Lame Joke of the Day - February 15, 2012

Suggested by a good friend of mine, going to starting posting some of the lame humour that I come across (either from my own mouth, or from others I meet). Here's the first one (requires knowledge of Ace of Base's hits):

Friend: Hmmm, interesting, that Thai food stand looks like it's opening up again.
Dragondan: Yep. Guess their renovations are finally done.
Friend: I thought they were going out of business.
Dragondan: Nope, only closing down for reno's. They had a sign. Didn't you see the sign?
Friend: No, what sign? I didn't see the sign.
Dragondan: Well...I saw the sign...

If capitalism works everywhere

If one was trying to get away from a pack of wolves by climbing up a tree, it doesn't matter how high the hands and head gets, if the feet are still dragging behind near the ground...you're going to become dog food.

That, at it's core, is why -- all things considered equal -- I would rather help the needy and the have-nots, over progressing the status and luxury of the elite.  Because while capitalism is great at getting people ahead, we're only as strong as our weakest link (cliche, I know).  Case in point, wouldn't it be reasonable to say that it was capitalism at its extreme, that has caused this "worst financial crisis since the Great Depression"?  Food for thought.

More to come when I can find the time...

AIX scripting, loop iterations on integers

I usually work with ksh, but this might work for other shells as well?

 for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7  
 do  
 #stuff  
 done  

while loop over number range:

 counter=0  
 max=50  
 while [ $counter -lt $max ]  
 do  
 # stuff  
 let counter=$counter+1  
 done  

where some of the ideas orginated from:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1591109/how-can-i-iterate-through-a-range-of-ints-in-ksh

Getting contacts transferred: phone to phone

I've been trying to transfer my contacts from my old phone (Sony Ericsson w880i) to my new phone (Sony Ericsson X10). You'd think that being from the same company, and having a all-in-one suite from SE for phone operations (e.g. saving txt msgs, contacts, calendar entries, etc., etc.), that contact migration should be a breeze! Unfortunately, and most-disappointingly, the PC Companion migration feature requires you to transfer them through a google account. Not sure what would be needed if both phones weren't Android based, or if access to the internet wasn't available.

There's been various sites and forums that mention alternatives, but the only one I've found revolves around an MS Outlook contact list, which I also don't have. "What gives?!", I think to myself. Transferring contacts phone to phone shouldn't be this hard, especially if they're from the same company. Luckily, after playing around with the phones for a bit, I found the solution: vcf files over bluetooth. The w880 allowed for all my contacts to be saved into a vcf file, and both phones talk over bluetooth, and the X10 supports the reading, and interpreting of vcf files. Thus, the solution was discovered!

For the detail-oriented. The X10 was running Android 2.3.3. Not sure about the w880i (but it wasn't the latest version). So in conclusion, if you need to transfer contacts between phones, and you want to do it simply, quickly, and generally independent of phone manufacturer, look into vcf transfers over bluetooth.

My Rules #3

I heard this on some news report on TV a while back. From a US political candidate running against the former CEO of eBay for the Governor, think it might've been Jerry Brown, who admitted it being from a Japanese source (i.e. proverb):

Life and death are serious matters. Time waits for no one. Do your best.

In how I see it, your early 20s is when the academic learning of the world is (mostly) done.  The late 20s is, generally, when the practical learning of the world is (also mostly) "complete" (travel, career, etc.); at least such that there's enough that's understood to start on that Magnus Opus of yours, in one's 30s.  Once that mindset is committed to (i.e. to leave your mark in this world), is when it finally sets in: time is finite, bullshit is not to be tolerated, go get your worth and build your empire (in whichever life pillar it manifests in).