Operations Management is going to be a much better class than I expected. Dr. Tsai is a quant, interested in statistical analysis, and likes to keep an open mind. He mentioned that hei often eats dinner in the whatever cafe, and that chatting over dinner is something he enjoys. If he keeps acting intelligent, I'll form some cogent thoughts and then see what he thinks.

Yesterday's linux meeting (cplug) covered bash tricks and other command-line fun. I added the following:

  1. Using commands just run, and editing them on the fly 
    export PS1="\\!\\$ "
!!:s/export/echo/
^echo^printf^
echo !$
!echo
  2. Run nc -l localhost -p 8080 in one terminal, then run echo hi > /dev/tcp/localhost/8080 in another to quickly copy data around a network in a completely insecure fashion.
  3. Add hostname completion to commands complete -A hostname ssh
  4. for loops are great 
    for i in *.mp3; do mpg321 "$i"; done
  5. But knowing POSIX Regular Expressions will make sysadmin life much more efficient as you can address multiple files/directories/etc. specifically. Using Chris Moates example from last night, say you have a directory with 80,000 files in it, named "testN.log", where N is an integer from 1 to 80,000. How do you delete test8000.log through test8999.log? 
    rm test8[0-9][0-9][0-9].log

      

  6. What does the following bash incantation do? (borrowing from lcamtuf)

    :(){ :&};:

Other cool stuff includes Quaker Capital, who seem to have their heads on straight. I might pester them for some research re: my finance class.

Guide to Taiwan

  1. Learn basic Mandarin.
  2. Arrange for an apartment in Taipei.
  3. Fly into Taipei.
  4. Take bus to subway to apartment.
  5. Unpack bags.
  6. Clean apartment.
  7. Go to the Eslite 7-story 24-hour bookstore. This also functions as Taipei's intellectual meatmarket.
  8. Find someone cute; speak English with them; start relationship with them.
  9. You now have a local guide and companion in the city.