“Aled, foo’s site is down, it’s mysql refusing connections….”
WTF? So I go looking and sure enough foo’s mysql server has a load of 100% of which mysql is grabbing that almost exclusively. Disk space is fine, hrm, weird, what’s causing mysql to crap itself. Log in and check “show processlist”…wtf?
Yes, that’s about 50-ish queries trying to insert into the weblog table and one query running….”check table weblog”. Jim.
Me: Jim. You’re killing mysql.
Jim: What? No, I stopped weblog[1].
Me: Wanna bet on that?
Jim: …
So after killing mysql the nasty way we’re back up and running…one more bit of stress I could do without today.
On the bright side, universal joint on the propshaft is going to be cheaper than I thought to fix, so I’m looking at booking the Landy in next Monday. Dad is going to come and paper the spare room for me, so things are starting to get a little better.
[1] This is the application that doesn’t have a single on/off switch or any configurable items in the configuration files. Yet. Oh but it’s live already….
Well, it’s not actually, but it is raining at last. Hopefully this should break the hot spell we’ve had and make it a bit more bearable as well as keeping the pollen down.
As I write this, there’s a callout just started in Llanthony where there’s a young female having breathing difficulties. Between work commitments, diesel and the fact that it’s about 75 mins drive away, I’m not responding to this one. I do however wish I was, and I also wish that my hands would stop wobbling from the adrenaline. *grin* Like once said, no matter how long you’re in the team for, that familiar beep of the pager is enough to dump a pint of adrenaline into your system and get you going. Which is great when you’re about to go out on the hill…not so good for working in the office.
I went the Post Office this morning to post Sean’s parcel. I hit a bit of a snag.
When I got the post office, I couldn’t sent it air mail, it would have to go “International Ground Priority” beacause it was over 2Kg in weight. Oh well, I thought, not a problem. That is, until the nice lady pointed out that this would cost me nigh on £50. However, if I split the package into two seperate parcels under 2Kg each, then I could send them for a total of about £20. Insane.
So I’m back at the office quickly repacking them now….
Sean’s come across a problem recently on his laptop where there’s an earthing problem (probably) on his laptop is causing the headset/mic he has to buzz and hiss. Sean’s voice is naturally quiet, and especially when we’re trying to get a little privacy to talk and he’s in a place where he can’t be alone or similar, so it’s proving difficult. So I’ve decided to have a look at what’s out there for Skype.
At home at the moment I use a VoIPvoice handset connected to my laptop, while Sean’s using a standard headset and mic. I have to admit that though Jon’s had problems with the VoIPvoice headset I find it excellent. So what to get for Sean…
First thing I’m going to try is a new headset/mic combo. This comes with some free Skype minutes anyway, so it’s a no brainer product and is cheap as chips. Then there’s a few other options, most of which involve connecting to the mic jack on his laptop, but I think personally that this is a problem with his laptop, not his headset – I’ll be happy to be proved wrong.
The next option is a USB-based sound device, like the VoIPvoice things. Dixon’s (aka Curry’s.digital) sell one for about £60…which is stretching it a little bit for testing. We’ll see about that.
Finally, there’s the option of a USB-based bluetooth headset. I have a Jabra BT200 at home which, along with a nice Bluetooth dongle, should work fine. Someone’s already tried it before. It’d be even better if Sean has built-in bluetooth, which I think he has, but I can’t remember.
I’ll have a play and update the blog with the results – with so many people worldwide looking to VoIP (of whatever kind) to provide low- or no-cost comms I’m guessing there’ll be lots of people amongst my friends list who find this useful.
What do you guys use and love?
Pager’s just gone off [1036] with an “Area call standby” for possible shouts of help from Craig Cerrig Gleisiaid, just above the A470 and technically in Brecon’s area I believe. I however am stuck in work babysitting a dying server and writing a report for a client…
…oh wait and there goes the Area call [1049]. Gah. It’s a gorgeous day, I just want to be out on the hill, I mean it sounds like a good technical job that…oh wait…
And there’s the standdown, [1053] apparently the people calling for help are safe and sound with the Police helicopter. No doubt this will set the tone for the weekend while I’m the one member of staff who’s available at the Machen show with the cadets this weekend.
Just have to wait until next Thursday now to find out the details.
Several months ago:
Me: Don’t get harddrives with the server, Dell use Maxtors.
PHB: But they’re cheap….
ex-BOFH[1]: It’s ok, buy several of them, it doesn’t matter when they fail because they’re RAIDed….
Me: !
PHB: Where’s my credit card?
Yesterday:
User: Moan, server foo is being crap…
Me. Let me see. Er, hrm. That’s odd. Oh shit.
[…]
Me: Hi PHB, remember I asked for disks some time ago and you said no? And remember how I said not to buy Maxtor disks? Well, the Maxtor disk in server foo is dying. Oh, and ex-BOFH set up the primary data partition as RAID-0. Yes, striped. Of course it’s not backed up, it’s a development server, not a core server…
So I’m currently waiting for a courier to arrive. ex-BOFH suggested that we take a disk out of the RAID arrays in the Exchange servers to use temporarily. I think my exact reply was “Fuck off.” though I meant to say “Are you completely fucking insane?”. I believe I also said that breaking a working critical system to fix a broken development server is not happenning on my watch.
Joy, joy, joy.
[1] Was a BOFH. Is now a programmer. Very useful guy, has some odd ideas sometimes.
In an email discussion following the recent death of a geek community member, I found this quote to be highly accurate for us geeks:
One of the readers at the service said that as long as someone was in your heart, they were still alive. For us geeks of course, as long as you are in Google, your memory lives on.
Raza Rizvi, UKNOT
No, the Canadians weren’t falling, thankfully.
This weekend was a jolly spiffing weekend, chaps. Friday Jon and I left work and headed back to his place for a relaxing cuppa before I headed back to Senghenydd. This didn’t turn out quite as described since Jon had some visitors – Dora and Richard (apparently known as the Dorichard unimind) from Canadia[sic]. We had an extremely fun evening chatting away and pottering around Cardiff Bay for a while (Dorichard: links on this page for you guys). I have to say that I really, really need to go and visit the Senedd properly and see inside. It’s a truly amazing building and the design elements are stunning – especially the surrounding streets – I adore the “Wind Hedges” outside (see info about the artwork). The architect, Richard Rogers has truly done us proud on this monument. (NB: The Richard Rogers site has probably the best images, not unsurprisingly).
The Saturday started slowly, and I popped into town to pick up the guys. After a spot of Heart-attack-on-a-plate (full English breakfast!), we headed up into the mountains gently. Our first stop was the Brecon Beacons Visitor Centre where we admired the view and planned our walk before we took in a spot of lunch. Then we headed off to the Ystrafellte area, parking up near Clun Gwyn Farm to head around the paths that tour the waterfalls of the area. We didn’t set off until almost 1500, but knowing the area and weather I knew that we were in for a nice summer evening and there were plenty of routes back if we needed to cut things short. We took the forest trail down to Sgwd yr Eira, where Dora and Rich were delighted to be able to take photos from behind the waterfall. Rich taught us all quite a few things about the flora on the way – he’s a biologist and I was fascinated by some of the stuff he was talking about, especially lichen.
We headed around the various falls at a gentle pace, and finally ended up at Sgwd Isaf Clun Gwyn, which was truly stunning. I think this is where our recent callout was as there was significant evidence of typical damage caused by the downdraft of a helicopter (lots of little broken branches around the floor, along with a small tree). We spent some time here, taking photos and paddling in the cool river. We headed up along the gorge and as we approached Sgwd Clun Gwyn Uchaf, and Louisa appeared – Mal needed to borrow some toys for his role playing game that evening. We headed back to the cars, surprised to find that it was 2000 already.
A quick discussion in the car and we decided to head back to mine for a BBQ. On the way, we came to a sudden halt, as I spotted what I now know to be common Cottongrass (Eriophorum angustifolium) and asked Rich for a quick identification. This stuff is great, it only grows in areas which are so wet you don’t want to go there (unless, like Jon, you like bogtrotting…or even bogswimming). An otherwise slightly-damp area (which is pretty much most of the Beacons) can immediately be spotted as a no-go area when there’s a bunch, or a line of these growing down the middle of it.
So after a quick stop in Tesco’s to pick up some meat, we headed back to my place for a BBQ – Tesco’s, by the way, do some cracking BBQ stuff. We sayed there the night and I dropped Jon and Dorichard back in Cardiff the following morning. I headed back to the house to clean up and generally sort some stuff out, complete with almost half a kilo of prime Canadian salmon. I was bouncing when Dorichard gave me that as a thank you. Thanks guys!.
Sean got back from his friends’ last night and finally had internet access again so we talked for a bit. It was wonerful to hear his voice again, even though his mic seems to be giving up the ghost. He’s updated his LJ and Flickr sites with loads of cool stuff, looks like he’s thoroughly enjoying himself out there. He’s going to be with Matt for a while until he heads over to Elaine’s, so his internet access is probably and hopefully mostly uninterrupted for the rest of the trip. I was quite surprised just how much I missed talking to him this week – even if it was only a few words over IM.
This morning, even though it’s raining, my hayfever has kicked in with a vengeance again – I’m blaming cleaning for this, as I probably stirred up large quantities of dust and pollen. I’m semi-seriously considering wearing a dust mask to carry on cleaning, or maybe I can acquire a respirator from somewhere. 🙂 Joyously, I’m running exchange maintenance this morning to try and iron out some problems that we had over the weekend. I’m just glad that I built a two-server system so I can take one down with the minimum of fuss.
Where do I start on this?
First, a clarification. I’m not talking about children, I’m talking about adults and inter-personal relationships. I’m also not talking about tryin to stop someone from doing something bad, instead I’m talking about people trying to instill a certain behaviour in other people.
I’m going to take you back to an experience I had at a SARDA “Development Weekend” some time ago, where a few trainers from oop North showed me an intersting training technique. One person was the ‘handler’, and another the ‘dog’. The group were to decide on a particular task that was unusual – not somethign you do ever day, like putting a coat on backwards, or putting the chair on the bed – something like that. With the task decided, the ‘dog’ was let into the room. Only the handler could make a noise, and the only noise they could make was to continuously clap when the dog was doing the right thing. So the ‘dog’ walks in and turns left, the handler starts clapping because he’s turning the right way. When he walks past the object, she stops clapping. The ‘dog’, in the absence of a “reward” turns back again and the clapping starts. In this way, we quickly saw the dog trying new things until he got it right.
Then two more peole were chosen and the ‘dog’ taken out. This time, instead of clapping, the handler could only shout “No!” when he did something wrong. The difference was incredible. We failed completely to complete the task.
The purpose of this was to demonstrate how powerful positive reinforcement was in relation to training dogs. Do something right, give them a reward (food, attention, fuss – the usual thing a dog craves). Do something wrong, don’t punish them, but instead remove the reward. I ysed this to great effect to train Arthur to not jump up on me when I came into the house.
Now while this is with dogs and very simplistic, at the time it occurred to me how we do this with people. On a far more subtle level of course, but still. As a result, I’ve come to realise that whilst there is a time and a place for negative reinforcement, the act of trying to get people to behave in a certain way (submit information daily for example) is a behavioural issue and will not work with negative reinforcement.
So, (and here’s where the rant comes into it) why do people insist on using this technique when it’s been proven time and time again that it doesn’t work?
Gah.