Personal
Oh, the irony
A while back I was driving to work and passed the University of Arkansas at Little Rock campus. Outside was a large electronic billboard flashing different notices for students and faculty. As I approached the board, I saw a large image of a cigarette with a circle/slash appearing over it, followed by these words:
UALR campus is smoke free as of Aug. 16!
Then, a few seconds later, the very next message appeared:
Art of the Peyote Religion and the Native American Church
Hmm … cigarettes = bad but peyote = good?
iTunes Music Store customer service ROCKS!
Some may complain about the way Apple does things, but I recently had an experience with iTunes Music Store (iTMS) customer support that was incredible. I have to say that I’m even more of a fan boy of the iTMS than I was before.
Surely the best of moms
I’m gonna miss you, mom.
HOWTO: Upgrade Ubuntu LTS 8.04 server to PHP 5.2.8
I recently had to upgrade an Ubuntu server to the latest version of PHP (at the time, 5.2.8) … the problem was the server was running Ubuntu 8.04 and the latest version of PHP available through the normal update channels is 5.2.4. The server is running 8.04 because that is the “long term support” version of Ubuntu.
Thanks to Tom Liu and launchpad.net, there is a binary build of PHP 5.2.8 for this version of Ubuntu. I know that real Linux studs would just compile their own, but I didn’t want to go through the build and fail, build and fail process and needed a quick fix. Here are the steps I followed to update my Hardy Heron to PHP 5.2.8.
Breathtaking promo video
A promotional video was just released by thisisnext.org for their upcoming conference and it is beautiful. Go watch it and be moved.
Kids say (or e-mail) the funniest things
Penny has a niece that has started writing her e-mail. Her niece is seven or eight years old and is very precocious. She is kind of quiet but once she gets to know you, she is a real hoot and says the funniest things. Her latest e-mail went something like this:
I e-mail you. You e-mail me. It all works together.
–Emma
Oh, so THAT’s how it works! Maybe you just have to know her, but this just cracks me up.
Matt Mullenweg in Generation Kill?
I’ve been watching an HBO mini-series called Generation Kill. It’s a grim and gritty look at Marine forces that were involved in the second Iraq war. It is extremely well written and the actors seem to be authentic. But did anyone else realize that one Matt Mullenweg (the mastermind behind WordPress) is apparently moonlighting as Lt. Nate Fick? Inquiring minds want to know …
(It is actually Stark Sands that plays Lt. Nate Fick, but c’mon, you can see the resemblance, right?)
Father grounds daughter, court overrules
Straight out of the “too weird to be true” files, it appears a female justice from the Quebec Superior Court has ruled that father really doesn’t know best.
The father banned his 12-year-old daughter from going online after she posted pictures of herself on a dating site. Then after fighting with her stepmother, the father told her she couldn’t go on a school trip. The girl took the matter to court and — be afraid — seems to have won her case.
Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier of the Quebec Superior Court ruled on Friday that the father couldn’t discipline his daughter by barring her from the school trip.
…
Lucie Fortin, the lawyer representing the 12-year-old, said the judge found that depriving the girl of the school trip was an excessive punishment.She said the girl has already been forbidden to use the Internet and her father also punished her by canceling her participation in an extracurricular event.
Please, please don’t let this foolishness come to the States.
