I was reading a great book I borrowed from a friend. The book, incidentally, is Before the Dawn, by Nicholas Wade.
At any rate, at some point the author made a strange reference that caused me to stop and think about a particular use of language (which wasn’t straying too far off the book, as one of the main discussions in the book is indeed about the origin of language).
If I ask you to mention a year in the first century AD, you’d have no problem in coming up with, say, 79AD.
Now, if you were to mention a year in the first century BC, you might offer 54BC, and I’d be hard pressed to find anything wrong with that.
What about a year in the _last_ century BC? If you’re anything like me, 54BC would again be in the valid range.
Isn’t it most peculiar that the first and last century BC reference the same suite of years?
For some reason the directionality is reversed when passing a zero, but not strictly so, as both the first and last century works. Logically, the first century BC would be the first century ABB (After the Big Bang).
–Jesper Hogstrom
February 9th, 2010 in
books |
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Working on getting the build scripts for ECO to run properly under linux/mono I soon realized I sorely missed my standard diff visualizer Beyond Compare from Scootersoft. Checking in files is easy enough using the svn-client, but “svn diff | less” is hard for those of us not growing up reading patch-files.
To the rescue comes Meld. Installation is as easy as it gets
sudo yum install meld patch
(you will need the Patch-package as well) and then simply type in
meld . &
to get a nice graphical list of changed files in the current directory tree. Meld is subversion-aware, so there is no need telling it where your repo is etc.
Happy diffing and merry christmas 
–Jesper Hogstrom
Following the instructions in the Hamachi linux-client README file I ran
make install
/sbin/tuncfg
hamachi-init
and that’s where things started to go wrong.
The first hurdle was
hamachi-init: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
This was eventually resolved by invoking
yum install libstdc++.so.5
which eventually installed compat-libstdc++.
Next invocation of hamachi-init gave
hamachi-init: error while loading shared libraries: libcrypto.so.0.9.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
This was resolved by linking the newer version to the old version of libcrypto as follows:
ln /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.7
Finally my hamachi-init said the magic words
Initializing Hamachi configuration (/root/.hamachi). Please wait ..
generating 2048-bit RSA keypair .. ok
making /root/.hamachi directory .. ok
saving /root/.hamachi/client.pub .. ok
saving /root/.hamachi/client.pri .. ok
saving /root/.hamachi/state .. ok
Hopefully that means I’m ready to go…
–jesper hogstrom
It’s not the first linux box I’ve set up. far from it. I’ve set up mail servers, wikis, web servers, news servers and what have you. But I’ve never really used linux as a primary os to work with. When my Windows7 installation messed up and failed to reinstall I decided I could just as well give it a go. Much of the software I use from home is on the net anyway (email, sites I maintain, e-banking, google, this blog…) so I figured a decent browser would suffice.
I installed Fedora Core 12. There are plenty of distros out there, but I’ve stuck to RedHat/Fedora, mainly out of old habbit.
I had an interesting problem after installing. As it happened, the DVD of my good ol’ lappy was acting up, but I had another lappy, same brand, but no monitor (hinges broke years ago) with a working DVD. So I figured I’d simply swap the HDD and install where the DVD works, with an external monitor plugged in.
Worked like a charm until I switched back the HDD to my primary machine. For some reason the lap top monitor did not work at all with the installed driver. External monitor yes, built-in monitor just an angry grey color. Out of my league, so I installed it with a basic driver. Works, but probably not as efficient as it could be.
I also learned that it was easier to move the DVD player than moving HDD, so now my box has a working disk player as well.
One of the hings I do from home is connect to work and run stuff on my work machine. Up to now, I have used Hamachi, which is a great VPN-tool – for windows. They do offer a command line linux client, but it wasn’t working with FC12, so that was a no go. Well, at least for me.
Instead I learned that we have a PPTP-server at work, and it would presumably be possible to set up a PPTP-tunnel. Our sysadmin even did that on Linux, he claimed. After some googling I found http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-configure-ubuntu-fedora-linux-pptp-client.html which indeed looks straight-forward enough.
After failing miserably to install the required packages I found the home page of pptpconfig with a how-to for FC6 on http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/howto-fedora-core-6.phtml. When carefully following the instructions I realized my earlier mistake, so here goes:
# rpm -Uvh http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/yum/stable/fc12/pptp-release-current.noarch.rpm
# yum --enablerepo=pptp-stable install pptpconfig
Note the change from fc6 => fc12 when adding the repository!!
From there on, simply follow the instructions.
Works like a charm, except I need to figure out how to only route the office subnet and not all traffic via the tunnel.
The second half of the problem, showing a remote desktop to windows boxes is elegantly solved by rdesktop.
A command line that works for me is
rdesktop jesper.work.corp -uworkdomain\\workuser -ksv -z -P -g80%
It opens an RDP-connection to my Vista work machine, with Swedish keyboard mapping, compression enabled, persistent bitmap caching and a size of 80% of my local desktop.
Simply cool!
Edit: After reading up on CIDR I added the following network to be routed via the tunnel:
192.168.0.0/24
Now only the work boxes go via the tunnel, and the rest is happily going straight to the net.
–Jesper Hogstrom
It’s not that I don’t want to work hard – I do – but every now and then I run job across ads that are just too good to pass by. This time recruitment company Michael Page had an ad out for a Gift Specialist. Requirements: 2000 years of industry knowledge, reindeer and elf management skills… Work included locating all chimney’s in Stocholm and a few more things, but only one day of work per year. Now, this was clearly a spoof ad, mainly to wish clients a merry christmas in an amusing way.
Well, I figured I’d go for it anyway, so I sent them this email:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I was thrilled to learn about your current recruitment for a Gift Specialist. Your description of me in the ad is uncanny! Needless to say, I am very interested in filling the position.
Me previous experience, while not dating back 2000 years does date back to before the year 2000, as I had my first child in 1997. In 2000 my second child was born, thus I have over ten years first hand experience of the deliverer side of the transaction. Being brought up in a loving and caring family, I was fortunate enough to also experience the receiving of gifts when I was younger.
As far as management and recruitment goes I have occasionally enlisted other Gift Specialists from the neighborhood to simplify certain logistical problems, especially the problem of both being present and making sure gifts are appropriately delivered. While my neighbours are not exactly elves, they are a little bit strange, which in this situation I figure is to my advantage.
Reindeers and me go way back. Staying true to reindeer farmer tradition, I am at this point unwilling to divulge exactly how many of the critters I currently own. What I can say is that last year I saw reindeers when I went skiing in Dalarna, and they are adorable creatures, aren’t they!
While not exactly requested in the ad, I would like to take the opportunity to mention that I have relatively dense facial hair growth, and as a youngster I did do research on the exact limits of its maximum length. After not shaving for a year straight it was an impressive beard; friends pointed out I looked like a mix of Charles Darwin and Santa Claus. Due to a bi-lateral domestic contract, the current trim frequency is significantly higher, but I am confident to be able to renegotiate that after the signing of this contract.
I am a creative, generous and patient person. To me, finding ways to improve processes is an interesting challenge; for instance, I think chimneys are no longer the most optimal vector of delivery. In this day and age I am certain other channels have appeared, and regarding distribution I believe it may be an area were it makes sense to partner with other organizations; The Easter Egg Delivery Inc. probably have a large distribution organization and it is reasonable to think they have spare capacity when our needs peak.
Enclosed you will find my curriculum vitae, which you are free to register for future reference in the unlikely event you find someone other than me better suited as Gift Specialist,
I look forward to hearing from You soon,
Seasons Greetings,
Jesper Högström
A few days later I got a reply! Seems I’m doing fairly well
Dear Jesper
I would like to thank you for your interest in the position as Gift Specialist – an excellent cover letter and impressive CV.
We will be creating the short list of candidates shortly and will be in touch!
In the meantime Merry Xmas & Happy New Year 2010 – glad you enjoyed the advert!
It’s nice of them to reply, and I really hope I get the job
–Jesper Hogstrom
After spending a day at work solving a variety of computer related problems (today mainly focusing on writing and debugging windows services, installing multiple instances of same and deploying relatively complex pieces of software) I got home and immediately got a support call…
“Daddy, what should I do if I cannot access the internet. I tried to Diagnose, but it said everything works fine”
Ah well. A relatively well phrased request with an actual try to remedy the situation. So, put on the network support hat and start working.
As a background, I should mention that yesterday we night had a power outage in the neighborhood , and then a faulty water heater shut down all power rather abruptly twice during the day. I get my internet feed via ADSL with a modem with built in firewall that routes everything to a “real” firewall, actually a virtual machine running IPCop inside my VMWare ESXi server. IPCop is responsible for handing out DHCP addresses.
Checking my lappy, I noticed it did not get any ip address, so I figured maybe the VMWare server box didn’t start up properly. Down to the server closet, only to find out all diods that should blink blinked and the server console of VMWare looked ok.
I had to spend a few minutes hooking up my lappy to a cable, assigning it a static ip# (no dhcp-server, remember?) and fire up the infrastructure client.
What a disaster! It claimed the server had no storage defined, and my list of ten or so virtual machines was there, but all the names were blank and they all indicated some kind of error. Oh the horror and what splendid moment to ponder all the times I had thought about a better backup system.
You have to guess which OS I work with on a daily basis when I reached the conclusion that a reboot should do the trick. It didn’t. Darned. Found some logs in the ESXi server console, and apparently the disk and BIOS and the OS had different views on the geometry of the 1TB disk where my VMs reside. Oh guys, c’mon, I thought to myself. Try something and if it works use that, else try the next suggestion. Well, my thinking and how OS loaders work don’t match up
Another reboot, jump into the BIOS setup and see what the BIOS knew about this. Everything looked mighty fine, all settings on Auto, which looked fine to me. Save and Exit, but as I hadn’t really changed anything I didn’t have too high expectations.
Oh the wonder when it booted up, I fired up the infrastructure client and all the machines were properly listed and starting to boot up in the predefined order. No more scary icons and big font signs about “No storage defined”.
Phew.
I really should look into that backup system, but the Simpsons just started…
–Jesper Hogstrom
Om man vill kolla på en julkalender och samtidigt lära sig nånting så rekommenderar jag å det varmaste Lunds Tekniska Högskolas Kemijulkalender (http://www2.lth.se/kemijulkalender). Varje dag lovar ett nytt spännande kemiexperiment.
Jag visade de två första för min son, 9 år gammal, och nu vill han bli kemist!
Uppdatering: Nån som vet var man kan köpa “kemilådor”? En kik på google gav vid hand att många letat, men ingen hittat… Jag ringde en kompis på Miljökemi vid Stockholms Universitets som lovade att kolla med Kemistsamfundet, men vet du nåt vill jag att du säger till!
–Jesper
Så var det dags igen, årets pepparkakshustävling.
Temat är “Mönster”, och vi valde årstidernas växling som tolkningsram.
Vi byggde ett slott som ser likadant ut på alla sidor, men årstiderna växlar.
Sommar
Dörrarna på vid gavel, solen skinar och gräset är så grönt.
Höst
Vi gjorde huset runt halloween, så ett spöke kändes naturligt, förutom alla frukter.
Krattan var lite pysslig, men den blev bra. Lägg märke till alla fina höstlöv!
Vinter
Trädgården i dvala, vallgraven frusen.
Lotta gjorde en jättefin snölykta i småmarränger. Två gånger, för katten åt upp den första!
Vår
Växtligheten börjar spira igen, men gräsmattan är inte riktigt i form.
En valborgsmässoeld hör våren till!
För att fylla upp tomrummet på taket byggde vi ett duvslag…
Se nu till att kila in på arkitekturmuseum och lägg din röst på oss
Pepparkaksteamet:
Jesper, Lotta, Joanna, Jens, Ulrika och Ewa.
–Jesper
I – or should I say my ol’ faithful lappy – finally caved in. It’s something about windows installations that makes them age with time. Sure, I’m not free of blame, having installed thisses and thattes, but I have ran antivirus software and disk defragmenters and even uninstalled apps I don’t need and shut down servives that I seriously do not need. Whatever.
Here we are, 2009, and a new 2.5″ IDE hdd of 320GB is less than 1kkr. I got one and after some deliberation I opted for windows7 with Fedore Core as a close runner up.
So what did I install before the computer got productive?
The puropse of my machine is to connect to work, deveop some hobby projects of my own, write documents and such. Nothing out of the oedinary, really.
Work related:
* MS Office – Commercial word processor etc.
* Visual Studio – Commercial development environment.
* SqlServer Express 2008 – Database backend
* Tortoise -[free] Splendid windows explorer integrated client to subversion
* CCTray – Client monitor for CruiseControl.Net
* BeyondCompare – [commercial]File comparison tool.
Neat utilities:
* Notepad++ – Free excellent text editor with color coding for lots of syntaxes.
*Foxit Reader – Free fast PDF-reader.
* Process Explorer – Free task manager replacement.
* 7Zip – Free multi format compression handler.
* ImgBurn – Free CD/DVD burner with ISO support.
Internet
* Putty – Free ssh client.
* Firefox – Free internet browser
* Chrome – Free internet browser
* Skype - Free chat and phone client.
Just for fun
* Spotify – Excellent music client.
* Flash – For games and stuff in the browser.
* VLC – Free media player, supports most formats.
* Filezilla – Free graphical ftp client.
That’s most of the initial cut of installations.
There are a few things left to install:
* 4Dos – The command shell microsoft never made.
* CdEx – Free audio ripper.
* CygWin – Free Linux utils for windows,
Have fun. Let me know if you think I missed any useful tool!
–Jesper
I mentioned the podcast This Week in Virology a while back. I wrote them an email asking on the subject of Virus and Symbiosis. Here’s what I asked:
Dear fellows of Twiv,
It is my understanding that us humans live in peace and symbiosis with some bacteria. Is there any such arrangement with any virus?
Another way to phrase the question; if all viruses were to be removed from the world, would we be better off?
A follow-up question, even more abstracted from the lab bench; if all viruses were gone, is it reasonable to believe that new ones would come into existence? How fast? From where? In one of the twiv episodes someone said “Any suffciently complex system has parasites”, so I assume given time something is bound to fill the niche of viruses.
All the best,
–Jesper Hogstrom
Actually, I had learned from the previous episode (#46) – which did air after I sent off my question – that there are at least one case of symbiosis between a virus and life. A type of grass that grows in volcanic areas needs to be infected with a fungi and a virus to withstand the heat in the ground.
Anyway, in episode 47, Vincent and Dick elaborated on my question from 49:57 to 58:40 (and Vincent thought it was a great question!).
In short, there are benefits from viruses:
* They speed up evolution by horizontal gene transfer.
* There is so much virus in the oceans, and that turns over a lot of carbon. Removing that and the carbon cycle would change, impacting the ecology greatly.
The ensuing discussion about if virus would re-appear in some way is also very interesting.
I do recommend listening to the entire episode.
September 3rd, 2009 in
internet media,
mp3 | tags:
mp3,
podcasts |
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