Man it's fun to watch Philly lose.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Nerdy Things I've Learned Today
1) LAMP should be easier. Today, on a new server that had mysql, apache, and php already installed, I had to just through flaming hoops of package dependency hell to recompile php from source using the correct modules to allow for use of mysqli. Seems kind of wacky to me. Rebuild? To use a library? Boooooo. Anyway, thank goodness for google. Anyone who wants an incredibly concise guide to building a LAMP environment on Linux, check this one out - it helped me a lot.
2) The scp command will attempt to eat all your upload bandwidth. It is a greedy command. You can 'throttle' the bandwidth consumption using the -l flag (the number is kb/s):
scp -l 50 large-local-file root@awesome-remote-server:/great-directory
This is the best way I have found to teach scp to share.
3) You need good internet connection to work as a developer if you are serious about it. Ugh.
2) The scp command will attempt to eat all your upload bandwidth. It is a greedy command. You can 'throttle' the bandwidth consumption using the -l flag (the number is kb/s):
scp -l 50 large-local-file root@awesome-remote-server:/great-directory
This is the best way I have found to teach scp to share.
3) You need good internet connection to work as a developer if you are serious about it. Ugh.
Honeymoon + Free Time = Reading!
Well my three week trip, while action-packed (pictures coming! soon! today even!), had some nice downtime, times when I could read books! With the wedding preparations and errand running, I was not really reading a lot at the end of the summer there, but things have picked up again...
I left with only a couple of books, thinking that surely I wouldn't have that much time to read, since I would be slurping up Italian culture and history, but it turned out that we ran out of gas a couple days, so we were able to do some serious decompression, which was nice.
I brought Nothing Like It In The World, by Stephen Ambrose, which is a book about the building of the transcontinental railroad. It was a pretty fascinating read. You think now about what a pain in the ass it is for someone to just widen 66 for a ten mile stretch. Now consider that these folks had to build a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Now consider that they did it without dynamite, without any of the modern 'power-tools' that the upcoming industrial revolution would provide, without electricity. Now consider that they did it in a part of the country that was still subject to attacks from Native American tribes that were none too pleased about the road going up, hastening the theft of their ancestral lands, and keeping their buffalo herds from roaming free. And they did it. On schedule. Pretty amazing stuff. What took months, and usually a dangerous and very expensive boat/wagon ride to get to California from New York took one week. Incredible - I think from my memory of the history classes I took, this achievement really didn't get as much emphasis as it deserves. The book was a quick and good read, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the building of railroads in the 19th century. If you didn't recognize Ambrose's name, he's the one who wrote Band of Brothers. His books are usually good reads, with enough facts and information but not so much that you can't finish them - I call his work 'gateway books', where you can decide whether or not you want to get into more detailed books about the topics.
The second book I read was a collection of short stories that I have had forever, and never read until now. It was entertaining - my main problem with short stories is that sometimes they go on forever and then just end, other times you want them to go on forever, but they have already ended - it's a very difficult thing to make a short story the right length!
Third up was Busting Vegas by Ben Mezrich. Everyone knows about 21/Bringing Down the House by now. This was a similar tale, but actually more interesting, though the writing may have been a little better in Bringing Down the House. The stuff these folks were doing is pretty incredible, and rather than making me want to go Bust Vegas, I kind of just don't want to play regular old blackjack anymore. Read this one in a day - nice quick read, but pretty good.
Fortunately, once I got to the villa in Tuscany, they had some books people had left behind. I started on Snow Falling on Cedars - I may be about the last person in the world to read this book, and I never saw the movie either. This was a really good book - interesting tale about an area and an era. I loved this one - I feel like I could picture the island where it took place, and the characters were all developed enough that I really cared what happened. I love books where the good and bad guys aren't all good and all bad, and this was one of them. Great read.
Next up was a dumb spy novel that was sitting around the villa - Len Deighton's Yesterday's Spy. This book kind of sucked, which was a disappointment because I have read others by Deighton that I enjoyed. Moving on, to Engleby, by Sebastian Faulks, another villa special. This was a fascinating book written from the perspective of a sort of antisocial castoff with a memory problem - I really enjoyed this book - it was another one of the books where there were characters you didn't know whether you liked or hated, and that made it great. Definitely a quick read, but very well written and well thought out.
Finally, I read a 'further adventure of Sherlock Holmes' called The Italian Secretary. Let's just say that Doyle's legacy is safe. The book was okay, but no earth-shattering piece of literary greatness. It made the flight go by faster at least.
I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday with a couple of gift cards that wanted to be used and bought:
April 1865, The Month That Saved America
Alive
The Professor and the Madman
and some book about partisan politics whose name already escapes me
Reviews forthcoming shortly...
I left with only a couple of books, thinking that surely I wouldn't have that much time to read, since I would be slurping up Italian culture and history, but it turned out that we ran out of gas a couple days, so we were able to do some serious decompression, which was nice.
I brought Nothing Like It In The World, by Stephen Ambrose, which is a book about the building of the transcontinental railroad. It was a pretty fascinating read. You think now about what a pain in the ass it is for someone to just widen 66 for a ten mile stretch. Now consider that these folks had to build a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Now consider that they did it without dynamite, without any of the modern 'power-tools' that the upcoming industrial revolution would provide, without electricity. Now consider that they did it in a part of the country that was still subject to attacks from Native American tribes that were none too pleased about the road going up, hastening the theft of their ancestral lands, and keeping their buffalo herds from roaming free. And they did it. On schedule. Pretty amazing stuff. What took months, and usually a dangerous and very expensive boat/wagon ride to get to California from New York took one week. Incredible - I think from my memory of the history classes I took, this achievement really didn't get as much emphasis as it deserves. The book was a quick and good read, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the building of railroads in the 19th century. If you didn't recognize Ambrose's name, he's the one who wrote Band of Brothers. His books are usually good reads, with enough facts and information but not so much that you can't finish them - I call his work 'gateway books', where you can decide whether or not you want to get into more detailed books about the topics.
The second book I read was a collection of short stories that I have had forever, and never read until now. It was entertaining - my main problem with short stories is that sometimes they go on forever and then just end, other times you want them to go on forever, but they have already ended - it's a very difficult thing to make a short story the right length!
Third up was Busting Vegas by Ben Mezrich. Everyone knows about 21/Bringing Down the House by now. This was a similar tale, but actually more interesting, though the writing may have been a little better in Bringing Down the House. The stuff these folks were doing is pretty incredible, and rather than making me want to go Bust Vegas, I kind of just don't want to play regular old blackjack anymore. Read this one in a day - nice quick read, but pretty good.
Fortunately, once I got to the villa in Tuscany, they had some books people had left behind. I started on Snow Falling on Cedars - I may be about the last person in the world to read this book, and I never saw the movie either. This was a really good book - interesting tale about an area and an era. I loved this one - I feel like I could picture the island where it took place, and the characters were all developed enough that I really cared what happened. I love books where the good and bad guys aren't all good and all bad, and this was one of them. Great read.
Next up was a dumb spy novel that was sitting around the villa - Len Deighton's Yesterday's Spy. This book kind of sucked, which was a disappointment because I have read others by Deighton that I enjoyed. Moving on, to Engleby, by Sebastian Faulks, another villa special. This was a fascinating book written from the perspective of a sort of antisocial castoff with a memory problem - I really enjoyed this book - it was another one of the books where there were characters you didn't know whether you liked or hated, and that made it great. Definitely a quick read, but very well written and well thought out.
Finally, I read a 'further adventure of Sherlock Holmes' called The Italian Secretary. Let's just say that Doyle's legacy is safe. The book was okay, but no earth-shattering piece of literary greatness. It made the flight go by faster at least.
I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday with a couple of gift cards that wanted to be used and bought:
April 1865, The Month That Saved America
Alive
The Professor and the Madman
and some book about partisan politics whose name already escapes me
Reviews forthcoming shortly...
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Sarah Palin, or please please win Barack
I don't know how I feel about McCain - I think that like a lot of other reasonable people, I liked McCain a lot more before he sold his soul to get the neo-con nod as presidential candidate. I think we can blame Huckabee a lot for the abrupt retreat McCain has made from the reasonable politician he was a year or two ago, but that's neither here nor there. Let's talk about where we are now...
I am a very middle-of-the-road guy when it comes to politics. I would probably vote for Obama this year either way, but with definite reservations, especially related to labor, trade, and health care policies, but it would have been closer. The thing that had to have sealed the deal was this Sarah Palin nonsense. I listen to her speak, and would be afraid not just to have this woman as president, but to be a third-grade teacher to one of my friends' children. She is the worst kind of bad. Ignorant, impetuous, and insulting. Her sole purpose seems to be making wisecracks. I was shocked to see that after looking such the buffoon in multiple interviews over the past couple weeks ("He did awesome"???), she had the nerve to make fun of Biden for being old. Seriously? She is taking on the special interests! Yeah! Did you know her daughter was pregnant and that she has a kid who has Down's Syndrome? Oh, did you know her son is going to Iraq? That's good right?? Right???
FAIL.
None of these things qualify you for ANYTHING. I don't know much about Biden, but he probably has done a bit more than Palin, despite the fact that for the last 18 mos she has been protecting us from Russian invasion that is no doubt coming via the Bering Strait any day now. What a mess. If any of you think it's been bad watching Bush stumble through countless press conferences, just imagine what it will be like if McCain wins and then something happens to him. Get out. Register to vote. You don't have to vote FOR Obama, just vote AGAINST this idiot. Please. Do it for all of us.
I am a very middle-of-the-road guy when it comes to politics. I would probably vote for Obama this year either way, but with definite reservations, especially related to labor, trade, and health care policies, but it would have been closer. The thing that had to have sealed the deal was this Sarah Palin nonsense. I listen to her speak, and would be afraid not just to have this woman as president, but to be a third-grade teacher to one of my friends' children. She is the worst kind of bad. Ignorant, impetuous, and insulting. Her sole purpose seems to be making wisecracks. I was shocked to see that after looking such the buffoon in multiple interviews over the past couple weeks ("He did awesome"???), she had the nerve to make fun of Biden for being old. Seriously? She is taking on the special interests! Yeah! Did you know her daughter was pregnant and that she has a kid who has Down's Syndrome? Oh, did you know her son is going to Iraq? That's good right?? Right???
FAIL.
None of these things qualify you for ANYTHING. I don't know much about Biden, but he probably has done a bit more than Palin, despite the fact that for the last 18 mos she has been protecting us from Russian invasion that is no doubt coming via the Bering Strait any day now. What a mess. If any of you think it's been bad watching Bush stumble through countless press conferences, just imagine what it will be like if McCain wins and then something happens to him. Get out. Register to vote. You don't have to vote FOR Obama, just vote AGAINST this idiot. Please. Do it for all of us.
Sports!
Well I must admit that I didn't miss here very much while on my honeymoon. Of course it was nice to get back and sleep in our nice comfy bed as opposed to the hard beds of the old world. I missed my friends, and my family, obviously.
One other thing that I really missed was SPORTS. I guess I never realized how used to watching sports I was. At least the Tigers stunk so I wasn't missing the tail end of the pennant race. When I left, Michigan was looking terrible and the Redskins were looking worse. I was able to follow Michigan's awesome comeback against Wisconsin from the O'Hare wireless connection, which was awesome. Good start. Then Sunday I got to sit on my ass and watch the NFL all day. Jena was very nice to indulge me. The Redskins looked like a good football team, playing hard and well for 4 quarters, which I hadn't seen since 1999 or so. So it was a very pleasant sports re-entry. I hope it keeps up.
I wonder if there are books out there about why people care so much about sports. When you think about it, it's really an absurd concept, but when I watch sports, I get so excited, all the ups and downs, highs and lows. I used to be much worse - if Michigan lost, I would be a bad person to be around for the remainder of Saturday, and the same on Sunday with the 'Skins.
One day I thought to myself in a moment of clarity "The Redskins don't care when I have a bad day - why should I care when they do?". I have been a lot less ridiculous since then, but I still admit that it drives me nuts from time to time, and I crave sports information only slightly less than when I was 18 or so, despite all the added responsibilities that take up so much more time now. What a racket, this sports! That said, I am waiting eagerly for the 1pm kickoff against the Eagles Sunday. Damnit.
One other thing that I really missed was SPORTS. I guess I never realized how used to watching sports I was. At least the Tigers stunk so I wasn't missing the tail end of the pennant race. When I left, Michigan was looking terrible and the Redskins were looking worse. I was able to follow Michigan's awesome comeback against Wisconsin from the O'Hare wireless connection, which was awesome. Good start. Then Sunday I got to sit on my ass and watch the NFL all day. Jena was very nice to indulge me. The Redskins looked like a good football team, playing hard and well for 4 quarters, which I hadn't seen since 1999 or so. So it was a very pleasant sports re-entry. I hope it keeps up.
I wonder if there are books out there about why people care so much about sports. When you think about it, it's really an absurd concept, but when I watch sports, I get so excited, all the ups and downs, highs and lows. I used to be much worse - if Michigan lost, I would be a bad person to be around for the remainder of Saturday, and the same on Sunday with the 'Skins.
One day I thought to myself in a moment of clarity "The Redskins don't care when I have a bad day - why should I care when they do?". I have been a lot less ridiculous since then, but I still admit that it drives me nuts from time to time, and I crave sports information only slightly less than when I was 18 or so, despite all the added responsibilities that take up so much more time now. What a racket, this sports! That said, I am waiting eagerly for the 1pm kickoff against the Eagles Sunday. Damnit.
Tomcat: Manager Loading Issues
Here's another 'good samaritan', 'hopefully this'll help someone down the road' post. I recently put a clean Tomcat 6.0.18 instance on my machine, and deployed my app. Everything worked fine with the app, but when I tried to access the manager application, I wasn't prompted for the login credentials like expected. I figured it might have been an issue with my (customized) tomcat-users.xml file, but it wasn't - when I checked out the manager log file, I saw a bunch of references to this error:
javax.xml.parsers.FactoryConfigurationError: Provider org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderFactoryImpl not foundI was just getting a 401 page with the message "authorization is required" or something to that effect. I did some digging, and found a bunch of halfway answers that included reinstalling Tomcat - this isn't really acceptable, so I figured I'd look in tomcat/lib, and sure enough there was no xml jar there, so I copied in xerces-impl-xxxx.jar in there, restarted, and could access manager no problem - not sure why this happened, but if you ever see that, make sure you have a xerces parser in your classpath...
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Bloglines...Kinda...Sucks
For years now, I have been using Bloglines as my blog aggregator - it's usually pretty good, but lately there have been more and more problems, and the past two days, it's been completely dead slow - I can't really read all of the blogs that have been piling up (aggregating if you will) during my trip - this sucks, and I am going to finally bite the bullet and migrate my entire feed list to a feed aggregator that doesn't completely suck. Any suggestions?
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