By artist Yukino Ohmura.

A simple rake task to dump the contents of a MySQL database and save it to an Amazon S3 bucket. Use together with whenever to automate it.

namespace :backup do

  task :nightly do
    timestamp = Time.now.strftime("%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S")
    backup_file = "tmp/backups/#{timestamp}_dump.sql.gz"
    `mkdir -p tmp/backups`
    `mysqldump -u root {DATABASE_NAME} | gzip -c > #{backup_file}`

    send_to_s3 backup_file
  end

  def send_to_s3(file_path)
    bucket = "{BUCKET_NAME}"
    file_name = File.basename(file_path)
    AWS::S3::DEFAULT_HOST.replace "s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com"

    AWS::S3::Base.establish_connection!(
      :access_key_id => '{KEY}',
      :secret_access_key => '{SECRET}')

    AWS::S3::S3Object.store(
      "backups/#{file_name}",
      File.open("#{file_path}"),
      bucket)
  end

end

Zach Sobiech was diagnosed with terminal cancer at age 14. He used the small amount of time he had left to produce music, which has reached and touched millions.

“My Last Days” on YouTube

I want to be remembered as the kid who went down fighting and didn’t really lose.

Zach passed away on May 20, 2013. Buying his album on iTunes will support a cancer research fund set up on his behalf, or you can donate directly.

I’ve been getting a few questions about the script used to generate the Pokemon Fusion sprites, so I thought I would write a quick blog post to describe the process.

The inspiration of the website was the idea that it should be possible to automate the process of combining pokemon sprites, and each image is automatically generated by a computer script. Some of the results are less impressive than others, but I think that it adds to the fun and makes it that much more satisfying when you come across ones that work really well.

Continue reading →

See a Google Street View at a random point in the world, guess where it is on a map.

Here’s a quick Mac OSX service that will allow you to save any link to Pocket by right-clicking it. It will work from within basically any app that lets you right-click text. Prerequisite is that you have the Pocket OSX app installed.

Download the script here

After downloading, unzip and place the file in ~/Library/Services (or create the folder first if it doesn’t exist already)

After doing so, you should be able to simply highlight a link and right-click it to see the “Save to Pocket” option. (You might find it under a “Services” category)

I absolutely love the energy

A chilling story told by a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. I hope that someday we’ll look back and wonder how anything like this could have been possible.

I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.
[…]
The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply. At least 40 people here are on a hunger strike. People are fainting with exhaustion every day. I have vomited blood.
And there is no end in sight to our imprisonment. Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made.
I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.

The program is given a set of inputs from a human playing the game, and analyzes the RAM to define success in the game. It then plays the game with no knowledge of the rules, and works incredibly well.

#OnionOrActualHeadline

The announcement from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) did not indicate a new scheduled time for a missile test, saying only that it was “working with Windows 8 support to resolve the issue.”

A source close to the North Korean regime reported that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un is furious about the Windows 8 problems and is considering a number of options, including declaring war on Microsoft.