Author: Daniel

Sysadmin turned bearpuncher. Whereabouts unknown.
Life
March 9, 2016

Vivisection: Deconstructing The Monster

There have been a number of times in my life where I’ve felt totally at the mercy of my various neuroses. Growing up it was being antisocial, to the point where I would avoid answering a direct question, stoic in the awkward silence, because they would “win” if I talked. I don’t understand the logic behind it now, I’m just able to explain what I was thinking then. I’ve been able to deconstruct a good number of those things over time, and once understood, I could stop following those absurd orders from some particular lump of brain-meat that probably took one too many thumps.

There are a few that still bug me, still won’t go away. Some are relatively harmless…self, why the fuck haven’t you figured out good posture yet? You’re 5-foot-fuck-two. You need every bit of that standing up straight just to get on the rollercoaster. But I don’t, unless I’m thinking about it, which gives me about twenty seconds of good posture. Damn fine posture.

But there’s two big ones I don’t seem to have made any progress on; one is life-threatening and one is merely way-of-life-threatening. They’re so similar that they’re probably driven by the same thing. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not comfortable with medicating a mental illness, I feel like that field of science is still very rough around the edges. See the number of drugs that list suicidal thoughts as a side-effect. I do have good health insurance now, where I could just talk to someone qualified, but I have this great idea that if I consult with my fucked-up self on the matter, I’m going to fix things about my fucked-up self. That sounds more defeatist than I really feel, but it is a useful reduction for me.

The less obviously dangerous problem, … (More) “Vivisection: Deconstructing The Monster”

Gaming
March 7, 2016

Unwinding on Pandora

For about a month now, I’ve been telling myself that I want to pick up a new free-to-play MMO. I knew most of the usual suspects, and that they wouldn’t really do what I wanted. I did download the fan-service MMO known as TERA, and I was showing Diana each of the characters and classes you could be while laughing my ass off. She, however, was the most pissed I’ve ever seen her about a video game.

I had another abortive search yesterday, not ready to go into the clunky mess that is EQ1. Landmark is dead, never having made it out of Early Access. I was getting a bit irritated, honestly. So I decided to deconstruct what it was that I was after. Interesting combat, not too grindy, good progression, lots of loot.

Probably just as important, I had to consider what I didn’t actually want from an MMO. I can’t play anything that needs a daily, or even weekly, commitment. Simply not enough hours in the day right now. I’m not actually doing this for the social aspect. Or, more precisely, I’d rather be social when I feel like it, and solo the rest of the time.

It turns out, the game I was looking for was Borderlands 2.

It really does scratch the particular itch I had. For being one of the go-to examples of the “loot grind,” there’s actually pretty much no grinding required, you can outpace the main story just by doing the side quests in a timely manner. It’s got nearly unlimited replayability, with lots of New Game Plus options. Multiplayer is opt-in for drop-in play. And it’s ready for me whenever I get back to it. It’s not free, but I’ve had it for ages and it never really stuck before. This … (More) “Unwinding on Pandora”

Blogging Life
March 2, 2016

This parrot is dumb and your recipe is disgusting. How are you?

It took a little over ten years of encroachment, little by little. I don’t even recall when exactly it began, probably three or four years ago. But social media has finally bested me. The diatribes I see from everyone with a fucking axe to grind about something or other, pushing causes in a slacktivist rendition of “check out my mixtape, fam,” sharing rehashed content that serves as little more than a way to get some ad revenue.

For once in my life, I’d rather see a picture of your ugly baby than see another article about why your candidate is Jesus Christ and the other guy is Shitbag Hitler III. I am worn all the way the fuck out.

I don’t even know why I have 500 friends. I talk to…20 of you at the absolute most? I don’t even recognize some of your names, and it’s from those teenage years where more friends = more better person. I think every generation was told by their parents and other elders that you’ll grow apart with time, and every generation could flawlessly see the future and indirectly told said elders to shove it up their ass. And then we grow apart with time like we were fucking told would happen. But now there’s this weird tether of social media keeping us in the peripheral vision of the people we otherwise would’ve dumped like last week’s garbage.

It’s not all bad. I probably wouldn’t have known that a six-year classmate of mine, just starting to dabble with a guitar when we left high school, made it into Rolling Stone magazine. I wouldn’t have known that someone I went to college with my freshman year was in a horrific accident, and had to learn to talk, walk, feed himself, and basically become a … (More) “This parrot is dumb and your recipe is disgusting. How are you?”

Nerd Stuff
September 16, 2014

Building a Skybot reddit module.

Perhaps I’ll update this with what’s been going in my life if there’s any interest. Anyway, I’ve been working with python and with a little help from /r/redditdev I designed a module to check regex (in this case, from IRC chatter) for a link to reddit and go get metadata about the link. This is for Skybot on Python 2.6 or 2.7.

import json
import urllib2
import time
from util import hook
import re

reddit_re = (r'.*((www\.)?reddit\.com/r[^ ]+)', re.I)

@hook.regex(*reddit_re)
def reddit_url(match):

jsonlink = match.group(0) + '.json' # retrieve JSON-ified version of link
req = urllib2.Request(jsonlink)
req.add_header('User-agent', 'Python/Putyourbotnamehere-1.0') # Reddit wants us to use unique user-agents. OK.
response = urllib2.urlopen(req)

data = json.load(response)
submission = data[0]['data']['children'][0]['data'] # Dig down to the relevant bits.
self = submission["is_self"]
if self == True:
url = 'http://redd.it/' + submission["id"]
else:
url = submission["url"]
title = submission["title"]
score = submission["score"]
author = submission["author"]
timeago = time.strftime("%b %d %Y %H:%M:%S", time.gmtime(submission["created_utc"]))
comments = submission["num_comments"]
return '%s - \x02%s\x02 - posted by \x02%s\x02 %s GMT - %s points and %s comments' % (
url, title, author, timeago, score, comments)
… (More) “Building a Skybot reddit module.”

Nerd Stuff Work
January 27, 2013

Resolving VMs not getting a DHCP address from a DHCP server VM.

I’ve been slacking in keeping the blog updated, I’ve started several new projects and work has gone from 25-30 hour weeks to constant 40s. I’ve taken some time for self-enrichment by setting up a PowerEdge Server as a virtualized test lab using Hyper-V Manager and SCVMM 2012 on Server 2008 R2. I am trying to get away from using Small Business Server and actually work on breaking out the server services to dedicated virtual servers. The first one, by necessity of wanting to use workstations in a real-life use case, was a DHCP server on a Server 2003 R2 Standard VM.

WARNING: I am a pre-MCSA know-nothing with regards to virtualization. My first time messing with Hyper-V was about two weeks ago, so if this is common sense to most of you, that’s why.

It appeared to be functioning properly, but I had a problem. If my workstation VM’s NIC was pointing to an External virtual network, it would not get a lease. If I set the IP statically, it could surf the Web and do all the stuff it needed, but if I set it to get a dynamic IP it would never contact the DHCP server. If I set it to an Internal virtual network, it would get a lease, but couldn’t get online. If I added a 2nd NIC and made one Internal and one External, I was no better off as I still had to set the External IP statically.

The issue lies in how the virtual NICs work in relation to the hierarchy of virtualization. When you create an External vNIC, it unbinds everything from the physical NIC but the VM NIC platform, and creates a new NIC on the Hyper-V server. This is important, because that External vNIC is what determines the connectivity of … (More) “Resolving VMs not getting a DHCP address from a DHCP server VM.”

Fragrance
September 25, 2012

V&R Spicebomb – SNAD*

*Significantly Not As Described

Diana surprised me yesterday with a sample of Viktor & Rolf’s new Spicebomb, we haven’t followed them lately but their first two releases, Antidote and Flowerbomb, are favorites of ours. Spicebomb doesn’t quite do what it says on the label; I get an opening reminiscent of Gucci Pour Homme II, tea leaf and fruit. The base is, in a word, safe. Amber and light woods, nothing near even Antidote’s spicy heart/base. I wasn’t paying a ton of attention to the progression, but then again, it didn’t do anything to grab my attention, either.

The tragedy here is this isn’t some marketing team’s vision; this is a Jacques Polge creation, the nose behind Flowerbomb, Kenzo Power and Dior Homme(!!). He’s a versatile, talented guy; this just isn’t his finest work. Clever packaging isn’t enough to save the latest misfire from team V&R.… (More) “V&R Spicebomb – SNAD*”

Poetry
August 10, 2012

His Story

I met a homeless man at the bus stop, skin bronzed from days spent in the Albuquerque sun. He held a cardboard sign in his dirt-caked hands that read “Hungry Vet.”
I had payday and karma on my conscience, I handed him a twenty and asked him, “What’s your story?”
He told me, “There’s no story. I fought for this country, and this country let me slip through the cracks.”
His voice was rough, as though he needed something to drink. I motioned for him to come with me to the gas station.
He walked with a limp, a syncopated step and a wince that belied how much pain he was probably in.
I motioned as though he could lean on my shoulder as he walked, and he shook his head. I asked him, “What’s the story?”
He told me, “There’s no story. I was wounded, and the doctor let me slip through the cracks.”
I paid for three bottles of water at the gas station and handed him two. He drank the first in what seemed like one swallow.
He sighed as though he were suddenly tired, satiated by something as simple as cold, clean water.
He wiped the sweat off his brow with a wrinkled arm, and I noticed his tattoo. It read simply, “Beloved Daughter” in black cursive. It looked like he had it for a while.
I pointed at it and asked him, “What’s the story there?”
He gave me a look of quiet pain, a pain I knew from losing my mother. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a badly worn photograph.
The girl was young, but looked happy, full of joy and hope. Full of promise.
He told me, “There’s no story. I didn’t have any money, and God let her … (More) “His Story”

General Music
June 18, 2012

Letter to David Lowery

David Lowery wrote a tremendously compelling piece on his blog responding to a self-professed music lover with 11,000 songs, of which only about 15 albums are legally owned.

David:

My mind is all over the place as I write this. I’m troubled as this is the second time this week I’ve read about Spotify’s per-stream rates being dismal, David McCandless put things into perspective with a great infographic, and your own blog puts them at $0.005 per play which is actually about the highest I’ve seen. Spotify, for me, has been the service that I wish I had years ago. I use it primarily as a music exploration tool, and if I find that I’m listening to one album a lot, I buy a digital copy, either through iTunes or Amazon MP3, or occasionally buy physical CDs for their liner notes or if they include something neat like a poster. Spotify has connected me to artists I’d have never found otherwise, and it has saved me from making purchases I would’ve regretted.

The issue, that would seemingly sweep the rug out from under your argument if it were not so, is that Spotify pays the artists a pittance. To this, I ask: How are the obviously failed negotiations between Spotify and the labels my fault? The issue really goes much deeper, when you realize that the big four record labels own a combined 17% of Spotify, and the two founders own 52%, so nearly 70% of Spotify’s decision-making process comes from people that are profiting very, very handsomely from the status quo. These labels simply were not acting in good faith, were not representing the best interests of the artists, and should be the real target of the outrage, here. Spotify is a business whose prime directive is … (More) “Letter to David Lowery”

30 in 30 Poetry Edition Poetry
June 9, 2012

30 In 30 Poetry Edition, Day 9

Introspective journals, rip the pages from my mind,
Put them down fresh before they go sour.
Raucous choir of a thousand voices that can’t carry a tune,
Can’t carry a train of thought, more likely to drive that fucker into the ditch
Than leave you anything worth the time.
I’m all excuses, and for that I make no excuses.
A greater man powers through illness and illuminates.
But a lesser one would’ve used it as a chance to give up altogether.… (More) “30 In 30 Poetry Edition, Day 9”

30 in 30 Poetry Edition Poetry
June 8, 2012

30 in 30 Poetry Edition, Day 8

Some days the creative process feels like a game of Scrabble,
A bag filled with the unknown and unknowable.
You can pull bits and pieces from the bag,
The nonsensical and the vapid side by side.
Unfair as it is, nobody is supposed to sort the letters for you.
It’s a crushing level of responsibility,
The thought that you can take synapses
Firing willy-nilly from a brain
Hooked up to a heart
That occasionally beats more out of habit
Than from any real conviction,
And transform them into thoughts
That someone is looking at right now.
Knowing that I once thought about you
Reading these words,
And that now we’re linked through a memory.

Who can feel worthy of that?… (More) “30 in 30 Poetry Edition, Day 8”