Category Archives: Uncategorized

Giving Chrome Some Pep

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I’ve been using Google Chrome on my Macbook Pro for a long while, and I’ve noticed that some websites take some time to get moving along. In some ways, it feels like the browser is panting and trying to catch its breath. So today, while trying to solve a work problem I accidentally stumbled over a neat way to give my Chrome browser a little bit of a boost in performance. It seems to benefit when I use sites that are interactive, like my work help desk site or PNC online banking for example.

The trick is, create a small RAM drive on the system, and then copy the Chrome profile over, link to that profile so Chrome can find it, and then start to use Chrome. As Chrome works, things like settings and cache data go to RAM instead of the HD on my MacBook Pro. Then I use rsync to copy data into a backup folder just in case my MacBook pro suffers a kernel panic or something else that would accidentally dump the RAM drive.

There are a few pieces to this, mostly from scripts I copied off the network.

I copied the script called mount-tmp.sh and made only a few small adjustments. Specifically changed the maximum RAM drive size to 512MB.

http://gist.github.com/Roman2K/3238fb441e298369198e

Then I created two different bash scripts to check-in the profile to the RAM drive and then to check-out the profile from the RAM drive back to the HD. Since I wrote them from scratch, here they are:

check-in.sh

#!/bin/bash
/Users/andy/mount_tmp.sh
mv /Users/andy/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default ~/tmp
ln -s /Users/andy/tmp/Default /Users/andy/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default
rsync -avp -delete /Users/andy/tmp/Default /Users/andy/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default_BACKUP
echo “Complete.”

check-out.sh

#!/bin/bash
rsync -avp -delete /Users/andy/tmp/Default /Users/andy/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default_BACKUP
rm /Users/andy/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default
mv /Users/andy/tmp/Default /Users/andy/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome
/Users/andy/mount_tmp.sh umount
echo “Complete.”

If you give this a shot as well, I would love to hear from you about your experiences with this little speed improvement hack! Hope you enjoy!

Afterwards, for HAL

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In the movie 2010, Dr. Chandra explains to the other characters the reasoning behind HAL 9000’s break with sanity and why HAL ended up purging the Discovery of all it’s human inhabitants. During this discussion, Dr. Chandra turns on the comm channel and asks HAL 9000 about the missing crew members. HAL hasn’t a clue what happened to Frank or Dave or those in hibernation. Everyone is shocked that HAL, instrumental in such a terrible act now can’t remember a jot of any of it. Dr. Chandra explains, after turning off the comm that he introduced a tapeworm that destroyed selected memories from HAL’s system.

A matter of mercy. To not remember.

I have done something very similar here, to this blog. Since about 2010 I’ve been sharing unpleasantness and pain with friends and family members using WordPress and password-protected blog posts. I only gave the password out to people who were not involved with “That Place That Must Not Be Named”. The sense here is that pain shared is pain cleaved. The more people knew of my problems, the less the problems affected me because those that cared for me could see everything that was to see and there were many conversations privately regarding “That Place That Must Not Be Named”.

It bears mentioning that the public IP address space for “That Place That Must Not Be Named” is permanently banned on this blog. I do not care either way, but at least it is something. Not that anything can be done to me now, I am beyond their reach.

So, I have sent my own tapeworm, after a fashion. I have dumped many postings, certainly all the ones with the passwords, and I have eliminated the Category from my blog entirely. The memories only exist in my Journal now.

It’s a bid, in a way, to attempt to forget everything between 1998 and 2013. The only thing that will really help is time, as the distance in time grows I will recall less and less of “That Place That Must Not Be Named” until it’s just a fuzzy blur. Something happened for those 15 years, but it’s all gone now. It’s the best and most adaptive thing I think I can do for myself and those that truly care for me. It just fades away. Much like the physical representations, such as the pins, tokens, and photos – the congratulatory cardstock emblems of “xx years of service” that have been shredded into chaff. I would throw away all the relationships but there are only a spare handful that I retain because they are truly special to me, the rest have been forgotten. Their names allowed to fade, the images of their faces growing blurry and indistinct.

Maybe somewhen down the line I will open up my journal and I will read through my life’s history. I will endure all the pain and tears and all the horribleness again, but not now. Now is the time to lose every mooring to “That Place That Must Not Be Named”. It’s taken a long while, but I feel that my progress in moving on has been a solid and successful one.

Now that I am no longer in Hell, those that visited can all attest that I am a far more happier soul now than I was for a very long span in the past.

If somehow, you are a part of “That Place That Must Not Be Named” and you aren’t a “Special Person”, you are invited to forget all about me and lose this blog’s address. If you have my name and number, forget those as well.

What ever happened to Dave and Frank? I’m very enthusiastic about the mission and I have total confidence in my abilities to execute my programming… 🙂

How To Let Go Of Anger

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I discovered this bit of wisdom in the dimly lit corners of my pocket list. Enjoy.

“Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath. Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind. You can also see that you don’t want to be like her. You’ll feel motivated by a desire to say or do something nice — to help the other person suffer less. This means compassionate energy has been born in your heart. And when compassion appears, anger is deleted.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk and author of Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

PAD 1/14/2013 – Headlines

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“Head to your favorite online news source. Pick an article with a headline that grabs you. Now, write a short story based on the article. “

This article grabbed my attention and would not let it go. The story is about a dolphin that ended up in the Gowanus Canal in New York City. There really isn’t any story to write about this, nothing that will leave anyone feeling good about humanity. Look at what we have wrought. Wildlife wandered into a canal so awful, so toxic, so disgusting that it died of exposure to us. I would argue that the canal represents New York City quite well, anyone who has read my blog, especially my LiveJournal when I was there knows my opinion on New York City is poor at best. That the waters of the Gowanus Canal can kill just cinches it. Everyone thinks that New York City is the biggest and best city in the world, but I have never liked it. Too many people, too filthy, too disgusting, too dangerous. Some think that this tale of the Gowanus Canal is just one small little part and that the city has more to offer, that you can just whitewash over this awfulness by looking elsewhere – perhaps the arts maybe. The city is dangerous to more than just wildlife!

So what to write about New York City. The waters are toxic, the streets are lethal, and this is all before we add in all the sick twisted terrible humans which just add to this murk of awfulness. So, here’s a little story.

Years ago the people of upstate New York laughed amongst themselves that if everyone northwest of the Hudson River would just agree and all flush their toilets with uncanny synchrony that we could finally blow New York City into the Atlantic. After reading news story after news story about all the corruption, not just in the people, but deeply embedded in the very land itself it became clear that this upstaters fantasy really might need to come true. So everyone from Watertown to Syracuse and all the way over to Buffalo all agreed that they would pick the perfect day, a sunny day filled with hope and wonder and they would all march into their bathrooms and at the very stroke of midnight everyone in New York State would flush their toilets all at the same time and blow the cancer of New York City into the sea. Much like Atlantis, except riddled with toxins and horrors beyond understanding, the mad city of New York sank beneath the waves, never to be seen or heard from again.

If you love New York City, I invite you to saunter along barefoot all the way to Gowanus Canal and have yourself a bath. Good luck with that.

Corporate Personhood

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During the last presidential election one of the topics that was bandied about was the concept of “corporate personhood”. Companies are people and therefore can enjoy the same abilities and protections afforded to people. Many on the left, where I stand, see corporate personhood as a particularly upsetting vestibule to fascism and is really not a good thing.

I’ve been thinking about the social extents of humanity as it currently exists in the 21st century and the magical number is 150. Any one person can only maintain meaningful social interactions with a general maximum of 150 other people. Beyond that and there just isn’t brainpower, time, attention, or will to treat all of them equally. I use this figure of 150 as an honest limit in many parts of my life and while writing some previous blog posts the idea about the moral and ethical capacity of companies came up. When it comes to social networking this number of contacts limit I think is important. People who follow more than 150 others are doing them a disservice and people who are followed by more than 150 others are likewise doing them a disservice. You simply cannot maintain an equal amount of attention beyond this limit and it’s unfair and in the end one could argue that it’s socially abusive to the 151st and further people connected to you.

So we get to corporate personhood. I think that once a company of people start accumulating there are ranges based on this number of 150. Very small companies with less than 150 members may still be able to maintain some moral and ethical understanding, but the relationship is asymptotic as the company approaches the horizon of 150 members. The more people join a company, the less each member feels responsible for the actions of the company. Many companies spread way beyond 150 into the thousands or even more than that and I think that the further along they go from 150, the less human they are when they are all added together. The individuals are all conscientious and compassionate human beings, but it’s when they are added up in a new context that they stop behaving as such and you see things like mob mentality and groupthink. The bigger the company the more these negative forces start to manipulate the membership. So what does this limit of 150 have to do with corporate personhood? I think it’s a bad idea to give any organization the rights and powers of a person when they lack the moral and ethical bearings of regular individuals. It’s like making a Frankensteins monster. Just because the monster is walking and maybe talking doesn’t mean you want it caring for the elderly or working in an infant ICU. Companies beyond 150 members, I would argue have the same moral and ethical understanding of a dead inanimate object, to say, none at all. So perhaps a law that perhaps graces organizations with personhood as long as their maximum membership does not exceed 150 is a wise thing. Companies (or organizations even) that exceed 150 cannot be considered “persons” because they are beyond the human capacity for moral and ethical behavior.

I honestly don’t think that there will ever be any laws where this limit of 150 is used, but I do think that understanding the human limits for socialization is important, especially when you are trying to understand the behavior of some of these large organizations and why they behave with such callousness and disregard for the moral and ethical compasses which regular people are compelled to follow.

In many ways, this 150 limit could also be the functional barrier for The Golden Rule. That people who have more than these social contacts, or organizations with more than this number of members cannot successfully comprehend the wisdom of The Golden Rule. In this light, I would argue that organizations over 150 members be subject to laws that add force to The Golden Rule, if such wisdom cannot come from within then it must be applied from without by laws and regulations.

1532 Long Road, Kalamazoo Michigan: Christmas Explosion

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Last night we did our annual driving around the city looking at the great works that people established in their front yards and attached to their homes. Some places were quaint with just electric candles in the windows, going for the tasteful bit, while others had lights, light-netting, icicles, gutter-lights, or even more elaborate Christmas displays. There were many houses that had the inflatable Christmas displays but nothing quite as bombastic or over-the-top as the folks who live at 1532 Long Road in Kalamazoo, Michigan. This entire section is a rich neighborhood, and the house where the WMU President lives is just a stones throw away. If you are going to go large, and you have the real estate for it, you might as well do it. The people here? They did it. They did it in SPADES.

This is my first video that I’ve posted to my blog that I’ve taken. It’s not bad or too shaky and halfway through I read a sign which has a nice message on it. I hope you all enjoy.

[jwplayer mediaid=”2183″]

 

Electronic Mail – Tyranny & Agony

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We’re staring down the smoothly bored barrel of our bleak and depressing future. We are being lead down a path that I have in the past written out against vehemently. As an organization we’re hamstrung by a hodgepodge of different systems. Wreckage of previous leaders and their half-finished attempts at systematic unification when it comes to a core communications channel, it has drained us of both will and funds.

I speak of Merit Mail, powered by the unwanted wasteling Zimbra.

Today I faced a problem. A student complained that their email from their account with us, a business unit is being replied to and those replies are being routed not back to their business unit account, but rather to their student account. It’s as if we were all struck by God at the Tower of Babel and there isn’t any clairity for any of us. I’ve fought this fight before and I’ve lost. I’ve lost my position on this topic quite soundly and now all I do is sit on the sidelines and scream and throw virtual rotten vegetables down the hillside, uncaring on who is struck by my missiles. When it comes to this, I’m an East Campus Timon.

People are getting whiffs of change in the wind. Something is coming and we can all sense it. There is a dragging sluggardness when this particular issue arises. I personally have dealt with this demon by caging it in the net of my humor, with a deft tool, schadenfreude.

I’m on pins and needles. I can’t wait for our organization to begin. I have played the modern Cassandra, preaching a future agony and much like mythic Cassandra, nobody is actually listening. I see it more and more often, decisions made and positions taken based on what I refer to as the tyranny of the Academy. There is a giant rift between the two primary groups, the Academy and the Staff. We have different goals, different driving forces at play within our groups and one is listened to while the other must follow along.

I used to rail against the coming darkness, the cost of it, the bleakness of it – like being consumed by the Iad Ouroboros. A future of retrograde progress, unwarranted risk and a legal bog of eternal stench. Today I had to help someone not in my department with a mind-numbing interface problem. Mix this with the complaints and questions of what is coming and my resistance to face what is coming is actually turning over on itself and I find myself actively supporting this new development. A sense that in some way these people deserve what they are so aggressively pursuing.

I wonder if this is what Cassandra felt when her dire predictions came true. Did she sit back and softly chuckle to herself? Told You So.

I can hardly wait. Hah.