06.20.07
Posted in Technology, Life, MySQL at 11:09 pm by Stoner
Been a while since I wrote anything…not for lack of anything to write, just real busy. I’m finding myself having to force myself away from the computer to maintain my sanity.
On the home front, I’m going to be installing a ceiling fan in the only bedroom that doesn’t have one. I had to go buy a metal junction box because all the boxes in this house are the blue plastic ones. That’s fine and dandy but I’m not going to hang a ceiling fan from one. Don’t know if I’ll need it but I also bought a brace so I can mount the box to a rafter if it isn’t close enough to one already. After that, I’m going to start ripping down the ceiling in the basement in preparation for remodeling it. It’ll be a nice mess.
Then I’m off to California for a week - business related. I fly out Sunday morning at 7:30 and fly back Saturday.
Attended a MySQL webinar (man, do I hate that word) on replication and scaling out MySQL. I’m very familiar with replication but wanted to see what the MySQL folks are up to. Also got approval (and advance payment!!!) for MySQL training in Washington, D.C. in July. I don’t have to fork over a couple grand and submit an expense report after - which is nice.
Someone implemented an idea I had been working on - namely backing up MySQL binary logs on a MySQL replication master server. I had a shell of such a script written in Perl - this guy did it in bash. Six of one/half a dozen of the other - I can just reuse his code and not reinvent the wheel. Open Source is beautiful that way.
Found two scripts for making practical sense of the MySQL “show status” command. Problem is, they generate flat, unparsable text and don’t retain the info for later trending. Pity. I’ve started work on that project so hopefully I can start to get a better understanding of how our MySQL databases are performing over time.
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05.21.07
Posted in Technology, Life at 9:43 pm by Stoner
There’s an old axiom that goes something like:
“If you make something idiot-proof, they’ll come out with an improved idiot capable of breaking it”
That’s pretty much a Universal law. We’ve all witnessed it or been victims of it. Well, The Dept of Homeland Security commissioned Con Ed. and American Superconductor Corporation to build a power grid for New York’s financial district. Specs include resistance to weather and terrorist attacks.
The solution: liquid nitrogen cooled superconducting cables. Now, I’m all in favor of superconductors and liquid nitrogen. They’re awesome technologies. Using them in the transmission of power isn’t an application I would have thought of. Not because superconductors transmit electricity with very, very little resistance…but because of the economics of keeping the superconducting material at such a low temperature (-382 degrees Fahrenheit.) You need to keep liquid nitrogen cold and pump it through the wire. This is not a trivial task.
Even so, the benefits are tremendous, moving 10 times the power of traditional copper cables (depending on who you ask..the manufacturer says 100 times the power of copper.) That’s a very big bang for your buck.
My concerns are:
- rats - they chew through concrete and steel belted cables today…who’s to say they won’t make their way through these cables?
- tunnel/conduit collapse - will the cable survive a tunnel collapse or a crushed conduit (falling rock, subway train, etc.)?
- pump failure - if a liquid nitrogen pump fails, how long before the cable fails?
- inquisitive idiots - people explore…and people will explore areas with these new cables. Locks only keep out honest people. How long before someone decides to try and destroy one of these cables?
Honestly, I believe this new power system will fail in some capacity. Why? The two most devastating natural phenomenons: Mankind and Mother Nature.
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05.14.07
Posted in Funny Stuff, Life at 3:07 pm by Stoner
It had to happen sooner or later. Jason Robert Stoner was busted in Florida for growing pot. Please hold the “is this one of your relatives” jokes. I’m not related to this moron, as far as I know.
This is just one more piece of wood for the fire. Do you know how many times cashiers/bartenders (and the like) ask me about my last name? Yes, it’s really my last name. No growing up in high school wasn’t weird or funny because there is actually a high percentage of people named Stoner in Southwestern Pennsylvania. In my high school class alone were two other people named Stoner. None of us were related in any way.
At least the article gives us a funny picture to look at. Damn does he look pathetic! I also chuckled when I read he’d be going to “Land O’Lakes jail.” Is that a veiled reference to anal lube? HA! 
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05.09.07
Posted in Political, Life at 8:53 pm by Stoner
A friend’s blog referenced this article on The Onion. Now, the article is satire but it strikes a particular and terrible cord: as we get older we become desensitized to violence and ineptitude. You get pounded day and night by the media spewing bad news and worse news. Murder rates, death tolls, domestic abuse, scandal, corruption…it gets to the point people don’t care - they simply want to get on with their lives. Then, when a particularly heinous crime is committed, they turn away, content to let someone else deal with it only no one deals with it.
As you get older, do you wonder why young people are so vocal and active? They haven’t built up their immune systems to the crap constantly shoveled at them. After so long, they throw in the towel and become “normal” people. I’m not talking about changing attention spans as in “what’s the crisis of the month?” - I’m talking about apathy towards everything outside of their immediate sphere (family, work and community.) A few folks are able to stay steadfast and stick with their activism. I applaud them.
Where this is particularly frightening is politics. Either GW is the most brilliant politician in US history or he really is *that* dumb. Clinton got impeached for oral sex. GW lied, lied and lied some more, got us involved in a war that has a cloudy outcome as far as democracy in Iraq and now he’s going to make a move to do the same in Iran. When most of the population suffers from the apathy I described, the political leaders will get away with whatever they want because they know the people won’t do anything to stop them.
What is it going to take to slap the stupid out of people and get them to act?
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05.07.07
Posted in Technology, Linux, Life, Family, Hobbies at 4:07 pm by Stoner
Well, maybe not Super Colossal but busy, none the less. On Saturday, I drove to the NOVALUG meeting to sit on a panel for a database discussion. I represented MySQL, Peter took Oracle and Angelo was PostgreSQL. We each did a 10 minute run-down of the major features of the database, then into a Q&A session. Or at least, that’s what we planned to do. Had to take a lot of time to define basics of databases, including terminology like “tables”, “columns” and “database.” I guess I assumed too much of the audience.
We had some good discussions around questions like “How do you size a database server for 500 gigs of data? For 1 terabyte of data? How do you detect and repair corruption? Can I have the database fire off an event when a piece of data changes” etc. Afterwards, a buddy of mine and I went to Old Dominion Brewery for lunch. I had my usual, Angus burger (medium rare) with fries and an Oak Barrel Stout (draft, not bottle.) If you can find Oak Barrel Stout, give it a shot - but be warned, they change the recipe slightly for the bottled version. OBS draft is a whole other world of goodness.
After I got home, I played World of Warcraft for a few hours then went to bed.
On Sunday, after dealing with a client melt-down, I grabbed my .45 and 410 shotgun and headed to Blue Ridge Arsenal to squeeze off a few hundred rounds with my friend. He had his .38 revolver and rented a 9mm pistol and we spent a good hour blowing holes in paper targets. I did manage to shoot myself in the finger….with a staple gun. I reached around the cardboard to put pressure on it so I could staple the target to it and CLICK. Damn staple went into the tip of my trigger finger. Afterwards, we went to Starbucks for some coffee and lengthly discussions on Brazilian strip clubs, Bruce Campbell’s appearances in the Spiderman trilogy, rednecks and other topics of interest.
When I got home, I rinsed the dirt off my car (you have to driver a half mile on the dirt road to get to my house.) Then I picked up a lot of branches and crap in my front lawn. I never raked the leaves from the fall and the wind storms of this spring blew a lot of dead branches down. Yard work is satisfying work…especially when it’s your own lawn. I have a huge pile of leaves to mulch up…and nothing that needs mulching so I’ll have to dump it in the woods out back. Oh well.
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05.04.07
Posted in Life at 4:29 pm by Stoner
I Netflixed Tideland about 2 months ago and it arrived in the mail last week. I didn’t have time to watch it until last night. All I can say is holyfuckingshit!
I’m a fan of Terry’s work like Monty Python, Brazil, Fisher King, etc. Terry does things…differently, we’ll say. He has a unique vision and when it hits you, it hits you like a runaway freight train. Tideland is no exception.
I’ve read several user reviews of Tideland and those people just don’t get it. They harp on the drug use and the kissing and stuff. The DVD I watched had an intro by Terry in which he said “this movie is seen through the eyes of a child.” Apparently, some people forgot what it is to be a child and were repulsed at what they saw. Oh well. Their loss, in my opinion.
The movie itself was excellently executed. I loved the visuals, the settings and the story line. The performances were all top notch with one exception. Brendan Fletcher’s portrayal of Dickens, the mentally handicapped brother of Dell, went beyond excellent. It’s hard enough to portray someone who is mentally handicapped in a way that’s accurate and believable (Forrest Gump - are you kidding me?!) but to portray them *and* give them a soul, to show you that there is a living, breathing, loving, caring, fearing person inside is exceptional. I think he stole the show in that movie.
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04.27.07
Posted in Technology, Funny Stuff, Life at 6:27 pm by Stoner
It’s become apparent to me that I have to buy a UPS. When we lived in Dale City, the co-op power company buried the power lines. This had several wonderful benefits:
- no unsightly overhead power lines
- no place for birds to perch and crap on vehicles (although they are good dive bombers, I’ve found)
- high winds, heavy ice and falling branches didn’t disrupt power (with one notable exception)
Now that we live out in the stix, our power is more…varied. Lights flicker a lot. We’ve had 2 outages that lasted 4 or more hours. We’ve have power “blips” (complete power loss of a few seconds.) It’s this last aspect of Allegheney Power that has me peeved. Just today, I was on a conference call and my power went out. No power = no cable modem. No cable modem = no Vonage. No Vonage = no conference call. Yesterday, we had a blip between 7:30 am and 8:00 am. When I got up, the clocks were blinking “12:00″.
Every time these blips come down the line, my computers shut off. Computers don’t like having the rug pulled out from under them. So, to remedy, I’m going to have to purchase a UPS. I have a 21″ monitor, two desktops computers, a cable modem and router that all need plugged in to it. That’s a lot of juice so I need to shop for a UPS that can handle it.
APC is “the” name in UPSs. I’ve had varied experiences with APC. I’ve had more than a couple completely fry themselves when the power was lost. Any they really don’t like surges. At all. One fine day, back when I worked at the University of Pittsburgh, a co-worker, Tom, had a slight “accident.” He had a UPS on a table and had just removed its metal cover. He turned to put down the screws and screwdriver he had in hand and set the metal cover on top of the UPS. Well, the battery terminals were exposed metal plugs and when the metal cover touched the plugs, he created a short. Oh, and the UPS was plugged in at the time. There followed a loud POP, followed by some sparks. The resulting surge went around and blew 5 other UPSs. Not tripped so that the equipment was running on battery but completely fried them. A minute or so later, a nice cloud of ozone formed that filled 3 offices. It was quite the event and Tom was the talk of the town for the next 2 weeks.
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04.17.07
Posted in Life, Family at 8:56 pm by Stoner
Saturday was rain and fog. Sunday was fog and rain. Monday was 24+ hours of 30+ MPH winds. Monday night was…darkness. Somewhere, a spark happened and we & many of our neighbors ended up 17 hours without power. When Denise and I woke up Tuesday morning at 7, Allegheney Power was “investigating” the power loss situation.
So, Denise lightly washed up and dressed while I detached the garage door from the chain by pulling the dangling rope, then hefted the door up so she could go to work. Then I went and lightly washed…and ran out of water when it came time to brush my teeth (we have a well and small tank.) So I got dressed, unhitched the other garage door and moved the Blazer into the drive way. Since both garage doors were detached from the chain, I had to go back in the garage, lock the inside door, then go out the back door, then proceeded to hop in the Blazer and drive to Apple Mountain Garage and convenience store to buy some breath mints and a cup of coffee.
During the power loss, the propane fireplace worked though without the fan running, it didn’t seem to be too effective. Also got another few hour’s use out of our Mr. Heater, a portable heater than runs on those 1 lb. propane tanks and has that ceramic plate with hundreds of holes in it. It totally rocks.
While at work, Allegheney Power’s automated system called the house, which kicks to my cell phone because I switched off the surge protector to the cable modem and VoIP router before leaving for work (thinking to further protect my equipment in the event of a surge.) It asked me if power was restored to the house. The menu didn’t have a “How the hell should I know I’m at work” option so I just hung up. I figured if they wanted to know bad enough, they could drive by my place and check the meter.
This is the second power loss that lasted more than 6 hours since we moved here. I’m going to splurge and buy a whole-house generator. Lowe’s and Home Depot sell the exact same thing (though under a different name - go figure) for around $2,000. They run on propane, which is a bonus because we already have propane service. I’m no longer going to go to bed when it’s less than 50 degrees inside!
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04.11.07
Posted in Technology, Life, Hobbies at 1:08 am by Stoner
I’m just totally exhausted and I’m not sure why. Driving home Saturday and driving back Sunday night didn’t help (4 hours one way.) On Monday, I totally slacked and read a good chunk of “Dune.” Tuesday is my Living Hell day. Conference calls from 11 am to 6 pm with a 1 hour break. On top of that, I had a client maintenance window beginning at 9 pm, lasting 1 hour and another at midnight, lasting another hour. I hate Tuesdays.
But, life is good in other ways. On Monday, I drove to Gander Mountain and picked up another side arm. This time, a replica 1851 Navy revolver (black powder) along with all the necessary gear like lead shot, wadding, Pyrodex charges, percussion caps, etc. While black powder take a lot more to load and clean, there’s just that nostalgia about them, kind of like shaving with a straight razor. Now I gotta find a shooting range that permits black powder guns (most indoor ranges prohibit them due to the excessive smoke.)
I need to launch a site where I can complain endlessly about where Web 2.0 is going, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. Seriously, I get more and more annoyed with all the new crap coming out for developing Web 2.0 sites…and that’s all it is, crap. There’s nothing new about all this. What’s worse, management eats it up. Spends gobs of money on shit that doesn’t prove to be any more efficient than technology from 15 years ago. I’ll bitch more about this later…for now, I’m tired and heading to bed.
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04.04.07
Posted in Technology, Life at 8:58 pm by Stoner
I’m ready to crash. I’ve been awake since 8 am, Tuesday, April 3rd. Thirty-eight hours! Damn…I haven’t felt this good since college when all-nighters were several times a week. We had a big SAN maintenance Tuesday evening. This was an all-hands maintenance since it touched almost all clients. I drove to the data center because last time, Comcast dropped my connection in the middle of the maintenance window. It’s not fun talking someone through troubleshooting a failing Redhat cluster over a cell phone.
After maintenance was over, I drove to the office and worked for that morning. I didn’t want to face driving over an hour to get home, especially in morning rush hour traffic. After lunch, I drove home but wasn’t tired and I kept getting calls regarding problems that cropped up due to the SAN maintenance. After a while, the calls died off so I went for a drive.
I stopped at the local K-Mart and Mountain Dan’s hunting Suplies. I picked up some shooting glasses, targets, gun oil and 2 boxes of .45 ACP. Afterwards, I went looking for a rifle range that’s supposed to be close to the 4-H Ed Center near my house. Couldn’t find it but it was a nice drive through the valley. I’m itching to go shooting but it probably won’t happen this weekend since we’re going to Pennsylvania for Easter. Maybe the weekend after that.
That’s all for now. I have a meeting with my pillow in 5 minutes.
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