The Blog of Harald

Several webloggers who use “cornerhost”:http://www.cornerhost.com/ found themselves “suddenly relocated”:http://inessential.com/?comments=1&postid=2473 over the weekend (“for the record”:http://cornerhost.blogspot.com/, it wasn’t really cornerhost’s fault).

cornerhost’s policy is that users are responsible for their own backups. Naturally, some people found out that this was true :-)

As part of the ensuing chaos, someone pointed out Mike Rubel’s article “Easy Automated Snapshot-Style Backups with Linux and Rsync”:http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/.

I’ve been a sysadmin for over 15 years. I’m a *big* fan of backups. (I’m _very_ unhappy that my tape drive is broken right now. :-) I’ve been doing nightly full backups of my servers using rsync for a long time, but the technique Mike uses for incrementals never occured to me (blush). A minor change to a couple of scripts was all it took for me to have a week’s worth of snapshots on the backup hosts. Fabulous!

Thanks, “Mike”:http://www.mikerubel.org/!

Prompted by “an entry”:http://www.unix-girl.com/blog/archives/000875.html on “Kasia’s weblog”:http://www.unix-girl.com/blog/, I started updating “my bio”:http://www.cfrq.net/~chk/bio.html, and ended up completely revamping (and substantially simplifying) “my homepage”:http://www.cfrq.net/~chk/ . It was fun, and a good way to absorb coffee after my son woke me up too early this morning…

Perverse Access Memory: WISH 44: Picking Games

I’ve been reading PAM (and its predecessor) Since about WISH 27. This week’s question prompted me to finally answer one. At some point I’ll go back and fill in other interesting ones.

bq. How do you choose games to join or to run? What factors influence you: timing, people, system, genre, etc.? Do you weigh different factors for different kinds of games, e.g., online vs. tabletop vs. LARP? Is it a group decision or a decision you make on your own?

The overwhelming factor in my life is time, althought this manifests in several ways.

I’ve been gaming for about 17 years now. I’ve only played in a few ongoing games, because I can barely find the time for one campaign at a time; I’m forced to be selective. They’ve always been tabletop games; I’d love to try a PBeM game sometime, but I haven’t found one I think I’d like enough to commit regular (weekly or better) time to. LARP isn’t for me; I’m a technician, not an actor.

My current Rolemaster campaign has been running for 5 years, and the 2300AD campaign before that was longer. I like long running campaigns. If I’m going to commit the time to develop a character and explore a world, I want it to be a going concern, not a simple dungeon crawl or two (those are fun, but I prefer single day, tournament style for those). It takes a long time for me to develop and then flesh out a character, and I do that best inside a campaign, interacting with the world and my fellow characters.

I like games that meet regularly, but not too often. Both of my campaigns tried meeting weekly, but ended up with longer monthly sessions instead. My fellow gamers (and our spouses) are willing to commit _one_ day per month to gaming, and schedule other things around Game Day. With a weekly meeting, we’d always have someone away, making continuity difficult.

I don’t have a strong preference for any particular system. I’ve played AD&D, Champions, Traveller, 2300, GuRPS, and now Rolemaster. There are two exceptions though; I like the magic system in Rolemaster much better than in any other system I’ve tried, and I love the simple task resolution system in MegaTraveller and 2300AD.

What this really means is that I’ll play whatever game system (and genre/setting) that the GM wants to play. That’s how I got into all of the games listed above; the GM wanted to run a particular game, and asked for players…

I’ve played several genres, but I like classic low-tech, fantasy realms with magic the best. When I play SF or superheros, I tend to play myself in a spacesuit (or in a cape) In fantasy worlds I can dtop into a character more easily.

People are the second most important factor for me. I strongly prefer gaming with people I know, and preferably people I know well. That limits my options, even though about half of the Gang are roleplayers. There are just too many opportunities for strife and discord in gaming environments; getting to know a new group of people is risky given my time restrictions.

In short, roleplaying done right is a large time commitment, and as I don’t have a lot of free time, I’m forced to be selective. A good GM and a good bunch of players (usually my friends) are the biggest consideration for me. After that, whatever the GM wants to run is fine by me!

“Joel on Software”:http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ → “Internet Security: Too Broke to Fix?”:http://security.ziffdavis.com/article2/0,3973,1036052,00.asp

Larry Seltzer wants to replace SMTP with something that has authentication and resource limits. Well, SMTP already has authentication, and many MTAs already have resource limits…

Many people discover SMTP’s authentication when they try to send e-mail while travelling; their ISPs don’t let them. SMTP can already use TLS with certificates, SASL, or POP-before-SMTP, and many ISPs are starting to require one or more. My _hobby_ server supports all three, so it can’t be hard. I haven’t seen anyone do resource limits out-of-the-box yet, but that’s because it doesn’t really solve anything; spammers will always be able to hide inside “legitimate” usage profiles.

The problem is not the protocol, or the mythical “Internet”; it’s poorly administered computers. People who don’t think twice about _properly_ managing and securing a PBX will turn around and install, then neglect, crappy SMTP gateways. In my e-mail logs, the worst offenders for poorly administered servers are non-technical companies (law firms, insurance companies, banks :-). Most of the spam I receive comes through open relays on corporate networks, and through relays on home computers (where Microsoft installs insecure software direct from CD :-).

If we introduce a new protocol, spammers will find new ways to abuse it. Criminals are constantly finding new ways to abuse corporate PBXes, and cell phones, and calling cards. The solution is for people to stop treating the Internet as a toy, and start maintaining their servers properly. Sadly, that’s not likely to happen, and so we’re left with reactionary technology like realtime blackhole lists and desktop spam filtering software.

I think it’s time to check the basement for pods?

So I’m four weeks into Weight Watchers’ maintenance program. The idea is that you try to be consistent (so that your weekly weigh-ins are reasonably accurate), and add points to your daily regimen until your weightloss flattens out.

As you can see from the new graph on the left, I haven’t flattened out yet. Instead, I’ve lost another 4.6 pounds; in fact, I’m losing _more_ weight now than I was in the last month of my regular program, even though I’m eating more. Frankly, I’m confused :-). I don’t think I’ve significantly increased my activity level; I haven’t started my formal spring exercise program yet, and I’m a week off curling now.

One theory is that I wasn’t eating _enough_ on the weightloss regimen, and so my body was hoarding calories; now that I’m eating more, my metabolism has increased? I dunno; that’s merely a SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess). Ah well, I’m going to try not to fret, and just enjoy eating some of the things that I didn’t have enough points for before…

“blog.org”:http://blog.org/archives/cat_useful_web_resources.html#000716 → “Playing with Time”:http://www.playingwithtime.org/ :

bq. “Playing With Time”:http://www.playingwithtime.org/ is an exciting, new project that looks at how the world around you is changing over many different time periods.

bq. Here at the “Playing With Time”:http://www.playingwithtime.org/ web site, unseen worlds of change will be revealed. You will see time sped up and slowed down, and behold the beauty of change.

I have always been intrigued by visualisation techniques; manipulating time is another one. Taking ordinary events and speeding them up or slowing them down often reveals existing patterns that we cannot normally perceive.

“Playing With Time”:http://www.playingwithtime.org/ has both fast motion and slow motion movie clips revealing a variety of changes. I particularly like the shots of the same location on several different time scales; you can watch the clouds move over a period of minutes, or see the tide roll out, or see the grass grow and die over a year. Fabulous stuff, and worth a visit.

So I’m sittin’ on the Group W bench…

No! I mean I’m sitting on the front porch, reading e-mail and writing this blog entry; my daughter (home from school today, remember?) is playing on the sidewalk. We’re waiting for the towels and swimsuits to dry, so that we can pack them up and head to the park for the rest of the afternoon before swim class.

It’s _summer_ out here, about 25°C and _sunny_. It’s only going to last today, apparently; tomorrow’s forecast is for a high of 16°C in the morning, them falling to 0°C with a freezing rain warning, so I’m enjoying the weather while it lasts.

I’ve discovered that my 802.11b only works with the front door open. It is steel; apparently it blocks just enough of the signal from the hub when it is closed. Defintely time to move the hub from the basement to the living room :-)

It’s a rough life, I know.

[ Update: it didn’t get that cold, and no freezing rain… ]

A new somewhat controversial study has been performed by scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and published in Heart (a British Medical Journal) concludes that only vigorous exercise combats the risk of early death from heart disease:

‘Moderate exercise’ not sufficient

bq. a new study published today said moderate exercise such as a brisk walk five times a week has no impact on the risk of dying from heart disease.

bq. The study authors concluded that regular exercise does have profound effects on health.

bq. But only vigorous exercise seemed to have any impact on the risk of an early death from heart disease.

I’ll take the second last paragraph to heart :-)

And from “CBS News”:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/14/health/main549308.shtml :

bq. One drawback of the study, the scientists acknowledged, is that the men only were questioned about their exercise habits one time at the start of the study, so there is no way to know whether the men changed their habits over the 10 years the study was conducted.

bq. Studies that compare different intensities and patterns of exercise, but keep the number of calories burned equal, likely will provide stronger insight into the question of exactly what is required for heart health, Blair said.

bq. He said the superiority of the vigorous exercise might simply come down to the fact that it burns more calories than moderate exercise.

I can’t see anywhere if the study considered people who perform _no_ exercise; many of the “30 minute a day” studies compare against couch potatoes, where there’s a clear superiority. I also wonder if the study accounted for dietary differences; people who consider exercise important also tend to eat better.

Ah well; publish or perish is the rule, and publishing a controversial study certainly gets your names on the Internet :-)

Well, ok, one sick kid.

Charlotte got up yesterday morning and started throwing up, even with no food in her. It’s amazing how pathetic she looks when she’s sick; she looks just like her grandmother :-). Every time she fell asleep she would feel sick again, wake up, and vomit. When we started seeing traces of blood we took her to the local pediatric clinic…

It turns out that it’s fairly common for 4-year old children to develop esophogial tears when they vomit a lot. Still, the doctor did all the usual tests, and sent her home to clear fluids (and no school on Monday). One dose of gravol later, and she slept the entire afternoon away.

Turns out the doctor made a good call; she has (Group A) strep. Time for antibiotics, and another day off school. Charlotte’s enjoying all of the attention, I think :-) It’s a good thing she _loves_ Jell-O!

It’s amazing how disruptive one throat infection can be. Michaela was supposed to work today, but is home with Charlotte instead. She moved her work day to Tuesday instead (bumping a job interview to first thing Wednesday morning), so I have to stay home tomorrow. Should be fun…

“Greg”:http://www.third-bit.com/ has a few new students starting this summer. Time to update the default user profiles and “create new account” software to make this easier, since I do it so seldom and keep forgetting all of the steps. I’m thinking of either using LDAP or MySQL for authentication, or finding an /etc/passwd based auth module for Apache and samba; either would let me use the same passwords everywhere on the system.

I recently converted from “uw-imap”:http://www.washington.edu/imap/ to “courier-imap”:http://www.inter7.com/courierimap/INSTALL.html. Courier uses maildir instead of mbox format. Webmail is now much faster, since IMAPD does not lock and parse the entire mail spool for every web-click! OTOH, this means no more mail(1) or pine; aw, shucks.

I’ve been cleaning up the “main CFRQ page”:http://www.cfrq.net/ and the top-level stylesheet a bit. Not really sure why, or where I’m going with that-which-loosely-qualifies-as-a-design. I also finally got the default “VirtualHost”:http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/core.html#virtualhost (“persephone.cfrq.net”:http://persephone.cfrq.net/) working again, so I think I’m going to move all of the local stuff (and that installed by “RedHat”:http://www.redhat.com/) back to that page, and then replicate it to “hermione”:http://hermione.cfrq.net/.

“The Blog of Jvstin”:http://www.all-roads-lead.net/jvstin/blog/000038.html → “Ones and Zeros”:http://www.whiterose.org/michael/blog/archives/003248.html#003248 → “Nail Tinted Glasses”:http://www.whiterose.org/cluey/archives/003246.html → “Dean’s World”:http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/000013.html

The Monty Hall problem is simple:

bq. You find yourself on a game show called “Let’s Make A Deal.” The game is very simple. There are three doors: door #1, door #2, and door #3. Behind one door is a million dollars. The other two doors contain worthless joke prizes. All you have to do is pick which door you want to open, and you get whatever is behind it. But you only get to open one door. By simple math, then, you obviously have a 1 in 3 chance of picking the correct door and becoming an instant millionaire.

bq. You pick a door. As soon as you tell Monty (the gameshow host) what door you want to open, he stops and says, “Okay, you’ve made your choice. Now, I’m going to do what we always do here on this game. I’m going to open one of the other two doors for you that I know has a booby prize.” And he does so. Then he asks, “Okay, now, would you like to stay with your original guess, or would you like to switch to the other door that’s still closed? You only get one shot, so do you want to stay with your original choice, or switch?”

bq. Here’s the question: is there any compelling reason to switch doors?

The answer is surprising!
(more…)

“GeoURL”:http://geourl.org/near/alt.html?p=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.cfrq.net%2Fchk%2F&lat=&lon=&dist=100 → “ThatGrrl”:http://www.thatgrrl.com/ → “Bloggers of Ontario Unite!”:http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?ring=bloggersofontario;action=list .

Now to find Canadian bloggers, and I’m all set… :-)

Space Station Science Picture of the Day: High Tea

I wish NASA would do more of these “life in space” bits. They’re fascinating, and there is a lot of interesting science hidden away in them.

How do you drink tea in zero-G? with chopsticks, of course! How do you make sure your can of honey doesn’t float away? put a drop of water on the bottom, and use surface tension to stick it to the table! This, and more, can be found in the videos at the bottom of High Tea…

Six months ago Google and I couldn’t find very many Toronto weblogs. Today, while reading a fascinating story, I discovered the Greater Toronto Area Bloggers site.

Cool.

(go read that fascinating story, btw. Nothing I could say captures it.)

Gareth wants to be a Mad Scientist; I think he’s already well on his way. But with the role models he’s got, it could easily be Evil Genius instead… <grin>

In “Bits and pieces [dive into mark]”:http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/03/31/bits_and_pieces.html , Mark writes that he has installed an OpenLDAP server and software to manage his contact lists, “For fun”.

bq. (In 1995, my dog had an e-mail address and a home page; in 2003, she was the first entry in my LDAP directory. This we call progress.)

Sounds exactly like something I would do. persephone.cfrq.net is primarily an excuse for me to play with technology, after all. (In fact, stay tuned; LAMP ganglist software is currently undergoing a security audit on my laptop :-)

It’s snowing. A lot. The roads are treacherous.

Happy April Fool’s Day…