http://www.coreygallon.com thesauri sapientiae et quisquiliae Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:23:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en We've finally agreed on a venue and, so, the Chicago Ubuntu LoCo ("Local Community") will be meeting for the Ubuntu Global Jam this Sunday, October 4th at the Schaumburg Library from Noon until 9 pm CDT in the Rassmussen South room. For those of you who are unaware of ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/09/29/ubuntu-global-jam-chicago/ I travel nearly every week to my clients' offices. I have recently become quite keen on the idea of videoconferencing with my wife and children each night, as a means to span the miles between us. Skype is the software I've settled on, as the most promising open-source ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/08/22/ubuntu-in-virtualbox/ DD-WRT is, by far, my favorite third-party firmware for the Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I, personally, have three of these on my network -- one as the primary access point and router and two as bridged repeaters -- on which I have used several versions of dd-wrt. (I've ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/05/08/dd-wrt-on-the-wrt54g-v8/ I resolved this year that I would take time to pursue one of my passions -- computer science. As such, I am learning how to write applications for Linux. I've just spent 30 frustrating minutes trying to figure out why on earth my deliberate segmentation fault in the ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/05/05/core-dumps-in-ubuntu/ I simply had to share this sketch. It's from a delightful British sketch comedy series called "A Bit of Fry & Laurie." Stephen Fry is so very funny in this bit. His wordplay never ceases to make me laugh out loud. Without further ado, I ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/04/07/jewellry/ One of my goals this year is to learn Latin. I recognize it is a rather impractical pursuit, but I am an avowed linguaphile and Latin has always intrigued me. I am, admittedly, only a few weeks into my studies, but I have wanted to develop an appropriate ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/03/10/my-latin-pursuits/ McNamara explains the fog of war: What "the fog of war" means is: war is so complex it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily. Wilson said: "We won the war to end ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/13/the-fog-of-war-lesson-11-you-cant-change-human-nature/ The film displays a clip of McNamara fielding questions from a reporter about the apparent "stalemate" reached in Vietnam at this point in his career as Secretary of Defence.  McNamara quickly contradicts the reporter by alluding to remarks made (then) recently by General Westmoreland which extolled the progress made by ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/12/the-fog-of-war-lesson-10-never-say-never/ McNamara ponders: "How much evil must we do in order to do good? We have certain ideals, certain responsibilities. Recognize that at times you will have to engage in evil, but minimize it." McNamara recounts having read that General Sherman, during the Civil War, rebuffed the Mayor of Atlanta's plea to spare ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/11/the-fog-of-war-lesson-9-in-order-to-do-good-you-may-have-to-engage-in-evil/ McNamara, himself, provided the perfect synopsis of this lesson (emphasis added): What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe that we should ever apply that economic, political, and military power unilaterally. If we had followed that ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/10/the-fog-of-war-lesson-8-be-prepared-to-reexamine-your-reasoning/ The USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy both claim to have made contact with North Vietnamese water craft and to have drawn torpedo fire from these vessels.  It turns out that the Maddox did, indeed, successfully evade North Vietnamese torpedo fire.  (Shell fragments were recovered from the deck of ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/09/the-fog-of-war-lesson-7-belief-and-seeing-are-both-often-wrong/ McNamara joined Ford as an executive in 1946.  Ford did not have a market research organization when he joined, so he established one.  First, he tasked market research to determine who was buying the Volkswagon.  The buyers of these vehicles were clearly able to afford more and it occurred to ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/08/the-fog-of-war-lesson-6-get-the-data/ McNamara suggests that General LeMay's defense of his decision to firebomb so many Japanese cities would ask whether it would have been better to not have firebombed these cities and sent American soldiers to the shores of Japan to be slaughtered by the tens of thousands. LeMay firebombed many other Japanese ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/07/the-fog-of-war-lesson-5-proportionality-should-be-a-guideline-in-war/ Early in World War II, the B-29 bomber was developed to remedy some of the shortfalls of the B-17 and B-24. It was thought that this plane could destroy targets much more efficiently and effectively. Planes were flown from bases in Kansas to India. The bombers were ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/06/the-fog-of-war-lesson-4-maximize-efficiency/ While attending university, McNamara found himself excited to learn philosophy. "I never heard of Plato and Aristotle before I became a freshman at Berkeley … I couldn't wait to go to another class!" A focus on philosophy, logic and ethics stressed values and a responsibility to society -- "something beyond ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/05/the-fog-of-war-lesson-3-theres-something-beyond-ones-self/ It is difficult to summarize this lesson any better than McNamara did below (emphasis added): "I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/04/the-fog-of-war-lesson-2-rationality-will-not-save-us/ On October 27, 1967, the White House found itself in receipt of two messages from Kruschev. The first message said that if the US was to guarantee that it would not invade Cuba, the USSR would withdraw the missiles The second message said that if the US attacked Cuba, the USSR would ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/03/the-fog-of-war-lesson-1-empathize-with-your-enemy/ I watched The Fog of War again today. If you've not seen this Academy Award-winning documentary, I highly recommend it! The film outlines, as its subtitle suggests, eleven lessons deduced from the life of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The documentary itself, independent of these lessons, ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/02/the-fog-of-war/ I certainly hope that 2009 will find me more actively updating the blog here! http://www.coreygallon.com/2009/01/01/happy-new-year/ Recently I was asked by the project management of a client to create a check-list in Excel for an initiative they are heading. While I cannot disclose the exact solution I provided them -- due to non-disclosure agreements in effect -- I can share the proof of concept I ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/09/20/excel-progress-indicator-check-list-proof-of-concept/ I thought I'd share a recent experience I had flying United. While I suffer delays almost every week, early last month I ran through a remarkable series of delays -- remarkable even for United. So bad were both the delays and the customer service I received, I was ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/07/13/united-airlines-where-are-the-friendly-skies/ This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password: http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/07/11/the-death-of-tournament-ladder-a-eulogy/ This site is, as I've mentioned previously, hosted on a Linux server I rent from HostGator. I ran into a bit of trouble when using "addon domains" with their service which I have meant to document for some time now. I read the knowledgebase article at HostGator Support ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/07/11/addon-domains-at-hostgator/ This is a fairly useless piece of trivia, but it saved a recent movie rental experience for me so I figured I'd share it. I typically wash scratched or otherwise unreadable DVDs or CDs in warm, soapy water and then dry them with a soft, non-abrasive cloth. Discs which are ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/07/11/repairing-scratched-dvds-and-cds/ I moved the blog to a new domain -- coreygallon.com. This will be where I host all of my personal sites from here on out. It became expedient to separate my personal web property from the SHiFT8 site due to increased business under the SHiFT8 banner. As such, I ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/05/22/the-new-domain-coreygalloncom/ I have settled (for the time being) on a script to manage the Shift8 File Archive, so the site is back up. The address has changed, though, thanks to the moronic configuration at my new hosting company. The archive can be found here. The script is actually quite good. ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/04/25/shift8-file-archive-online/ This past week, my site has seen some rough times. I am presently migrating hosting providers from GoDaddy to HostGator, and I have encountered some difficulties doing so. Part of the problem -- okay, most of the problem -- has been due to HostGator's unintuitive subdomain directory structure. ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/02/28/shift8net-migration/ I have taken down the Shift8 File Archive due to glaring securities issues in the script that ran the site. Due to a widely known exploit, an attacker was able to upload a script that gave them the equivalent of shell-level access to the hosting account Shift8 is hosted ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/02/22/shift8-file-archive-down-for-redevelopment/ Today I finally resolved what has been one of the most frustrated Linux issues I have faced yet -- getting my bloody Dell Truemobile 1300 wireless card (stock in my Dell Inspiron 5100 notebook) to function in Linux. The problem has been that those bastards at Broadcom -- the ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2007/02/16/broadcom-43xx-wireless-card-in-linux/ This duo from New Zealand is one of the funniest comedic acts I have seen in some time. A full 30-minute appearance on HBO's One Night Stand can now be found here at CG.com! [flv]http://files.shift8.net/uploads/videos/Flight_Of_The_Conchords-HBO_One_Night_Stand.flv[/flv] It would certainly be worth the time spent searching YouTube and Google Video (why the two ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/12/11/flight-of-the-conchords/ I've sold my soul to the client I'm working with currently, and thus I have not had any time to begin work on "The Cramer Project" over at TheEMHProject.com. 'Tis a sad and over-worked life that I lead. I've not forgotten about the project, nor has my interest ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/11/28/no-progress-yet/ I stumbled upon a fantastic product offering by Microsoft this evening. I believe that the PowerToys program suite used to be sold in stores. It turns out, however, that -- in a dramatic shift from their usual policy of extracting every last dollar from their customers -- Microsoft ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/10/26/microsoft-powertoys-for-windows-xp/ I have decided to pursue the "Mad Money" project I alluded to in my last post. In my classic "visions of grandeur" style, I have decided to launch a site dedicated to the financial research I engage in. The site is entitled "The EMH Project" and can be ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/10/17/the-emh-project/ A Long Overdue Update It's been quite a while since I've updated this blog, due largely to a hectic schedule. There are, however, significant developments forthcoming both at SHiFT8 and its hosted sites -- TournamentLadder and TRUSoldiersClan. TournamentLadder (TL) is currently being redesigned from the ground-up. Brendon (my ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/10/10/developments-forthcoming/ I've taken the TeamSpeak server down. I'm going to be changing some things with it, and using it to host the Tournament Ladder IRC server. The server should be available in early July at irc.tournamentladder.com. More information as it is available... http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/06/14/teamspeak-server-down/ The Shift8 File Archive is now live! Please be sure to visit files.shift8.net to access our file repository. http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/03/15/shift8-files-archive-launched/ Well, this game is too good to pass up -- so I had to snatch it and host it here too. Click here to play the game. Enjoy! http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/03/07/cricket-flash-game/ Well, I've finally succumbed to Belly's incessant nagging and I have posted one of the greatest Simpsons episodes of all time here. "I have to go to ze lobby!" http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/02/24/the-simpsons-11x05/ Well ... I'm now hosting a TeamSpeak (TS) server. It can be found at 208.57.44.122:7783. Please email me for the server password if you are interested in using the server. Join us in "Ze Lobby." Word. http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/02/21/teamspeak/ Well, it seems a little silly to make the first substantive post (if this post qualifies as such) to the blog a link to this video, but it made me laugh so hard that I couldn't resist. The brother of a friend of mine -- Mark Bellio (aka "Belly-HO") -- has ... http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/02/18/mario-dance/ Well, this is the first entry here ... I'll certainly post more when I have both the time and the subject matter. Word to your uncle! http://www.coreygallon.com/2006/02/14/enter-the-blog/