a->ab

Updates

2015-06-12T00:00:00Z

So, I'm just absolutely terrible at maintaining this thing, aren't I?

Anyway, I've been fairly busy as of late. Working on a few things -- including a paid game-design gig! I'm updating Avalon Games' Arcanum, a board game of sandbox fantasy adventure. It's Magic Realm-like, but much less reliant on the vagaries of fate, and far less rules heavy. I like it quite a bit, even though it's filled with holes. My job is to patch it up a bit for a new revised edition. I've already rewritten the rules, and I'll be touching up the components and polishing a few mechanics.

Other than that, I'm bogged down with work-related projects, so not much fun stuff to report.

I'll try to keep a better job of updating this thing...

Blog now hosted on github

2015-04-22T00:00:00Z

Phew! A bunch of work has led me to this point... but, the blog is now running on github pages instead of Heroku. Additionally, it's now Ptah-based. :)

Hopefully there aren't any differences between old and new (aside from a few cleanups), but who knows? This migration has taken me close to 10 months of work, off and on... mostly off. But Heroku's closing of the cedar stack in June really kicked me in the behind to get this going.

Here's to a more active blog again!

Thanks for reading.

LTD Week 2014 23

2014-06-10T00:00:00Z

And here's this week's...

Work
- Database upgrade
- Disk request
- Several DNS entries
- Diagnose a weird grep issue on a server
- Diagnose sparse files on a server
- Investigate a 99% CPU use spike on our production servers
- Investigate failed backups
- Investigate a flaky PSU
- Email some missed files to users
- Update an FTP script to work with new specs
Responsibility
- Bills, homie
Leisure
- A lot of reading
- A ridiculous amount of game design (on 6[!!] projects)

LTD Week 2014 22

2014-06-10T00:00:00Z

I did it again -- two weeks reports back to back. Ugh. Here's week 22.

Work
- User accounts
- Prepping for a database upgrade
Responsibility
- Updating various addresses
- Bills
Leisure
- A bit of coding
- A bit of reading (Good Math and Far Away Land RPG)
- Game design (hehehe)
- Generally working like a madman on personal projects

LTD Week 2014 21

2014-05-27T00:00:00Z

Here's this past week's report...

Work
- Completed work to get a database server upgraded to a new version of Oracle
- Wrote an email script
- Fixed a broken ftp script
- Made some user accounts
Responsibility
- Housework - lots of it
Leisure
- Fixed an ugly hack in Leo's GUI code that I introduced due to misunderstanding python's super built-in
- Read some comics online
- Watched some funny videos
- Continued working on that game design :)
- Played Agricola, Belfort, and Love Letter. Good weekend :)

LTD Week 2014 20

2014-05-27T00:00:00Z

Sorry, this is last week's report... I got caught up in a few things.

Anyways, here's the kind of reporting living a semi-quantified life lets you do nearly 2 weeks after the fact:

Work
- Fixed a few FTP jobs
- Mirrored a root zpool for one of our servers
- Moved several servers on to bigger disks
Responsibility
- Cashed a few checks
- Paid some bills
Leisure
- Started working on a board game design... :)
- Read a bit of Good Math
- Read a bit of Queen Zixi of Ix

LTD Week 2014 19

2014-05-13T00:00:00Z

Whee...

Work
- Fixed some resource group dependency issues on our library web cluster
- Investigated some strange java performance issues
- Restored a website that a customer stomped on
- Finished several FTP jobs
- Prepared for an Oracle upgrade
Responsibility
- Tabata, yay
- Took car in for repairs -- broken Y-pipe
- Did several domestic chores
Leisure
- Finished reading Baum's "The Enchanted Island of Yew"... highly recommended
- Read a good chunk of Chu-Carroll's "Good Math", also highly recommended
- A bit of MH3U
- A good chunk of PSO on the Ultima server

Google failed me, use Python!

2014-05-06T00:00:00Z

So, yesterday I needed to know whether or not Solaris 10 enforces the maximum open file handles limit for processes running as root (I know, root-level processes are bad form... but it's legacy, so there's my excuse). Google told how to set it, how to check it, and what it defaults to, but didn't give me the all-important info of whether or not root is limited by it. So I decided to hack together a quick script to test it empirically on the server in question.

I was going to try it in bash, but it turns out that bash is too smart for it's own good here -- there's no trivial way of opening a file descriptor without it autoclosing on you. So I went with Python instead, carefully avoiding the with keyword. Here's what I hacked together:

#!/usr/bin/env python

n = 10000

fds = []

for i in range(n):
  fname = 'testfile' + str(i)
  fds.append(open(fname, 'w+'))
  print i

Its short, hacky, depends on throwing an exception to kill it (if indeed there is an imposed limit), and forces the user to manually clean out the filesystem of all testfile* files, but it worked. The result: yes, root is indeed slave to the kernel, and can only open up as many file descriptors as plimit $$ claims.

I love Python. :)

LTD Week 2014 18

2014-05-05T00:00:00Z

Fun week:

Work
- Installed a perl module on several servers
- Worked on several FTP jobs
- Came up with a clone plan for a database server
Responsibility
- Getting better at the Tabata thing
- Paid rent, credit cards, etc.
Leisure
- Updated orison's software
- Started reading Chu-Carroll's Good Math
- Made some progress in MH3U... nothing to write home about, but still

LTD Week 2014 17

2014-04-29T00:00:00Z

I'm slipping with my reporting. I'll need to fix that...

Work
- Worked on several FTP jobs
- User accounts created
- Played with some LUN cloning procedures
- Patched a server against heartbleed
- Installed monitoring scripts on a server
Responsibility
- Poked and prodded at the Tabata thing...
Leisure
- Updated orison's software
- Tried in vain to get groovebasin working on my raspi
- Watched the last-ever episode of The I.T. Crowd
- Coded a bit of a project...