Glidden Blue Phlox

It looks like Glidden doesn't make Blue Phlox any more. Their colors have all been renamed. There are odd sites that put up an HTML color approximation of paint chips, such as the following (which seems to give a catalog number for Blue Phlox):

http://www.myperfectcolor.com/en/color/88063_Glidden-58BB33270-Blue-Phlox

http://www.color-swatches.com/glidden/blue-phlox/58bb-33-270/swatch.html

Pure Periwinkle is a pretty close replacement for Blue Phlox though.

PVA Primer versus Regular or Latex Primer

So, PVA primter is labeled "contractor grade" and is about half the cost. What's the catch.

Apparently, it's pretty poor stuff, although contractors seem to have no heasitation about using it for new drywall. "PVA primer is a primer made with a polyvinyl acetate binder resin, the way paints were made in the beginning some 40 years ago. They are the cheaper grades of primer as PVA resin like the ones I used to sell are plentiful and therefore cheap.". That quote was from this forum thread, the usual dark echo chamber full of dummies with a few snarky schmott guys:

http://www.diychatroom.com/f4/pva-primer-vs-tinted-primer-90226/

Here's a forum where the contractors are like "PVA fine for new drywall":

http://www.doityourself.com/forum/walls-ceilings/179671-rookie-kilz-vs-pva-primer.html.

However, many folks seem to have no heasitation to comparing PVA to Elmer's Glue.

Sumerian Clay Tokens

This subject is so interesting!

Executive Summary: Plain clay tokens came into use at around 8,000 BC, then about 4,000 years later writing was invented. They are several shapes, each representing a type of commodity, and were stored baked in clay balls on which the contents had been impressed before encapsulating. Complex clay tokens were in use also, but they are at the much later time frame and only associated with the sumerian temple transactions. The theory is put forth that the plain tokens were for farm commodities, and the complex were for manufactured commodities. Sumerian math was astonishing in its advancement and its use of the base-60 system. There were different number systems for different "things", like sheep vs. grain volume vs. land area.

Here are just a couple of the links I've found that really explain this topic:

A top-level one with an unbelievably clear (but apparently biased) 10,000 year history of the region:

http://it.stlawu.edu/~dmelvill/mesomath/index.html

A page that has popped up repeatedly in my searches, not so much about the tokens or math, but the originis of the cunieform. Goes into the base-60 number system:

http://www.ancientscripts.com/sumerian.html

Look at this incredible and well-explained collection of tablets and bullas:

http://earth-history.com/Sumer/Clay-tablets.htm

VI show end of line characters

Two suggestions:

First, ":set list". Love the mnemonic.

http://www.chrispian.com/quick-vi-tip-show-hidden-characters/

I recently found out that using this causes all tab characters to be ripped out or something?

Heres the post that mentioned replacing the /t's, using :e ++ff unix, and other neat hints:

http://superuser.com/questions/97692/vim-show-line-feeds-carriage-return

MEI Technologies Contacts

Important people and phone numbers at MEI:

VP, Capitol Region Kamran Mortezavi 301-867-0181 kamran.mortezavi@meieses.com
Program Manager Dwight Yoder 301-867-0189 dwight.yoder@meieses.com
Director of Biz Operations Buddy Whiteman 301-867-0028 buddy.whiteman@meieses.com
Group Manager Carroll Collins 301-867-0052 carroll.collins@meieses.com
Group Manager Randy Baumbach 301-867-0043 randy.baumbach@meieses.com
Senior HR Deborah Valentine 301-867-0001 deborah.valentine@meieses.com
Accounting Manager Paula Colwell 301-867-0055 paula.colwell@meieses.com
Safety /Misson Assurance Charles Coleman 301-867-0003 charles.coleman@meieses.com
Task Lead Joseph LeStrange 301-867-0083 joseph.lestrange@meieses.com
Task Lead Bob Mann 301-867-0188 bob.mann@meieses.com
Task Lead Ron Martin 301-867-0010 ron.martin@meieses.com
Task Lead Amir Sadeghi 301-867-0057 amir.sadeghi@meieses.com
Task Lead Bill Janssen 301-867-0056 bill.janssen@meieses.com
Task Lead Nathaniel Forgotson 301-867-0008 nathaniel.forgotson@meieses.com
Task Lead Alan Hairston 301-867-0192 alan.hairston@meieses.com
Task Lead Suleyman "Sam" Johns 301-867-0070 suleyman.johns@meieses.com
Sr. Buyer Rick Jacobs 301-867-0006 rick.jacobs@meieses.com
Contracts Administrator Barbara Selby 301-867-0178 barbara.selby@meieses.com
Subcontracts Assistant Silesia Pearson 301-867-0191 sisi.pearson@meieses.com
Administrative Courier Carletta Carter 301-867-0000 carletta.carter@meieses.com
Administrative Assistant KeyKey Jeter 301-867-0094 keykey.jeter@meieses.com
HR Rupinder Singh 301-867-0019 rupinder.singh@meieses.com
Payroll Specialist George Thomas 301-867-0005 george.thomas@meieses.com
Project Coordinator Carletta Todd 301-867-0004 carlie.todd@meieses.com
Quality Assurance Engineer Dave Tomlin 301-867-0092 dave.tomlin@meieses.com

Cygwin comparing binary files

It turns out that cmp is da bomb. cmp -l lists the locations of the bytes that are different and the two values for two binary files. So simple. Here's a link where I learned this, lots of other neat ideas there too:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/688504/binary-diff-tool-for-very-large-files

sed insert lines after a specific line

Ha, that wasn't the google search that I typed in, but better.

The approaches to this problem involve either insert or append:

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2009/11/unix-sed-tutorial-append-insert-replace-and-count-file-lines/

or my personal favorites, "next" and "print". In the following example, the found line is deleted, and only specific lines after that are printed (I don't need to delete the found line):

http://prefetch.net/blog/index.php/2007/12/03/printing-a-set-of-lines-after-a-pattern-match/

A really impenetrable suggestion for the same thing: What is capital N?

http://codesnippets.joyent.com/posts/show/2043

So anyhow, what I am going to whip up will be to find the matching line, print the next couple of lines, then do some appends to write out the new code lines.