radiant.matrix

“You know that sign in the lobby that says improve everything we touch? Please don’t.” — Francis S. Blake, CEO Home Depot

Context: speaking on how Home Depot has had so many initiatives that it wasn’t succeeding at any of them. Source: Home Depot’s total rehab, pg 2. Retrieved from CNNMoney.com on 25 Sep 2008.

correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. — Mr. Fred, from Our Corner, by Annie Besant; as quoted in DENIED ASPIRATES.

Mr. Fred is pointing out that all use of language is, in a way, slang — a choice of words that marks one’s class. Interesting point.

One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.

The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, they suggested in a paper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it,” — Incompetent People Really Have No Clue, Studies Find / They’re blind to own failings, others’ skills

Based on the official instructions from the DBD::mysql maintainer, here’s a fast summary for people who know their way around compiling and installing software on Unix-like systems:

1. Download the MySQL Linux sources

2. Unpack them to your cygwin home directory:

   $ cd ~ ; tar xzf mysql-5.0.51b.tar.gz

3. Configure and install:

   $ cd mysql-5.0.51b
   $ ./configure && make && make install

4. Check the above for errors. If there are none, continue.

5. Download the DBD::mysql distribution from CPAN

6. Unpack this into your cygwin home directory:

   $ cd ~ ; tar xzf DBD-mysql-4.007.tar.gz

7. Build the makefile

   $ cd DBD-mysql-4.007
   $ perl Makefile.PL --mysqlconfig=/usr/local/bin/mysqlconfig –testhost=127.0.0.1

8. Make, and optionally make test — note that ‘make test’ may produce some failures, but DBD::mysql may still work

   $ make
   optional: $ make test
   $ make install

9. You’re done!

Enjoy!

Dow’s Law: In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, the greater the confusion