This should be very familiar to everyone. I wonder if I will experience this too. Taiwan in Decemeber!

This is so cool! And looks more traumatising than $WORK!

Hmm, where's the coffee though...

I have been using this script to check for updates on my Redhat systems for quite some time. Put this into your cron.daily, and you have a daily nag to update your system.

#!/bin/bash                                                                                       

#########
## Yum Check Update Script
##
## This script checks for system updates and sends email
## to sysmin team if there are any updates.
##
## Changelog
## ---------
## 24 Oct 2008 (Junhao)
## - Initial commit
##
#########

_CAT="/bin/cat"
_DATE="/bin/date"
_HOSTNAME="/bin/hostname"
_MAILX="/bin/mailx"
_RM="/bin/rm"
_TOUCH="/bin/touch"
_YUM="/usr/bin/yum"

HOSTNAME=`${_HOSTNAME}`
DATESTAMP=`${_DATE} +%Y%b%d-%H:%M:%S`
EMAIL=root
MAILSUB="RHEL Update Available for ${HOSTNAME} on ${DATESTAMP}"

TEMPLOG=/tmp/yum-check-update.tmp

${_TOUCH} ${TEMPLOG}
${_YUM} check-update 1> ${TEMPLOG} 2>&1

if [[ $? != 0 ]]; then
        ${_CAT} ${TEMPLOG} | ${_MAILX} -s "${MAILSUB}" ${EMAIL}
fi

${_RM} ${TEMPLOG}

I can't help but post this: ∃ vegetarian spiders!

Wired News: Kinder, Gentler Spider Eats Veggies, Cares for Kids

Each of the world’s 40,000 spider species survives by hunting and killing — except, that is, for Bagheera kiplingi, the world’s first vegetarian arachnid.

Found in Central America, the order-defying jumping spider eats nutrient-rich structures called Beltian bodies, which are found on the tips of Acacia trees. Trees produce the bodies to feed ants that defend them, which is a textbook example of what’s called co-evolutionary mutalism, and one that B. kiplingi has evolved to exploit.

In a paper published Monday in Current Biology, researchers describe the spider’s ant-evading habits and provide a molecular analysis of its body composition, proving that B. kiplingi is indeed what it eats: plants, with a few larval ants on the side. (After all, 400 million years of evolutionary habits die hard.)

A few other spiders have been documented consuming nectar, but only as a snack. No other spider is so predominantly vegetarian. And that’s not all: It looks like B. kiplingi males help care for eggs and young — something entirely unprecedented in the spider world.

The researchers are now studying whether there’s a link between B. kiplingi’s predilection for plants and parental concern. Maybe going veggie softened its heart.

Image: Current Biology

Citation: “Herbivory in a spider through exploitation of an ant-plant mutualism.” By Christopher J. Meehan, Eric J. Olson, Matthew W. Reudink, T. Kurt Kyser, and Robert L. Curry. Current Biology, Vol. 19, Issue 19, October 13, 2009.