Regex Sub-language Selection

To use grep to find things with spaces (or to have a generally more powerful Regex syntax akin to that of Perl or Python), use:

grep -P

as a part of the incantation.

Ho-hum

Feels funny to be writing here once more, not because I'm no longer comfortable with writing, but that between the last update and this one, many things have changed. Oh, and the fact that my left index finger has some nail issues which causes me to lose quite a fair bit of typing ability, but as usual I digress.

So anyway, I have been rather jaded/down for the last couple of months, partially due to the stresses of work, and partially due to the various stresses in life. And as each day passes, I'm slowly starting to realise that I am actually fairly decoupled from the material world, in the sense that I can live with really very little things that are available from the material condition. This slow understanding of my own condition comes as a part of my general evaluation of the direction with which my life is currently taking, from the three paths of work, personal and play. It is just that with all the work and stresses that I have been put into, I have little time to sit down and partake in a little introspection---the moments in time where I can really sit back and consider all things past and present and plan about the future, wondering about the greater significance of it all.

Needless to say, having a week's leave is something that is rather welcome at this point in time, as someone once said ``if you don't plan to take your leave, you never will take the leave because work is never-ending''. This is particularly pertinent given what has occurred just a few days back---my budding relationship with Mint has gone on a ``two steps forward one step back'' stint. I don't really want to talk about things here (that's what a diary is for), but I suppose it does put a lot of things into perspective to a large degree. Many questions were raised, and many more to be answered, and at the end of it all, only time and fate can tell what the future truly brings.

Enough of the depressing stuff though. Thinking about the past, present and future does have some interesting consequences, and it is for things like that I am glad I actually took that one week leave. Hell, I think I should have taken the leave a long time ago, and have I done that, I would probably be in a better shape than now. As I mull about the future from the present, I realise that slowly, the very fabric of reality itself is morphing, not always for the better, but certainly changing enough that it keeps things somewhat exciting.

Aikido. This is one of the couple of things that I am using to keep myself sane, and for the most part, I am really glad to have taken it up when I had the chance. Apart from the generally good workout it provides, there's also a strong understanding of what my body and mind are capable of as I try out the various manoeuvres that are available within the martial art. I've been living a mostly sedentary life for quite a long while, and thus having the opportunity to finally have the chance to work out my body is something that I truly cherish a lot.

So much for the random update for now.

Anachronism

The intimacy granted by a superiorly designed writing instrument is as pleasurable as the sweet love that two lovers make with each other. The ampleness of the barrel coupled with the softest of caresses needed for the nib to touch the paper to let the smoothest of ink to flow unimpeded is almost as sinful as the uninhibited emotions that the lovers share with each other in the purest of ways.

But sweet seductive imagery aside, after having my fountain pen for nearly a year since my graduation (a gift from my mum, who had asked me what I might want for graduation), I must say that I have really grown to appreciate how a fountain pen works. As noted in the epithet earlier, it is a real spiritual experience just to wield the pen between the thumb and forefinger, and to feel the gliding sensation of the nib on the surface. Of course, one of the outcomes from using a high quality fountain pen is that one would not really print letters but write them with a more cursive style---the very fluid style that just begs to be used with such a nice instrument. It is a pity that the modern day person is largely ignorant of the fountain pen. Disposable ball-point pens, gel-inked pens and the what not dominate the current writing landscape, and while I am not against their use, I still maintain that the fountain pen is such a wonderful writing instrument that one would forgo all these other writing tools just to have the comfort level that is afforded only by the fountain pen itself. I know I have.

But what is the aim of writing all this? It is not merely an exercise of typing English text out on a keyboard---there is of course a theme that I am alluding to here. This theme that I am subtly talking about refers to that of my anachronistic tendencies.

While in many ways I am a techie, computer science degree and all, at heart I am still one who cherishes the past that has occurred. Unlike those who follow that path, I do not like things about the past because I believe that the past is inexplicably timeless with an elegance that transcends all of reality---I'm still a rational realist after all. However, I do find that some of the artefacts that come from the past have a certain aesthetic about them that is sort of lost in the march of technology; it amazes me to end to learn that people of the past have reached dizzying heights of technology progress in spite of having techniques and materials that are much simpler than now. In many ways, my fascination with the anachronistic can be seen as a tribute to the ingenuity that our predecessors have to demonstrate to come up with workable ideas at a time that was devoid of all the progress that we have now.

Take the slide rule for example. The ability to compute traditionally annoying functions without having to keep too many things on one's head, all reduced to a short 10-inch form factor. Sure, the 10-inch netbook that is popular these days can probably do more, but slide rules are easily recreated technology (try to build your own netbook from scratch), and they run practically forever (the 8-hour battery life means absolutely nothing), and can compute things up to three significant figures of accuracy. The elegance of such anachronistic devices never cease to amaze me, and it is one of my life's goals to actually seek out and learn how do all these ``lost'' devices work and how they are made; perhaps some time in thei future, their need might arise again.

Duality (Part 2)

(First part begins here.)

So the last time I talked here I was referring to how the two seemingly contradictory maxims of what absence can do to a person with regards to the remembrance and camaraderie are both completely wrong due to the grayness in which the ``hard rules'' of the world apply to. That was, of course, made at a moment that was rather late at night (4am in the morning) and with the general realisation at that point in time that the people that I once knew from the past are just going to stay there where I last left them---in the past. It is not so much as a piece demanding strong scrutiny, but more of a piece that highlights the duality of reality that we sometimes fail to appreciate.

In many of life's happenings, we find that there are many instances where we ask ourselves if something that had happened to us was indeed ``bad'' and worry greatly about what might happen to us after that, i.e. the consequences of it all. Of course it is true that we will always have to deal with the consequences of our actions (it is only the privileged few that can get away from everything), but what occurs after that is something that is worth thinking about separately and away from the rather myopic perspective of mere cause and effect. The fallacy of it all is to assume that the single outcome of a single effect will be the only factor that will affect our affect and effect---what I mean is that we are always assuming that the one outcome that occurred will be the deciding factor that will change our moods and to change the series of consequences that we might have to deal with. The truth is often more complicated than it seems; while it sounds more rational to identify the root cause of a particular outcome, upon further thought, the conclusion that is drawn is often a little more different---the discovered ``root'' cause is mostly the straw that broke the camel's back. There is often an accumulation of factors that started off small and fairly insignificant, before snowballing into a monstrosity that one has to eventually fend off (and declare to be the root cause of it all). The astute person will often try to correct for all these small issues in the hope of averting certain disaster, or at least, certain predictable disaster.

Predictability. We assume in many cases that things are predictable, to a certain degree. Drop a ball from a height off the ground, and you expect the ball to fall downards to the ground. The very essence that defines science is based on the notion of falsifiability and predictability, or at least, the notion that we can tell with some level of confidence what an outcome might be given the starting conditions (or part thereof). Predictability is at times reassuring, but its dual is also true, namely that predictability can also be a very boring affair. Perhaps being a little unpredictable can lead to something that is more meaningful, for if you already knew the output of a computer program, would you still want to run the program? Put in another way, if you can fully predict your life, would you still want to live your life out then?

Why all these jumping about, one might ask. And I reply, why not? I'm attempting to demonstrate the duality of reality that permeates, and to suggest that perhaps by paying attention to its existence that we can finally learn the true meaning of happiness, which ought to be seen as the life path of the most moderate belief that one can summon. Only then will the dicta of common sense appeal most strongly to that of the rational mind.

Duality (Part 1)

Ookay, so it is once more 4am in the morning, and I have absolutely no idea why I am still awake. Anyhow, being this late in the night means that it is a really good time to be thinking about things that are a little more philosophical in nature.

I've been to America and back, and if things go smoothly, I'll probably be heading back for yet another spell. If I have to narrow down the things that I have learnt from being in the US to just one thing in human relations, it would be that people tend to be very forgetful. As time goes by, everyone's memories fade a little, and under certain circumstances, the memories fade ever so quickly as compared to others. For example, it is a known fact that I have graduated one year early due to a whole variety of reasons, and after having done so, I have this feeling that only a small handful of people actually remember who I am, let alone continuing to keep in contact with me. It is of course not a real lesson that is newly learnt per se, but it is most striking when comparing the position that I am in with the folks that I knew from America---apart from the separation by time, there is also a separation of pure geographical distance. Relativity aside, it really does evoke the meaning of the proverbial ``out of sight, out of mind''.

Yet things are not always the case---there is still another saying that goes ``absence makes the heart fonder''. In many ways, this can be seen as the pure antithesis of the previous folk saying, but I choose to view things from a slightly more holistic perspective; absence and emotions have a dependency on each other, but there is no single prescribed method with which one can predict with great accuracy that it will always be true. So both proverbs under my interpretation are completely wrong since they are designating a maxim as opposed to a less rigorous guideline. Of course there is a little nit-picking involved here since I am applying the extrema principle of taking sentences as literally as possible, consistent with a cold rational reading, as opposed to the more moderate perspective prevalent in everyday conversations.

But how does this fit into what I am going to say? Perhaps a next post might be in order (I'm getting sleepy and should probably get some rest).

Late-Night Auto-Writing

Okay, so it's finally dark out, the night is fast progressing into the deepest form of darkness, and I'm sort of floating around in that semi-happy state of being mildly sedated from the cool winds and quiet atmosphere. Sounds like a good time for yet another rare blog entry.

Funny how life works out sometimes. Just when you think all hope is lost, an opportunity yields itself to be within your grasp, only if you choose to take it up, of course. I don't really mean this in any metaphorical sense---such subtleties are fast lost upon me as I dig deeper into the factual world that is science. If you have been paying attention (or not, considering I do not know who is actually reading this and who isn't), you would have realised that I have been rather lost and directionless with regards to many things. But of course, by now, most of these issues have been dealt with, and I feel that familiar surge of energy that drives and pushes me forward for all the past few years that I have lived.

So what has changed in life?

Lots of things, really. New job, new life, new love, new goals, new friends, new acquaintances---it is in many ways a break from the old life that I had started to loath ever since the world crashed on me figuratively speaking. Such a break is most welcome of course, since it truly marks a new beginning for me. Now I don't have to worry about how the people of the past have treated me since I have the present to look at and the future to look forward to; odious varieties of people from #cslounge for example are but a thing of the past, and odious people from my other parts of life have been silenced like vermin crushed under the heels of a juggernaut. Surely, the clearing of such filth can be important as a means of detoxifying the soul, or at the very least, that of the psyche.

But such sweeping changes made require more than a fair share of guts and willingness to leap into the unknown---the remaking process of the self is one that is fraught with false starts and early failures, and not to mention the sheer uncertainty of the interpretations that one can take with reagards to particular facets of the issue at hand. I have dallied a little in working that bit out, but today, I finally took the plunge and cleared away the last vestiges of all that made me so unhappy for so long.

Enough of the sombre thoughts---a new beginning needs a new outlook on everything that happens. Those who have known me for long would be mildly surprised to discover that I have more or less become a person that they would never have guessed: I am more physically active these days than I ever was in the past. Part of this comes from the tacit acknowledgement that I'm no spring chicken any more, and that my metabolism is already on the decline, which meant that the ``legendary'' helpings of old cannot be performed again in this current time and age should I wish to maintain the veneer of healthiness that is innately axiomatic for people within my age group. But it is not true that I once hated to be physically active; it's all because of my hypersensitive skin towards the elements coupled with the disciplined nature of organised physical education/training that made physical activity the chore that it once was. Put simply, I was unable to be physically active because I lost all control on what I can and cannot do to prevent flare ups of my skin. Now, many years from before, I'm an Aikido-ka, a martial artist undergoing fairly rigorous training twice a week of two-hour sessions. Of course my skin is the same, but with a few more years of self-control under my belt, plus a couple of daring innovations, I have managed to keep the situation mostly in check, which gives me ample opportunities to pursue my martial arts training, and more importantly, boost my self-confidence and self-image---it is hard to feel sexy with broken skin everywhere, to put it in the most blunt way possible.

But for now though, it would seem that I'm just prattling on without aim---it is not too far from the truth, but yet among the bewildering agglomeration of words lies some truth that is only thinly veiled from view by the veneer of flowery prose. I mentioned before that updates to the blog are far and few due to the reduction in the fantastic adventures that one can get in a working world, but I suppose there are still other ways of reaching these phantasms of interest. As a researcher-in-training, I suppose that my powers of imagination are still fairly robust, as seen by the fact that I am, after all, in a field where imagination and logic have to work together harmoniously to produce something that is truly magical and worthy of praise for its utility. Then of course, it is just a matter of time before I begin to relearn once more how to harness that imagination of mind to probe the nature of the world and universe at large.

The question to ask of course is how much different is that direction compared to whatever was done before on this blog? In some ways, it is more different. While I dare not claim that my posts would be more mature (maturity is something other people say, not something to be self-declared), they are more likely to be even more introspective in nature, sometimes with a hint of philosophical and moral underpinnings. In short, the posts here might just become more dry, which will of course make my already dismal readership fall into true dereliction. But to write about the goings-on in a place where one needs to be hush-hush is in many ways a logic contradiction---the really interesting things about me are probably about my life and what goes on in there, yet I am more content with sharing my head space than my comings and goings in meat space. Ergo, my work has too many NDAs waving around that it is a minefield to even talk about anything that happens in the office, work-related or not.

Alright, I can feel the need for sleep increasing. Time to knock out for the night and to dream about the possibilities of the future.

Half-hearted Rant...

If I fail at my career of being a researcher, I should probably go be a counsellor or psychic. My preternatural ability to intuitively sense the well-being of a person is starting to get more and more powerful, and in some ways, it does scare me a little here and there. There's one thing about realising that one has a certain ``power'', and there's the other thing of actually realising that the ``power'' also means that I actually gain knowledge that I might not really want to possess---knowing a person's inner state can have all sorts of strange contradictions that one needs to deal with because on the one hand, one wants to interact normally but on the other hand, the a priori knowledge would often suggest that one requires just a little more tact in the interaction, something that many might find to be annoying to keep track of.

I shall stop here---lost interest with what I was writing...

The Matter with /var

In spite of what is suggests, /var actually contains much system-critical data and should never sit on its own [small] partition. All kinds of hell gets unleashed when doing major system upgrades that involve populating /var/cache/apt/archive when the logs in /var start encroaching onto precious file space.

Remounting for read-write

To remount / as read-write from the console, apply

mount -n -o remount,rw /

as root.

Exaile and mp3

Modern Ubuntu distributions use Exaile as the music player. The catch is that it doesn't support the mp3 format out of the box. To deal with that, apply

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

or

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly

to resolve the problem.

Balmer's Peak

Okay, so a couple of days ago I was mumbling something about not updating this place so much due to the general lack of publishable events from the fact that most of the things occur during office hours in the office and are thus under the ambit of the whole non-disclosure component that is a part of my contract. Yet here I am once more, talking more about random things that are occurring.

It has been a while since I imbibed hard liquor in the form of vodka. To be fair, vodka is not really my first choice of hard liquor (my first choice is bourbon whiskey in the form of Jack Daniels, but no one is counting so whatever), but seeing that it is the drink that we have left over since the last time that we went drinking, it was the only thing that I could drink with the rest of the folks.

The thing about me and hard liquor is this: I will generally refuse to drink a mixed drink that involves the hard liquor, preferring to drink the hard liquor neat and enjoying its innate flavour and kick, as opposed to watching the flavour of the hard liquor being adulterated by the various mixers and the dilution of the melting ice from the ``rocks''. So of course to many who are more used to drinking vodka with mixers for example, I will appear to be in dangerous territory as I drink shot after shot of hard liquor.

To be completely honest, I can hold my liquor very well. The only side effect that I know from drinking too much too fast is the tendency to tune out the crowd and erupt into the whole non-social mode, being completely lost in my own world where the math and other thoughts are all that matters. Obviously I do not claim that this is the most normal thing to do when one is drinking and ends up being a little tipsy/drunk, but it does seem to be the case for me. Think about it this way; my use of alcohol back in the US was to understand the complicated interconnections that existed among various parts of the rather complicated code API, in a certain sense I have been conditioned to associate alcohol use with critical thinking of hard-to-understand complex systems. So that's why once I'm beyond a certain state of tipsiness/drunkeness, I end up working on some math/programming problem.

That said, I just got home from a drinking session in celebration of a friend/colleague's birthday. Go figure.

Bag Of Happenings

Feels like I've not really written anything here in ages. Oh well, life happened and things are always in a state of flux, which is probably a thing that I cannot run away from. Anyway, some random blurbs.

• There's this traffic light for pedestrians that has faulty programming, because once it hits the 15-second mark, it starts to glitch. Kinda looks as though the Matrix is glitching or something each time I cross that road.
• My work has suddenly increased in complexity by three-fold as I start to wrestle even more projects and even more new things. I'm not sure how long my brain will last, given that I have not really taken any long breaks to recuperate/recover in a long time.
• I know that Lucid Lynx is out, but I'm too lazy to install/try it on any of the machines under my charge. Currently, the Ibex and the Jackalope are doing fine, and I'm really lazy/apprehensive in rocking the boat too much. But then again, it is an LTS, so when I finally get some time off to do stuff, I might slowly update all the machines to Lynx.
• Salad lunches can be really fun with judicious choice of vegetables and other stuff to go with the salad. They can also be rather filling if you know what you are doing.
• I probably use more paper and ink as a researcher than as a student or systems developer. Go figure.
• Silent Hill 4: The Room is a rather interesting game, albeit a little scary to play when the sky is rather dark outside and the earphones are the only things that one hears.
• MUDs can be very addictive without one actually realising it.
• V nz zvffvat zl tveysevraq n jubyr ohapu jura V qba'g trg gb frr ure rirel bapr va n juvyr. V jbaqre vs V'z orvat bofrffvir, va ybir be cynva vafrpher. Guvf bar arrqf cbaqrevat.
• Sometimes I wonder if I'm in the right place at the right time, but after a while, I think to myself: I can always make it the right place and right time.

Phew, that's a lot of random blurbs that I wanted to say but didn't really have the effort to generate a large post of.

The weather these days have been rather atrocious, especially when one spends time outside---it appears that the midday temperature is hovering around the 34°C mark, not the best kind of weather to be frolicking about in. But then again, I'm indoors most of the time, so perhaps it doesn't affect me all that much.

That said, on yet another tangent, there's a concert coming up and I have tickets to sell. The location is at the Salvation Army Central Corps near Bishan, and the concert is occurring on July 10, 2010 from 1930hrs onwards. Ticket prices are at SGD10---free seating. Message me or email me for reservations on the tickets.

Okay, now I'm spent from writing all these. Goes to show how long my day has been---can't even write a decently lengthed rant without stopping so abruptly.

Cache ≠ Can Throw Away Safely

As tempting as it is to remove /var/cache/ or to shift it to tmpfs, never do it because ``cache'' doesn't equate to ``can throw away safely''.

Case in point: hal balks when it cannot find /var/cache/hald/, and apt cries when it cannot find /var/cache/apt/archives/ and /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/, and dpkg might scream when it misses /var/cache/debconf/. All these lead to a non-working machine.

Someone

Man, this song had been stuck in my head for years, and I finally found what it was:

A Mild Explanation

Updates here are getting far and few, and by no means am I ever intending to ditch this blog. But I would be lying through my teeth if I said that I had updates to put up here these days---that's hardly true and for good reason. The sad thing about it all is that the work life is often not as fantastic nor exciting as that of the college life. While many might claim that college life is more hectic than the real world, in my situation, I find the exact opposite to be more correct. I believe that on many levels, I have significantly more stress from work than when I was studying, not because of my inability to deal with the new things, but that I actually do have a heavy work load.

I'm not really complaining much about work (I like working), but it is really hard to find humorous or interesting snippets of information from the workplace to share and think about as compared to the general liberal attitudes that are present within the university. Don't get me wrong---there're lots of things that are happening in and out of the workplace, but issues like non-disclosure agreements and general sense of tactical self-preservation makes any form of discourse involving these material a potential minefield of pain.

Actually, the truth is that I spend more time entering things into my diary than here. Technically, it is just a journal, since I do not enter daily entries in it, but calling it a `journal' sounds a little more serious than what it really is, so I've stuck with calling it a `diary' for simplicity's sake. Why a diary one might ask when I have more than one blog to write things in. The word here is privacy. With a written book, I can control its physical presence (or at least, have a stronger suspension of disbelief that control is impossible), and with that assurance that there is only one such copy around where I am the sole custodian, I can write more in it, putting in as much detail as I care to write, without having to worry if I end up making a faux pas by saying some things that might be a little taboo of the the Internet.

So with all that writing of diaries, which I must reiterate is a most enjoyable activity to do with a good writing instrument, I tend to have fewer things to gripe about in public over here.

Day of the Endless Run

Man... each time a week passes in real life, I feel as though I've aged by ten weeks. So much to do, and so little time to do them all---sometimes I wonder how on earth do I pull it off.

I've been sick on and off for the last four weeks. Yep, that's right, I've been having a cold/flu combination for almost a month. Never really went to see a doctor, because I wasn't unwell enough to warrant a visit to them to collect a day's medical leave; I'm already short on time and having days lost to medical leave will be among the last things on my mind.

Two days ago it was the worst---thick phlegm clogging up my nose completely, and the interior structures of my nose were so swollen they were also actively blocking my passage way completely. But some paracetamol and pseudophredine later, the swelling has subsided to acceptable levels, acceptable in the sense that I can breathe decently through them.

Man... I better catch up on that sleep this Sunday, otherwise it'll be the beginning of week five of being sick.

Architecture Updates

If you manage to find me here, that's great! Because I've modified the links to my blogs.

The_Laptop Writes... and The_Laptop Wrote... now point different places than the past instead. Use ``Save Links'' or whatever tool your browser has to update your bookmarks/feeds.

The old link has a blog that is parked there doing absolutely nothing. I might make it into a general dev blog eventually, or I can just leave it in its current mystifying state of requiring a password to enter.

Why the sudden change, you might wonder? I'm actually trying to right things in a sense as part of my whole scheme of renewal and rebranding. The domain names (or in this case, subdomain names) should actually reflect what they are talking about and not the chronological ordering in which they were created. It is not as though I have a high enough readership volume that the renaming would bring all sorts of hell, so I might as well right things when I can.

If for some reason you want to link to my blog, use this link instead. That way, you'll always get redirected to wherever my blog is currently being hosted, should I choose to move away from Blogger and stuff.

Ronin 2

Time to be Ronin once more. The path ahead is strange and rocky, and the infectious mirth of the successful is suffocating enough that it sickens me.

Everyone has moved on, while I remain. No point thinking about the past---crush the path behind me with stones and boulders and look only forwards.

I've done it once, I can do it again. And if situation demands it, I will not hesitate to do it yet another time.

The world is a massive machination, and all of us are just tiny gears that contribute only a little to the overall scheme of things. What's one less gear among a small congregation of gears?

Perhaps more drastic action is required than what I have done. Was it not one of the 45 that said to get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful? Complete justification---check.

Activate Operation Firestorm Bridge.

Why So Serious?

The transition from college student life into a formal adult working life can be rather disorienting at times, as I soon found out. The most important difference between student life and adult life is the transformation of the meaning of goals.

During the student setting, the goals that needed to be met are easily quantified and even more easily discovered---grades and assignment deadlines (with grading rubrics) are the most useful in determining what needs to be done by when to what degree. A quick look at the working life demonstrates that to a large degree, these concepts of quantifiable goals are no longer as straightforward, since much of the outcome is not just from one's efforts but also from the situation and environment that binds one. For a while, I had been rather disoriented within the system, even reaching levels of mood that one might even term to be depressive, but as time goes on, I start to understand one fundamental fact.

Why so serious?

Lest anyone misconstrues that as a call for an overall disinterested outlook towards work, let me clarify more. Yes, we need committed people to work, we need people to do more work, increase productivity and the like. But we don't need workaholics who sacrifice everything to get the job done. At first, this sounds counter-intuitive: why would anyone claim that it is more productive not to work as hard as possible? But reflect a little on the matter: a person is more than just his/her working life. A person is the sum total of a lot of parts that mayn't overlap---the work life, the personal life, the leisure life, the love life. All these aspects of life combine to make a person who he/she is.

Working too much is detrimental to many of the other aspects of life, which in turn can negate the productivity of a person. We want people who are happy to work, since their happiness allows them to work with more enthusiasm and to have an overall positive benefit, at the supposed expense that their ``peak'' effectiveness is significantly lower than the workaholic. If work done is the function of time spent and effort expended, then one will note that a person who works consistently over time is a much more productive person than one who has one burst of productivity and then slumps down from exhaustion, or even in the worse case where the burst of productivity is sustained over a few days only to crash down when the said person falls ill from fatigue.

Humans are creatures of habit, and they are also creatures of equilibria. Too much of anything is not good for the average person, and in the realm of work and play, that is true also. It is with this philosophy that I am looking at things these days. Yes, I'm a self-proclaimed workaholic, but I think it is time for me to work out a balance so that I can remain as productive as possible, instead of being that shiny star that has one fell-swoop brilliance only to whimper away quietly as time goes on.

Non-Greedy Searching in Vim

So Regexes are very powerful. Until you want a non-greedy matching in Vim, then you'll go ``what?''.

Here's the incantation: \{-}. That's it. That will non-greedily match whatever preceded it.