2008
08.30

Am I the only one being interrupted on a regular basis by this type of shit?!

lindseyseymourbyqg@hotmail.com says:
I cant upload my pics to msn for some reason!
But I want to chat with you.
you can find me on my personal page http://kcast.blogspot.com
my name is kelly

UPDATE (a few hours later):
now its…

janniedodsonvjsv@hotmail.com
I cant upload my pics to msn for some reason!
But I want to chat with you.
you can find me on my personal page http://ddfny.blogspot.com
my name is kelly

2008
08.30

Umm… wow?!

Gonna have to figure out how to reproduce this type of performance myself.
Please — anyone? I’m open to all suggestions…

Look here for the details — Peter (of Percona fame) is tuning the fuck out of a MySQL installation

2008
08.30

Ok ok — bad headline. With all due respect to those displaced by the Category 4+ Gustav is threatening…. But there may be a silver lining (for Sarasota anyway)…

Based on the NOAA Marine Weather Forecast conditions look perfect, for kitesurfing!

Sunday: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 89. Heat index values as high as 102. East wind between 17 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

Hmm… East wind would take me straight out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Need to find a safe spot to launch…

2008
08.30

British Hacker Gary McKinnon is due to be extradited to the US for computer crimes. He faces up to 80 years in prison. At one point, it was looking like Guantanamo. And doesn’t have much to stand on for a defense.

Hacking into .gov? .mil? Like its some big thing… Shit I remember people trading passwords for any and all of those on IRC chat #shellz. (Give passwords to a bunch of newbies — used to be a last ditch way to cover your tracks)

Two of my friends were raided by the FBI for hacking into various government computers (back in mid-90’s.) You know — knock down your door type shit — and they confiscate all your computers. Even took my friends entire music CD collection. (In case any had computer data on them?) We were teenagers at the time. One of them was charged years later, and was able to make a deal. Probation and a $25,000 fine.

All of us avoided spending time in jail.
Whatever — thank God.

Moral of the story: Don’t crack into organizations that have an unlimited budget to find you.

Its interesting to watch many from the underground computer security circles, go on to be unusally successful…
- Sean Parker – founding president of Facebook, founder Plaxo, Napster
- Shaun Fanning – founder Rupture, Snocap, Napster
- Andrew Frame – founder OOMA
- Jeremy Schoemaker – founder AuctionAds, Shoemoney.com

No Guantanamo for them…

2008
08.29

Tropical Storm Fay was slated to hit Sarasota, FL a week ago Tuesday.
So Monday – people left work early.
There were mandatory evacuations in lowlying areas and barrier islands.
School was cancelled Tuesday – most everyone stayed home from work.
And many were throwing hurricane parties.

I woke up early Tuesday, checked the forecast,
and Fay went more east and missed us.
Wind was coming up though – so time to go kiting!

The newscaster said 30mph … I believe it was gusting to 40+mph.
Yeah thats subjective… but I’ve kited for a long time.
And I’ve kited in 30-35mph winds before. No problem.

About 10mins after this video, the wind came up
stronger than I have ever felt before.
I put the kite in the most neutral position, dumping the sail,
and it was still pulling me sooooooo fast.

I had to land the kite, and I was thoroughly exhausted.

This Ft Lauderdale kiter didn’t fare so well…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2rvG7jfs4

For the update:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5647429&page=1

2008
08.29

C’mon what do you really have planned that weekend?

Some of the top database experts in the world are descending on Charlottesville, VA for a weekend of sharing ideas and hacking code. I’ll bring beer. (Sneddz!)

http://opensqlcamp.org/index.php?title=Events/2008/

2008
08.29

I recently inherited a few database servers…

Ubuntu7 (dated)
no-LVM (future proof?)
RAID5 (uhh yeah)
MySQL 5.0.45 (yawn)
mostly MyISAM (ugh)
… and the clincher … wait for it … wait for it

DRBD for high availability

God — I hate DRBD. Master + Master replication is the only way to go — it just doesn’t make sense if you are developing an evolving product with evolving requirements. Somebody please explain to me how to add INDEXs or ALTER live tables with DRBD?? I guess the jury is still out though — check the MySQL Replication vs DRBD debate.

To me its no question though. I have read through Percona’s MySQL best practices … and come up with this setup:

Centos 5/ RHEL 5 (Percona creates binary RPMS)
RAID 1 OS
LVM RAID 10 DB
MySQL 5.1.26-percona (custom build with microslow patches)
mostly InnoDB and innodb_per_file
Master + Master circular ring replication
with virtual IP for wites + standby master is read_only – manual failover

We have converted the 2 slaves to the new setup… and are about to break DRBD / implement Master + Master. And it hasn’t been without trouble. (Or maybe I’m just a perfectionist…) But I’ll tell you all about how I fell in love with Maatkit in another episode…

2008
08.29

And for me — with blogging — I’m about 12 years late to the game.

I mean — c’mon now — I’m using twitter before I have my own wordpress installation?!

Oh well — so here goes — don’t expect much.
I’m just trying to save my thoughts in the cloud for later reference…

(and really just doing it cuz my girl Michelle keeps asking me questions about Wordpress)