Cloud Go Boom

A storm knocked out amazon's cloud service last night (2012-06-29) [1].  A whole lot of stuff on the internet got whacked.  Especially annoying was Netflix - I wanted to watch a movie, and couldn't, for about five minutes.

It used to be that, for an organization, to experience this kind of disruption you needed your own data center.  You had to pay out big bucks for servers, disk drives, electricity, staff.

Now all you gotta do is pay a lot of money to someone else.  Progress!



Which isn't to say that I'm against the notion of 'cloud'.  For some applications, it makes sense.  For some organizations it's ideal. 

But if you're gonna do it, you gotta recognize that you're outsourcing something real important, that the cloud provider is not nearly as interested in your data as you are.

And sometimes they're going to pull a fumducker and leave you hanging.


[1] I'm sure we're going to find out, in time, that it wasn't something simple like 'ran out of fuel for the generators' but a really-truly cascading error that jumped out of the fourth dimension to whack them hard.  We've all been there.

Ideal Workspace

Ideal: browser - Terminal - emacs [1] [2]

In virtual desktop 2 is email, virtual desktop 3 is for other stuff.

It does not stay this tidy, but this is the ideal.[3]

Your mileage will vary.


[1] Really, aquamacs.
[2] Yes, emacs has a shell.  Several of them.  They're just not as good as iTerm2.
[3] As-of right now.

bizlog.sh

BizManager from GXS is an okay tool for EDI.

But it lacks any but the most rudimentary reporting on how much traffic one is sending.

What I need is a breakdown by date/hour of what kind of traffic I'm sending. 

I asked the vendor.  Reply: Have-not-got.  We'll-get-back-to-you. 

Annoying.

Bash to rescue - here.

Run that sucker for a few days, then do this on the output ...

cat *traff*txt | grep as2o | sort -k3 -k4 | uniq | nawk '!x[$3 $4]++'
cat *traff*txt | grep as2i | sort -k3 -k4 | uniq | nawk '!x[$3 $4]++'
cat *traff*txt | grep ftps | sort -k3 -k4 | uniq | nawk '!x[$3 $4]++'
cat *traff*txt | grep ftpu | sort -k3 -k4 | uniq | nawk '!x[$3 $4]++'
cat *traff*txt | grep ftpd | sort -k3 -k4 | uniq | nawk '!x[$3 $4]++'


And presto: data you can hand to your project manager and say 'this is how much krep the EDI tool handles.'

Things I would like to do with my operating system

... that I should be able to do, [1] but can't.  Maybe I just don't know how.

What: Focus on an application window in Space1 [2].  Input a keystroke,  send it to Space2.

Why: I have a window -  an email, a pdf - it's in the wrong space.  I need to refer to it while I doodle around in another virtual window.  I don't want it here, I want it there.  I want it there now, I don't want to wait while it makes a long trek left or right across three monitors to the next space.

Okay I could restack spaces so they are on top of each other, not side to side.  Still: keystroke, bamspiceweasel, done.


What: From terminal [3], send input to browser.  'Enter' 'Next' or 'Page Down' 'Page Up'.  Slap text into an input box [Enter].

Why: Terminal is where I work. Stuff happens in term.  Twitter.  The company phone book from a shell script.  I edit text there. [4]  The web browser, when I'm working, is a reference.  It contains how-to guides.  Tutorials.  Knowledge base stuff from vendors.

The browser is a television.  I want a remote control.


[1] Linux or OS X need only apply.
[2] Wiki: Spaces (Software)
[3] Do I really need to footnote this?
[4]  I play iTunes from terminal.  It rocks.

S4C Novel of the Month

Zoe's Tale is the best book John Scalzi has written.  Ever.

Wraps up all the loose ends from the Old Man's War series.  And brother, there were a bunch o' them.

It is supposedly a YA novel but ... naw.   It's just good.

Joe Bob sez check it out.

P.S.  I still want a Brain Pal.

A treat for your soul

Just Because ...

Darth Vader Wearing a Kilt on a Unicycle Playing Bagpipes (YouTube)

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Vote for Gary Johnson because he won't have a f*cking kill list

Gary Johnson: I Will End the War in Afghanistan and Bring Our Troops Home Now. Unlike President Pepsi and his challenger Governor Coke, Johnson means it.

And he won't have a f*cking kill list, neither.  Go, sign.  Doesn't mean a damn thing, but it's fun, costs you nothing, and it's a way to protest.

And they've solved the 'innocent bystander' problem that has dogged earlier drone strikes.  If they get blown up, they were bad guys.  Automatically!

There is a bit from Full Metal Jacket where a door gunner is murdering women, children, who were out in a paddy, working.  He yells to Joker "If they run, they're VC.  If they stand still, they're well disciplined VC.  Ha!"

This is now national policy.

If this pleases you, if having a shadowy cabal do evil in your name makes you happy, then by all mean, please: vote this krep-head in for another four years in office.

On the other hand, if this kind of thing makes you sick to your stomach, if it bothers you in the slightest, then you have choices.

Doing nothing about evil is to condone it.


"Hey, hey, BHO, how many kids have you killed today?"

None, they were all bad guys, because, bystanding.

"Oh."

Tab Clearing

How to Stop Sucking and Be Awesome.

Uncle Sam pays the bills for companies to privatize space.  As it should be.

The Privatization of Outer Space

Space Exploration: A Closing Window?

The Hardware Startup Movement.  Hardware startups are hard because - capital.  Now .. not so much.  Maybe.

Speaking of Iraq .. Belmont: Friday Follies.  The one sense in which these two videos are alike is that they depict a policy failure. Both record how immense organizations became sidetracked into pursuing in goals which had nothing to do with any rational objective.

Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism.

Walking a directory tree with PERL.

NET::FTP : Recursively search FTP directories (was: Net::FTP Problem)

Why, yes, I took a dive into the PERL pond this week.  How did you guess?

Why I use Perl: Reliability.

Modern Perl.

Compiling and running scripts in Emacs.

Free Bach Recordings.

China: The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens ... causing rampant gun ownership.   I am failing to see the problem here.

Of Boobs and Glasses

Welcome to the Future Nauseous

pv - Pipe Viewer