
3. 54
4. 72
5. 90
6. 108
7. 126
8. 144
9. 162
10. 180 -20 + 200
11. 198
12. 216
13. 234
14. 252
15. 270
16. 288
17. 306
18. 324
19. 342
20. 360

detachment?



1.42 minutes of Celldweller awesomeness

Simple yet frustrating question for those who want to view the code behind the base functions.

whereis R

Turns out R on linux is installed in the following directory structures:

• /usr/bin/R : this is the executable binary
• /usr/lib64/R

ls

bin COPYING etc include lib library modules NEWS NEWS.pdf SVN-REVISION

• /usr/include/R

ls

Rconfig.h Rembedded.h R.h Rinternals.h Rversion.h
Rdefines.h R_ext Rinterface.h Rmath.h S.h

• /usr/share/R

ls

encodings java library licenses locale make R sh texmf

• /usr/share/man/man1/R.1.gz : possibly the manual pages

I cannot believe just how AWFUL I have become at my 13 through 20 (times 20) tables. Struggling with mental arithmetic is totally unacceptable. It is a sign of mental deterioration that I want to fight against.

1. Starting with 19
2. 38
3. 57
4. 76
5. 95
6. 114
7. 133
8. 152
9. 171
10. 190 +190
11. 209
12. 228
13. 247
14. 266
15. 285
16. 304
17. 323
18. 342
19. 361
20. 380

I keep on forgetting this ridiculously easy shortcut.

Ctrl-L is for Location
-- in chrome
-- in Nautilus

Now, where can I find more RAM for my foggy brain?!