Choosing a Laptop - 2019

3 minute read

I have had many people over the years ask me what to look for when purchasing a good laptop. That has changed over the years as we have seen a shift into multi-core computation and reliance on SSD technology. So, here is a current run-down of buying tips (in order):

Quick Multi-File Rename in Linux

less than 1 minute read

Call it the little things, but I'm usually excited when I find a new tool that speeds things up.  I accidentally ran a set of experiments that produced multiple files that were named incorrectly.  That is, I wrote files as aq*-female-1_day-*_event*.csv but I was actually supposed to write the fil...

Net Neutrality

5 minute read

Earlier today, I came up with this analogy for the internet and net neutrality: Let’s say UPS owns I-95, FedEx owns I-64, and Joe’s Shipping owns I-295 and 288. With net neutrality, anyone could drive on any interstate, including UPS trucks on 64, without additional cost. There is some negotiati...

Quick bar-chart of disk usage

1 minute read

Today I was in search of a command that I had used a long time ago, but ran into a much more interesting one instead.  At the time, I must have been needing to discover what files were the largest disk hogs and if there was a long tail (i.e. how many of the 3.7M files in this directory--not my fa...

Choosing a Laptop

2 minute read

I've had many people over the years ask me what to look for when purchasing a good laptop.  That has changed over the years as we have seen a shift into multi-core computation and reliance on SSD technology.  So, here is a current run-down of buying tips (in order): Buy just inside your budget, ...

Hardness and Political Choices

1 minute read

Left image: 2012 Election Results (1), Right image: Hardest Places to Live in the US (2).   A few weeks ago, the New York Times posted a great article on the hardest places to live in the United States, based on education, median income, unemployment rate, disability rate, and a few other factor...

VIM Tricks

less than 1 minute read

I may be stuck in the past, or like punishment, but my editor of choice is still VIM.  However, certain tricks seem to be hard to find on Google searches, so I’m going to compile them here:

Command-Line Tricks

less than 1 minute read

So, I always am using some command line shortcuts to do various tasks, and often have to look up the tricks every time I need to do something remotely fancy.  Here are some of my most-used helpful hints:

Password Guesses

less than 1 minute read

Found an interesting paper by Nicolas Christin and his group at CMU, available here. The authors examine the encrypted passwords across the entire university and run algorithms to guess the passwords. They break down the demographics along with how many attempts it took to guess the password. Wha...

Command Line Master

less than 1 minute read

Wanted to post the craziest command line script I’ve used in a long time.  Used to convert names listed in XML tags in an EAC-CPF record to filenames to copy.

Questions

2 minute read

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Matthew 28:19-20 (NASB) W...

Romans 2:12-29

5 minute read

The original plan was to break up the text a bit more, but the last few weeks have been about how the world is sinful, and there is still another week of that to go before we get to the hope that is to come. So, let's consider the rest of Romans 2 this week. For all who have sinned without the L...

Romans 2:1-11

7 minute read

Note: sorry for the delay, this week I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth removed. This week, we're looking at the beginning of the second chapter of Romans. Paul continues to bring the Jews and Christians in Rome onto the same level and to show that they are all sinners in need of God's ...

Romans 1:16-32

7 minute read

This section of Romans reminds us of the power of God to save. Paul opens this section as follows: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from fa...

Romans 1:1-16

5 minute read

This week, we'll look at the opening and background of the letter. Below is the complete text, with all paragraph markers removed. It is often interesting to read into the text your own paragraph markers, since this was originally a written letter without verse markers or titles. Paul, a bond-se...

An In-depth Journey Through Romans

1 minute read

Romans: it's probably one of the most studied scriptures in the new testament, but for me it poses an interesting challenge. In my quiet times, when I choose a book of the bible to study, I always think of Romans. However, it is the only book that everytime I start it, I get derailed after a few ...