Tony Perrie

Weirdest Beverage Day Ever

2008-05-05T04:17:49Z

Through a bizarre combination of happenstance and serendipity dished out by The Great Magnet, my beverage selection for the day has been most unusual.

1) hot tea (p.g. tips)
2) glass of tap water
3) can of Budweiser (drank in the street with my neighbor)
4) can of Redbull
5) glass of tropical-infused iced tea
6) strong $8 white russian
7) grande starbucks mocha
8) glass of pinot grigio

As per usual, there was no rhyme or reason for alternating between alcohol and caffeine other than instant gratification.

Blogs Are Like Cereal For Your Mind

2008-04-25T03:03:48Z

The Professor of Magic is perhaps the greatest sociological, psychological, and technology luminary of our times. As an astute observer of the human condition, connoisseur of fine wine and spirits, raconteur, and master of the mythical yellow ball, his knowledge of the universe is beyond mortal comprehension. After an hour in the gym today, the endorphin rush inspired him to bestow the following wisdom unto me.

Hoyhoy:	I used to think reading blogs was like giving the middle finger to traditional media, but now I'm not so sure.
Professor of Magic:	Consider cereal. There's 5,000 brands, and they're all basically food coloring and 90% sugar. Blogs are like cereal for your mind.
Hoyhoy:	Facebook is worse. It's turning the Internet into television except instead of preying on boredom and loneliness, it preys on boredom, loneliness, and vanity. Basically, the Jerry Springer Show was the read-only version of Facebook.
Professor of Magic:	And, Facebook apps are the equivalent of ringing somebody's doorbell and running away.
Hoyhoy:	Good point.
Professor of Magic:	Blogs and social networks are just a waypoint to the eventual conclusion of hooking wires directly into everyone's heads as a means of controlling the superfluous population.
Hoyhoy:	Not me. I took the blue and red pills simultaneously.

New Amazon Wishlist

2008-04-14T08:33:14Z

My old wish list was filled with a bunch of Burt Bacharach CDs and waffle irons. Who needs that rubbish in this day and age? I don't even own a CD player since I ripped all my mp3s back to vinyl. At any rate, the first person to buy me that 24-pack of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Spiderman Shapes off the list is going to be my personal hero for at least 10 years after I take delivery.

Update: I forgot to make the Wish List public.

Another OS X Calamity

2007-06-04T18:20:24Z

In Address Book.app, what does "Print" do? It seems to accomplish nothing for me.

Setxattr Errors

2007-05-03T20:25:45Z

So, old hudge was kicking up a helluva fuss about setxattr errors this morning. I was getting the following errors, over and over and over again in my syslog file.

hudge kernel: post_create: setxattr failed, rc=28 (dev=sda1 ino=8339458)

In fact, I got so many of these errors that they filled up my root partition. The full disk caused mysql to stop working altogether, and the corruption of a couple of tables in my wordpress database. Question is, with SELinux disabled on my box, why would I get 50GB worth of setxattr errors?

RAID5 Woes

2007-04-10T18:22:32Z

I have been using a Promise SX4000 hardware RAID5 controller under Redhat 9 for just over three years now. It mostly worked, but it's a massive hassle to keep it running. This morning, one of the drives failed and another one was offline. So, I think the entire 750GB array filesystem is toast. Also, the array was running in a 2.6GHz Athlon XP machine with five internal hard disks was quite loud and prone to overheating. So, I've been quietly thinking of decommissioning that box for a while now.

I'm thinking of buying a Mac Mini and attaching one these or buying two 750GB drives and sticking them into a quieter Pentium 4 system that I have laying around not doing much of anything. The only real criteria for the array are that it be quiet and reliable. I'm pretty ignorant of the commodity software and hardware RAID solutions out there these days. I'm leaning towards using RHEL5 or FreeBSD on a Pentium 4 box with RAID1 mirroring perhaps using a 3Ware controller. Does anyone have any opinions?

So Right

2007-04-04T22:53:53Z

So Wrong

2007-04-04T02:52:30Z

This seems wrong on so many levels. Taken from http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/cpg/305680083.html:

Building a database of info automatically based on subjects that we specify. Anyone who has experience pulling data from RSS sources IE google reader into a XLS spreadsheet or another use-able format.

IE: PROJECT: populate a spreadsheet with keywords and articles related to Special Widgets.

RESULTS SPREADSHEET HAS 2 COLUMNS

KEYWORD ARTICLE TEXT

special widgets special widgets are great. Some features of special...etc (articles will vary in length but fit into the column in the database or XLS)

if you can script something to do this contact us ASAP.

Adventure with Nicorette

2007-03-07T04:46:19Z

The idea of trying Nicorette has always appealed to me. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, but always wanted to try nicotine gum. For a while in high school, I plotted with one of my delinquent friends to see what would happen if we put nicotine patches all down our arms, chewed Nicorette and smoked three cigarette all at the same time. Nevertheless, due to lack of initiative and courage, this little stunt never came to fruition.

So, at the new place, I've been watching a jubilant young coder from New Zealand named Jonathan Gifford fight off his bad smoking urges using Nicorette. Feeling my oats, I asked him for a hit after lunch today. He obliged and broke a piece of the nicotine-laced confectionery off the blister pack, adding "knock yourself out, kid". I unwrapped the gum and started chewing . Mmmmm, minty! Jon then started on about "seating" the gum between my lips and my gums for a while, chewing and then reseating. I did this for about thirty minutes or so, it had no effect on me whatsoever. Around this time, Jon let Jochen, the spry German CTO of the company, in on my experiment. Jochen warned me that this wasn't going to turn out well. I scoffed, "Nicotine is just like caffeine, THEY'RE BOTH AMINES!". He shot back, "So is strychnine!". This blew my mind.

One hour into the ordeal I had to fax a letter. I got up off my chair, but felt rather light-headed and stumbled. No one noticed though. As I was walking, I started to sweat more profusely than George W. Bush at a math test. Then, I felt the familiar pre-heave, just-stepped-off-the-merry-go-round loss of equilibrium. I bee-lined for the bathroom and hid out there for about twenty minutes, hoping that this episode would subside quickly. It didn't. I stumbled back to my desk, with Jochen quipping, "you look green, man!" He and Jon were both laughing at me as I resorted to using one of my running towels to soak up the gallons of perspiration leaking from my pores. This was my body's way of punishing me for being retarded.

After about 10-minutes of being berated, I made a second trip to the bathroom and donated about $20 worth of Henry's Hunan to the big white telephone. One month in San Francisco and I'm already tossing my cookies on the 16th floor of a skyscraper in the financial district. How far I've fallen. I waited for over a year before heaving-on-the-clock at IBM. Finally, I declared defeat, left the bathroom, picked my Macbook and what little dignity I had left, and headed home. Later on, the CEO got wind of my calamity and sent an email that read, "I know you are interested in having life experiences, but come on!!".

The Strangest Computer Calamity Ever

2007-02-22T01:39:12Z

One week ago, Sterrance, my Windows desktop computer refused to start. Touching the switch did not result in the comforting fan whirring and hard disk clatter that used to happen. The switch didn't do anything now. In some ways, it was just like the mystery switch in my last apartment at Gables Grandview that performed no action that I could perceive in my own reality.

I found this problem quite peculiar since I built the computer to crazy specifications (solid gold ram sinks, spinners on the caster wheels, coffee can fan exhaust, NOS and massive VTEC stickers ever on every possible flat surface). My first assumption was that an electrical surge must have fried the power supply. This seemed rather implausible because the machine is plugged in to a UPS which is plugged in to a surge protector. Going through the motions, I earnestly took both spare power supplies that I have on hand and tried them both and got no love from Mr. G. While sitting on the floor with the case open, I noticed something rather queer. The LED on the motherboard and the IDE LED on the case stayed on whilst I was unplugging the power supplies. I started to become perplexed, and dare I say, a bit angry. So, I unplugged every possible Molex connector from the original power supply thinking that it must have been holding a charge in a capacitor somewhere. Even after that, the motherboard LED stayed on. The video card is sometimes troublesome and complains about its power adapter not being attached even though it is. Grasping at straws, I unplugged the video card. Still the LEDs shone like the twinkle in my dad's eye on the day I was born.

Thinking I had somehow entered the twilight zone, I then physically unplugged the new and old power supplies from the wall. Still, the LEDs were lit up worse than a fraternity guy at a kegger. In my confusion, I somehow remembered that printed circuit boards hold some parasitic charge in their capacitors. Then, I shorted the "reset" jumper thinking it would clear any possible charge stored in the board. Still, the LEDs were glowing with the intensity of a neutron star. I was starting to get scared and irrational at this point, and I deleted all of the mp3s that comprised The Police's "Ghost in the Machine" album on my iPod. Still, the LEDs were dutifully glowing like my glimmering life gem after I eat a whole pack of Hobnobs. As a last resort, I started unplugging USB peripherals, speakers, a USB Das keyboard, and finally an additional Model M PS/2 keyboard with marked letters on it that Rachel needed because she's afraid to learn how to touch-type.

Eureka! It was the Model M PS/2 keyboard that was somehow injecting a current into the motherboard. So, as I went take the keyboard off the desk to examine it for the presence of gremlins or perhaps small trolls, I realized that the mouse portion of the cable was attached to my Linux machine. It was physically connected to two machines! The Model M PS/2 keyboard has a Trackpoint nipple nestled snugly between the G and H keys that I caress sometimes when I get lonely. To reiterate, the mouse cable for the keyboard was plugged in to the Linux machine that was on, and the keyboard cable was plugged in to my Windows machine which refused to boot. After disconnecting the extra cable and hitting the power switch, Sterrance booted-up like the clappers!

I realize now that it is a bad idea to have peripherals connected to two machines simultaneously unless they are designed for that purpose. I blame this oversight partially on the Electrical Engineering curriculum at Ohio University where it was never explicitly mentioned to _not_ do such a thing and on Rachel for not wanting to learn how to type on a keyboard with no letters.

Warning to The Chupacabra

2007-01-05T05:09:58Z

I am the original author of yesterday's post, but Chupacabra reposted it to his blog unattributed shortly thereafter. If this is not sorted out, the next time I see old boy's Vespa down at Guero's, one of his cherished homies shall meet a most uncerimonious end.

Five Things You Don't Know About Me

2007-01-04T03:28:39Z

This is the first Internet meme that I have ever done. It's really too self-indulgent to pass-up though.

1.) I ordered a Roast Beef sandwich from Rax in Athens, Ohio while running two revolving amber lights atop my 1991 Dodge Shadow (The original ghetto sled).
2.) When I was two, I was obsessed with light switches and would inexplicably shout "ZAZZLE!" after every heedless on-off cycle.
3.) Every year between the ages 9-14, my parents would buy me a $100 Huffy bicycle and I would immediately proceed to ruin it by constantly attempting BMX tricks and jumping it over a ramp consisting of a piece of plywood resting on a mason block. Eventually, I would bribe younger kids to lie in front of the ramp so I could judge how much airtime I would get. Lengthwise Benjamin Littel and Scotty Clifford plus width-wise Joey Latham was my final record.
4.) I freely exercise my right to juggle at most three pieces of citrus fruit every time I enter a Super Target. Also, I was once reprimanded by a associate there for bowling a cantelope down an aisle to make sure that it would veer left just like a ripe one should.
5.) I seriously thought donut holes really were left over dough from the center of donuts until about six months ago.

Planet Genius

2006-12-30T06:17:08Z

Well, The Chupacabra has finally started a new blog. This prompted me to assemble my ragtag assortment of feeds and jigger them into a planet site for easy consumption on rainy days when I run out of milk (e.g. Tuesdays). As a homage to Chupa paying his $30 to Bob, I have named the site Planet Genius. This site combines all of the A-list bloggers that I know personally (Chupa, Nugget, Bumper, Ivo, Decibel, Doppler, and Moonwick) onto one page on the thirty of each hour just like the clappers. Stay tuned for when I RJS those star ratings and an RSS feed to the page.

The Waking Dream

2006-11-30T01:29:17Z

I’ve grown to dislike how we communicate with each other. Every conversation involves one person rationalizing his or her own importance over another. Adults that have graduated from college really identify with the experience. They’ll say, “So-and-so is smart, but he doesn’t have a degree!” In their world, degrees preclude true enlightenment. Developers that use one platform will deify their own system over all the others. You’ll read things like, “Java is for stupid programmers and using it will evaporate your soul!” Another example is the operating system war that was popular in the late-90s where Unix users exclaimed, “WINDOWS IS FOR MORONS!”

Recently, Joel Spolsky wrote a big story about a developer who started his own business and failed miserably. After that, he proceeded to blast Agile Development. Why did Joel do that? Because he’s frightened of people starting competitive businesses with tools that he doesn’t use. Joel raises perfectly valid points about Rails and Agile development. Unfortunately, his criticisms were the same exact ones that Wordperfect had against using C++ in the early 1990s. They believed that the new level of abstraction was unnecessary, and everyone should develop applications in assembly. Wordperfect was 100% correct because compiled applications are slower than ones written in custom assembly. As a result, it is now the fastest word processor that nobody uses. One day in the future, Joel’s software will be made irrelevant by some young punk kid with better code and propaganda. His words and consciousness are designed to mitigate this risk.

Another example of this communication breakdown is on the Internet where people go out looking for evidence that their mass-produced consumer product is vastly superior than another. Some dude sipping on a latte at Starbucks is currently writing a blog post about how his Mac is better than a PC. He vehemently believes this idea and will defend it to the core of his existence because he identifies with owning Apple products. This is what happens when people believe propaganda. This man does not understand that the commercials he watched were rhetoric delivered to increase Apple’s influence. He bought the hype because his fragile grip on reality doesn’t disregard all commercial messages as irrelevant to his life.

Wars on the Internet are similar to the real ones. One group of people think that the way they are is way more kickass than the any other way. “What, you don’t like how I am? Well, I’ll prove that I’m better than you by using violence!” The entire world will then see how powerful you are by way of your own actions. Everyone is doing it. It’s easy and fun!

The waking dream is to realize that everyone is telling a story. Actively avoid defining our own existence in terms of others’ thoughts. Invent your own consumer products and propaganda. Better yet, create your own philosophy and vehemently proselytize it. Philosophies are more exciting than consumer products anyway. After you’ve successfully converted everyone over to the clearly superior philosophy, construct another. That old one was holding you back anyway.

Blanket generalizations are the last refuge of the irrelevant. Michaelangelo never scuttled around exclaiming, “If you buy a Craftsman hammer, you can chisel out a David statue ten times faster than those unenlightened Luddites using Stanley hammers!” His life was a single-minded, frenetic burst of action devoted to his own art. This is the right way to be. Then again, maybe I’m rationalizing that the way Michaelangelo lived was superior than how we are living today.

Generating MP3 Durations with PHP and DBDO

2006-11-17T00:19:24Z

I had to update a MySQL database full of mp3 names with the inherent track, album, and genre metadata. So, I grabbed the Zend mp3 library and sorted it out like the clappers using the DataObjects ORM.


    $m = new DataObjects_Tracks;
    $m->addWhere("filename RLIKE '[.period.]mp3'");
    $m->find();
    while($m->fetch()) {
        $mp3 = new MP3($m->filename);
        $mp3->get_id3();
        $mp3->get_info();
        $m->duration = $mp3->info["length"];
        $m->album = $mp3->info["album"];
        $m->title = $mp3->info["title"];
        $m->update();
    }

If ORMs were automobiles, DB_DataObject would be somewhere between a 1976 Pinto and an Edsel, but it gets the job done OK. The most annoying thing about it is that you have to run php DB/DataObject/createTables.php every time you alter the database. Unfortunately, the more I use DBDO the more it makes me miss the ActiveRecord sauce in the same way a munted man misses his libations. Once you've driven a Porsche, you don't want to go back to the old Rustang.

Exploiting the Triangle

2006-11-02T15:15:01Z

Well, last night was pretty much the best nuclear taco night ever. I won't attribute any of these, but here are some of the highlights.

"If it wasn't for the plow, Britney Spears wouldn't even exist!"
"The town crier was mass media in the 1700s!"
"Britney Spears and Shakespeare are the same thing."
"There are no self-made men."
"British MPs gave me a T-Shirt that said 'Fort Niagra 1814' when I was in Belize, and I didn't know why it was so funny."
"One time I'd like to come here and have Cow do most of the talking"
"My daddy dropped me on my head as an infant. That's why I couldn't take the FE."
"I DIDN'T EVEN STUDY FOR THE FE AND I GOT A 95%!"
"It's not exploitation, it's a symbiotic relationship!"
"You need to learn to exploit the triangle. It has always existed."
"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"
"You have to have deceit in your heart before you can sense it in others."

Randoword.sh

2006-10-30T17:32:02Z

I've had variations of this script kicking around in my .bash_history for quite some time now. The first version of it merely printed a random word from my dictionary file at a rate of one per second. This served as a source of inspiration/entropy for irc conversations and Flickr titles. Today, I decided to extend this one-liner to generate eight-words-at-a-time at a variable rate and jigger the output into an irssi process to amuse the good netizens. Here is the implementation for randoword.sh.


#!/bin/sh
i=0 
while true; do 
  let i=$i+1
  dictionary="/usr/share/dict/linux.words"
  dl=($(wc -l $dictionary))
  echo -n "randowords #$i: "
  for j in $( seq 1 8 ); do 
    head -n$(($(head -c4 /dev/urandom | od -An -tu4) % $dl))\
    $dictionary| tail -n1
  done | xargs
  sleep $((RANDOM % 3600))
done

Update: I never really understood how to use random numbers within a bash script without invoking perl (or equivalent). In light of _fool's comment, I rewrote my script using only bash and POSIX commands. I had to break-out /dev/urandom and od because bash's $RANDOM variable only produces random values up to 32767. Technically, it'd be a whole lot faster for a C program to use a pointer to jump around randomly in the dictionary, but that seems too much like work.

Update 2: The seq command probably isn't POSIX.

Update 3: In Ruby: ruby -e ' $w=STDIN.readlines; 8.times{print "#{$w[rand(483523)].chomp} "}' < /usr/share/dict/linux.words

New Versions of the Web

2006-10-20T22:17:50Z

I wish I could could claim this as my own, but this one comes from infamous footballer, Gabriel Jones. This is what we in the business refer to as "pure genius".

Web 2.0 --- you know it, you got it --> basically junk

Web 3.5 --- all 5 senses enabled via appropriate tech software and hardware

Web 4.0 --- all 5 senses enabled to viewer, plus virtual intimacy (with bouncer present of course)

Web 6.0 --- 6 senses enabled to viewer, plus virtual intimacy (no bouncer present) and ability to see dead people

Cinnamon Toast Equations

2006-10-06T17:35:27Z

Infamous civil engineering juggernaut Jeremy Ghent sent this one to me o'er the Intarweb.

Variables:
A = Roommate 1
B = Roommate 2
C = Neighborly Fellow
D = Sugar
E = Bread
F = Milk
G = Cinnamon
H = Messy Sugary-Cinnamony Outline

'A' enters residence of 'C'. 'A' complains that 'B' is eating his food. 'A' is certain because he keeps cleaning up 'H'. And 'B' has never purchased 'D', 'E', or 'G'. 'A' proceeds to complain that his 'F' is nearly empty and 'A' has not had any all week -> 'B' must be consuming 'A's 'D','E','F',and 'G' and leaving 'H' for 'A' to clean up. 'A' leaves residence of 'C' and proceeds to residence of 'A' + 'B'. 147 sec later 'B' enters residence of 'C'. 'B' states "Man 'A' is pissed off and I didn't even do anything." 'C' inquires as to the circumstances. 'B' states "'A' just walked in saw me and went to his room and slammed the door. 'C' asks what 'B' was doing at the time 'A' entered. 'B' responds " Nothing I was just standing there eating cinnamon toast and drinking a glass of milk." 'C' just shrugs shoulders and contains violent laughter.

Please solve for 'B' (Hint: 'B' likes to call dogs cats, is known to play drums, is generally noisy, has recently taken a liking to artificial water foul and apparently has the occasional hankering for Sugary-Cinnamony Goodness)

The Ascent of Man

2006-09-25T00:29:34Z

In 1973, Jacob Bronowski produced a marvelous thirteen episode programme for the BBC called "The Ascent of Man". In this series, Jacob travels around the world and investigates the great scientific minds and discoveries that have shaped the evolution of human society. Jacob chronicles the history and context of human understanding of the natural world and exploration of the universe. The beauty of this series is that it puts the entire history of scientific knowledge into perspective with great clarity and detail. Bronowski follows in the footsteps of Sir Kenneth Clark's thirteen part Civilisation which aired on BBC 2 in 1969. This format was also followed by James Burke's Connections, David Attenborough's Life on Earth and Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

It's an absolute tragedy that all of these documentaries aren't recommended viewing in public schools. I feel extremely sad about the fact that I wasn't aware that any of these programs existed until last month. It's amazing to me how important media like this is discarded in favor of the schlock that is regularly viewed by Americans on broadcast television. If you haven't seen any of these series, I'd highly recommend all of them.

Quitting IBM

2006-09-16T14:43:31Z

I resigned from IBM on Tuesday, September 12th to work at a startup-company in downtown Austin called Small World Labs. I've gone from working on microprocessors to writing social networking software. Social networking software runs on a microprocessor. It's not that different when you think about it. PHP is interpreted by a C program which was interpreted by a compiler to run on a microprocessor. So, it's all the same. I'm just a machine to turn coffee into code. Caffeine is my programming fuel. Step back away from the Sun Type-6 keyboard kids and let the old man have a go. Ah, that's nice. Now where did I put my copy of K&R?

Livejournal Analytics

2006-08-17T18:03:36Z

Notable technology luminary David McNett has suggested that Livejournal add Google Analytics support to their blogging software. I couldn't agree more. I have an idea of how many people visit my LJ based on referring image links, however, that data is not available to my Google Analytics account. So, I encourage everyone to comment his post and hold candle light vigils until this implemented.

The Holbrook Hypothesis

2006-08-11T17:08:34Z

While running on Bull Creek Trail this morning, esteemed microprocessor architect, Eric Holbrook made an astonishing breakthrough theory. I innocently asked the question, "Do you think cockroaches come up out of the drains to get in the house?" Eric immediately threw cold water on my Drain Theory, and exclaimed, "Everybody knows that all of the socks that get lost in the washing turn into cockroaches." Everybody indeed.

So, the discussion inevitably turned to the famous English chemist, Joseph Priestley. This is the bloke that managed to discover oxygen and carbon dioxide by placing a mouse and a plant in a bell jar. He noticed that if a mouse was placed in a bell jar by itself it would get sick and die. If a mouse and a plant were placed in a bell jar, the mouse could knock about in the jar indefinitely. I started wondering what would happen if you placed a Venus Flytrap and loads of flies in a glass jar. Would the plant eat the flies and then not have any carbon dioxide to breathe? Just for good measure, I'd put a candle in there too and let them all fight it out for survival. What I would like to be the result is a giant implosion that creates a rip in the space-time continuum so I can visit the year 1703 and witness the invention of pudding. I'm not sure if any of this is possible, but someone needs to try.

Pine: The Best Mail Reader Ever

2006-08-01T21:54:56Z

At the big party on Saturday, I was trying to explain the joys of using Pine as an email client to the illustrious Ali Bagheri . As expected, Ali wondered if my Tecate had been laced with Mescaline. Today, I feel somewhat vindicated as I just learned that Linus himself is a fellow pine user.

"Other than those three parts, the only thing I care deeply about is my email reader. I use pine - not because it's necessarily the greatest email reader ever, but because I'm used to it, and it does what I need it to do with a minimum of fuzz." - Linus Torvalds

Some other famous pine users include Ivo Jacobus Godelieve Maria Janssen, Jeff Lawson and Derek Hunt.

Rocketcar Video

2006-08-01T04:36:05Z

Not to be outdone by the vociferous Ivo, I managed to take a video of me knocking about on Austin's byways and speed it up faster than a squirrel hopped up on magic life elixir. In the year 2038, we'll all be able to drive this fast, and all food will be eaten in pill form. Well, either that or we'll all be living in an agrarian society fighting each other with sticks as retribution for our collective avarice. Nevertheless, this video is still a goodun. So, enjoy it while we still have electric power.