Author: thomas

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Dunning-Kruger effect

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.

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Uitspraak check for Dummies

Lang leve Apple’s text-to-speech, je kan altijd even een snelle check doen en hij is bijna altijd correct.

Misschien wel iets om op de hoofdtelefoon te doen als je niet wil worden uitgelachen door vrienden of collega’s.

Een paar leuke voorbeelden, probeer maar eens te raden wat de uitspraak gaat worden…

In een Terminal:

ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say hermione
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say recipient
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say ubiquitous
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say ubiquity
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say lieutenant
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say colonel
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say Geoff
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say Leigh
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say Epitome
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say meme
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say Arkansas
ThomasMBP:~ thomasbosboom$ say Awry
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WordPress Multisite + Gallery 3

I’m now in the process of moving all blogs (older Geeklog, standalone WordPress installs, postnuke, phpnuke, drupal) into this new shiny WordPress Multisite setup.

My photogallery has been the biggest challenge, due to its sheer size. 27000 photo’s is not an easy conversion at the best of times.

Luckily, Gallery 3 has been proven solid so far and I’m looking forward to using the new features.

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Mac WebServer Setup – PHP

This site runs on Mac OS X 10.6, a capable webserving platform “out-of-the-box” which includes:

Unfortunately, the stock PHP is pretty barebones and can trail behind the newest releases. Specifically, the open-source CMS/Weblog/ImageGallery stuff I use requires some common PHP extensions not included in the stock install,  and the site is unbearably slow without some kind of caching PHP-accelerator.

This post details my setup procedure, mostly as a reminder for myself.

The good news is that since the first releases of Mac OS X, a host of options has been made available:

  • Installing a third party Mac OS X PHP package (traditionally by Marc Liyanage, now superseded by http://php-osx.liip.ch/)
  • Installing a full third-party MAMP stack
  • installing the required add-ons manually

First off, I would like to dismiss MAMP as an inelegant solution, which duplicates much of the build-in functions leading to all kinds of interesting mix-ups for the less technically inclined. It is the webserver equivalent of taking a sledgehammer to drive a nail: not only overkill, it can be actually damaging to your system  😉

Historically, I have used the PHP compiled by Marc, which has been excellent, with the internal Apache and MySQL. By manually installing either eAccelerator (before 2009 or so) or APC the speed was pretty good too, even on the wimpy iMac G3 this site used to run on.

Unfortunately, current releases, as produced by the guys over at Liip, do not work on my 32-bit Core Duo based server. This has pushed me to consider manually adding the required extensions and APC to the “stock” Apple PHP 5.3.4.

Going “Stock” has the benefit of automatically receiving updates along with the OS X updates, and I definetely have not missed manually updating MySQL or Apache.  A potential problem is that some extensions might require a recompile should Apple decide to move to a new verson of PHP.

And then now, on to the actual reason I started this post; the steps required to install these PHP extensions, as a reminder for myself mostly. A working install of the Mac OS X Developer tools is presumed.

  • sudo pecl install APC
  • when asked to enable spinlocks, choose “yes” instead of the default “no”
  • modify /etc/php.ini to include the APC extension:

;APC Cache

extension=/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20090626/apc.so

apc.shm_size=”64″

  • restart apache

This should enable APC and leave you with a working setup!

If you must use Mcrypt, this requires compiling from the PHP source code. This is much more work than a simple extension install through PECL….

To add mcrypt, these instructions work fine, with the following caveats:

  • PHP should now (10.6.8) be version 5.3.4 ( available here: us.php.net/get/php-5.3.4.tar.bz2/from/a/mirror)
  • A space in the SRC path can make the installer fail with cryptic error messages

Check phpinfo() to see if both mcrypt and APC are now functioning, and all should be well!

Now all I need is a major round of updating the actual PHP apps

  • Geeklog to 1.8
  • Gallery to 3
  • integration plugin for GL 1.8 and Gallery 3
  • WordPress 3.2 update
  • blogs integration in 1 multisite wordpress
  • option: Geeklog migration to a WordPress multisite setup, a Gallery 3 plugin for WordPress is available.
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Garmin Edge 800 op de Mac

Ik kreeg deze vraag per E-mail maar misschien heeft iemand anders er ook wat aan:

Q: Werkt de Garmin Edge 800 met een Mac?
Werken de kaarten ook, dus kan ik de DVD gewoon in de Mac stoppen en dan kaartdelen aanvinken en uploaden? Ben je zeker dat je de kaarten niet eerst op een Windows machine moet ‘unlocken’? Dat was een tijdje geleden wel nog zo.

A: Ik ben erg tevreden, maar ik gebruik de kaartfunctie tot nu toe maar beperkt, die zie ik meer als leuk voor in het buitenland. Ik gebruik nu een gratis kaart waarbij unlocken geen probleem is:http://www.openstreetmap.nl/

Als ik het goed begrepen heb kan je officiele garmin kaarten ook vanaf de mac gebruiken, maar dat heb ik niet geprobeerd. Er is hier software voor beschikbaar van Garmin:MapInstall and MapManager for the Mac software version 2.1.6 (May 27, 2010)

Qua training software vind het de Garmin Training Center meer dan voldoende, zeker samen met de online “Garmin Connect” site.

Er zijn ook een aantal 3rd party kaart / trainings applicaties die er erg mooi en helemaal “Mac” uitzien, zoals bijvoorbeeld Trailrunner

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xkcd: Radiation chart

De schrijver van xkcd, Randall Munroe, is zo iemand op wie ik intens jaloers kan zijn. Slim, humor, creatief en succesvol in zijn online strip. En dan nog tijd overhouden om af en toe hele nuttige informatie online te zetten; in dit geval een kaart die inzicht geeft in stralingsdosis.
Het lijkt kranten en TV niet te lukken radioactieve stralingsdoses consequent te rapporteren, laat staan te duiden.
En dat doet xkcd dan maar gewoon wél:
http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Epic.

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TED, Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team

Te gek onderzoek – simpel, herkenbaar en toch verrassende inzichten over samenwerking in teams.

Spoiler alert: het idee achter deze oefening staat hieronder!

The Marshmallow is a Metaphor for the Hidden Assumptions of a Project: The assumption in the Marshmallow Challenge is that marshmallows are light and fluffy and easily supported by the spaghetti sticks. When you actually try to build the structure, the marshmallows don’t seem so light. The lesson in the marshmallow challenge is that we need to identify the assumptions in our project – the real customer needs, the cost of the product, the duration of the service – and test them early and often. That’s the mechanism that leads to effective innovation.

http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Instructions.html