The word ‘diet’ comes from the Greek word ‘díaita’ meaning: way of living, not “7 Day Bacon Cleanse: Lose 20 lbs in 24 hours!”.

I just got a Macbook Pro at work. So far I like it a lot but I ran into the problem that I’m not an admin (and the permissions on /usr/local/ were completely locked down) on it and I wanted to be able to install Homebrew tools whenever I felt like it.

First, clone Homebrew into your home directory:

    cd $HOME
    git clone https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew.git

Next, add Homebrew to your path (your syntax might be different if you’re not using bash):

    export $PATH=${HOME}/homebrew/bin:${PATH}

Now test, I installed tmux, MacVim and tree (shows a nice hierarchical view of a database structure):

    brew install tree
    tree

Transactional Memory – OSCON 2007

Below is a quick cheat sheet I made up to help out when I was on the phone with people. Inevitably you have to either read off an account number or spell out some weird URL and run into a conversation like this:

Tech Support: Please read off your account number

Me: k, 005V345

Tech: Thank you, I have that as 005B345

Me: No, that’s V as in Victor not B as in Bravo

Now I keep this next to the phone so I don’t have to think of a word that clearly begins with V.

Phonetic Alphabet Cheat Sheet: Download PDF

Source: NATO phonetic alphabet – Wikipedia

Andy Goldsworthy (books, Wikipedia) does some amazing art. My friends and I used to try to imitate this while putting our own spin on it. Here’s some examples.

Click on them to get a big version: