Posts from November 2011

I hate it when I have just booked a ticket and find that I could have got it for $20-$50 less on a competing airline. In this case, the lesson learned is that Delta has cheaper fares coming back from NYC compared with JetBlue. I have seen this so many times. JetBlue is not exactly the cheapest as everyone believes.

I don't like flying and vastly prefer taking Amtrak. But whenever I am headed back home, anxiety trumps dislike and I usually fly. Going to the city, I always take the train.

I just hate all these price differences and deals in a way. They manipulate your thoughts so efficiently without you even realizing it.

Whiny whine.

{set to the tune of Joshua's Radin's song}
opened a biscuit packet

What if you
found that each was broken

I wonder if you'd try
counting the pieces
it's come to this
so annoying
each one at the exact same place

What if I.. i.e.i,e.I
had bought a better packet!
I wouldn't have had to endure
this ridiculous breakage

Held together by the packet
But when your hand reaches the biscuit
there's nothing you can do
but watch irked as it breaks apart.

Me at 7:00 PM: Rushing out of Walgreens with the speculoos.
Buffalo Police on Walgreens duty pointing at Biscoffs: Man, I hear they are very good. Everyone is getting one today. I need to try those...

Me at 7:15 PM: Rushing back into Walgreens because I forgot to get the shortbread I wanted.
Buffalo Police on Walgreens duty pointing at someone else's frozen pizza: Man, I hear they are very good. I need to get that!

Me at 8:00 PM: Back to walgreens for the chocolate.
Buffalo Police on Walgreens duty pointing at twizzlers in someone's checkout pile: Man, it's been ages since I had that! I hear they are sweeter now. I need to try that!

Conversation starter? Genuine interest? Or just massive hunger?

Anyway. Behold, a dinner of depravity.

I tried dropbox sometime back for many months. I didn't quite like it because I felt like I couldn't control many aspects. In addition, I ended up deleting many of my files due to some stupid settings confusion. I bet they have more options now, but I don't feel like going back. So I signed up for 25 gigs of free space from... *gasp* Microsoft's Skydrive. I figured if they are giving away this much space in the cloud for free, why not twist it around and use it as a cloud for Linux so that the joke is actually on them.

Naturally, Skydrive doesn't have any desktop synchronization tools for linux. And that is where SMEStorage Sync comes in. All I needed to do was to

• Install "Linux Cloud Desktop Tools" from SMEStorage for fedora.
• Set up an account at SMEStorage and login.
• Go to My Account --> Providers Tab
• Add the Skydrive account and password
• Set the Skydrive account as default (so all your files will be uploaded and synced to the Skydrive 25 Gigs account rather than the limited 2Gigs SMEStorage-Amazon Cloud. (An index of the Skydrive account is mirrored on the SMEStorage-Amazon 2 Gig Cloud. So the 2Gig account has an index but no real files taking up space.)
• Fire up the SME Storage Sync Center on your laptop/desktop
• Choose the US SME Server and connect
• Choose the local home/system folders to Sync
• Press Sync Up any time you want to upload and backup/sync your files in that folder.
• You can manually fire up the SME Storage Sync Center everytime you feel like doing a backup or schedule it to do automatic backups at some regular schedule.

That's it! Evil example of using Microsoft's resources to make life on linux easier.

Dedicated to @fing. ;-)

at pricerite?

• 0.25 lb Jalapeno Peppers
• 4.54 lb Acorn/Buttercup/Kabocha squash
• 3.46 lb Zucchini (Green squash)
• 3 generous bunches of fresh cilantro
• 5 medium red onions
• 0.89 lb red bell peppers (2 peppers)
• 3.79 lb Vine ripened tomatoes
• 1.00 lb Plum tomatoes
• 5.53 lb Granny Smith apples
• 2.61 lb Bosc pears
• 2.07 lb Black Friar Plums
• 1 Gallon Skim Milk

Except for the plums, each item on that list came from NY farms. Not bad at all for 13/14* 100 ~ 93% local produce & milk. I checked . That is about as seasonal and local as you can get.

---
Contrast with the sortie at @paul #55153
Blasted thing won't post straight!

I skipped all the in-between bits of writing functions. Maybe I will return to them in the future.

But for now, I think it's super important to know how to apply a function once I have written it using what else but...
APPLY!!!

• The output of Apply can be a vector or array or list of values
• The input of Apply is always a matrix. So make sure to insert a "as.matrix" before anything you want to apply your function on.

Basic syntax:

apply(as.matrix(some object which is not a matrix already), Starting Row, function)

For eg.
Out <- apply(as.matrix(list of element), 1, function)

I am finding Zim (the desktop wiki-like note-taking software) SO useful for random on-the-fly notetaking!


Zim is like a wiki, todo checklist, notebook, LaTeX scratchpad all rolled into one! I think I like the todo checklist and LaTeX parts the best. It has this nifty dvipng plugin that generates small png images for equations. You could just take these equation pngs and stick them anywhere.

Like here.


Not only is it invading my desktop, it is invading the cloud. I set up cloud sync of my notebooks through SME sync to Skydrive. Now, that is one fail-proof hyperlinked universal brain dump.

I am making shortcuts left, right and centre in the Gnome 3 interface.

Turn on shortcut editing

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface can-change-accels true

Hover mouse over the menu entry
Press Delete
Press new shortcut combo

Turn off shortcut editing

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface can-change-accels false

I have been learning how to write functions in R. They are core to learning the language instead of just using what other people have written for their purposes. They make tailored manipulations in R easier. I am going to document the function writing system here, step by step so I can progressively write better functions and yet not forget the basics

Basic Syntax

NewFunction <- function (input){
answer <- some manipulation with the input
answer
}

• NewFunction is the name of the new function.
• function is the R function that creates functions.
• input is the "argument" of a function
• { delimits the beginning of the function
• } delimits the end of the function
• the last statement (in this case, just "answer", returns the answer as the output of the function. I could also have said return(answer).