September 2007 Archives

The Saturday night video, courtesy of last.fm.

Good song. Good video. Yeah, I'll be buying his new album.

[Moozik: Covenant - Ritual Noise]

For interfacing with the Unix process table, I usually use and heartily recommend Proc::ProcessTable. I noticed an oddity on a couple of our Solaris 10 Opteron hosts. It appears that Proc::ProcessTable can only see those processes owned by the current user. On our Solaris 9 Sparc hosts, Proc::ProcessTable can see everyone's processes.

I don't know if this is a bug in Proc::ProcessTable or a "feature" of Solaris 10. Studying the permissions on the /proc directory on Solaris 9 vs Solaris 10 doesn't immediately reveal anything obvious and unfortunately os/Solaris.c doesn't reveal any clues because errors on directory/file opens are not reported to the user. Or it could be that my C is incredibly rusty.

So, I was in a hurry and wrote a quick and dirty ps scraper. Sometimes, you have to scrape.

[Moozik: Depeche Mode - Lie To Me (Live - London 1984)]

I do a fair amount of network programming at work and a book I've found to be invaluable is Lincoln Stein's marvelous Network Programming With Perl. If you're at all interested in that kind of thing, this book is a must read.

So there I was sitting at work today and needed to remind myself of some of the finer points of nonblocking sockets when dealing with syswrite() and sysread() and reached for the book. Of course, it wasn't there. I left it on my desk at home. Bugger.

Not to worry, I remembered seeing that Addison-Wesley were one of the publishers who use Safari and I could sign up for a free 10 day trial. Access to my book, that I didn't have, for free? Sign up I did.

A few moments later, my confirmation email arrived and I was more than slightly surprised that they sent my username, password and a login link. Blimey, there are several cardinal sins right there. You should never send usernames and passwords together. Actually, you shouldn't send a password ever. The fact that the password was sent at all means they're storing them in their database in plain text. Yikes.

What's surprising is that this isn't exactly rocket science. Passwords should be encrypted in the database and instead of sending me the username and password, they should have sent me a link to "activate" my account. Plenty of websites get this right. Safari does not. Very surprising.

Still, I was able to get the info I needed from my book. So I was a happy programmer. For the record, if sysread() returns undef, test $! for EWOULDBLOCK.

[Moozik: Tears For Fears - Memories Fade]

A slightly longer haired, younger, Mr Trent Reznor.

[Moozik: Simple Minds - This Earth That You Walk Upon]

Thomas Dolby didn't exactly have a good experience of airport security on his latest tour.

my gear arrived at Logan Airport by cargo plane. Evidently some security official wanted to look inside the cases. My main Mac G5 computer had been opened up, the hard drives pulled out of their bays, and multipin connectors stuffed back on clumsily, breaking the pins. This meant the computer would not start up at all. A certified Mac genius spent 15 hours trying to get it back, but was only able to retrieve about 40% of the data. I stayed up all night two nights in a row trying to pull the songs back together. As my songs involve many seperate resources like samples, MIDI sequences, hardware patches and preferences etc, almost all of them were irretrievable. And the main backup drive was right there in the Mac and also damaged. I had a second external backup which had older versions of the songs (pre-Horns) but I was still missing many software plugins, preference files and so on.

I'm very embarassed to admit this because it's such old hat. I'm sure you've all had computers go down at one time or another, so you'll you know how hard it is to maintain a thorough backup policy. And yet there's almost a tradition among high-tech performers (viz Todd Rundgren, Howard Jones) for gear failures resulting in cancelled shows or worse. I watch that and think, well it would never happen to me because I will be smart about backups, have two of every piece of kit and so on. But I probably had a false sense of security after nearly 70 gigs in the last 18 months with nothing worse than the odd gremlin.

[Moozik Ministry - Flashback]

I would say yes, yes he can.

[Moozik: Interpol - Roland]

David Morrison has broken every single one of his fingers.

Reluctant to seek medical attention for fear of losing his place in the team, he would simply apply a bag of frozen peas and carry on playing. It was not until three years ago that doctors got a chance to examine his hands - his thumb was so badly injured it needed to be pinned in place.

Ah, the old bag o' peas trick. I think he might have been better off seeing a doctor though.

I'm sitting here at my local Saturn dealer waiting for my car. They have a wifi hotspot and two PCs for customer use. As you might expect, Internet Explorer is the default browser on these PCs. Well, I should say, was the default browser.

Hey, I do what I can in my own way ;-)

[Moozik: Ladytron - High Rise]

New rules notwithstanding, a vast improvement over last week's show. Rob Thomas was excellent as was Salman Rushdie. And then there was Janeane Garofalo. I'm usually a fan of hers, she's intelligent and funny and usually has so much to say. So what happened last night?

My initial thought was, how long has Janeane Garofalo been a meth addict? There was the whole leaning back in her chair and hugging herself as if she was cold thing. Fair enough, maybe the studio was cold. But then throughout the show she sometimes struggled to form a coherent sentence. Which for someone with as much radio experience as she has was, I dunno, just a little unexpected.

[Moozik: Curve - Split Into Fractions]

The ComplimentBot 4000, dishing up random compliments and kind words.

[Moozik: Curve - Already Yours]

Having solved all the country's problems, the Senate focuses on the important issues. A newspaper ad. And their condemnation of the ad really means something and wasn't an exercise in futility.

That's the job of the Senate now is it? Discussing newspaper ads. Today's example that I went to sleep and woke up in the bizarro world.

[Moozik: Dead Kennedys - Holidays In Cambodia]

Be careful on those escalators fellow Croc'rs.

Four-year-old Rory McDermott got a Croc-clad foot caught in an escalator last month at a mall in northern Virginia. His mother managed to yank him free, but the nail on his big toe was almost completely ripped off, causing heavy bleeding.

At first, Rory's mother had no idea what caused the boy's foot to get caught. It was only later, when someone at the hospital remarked on Rory's shoes, that she began to suspect the Crocs and did an Internet search.

"I came home and typed in 'Croc' and 'escalator,' and all these stories came up," said Jodi McDermott, of Vienna, Virginia. "If I had known, those would never have been worn."

According to reports appearing across the United States and as far away as Singapore and Japan, entrapments occur because of two of the biggest selling points of shoes like Crocs: their flexibility and grip. Some report the shoes get caught in the "teeth" at the bottom or top of the escalator, or in the crack between the steps and the side of the escalator.

And for the record, hated by some though they are, you can pry my chocolate cayman's from my cold dead feet.

[Moozik: Lard - Moths]

From a gig in Australia last weekend.

[Moozik: The Stranglers - Bear Cage]

It's well known that actors often learn new tasks in the course of filming a movie. It might be a new language or how to take apart a M16 rifle; anything that makes their character more convincing. Michael Douglas though, he's one smart man and goes above and beyond. Take his new movie for example.

I learned how to use the shovel, and I wanted to go out like Charlie and just dig around.

A shovel you say? Impressive. Taught yourself or did you have trained professionals to assist?

[Moozik: The Birthday Massacre - Goodnight]

A little over three years ago I wrote how much I liked Perltidy. Today, Leon mentioned that he too is a Perltidy fan. In the comments to that post, Ben Tilly was rather eloquent in his explanation of why a differing coding style can matter.

Suppose we take someone who is familiar with a particular formatting style. Say, variable names are in CamelCase. You don't cuddle your braces. There is always a space between a paren and whatever is inside it. You use a 4-space indent. Now you plop them down in a code-base that is different. Variables names use_underscores. You cuddle your braces. You use a 2-space indent.

What happens?

Well it turns out that the transition is a shock. the constant minor changes interfere with that person's ability to achieve programming flow. It doesn't matter what the arguments pro or con for those differences are. It doesn't matter whether in the long run the new style might be slightly better. (Or not.) The immediate result is going to be that the programmer is suddenly much less productive. (Some people adjust easily. Some less so. Everyone has to work to adjust.)

And that is what really drives these religious debates. The reasons given for different styles are far less important than just having styles synchronize within a code base. But the decision you make is going to cause some people to win and some to lose.

[Moozik: Cranes - Hopes Are High]

Excellent news. Terry O'Quinn won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for his role as John Locke in Lost. Nice.

Now, about that shirt Terry.

[Moozik: The Birthday Massacre - Red Stars]

It hasn't really been a very good few days.

Losing to Arsenal means that Tottenham's absolutely atrocious start to the season keeps getting worse. With only 4 points from 6 games I won't be at all surprised if Martin Jol loses his job.

Losing to South Africa means that any hope England had of defending their title has come to a crashing halt. I gave them the benefit of the doubt against the USA and hoped their poor performance was a temporary setback. But they had their arses handed to them on Friday. No two ways about it.

Moozik: The Cure - Catch]

What a difference a couple of months makes. Initially I was really disappointed that The Cure decided to skip Arizona. I crossed my fingers when they rescheduled the tour until next year.

Can you see what I see?

THE CURE 4TOUR NORTH AMERICA 2008

MAY
09 WASHINGTON DC Patriot Center
10 PHILADELPHIA Wachovia Spectrum
12 BOSTON Agganis Arena
14 MONTREAL Bell Centre
15 TORONTO Air Canada Centre
17 CHICAGO Allstate Arena
19 KANSAS CITY Starlight Theatre - ADDED SHOW
21 DENVER Red Rocks Amphitheatre
23 SALT LAKE CITY E Center
25 GEORGE WA The Gorge Sasquatch! Festival (in place of Seattle - headlining from 9:30 to midnight)
26 VANCOUVER General Motors Place
29 SANTA BARBARA Santa Barbara Bowl
31 LOS ANGELES Hollywood Bowl

JUNE
03 SAN DIEGO Cox Arena
04 PHOENIX Dodge Theatre - ADDED SHOW
06 DALLAS American Airlines Center
08 AUSTIN Austin Music Hall - ADDED SHOW
09 HOUSTON Toyota Center
11 TAMPA St Pete Times Forum
13 FT LAUDERDALE Bank Atlantic Center - ADDED SHOW
15 ATLANTA Gwinnett Center
16 CHARLOTTE Charlotte Bobcats Arena
18 CLEVELAND (Venue TBD) - ADDED SHOW
20 NEW YORK CITY Madison Square Garden

I'm there.

[Moozik: Dead Can Dance - Carnival Of Light]

Reading Wil Wheaton's ill communication this morning made me smile. I find textspeak particularly annoying at the best of times but I've found that it is slowly creeping into places it shouldn't. The other day at work I was copied on an email which amongst other things, had the following gem:

plz try l8r, i need ur ip addr frst

We're all doomed. Doomed I say. Now, get off my lawn!

[Moozik: Ayria - Debris]

Do you remember one Mr George Bush saying "bring it on"? Seems that the Russians were listening.

Russia has delivered a belligerent message of defiance to the West after army generals claimed to have tested "the father of all bombs".

Developed in secret, the unchristened bomb, a vacuum device capable of emitting shockwaves as powerful as a nuclear weapon, was unveiled with great theatre on state television's main evening broadcast.

Boasting that the weapon had "no match in the world," ORT First Channel television showed a Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber dropping its payload over a testing ground, followed by a massive explosion.

But it's not all doom and gloom.

Despite its destructive qualities, the bomb is environmentally friendly, Gen Rushkin said.

Phew, there's a relief.

[Moozik: Girls Under Glass - Don't Be Afraid]

Ah, good ol' Middle Age measurements. Take that, metric system. The pint can continue.

BRUSSELS, Sept. 11 -- Britons and the Irish can still down a pint of beer, walk a mile, covet an ounce of gold and eat a pound of bananas after the European Union ruled today that the countries could retain measurements dating back to the Middle Ages.

Under a previous European Union plan, Britain and Ireland would have been forced to adopt the metric system and phase out imperial measurements by 2009. But after a vociferous antimetric campaign by British skeptics and London's tabloid press, European Union officials decided that an ounce of common sense (or 28.3 grams) suggested that granting a reprieve was better than braving a public backlash.

[Moozik: Killing Joke - Communion]

With all the recent kerfuffle about Kathy Griffin's acceptance speech after winning her Emmy the other day, it seems that there's a little pot calling the kettle going on here.

The comedian's remarks were condemned Monday by Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who called them a "vulgar, in-your-face brand of hate speech."

So, hate speech is wrong. Unless of course your particular brand of hate speech comes from bigots like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, or Jimmy Swaggart. Then it's perfectly ok.

From the Ted Haggard prostitution/drug scandal to more pedophilia than you can shake a stick at, it seems that Christians do like to get all worked up about entirely the wrong things. But she made a joke about Jesus. Won't somebody think of the children?

For the record, I think Kathy Griffin's speech was rather funny actually.

[Moozik: New Model Army - Tension]

Donald Rumsfeld was interviewed by GQ magazine for their October edition.

Rumsfeld said he couldn't recall the last time he and the president spoke.

Do you miss him? "Um, no," Rumsfeld said.

Always the character. Sometimes I think that I'd like to take Rummy down the pub. Get a few drinks in him and then ask him some of the important questions. Who was really behind 9/11, what did he know about Abu Ghraib, how long will it take him to teach me his fighting technique?

You know, that kind of thing.

[Moozik: Depeche Mode - Dressed In Black]

Philip Fibiger's aggregation of videos that appeared on 120 minutes is really rather nice. Some rather good stuff there.

I used these 120 minutes playlists as a starting point, and then used Tumblr to create an archive of all the videos I found. So far I'm at 80-90 videos, and It's been a real nostalgia trip. I remember a lot of these episodes in their entirety, sitting downstairs at 12:30 or one in the morning, and a fair number of these songs I probably hadn't listened to since then.

[Moozik: Nine Inch Nails - We're In This Together]

The other day I received a Gillette Fusion razor in the mail. I didn't order one. It just arrived by magic. Well, via Gillette's marketing department anyway.

At least, that's where I'm hoping it came from and not some nutjob luring shavers into his scheme to slowly kill off the population with tainted razor blades. Or something.

I've recently discovered the greatest shave gel in the history of the planet earth so perhaps I'll give the Fusion razor a try to see if that makes the whole "shave experience" even better. I mean, c'mon, it's got five blades so it must be good ;-)

So if this is the last post I make here, it was a cunning poison plan and I completely fell for it.

[Moozik: Deadsy - Mansion World]

Rather fitting I think.

Tony Wilson was buried in Southern Cemetery - to the left as Rob is to the right (correct in religio-football terms). The coffin was numbered. FAC 501. The last catalogue number. So it goes.

[Moozik: Rosetta Stone - To Leave Behind No More]

So the new iPod Touch is all rather lovely. All the iPhone eye candy, web browser, and wifi without the phone or craptacular 2 year contract. The downside? Flash memory instead of disk so they only have 8GB or 16GB of storage. Ouch.

Having my entire music collection in my pocket is really bloody handy as I never know what I'll be in the mood to listen to 5 hours from now. So, for now at least, I'll be sticking with my existing 80GB iPod "classic" (as they're now known).

[Moozik: Cranes - Watersong]

So, is it September 24th yet?

[Moozik: Interpol - Slow Hands]

Judge wants everyone in UK on DNA database.

The entire UK population and every visitor to Britain should be put on the national DNA database, a top judge said today.

Lord Justice Sedley, one of England's most experienced appeal court judges, described the country's current system as "indefensible".

He said that expanding the existing database to cover the whole population had "serious but manageable implications".

But he warned that putting everybody's DNA on file should be "for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose of crime detection and prevention".

Britain's 12-year-old DNA database is the largest of any country in the world, growing by 30,000 samples a month. According to the Home Office website, 5.2% of the UK population is on the database, compared with 0.5% in the US.

Sounds like a great idea. I can't think of any privacy or civil liberty concerns there. And I'm sure it won't be abused either.

The information commissioner, Richard Thomas, told Today: "I think we have to think very long and very hard before going down the road of a universal DNA database.

"There are some risks involved. This approach can be really intrusive, it raises really fundamental questions about how much the state or the police knows about each of us."

You think?

[Moozik: Gary Numan - We Are So Fragile (live)]

As I was driving into work this morning I happened to catch the tail end of a story giving "back to school" tips for parents. Some of the advice was really quite sensible and I found myself nodding my head until the topic turned to school dress code.

Parents, it would seem, are really quite crap at deciding if their daughters' clothing choices are a little "adult" and risque. What parents need, we were told, is some kind of guide to help them make those important decisions. And a guide they have, for a local school teacher has come to the rescue and created a website with all kinds of informative tips on appropriate school dress.

Which got me thinking.

If you feel that you have to visit a website to figure out if your daughter is inappropriately dressed for school, you already have your answer surely.