McBlog

Matt and I are working on the transition from our current server to a nifty new rack-mounted VA Linux Systems (named “soju”). We’re setting up a whole new environment and structure to control the configuration and management of the domains we’re hosting. At present, this is being set up on the existing server so we can verify it all works and port all our client domains across to the new world. Once it’s ready to go, we will get Soju up and running, load it into the racks at the RUCC (our hosting provider) and transfer everything to the new machine.

We’ve got the new directory structure set up and are working on the users, groups, etc. Matt’s just started working on the first script to manage the structure.

To make things “interesting,” two transformers have blown out within a few blocks of this place (could hear the explosions as the lights went out). This scrammed soju and took out the phone line. Fortunately the power restored itself quickly, soju rebooted cleanly (although RAID 5 re-sync’ing took a while) and the phone lines came back on line eventually (guess the power spike took out the exchange for a while too).

Hopefully we can get the new system going quickly as I’d really be happy if we could get soju out of my home office and into the racks. It’s a great machine but even with the front two cooling fans disabled it’s still noisy has hell :)

So, where have I been for the past few weeks? Well, mostly here in my home town but, as usual, I’ve been busy. Between crewing for Balloon Sunrise some mornings (all the dosh will be posted soon in the Fly Me Friendly section of this website :) plus working full time at the AWU, squeezing in tech work for APC.au and playing dad for my son Nykolai, there’s not much time for anything else.

Well, I guess there is ‘cos Nykolai and I are now doing a couple of Tae Kwon Do classes per week at Prahran Tae Kwon Do. It’s good to get back into it after 24 years or so (I used to do it as a kid with my parents and sister back in New Zealand). Lots of fun and good for the fitness although I think I need to get into some of the later classes if I’m really going to stretch myself…

The other big news down here is that my partner Kitt has finally moved down to Melbourne and into the apartment with Nykolai and I. We’re hunting for a new place to live ‘cos we need more space for her studio as well as my geek space, Nykolai’s room, our room, etc. All squeezed into a first floor or higher apartment in the St Kilda East area.

Final news is that Binky (the RX-7) blew a radiator hose the other day – fortunately about half a block from the office, so hopefully I didn’t cook the core as I coasted into my car park. Called out the RACV and bodgied the hose (cut the end, re ran it over the block, all OK for a temporary fix :) and I’m picking up a replacement hose to install over the weekend.

Yup, another quiet couple of weeks in my world :)

Between the St Kilda Festival, a glorious hot day and a few other things going on, all the lures were set and the Sunday Drivers were out in force today. I mean, what is it with this lot? Doing 30 – 40 in a 60 zone while looking at the scenery? Yeah, OK, so maybe looking for a parking spot, but come on – pull the frak over and let that convoy past already!

Or the buttheads gridlocking all through the city. At about five intersections in the CBD there were people stopped in the middle of the intersection when the lights changed. Oh for a big old Valiant – RAMMING SPEED!!!!!! Gee, was that a Hyundai or a Honda? Who cares, it’s scrap metal now! Bwwwaaaa ha ha haaaaa!!!

Then there’s the Driving While Clueless bunch – they’re in the left hand lane but suddenly want to go right. Others would take the left, do a few blocks and come back again but no, not this bunch. Before you know it, they’re swinging across multiple lanes of traffic or stopping and waiting for a gap so they can cut over. Shame about all the other traffic banked up behind them.

It’s no wonder the yanks have such problems with Road Rage – here we just yell, scream, make rude gestures and get on with it, all the while dreaming of heavy weapons. Maybe if things get real nasty, someone tries to pick a fight. In the USA though, they don’t just dream of weapons – they go and buy them, installing a launcher in the trunk. “Open season on the Santa Monica Expressway indeed!”

At least here most drivers still use their indicators and not everyone speeds up to stop you getting in if you use yours. Not sure if it’s a cultural thing or if they just haven’t caught up with the rest of the world yet…

I managed to get another car a couple of weeks ago. It’s a white 1983 Mazda RX-7 and I’m really really happy to have it. Goes well, looks good and has been kept in great condition. It needs a tune and a check to ensure there’s no urgent work required, but otherwise it’s near perfect.

This is the series 2 model which has 2+2 seating (eg: two seats up front and two tiny seats in back that work if you run the front seats forward or put your legs up to the side :) We’ve had three adults in it (usually guys in front and a girl in back sitting sideways) and I was running with me plus 3 kids the other day.

Kitt and I have given the car a name – it’s now called “BINKY” – which is based on the horse that Death rides in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series of books. Basically, this is the first white car I’ve ever owned, so it’s the first time I’ve had a “pale horse.” Given that “Death rides a pale horse” and I’m not gothic enough to go with a name from some other series/book like “Morpheus” or “Mortis”, we felt that “Binky” was crazy enough to suit the driver :)

Will load photos of the car shortly.

We’re fighting against spammers at the moment, thanks to our use of Movable Type and the FormMail.pl script. The scum that are spammers have been using automatic systems to load their crap into the comments systems some of our Movable Type installations use. This has a two-fold effect – first it shoves lots of comments into the system that have to be tracked and removed. Second, it puts one hell of a load on our server, some times slowing it down incredibly.

The FormMail.pl script we’ve set up has been configured to restrict who it sends to, but spammer-scum just use it to send their own message to that restricted list. On some of our forms, these are politicians, senior executives, etc. While some may say it’s good for a politician to get a bag of spam (hopefully helping to convert them into fighters against the problem), it’s not a good thing that it appears to come from our domains….

We’re doing what we can, such as implementing the MT Blacklist system, changing the name of the comments script within MT, modifying FormMail.pl, etc. It’s just very annoying that we even have to do that, just become a bunch of scum are out to rort the system.

Honestly, if a spammer were drowning I’d have no problem at all throwing them a lead weight to help out. I’d call them vermin but I like rats too much. Perhaps spammers are the new lawyers in the jokes world, eg:

Q:What do you call 10 spammers in a bus going over a cliff?
A: A good start

Well, things have settled down now – on the way into the office via the ocean road and the sea was flat – almost mirror like (especially in comparison to yesterday :) Lots of crap around the place and the roads looking like they’ve been dug up here and there (some more potholes to avoid).

Not a good time to be an insurance company, that’s for sure….

Melbourne’s just had it’s biggest single-day downpour on record (since 1856 or so). The previous mega-downpour was around 106mm in the 1960’s. While this has trashed trains, flooded streets and washed out houses, so far it’s not had any major impact on me at home or work.

At home, my apartment’s survived OK with not a leak in sight. I was woken up during the night by rain hitting my bedroom windows – a rather spectacular feat given they’re off a balcony that’s somewhat sheltered by the rest of the building. To achieve this, the rain was heading pretty much horizontally for a fair distance.

I’m hoping we don’t get a repeat of the Tree Branch Madness that happened back in September last year. A previous mega-wind/rain session weakened a tree out the front of my apartment which dropped 1/3 of itself over the carpark (and a neighbour’s car).

On the way in to the office this morning, I figured I’d head up the road along side of the beach. Heading out we had trams stopped in the middle of the street on both Chapel and Carlisle streets. There were branches everywhere and one tree on Chapel had broken a water main as it fell so water was gushing everywhere.

Heading up the beach road in bright sunlight, the bay was filled with dark, rushing water. Waves were coming into the beach from the south but not many white caps out there. Lots of palm fronds everywhere on the road and I often encountered large puddles of standing water, some of which blocked an entire lane. On the north side of St Kilda Beach there was a yacht beached on its side, the keel ripped away by its trip up the rocks and sand. Further up at Middle Park the waves were still breaking over the sea wall, pushing water over the path & cycle track (yes, morning joggers/walkers were out and generally managing to avoid getting too wet here).

In at the office we had a few leaks here and there – annoying in a newly rennovated building but to be expected given the generally rushed and shoddy work that’s often found on modern constructions (I’ve seen many newly constructed apartments around St Kilda and it’s not uncommon to find them falling apart within the first year or so) Half the staff weren’t in today and a few meetings were cancelled. Apparently the authorities were recommending that people avoid going to the city due to problems with public transport, flooding, etc.

The cops were out near our building blocking traffic heading out on Dynon Rd – they were there all day so whatever was causing the problem, it must have been big.

So yeah, lots of interesting stuff but, for me, nothing major – very happy about that…

Called Buenos Aires to confirm that Nykolai and his mom had arrived OK – all fine and a big family reunion going on. They’re off to Pinamar in a couple of days so it looks like everything’s going to be pretty crazy over there for a while :)

I drove Nykolai and his mom out to the airport today for the first leg of their journey to Buenos Aires (thanks to Emmanuel for the use of his car :) From Melbourne they flew up to Sydney via QANTAS then changed to Aerolineas Argentinas for a quick jump across to Auckland. About 9 hours after they left Melbourne, the Aerolineas Argentinas flight left Auckland for a journey of about 16 hours non-stop to Buenos Aires. This flight will take them south to within about 1,000km of the pole, looping down and around on a “great circle” path (the shortest distance between two points on a sphere). From the flight deck on one of these flights you can get a great view of the ice on a clear day, but usually in the cabin the windows are too small to really get much viewing in.

As I type, they’re about an hour outbound from Auckland. Once they arrive at Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires, they will have spent about 26 hours travelling and have flown about 13,200km. You can get a good representation of their total flight path from start to finish via this Great Circle Mapper page.

Before we went on holiday, our friend Emmanuel took some photos of Nykolai with a pair of angels wings. He’s doing a series of angel images and Nykolai’s going to be a part of the collection. I was at Rocio’s place while Emmanuel took the shots, so I grabbed a few myself. While the photos I took are fun, the end result of Emmanuel’s work (superimpositions, touch ups, coloring, etc) is amazing. I’ve ordered a large print of the final image for my place of course :)