Slashdot

Ok, first off: I know "I haev teh l337x0r5 uptime" boasts are lame but this has me happy at some 14-year-old-who-just-installed-linux level:

$ uptime
3:43PM up 1000 days, 16:40, 2 users, load averages: 0.27, 0.06, 0.02

It's an ancient Pentium 166 MMX running FreeBSD 3.3 (OLD!) but has had all services touching the net up to date. The machine is well firewalled off and all packets hitting it are scrubbed with pf.

Look at all that disk space:

$ df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/wd0s1a 119055 34449 75082 31% /
/dev/wd0s1f 2887188 2118030 538183 80% /usr
/dev/wd0s1e 992239 162634 750226 18% /var
procfs 4 4 0 100% /proc

This machine was at an uptime of 683 days but a power failure which lasted long enough that the UPS failed happened 1000 days ago today.

When we moved our offices in the house around I carried this computer while Kim carried the chirping UPS along. Anything to keep the uptime... :)

Funny, other machines I have get upgraded every 6 months (OpenBSD) or every day (Windows) and I don't care about reboots. I also have a newer machine which is ready to drop into service when this one chokes but this old crapbox has a lot of nostalgic value for me. I have no idea why. It's weird to think that this has been running since well before we talked about having kids (our daughter is 18.5 months old now).

What's your lame uptime story? What have you done to keep the uptime going? We all have a story like this to own up to...

Remember the Reason for the Season: December 24th is my birthday!

In the dawn of my 42nd year, I'd like to reflect on what made the 41st so superb: Me, I am awesome.

Have a great Day After Grub's Birthday tomorrow, everyone! :)

Once again I reach out to that vast pool of knowledge at slashdot...

Scenario: I have a couple of decent machines on the desktop at home. One is an AMD-2500xp+ running Win2000. It's used for games. The other machine is an AMD64-3800x2 (64 bit dual core thing) It's running Ubuntu. Rest of the place is all OpenBSD on various machines and one FreeBSD box.

I'm thinking that I really don't need to keep 2 machines running on the desk. Ideally I'd have some sort of VM manager running on the Linux AMD64 box which I could run a Windows VM in for when I need my gaming fix. I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for a VM manager. I have only a few needs:

- It has to run a normal 32 bit Windows in a VM on this 64 bit box so I can reinstall Win2k on it or a copy of normal XP, not XP64.
- It must support the 3d capabilities of my graphics card (ATI 9800 Pro).
- It must support my Audigy2 sound card (no stuttering, etc)

I've looked at Xen but my processor lacks the AMD-V (nee Pacifica) goop to run Windows unmodified. QEMU and VirtualBox also look nice. So far, though, it looks like VMWare is the one to beat. I'm not shy about spending a few bucks to get it.

There you have it. All suggestions are appreciated.

I'm on both right now ('grieder' on Multiply) and find that Slashdot is much more to my liking. Granted I haven't done much on Multiply other than read and post a few comments but it's just not my thing. Much of what I see on Multiply has been linked over from slashdot and I just don't see the need for a second discussion forum.

Rather than deleting my multiply account and dropping it entirely, I've turned off all email alerts for everything other than private messages. That way I can see if I really miss it (doubtful)

Slashdot is a news site (or so they claim ;)) with some good discussions in the comments geared to the story. Multiply seems much more contrived... Come up with a topic and hope people talk about it.

YMMV, but I'm sticking close to the loveable ol' hag known as Slashdot.

Rewind Life's TiVo back to June 13, 2006 1:10 AM

I awoke to Kim's shrill "Gord, we have to go to the hospital now!" Arriving at the hospital her water broke and the nurse said "You're going to have her today".

What?! There was still 22 days left! Are we ready for this?!

Fast forward the TiVo to 12:33 PM There's our little girl just out. We are parents, a whole different demographic group than we were just a minute before at 12:32. Holy shit. All the reading and planning can't prepare you for that. I felt amazed and helpless and proud and scared.

The hospital sent us home two days later. Huh? They trust us with this fragile little entity? Aren't the car seat straps too tight? No, they have to be snug. That idiot is tail-gating us. Hrm, no he's far enough back. Our first drive home as a family was a blur. I was beat from not sleeping well on the pull-out 'dad' chair they had in the room. Kim was understandably a bit rough.

Here in .ca you're allowed about a year off of work for parental leave to be split however you want. I took the first month and Kim overlapped with me. Most days she would slept in while I drank a Bodum full of freshly ground espresso beans, it was the only thing that kept me going. I'd stay up late with Anna so Kim could get her sleep at that end of the day. The month flew by, it was a complete blur of diapers, espresso, downloaded TV shows and watching little Anna. Just watching her sleep. Hours would go by as she slept in my lap. Those were some of the best moments of my life.

Fast forward the TiVo to yesterday Our little girl was one year old. They picked me up at work for lunch. Took some nice pictures at 12:33 which will soon be on Anna's website.

So a year of diapers, some crying, watching her grow, working on her 9th tooth, standing, trying to walk, bathing her, swimming with her, watching her eat by herself and picking her favourites off the tray first, dancing in spot to music (yes, she likes the beat of Motorhead and High On Fire, don't tell Kim!) A year of watching her personality flourish and of enjoying her infectious smile that always seems planted on her face. A year of can't-wait-to-get-home-and-see-the-family after work, of walking to the park with Anna in her wagon.

Happy Birthday Anna!
Pics to be here soon