Canadian Blogs

I learned of a cool feature in the cd command, which to my knowledge works under zsh, bash, ksh and possibly other shells.

cd - takes you to your previous directory, letting you easily switch back and forth between two directories. Take /home/ryan and /etc for example:

ryan@lambda:~$ cd /etc ryan@lambda:/etc$ cd - /home/ryan ryan@lambda:~$ cd - /etc ryan@lambda:/etc$

Please share any other cool shell tricks you may know

As seen here, the command in Linux to vacuum the SQlite databases to speed up Firefox:

for f in ~/.mozilla/firefox/*/*.sqlite; do sqlite3 $f 'VACUUM;'; done

As well, from the comments of that link, the command in OSX is:

for f in ~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/*/*.sqlite; do sqlite3 "$f" 'VACUUM;'; done

If you are using SpamAssassin in 2010, here is something to change in your configuration file to make sure to don’t filter out too many incoming emails.

Found online, a real classic:  the Charlie Brown Christmas special from 1965.

I finally watched last night Don’t Listen Alone, the LugRadio documentary (found via Jono’s blog).  I really miss the regular shows…

From the New York Times:

“Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. The world’s dependence on these substances is rising fast.  Just one problem: These elements come almost entirely from China, from some of the most environmentally damaging mines in the country, in an industry dominated by criminal gangs.”

More pictures here.

The Speech from the Throne was unveiled last night. Under the watchful eyes of U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, PM Stephen Harper spoke about improving protection of intellectual property rights in Canada. Unfortunately, he considers copyright reform to be necessary. I agree with Michael Geist, it looks like we’re getting ready [...]

A new comic has found its way onto my links page. The Phoenix Requiem is a semi-fantasy, mostly supernatural/horror story set in an an alternate Victorian-era England. It’s done by the same person who did Inverloch, another well-done online comic, so everyone should go over and start reading. The first four pages [...]

If this doesn’t speak of the issues at hand, than nothing short of a major defection of current Microsoft employees or entertainment industry executives will. Jesper Johansson, who used to work for Microsoft as a security expert, first noticed problems when his 5-year old child complained that the cable TV wasn’t working. The fix was [...]

After a few years of using Ubuntu and all the benefits I’ve had with it, I figure that it’s about time I gave something back to the community that has helped me so much. As such, I’ve joined the Ubuntu Documentation Team and the Ubuntu Translation Team for Candian English. My efforts with [...]

I’m sure anyone who’s really been following the trend of topics has noticed that there’s fewer topics about politics in general and more about technological issues or in some way related to technology. I may as well officially say that there won’t be much from the politics world here. I find myself with [...]

I’m not dead, I promise Just insanely busy with school and work. So, like a good student, I’ve been totally neglecting my studies over the past few days as I go through the released MediaDefender emails, phone call, and source code. One of the wonderful things pulled out of the email [...]

In a wonderful display of common sense and thought, Microsoft’s attempt to have their OOXML Office format recognized as an international standard has been soundly rejected. Certainly they came close by one count, receiving a vote 74% in favour (75% is required for standards certification), but they failed to get two-thirds of a key [...]

It’s about time. Microsoft has finally had their poor attempt at hijacking an open standard voted down. Barely. They technically got more votes (which around here would actually get them second place anyway) but they failed to get the 9 votes in favour required for approval. I disagree with the title [...]

Continuing on from my first post about Jesus Camp, hat tip goes to Red Jenny for actually watching the Jesus Camp movie. Her review is here. After reading Red Jenny’s review, I’m even more scared of what these people are doing to kids, and I’m even more worried about leaving them in the care of [...]

It’s about time to touch on the second of the Taboo Topics: Religion. Has anyone else seen the trailers for the documentary Jesus Camp? Or maybe even seen the movie? I’ve only seen the trailers, but that’s enough to scare me. As a Christian, albeit a strange one because of my beliefs, the [...]

Last week, the New York Times posted an article proudly proclaiming "F.B.I. and Chinese Seize $500 Million of Counterfeit Software". $500 million is a lot of money, that must be a huge victory. The problem is, those numbers don’t quite add up. They seized approximately 290,000 discs and certificates of authenticity. That means [...]

Say it ain’t so! I used to enjoy Archie comics, but now I don’t think I’ll be able to read them anymore. Archie is now officially a tool for the RIAA. From the BoingBoing summary: Seems the RIAA has got to Archie too! The very first story in Archie #577 (September 2007) is a cautionary [...]