test
First big test of my UPS configuration, which is doing better than T-Mobile.
1 min read
First big test of my UPS configuration, which is doing better than T-Mobile. They went offline in 15 minutes. 11k affected and 2h restoration time so I should see auto-shutdown working too.
I've always loved naming machines.
2 min read
I've always loved naming machines. Starting out as a sysadmin it was one way you could have fun, especially when setting up large clusters. Here's my fun names through the years:
A Sun 3/80 lab named after japanese authors - kimitake, mishima, yukio, (can't remember the rest)
30 X Terminals named after creatures in the B52s Rock Lobster song. (Sea-Robin, Bikini-Whale)
I'm sure some people can guess what this set of NeXT machines were named after: hafnhaf, ashpool, mrfrosty, tessier.
Prod backend hosts at hi5 were named after the Simpsons (moe, bart, etc.) We ended up having so many we had to name machines after the guest-stars. ssh'ing into lindaronstandt or michellepfeiffer at 3am was a real spelling test.
Currently at Google I have machines named arcwelder and huskerdu for my dev purposes. Other musical acts that have had the honor of their own machine name over my career include mudhoney, danzig, and even... anthrax.
Originally shared by Paul Lindner
What's the most creative name you've ever give to your computer?
#qotd is my occasional "Question of the Day" non-feature feature. At some point it will become a way for people to connect on diverse topics across their circles. Reshare or comment, just use #qotd
Bay XP Meeting Roundup 8/23/2006
2 min read
BayXP (The Bay Area Extreme Programming Group) had a small meeting at the offices of ThoughtWorks here in San Francisco. The topic was interesting things learned at the Agile 2006 conference.
I found a number of items to add to my reading list, Including Refactoring Databases and Working Effectively with Legacy Code. (See Links below)
Topics of discussion from the meeting included
- Coding Dojo - how to get hang of test-first development and Pair programming.
- A lot of talk about how Rails stacks up against upteen different Java Frameworks.
- The TDD Pair Programming Game is an interesting way of pairing that seems to make sense. It's like a dance. I write a failing test, you implement, then I refactor, then you write a test, etc.
- The best name for a talk that I've seen in a long time was Crushing Fear Under the Iron Heel of Action. It explored how to deal with team dynamics in an Agile environment, mostly by saying "What's the worst thing that can happen".
- Found out about a web site called Developer Testing. Another thing to add to the RSS reader...
- There was a short talk about Code Debt. Some people are surmising that Code Debt should be publicly disclosed in a companies SEC S4 forms via Sarbanes-Oxley. One interesting quote was that code is an asset and you should maintain that asset properly because assets "increase the means of production". If you don't maintain code properly and use correct process your software becomes a liability. (Or course that begs the question of who defines the Generally Acceptable Coding Practices (GACP!)
