Month: February 2010

Super Prediction

I’m sure y’all have been waiting anxiously for my annual Super Bowl predictions(disregard the fact that this is my first Super Bowl since I started blogging- all my previous Super Bowl predictions have been dead on accurate. Honest…)

Ahem, basically, after all the hoopla over who’s playing, who isn’t, who has the better coaching, who has the better experience, blah, blah, blah, this game comes down to one simple fact: the Colts haven’t lost when Manning has been on the field in the 4th quarter this year. I think the Saints can win if they play from in front. I think they have to be leading in the 4th quarter to have a shot. But even then, the Colts can still win. Additionally, the Colts ca (and will, if they do) win playing in front the whole game. That’s two paths to victory against one. Sorry Saints.

I’ll be rooting for a Saints win, but my head says they can’t.

Final score, 27-17 and Manning wins MVP.

Computers

apt-mirror Update

The download took all night. It ended a little after 7 this morning, which pegs it at about 14 hours to download 65GB. My internet connection is a 10Mbit cable line, so there’s a bench mark of sorts.

When I embarked on this little project, my goal was to come up with a way to force apt-cacher-ng to update all of its cache on a schedule. For the native machine/architecture all that is required is to schedule an apt-get update which can be done by enabling it in the apt config files. But I couldn’t figure out how to force the same thing for a foreign architecture (ie- for another computer running i386 based stuff) so the files would already exist on the network.

The more I thought about it, I realized there wasn’t any bandwidth savings to be had because, though both machines run debian/testing, they both required different sets of package files because of the different architectures. Therefore, anything I was doing was going to be for creating a more convenient update process by having the files already present on the local network. The apt-mirror package isn’t ideal since it downloads an entire repository for a debian branch rather than caching and updating just the packages I need. However, it’s better than a full-blown mirror and, once it’s initially setup, the downloading is merely a matter of updating the local repository. In the end, it seemed like the best compromise.

Tags apt, debian

Computers

apt-mirror

Prior to the server mobo dieing I had been using apt-cacher-ng to minimize internet traffic. The setup worked well since both my EEE and my server were running i386 packages from the testing distribution.

With the new mobo in the server, all the packages are amd64 based packages. Thus, I’m not really gaining any advantages with apt-cacher since different packages are going to the two computers. So I’m trying out the apt-mirror package since it can be configured to download packages for different architectures.

Since it’s a mirror as opposed to a caching application, it’s downloading all of the packages related to testing for both i386 and amd64. I started it about 5:15PM. The download size is ~65GB. It’s still downloading.

More later… once this step is complete.

Tags apt, debian

arm Embedded

ARM Cross-Compiler

With the new server, I had to rebuild my cross compiler for arm projects. Luckily, such a thing is documented reasonably well over at gnuarm.com so I was able to get things moving along without too much fuss. Although it took a little doing to find the right combination of versions to compile properly. I’m not sure why the most up-to-date stuff doesn’t work as expected, but there it is.

Tags arm-elf-gcc, toolchain

Computers

EEE Framebuffer

The other day I was debugging my awesome configuration and I zooted it. I had missed a comma in a table and the Lua stuff puked on me and awesome stopped working. So I went and dropped into a tty console to fix the problem.

Except my tty console was blank!

I tried all 6 of them and they were all blank. I was able to fix the configuration problem using other means, but I resolved to investigate where my tty consoles had gone.

Tags debian, gfxpayload, grub2

Misc

Slip Update

My ears have been ringing for the past few days. Still hurts my head to sneeze and cough. It also hurts if I do something like “popping” my ears; pain is in the front above the eyes. Still have the mild dizziness.

I saw my chiropractor and basically all the progress that had been made on correcting my neck is gone. My C5 is pushed back and is almost touching C6. He’s kind of a funny guy- he gets excited when he gets to see something new and different from a patient. He’s all revved up to fix my neck… again.

Family

Tooth #5

The boy lost his fifth tooth tonight. It’s the other top front one. Yes, he looks hilarious when he smiles; no, he can’t pronounce words like “thistle” properly.

He said another one of his teeth is loose as well. At this rate, we’ll need to put him on a liquid diet. The Tooth Fairy is racking up huge frequent flyer miles.

The lass is a little tired of the spectacle. She wants to start losing her teeth NOW. I’d rather not think about how far she’s willing to go to get there…

Misc

Bourne Ultimatum

One of the cable channels has been showing “The Bourne Ultimatum” all weekend. I’d already seen it, but I watched it again because it’s so well done. In particular, the fight scene between Bourne and Desh has to be in the top 10 of movie fight scenes.

Unlike Jet Li type stuff, which is spectacular but ultimately unbelievable because of obvious wire work, or Dark Knight type stuff, which is more believable but the camera work is so phrenetic that it’s impossible to see what’s happening, the Bourne fight scenes have an authentic feel to them. The blows are quick and precise and done in full view of the audience. Further, the ebb and flow of the fight as each combatant alternates between defense and attack fluidly is breathtaking.

I’m hard pressed to think of a better movie fight scene.