Author: paul

fink and Storable.pm

Where fink was taking more than a minute to report on what packages it was managing, the addition of Storable.pm cuts that to 15 seconds.

fink puts the tarball for Storable on disk but doesn’t install it where perl can find it (in a directory in its @INC array). Here’s how to do that.


[/Users/paul]:: cp /sw/src/Storable-1.0.14.tar.gz src
[/Users/paul]:: cd src
[/Users/paul/src]:: tar zxf Storable-1.0.14.tar.gz
[/Users/paul/src]:: cd Storable-1.0.14
[/Users/paul/src/Storable-1.0.14]:: perl Makefile.PL
[/Users/paul/src/Storable-1.0.14]:: make
[/Users/paul/src/Storable-1.0.14]:: make test
[/Users/paul/src/Storable-1.0.14]:: sudo make install
[/Users/paul/src/Storable-1.0.14]:: fink list xfree86
Reading package info…


Fink has detected that your package cache is out of date and needs an
update, but does not have privileges to modify it. Please re-run fink as
root, for example with a “fink index” command.
Information about 1334 packages read in 113 seconds.
system-xfree86 4.2-1 Placeholder package for manually installed X…
i xfree86-base 4.2.0-6 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data.
xfree86-rootles 4.2.0-3 MacOS X/Darwin XFree86 display server.
xfree86-server 4.2.0-2 XFree86 display server (stable release)
(paul@pink)-(07:59 AM / Mon Aug 05)
[/Users/paul/src/Storable-1.0.14]:: fink index
sudo /sw/bin/fink index
Reading package info…
Updating package index… done.
(paul@pink)-(08:02 AM / Mon Aug 05)
[/Users/paul/src/Storable-1.0.14]:: fink list xfree86
Information about 1334 packages read in 15 seconds.
system-xfree86 4.2-1 Placeholder package for manually installed X…
i xfree86-base 4.2.0-6 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data.
xfree86-rootles 4.2.0-3 MacOS X/Darwin XFree86 display server.
xfree86-server 4.2.0-2 XFree86 display server (stable release)

Still pretty slow: I see others reporting elapsed times of a second, but this is a 350MHz G3, not a smoking fast 800 MHz G4.

broken mrtg output

I just discovered that my network and host monitoring graphs have been logging no new data for the past week. When mrtg fails to pull new data, it logs the current datapoint with the prior value, so you get a flatline. For some reason, I wasn’t getting that (I would have noticed it). The root cause seems to have been all the perl libraries that mrtg installs and depends on were gone. Dunno why. I reinstalled mrtg and all seems well.

MRTG Index Page
Continue reading “broken mrtg output”

a delightful pest

Sadly, the Himalayan Blackberry (rubus discolor) is considered an invasive pest. Rightly so, of course, since they will grow almost anywhere and once established are difficult to remove.

But the berries are wonderful. We ate a couple of pints right off the canes at Magnuson Park this morning, and it looks to be a big yield this year.

cycling

16 miles today, from my house to Ballard, mostly along the Burke Gilman Trail. I didn’t realize it went that far, but I was by no means at the end of it. I stopped at the enormous Fred Meyer in Salmon Bay to gulp down an Odwalla and then headed back.

Still working out how to best use the 18 different gear combinations, but I learn a little more every time. I found some other riders out who I used as rabbits: they were cruising along at a steady 16 mph, so I shadowed them as long as I could. I was able to push myself to 20 mph along one straight bit along the Ship Canal, and I’ll probably feel that tomorrow . . .

And the Blue Angels are starting their practice sessions as I sit here . . . . love that sound.

two-wheeled fun

Now that I have some idea how far and fast I am going on my bone shaker, I took a quick spin today: 13.6 miles. I used the speed information to gauge what cadences and gear combinations felt comfortable. I found 14/15 mph to be pretty easy to ride along at, but I couldn’t push myself much faster than that. I could have the cyclometer set wrong as well. The wheel size is 26 x 1.5 and the tire size is 26 x 1.95. While I think it makes sense to use the tire size, I’m not sure if I’m right.

But in any event, an hour’s steady work can’t be bad. I’ll worry about the finer points as I go.

the march of progress

A Computer’s Eye View (from 1972)

How far has computer technology advanced since this was written in 1972? In the proceeding chapter, Kemeny describes the then-new GE 635 machine that ran the Dartmouth Time Sharing System: the “dual processor system is capable of some 10 million multiplications per minute.”

That works out to be 166,166 multiplications per second. (I’m assuming these are “fixed-point” multiplies: no decimals allowed.)

A Pentium 4 can do at least one multiplication per clock cycle; for a 1.7GHz P4, that’s 1.7 billion multiplications per second. Rounding a bit, that 2002 Pentium 4 is about 10,000 times faster. (And if that GE 635 cost 10 million dollars

The question I have to ask is, where has all that power gone? On what have we spent all the speed? Do we do anything 10,000 times faster or even 10 times faster? Or do we instead use this tool more than the other (pen and paper, sliderule, calculator, ledger book), thereby soaking up the capacity?

As much as it seems we should have a surplus, when you look at examples like the one above, there still seems to be the demand for more.

reluctant evangelists

I was doing some shopping at my local Fred Meyer and as I left, I was greeted by a fellow handing out flyers, saying something about a “burger giveaway.” As a vegetarian, I’m not going to be interested, but rather than get into that, I took the flyer and dropped it into the cart. As it left my hand, I saw the word “baptist” and realized this was actually an invitation to visit a local church, burgers provided.

The early Christians were willing to face the lions or the griddle, any number of horrific fates, for their faith, while today’s evangelical Christians seem unwilling to risk a polite refusal or disapproving glance for theirs.

While some are reluctant to publicly profess their faith, others are assassinating their enemies and then fleeing, rather than standing up for their beliefs. I know of no recent violent acts, planned or committed, against religious leaders here in the US.

That seems hypocritical to me. It suggests a lack of real conviction: not that I condone or encourage killing doctors or blowing up healthcare facilities, but commiting the act as a declaration of your faith and then hiding is not the act of a true believer, merely a murderer, a criminal, and a terrorist.

Is the fellow hiding his church’s fellowship meetings behind free burgers evil? No, I don’t think so, but what is there to be afraid of? I suppose some could claim my reluctance to engage him on burgers and vegetarianism constitutes a lack of conviction on my part, but I’m not evangelizing. I could suggest pizza as a more ecumenical approach, food-wise, but that’s another matter. The bottom line is, I’d rather see someone be open about what he’s doing.

feed the geeks

Matt Stephenson, the maintainer of the samba package for OS X, liked my docs and based on my feedback will move the package into the stable tree. It seems he has gotten no feedback from anyone, and never knew if it just “worked for him” or just worked.

So send an email to the author of that port, package or utility you use daily and tell him what it means to you. In the gift culture that is the open source world and to some extent the internet, that kind of thing really counts.

Do it now.