Backups with rsnapshot

Way back Elvis Stansvik showed how to do simple backups with rsnapshot. Well, I used this as a starting point to invest some time into developing a consistent backup solution across all of my machines … yay ๐Ÿ˜€

There are still some quirks I need to figure out … like having nested per directory excludes and smoothing out how differences between machines are configured … but hey, it works. ๐Ÿ˜‰

The next thing is probably keeping certain things (shell configurations, projects, documents, etc.) in sync between machines … well, that’s another story …

What’s up with orphans in Korean dramas?

I am new to this field, but have just noticed a curious thing. All of the Korean dramas I have been watching seemingly had or have developed plots, that feature orphans as main characters … o.O

I had no bias other than high viewership ratings, but that should not be the reason for such skewed results … maybe orphans just make for a good/dramatic plot … your theories are very welcome. ๐Ÿ˜‰

My “random” sampe:

Update:

Oh My ZSH

I was using ZSH for quite a while now instead of Bash. But thanks to Ryan Bates’ screencast about Oh My ZSH I finally came around to properly configure it and use it to its full potential.

I immediately created my own theme and was able to extract custom plugins out of my previous configuration. One of them might even end up in a pull request. ๐Ÿ™‚ I used the custom plugins mechanism to split up and spread my configurations across all of my machines. So now I have a consistent set of configurations and I can activate them individually according to each machine’sย purpose (i.e. no need for KDE specific settings on a server ๐Ÿ˜‰ ).

A nice productivity and consistency boost. ๐Ÿ˜€

War Surgery

There is a documentary on war surgery (be warned: it’s quite graphic) that was brought to my attention. It was produced by the the medical division of the International Committee of the Red Cross and shows general principles of war surgery covering things like wound debridement, lower limb amputations, skin grafting of injuries from land mines and high velocity impacts.

I’ve just come around to watch it and well … it’s not easy to stomach … ๐Ÿ˜ Though the documentary seems quite old and not of good audio-visual quality it’s still quite “graphic”. There are basically two levels you have to deal with in comprehending what you are seeing.

The first one is that war is nasty. And it produces some seriously disturbing imagery that stays even when the actual combat action is over … considering mines there, doesn’t even need to be “combat action” any where to result in casualties. People wounded under such circumstances don’t really get medical attention immediately and if they do, it’s most likely inadequate. So when they reach a adequately equipped facility their wounds will be in quite a bad state. But one thing that you begin to realize and that makesย your stomach cringe is the realization, that in contrast to (fire, vehicle, etc.) accidents that may produce similarly graphic injuries war injuries are inflicted deliberately! :/

The second thing is the reality of surgery. This might come as a surprise to some of you, but surgeries – especially on non-healthy tissue – look quite nasty in themselves. Some get easily upset from blood or scars on the surface, but the world that is underneath your skin is quite squirmy (if that’s the right word ๐Ÿ˜‰ ). It’s gory, it’s gooey and you might realize that though the person being operated on is unconscious he is quite “alive” inside … and then there is the surgeon cutting, clamping, “soldering” (i forgot the medical term), sewing, etc. … and they are not very gentle at doing that … ๐Ÿ˜

So be warned, this is “starker Tobak” as Germans would say. ๐Ÿ˜‰