Author Archives: pauljohn

About pauljohn

Paul E. Johnson is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas. He is an avid Linux User, an adequate system administrator and C programmer, and humility is one of his greatest strengths.

Cutting the Azure Web Services Bill by 90%. HOWTO!

Posted on 2020/08/19 by pauljohn

An organization for which I am a contractor had an annual Azure bill that totalled more than $100,000 per year. After re-provisioning, we reduced the annual bill to less than $13,000. Sounds good to you? Here are some tips. 1. … Continue reading →

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Building R-4.0.0 in a side folder

Posted on 2020/04/27 by pauljohn

R 4.0 was released over the weekend and immediately I got an email that said one of my packages does not build anymore with R-4.0. The email from R core said I have 2 weeks to bring the package into … Continue reading →

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Creating a new SSH key with ed25519 encryption

Posted on 2020/04/15 by pauljohn

A while ago, I prepared notes about creating an SSH key for use with Gitlab (and other SSH-based servers). That guide, https://pj.freefaculty.org/guides/crmda_guides/34.gitlab/34.gitlab.pdf explains the basic ideas of SSH keys. Today I learned that when interacting with an SSH server, the … Continue reading →

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R package semTable-1.7 uploaded on CRAN

Posted on 2020/04/12 by pauljohn

semTable-1.7 includes a bug fix for tables that include variances estimated between latent variables and exogenous predictors. It has been proposed to CRAN. In the meanwhile, to avail yourselves, try this to put KRAN (our test server) at the front … Continue reading →

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Does mathjax-latex work? Not entirely if Markdown is enabled.

Posted on 2019/06/21 by pauljohn

I have updated to PhP 7.2 FastCGI and WordPress 5.2. I want to use WordPress to display markdown documents that have some latex, so I’ve installed a plugin for markdown which seems to work. However, I’m getting mixed results with … Continue reading →

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Finding and Recovering lost files in Git

Posted on 2018/11/02 by pauljohn

One problem in git is that when a user deletes a file accidentally, git acts as though the user intended to do that. The next time the user runs “git commit -a” then the list of transactions will include the … Continue reading →

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Building a new xfwm4 Debian package: Try it, you’ll like it!

Posted on 2016/09/26 by pauljohn

In the askubuntu web forum (http://askubuntu.com/questions/821940/configure-mouse-buttons-in-xfce4), I asked if it is possible to change the behavior of the mouse in response to  Alt-Middle click. Currently, that causes a window to be moved to the bottom of the stack of windows. … Continue reading →

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Building R-devel on RedHat Linux 6

Posted on 2016/02/18 by pauljohn

  Warning: I’m 85% done with this, formatting is not right. I DO NOT want to type in the prompt in front of every command because then one cannot copy/paste directly.  However, copying some output chunks picks up the dollar … Continue reading →

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New lifescape panorama

Posted on 2015/12/31 by pauljohn

  Today, I was struck by the beauty of the desert on a crystal clear morning. As the panorama below  indicates, there is no apparent sign of life in this seemingly barren, desolate part of the high plains. Only the … Continue reading →

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Time Series tips for R users

Posted on 2015/12/22 by pauljohn

Two people were in here last week asking me about time series modeling in R. I said I’d look something up. I thought this was fabulously helpful for translating between R and time series books: http://www.stat.pitt.edu/stoffer/tsa2/Rissues.htm The leading authority on … Continue reading →

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