Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/06/serial-console-woes/
So, I’m setting up a box. I need to test different filesystem configurations, which will involve a lot of boot-configure-install-post-install-benchmark cycles. We have a nice network boot infrastructure, but getting serial booting to work is always fun. Today I found that the vendor has set up BIOS “remote access” to COM2. Funny thing, the box only has one serial port! So, I set that to COM1, and configure console redirection only up to the boot loader, tell the bootloader that I want text console=ttyS0 and we’re in business!
But man, if SuSE’s YaST aint a bloody mess when it downgrades to text on a serial port:
What you don’t see here is the constant slow screen-redraw, constant pressing control-L. This is what it looks like at a good moment!
I think I understand why. I mean, I would think that Linux developers would take serial consoles and text mode to heart. After all, that’s the whole point, right? But that’s how I think, because I manage dozens of servers at a time, remote, and all my boxes are rack-mount jobbies with lots o’ fans and nobody wants to be in the same room.
But the developers who hack on Linux probably aren’t hard-core SysAdmins. Their dev system is some beat-up old hardware sitting near their desk, wired up to a spare VGA monitor, so yeah, text mode is kind of an afterthought. Especially given the pain in the butt that setting up serial consoles can be!
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/05/popularity-pays/
Says Paul Graham:
Of course you have to have a business model eventually. But experience so far suggests that figuring out how to make money from something popular is a lot easier than making something popular.
I get a lot of criticism for telling founders to focus first on making something great, instead of worrying about how to make money. And yet that is exactly what Google did. And Apple, for that matter. You’d think examples like that would be enough to convince people.
Is this another Bubble? I don’t think so, not so far. There may be a lot of lame startups being started, but that’s not the definition of a bubble. A bubble is when a lot of money is being invested in lame startups, and that’s not happening yet. The reason so many new startups are getting started is that the cost has gone down, not that funding has gone up.
This is one reason I’m optimistic about my present employer: we’ve got something that is proving to be very popular. We’ve got a good thing going such that we can become hugely popular, and if we can capitalize on that even a little bit, we should be doing alright.
As to whether this is the mentality that brought us the Bubble, I think the thing to watch out for is Irrational Exuberence, and over-reaching. Popular or not, VC-backed or not, I haven’t heard any of that since the bust. I’d like to think that we of the Silicon Valley have Gotten Over Ourselves a bit–our experiments, called “startups”–have some sense of scope, and few companies outside of Microsoft or Google have barrels of F-U money to throw around. We’re no longer surrounded by IPO-funded Mercedeses and BMWs, and nobody I know is paying $2,000/mo rent. I hope we retain this sense of sensibility.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/01/quotidian/
A few cool quotes Grandma forwarded to me. This I’d say “lost . . . and found:”
It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it,
But it’s also true that we don’t know
What we’ve been missing until it arrives.
I have felt both ways about my wife, and now I’m looking forward to discovering what else I have been missing.
I recall the scene from “Dances With Wolves” where the one guy tells Dunbar that he was good friends with Stands With a Fist’s deceased husband, and he at first resented Dunbar, but now he thinks that maybe his friend “left” because he knew Dunbar would come along.
Then, “If you want to be happy for the rest of your life . . .”
Don’t go for looks; they can deceive.
Don’t go for wealth; even that fades away.
Go for someone who makes you smile
Because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright.
Find the one that makes your heart smile.
And then, ask a optimist:
The happiest of people
Don’t necessarily have the best of everything;
They just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
There have been times when I was maybe more bi-polar, and people would ask, “why are you so happy all the time?” And I would answer “Because it beats being sad!”
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/27/sharing-paradox/
When you are just trying to enjoy the moment, and not start a relationship, you are much freer in sharing yourself. This tends to be when you fall in love despite yourself.
When you are trying to pull off a relationship, you are more inhibited. You take some care in how and what you reveal so as not to scare off the other person. Then you do an impaired job of being present in the relationship.
You do best, in my opinion, when you shrug off that inhibition, and share yourself freely, but considerately. The best medium, I think, is when you are broaching some potentially sensitive topic and ask your partner if they are comfortable about it and they can find it in themselves to be comfortable, because they dig you, they are coming to accept you for who you are, and not for who you present yourself to be.
And of course, in order to best be accepting of another person’s sharing, you’ll have to be accepting of what you know about yourself. Love starts in your own heart.
“Be a brilliant soul
Sparkling in the galaxy
While walking on Earth.”
And also, be polite. If you are an interesting cat, there can be a lot to take in. Don’t hold back on the sharing, but leave enough time for listening to appreciate how much sharing your partner can digest in a sitting. That is a good opportunity to shift gears, shut up, and listen. Especially for us guys, listening is a skill that takes a bit of cultivation.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/25/recycling-baggage/
Just after we moved to the new place in Walnut Creek, the marriage started falling apart. Throughout the crisis my attention was focused on that, and a lot of daily life stuff just stopped completely. Here’s the pile of unopened bills, some with yellow forwarding stickers from March. The pile in the foreground is in the recycling, the background pile are keepers.
Since I started the new job, all bills are caught up, and the credit cards are all paid off for the first time in a couple of years. I don’t want to go back and keep my records straight for the last half year, as it would be too painful. I’m giving my financial records a “fresh ‘start over'” in Quicken.
This picture doesn’t make me sad or anything, but kind of glad to be paring things down and moving along. The pile just struck me as symbolic, so I self-indulgently snapped a picture to share.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/22/public-toilets/
Some ladies started yammering on the Yelp message boards about what a joy it is to hover over a toilet seat rather than sitting on it, and I . . . I respectfully disagreed:
Jesus Christ, people.
I check out the seat, and if there’s skank on it, I take a bit of toilet paper and wipe that skank off. Â Pubes? Â A bit of splatter? Â Nothing can resist my mastery of toilet paper!
(Well, okay, some toilets are just hopeless, I lose the urge, my genitals pucker up into my body and I hold out for the next opportunity.)
Then, I place my ass DIRECTLY ON THE SEAT.
I’m proud to say, i tend to leave a potty cleaner than I found it. Â And I believe that is a way to measure a person’s character.
Personally, I think squat toilets are superior for public venues. Â Drop your drawers, poop in the hole, wipe up, wash up and go! Â Sitting is a luxury i can save for my apartment, at least until I have kids and we all start fighting over the bathroom.
I have read that with a bit of practice (in the shower) that most women can actually get a handle on the stand-and-pee thing.
I mean, in case you were wondering where I stood, er, sat, on the issue of public toilets.
4 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/22/mysql-backup-grant-privileges/
Q: What privileges must I grant to a MySQL user to allow them to run mysqldump?
A: LOCK TABLES, SELECT seems to do the trick.
Example: GRANT LOCK TABLES, SELECT ON mydatabase.* TO 'backup'@'backuphost' IDENTIFIED BY 'somecoolpassword';
Principle of least-privilege: don’t entrust your backup host with the power to hurt the database if you don’t have to. SELECT allows the user to read data, and LOCK TABLES allows the user to lock the tables while running a “snapshot” . . . and of course, narrow the privileges to a specific user-host-password tuple.
3 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/21/nice-girls/
Anna, thanks for the link.
This ode rocks:
I’ve read the tribute to the nice guys; this is my response.
This is my tribute to the nice girls. To the nice girls who are overlooked, who become friends and nothing more, who spend hours fixating upon their looks and their personalities and their actions because it must be they that are doing something wrong. This is for the girls who don’t give it up on the first date, who don’t want to play mind games, who provide a comforting hug and a supportive audience for a story they’ve heard a thousand times. This is for the girls who understand that they aren’t perfect and that the guys they’re interested in aren’t either, for the girls who flirt and laugh and worry and obsess over the slightest glance, whisper, touch, because somehow they are able to keep alive that hope that maybe… maybe this time he’ll have understood. This is an homage to the girls who laugh loud and often, who are comfortable in skirts and sweats and combat boots, who care more than they should for guys who don’t deserve their attention. This is for those girls who have been in the trenches, who have watched other girls time and time again fake up and make up and fuck up the guys in their lives without saying a word. This is for the girls who have been there from the beginning and have heard the trite words of advice, from “there are plenty of fish in the sea,” to “time heals all wounds.” This is to honor those girls who know that guys are just as scared as they are, who know that they deserve better, who are seeking to find it.
(Read the whole dang thing.)
Reads a bit like “Howl . . .”
I think that one thing that gets a lot of us derailed is the whole consumerism aspect of modern life. It is suspiciously weird when you’re “shopping around” for someone to walk up to you with their heart on their sleeve and be real. At best, its too-good-to-be-true. “What’s the catch?” And, often enough, you’re not that interested, because you’ve gotten used to being attracted to people who are more screwy than this.
And I think that’s how we end up with “nice guys” and “nice girls” having such a hard time getting anywhere. Everyone’s after the bling . . .
I, on the other hand, for the time being, get to let go of my love and my anger, such that I can kind of observe from the sidelines and try not to get overly-fixated on this game. Ahhh, delicious abstraction! Hopefully I can keep my consciousness with me as I move along with life. Of course, life itself never gives you a “break” . . . we keep it interesting over here.
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/19/consumerist-hedonism/
Given that I recently took a new job at a higher salary, and I am no longer paying a bunch of money for someone else’s tuition, and I’m being exposed to new things, and well, just because, I’ve been on a bit of a spree lately. Fortunately, Amazon Marketplace helps me shop with some thrift. But, things in the mail to me:
1 of: Anthology [Audio CD] A Tribe Called Quest (Author)
1 of: Omnivore’s Dilemma [Hardcover] Michael Pollan
1 of: Late Registration [Explicit Lyrics] [Audio CD] West, Kanye
1 of: The In Sound from Way Out! [Audio CD] Perrey-Kingsley
1 of: The Victorian Internet [Paperback] by Standage, Tom
1 of: Souk System [Import] [Audio CD] Gnawa Diffusion
1 of: We Love Music [Import] [Audio CD] International Pony
1 of: 1999 [Audio CD] Cassius
1 of: Sexual Healing [Live] [Audio CD] Gaye, Marvin
1 of: Ultra-Lounge, Vol. 11: Organs in Orbit [Audio CD] Various Artists
1 of: Dreams To Remember: The Otis Redding Anthology [Audio CD] Redding, Otis
1 of: Absolutely the Best [Audio CD] Eric Burdon (Artist)
1 of: The Ultimate Tony Bennett [Enhanced] [Original recording remastered]
1 of: The Frisco Kid
As well, a Red Roomba with wall charger, and an iMac for the Living Room.
Stern Grove this weekend. (Contact me if you’d like to join, it’s near my house.)
Flying to Chicago next weekend.
Then, Burning Man.
The last three items are “San Francisco” themed media for a future housewarming party.
All the same, that spending is going to taper off quick, I swear! I can’t be this self-indulgent forever. I don’t want to be. But, anyway . . .
Ah, and yesterday I just started reading “The Soul of Capitalism” and it is rocking me thoroughly! Man, having a Muni commute is so fantastical!
3 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/16/linux-uptime-reset/
dman: Anyone ever been on a Unix box and see uptime reset without a reboot?
SmooveB: dman: yes
David: dman: yes
***dman smiles
David: dman: my personal favorate is the rollover or the negative rollover
SmooveB: dman: linux in particular
dman: LINUX, you say?
David: SmooveB: fancy that, that’s where I’ve seen it too
It seems that this issue is near and dear to those involved in “the uptime project” where, I guess, geeks sit around comparing uptime size. Which is kind of juvenile. However, this bug gave me a hearty laugh:
How reproducible:
ALWAYS
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot Linux system
2. Go away for 497 days
3. check uptime
That would be a bitch to QA! (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/14/quotes-quotes-quotes/
While waiting on a file transfer, perhaps I can share a variety of quotes that have caught my mind lately.
I attended San Francisco’s Unitarian Universalist church for the first time this Sunday. One of the hymns has some lyrics which I dug:
We’ll be a land building up ancient cities,
Raising up devastations from old;
Restoring ruins of generations.
Oh, we’ll build a land of people so bold.
Barabara Zanotti
“We’ll Build a Land”
Then, several quotes from the August, 2006 issue of The Sun, dealing mostly with romantic relationships. (A subject especially near and dear to my heart this year.)
It remains inexplicable to me that we can finally become happy again after someone we love has died. Yet there I stood at the end of my bed, a scant four years out, feeling happy. Was this not betrayal? It does not help to say that the dead are gone and do not care. The problem of grief is never with them; it is with us, with those who remain. Like the bed we lie in, it is ours.
Susan Carol Hauser
“The Marriage Bed”
And a bunch of “Sunbeams” starting with something light-yet-presidential: (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/08/waiting/
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/07/yelp/
It is Monday morning and I rolled in to work around 10. Yay flex hours! I checked on and repaired a technical issue I’m working on, then got down to checking e-mail. I found a link to this article which does as good a job of any at describing my new employer.
At first the graph displaying traffic growth is gratifying, then I notice that it is a logarithmic scale, and say to myself “oh yeah, I have a lot of work coming my way” as keeping servers up and running is my little contribution to the whole build-a-better-web-site-by-building-better-users dealio.
The video was fun to watch, though my coworkers look a lot younger. They haven’t deported the British Guy yet: he’s just too cool. I would “embed” the video here but WordPress seems to eat up the HTML code. Dang. Anyway, back to work!
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/04/week-2/
On Tuesday I walked a server over to the data center. Since the data center is only half a mile away, and since there was only one half-depth 1U server, I tucked it under my arm and walked over, instead of finding a cab.
The walk was enchanting. I keep recounting a dialogue in which a Dutch woman asked Speed Levitch why they don’t turn off the office lights at night to conserve energy in New York skyscrapers, and Speed answered that “New York City is a movie star, and she’s posing.”
I get that feeling from San Francisco. Where Chicago is practical and utilitarian, San Francisco is in it for looks: the cable cars, the old-timey streetcars that run up Market Street, building rows and rows of cute little houses atop sand dunes in earthquake country, the fog that comes in and gets caught up on the hills, leaving the Sunset grey and the Mission sunny. The weekly parades celebrating sexual identity, ethnic identity, political identity, and assless chaps. The highway that fell down and was replaced by parking lots. The streets that twist back and forth, up and down hills, and then rarely end up quite where you are hoping. I can never turn onto Market St the way I want to the first time, it always takes some finesse. But then that’s why they built the Muni.
I keep getting this buzz when I walk around here, like I am in Europe. And in a way, I am in Europe. I get to frolic in a pedestrian-friendly metropolis after being “let go” much as I spent months on the urban streets of Europe after being “let go” from Transmeta. But this time instead of an interruption or a break from normal life, this is, until normal is redefined yet again, my new “normal” (more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/02/what-i-got/
Lyrics brought to mind by recent conversations:
Well life is (too short) so love the one you’ve got
Coz you might get run over or you might get shot
Never start no static I just get it off my chest
Never had to battle with my bullet-proof vest
Take a small example take a ti-ti-tip from me
Take all of your money give it all to charity
Love’s what I got, is within my reach
And the Sublime style’s still straight from Long Beach
You know it comes back to you you’re bound to get what you deserve
Try and test that, you’re bound to get served
Love’s what I got, don’t start a riot, you’ll feel it when the dance gets hot
Lovin’ is what I got
I said remember that!
For the longest time I thought it was “life is–so not the one you’ve got” which I thought was very philosophical. However “life is too short” is also eminently true, so . .
Taking a brief break from a technical mystery at work. Back to being serious! At least I have a cool soundtrack.
1 Comment
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