A Day in the Life - Einstein's Office

So apparently this is a picture of Einstein's office, as he left it, on the day he died. The source link has a nice article. RIP Mr. Einstein.


Source

TV Science vs. Real Science

How can you not love this one?




http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1156

$$$ Get Access to Your Flash Cache! $$$

Have you ever needed (wanted) to access the flash content downloaded to your computer when it buffers (Youtube, other less reputable sites, etc.)? Well, if you are using Chrome  under Linux, here are some handy tips (this should work with whatever browser you're using, but let's be honest, I'm too lazy to test it out - yet)

sudo lsof -n | grep Flash

Then, cd to the process id directory listed under all entries displayed that have (deleted) at the end. Then

cd /proc/[process_id]/fd/

and

sudo ls -l

to find the file that is (deleted). Next do

sudo cp [file] ~/Videos

or, for example if the file is '30'

sudo cp 30 ~/Videos/video.flv

Now, at this point you'll probably have to change owners to be able to watch it, or

sudo chown [your_username] video.flv

or

sudo chown benji video.flv


And there you have it! If you're looking for more flexibility, more options, or (a lot) more discussion about the topic, try the Sources listed below. Good luck!



Source 1

Source 2

Rotate a PDF in Linux (and Other Fun Activities) - pdftk

For those of you who have ever needed to manipulate a PDF in Linux, I highly recommend pdftk, I've had great luck with it. Here's the best way to rotate a PDF:



sudo apt-get install pdftk

To rotate page 1 by 90 degrees clockwise:

pdftk in.pdf cat 1E output out.pdf

To rotate all pages clockwise:

pdftk in.pdf cat 1-endE output out.pdf

The page rotation setting can cause pdftk to rotate pages and documents. Each option sets the page rotation as follows (in degrees): N: 0, E: 90, S: 180, W: 270, L: -90, R: +90, D: +180. L, R, and D make relative adjustments to a page's rotation.

Unabashedly stolen from here.

Stunning Book Art - Literally!

Thanks again to Huckberry for this find!

These amazing masterpieces of literature (get it?) are the handiwork of Guy Laramee. Pretty sweet, right?!

   

          

   

  

   

Source: http://huckberry.com/blog/posts/128-novel-landscapes

Source: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/06/new-carved-book-landscapes-by-guy-laramee/?src=footer

IEEE LaTex Class Issue - Tune Fonts

So, I ran into an issue trying to get the IEEE LaTex class to work with a conference paper. Apparently some issue with tune fonts:

! Emergency stop.
<*> ...ljfour; mag:=1; nonstopmode; input nullfont

Transcript written on mfput.log.
grep: nullfont.log: No such file or directory
mktextfm: `mf-nowin -progname=mf \mode:=ljfour; mag:=1; nonstopmode; input nullfont' failed to make nullfont.tfm.
! Font \OT1/ptm/b/it/7=nullfont not loadable: Metric (TFM) file not found. \@IEEEtunefonts


Well, it turns out I'm not the only person to see this problem. If you also see this issue, all you need to do is:

sudo apt-get install texlive-fonts-recommended

which will install the necessary font package. Awesome!


Source


UPDATE

So, apparently not having texlive-fonts-recommended can also cause this error:

! I can't find file `ptmr7t'.
<*> ...:=ljfour; mag:=1; nonstopmode; input ptmr7t

Please type another input file name
! Emergency stop.
<*> ...:=ljfour; mag:=1; nonstopmode; input ptmr7t

Transcript written on mfput.log.
grep: ptmr7t.log: No such file or directory


I discovered this after upgrading to Precise, and having to reinstall a bunch of packages (this one included.) Hope it helps!

Danish Watches - Now in Titanium!

                

Today I was introduced to the Skagen Denmark watch. It was quite by chance, as my wife and I were out on a date window shopping at the mall, we glanced at some watches on our way through a department store, and our eyes caught one of these. Low and behold, it was a Danish watch! Then, not only that, it was a Titanium Danish watch! And, it was called a Skagen!! (For those who don't know, I visited there some years ago and absolutely loved the place.) So, of course I was in heaven. I have added it to my wish list (at the top), and once I am lucky enough to own one, I will give a full review on how nice the watch really is.

(Pictured: left - Skagen Men's 233XLTTN Titanium Watch, right - Skagen Men's 809XLTBN Titanium Blue Dial Watch)

Supercool Posters

          


         

(Super awesome) Steve Thomas poster art: http://www.stevethomasart.com

Originally discovered on Huckberry

More Huckberry

            

                                   

Random cool stuff from Huckberry

Bluetooth tags, Render K Pen, AAA Pocket Flashlight, EDC Kit, V:King kubb set

Ubuntu video editing - Kdenlive

So, I was looking around furiously for a decent video editing tool to use on Ubuntu, so I could make videos for a conference presentation in a hurry. After trying a few (unsuccessfully), I was about to give up and go use a Mac. But, I decided to give one more a try, and struck gold with Kdenlive. It's simple, intuitive, and super snappy. Give it a try!

Try Kdenlive

Getting 32-bit stuff to work on Ubuntu 64-bit

So, I bought into the hype and install Ubuntu 64-bit on my laptop, ostensibly to run super awesome PCL. Well, turns out not all things are meant to work out. MATLAB student version, for example. It was intentionally designed only for 32-bit machines. While it installs fine, some functionality, like compiling mex files, sadly does not work. So, some lovely hacking was required to get it working on my machine.


Get a simple mex file and try to compile it.  You’ll probably get this error.

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lmx

The way to get around that is to run the following command in MATLAB just before you try to compile a mex file

setenv('MATLAB_ARCH', 'glnx86')   (IN MATLAB)

That gets you a little further but you’ll next be hit by

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lstdc++

To fix this you need to find your mexopts.sh file and change the line

CLIBS="$CLIBS -lstdc++"

to

CLIBS="$CLIBS -L/home/paul/matlab/R2009a-student/sys/os/glnx86 -lstdc++"

obviously, you’ll need to change /home/paul/matlab to wherever you actually installed MATLAB.

Your next step is to do the following in a bash prompt

ln -s /home/paul/matlab/R2009a-student/sys/os/glnx86/libstdc++.so.6 \
/home/paul/matlab/R2009a-student/sys/os/glnx86/libstdc++.so

again – substituting wherever you installed MATLAB for /home/paul/matlab

Paul was running Ubuntu 9.04 and he got the following error at some point (I can’t remember where)

/usr/include/gnu/stubs.h:7:27: error: gnu/stubs-32.h: No such file or directory

which was fixed by

sudo apt-get install libc6-dev-i386

That’s pretty much it. You should now be able to compile mex files.

Source: http://www.walkingrandomly.com/?p=1959



Also, my nice Canon printer / all-in-one. Finding Linux drivers in the first place was quite the headache, but making them work on a 64-bit machine? Well, thankfully someone had done that one already.


For each package do the following:
    1. dpkg -x [package].deb common
    2. dpkg --control [package].deb
    3. nano DEBIAN/control
    4. remove the whole "Dependency:" line
    5. cp -a DEBIAN/ common/
    6. dpkb -b common [package].deb
    7. dpkg --force-all -i [package].deb
    8. rm -rf common DEBIAN

The install.sh script should work properly now.

    sudo chown root:root /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstocanonij
    sudo chown root:root /usr/lib/cups/backend/cnijnet



Source: http://dukuntu.blogspot.com/2011/10/mp560-and-1110-64-bit.html

Thanks guys!

Prometheus = Robots

Seriously, who doesn't love robots? And movies about robots? Well, for those of you adventurous souls, check out these seriously awesome promovideos about (and even starring) robots!

Source: http://blog.ted.com/ted2023/

Inspiring Study Picture

I really like this picture. Makes me want to work. And I can relate to the banner.
Source: http://artofmanliness.com/2012/01/27/write-this-down-note-taking-strategies-for-academic-success/