Month: January 2011

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Dear god in heaven, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 has yanking and pulling!  I don’t know how long MS has had, what they call, the clipboard ring but I have a new found respect for Visual Studio (VS08.)  For those who are not familiar with this feature, yank/pull is a Unix staple (especially among EMACS users) that effectively saves a clipboard history for you.

Using a modified paste command will cycle you through your history pasting the your most recent copy to the edited text (and then highlighting it,) using the command again will paste the second most recent copy (and thus removing what was just highlighted.  Some versions of this feature will allow you to view a list of your clipboard history and arrow down to select it.  Imagine having a list of commonly pasted text instantly available to add to any document without your hands ever leaving the keyboard.

Once someone starts using this feature it because almost addictively beneficial. Trying to live without it is similar to trying to edit text without copy/past and has been one of the main reasons VS08 (or any other Windows text editor) is PAINFUL to use.  Admittedly there are a number of third party applications that give you this functionality, but really, should a user be paying for a feature that is as fundamental to using a computer as copy & paste… or virtual desktops?

Wait… oh well, back to Linux.

A Thousand Furlongs of Sea

We must learn not to disassociate the airy flower from the earthy root, for the flower that is cut off from its root fades, and its seeds are barren, whereas the root, secure in mother earth, can produce flower after flower and bring their fruit to maturity.
–Kabbalah

Generally speaking I work behind a desk eight hours a day (OK, more like 12) but once in a great while I will get to go out with a field crew to do actual physical work.  While physical labor is generally pretty scary stuff; I love getting out-of-doors.  My most recent excursion was to the western side of Oklahoma on a GIS mapping project.

I have driven through the panhandle a couple time previously but really didn’t spend any time there.  It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  For someone who is used to the lush green of the Ozark mountains; the naked beauty of the gypsum hills and high plains was like landing on another planet.  This trip was actually months ago, but I forgot I had taken pictures until today. You can check out the photo gallery by clicking the link below.

Oklahoma Gypsum Hills and Eastern Panhandle

To have thrust upon them

Got a couple great quotes from Drive, by Daniel H. Pink:

“Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible.  Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one’s sights and pushing toward the horizon.”

“Rewards, we’ve seen, can limit the breadth of our thinking… They can focus our sights on only what’s immediately before us rather than what’s off in the distance.”