Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 10:19:00 GMT
So the Sopranos ended yesterday night. After speculating for the last 3 weeks about the potential end, none of the ones I envisioned happened. Most of the endings I had considered were from other classic gangster movies. The Scarface violent ending, The Goodfellas turn on the gang ending, or The Godfather ending where Michael ends up utterly alone.
None of these happened. In fact there was really no conclusive end, the screen showed Tony and then went black. My immediate reaction was disgust. The whole episode included seemingly unimportant shots creating tension, but never delivering. I thought my cable was broken when it just went black at the end... But after taking sometime to think on it, this was the ending that needed to be. The Sopranos were such real characters, that ending the series with some sort of apocalyptic explosion would have not served reality. The world in which they live goes on.
Several have theorized that the ending leaves a Movie option open. I really hope it doesn't go that direction. I am happy where it ended, and enjoyed every episode. Kevin Smith wrote a great piece this morning, and I agree with his argument that Tony's meeting with Jr. really summed up the series.
"You and my Dad," Tony said. "You two ran North Jersey."
"We did?"
"Yeah."
"Hm." Beat. "That's nice."
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:33:00 GMT
When Google announced the new Google Co-op, which includes custom search engines, I did not immediately see the value. I wish I understood this services huge value sooner! I was trying to configure a reliable Apache with Mongrel Clustering setup, but was having a very tough time finding information. The Mongrel-users mailing list is hosted using Mailman, which does not have an obvious search function. When querying Google I was getting those results mixed in with the rest of the web. This is a perfect example of how a custom search engine can narrow your scope and get you the right answer fast. I setup a simple custom engine that just searched http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/mongrel-users/. I used the same query I had been using within Google, but this time found my answer almost immediately.
I have started another Ruby on Rails dedicated search engine that I hope to refine as I find more sources of information. This one searches the major Rails/Ruby mailing lists, the wiki, and the main site. I have left the search engine open, so if you have a site to contribute, feel free!
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Thu, 31 May 2007 16:33:00 GMT
At the D5 conference, Steve Jobs & Bill Gates were jointly intervied. You can watch the video here. As a PC or Mac user, this interview reminds us that without both of them we would not be where we are today.
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Thu, 31 May 2007 11:17:00 GMT
Lately I have been getting IM's and email regarding the lack of posts. Amazing, this stuff is free you know! But I thought I would check in and say, yes I am alive, and I have a really cool announcement coming up plus some new tutorials. Here is a sneak peak:
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:12:00 GMT
Subversion is an excellent tool for versioning your code and projects. Backing up this data is crucial in case of a catastrophic failure. Subversion has several ways to create backups, this tutorial will focus on using hot-backup.py to accomplish the task. For more information on the various methods for backing up subversion consult the documentation.
This tutorial assumes you have an existing repository and focuses on a *nix environment interacting with the shell as root.
2. On my system (gentoo) I moved the script into /usr/sbin so that the file is in my path.
# mv ~/hot-backup.py.in /usr/sbin/hot-backup.py
3. Open the file in your favorite text editor adjusting the paths to svnadmin and svnlook. Be sure to give the full path or the script will fail even if those executables are in your path (at least it did for me).
# vi /usr/sbin/hot-backup.py
# Path to svnlook utility
svnlook = "/your/path/to/svnlook"
# Path to svnadmin utility
svnadmin = "/your/path/to/svnadmin"
4. In order to automate the task, we'll create a simple cron script to call the hot-backup.py for each one of our repositories. In order to save disk space, we'll pass the script an option to compress the files. Valid archive types include gz, bz2, and zip. Be sure that the directory you are backing up to exists, or the script will fail.
# vi /etc/cron.daily/backup_subversion
# backup_subversion v.1
hot-backup.py --archive-type=gz /my/repository1 /my/backup/location1
# if you have more than 1 repository, simply
# add a new line for each one
#
# hot-backup.py --archive-type=gz /my/repository2 /my/backup/location2
# chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/backup_subversion
5. Test the script.
# /etc/cron.daily/backup_subversion
Beginning hot backup of '/my/repository1'.
Youngest revision is XX
Backing up repository to '/my/backup/location1/repository1-XX'...
Done.
Archiving backup to '/my/backup/location1/repository1-XX.tar.gz'...
Archive created, removing backup '/my/backup/location1/repository1-XX'...
That's it. Feel free to post questions or corrections in the comments.
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Sun, 15 Apr 2007 08:25:00 GMT
Today was our last day in China and we went to a very interesting variety of places; we saw the giant Buddha, the flower market, the fish market, the bird market and then the raw fish market....But then we went out with Alan, a business partner of my dad's. We had another hot pot dinner and a whole 24 pack of fabulous Chinese beer.
There is too much beer to write more, so goooood niiiight China!!!
P.S. tomorrow we will be traveling back in time and I just wanted to let you all know that the future looks GREAT!!! More pictures soon...
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Sat, 14 Apr 2007 05:58:00 GMT
Today started out with a quick breakfast at McDonald's, and a train ride out of Hong Kong back to mainland China. We went to Shenzhen mainly for shopping. Our first stop was the Seg Electronics Market. Eight floors of computer components and equipment at rock bottom prices. Everything from blank computer boards, RAM, USB Memory Sticks, cameras, and every other part imaginable.
Next we had lunch at a hot pot. Spices are brought to a boil in the middle of the table and you cook various vegetables and meats in the delicious broth. It was one of the best meals we have had so far since arriving in China.
The afternoon was spent shopping in another mall that mostly sold watches, clothing, purses, and other consumer goods. Overall another fantastic day, here are the pics:
The Seg Electronics Market, 8 Floors of hi-tech goodness.
Inside endless rows of booths house the merchandise.
Sometimes the menus in China are challenging, but my Chinese is getting much better..
Stan and Jim at the Hot Pot restaurant.
Unfortunately the ice cream shop was out of corn flavor.
