Then, if you'll excuse me, but I'm in the middle of 15 things, all of them annoying.
Saturday, December 29
Oog
Remind me not to eat that much turkey in one day ever again.
Remind me not to eat that much turkey in one day ever again.
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Friday, December 28
System Blargle Blugly
Adaptec 1430SA is contraindicated.*
Adaptec 1430SA is contraindicated.*
Reinstalling again, with fewer disks. Feh.
When my usual computer store reopens on January 2 I'll order a few more parts; for now, I'll just have to struggle along with 4TB of RAID-5 and a 2TB backup drive.
Update: Wow, that made a difference. System is running far more smoothly now. As in, it's running better now with the RAID-5 resync under way than it was before with the resync completed but the drives on the 1430SA. Boo Adaptec!
* It works, insofar as the drives are recognised, and I could partition them, build a RAID array, and get everything running, but I'm seeing SATA bus errors too frequently for my liking, where too frequently equals any at all. Tried swapping the cables just in case, but no dice, so I ended up yanking that card and reinstalling for the seventh or eighth time. Feh.
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Wednesday, December 26
System Builder's Daily
I was hoping that a kernel update would enable my spare SATA ports - to which I had attached the Blu-Ray drive and the SSD - but no such luck. The chip is a Marvell 88SE9172, and it looks like I need the 3.4 kernel for support - and I'm using CentOS 6.3, which runs the 2.6 kernel.
I was hoping that a kernel update would enable my spare SATA ports - to which I had attached the Blu-Ray drive and the SSD - but no such luck. The chip is a Marvell 88SE9172, and it looks like I need the 3.4 kernel for support - and I'm using CentOS 6.3, which runs the 2.6 kernel.
So no dice.
So I went upstairs, dug out my stash of Adaptec 1430SA controllers [snip about two hours of cursing] tied off the loose cables properly this time, swapped out the video card, plugged everything back in, and now I'm reinstalling Linux again.
But now my Blu-Ray drive and SSD work.
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Tuesday, December 25
Party Time!
A quick BIOS flash or two later, both machines boot, recognise all their hardware, and pass Memtest86. They both show the RAM as DDR3-1333 rather than the DDR3-1600 it ought to be, but I'm not going to fuss about that right now.
A quick BIOS flash or two later, both machines boot, recognise all their hardware, and pass Memtest86. They both show the RAM as DDR3-1333 rather than the DDR3-1600 it ought to be, but I'm not going to fuss about that right now.
The CentOS 6.3 installer can't see the Blu-Ray drive attached to the secondary (non-chipset) SATA controller, but that was easily solved by attaching my USB DVD drive - which turned out to still have the CentOS 5.3 installer disc from when this happened to me last time.
So, about 60% of the way into the CentOS install on Lina, and then over to Shana to load up Windows 7.
Update: Oops. Well, I get to install it again now, but that's not so bad.
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Making A List, Checking It Twice
- Windows 7 Ultimate Activation Key: Check!
- Windows 7 Ultimate Install Disk: ...
Bugger.
For three years I had access to MSDN through Microsoft's Bizspark program, and could download just about anything - though the number of license keys was strictly limited. Unfortunately, it ran out just before the launch of Windows 8.
Turns out I don't want Windows 8. I really don't want Windows 8. (Not on my desktop, at least; a tablet might be a different matter.)
It's very easy to get Windows 8. Cheap too. Windows 7, not so much. Microsoft don't want you using Windows 7, they want you on Windows 8, which is not a desktop operating system. It contains a desktop operating system, but it's been flattened and uglified compared to the previous version, and then had a get-in-your-way layer stapled to it.
Anyway, no install disc. There should be an ISO here somewhere, though. Not in my downloads folder, that's been backed up and cleared out. I have an ISOs folder and that has... XP. Vista. Windows Server 2008. All my old Bioware games. Many versions of Linux. No Windows 7.
But for the past couple of years I've regularly backed stuff up and archived off to external hard disks, so it's likely that the file is on one of those. One of nine.
Currently attached is Iori, the most recent. Which contains... Steam. Lots of Steam. About a terabyte of Steam. No Windows 7.
So, grab a drive from the stack and plug it in. This one is Eimi, thus, number five in the sequence. Contains backups of my D and E drives not including Steam. E drive contains ISOs folder. ISOs folder contains Microsoft folder. Microsoft folder contains Windows 7. ISOs folder also contains Windows folder. Windows folder also contains Windows 7.
Looks like they're pre-SP1, which might be a pain if I need to do this as a full install rather than a backup and restore, but at least I can get there eventually.
Anyway, while I was hunting around, I also checked online to see if you can download the ISO image legitimately, assuming you have an activation key. And indeed you can.
This page on PCWorld has the details, and this page on Whirlpool has additional info. You can download any of the Windows 7 versions, with the latest service pack, and you can check the SHA-1 checksum against Microsoft's own records to make sure it's all present and correct.
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We Interrupt This Special Bulletin For A Program
So I'm on holidays for a bit, and I was planning on catching up on my anime watching between bouts of Minxing and spring cleaning. I've already assembled two new computers and a RAID array and fixed my old RAID array, so I deserve to relax a little.
So I'm on holidays for a bit, and I was planning on catching up on my anime watching between bouts of Minxing and spring cleaning. I've already assembled two new computers and a RAID array and fixed my old RAID array, so I deserve to relax a little.
On my to-watch list at present are:
- Hidamari Sketch season 4
- Strike Witches (all of it, haven't seen any)
- Dog Days (again, all of it)
- Mouretsu Pirates (watched the first few episodes, then got bushwhacked)
I've missed most of the past five or six seasons, so any suggestions from that time frame would be welcome.
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Monday, December 24
Joy To The World
For Santa's come.
For Santa's come.
There's gifts beneath the tree!
There's reindeer in the yard;
They're eating the gardenias.
We'll have venison for tea,
We'll have venison for tea,
We'll have venison, much venison, to eat for tea.
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Saturday, December 22
Assemblage
Cases: 1 x Silver, 1 x Black Lian-Li V600
Cases: 1 x Silver, 1 x Black Lian-Li V600
Motherboards: 3 x 990FXA-UD5
CPUs: 2 x FX 8150, 1 x Phenom II 945
GPUs: 1 x Sapphire 7950 OC, 2 x Sapphire 6770
RAM: 2 x 32GB kits
Disks: 12 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB, 7 x Seagate Barracuda 1TB, 1 x WD Green 2TB, 1 x WD Blue 1TB 2.5" for some reason...
SSD: 1 x Intel 320 300GB*
PSU: 3 x Corsair (850W, 750W, 650W)
Optical: 2 x Pioneer Blu-Ray drives
Disk Expansion Thingies: 4 x 3-bay 3.5", 3 x 4-bay 2.5"
Other cards: 2 x 2-port USB 3, 1 x Asus Xonar D2X
So, I'm missing a 16GB RAM kit and a couple of Adaptec 1420 low-end SATA RAID controllers; they're around somewhere, I just couldn't find them. I have enough SATA ports to start with anyway.
Update: These things take forever to put together.
Update: Two three a few things.
- If you're going to install a Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC on a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 in a Lian-Li V600 case along with six 3.5" drives, four 2.5" drives, and one 5.25" drive, you will have to install it in the PCIe x16_2 slot. You might, barely, get it into the PCIe x8 slot. PCIe x16_1? No chance.
- The PCIe x1 slot in the 990FXA-UD5 is basically useless. Even my tiny 2-port USB3.0 cards won't fit; it's blocked by the chipset heatsink. Update: this card should fit if the picture is accurate. And it has four ports instead of two.
- The Corsair AX-850 power supply is designed to be mounted backwards compared to the normal orientation, so that it draws air from inside the case rather than outside. The V600 is designed to mount normal power supplies backwards for the same effect. So if you put an AX-850 in a V600, you have to mount it normally.
- Those Radeon HD 6770 cards I picked up cheap don't have DisplayPort. So to build out my dual-computer/triple-monitor configuration I'm going to need another card.
Anyway, physical installation of both my new computers is just about done, which means that testing and software install comes up next. Moving my Windows system across is going to be interesting.
Update: Physical installation is complete. Cabling was... Fun. Both machines power up and go beep. Where's my spare DVI cable? Might have to hit the computer store on Christmas Eve.
* Seems rather quaint now, though I bought it this year.
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Friday, December 21
Uh-Oh. Steam Sale
As if GOG and Humble Bundle weren't providing me with enough games I don't have time to play.
As if GOG and Humble Bundle weren't providing me with enough games I don't have time to play.
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Thursday, December 20
I Thought It Was Running A Little Slow...
Only 6750.53, eh? That's not that high. Compared to this, anyway:top - 21:18:47 up 281 days, 5:39, 3 users, load average: 6750.53, 6750.16, 6749.71
Tasks: 34006 total, 1 running, 34005 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 2.2%us, 6.2%sy, 0.0%ni, 91.0%id, 0.6%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 7806736k total, 7774284k used, 32452k free, 44788k buffers
Swap: 8192992k total, 3150312k used, 5042680k free, 315284k cached
Can Pixy regain control of the dev server, or is it time to cut losses and hit the reset switch? Yeah, that's kind of what I think too.top - 21:22:31 up 281 days, 5:42, 3 users, load average: 13190.13, 9409.43, 7743.67
Tasks: 24641 total, 486 running, 19233 sleeping, 0 stopped, 4922 zombie
Cpu(s): 5.7%us, 23.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 67.5%id, 3.2%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.1%st
Mem: 7806736k total, 7167372k used, 639364k free, 3784k buffers
Swap: 8192992k total, 1565400k used, 6627592k free, 77216k cached
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Wednesday, December 19
Replacing A Failed Drive In A RAID-5 Volume On A LaCie 5big Network 2
1. Check Raid Management in the admin panel. This will tell you which drive has failed. The drives are numbered left to right as you look at the back of the device (which is where the drives are).
1. Check Raid Management in the admin panel. This will tell you which drive has failed. The drives are numbered left to right as you look at the back of the device (which is where the drives are).
2. While the device is still powered on, look at the back. The failed drive will have a red light. This is the one you want to swap. It should be the same as the one indicated in Raid Management. If not, you're probably doing it wrong.
2a. The other drives will have blue lights. These are the ones you don't want to swap.
3. Turn the device off. Wait for it to stop blinking and talking to itself.
4. Unplug power and network (and any other) cables.
5. Use a minus screwdriver to unlock the failed drive by turning the little locky thing 90 degrees widdershins.
6. Pull the drive out and put it somewhere where you won't get it mixed up with its replacement.
7. Put the replacement into the empty bay. It will slide right in. Don't put the bad drive back in; that's unlikely to help.
8. Use that minus screwdriver to lock the drive in place by turning the little locky thing 90 degrees deosil.
9. Plug the power and network (and any other) cables back in.
10. Turn the device back on.
11. Wait for it to stop blinking and talking to itself. This will take about two minutes.
12. Log back in to the admin panel and go to Raid Management again. You will see that the array is still degraded, but the new drive has a little button against it that says "Claim".
13. Click on the little button that says "Claim".
14. Your array will now resync itself. This will take from 6 hours for a 5TB array to 18 hours for a 15TB array.
15. Enjoy!
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Christmas Avoidance
Didn't really want to go shopping today; the stores are full of people and I never did like people very much.
Didn't really want to go shopping today; the stores are full of people and I never did like people very much.
Then I thinks to myself, I haven't used the home delivery service for a while. It's great for stocking up on bulky or heavy stuff like soft drinks (soda) when they're on special and (checks web site) they're on special right now.
So that's that dealt with.
Also, I'm on holiday as of twenty minutes ago. 
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Expectations Exceeded
On the 15th, I said:
So on the 14th (Billy time) my little village joined the Ninja World War. At the time we had all of the upgrades available to us - 25 in all - as there's only so much you can do until you start fighting the Ninja War with other Ninja Villages.
8 upgrades in two days. So far.But plans change, and on the 16th:
There are 18 more upgrades we can buy while we stay safe in Tier 1. At our current rate, that will only take 4 or 5 days.
So let's do that, then get our Natural Resource Facility and join the big boys! (And girls.)
Bought Natural Research Facility, Elemental Harmony! We've moved up from the Little League now.On the morning of the 15th, I predicted 18 more upgrades in 4 or 5 days. Now, on the afternoon of the 19th the actual tally is 38. We set a crazily ambitious target and then more than doubled it.
Our daily announcement says it all:
Daily News (19 Dec): Please Collect. No Kaiju or Zombjas yet, that might not happen until tomorrow, sorry. Bought: Ninja Ambassadors, Medical Ninja Facility, Tunnel System, Elemental Shield, Special Forces (Genjutsu), Special Forces (Ninjutsu). Jonin and higher have access to S-Rank missions! Plus we should be significantly harder to invade now. Kaiju Upgrade: Needle Pits. Yesterday's drop: Hacksaw. Drop winners: Hypozeuxis. Raffle winner: Naksho. Raffle list: brikmuppet - 5, Dahemo - 4.
Yesterday's News (18 Dec): Please Collect and kill the kaiju! Bought: Verdant Fields, Temple of the Four Winds, Black Market, Invasion Defense, Ninja Beach, Nonja Lab, Television Studios, Summoning Circle, Lemonade Stand. We have Flower Wars and Mahjong! Kaiju upgrade: Wasteland Highway. Today's summon: Dakralai. Yesterday's drop: Tire Tracks. Drop winners: Hypozeuxis, Carrot 6. Raffle winner: Naksho. Raffle list: brikmuppet - 5.
So come join us! We have Burger Ninja and Pizza Witch, Hanafuda and Mahjong, Kaiju and Zombjas, BillyTV and BillyCon, Crafting and Summoning, Claw Machines and Darts, and Ramen and Lemonade!
Fractal Village: Because reasons.
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Monday, December 17
Memetic Plague Warning
(And yeah, I've heard about Psy's earlier, idiotic and repugnant lyrics. That sort of thing is why I appreciate artists for their art, and not for their political views. Also, was it windy here last night or what? My laundry basket is at the bottom of my garden; last night it was on the back porch.)
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Saturday, December 15
Just Checking
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Thursday, December 13
It's Raining Shinies
I'm working on a new theme for mee.nu based on Twitter's Bootstrap framework (a nice unified CSS/Javascript platform for doing responsive site desings).
I'm working on a new theme for mee.nu based on Twitter's Bootstrap framework (a nice unified CSS/Javascript platform for doing responsive site desings).
But while I'm a pretty good programmer, I'm only middling as a designer, so I've been hunting for a good Bootstrap-compatible theme I could license and then customise to my needs - and I couldn't find one. I could find some nice themes that didn't work with Bootstrap (making it harder for users to customise their own sites), and I could find Bootstrap themes that were immediately obviously Bootstrap themes, but nothing that was both based on Bootstrap and also slick and polished and distinctive.
And now I've found five since Sunday.
Guess it's that time of year. Or... Something. Any one of these themes would do the job, and some of them come with stacks of features that will save me weeks of work (and months of elapsed time, since I don't get to spend as much time as I'd like working on Minx).
I've bought basic licenses for all five (that's pretty cheap to do) so that I can play around and do some site mockups, which I'll post here for comment. Expect to see that this weekend.
Once a favourite is selected, I'll buy a more expensive "extended" license that allows me to repackage the theme into Minx.
And then it will be shinies all round.
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Tuesday, December 11
Caption Tag
Just testing...
I has a caption?
Just testing...
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Friday, December 07
Authors Who Need To Be Eprinted
Glen Cook. His older, long out-of-print stuff is now easily available from Baen, which is great, but his two best-known series, the Black Company and Garrett, P.I. books, are nowhere to be found.
Glen Cook. His older, long out-of-print stuff is now easily available from Baen, which is great, but his two best-known series, the Black Company and Garrett, P.I. books, are nowhere to be found.
C. J. Cherryh. She's written a ton of stuff, a lot of it long out of print, and almost none of it is available as ebooks.
Jack Chalker. Of the sixty books he wrote before his untimely passing, I can only find twelve available for sale.
I've been happily ploughing through the backlists of Lawrence Watt-Evans and Walter Jon Williams, who have self-republished their older works, and I'm starting in on F. Paul Wilson now, who's done the same. I like this trend and hope to see more of it.
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Wednesday, December 05
Are You Fractal Enough?
Fractal Village needs ninjas. Ninjas like you.
So click on that banner, sign up, and come join Fractal Village, the only village with hidden depths hidden in its hidden depths!**
Fractal Village needs ninjas. Ninjas like you.
Not not you, the other one. No, behind - yes, you. Hi, what's your name? Cool.
Yes, ninjas like you, with poorly-defined boundaries and non-integral dimensionality, hidden depths of self-similarity and, um, the time to log in once a day for a few minutes to help out a village in its finest hour.*
Fractal Village: We have cake. Sometimes.
* May not contain actual finest hours.
** Apart from Recursion Village, the bastards.
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Cheapjacked
Just discovered that the entire Repairman Jack series and Adversary Cycle (by F Paul Wilson) can be bought on Kindle for sixty bucks. Update: Unless you live in America, in which case you're outta luck. That's for twenty novels, seven or eight thousand pages. And it's good stuff.
Just discovered that the entire Repairman Jack series and Adversary Cycle (by F Paul Wilson) can be bought on Kindle for sixty bucks. Update: Unless you live in America, in which case you're outta luck. That's for twenty novels, seven or eight thousand pages. And it's good stuff.
If you've never read any of his books, I suggest you start with The Tomb, a standalone novel* and the first Repairman Jack story. Just $2.99, assuming you have a Kindle or something with the Kindle app on it. If you like it, you'll very probably like all the rest.
It looks like the ebooks have been self-published by Wilson, which is is just how things should be, and a slap in the face for companies like Hachette, who need to be slapped in the face as often as possible. The one downside is that publishers still provide some useful services to authors, such as, oh, cover design...
Update: Also, a new Repairman Jack novel, Cold City, first in a new trilogy, is out. $2.99 for me! Since the series is complete** these are prequel stories, and apparently not supernatural/horror, since Jack's first brush with that sort of thing happened in The Tomb.
* Standalone in the sense that it tells a complete story and assumes no prior knowledge of the characters or their world. It wasn't planned as the first volume in a series; that just sort of happened.
** The final Repairman Jack novel, The Dark Before the End, immediately precedes the final Adversary Cycle novel, Nightworld, and Wilson has always made clear that there would be no continuation of the story beyond that point. Which makes sense, since it's the story of the end of the world...
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Sunday, December 02
iTunes 11
It's out, and the big question is, does it suck less than the previous versions of iTunes?
It's out, and the big question is, does it suck less than the previous versions of iTunes?
No.
Edit: One thing, it actually managed to download my lost first episode of Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Bought it on iTunes a while back, and iTunes stuttered, choked, and eventually died trying to actually play it, and upon restarting I discovered that it was utterly convinced that I both did and did not have episode one, such that it would neither play the file nor download it. At least that's fixed. iTunes 11 still sucks otherwise.
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