A Moment of Wisdom

I recently was interested in getting some shapefile information quickly into a MySQL database. It seems like it should be a relatively simple task but you never know until you try, right? Well, thanks to the wonderful GDAL there is a great command that should be shared with the world:

ogr2ogr -f "MySQL" MySQL:"geospatial,user=user,host=localhost,password=password" -lco engine=MYISAM shapes.shp

It’s a thing of beauty! One little command line entry will take the entire contents of the shape file and push it into a MySQL database with the geometry. The only catch that I have run into so far was needing to increase a setting for increasing the MySQL allowed packet size. To change that just edit the /etc/my.inf file to include something like:

max_allowed_packet=100M

Works like a dream.

My brother-in-law, Jared Pool, with the band “The Whiskey Rebellion” released on Halloween their tribute to the classic movie -- “The Goonies”.

A wonderfully done video and song if I do say so myself. Check it out and passit on!

Wow.  Seriously … just wow.

Just thought that I would share a video I came across this morning:

Could you imagine being able to see the entire Earth at this level of detail from the comfort of your own home/office/school/whatever? The technology behind enabling us to capture and share our world in amazing precision and likeness is just a bit mind-boggling to me right now.

Recently Slashdot revealed to me: Using a Treadmill and Wiimotes To Run and Fly in Aion

Now I know that MMORPG’s can be highly addictive and can even cause rather interesting interactions between the physical and virtual worlds. However, this is the first time that I have heard of people attempting to get a workout whilst playing these games. I just close my eyes and imagine a single guy in his apartment running on a treadmill flapping his arms up and down so he can move his Level 23 Elvish Mage across the virtual landscapes of WoW.

WoW.

I am loving the headline of this story over at Slashdot. Apparently the guy died after working with a weakened strand of the bacteria that causes “The Plague”. Look, I understand that medical research is a good thing and all … but it’s the freaking plague!!! If I were the guy I would have avoided the thing.

I love underdog stories.  When it comes to browsers, Google’s Chrome web browser is definitely the underdog as compared to Firefox and Internet Explorer in terms of popularity and market share.   But in terms of JavaScript speed, Google’s got them all beat.  Case in point:  Someone has written a pure JavaScript NES emulator that runs very well in Google Chrome and very slowly in Firefox and not at all in Internet Explorer.    I expect to see good things coming from the Google camp in the browser wars.

Download Squad

via Play Contra, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and more in Google Chrome.

I found this article over at Instructables:

When  I was growing up I loved playing games in the local arcade for hours on end.  There were always a great variety of games and with just a few dollars I could play a whole bunch of them … and then Nintendo came about.  Once that wonderful system hit the market I spent hours on end in my basement playing the latest 8-bit games and never really looked back at the video game arcade scene.

Now that I am “all grown up” I get to play games with my kids on the Nintendo Wii.  It’s a great system and you can download most of the nostalgic games and reminisce whilst sharing 8-bit glory with the kids … but it’s just not the same as playing them in front of a six foot tall video game arcade box!  How in the world can you recreate this beloved memory of old school arcades for yourself and share it with your children?

Well, if you want spend a whole bunch of money you could actually purchase these arcade machines and designate a room in your house to truly make a real deal arcade of your own.  On the other hand, you could follow the wonderful instructions from this Instructable and make your own miniature/portable arcade box that could emulate all of the games in one box. Genius!

Over at Slashdot,

They mentioned that The Register reported on Richard Egan killing himself (a.k.a. committing suicide) with a shotgun blast to the head.  First off, this was mentioned at Slashdot because Mr. Egan was quite a techie who worked on the guidance computer system for the Apollo operations and went on to co-found the company EMC which was a leader in electronic data storage.  Quite an impressive sounding individual … so why did he kill himself?

Well, back  in May of 2009 Egan was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer and he was already suffering from a list of health issues.  So, on August 30th, 2009, Dick Egan decided to end his life on his own terms instead of letting the cancer slowly take his life away.

This story begs of talking about health care reform in the United States and what we can do on issues such as what Richard Egan was facing and his options on dealing with the matter.  Given such grim circumstances and his personal view on life I can understand the choice that he made but there should be much more civil or humane options available for an individual.  In a time when technology in the information world is screaming into the future our ways of dealing with policies and true ethical matters we appear to be stuck in medieval times.

September 11-13 marks the 27th Anniversary of Hampton Bay Days this year with special musical act Bruce Hornsby Grammy Award winning musical artist and local Williamsburg native. Come and join this local festival in downtown Hampton full of special activities for the kids, funnel cake, fried fish, burgers, music and rides, fun for the whole family.