Monthly Archive for October, 2008

I guess we’re doubling up on the interviews today.  I really need to start watching Campbell Brown’s show.  I’ve only seen her a few times, notably her Tucker Bounds interview and her Free Palin piece. I’ve been nothing but impressed by her.  There’s been a lot of talk from liberals about how great NBC’s Rachel Maddow is (and she is a smart, eloquent anchor) but to me Campbell Brown’s rise in prominence on CNN is much more exciting.  She just has an even-handed, intelligent approach to the news.

Warning: geeky entry ahead.

<b>Update:</b> I improved the script so it is slightly smarter when you change files during a sync.

So, I’ve been doing a lot of work on my Linux (Ubuntu) system where I am editing files that are on a remote server, and I’m accessing them over SSH.  At first, I was using gnome-vfs to connect to the server, but I was getting booted off all the time and it was really frustrating.  Now I’m using sshfs to mount the remote system on my local machine, but browsing the files is too painfully slow.

To solve these problems, I’ve set up a mirroring system that automatically mirrors any changes I make on my local system to the remote system.  It’s amazing! I can browse the files on my local machine super-fast, and as soon as I save a file, it starts to upload, and it’s done by the time I can switch over to a browser or a terminal to test it.

Here’s how you can set up automatic mirroring over SSH:

SSH without a password

The first thing to do, since you don’t want to be having to enter your password all the time, is setting up SSH to use your encryption keys instead of the password. Directions are here or here.  You’re ready to go once you can run “ssh yourusername@yourhost.com” and it logs in without asking for any passwords

Synchronization with unison

I would’ve thought that rsync would be the fastest way to synchronize files, but it’s not.  Unison is much faster.  The easiest way to set it up is to install it, by running the following on BOTH the local machine and the server:

sudo apt-get install unison

And then create a ~/.unison/yourhost.prf file on the local machine that contains the following:

# Unison preferences file
root = /path/to/local/folder
root = ssh://yourusername@yourhost.com/path/to/remote/folder
include default
# imports settings from default.prf

Now test that it works by running:

unison yourserver -testserver

It should just say “Contacting server…”

Watch a folder and automatically synchronize

To automatically sync changes that are made locally, I wrote a little bash script.  Create a file called watchdo in ~/bin and copy in the following:

#!/bin/bash
if [ $# -lt 2 ]; then
  echo "usage: watchdo /path/to/file command";
  exit;
fi

function kissandtell {
	$1
	zenity --notification --text="Sync complete." --timeout 3;
}

while true
do
  nothing=`inotifywatch -v -e modify -e create -e delete -e move -t 1 -r $1 2>&1 | grep 'No events occurred' | sed -u 's/No events occurred./1/'`;
  if [[ "$nothing" -ne "1" ]]; then
    kissandtell "$2" &
  fi
done

Make it executable by running:

chmod a+x ~/bin/watchdo

Note that ~/bin should be in your path.  Now you can set up a watch by running:

watchdo /path/to/watch "unison yourhost -batch"

Now, try saving, deleting, moving or creating a file in /path/to/watch.  You should see the synchronization happening in your watchdo window.  If you want it to run in the background, just do:

nohup watchdo /path/to/watch "unison yourhost -batch" &

Two-way sync

Finally, if you want to have the synchronization work both ways, copy the “watchdo” script to the server, and run it there as well.

We all do things we “shouldn’t” do.  These things fall into two categories: things which are self-destructive, and things that outside forces have convinced us we shouldn’t do, but are actually healthy.

When I am riding my bike home at night, I often feel a compulsion to go eat a burrito.  In San Diego, at any hour of the day, in any part of the city, there are burritos available.  I’ve often struggled with this, feeling like I shouldn’t do it.  I know it’s self destructive…. I do it out of anxiety, not because I actually want to eat a burrito.  I’ve struggled with this for a long time.

But something changed in me.  I realized that at the core of this self destructive behavior is profound self-hatred.  I would have a battle in my head over whether I would eat the burrito:

“Hmm… am I going to get a burrito?”
“Eat it! You want it!”
“No, don’t!  It won’t make you happy!”
“Whatever, I don’t want to be happy, I want the burrito!”
“No, you shouldn’t!”
“You want to eat it, I’m taking over your body and we’re eating it”

And that would be that.  But what is at the core of this argument…. what *allows* this discussion to happen is my belief that I don’t deserve to get what I need.  That I don’t deserve to have my body treated well.  That I don’t deserve to feel good and happy, like things are going the way they should.

I don’t know where this idea came from, but realizing that I believe this has made all the difference.

Now, when I feel myself wanting to have a burrito, the conversation goes like this:

“Hmm… am I going to get a burrito?”
“Yes! Eat it!”
“Oh my god!  Baby, Erik, do you really not believe that you deserve to feel good?  Don’t you deserve to get exactly what you need right now?  What do you really need, deep down in your soul to feel at peace?”

And it becomes immediately clear that yes, I deserve to feel good, and no, a burrito will not bring me peace, and actually what will bring me peace is having a good long fart and drinking a glass of water.

For example.

Or… you know what?  Sometimes it *is* the burrito!  But the point is that the question of whether you “should” or “should not” is not the issue.  In fact, any time the word “should” comes out of my mouth, I stop and find another way to say what I’m trying to say.  The real question is what you deserve.  What beautiful, fulfilling, healthy experience do you deserve to have right here, right now?

Because none of us deserve another night of shame.  None of us deserve to wake up with a horrible hangover.  None of us deserves to go home, feeling empty after having sex with someone who doesn’t care about us.  None of us deserve to spend the day unable to eat because we ate so much the night before our stomachs feel like crap.

None of us.  And if you are finding yourself doing those things, you may find that deep down inside you actually don’t feel you deserve any better.  Once you can see that, you can start to realize how untrue it is.

Then you can slowly untrain yourself out of it.  You can stop saying those self-destructive things to yourself, and stop doing those self-destructive things.  It won’t happen all at once, but that moment that you realize you are good, and that you deserve to be happy…. that will be the tipping point.  That is the point after which healing is inevitable, if not instant.

And the cool thing is, once you’ve figured this out, it can get you out of a lot of sticky situations.  Once you start really believing that you deserve to feel good, and at peace, it becomes really easy to answer the question “should I keep doing this?”  Example:

“I am browsing the web aimlessly.  Should I keep doing this?”
“Do you feel good?”
“No, I feel kind of gross.  Anxious and not present at all.”
“Well, there you go.”

Decision solved.  Problem un-made.  No need for pro- and con- lists.  No need for planning ahead.

And I know, I know.  You’re thinking sometimes you have to do things that don’t feel good.  Sometimes you have to think about the future.

And I agree.  Luckily sometimes you feel like a masochist.  Sometimes you feel anxious and what it’s going to take to make you feel better is cleaning the bathroom, or going through that stack of bills.  And sometimes you really feel like picking up a pencil and paper and planning stuff out.

The point is, you don’t HAVE to do it compulsively.  If working through the bills is making you miserable, stop.  If letting the bills pile up is making you miserable, work through them!

And you know what?  I’m getting kind of sick of writing and editing this.  And even though I have some desire to polish this post into something much more professional, I know I’ll have another chance to do that down the line, and if I don’t post it now I never will.  So I’m going to post it and lie down.  Because that’s what my body wants.

For anyone who thinks racism isn’t a problem for them, or think that the only people responsible are the outright bigots, check this out:

The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint reports on a study recently released by the DC-based Campaign for Youth Justice:

The report showed that white youth are significantly more likely than African American youth to use drugs and 30 percent more likely to sell drugs, but African American youth are twice as likely to be arrested and detained for drug offenses.

Further, drug cases were filed against African American Youth in adult courts at nearly five times the rate of white youth, and African American youth accounted for 87 percent of those charged with drug offenses.  White the arrest rate for white youth decreased nine percent from 2001 to 2006, the arrest rate for African American youth increased by seven percent during this same time period, the report found. – “Criminal Justice System Unfair to Black Youth”, The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint, Thursday, October 9, 2008

If you’re a citizen of this country, you too are partly responsible for this.  Racism in the criminal justice system (police, courts, parole boards, etc) is one of the top civil rights issues in this country today.  That we white people sit around imagining that the jails are full of black people because they just commit more crimes… that’s racism, loud and clear.