Move to Iceland

I just had a problem to solve: Compare two server config files on two servers to make sure they’re the same. Rather than using scp to copy the file from one machine to another, I used ssh’s ability to run commands remotely to get the contents of the file and piped it into diff. Here’s an example:

ssh user@server1 'cat /path/to/config/file.conf' | diff /path/to/other/config/file.conf -

I’ll leave it as an exercise for the user to write a shell script that will do this automatically, though it should be fairly easy to do.

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In this great endorsement of Obama, Michael Moore says:

Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there.

I disagree. I think Pennsylvania has had a couple great moments since the Constitution. The Battle of Gettysburg, for example, was the turning point of the Civil War. And the Dover School Board case, where a solid blow was struck against the anti-American intelligent design movement, was decided in my hometown of Harrisburg.

So securing Obama’s nomination and eventual victory isn’t the only great moment Pennsylvania has had since the Constitution. It’s just the most recent.

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Drexel Dems had a great post about why some woman from Latrobe got to ask Obama a question. According to them, her first appearance on the national stage came from a NY Times article where we learned that, even though she’s 52, unemployed, and living in a small town, she only seems to care about whether her president wears a lapel pin.

She’s exactly the person Obama is talking about when he says that people in small towns are bitter and cling to things like religion or guns or lapel pins. It’s not that their bitterness makes them love these things. It’s that they’re so disenchanted with government that they don’t think it can fix the big things, like the economy, so they focus on the little things.

In other words, she is an example of the attitude Obama was talking about. Maybe ABC was trying to be ironic when they let her on to ask her question. Or maybe they were just their usual clueless selves.

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A while back I had to set up Movable Type on a system where the Perl binary wasn’t in the usual location. So I wrote a quick and dirty shell script that you can run on a directory to replace the perl call (usually /usr/bin/perl) with whatever you want, as long as it’s an executable.

Note: This code comes with the usual caveats. Don’t come crying to me when you run it on a production instance of your blog and you lose your job and your wife leaves you and you end up in a van down by the river. Read the script and check your work.

Replace Perl Bin

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In case you hadn’t heard, A Democratic state representative from Illinois, Monique Davis (D - Chicago), has, well, I think she said it best:

Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) interrupted atheist activist Rob Sherman during his testimony Wednesday afternoon before the House State Government Administration Committee in Springfield and told him, “What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous . . . it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! “This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God,” Davis said. “Get out of that seat . . . You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.”

Audio of this bigotry and my letter to her after the jump.

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About 18 seconds into the video, just next to Obama’s right shoulder, I think I know that guy!

That’s my little brother. He stood in line for six hours to get that seat. Oh, and the speech is good, too. (Screencap after the break.)

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Almost:

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Yes, I know I haven’t updated in a while. Here’s why:

That’s my daughter, Ily. (It’s pronounced “eye-lee” goddammit.) Since she’s been born, my life has been really different. Awesome, but different.

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This is just a quick note to let people know that Richard Dawkins has decided to make every episode of his lecture series “Growing Up in the Universe” available online for free!This lecture series is a great  primer on science and the rational explanation of the existence of life, the universe and everything. It’s even got an appearance by the late, great Douglas Adams. If you’re a reasonable person, or if you’re a theist who wants to see how anyone can not believe in god as the source for all things, these videos are a great resource. I’d suggest you download them using BitTorrent to be nice and save Richard some bandwidth.

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On November 14, 2007, my life changed forever.

I went to see Streetlight Manifesto at the Chameleon Club.

The concert was awesome. I was right next to the stage, so I got the whole effect of being in the pit with the kiddies without having my eardrums blown out, since most of the sound went over my head. Unlike most of the over 21 crowd, I didn’t go up to the balcony to have a drink. And it was a good thing. I wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun sitting far away from the bands, out of the crowd like some stodgy old man, even though I was one of the oldest people in the audience.

The first band was some crappy local ska band. I knew things weren’t going well when he whipped out his electronic saxophone and they played the Super Mario Brothers theme.

The next band up was a huge improvement. It was The Stitch Up, which is a side project of the frontman for Mu 330. He played some solo stuff for a while and then the band members came on stage and rocked the house. They invited one of the audience members on stage to play one of the songs and he was actually pretty good.

We found out during their set the some douchebag in Philly had stolen Suburban Legends’ van and stole all of their instruments, so they weren’t going to be there. So the next band was the main act.

There aren’t words to describe Streetlight’s set. Everyone in the crowd knew all of the words to their songs, even the ones on the album that had been released less than a week ago. The band is incredibly talented and the songs are catchy and great for the type of venue they were at.

Unfortunately, they only played until 9:15 because it was an all ages show, but it was great while it lasted.

As for Hillary, I got her takeout from her favorite sushi place and her friend came down to hang with her. I was home by 9:30, so she felt better about that. This weekend I’m going to take the baby to my parents’ so that she can have some alone time in exchange for her letting me go to what was seriously the best concert I’ve ever been to.

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