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The Project

08 Jan

Within each of us lies The Project. An idea longing to be nourished, cherished, launched and completed. Writing a novel. Starting an enterprise. Raising a family. Freeing a nation.

Our deepest desire is to do The Project. To express our vision. To carefully and patiently watch it unfold. To present it to those who will benefit by it. And to experience the pride of the job beautifully done.

Yet, a million distractions battle for our attention. And one hundred doubts fill our hearts. And so slowly and subtly, we recite the excuses that construct our reality. And we shelve The Project. Postponing it for a better day. But postponing The Project is life’s greatest lie. Picasso and Basquiat, Einstein and Edison, Jobs and Jay-Z didn’t wait for an ideal day to do their dream. They started. When it was hard. Though they had little. While they were alone.

So many of the world’s troubles are symptoms of The Project undone. Pain is the result of potential denied. And when you avoid The Project, you dishonour your gifts. Your Talents. Your Genius. A portion of you goes numb. Silent. Quiet. Scared. The moment you start The Project, everything shifts. Purpose, focus, passion and peace returns to your life. Eyes sparkle. Energy explodes. Inspiration flows. And your days become supported by coincidence, power and peak possibility.

This very day, the first of a fresh year–presents your greatest opportunity. To be a lion not a sheep. To walk with giants versus among the meek. To celebrate your best instead of succumbing to the worst. To lift others up versus tear others down. To pour creativity, mastery, courage and light into a world aching for marks of heroism.

So please, step up. Release all chains. Dispute all doubts. Start The Project. Do the dream. And change the world. You are responsible for no less.

– Robin Sharma

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Posted in General Interest, Life, Quotes

 

Perfectly Good Kitten…

21 Oct

“A child is a person who can’t understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten.” — Doug Larson

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Posted in Quotes

 

pwgen

01 Oct

While searching for some details around PWGen, I came across this howtogeek page. In particular, I’d like to draw your attention to a specifically ingenious comment by someone named Yamamoto.

 

Code:

wget -i -B http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/image257.png -O - > testsalt && pwgen -s -N 1 -y 20 –sha1=testsalt

Use ‘pwgen’ to use a ‘salt’ for a repeatable secure password based on the image at the top of this page (image257.png).

1. wget will display the top image on this page to STDOUT, then redirect to file: testsalt
2. Use testsalt to generate a 20 character ‘sercure mode’ password.

Run it multiple times, as long as the image257.png doesn’t change the password will come out the same every time:

Result:

]ptH?MB<uiCf-i'oK8Y9

 

This is interesting because it allows one to generate a seemingly random password that is virtually impossible for a human to reliably remember and yet the human can always re-run the command to get the password again. The real trick is to use a specific image per password and to keep those images static.

Pretty sure I’ll never end up using this tidbit but I found it to be a very neat trick in general that I’m sure can be applied to other domains of security/obscurity.

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Posted in CLI, Geek, Tips and Tricks

 

Creating images with pre-multiplied alpha using GIMP

24 Apr
  1. Load the image with GIMP and in the layer window; name the image layer “image“.
  2. Right click the layer and select “Add Layer Mask“. Select “Transfer layer’s alpha channel“, click “Add“.
  3. Create a new layer by hitting the “Create new layer” button in the bottom left of the layer window, call this layer “alpha“
  4. Left click on the alpha mask of the “image” layer (white border around right thumbnail); press Ctrl+C.
  5. Left click on the “alpha” layer; press Ctrl+V.
  6. Right click on the new temporary layer that is created, select “Anchor Layer“.
  7. Create a new layer with black (0×000000) and call the layer “background“.
  8. Order the layer like this (by left clicking and dragging the layers around):
    • alpha
    • image
    • background
  9. Right click the “image” layer and choose “Merge Down“
  10. Right click the resulting layer and select “Add Layer Mask“. Select “White (full opacity)“, click “Add“.
  11. Select the “alpha” layer; press Ctrl+C.
  12. Select the alpha mask of “background” layer; press Ctrl+V.
  13. Right click on the new temporary layer, select “Anchor Layer“.
  14. Delete the “alpha” layer.
  15.  Export/save as PNG.

 

(Source credit: How To Create Pre-Multiplied Alpha for use with OpenGL)

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Posted in Art Assets, Geek, Tips and Tricks

 

Impermanence and the Eternal Flame

07 Oct

The simple, creative, über-geek elegance of XKCD's social commentary never ceases to amaze me.

“There’s always the hope that if you sit and watch for long enough, the beachball will vanish and the thing it interrupted will return.” — xkcd #961 (alt-text)

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Posted in Apple

 

Beware the Manipulators

07 Aug

“In addition to watching out for deliberate evil, some people are just naturally awful. If you haven’t already, you’ll probably encounter a master manipulator who can plant ideas in your mind without you really ever realizing it. They’ll find ways to twist a situation so it’s always your fault, convince you to do what they want by using pity, and never let the attention in the room shift away from them. Sometimes you’ll even know you’re being manipulated and but you’d rather give the person what they want rather than exerting the energy necessary to fight them. If you can recognize these tactics, you can try to shut them down or just get as far away as possible. People who don’t know they’re evil because the behavior comes naturally are best avoided at all costs—but you can only do that if you can identify how they act.”

How To Use Your Dark Side For Good – lifehacker

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Posted in Quotes

 

Foresight…

05 Jul

“I think there’s a world market for about five computers.” — attr. Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, IBM), 1943

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Posted in Quotes

 

Govern Others…

03 Jul

He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself.

– Unknown

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Posted in Quotes

 

Finster’s Law…

17 Jun

Finster’s Law: A closed mouth gathers no feet.

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Posted in Quotes

 

iMurphyCalc Source Code Published

04 Jun

You can now find the entirety of iMurphyCalc’s source code over at Github. While it’s not what I’d call the “cleanest” code, it does demonstrate that I can code fast and keep things simple without wasting time.

Enjoy!

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Posted in Apps, iPad, iPhone

 
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