Gapingvoid has put out the single best definition of creativity I’ve ever seen: he simply definites it as, “when work and play become the same thing”.

Brilliant.

I can think of some exceptions to this — namely the use of the word “work”. Work implies that the output is for the purpose of making money, and I’m not sure that’s a good prerequisite. But overall it’s the best defnition I’ve ever heard.

We all know the Scobelizer is a Microsoft employee, but he’s usually pretty cool about his bias. Overall, the guy’s got a lot to offer, but it becomes painfully obvious that he’s drunk the punch sometimes. An example: some guy of significance has recently announced he’s switching to the Mac, and Scoble busts out with this:

“That’s cool, don’t count Windows out yet. You did notice that Google’s Earth runs only on it, right? Speaking of which over on Channel 9 there are a few people comparing that to NASA’s WorldWind app. Oh, but you can’t run that either on your Mac.”

Dude, the Microsoft in you is shining through your friendly exterior. If you can’t find a way to positively spin the fact that Microsoft’s offerings are being pwned by those of Apple, just become a regular blogger. You putting the Microsoft touch on things is just tired; it detracts from what you have to offer.

I was looking for a bookmark of mine on delicious a moment ago and did so in a very primitive way — I went to my delicious page and typed my query into the search field.

Well, it dawned on me that there’s a much better way to do this. After remembering that I use Firefox Quicksearches to make my searching tasks more efficient, I went back to my delicious page and simply right-clicked in the search field, elected to create a new quicksearch, and gave it the quicksearch keyword ‘d’. This lets me do this:

d screenshot

…which yields the link on how to take a screenshot in OS X. The key here is that I just searched all of my own custom bookmarks — all of which I added tags and wrote a description for. This is so powerful because I have already narrowed down what I find interesting on my delicious page. Now, using this technique, I can search within that highly distilled list of resources directly from the address bar.

It Gets Crazier

While searching my own links is likely to be most useful, a friend of mine and I instantly realized that this should be extended to the uber-powerful ability to search the delicious/tags option. This, for anyone not familiar, let’s you search for results bearing a particular tag name, i.e. dogs, pictures, etc.

The thing that makes this so powerful is the ability to combine tags to really bring out specific results. You can search for programming+xml, for example, and get back a list of results that have both the programming AND xml tags applied across the entire delicious userbase. Very cool stuff.

Well, let’s add a quicksearch for this functionality and make it possible to yield this godlike power directly from the Firefox address bar. First, go to the delicious tags page. Then right-click in that search field and create another quicksearch. I gave mine the dt keyword. This lets us do this:

dt linux security

Uber-sick. You can, of course, combine tags for searches within your own links using this same method, like so:

d programming css

It’s quite powerful and I’m sure I’ll use it almost every day. Hopefully someone else will get some use out of it as well.

I forget cool concepts from time to time and hate having to repeatedly dig up good sources of information on them. For this reason, I started keeping a running list of interesting terms and ideas so that I could refer to them when I forgot one.

For anyone interested, here’s my current collection. I would be most grateful for any additions that are along the same lines. Corrections are welcome as well, as the ones I wrote are usually hastily thrown together.

Anyway, here’s what I have so far:

Daniel’s Glossary Of Terms and Concepts

I was having some issues involving losing connectivity to a system of mine due to a dynamic IP. Normally one would just use a dynamic DNS service to solve the problem, but in this case there were complications that kept that from being a solution.

So that’s where Python comes in. I threw this “solution” (It’s in quotes for a reason) together, which goes to my own rudimentary IP-finding site, pulls my address, and returns it to me. Here’s the code:

#!/usr/bin/env python

A small application that will pull your external IP address

and return it.

import urllib import re

Pull the website and read it

site = urllib.urlopen(”http://dmiessler.com/ip”).read()

Grab the IP out of it as a list with one item in it (re.findall returns a list)

grab = re.findall(’\d{2,3}.\d{2,3}.\d{2,3}.\d{2,3}’,site)

Define the address as the first item in the list (in this case the only item)

address = grab[0]

Return the address

print address

So then in cron.hourly (Gentoo) I can do: /usr/bin/address | mailx -s "New IP" me@mysecondaddress &> /etc/cron_output

It’s ghetto, but it works. :)

NORFOLK, VA—By the order of the Virginia Safety Commission, the Norfolk Rotating Vortex Of Sharp Knives public-works project was temporarily closed Monday. “Until we deem that this whirling knife vortex fully complies with all state and federal safety regulations, we unfortunately have no choice but to shut it down,” commission spokesman James Fenten said. Vortex operators are angry. “Closing the vortex is costing dozens of workers their paychecks,” project supervisor Carl Blaine said. “It’s costing the city $100,000 every day it’s down. This city needs a gigantic, funnel-like chasm with whirling, razor-sharp steel blades protruding from all sides, and it needs it now.”

I’ve been pseudo-fretting for the last year or so over the fact that when I become a badass someday I’ll never be able to become an acronym like RMS and ESR.

Why? Because my initials are DRM. In fact, the very first hit for “drm” yields that link. In case you’re not a geek, Digital Rights Management is a very dirty word. Very dirty.

Well, as of a few moments ago, I feel a bit better. I turns out my favorite security guru’s initials are BS.

Epistemology e·pis·te·mol·o·gy (ĭ-pĭs’tə-mŏl’ə-jē) n.

The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.

Or, as a professor at UGA puts it, “The study of how to believe things that are true, and how not to believe things that are false.”

I love it.

Go here and sign the petition if you object to the Patritot Act and/or the proposed recent changes to it.:

The Patriot Act Petition

Well, it’s official. I’ve found the über-knife of doom. The comany is called William Henry, and it’s basically two guys. They do all the final work on the blades manually, making them semi-custom. These knives are so incredibly godlike that I hesitate to document their many merits using mere ASCII, but I feel compelled to spread the news to the masses.

Ok, for starters the knife is simply of the highest quality. The movement is like satin on satin, with an absolutely sure feel when opening and closing. Its handle is constructed from a combination of 6Al/4V titanium and carbon fiber.

Most important, however, is the blade. The blade (on the one I’m getting) is constructed of a brand new alloy called ZDP-189. The steel is making waves throughout the knife community. Not only is it easy to sharpen, but it holds an edge better than any other steel in the world. Some tidbits:

• A William Henry with a ZDP-189 blade was one of several knives used to cut ten consecutive thick leather straps; it remained sharp after cutting all ten, while the other blades were almost completely dulled.
• The ZDP-189 steel is so revolutionary that when a prominent knife-tester stuck one of the WH knives using it into a 2×4 and twisted, it ripped up the 2×4 instead of breaking the tip of the knife. It was the only knife of this type to pass this test. In case this doesn’t strike you, it means it actually comines both extreme hardness and flexibility — a feat that steel makers have been working to accomplish for centuries.
• The ZDP-189 WH knives come with an edge that is literally sharper than a razor. Literally. The guy who did the review for Blade magazine has done donzens of reviews and felt the edges of thousands of knives. Well, upon barely touching one of these specimens, he promptly cut himself. He then made a note to himself to treat the knife like a scalpel from now on.
• Each blade in this collection features a black coating called Tungsten DLC. Developed for the most extreme industrial tool applications, this coating is created using Tungsten Carbide with an overlay of synthetic diamond. Very hard and wear resistant, the black finish is permanently bonded to the blades at a molecular level. It will not tarnish, chip, or scratch during normal use of the knife.

Ok, so let’s review: This is a semi-custom knife made by two guys that put the finishing touches on each and every knife by hand. The handles are made of Titanium and Carbon Fiber, and the blade is made of a new, completely unholy steel with a Tungsten/Diamond coating.

I think that about covers it.

In short, this is the next evolution of my knife-wielding life. I needed to move away from the bulky, combat-oriented pieces I’ve been carrying since I got into knives as a kid. I need a blade more tailored for carry while at work in the business world. Pulling an 8″ mini-sword out to open a package just isn’t kosher. So I figured that if I had to go down in size, I’d make my next jump in quality at the same time. And quite a jump it was. I went from Spyderco to Cold Steel to Benchmade, and now I move to William Henry.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, no — you don’t want to know how much they cost. I do, however, have one on layaway. :)