Pippin's Bearjournal

12:21am: Random quote off IRC
Spotted in an IRC channel I frequent:

"When I was 5 years old, my mum always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down "happy". They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life."

6:37pm: Internet redundancy
I really do like having redundant internet access. I just saw an alert from my monitoring system saying that my cable modem connection had gone down - I hadn't realised I have been online only via the ADSL for the last 20 minutes. Internet radio hadn't skipped a beat, IRC and various IMs hadn't timed out. Likewise, I tend not to notice (except for the nagios alerts) when my ADSL blips and reconnects - it's great!

4:05pm: Dog!
Went out and performed in public yesterday. My mum got a couple of photos.

I absolutely love doing this stuff. One of the young (teenage?) handlers I was assigned during the day asked if I got bored playing with kids after being out and doing that for over an hour. I don't. I get tired doing it, but not tired of doing it.

I do wish I'd had more time in the last few weeks to exercise. I could've done with being fitter.

3:30pm: Avunculism
What is normally expected of an uncle? Only I have just learned that I've become one and wouldn't want to get it all wrong!

6:28pm: Computer upgrades

Hi folks.

My dad's current computer is as specified in exhibit A. I built it for him and, as is probably obvious from the specificatons, he has had it for quite a few years now. Probably the most strenuous task he's been having it do is running the video editing program Edition on it, to capture stuff via 1394 from his camera and turn it into DVDs.

He has, for some months now, not been able to use Edition because it's stuffed up in some new and interesting way (I'm not sure if it ever really worked perfectly, although at one point he was successfully making DVDs with it). He has now bought a copy of Adobe Premier CS3 to replace it, but it refuses to install itself until the machine is upgraded.

I think it would be a good idea to end up with something which draws less power and doesn't make as much noise keeping itself cool. I can't really imagine that a high-end modern machine would be needed; things have moved on so much since Exhibit A was built that surely the low-end ones nowadays would be a significant advance over what he's been using for the last few years? Or would we be better to look at something a little above the lowest-end?

I've not built a new machine for some years now and have not been following the more recent processors, chipsets, etc, so I don't really have much idea what standard of performance things tend be nowadays relative to what I'm familiar with.

Questions:

1. Replace components, or just get a new machine?
2. If it's the "new machine" route (and I'm guessing it will be) build him a new machine from parts, or go to Dell or similar, pay money and get a standard pre-built box delivered?
3. What standard of machine would be sensible for running Adobe Premier CS3? I don't think he will be editing high-def video any time soon; the current camera is a standard-def PAL one (rather nice, high-end (as of a few years ago) "prosumer" type thing, and switchable between 4:3 and 16:9 anamorphic, although that makes little difference as it's the same number of pixels in both cases, in order to match broadcast TV and work nicely with normal TV hardware).
4. My dad's been looking at exhibit B for advice on what hardware to get, specifically at the "Videoguys Vista64 DIY7 Core i7 8-core Workstation". My guess is that for what he wants, that'll be massive overkill. Am I right? I especially can't see how, with the speed of modern disks, RAID-0 could possibly be necessary. Maybe if you're going to be working on video all day, every day, and need to be waiting the minimum amount of time, yes, but for a hobbyist wanting to transfer a few tapes' worth of DV, glue bits of video together and make a DVD to show the family?

Exhibit A

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-7VAX, Award BIOS, F10, 14/01/2003
CPU: Athlon XP 2400+
(x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~2009 Mhz)
OS: Windows XP Home Edition, 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
RAM: 2.5GB RAM (2560 MB):
   2x Kingston KVR333X64C25/1G
      (1GB 333MHz DDR Non-ECC CL2.5 DIMM)
      (Standard 128M X 64 Non-ECC 333MHz 184-pin Unbuffered DIMM)
      (DDR, 2.5V, CL2.5, Gold))
   1x Crucial CT6464Z335.16T
      (512MB, DDR, 333MHz CL2.5)
      (512MB, 184-pin DIMM, DDR PC2700 memory module)
Graphics: Matrox Millennium G450 DualHead LE
   1x Samsung 2243BW
   1x AOC LM720A
Network: Realtek RTL8139 Family Fast Ethernet NIC (PCI)
Audio: Creative SB Audigy 2 Audio Processor (WDM) (PCI)
1394: on SB Audigy card
SATA: Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATARaid Controller (2-port, PCI)
Storage:
   1x SATA HDD: WDC WD10 EACS-00D6B0 (931.51 GB)
   1x IDE HDD: Seagate ST3160023A (149.05 GB)
   1x IDE HDD: WDC WD400EB-00CPF0 (37.27 GB)
   1x IDE CDRW: HP CD-Writer+ 8100
   1x IDE DVDWR: Optiarc DVD RW AD-5200A
   1x 3.5" Floppy Drive
   several USB HDDs

(You can see how each HDD upgrade has displaced an older HDD, but the older drive has stayed installed for access to older files. I've been meaning to move the partitions off the smaller drives into the unpartitioned space on the 1TB drive and then get rid of the older drives, but haven't got round to it yet.)

Exhibit B

http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Videoguys+System+Recommendations+for+Video+Editing/0x4aebb06ba071d2b6a2cd784ce243a6c6.aspx

4:14pm: Test My Heart - National Screening Service
If you're no older than 35 years and can get to one of the events listed on the web site (all in England), you might be interested in the free "Test My Heart" national screening service. Looks like a good idea to me.

12:18am: Not quite in a state of Xen
I started out really liking Xen, now that I've tried getting domain migration working, I'm starting to feel it's really horribly fragile.

I got DRBD working, mirroring a virtual disk image between the new dual-core Atom board I bought recently to put in the datacentre (but haven't yet) and host a few light VMs, and the Dell dual-core Opteron box I bought last year as replacement home server (they had a special offer on).

I have Xen working on both machines - I can shut down my test VM on one, then boot it back up on the other with no problem. DRBD works nicely, so both machines see the same chunk of storage, with changes being replicated between them in real time. But migration doesn't work. I've read most of the documentation that comes with Xen, and skimmed everything I haven't read. It was only when I started getting desparate and looking at even the more retarded-looking illiterate web forum posts Google was dredging up that I found people talking about hardware having to match.

Hmm? Hardware has to match? I suppose it ought to be obvious really, and as soon as I think about it, it is very obvious, but because things pretty much "just worked" otherwise, it hadn't occurred to me.

The xm man page says that migration "is pretty complicated, and has many security implications. Please read the Xen User's Guide to ensure you understand the ramifications and limitations on migration before attempting it in production." Well, I wasn't trying it "in production", but on my home network with no VMs I actually cared about running anywhere. When I looked in the Xen User's Guide anyway, its chapter on migrating domains is just over one page long (yes, a whole page!) and the extent of the limitations described are: "To perform a live migration, both hosts must be running Xen / xend and the destination host must have sufficient resources (e.g. memory capacity) to accommodate the domain after the move. Furthermore we currently require both source and destination machines to be on the same L2 subnet."

Well, my setup meets both of those requirements, even though the second is clearly only a requirement for uninterrupted IP connectivity rather than for actually migrating the domain. My machines are even running the same kernels and Xen versions; even though the manual doesn't mention that as being a requirement.

Google found this: "I don't know you mean with a 'file backed VBD'," (it's explained in the documentation! How is someone giving help on the official mailing list not aware of this!?), "but one essential for migrating is that the image is on a filesystem that is reachable from both systems, the other is that both systems should base mostly on the same processor-family."

"Should base mostly on the same processor-family"? Perhaps they're not a native English speaker so I'll forgive the bad grammar, but how is that actually a helpful answer? It's too vague to be of any use other than to indicate that there's something</em> I need to know about the differences between the CPUs involved in a migration. A reference to some documentation explaining what the requirements are would have been nice, but as far as I can see, there's no mention of these requirements anywhere in any Xen documentation, so maybe it isn't surprising that they don't give a reference.

The best I found was a mailing list post from a couple of years ago with what actually looks like a decent explanation of what's going on here. It just seems a pity no one's actually thought to put it in the flippin' manual, which would have saved me a day or two of wasted time faffing around and (mostly-)fruitlessly Googling something which could have been mentioned up-front with just a few words in the manual.

Can you tell I'm feeling a bit frustrated?

Current Mood: not quite in a state of zen

6:13pm: ebay evilness
Ebay seller mr_nice_007 is not nice at all. Do not use them.

I bought a "new" battery for my N800 from them. The label was a bit tatty, looked like it wasn't quite new. After charging and using it, it turned out not to last any longer than the year-old battery I bought it to replace. Complained, was told they had not had any new batteries in stock but now had new ones and would I like a replacement. Said "no", I'd like a refund.

Sent it to the address they gave. Some days later, Royal Mail returned it to me, addressee unknown. Complained again. After a few more to-and-fro, they gave me the same address again. Told them it hadn't worked before. Their response: "we do have a full working address thanks... why dont you come down and have a look for your self."

I looked into doing a Paypal complaint, but on the day I checked, it was 46 days since the transaction. The time limit turned out to be 45 days. I was about to reply to them again threatening negative feedback and complaints if they didn't refund soon, but having just looked at the feedback page, it seems I'm too late for that, too - it used to be 90 days, presumably ebay must have reduced it to 60 while I wasn't looking.

It was only £13, but that's not the point. It makes me feel incredibly frustrated that they've managed to string me along for long enough that all the remedies I had assumed I had have now expired sooner than I thought they were supposed to, and that they are presumably going to get away scot-free with what is effectively fraud.

Do not buy from mr_nice_007.

1:05am: Ideamongering
I'm sure I've read of many writers who are frequently asked where they get their ideas. Some just say "I don't know", some tell of a little man in a shed out in the wilds whose mail-order ideas business is apparently booming. I know where I get mine, though, and it's a lot simpler and more prosaic. I get my ideas in the shower.

I really ought to shower more often.

5:16pm: Yummy statistics
I did GCSE statistics at school, so I can understand things like this:

12:17am: Moving pictures
In case you didn't notice, I made a little video and put it on Youtube recently. It was my entry for the Tim Minchin competition, but as I can't win anyway it was basically just a source of motivation to actually do something. :)

5:32pm: Witt's End
Witt's End was a place in Adventure, and is also what I'm wondering if I'm coming to just now...

I'm looking at getting a receipt/cheque printer very cheap off ebay, but it has no power supply. I appear to be able to get a 24V 2.5A PSU, which should be suitable, for a not-unreasonable amount, but the final piece of the puzzle is the power connector. The printer apparently has this rather strange asymmetrical kind of 3-pin DC connector, also mentioned on wikipedia.

I've searched Maplin's, RS's and Farnell's web sites but not been able to find any such connectors. The closest I've found is at the same web site as that reference document, Access Communications in Australia, but they only appear to have line plugs and PCB-mount sockets, no line sockets... Even if they did, it would mean the postage costs of ordering from Australia when I'm trying to do this on the cheap! :P

Anyone have any ideas for where to look for these elusive connectors? Or would it be easier for me to get the printer, open it up, dike out the weird power connector and put a normal DC barrel connector in?

2:16pm: Once in a blue moon
Livejournal's telling me that it was exayot's non-birthday between yesterday and today. Happy 5th-birthday-and-a-year, Yotie! :)

Annual happiness dosages to twigmouse and emejn too!

5:38pm: It's there to be lived
And once again I am reminded: I should live my life better.

I should spend more time doing things that generate happiness for me and those around me. I should stop caring about the things that make me angry, or upset or annoy me, unless they are things I can change for the better. And I should be better to my friends... I have occasionally allowed myself to be rude or nasty to those who didn't deserve it - that doesn't do anyone any good.

I might be run over by a bus tomorrow, and it would be a shame if I hadn't made the most of the (brief) time I've had.

4:28pm: "Airport security really are dumb as rocks aren't they?"
Seen on IRC:

<x> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/17/bike-with-band-name.html
<x> airport security really are dumb as rocks aren't they
<x> how many real bombs have labels on them saying "this is a bomb"?

12:43am: Bored
I know of a few people who've left for FC already, but not enough to account for the massive lull I'm seeing. IRC, at least, seems empty! Is everyone taking the week before it off too?

4:28pm: Just to clear up something which bugs me...
Far too many people (ahem) seem to have the idea that "meme" is pronounced "me-me". Ironically, the idea that the word "meme" has anything to do with the word "me" is quite a prevalent meme itself, although the people who pronounce it "me-me" and think it has something to do with answering questions about oneself wouldn't realise that.

The word "meme" is derived from, and pronounced to (nearly) rhyme with, "gene". FYI, "memetics" (the study of memes) is similar to genetics, but studies self-replicating units of cultural information rather than self-replicating units of DNA.

2:26am: New year's resolution
Finally figured out my new year's resolution:

1600x1200.

*grin-duck-run*

(Actually that's exactly the same resolution I had last year, but anyway... ;>)

6:28pm: New Year
New Year was a lot of fun. Thanks for a very good time to all the Brumcon organisers, hosts, contributors, staff, sound and lighting engineers, entertainers, equipment loaners, laser technicians, DJs, caterers, wine mullers, furniture movers, fog generators, artists (both talented and deliberately bad), guests of honour, pyrotechnicians, ventilation specialists, fursuiters, singers, rude-word doorbell vocalists... and attendees!

12:35am: Greenwich time
It's now religion-day here on the Prime Meridian, so happy religion-day to you all.

Yeah, I haven't written anything here for yonks.

I've been working a lot for a customer who's a bit annoying, and they've not been all that good at paying me promptly - what fun!

I said to a couple of you that I had stuff to send you - I haven't forgotten, I've just been busy... I will get round to it soon!

Kelsey went out and persuaded people to give generously yesterday and today. Coins taken: 0 (the people with proper hands did the bucket-shaking). Kids hugged: 1.28e20. People in cars waved at: EINTEGEROVERFLOW. Fun quotient: present and correct. Dehydration levels: not bad actually!

Now I'd better go and do some emergency wrapping, then get to bed soon enough to get up in time to get in the car at 9am for the trip to my sister's place!

1:14am: Self-Pic Meme
Here's what tungro wrote:

• Take a picture of yourself right now.
• Don't change your clothes. Don't fix your hair.
• Post that picture with no editing.
• Post these instructions with your picture.

Okay, found camera, charged camera, refound the meme a few days later, found now-charged camera, couldn't be bothered, noticed meme again a few days later, could be bothered, found still-charged camera, took pic, uploaded.

So, I've taken a bit of a liberty with "right now". My hair is not fixable anyway, so that's okay. "no editing" would include even shrinking the picture down and since I can't be bothered breaking that rule you'll just have to tolerate a nearly-1MB download.

Incidentally, my room really isn't nearly big enough or tidy enough for portrait photography.

1:22am: Tell everybody I'm on my way
Tell everybody I'm on my way
And I'm loving every step I take!
With the sun beating down, yes, I'm on my way
And I can't keep this smile off my face!

I'm on my way!
Yes, I'm on my way!

[Just watched the film again, and it had the same throat-lump-inducing effect as ever. Feeling very bearish now. And... joyful.]

[It's a pity how fast the joy fades after I stop watching, though.]

12:48am: Just staring into space
Take this world and all it's become,
I wanna get out of this place;
We're all livin' under the sun
And we're just starin' into space.
Give yourself a chance to be free,
You gotta give yourself a break;
In the end the love you receive
Is equal to the love you take.

Close your eyes, do you remember your past?
In the park, the smell of freshly cut grass?
I hear a song and that just brings it all back...
And it seems like yesterday!

Take this world and all it's become,
I wanna get out of this place;
We're all livin' under the sun
And we're just starin' into space.
Give yourself a chance to be free,
You gotta give yourself a break;
In the end the love you receive
Is equal to the love you take.

Close your eyes, do you remember that kiss?
The two of us, we just couldn't resist?
We became what I thought it was love...
But that was yesterday!

I don't know what you are,
I don't know what you are!
I don't know where you are,
I don't know where you are!

Take this world, and all it's become,
I wanna get out of this place;
We're all livin' under the sun
And we're just starin' into space.
Give yourself a chance to be free,
You gotta give yourself a break;
In the end the love you receive
Is equal to the love you take.

Take this world, and all it's become,
I wanna get out of this place;
We're all livin' under the sun
And we're just starin' into space.
Give yourself a chance to be free,
You gotta give yourself a break;
In the end the love you receive
Is equal to the love you take...

2:02pm: GrrrrrrFedEx
A month later, and I'm still annoyed at FedEx. It's not that they lost the package, or that they damaged it, or that they were (apparently) unpleasant or unhelpful - They didn't, and they weren't - none of those apply. They delivered it within about 3 days, I signed for it and it was in good condition. The part I'm fuming about is that, a month later, they unexpectedly sent me a large invoice.

Delivering the package to me without asking for, or even mentioning, customs charges leaves me with the impression that my package didn't accrue any customs charges. Not mentioning the possibility that I will be invoiced weeks later is tantamount to lying, in my opinion - in every other case I've bought something from abroad, I've either been charged on or before delivery, or there has been nothing to pay. Deviating from this practice without saying anything, and with the only explanation (paraphrased from the leaflet that came with the invoice) being "oh, we're just so fast we don't have time to find out how much you're making yourself liable for" seems downright dishonest. (And saying that I should have known because it would have been written somewhere in the terms and conditions on the piece of paprt the delivery person asked me to sign is a bit stupid - who has time to read all the terms and conditions on every delivery they accept? I doubt the delivery person would be willing to hang around that long.) All it takes is for the deliveryman to say "by the way, there will probably be customs charges to pay later and by signing for this you're agreeing to pay them". Giving an estimate of the charges would be even better. Failing to mention it entirely gives the impression that either it came through customs without charges, or that the sender had agreed to pay them - frankly, given the breath-taking price the sender charged me for delivery in the first place, I assumed he had opted to pay customs charges. But no, I get invoiced for them a month later, when I'd pretty much forgotten about the possibility, and was no longer setting aside money in case I have to pay for it.

And they have the gall to add an "administration fee" to the actual tax and duty, despite that the service of processing the package through customs and collecting the customs charges from me should have been an entirely predictable part of the process of delivering the package and therefore it should, surely, be included as part of the original price they charged the sender!

No, I do not wish to use FedEx ever again. Unless I really need something moved in a stupidly short amount of time (and I would consider that a sign that I'd messed things up), they aren't worth the extortionate price anyway - normal parcel post would have been fine in this case, for example, and probably a quarter the price. (The sender later mentioned that he is unwilling to use anything other than FedEx, so I doubt I'll be buying from him again.) I'm becoming doubtful whether I will willingly import anything that can't be classified as a "gift" (i.e. under £36 declared value and person-to-person) from abroad in the future - customs charges just seem to be too unpredictable.

Grrr.

Perhaps I'm conflating it a bit with another delivery annoyance I had lately. I'd decided I really ought to check things whenever I accepted a delivery, but the deliverman wouldn't allow me to. He said "I can't let you touch it" and "it's not yours until after you've signed for it" (this ignores the fact that the parcel was never the property of the delivery company or the deliveryman anyway - it was either the property of the sender or the receiver - and for pre-paid mail-order goods, which I think this particular parcel was, the goods would normally be the buyer's property before the time of delivery). I touched it anyway - told him I wanted to see who it was addressed to, and turned it around until I could see the label. I'm sure this annoyed him in return. I couldn't check properly whether it was damaged (some kinds of damage aren't evident until you start using something, let alone when it's unpacked, let alone by inspecting the outside of the packaging), but the form he was asking me to sign had printed "received undamaged" or words to that effect. I asked how I could be expected to sign that without him allowing me to look at the package. He advised me to cross out that declaration and sign anyway, which I did. I probably should have got him to make the amendment and sign it himself before I'd sign it, so that there was evidence that he (on behalf of his employer) had accepted the changed agreement... Whether he'd agree to do that, I've no idea - he probably didn't have the authority to make agreements on behalf of his employer anyway.

Perhaps I should have insisted on being allowed to either inspect the package for damage or know who it was sent by. Knowing who it was sent by would have meant I could have looked up their terms and conditions to find out whether (a) refusing a delivery from them would result in being charged extra by them, and (b) whether they had a term which I've seen before which instructed the receipient not to write "unchecked" or similar when signing for a package, because the delivery company would not accept claims in that case. If I left a delivery man waiting too long on the doorstep while I checked the vendor's terms and conditions, would he give up and take the package away and claim I'd refused it, even if I'd said I refused to refuse it until after checking the vendors terms, and refused to accept it until I'd checked it for damage? If a delivery does turn up damaged, it seems there are so many combinations of terms and conditions of vendors and delivery firms that it would be pot luck as to whether you found that the way you'd handled a particular delivery allowed for your damage to be rectified or not. Without spending inordinate amounts of time checking up on the exact terms of every delivery, I'm not sure how you can possibly deal with this correctly.

More grrrr.

6:57pm: Not been reading Livejournal lately
This is the story of Jeremy Sinclair
He went down to the rainbow(?), and took his chances there
He met a lovely angel who looked too good to be true
His whole life changed the second he laid eyes on Sylvie Blue

They must have known each other in another life it seemed
They talked about their troubles, they talked about their dreams
They fell in love and got a little place on Second Street
Saved money in the mattress for to buy some property

Oooh, Sylvie Blue
Oooh, who are you?

Jeremy came home one day but Sylvie wasn't there
He ran into the room to find it all in disrepair
It slayed him like an arrow through his heart it hurt so bad
The car was gone and so was all the money that they had

Oooh, Sylvie Blue
Oooh, who are you?
Who are you?
Sylvie Blue, who are you?

Our ("Now a"?) lovely angel by the name of Sylvie Blue
Is somewhere south of Texas looking too good to be true
She polishes her story as she fixes up her hair
I wonder if she ever thinks of Jeremy Sinclair?


This is about the first song I've Googled for and been unable to find a decent copy of the words, so this is my transcription. The non-decent (indecent?) copies I found have loads of obvious mistakes and also have "Silvie" instead of "Sylvie", and "St. Claire" instead of "Sinclair" - which may well be right. Of course, the real version is the (necessarily ambiguous) audio version. :) Corrections welcome.