Normal joke

I was considering going out with Mrs. Normal's daughter, Abigail, until I discovered she was Abby Normal.

Ruby on Rails with Ubuntu

Ubuntu wants to make it to the masses, but even a developer has trouble building the developer tools.

I am talking about Ruby on Rails. First off, the Ruby included in Ubuntu is jruby. The real ruby needs to be installed. That is fairly easy with an apt-get.

Then, to install sqlite3, the libraries are installed, but not the development package. That needs to be done.

gems has to be installed which can also be done with apt-get
But, the gemspec files are wrong (bad date format) and this causes a bunch of errors pointing at "tilt-1.3.3 not found" (but it is there.)

We "gem install rails". That works.

Once everything is ready to run, then rails complains that there is no javascript runtime.

But that is not the only thing. node.js is the javascript runtime, but it won't compile unless it has openssl. Openssl is there, but not the development package.

So, now that the gemspec files are fixed, the openssl dev, sqlite3 dev, gems, ruby are installed, we can finally run rails.

Whew!

Relax

You could rest more if you were not restLESS.

-Me

Stereotypes

Ethnic and cultural stereotypes are generalizations no more related to what an individual is actually like than are the pictorial representations of constellations to the actual nature of a star.

Great day for a run

Today could not have been better for a run. The temperature was 62, the sun was only 1 hour high, and there was a light breeze. Not only that, I ran 5k in 27 minutes. Barefoot, of course.

Barefoot running hints

When I first started running barefoot, there was not much to it. Take off your shoes and run.

However, I have found more enjoyment following these tips.

• It is easier to run on grass or sand. It is not so ethical to run in others' yards.
  
• Wearing shoes for even short distances puts strain on your knees.
• If it is cold (<42 F) you are likely to get numb feet and won't feel an injury.
• If your toes are getting ripped by pavement, put some medical tape on the affected toes until they are calloused enough.
• If the top of your foot hurts, your strides are too long. Take shorter strides and speed up the cadence.
  

Running 5k

Just ran the 5k in a little under 26 minutes. 25:56.

Would you pluck out your eye?

In the passage in Matthew 5:29 and Mark 9:47 "If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter the kingdom of Heaven with one eye than to be cast with two eyes into Hell."

This should not be too surprising if we look at it in the proper context. If I am righteous, I want to convince everyone around me of my goodness and my good intentions. Therefore, If I want to convince someone of my goodness, I might say "I am so righteous, I would never look at a prostitute. It was my eye that looked. I couldn't help it."

Someone might also say "I would never steal. It was this cursed hand of mine that stole." ... and so on. This would make me look better. I am a good person, and I can't help it if my body members sin.

And there is reference that parts of your body to not communicate with the self. In Matthew 6:3, Jesus says "do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." It is thoughts like this that would lead someone to say "I don't know why my hand is sinning. I am good, but my hand is sinning."

We all know for sure that we can control our hands and eyes. They are all controlled by our brains for conscious actions, and by our reflexes for reflex actions. So, Jesus is only saying that you should get rid of the body parts that you cannot control.

In other words, take responsibility for your actions.

Baking joke

Bakers may make a lot of dough, but cooks have a celery.

3DS technology

I saw how the 3DS technology projects left screen and right screen to the different eyes. It is really very simple to demonstrate. You put on a 3D display, cover the touch screen and shine the upper display (in 3D mode) against a surface in a dark place. I have a picture of what it looks like.

You can see the rays of light forming on the top half of the picture. These are left eye / right eye projections from the 3D display. You can also see that if you hold the display too close, the left/right images will be blended. If you hold the diplay too far away, then one of the eyes will fall into one of the dark bands. If you tilt the 3DS left or right, then the left and right displays will hit the opposite eyes.

God's name

Do you know God's name? The Jewish wisdom is that God's name cannot be pronounced. It is shown in English as YHWH. This has been interpreted as Yeshewa, Yahweh, and Jehovah. However, it is more proper to leave it as an unpronounceable word.

In 2008 the United States Catholic Bishops decided that, out of reverence of the greatness of God, that Yahweh will not be used during liturgy.

Moses did not want to go into Egypt and knew full well that God's name could not be pronounced. That is part of the reason he asked "who shall I say sent me?"

Running 5k

Just ran another 5k (last one was April 8 in 28:37). Ran today's 5k in 28:38. That is smokin' for me.

I also ran 3 miles (left off the other .1) on April 9 in 26:48.

Running again

Ran another 5k. Kids on bikes had trouble keeping up. However, it was still slow IMHO. 29:10. Really nice day for it, though.

Baseball joke

The Major League Baseball union gave into concessions because they didn't want the first pitch to be a strike.

First outdoor run of the year

Finally got my first outside run of the year in. I had been doing the treadmill over the winter, so I decided to do 5k. After the first mile, my feet were getting numb, but I managed to make it the whole way. 29:04 for 5k. That is a great time for me.

It was also wonderful to hear the robins and geese instead of the whirring of the treadmill. When I wanted to speedup, I didn't have to adjust anything, I would just go faster.

I managed to get blisters on my #4 toes. I expected as much.... All in all, a great run!!

Rich milk

Q: How do rich people separate milk and cream?

A: An eccentrifuge!

Cynic

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

-Source Unknown

Low sodium pizza

Do you like pizza but are on a low sodium diet? The following products have lower soduim than most:

• Mama Mary's pizza crusts (140 mg vs 380 of Boboli)
• Dutch farms shredded Swiss (55 mg)
• Dell'Alpe pizza sauce (135 mg)
• Use ground turkey and italian seasonings for the meat.