FremontTroll

Things Overheard and Read

2006-07-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

I was born in Seattle but I’m living in Arizona now. I moved down there six months ago. I’m up here for a court date. Oh.Yeah, I had some problems up here, putting too many substances in my bloodstream. I had to get away from the old hangouts and friends.Are you a believer?Yes, I am. I’ve been clean for a couple months now.
People are so stupid down here. I asked the sales guy if this phone could an Exchange server and he didn’t know. They only had a choice of four phones. Up in Seattle I could choose from twenty phones from five different providers.
“His career has been an extraordinary one. He is a man of good birth and excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the binomial theorem, which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it he won the mathematical chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to all appearances, a most brilliant career before him. But the man had heredity tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by this extraordinary mental powers.
Come on buddy, figure which way you’re going.
Captain Lambert put his ship about to keep the weather-gage, and steered a course parallel to the American’s. They were so close that he could force an action in the afternoon, even if the big frigate wished to decline it; but for the moment he chose to bide his time, and the ships sailed side by side, with a great stretch of sea between them.
Community college is the way to go. Spend two years there and then you can transfer all your credits to a four year school. But you don’t spend the big money if the kid isn’t serious. Look Sharon’s daughter. They spend big money to send her to a four-year school and she screws off and flunks out. Then she has to get pregnant and married to keep from having to move back.
People around here are just dopey. I call Pizza Hut. First time there is no answer. Second time I get through and lady says that they don’t have my info in the computer. So I give her my address, etc and order a pizza. Then I ask if I can order a soda too. She says “Well I’ll have to look up your info in the system again”. I said forget it.
One bell struck, and Lambert continued, ‘I think it is very nearly time: so, gentlemen, I will give you the King, and confusion to his enemies.’
These people around here just don’t know how to drive. Don’t you know you don’t slam the gas in a low rider in the rain! He could have hit us.
Then the Master’s eyes came into focus, and as they brought their message to his mind he screamed once, feebly, and died for ever. For in the last moment of his life, as he saw what stood around him, he knew that the long war between Man and Insect was ended – and that Man was not the victor.

The Deployment

2006-06-14T23:04:00.000-07:00

The Deployment
A large dark room. The separating walls of the cubicals had been removed to make space to squeeze more people in. Now contractors sat shoulder to shoulder facing their monitors.
A large white man with a shaved head covered by a baseball cap strode in. “Hey, Razi we going to need your help tonight”.
“Yes, I’ll be here” the neatly bearded man softly replied.
“Excellent!” the man loudly replied. And then even louder he addressed a man at the far side of the room. “Karl! You got that upgrade script ready?”
“Sure do!” came the equally loud reply.
“Great!” the baseball hat man exclaimed and departed.
A serious looking man complained to his neighbor “Why do they have to shout? I wish I had a door I could shut.”
Email from Tim: Release ManagerThis our tentative plan for the 3.0 product release1pm: Deploy to PPE4pm: Leads meeting at which time a go/no go decision will be made.
Serious man: I don’t know how they can expect us to deploy today. We just got the build from dev yesterday. We haven’t had time to test.
5pm
Email from Tim: Release ManagerDecision is GO. Repeat ,the go/no go decision is GO.
6pm : A windowless room Tom, a small, mild mannered man worked at a PC. Five people stood behind him watching what he was doing. The work consisted of copying various files between various servers and making various edits to the files. The purpose of the five observing people was to give instructions and catch errors.
Put up the system is down message. “System will be unavailable until 8pm PST”.
Bring the servers out of rotation.
“Why don’t you just make the edits to the files once and copy them to every server rather than copying them and editing them on each box?” asked Appan. He talked quickly and impatiently.
“Well, I’m not sure that will work” replied Tom in a slow, vaguely Southern drawl.
“You know this is stupid, manually editing all these files. At HP we had a program that deployed everything to all the servers. All we had to do was set up an XML file”.
The serious man entered the doorway. He asked the group how the deployment was going. “Are you using WTT?”. (WTT is a automation framework that he was promoting for tasks like this). No was the answer.
After the serious man left vpop mocked his promotion of WTT. “WTT. That stands for Windows Test Technologies. Test! How can you use that for deployments”.
7pm
Tom: “You know that script to copy the config file didn’t work. It copied the wrong file”.
“Can’t you just restore the backup”
Tom: “That’s the thing. The backup got overwritten too. There must be something wrong with the script”.
Aziz: “That’s not possible. We ran the script on PPE with no problems”.
Tom: “It must have run twice then. The second time it overwrote the backup with the bad file. I’ll have to recreate it.”
8pm
Morgan was obviously a new hire as was not trusted to do anything of importance. In his forties or fifties he was a cheerful presence saying little but smiling cheerfully. He resembled an Indian Ben Franklin.
Vpop “Morgan did you setup those UI servers? Are you waiting for me to log you on?” said impatiently.
9pm
Email: Pizza in 2111.
10pm
Appan “Are we still waiting for the db?”.
Vpop “Yes, the upgrade script failed.”
The hour grew closer to midnight.
In an adjacent cube, Chris, another ops contractor was also occupied with deployment tasks. The group of observers shifted over to stand behind him.
“I can’t get IIS on BAY45 to come up” Chris said. Chris looked like a typical American country boy. Red hair, goatee and baseball hat. His cheerful personality and ready laugh.
“Can you pull the logs?” asked Marius in a vaguely Italian accent. Marius was a developer and the resource of last resort for technical issues.
“Are we ready to smoke test the system yet?”
“Not yet, the db team is having all sorts of problems”
1am
“The smoke test failed. It looks like it can’t authenticate”.
2am
“We got it working! The smoke test passed”. The unspoken assumption that everybody could go home now.
“OK. Now let set up the boxes in the other cluster.” The unspoken sigh as people realized that they would not be leaving.
“The DNS is all screwed up on these boxes”
The dev lead, Abahijit, arrived in the room. A sign of the importance of the task at hand.
A flurry of emails from other managers asking for status. A rushed and incoherent reply by Chris.
Venk: “Chris can you bring those servers into rotation?”
Chris: “I’m trying to but this tool really fucking sucks. It hangs for five minutes and then fails”
3am
Abahijit says “I going to Starbucks. What do you want?”. Praise for the Starbucks staff. Remaining friendly and professional even in the depths of the graveyard shift.
Chris: “I think that I can put BAY20 into rotation”.
Vpop: “No, you don’t understand the bigger picture” Vpop snaps. Chris rolls his eyes.
Vpop takes a hankerchief out of his pocket and wipes his brow. “Why is everytime like this? The PM’s set these unrealistic schedules are we’re stuck working all night.”
4am
Chris “I think we’re good on the smoke test. I’m going to bring the cluster online”.
Email sent to managers “Production is live”
People go home. Although it is dark and rainy outside birds are singing.

A Boring Meeting

2006-05-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

The purpose of the meeting was to reconcile various list of servers. To determine what the various servers were being used for. Find out if what servers were not being used.
Ivan organized the meeting. He had prepared an Excel sheet of the information that was known about the servers. He had printed this sheet out and made copies. He currently had connected his laptop to the projector and displayed the sheet on the screen.
Chandra, appeared boarded and rocked back and forth in his chair. It made a sweeking sound when he did so. Ivan reprimanded his for making noise.
Ivan went through each server in the list and asked people if they knew what it was being used for. “CPTRARPC36?”. Anthony answered “That is the research db for Beta2”.
Chandra asked a question, “Why do you need another research db?”. Ivan reprimanded him again. “No conversations, we need to get through this”.
Progress was slow. The printouts consisted of three sheets of paper with two double sided. In half and hour we had only gone through one side.
People started questioning the purpose of meeting. “Why don’t you just compare your spreadsheet to Ivan’s spreadsheet and make one sheet?”
The meeting broke up.

Bug: Unable to insert into cache

2006-05-24T22:20:00.000-07:00

Customers have reported that cache insert operations are failing. This issue is only happening in production, not test. Running a SQL trace in production revealed no errors but also did not show any cache insert statements being executed. Plan is to write a test application that does an insert and run it in debug mode on the production server in order to determine what error is occuring.

Media strategy today is like an Ashlee Simpson record

2006-04-12T23:10:00.001-07:00

"...Media strategy today is like an Ashlee Simpson record: entirely predictable, brain-crushing wrong. Newspapers like NYT and WPO made the same mistake Disney is make; ceding market power to players like Technorati, Memeorandum, Delicious, etc; record labels did it, ceding market power to players like Last.fm, Apple, and MySpace; and now, finally, we have TV guys doing it - ceding their market power because they don't understand the new economics of media. These players aren't really making meaningful strategic moves - they're just giving the same old business models a nose job.... where value capture will happen - at communities, reconstructors, markets, networks - that direct people's attention to individualized 'casts. This is where branding will be reborn - and where advertising is already being disrupted, ripped apart, and reborn (viz, Google, PPC, pay per call, etc) http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2006/04/how-not-to-think-strategically-about.cfm
Surprise: content people think it's still about content. It isn't. Connection is now king. More succinctly, the ability to connect & recombine on the fly. What Umair calls smart aggregators and reconstructors. MySpace works because it's open to be rearrayed as its users want it (A true sandbox approach). http://www.lightbox5.com/movabletype/archives/2006/04/umair_in_a_20_w.html

Media strategy today is like an Ashlee Simpson record

2006-04-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

Can't login

2006-04-08T21:48:00.000-07:00

As I anticipated Operations screwed up the setup of the new server. I can't log in using the username/password they provided. Oh well, try again tommorrow.

New server

2006-04-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

A new server has been made available by operations. The first task is to try to term serve into the box. Ops has provided an IP address, username and password.

Re: Second Life clone

2006-04-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

From: Marketing
Re: Second Life clone

I suggest the name "Amon" or "Amon-Ra". This name is taken from the great god of the ancient people of al-Khem (Egypt). al-Khen is the namesake of alchemy which in turn is the forefather to science and technology.
If "Amon" doesn't pass geo-political sensitivity review an acceptable, but less distinctive, alternative would be "Jupiter". For when in the time of the Roman Empire Egypt was conquered by the Romans they saw in Amon the qualities of Jupiter, their supreme god.
Whatever name we go forward with it will invoke the characteristics we are seeking to promote in the brand, state of the art technology wedded to ancient mysticism.

Schedule Slip

2006-03-27T22:56:00.000-08:00

Take note of the consequences a schedule slip (from http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/vista-2007-fire-leadership-now.html)

In my afternoon daydream, after A's email went out, I imagined all the L68+ partners from the W division gathered together and told, "You are our leadership. When we succeed, it is directly because of how you lead and manage your teams. When we fail, it is directly because of how you lead and manage your teams. We've had enough of failure and we've had enough of you. Drop off your badge on the way out. Your personal belongings will be dropped off at your house. Now get out of my sight."

The Launch

2006-03-22T21:59:00.000-08:00

From: Will Wrong
Re: User Documentation
I respectively suggest that we deprioritize the user manual and SDK. Evidence has shown us that current users have not made use of existing documentation; instead they have learned the system through a pattern of trial and error.

From: Larry Lu
Re: User Documentation
I agree. A rapid cycle of hypothesis, experiment and analysis is how users learn new systems today. Push the buttons on the controller and see what happens.

From: Will Wrong
Re: User Documentation
Documentation only serves as implied limits on what our system can do. I want users to feel the presence of an unlimited possibility space.
In fact I prefer not to think of “users” at all. I believe them to be participants and contributors.

From: Dave K
Can anyone share any details about what the “participants” can actually participate in? (Smiley face)

From: Sami
We anticipate virtual pets to be very popular with the community.

From: Dave K
Hasn’t that already been done? Wasn’t there something in Japan like that?

From: Will Wrong
Those systems did not have nearly the depth of features that will be possible with our implementation. Our vision is one of unlimited customizability. One will not be restricted solely to dogs but will have the ability to create humanoid avatars as well as other animate objects.

From: Tim Sprinkle
An practical question; where exactly will all this stuff be?

From: Will Wrong
We found an outfit, MyITDept.com, that will provide us a server for $200 per month. That’s a P4 with an 80G hard drive.
From: Tim Sprinkle
With all due respect some of what you are describing sounds a little cutting edge. What happens if the software crashes and the server needs to be rebooted. I mean really locks up, blue screen.

From: Will Wrong
MyITDept will take care of that.

From: Tim Sprinkle
But for how much? $150 per hour? Just to flip a switch?

From: Will Wrong
Don’t worry about those minor operational issues. The only issue we’re going to have is being able to add capacity fast enough to meet the demand.

From: Larry Lu
Yes, Focus on the big picture. We’re offering people an epic journey from the origin of life through the development of technology – and eventually into outer space.

XNA

2006-03-21T22:54:00.000-08:00

A product called XNA was released today by Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/XNA/3.20.2006.aspx
I have a belief that XNA may prove very valuable in our quest to establish a virtual world. Although I haven't read all the documentation I'm under the impression that it facillitates the server infrastructure required to support a massively persistent online world. This could potentially be adapted to our needs.

The law of the market

2006-03-20T22:45:00.000-08:00

Price is what you pay.

Value is what you get.

The two have little relation.

The market is a crazy man who once a day makes a bid for what you own.

Predicting the future is easy; it's getting the timing right that's difficult.

What I eat recently

2006-03-16T06:15:00.000-08:00

Monday

Breakfast
Protein shake
Cereal

Lunch
Salad

Dinner
Hamburger
Broccoli

Tuesday

Breakfast
Protein shake
Cereal

Lunch
Salad

Dinner
Roast Beef sandwich
Steamed corn

Wednesday

Breakfast
Protein shake
Cereal

Lunch
Salad

Dinner
Roast Beef sandwich
Steamed corn

Servers moving to Alaska

2006-03-08T22:45:00.000-08:00

One of the largest expenses involved with running a large number of servers is the electricity to cool the air in the room in which they reside. Someone recently suggested that it would be benifitial to move the data center to Alaska where cold air is freely available. They also said that labor costs would be lower, presumably than California. Some else said that labor costs would be higher, presumably because you would have to compensate people who didn't want to be in Alaska to go there. The answer of course depends on what your employment alternatives are. I personally wouldn't like it.

Las Vegas

2006-03-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

The simple things in life make me happy. Like having a vodka martini in my hand, while sitting in a hip, USSR themed bar, listening to the Propellerheads and DJ Shadow. Or alternatively drinking a Coors Light while playing video poker, listening to Rick James, and glancing at an arena football game on the TV behind the bar.

Las Vegas

2006-03-02T05:47:00.000-08:00

More impressions of Las Vegas

In addition to casinos there are now shopping malls on the Vegas strip. One, the Fashion Show mall, is similar to those found outside any affluent suburb. I had heard that women shopped for entertainment but until my visit to the Fashion Show mall I did not know that that young men did so to.

Although I usually don’t like shopping, other than for electronics, I found spending the afternoon at the Fashion Show mall to be a relaxing experience, perhaps due to the lack of ringing slot machines. I was even tempted to buy some fashionable clothes at Macy’s. I only bought a couple watches and hats though due to lack of luggage space.

Las Vegas

2006-03-02T05:41:00.000-08:00

Some impressions from my recent trip to Las Vegas

A resturant under a round dome with tiered circular booths. The dome was designed to give a view of the giant LCD panel over the Fremont St. The light show started Monday evening with an eagle flying down the length of the street. A woman stood up at the edge of the dome nearest the LCD panel and outstretched her arms at right angles from her body. A drunken voice from across the room "Fly! Soar with the eagles!"

Mysterious meeting

2006-02-15T22:53:00.000-08:00

I walked past the conference room with windows facing the hallway and saw an unusual sight. The majority of the seats arround the table were occupied by men dressed in suit jackets, but with open collars and without ties. At the head of table, with their backs toward me, were three employees, younger and dressed casually. I guessed that they were giving a sales pitch to current or prospective customers.

New contractors cave

2006-02-15T22:47:00.000-08:00

I discovered a new contractors cave today. Six people working in a small, dark, hot room. I was sent down there by an Ops person to find somebody who could help me find logs for a server. There is a certain protocol involved when standing directly behind somebody who is sitting down working on the PC. First thing is do no correct them if they make typos. Second, only offer constructive suggestions. Third, even though you are intruding on their private space, make believe that you are not i.e. that the room is much more specious than it is.

Already full

2006-01-31T07:59:00.000-08:00

After running one job of rebuilding 1000 companies there is only 10MB free in the db with only 12K cache records. The db is likely to max out with less than 19K cache records. I will have to set the limit lower.

Solution

2006-01-29T20:56:00.000-08:00

The solution I implemented was to get the number of rows in the cache table and if that number>19K to disallow future inserts. The old cache records associated with that SearchURL would be deleted so the total number of records in the db would decrease. I was unable to find a SQL function that returned the current size of the db so I picked 19K as the db is currently almost full with 20K rows in the Cache table.
Before I purchase more db space I will work on using the existing space more efficiently.

Need prevent database from maxing out

2006-01-29T20:28:00.000-08:00

I need to prevent my SQL db from growing greater than the 100MB that Hosting.com allows. Alternatives include putting a hard limit on number pages cached for each Search URL. Another would be to check the free space left and not cache any more pages if the limit was getting near.

First entry

2006-01-29T20:19:00.000-08:00

This is my first entry in my blog.