Rubenerd

Ah juzo-kun, your Linux-tans have become the stuff of legend!

Today I needed to change apt sources on an Ubuntu server to point somewhere else, on account of an awry default mirror. Since Lucid, Ubuntu has supported the mirror method:

## /etc/apt/sources.list for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
## Using mirror.txt pool for geographically-close servers

deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt trusty main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt trusty-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt trusty-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt trusty-security main restricted universe multiverse

I was entirely unaware mirror had its own protocol! I’ll bet it’s reflective. Jokes aside, I swapped out my local mirror for these text files, and low and behold I was pulling packages from Optus. Half a day later, and it was iiNet.

Downloading the file directly (with http, not mirrors) resulted in this list:

http://mirror.optus.net/ubuntu/

http://ubuntu.mirror.serversaustralia.com.au/ubuntu/

http://mirror.netspace.net.au/pub/ubuntu/

http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu/

http://mirror.overthewire.com.au/ubuntu/

http://ubuntu.mirror.crucial.com.au/

http://mirror.as24220.net/pub/ubuntu-archive/

http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/ubuntu/ubuntu/

http://ubuntu.mirror.uber.com.au/archive/

http://mirror.as24220.net/pub/ubuntu/

http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/archive/

http://mirror.waia.asn.au/ubuntu/

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/

An interesting approach. Rather than hitting the same repo each time, we’re given a pool of alternative, geographically-close servers.

Both Debian and FreeBSD take a different approach to this with redirectors. Depending on where you hit pkg.freebsd.org or http.debian.org from, you’re directed to a different server.

This afternoon, Clara and I met with our family friends in Normanhurst for a belated Oktoberfest celebration. Real beer, amazing home cooked German food, and the warmest, nicest people I know. Sydney also did its bit with stunningly beautiful weather, a nice change from what we had yesterday!

On account of my dad’s job, we never spent more than few years in the same house, and rarely in the same city. Growing up, Elke and I clung to whatever stability we could find. Throughout the years, we knew that whenever we came back to Sydney to visit, Bem and Erna Adolphs would be there with open arms in their beautiful home.

I have memories of climbing their trees, of the room where their youngest daughter (my age) and sister would dress up to put on plays for the parents. The artwork, their backyard, that impenetrable hallway that seemed a little smaller each time I went back. Mostly though, I remember the people.

It got me thinking about what memories with friends I’m forming here now. My dad met the Adolphs while he was studying in Germany in the 1970s. If I ever have kids, will they remember the friends I made while I was studying here?

Food for thought. Gute Nacht~

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve watched this cover over the years, and I still can’t even.

Update 2019: The original video is gone, so I've replaced it.

Given its origins, I should have known Jekyll would let you render gists with some simple syntax. To get all meta, I rendered this gist using the gist liquid markup:

{% gist RubenSchade/3f8e385647c1ded6bfe6 %}

Well, almost. That’s using my own styling for a plain pre tag, and a link to the gist. Inline gists rely on JavaScript, without graceful degradation. Land on this page with NoScript (or an equivalent security tool), and you’ll see absolutely nothing.

Oh well, sounded like a nice idea.

I’ve come to accept that I develop odd affinities for my electronics. I tend to use the same devices till they either completely fall apart, or when something really game changing appears. They’re my primary creative outlets, and I love them.

This 27 inch (68.6cm!) Retina iMac is a qualifying game changing device.

Since the iPhone 4, Retina screen fans have waited with baited breath for this theorised Apple desktop that could give us the same font clarity and photographic detail in a large display. Retina screens are achingly beautiful, and I’m absolutely pedantic enough to appreciate every tiny detail. If you’re not, well, what can I say.

The new Mac Pro gave us the first glimmer of hope of a Retina desktop. I pictured my ideal setup of a modestly spec’d Mac Pro and a ViewSonic 3840×2400 display, but a quick look at a release timeframe and the expected cost would bring me down to earth.

With a Retina iMac, we could bump the specs up and still be cheaper than the Mac Pro alone, let alone one with a separate Retina display. It also has the benefit of existing as a solution, today.

I’d likely be fine with the base specs, but the 4.0GHz i7 looks to be an amazing CPU. I’d also prefer to throw as much grunt behind such a gargantuan display as I could. If I had to compromise, I’d probably stick with the i5 with the 4GiB GPU. The SSD is the same price as a Fusion Drive, and I’ve got enough storage in my NASs (NASii?).

Now with its unbuffered consumer grade parts, the Retina iMac is no Mac Pro replacement. But for those of us looking for a Retina desktop, this is what we’ve been waiting for. It may even be enough for me to give up my own rule of never buying version 1 Apple devices.

Now all it needs is a handle, so I could ferry it between home and the office.

Here are some random quotes from recent podcast episodes I’ve listen to:

“The thing about Supertrain is that it’s coming in the ashes of our inevitable doom”

~ John Roderick, Roderick on the Line.

iWatches, god damn it!

~ John Siracusa, Accidental Tech Podcast #83.

This right wing idea that HECS is a bank loan. And we have a minister for sport for crying out loud, we should have a minister for science!

~ Kim Karr, The World Today for 2014-05-29.

Everyday, some is born who hasn’t heard my Flinstones analogy!

~ Merlin Mann, Back to Work #172.

If it weren’t for grudge or spite, I wouldn’t get anything done!"

~ Merlin Mann, Back to Work #172.

There’s always the inevitable discussion over whether Australia can support the number of commercial broadcasters that are out there.

~ Interviewee, ABC PM for 2014-05-21.

In the darker days of the web, Microsoft decided their box model would include padding and borders within a box’s width and height. Thus, a box with 10px padding and a 1px border set to 100px wide would be 100px wide; for other browsers it would be 122px. Regardless of whether you agree, it was inconsistent behavior, and could result in really messed up layouts depending on the client. Because floats and auto margins are just super swell, thanks CSS.

CSS3 has a box-sizing property, which has three values:

-moz-box-sizing: content-box
box-sizing: content-box

This is the default for everything other than old IE. It doesn’t count margins, padding or borders in width or height.

-moz-box-sizing: padding-box
box-sizing: padding-box

This will include the padding in width and height.

-moz-box-sizing: border-box
box-sizing: border-box

This includes padding and borders, but not margin. This is how old IE did it.

Previously, one would overcome box model inconsistencies by simply not defining padding, margins, borders and widths within the same block. For example, an image of a defined size would be wrapped in a div, which would contain a border, padding or a margin. I think we’ve all basically internalised that.

Personally, I couldn’t see myself changing things any time soon to accommodate this. Interesting that this has been explicitly defined, though.

In our continuing series of song posts from Ben Sidran’s 2013 album Don’t Cry For No Hipster, we learn about the dangers of high performance cars in Brand New Music:

So how’s that new car working out for you?
I hear you got it in baby blue

I like this guy’s taste. But here comes the caution.

Got all the girls hooglin’ after you…
But.. so are the gangsters and the police too.

With a car like that, what could possibly go wrong?
Brand new music… same old song.

Of course, this isn’t limited to vehicular conveyances.

So how’s that new job working out for you?
I understand you buyin’ money and sellin’ money too

With a job like that, what could possibly go wrong?
Brand new music… same old song.

Grab from Amazon, watch on YouTube.

Other tracks: #01

(This was updated in May 2015, with newer instructions for 9.310).

It’s good to be back. Had a really terrible stomach flu thing, was out of action for a week. Lots of electrolytes and less solid foods. But that’s not what you tuned in for.

The Sophos Security Gateway (formerly of Astaro fame) comes with a VMware Virtual Appliance. If you want to install on Xen (or another hypervisor) they suggest you can use their regular Software Appliance ISO:

Any other virtualization platforms such as Xen, Hyper-V, KVM, etc. that can boot up from an .iso should operate just fine as well. (Some platforms may not have full support for networking drivers, tools, or time keeping.)

The North American convention of putting full stops inside brackets is just crazymaking (but I digress).

If you can, install with Xen using the virtual optical drive. If you’re attempting a bootstrap on a cloud platform (or via USB key), you can first create a hybrid bootable image from the ISO and dd across. The syslinux package contains the isohybrid tool you can use.

# apt-get install syslinux
# isohybrid asg-9[x].iso
# dcfldd if=asg-9[x].iso of=/dev/xvda[x]

Unfortunately, this creates a small problem. The installer will boot, but when it gets to the file extraction stage it won’t find the installer files:

Install.tar wasn't found on the installation mirror

This likely happens because it can’t mount the optical drive as it expects. You can confirm this by dropping to a shell with [ALT]+[F2] and listing the install mountpoint.

# ls /install
# ==> crickets

Fortunately we’re dealing with Linux, so its relatively easy to mount the installer volume manually. It’ll be different depending on your environment, but if you imaged to a second Xen drive, try one of these likely options:

# mount /dev/xvda2 /install
# mount /dev/sda1 /install

Then hit [ALT]+[F1] (not [F2]) and proceed as normal. Again depending on your environment, you may even see this:

Extra RPMs are installed for improved Xen HVM support.

Boom!

In several states here in Australia, it was Labour Day today. For many, it was a day of football or something.

For me, it was largely spent studying for my one subject this semester. Opportune timing for a holiday, given I work full time and have an exam in the coming week. My perennial part-time student-ism has become a running joke among many of you, and I’m sure as hell looking forward to the day where I can focus all my energies on fewer things.

As @JamieJakov said, studying, working and having a personal life is hard. So is scheduling, especially when most of your friends are still students and make plans for everything during the day, and perfectly timed not to coincide with a working person’s lunchbreak. Darn.

Speaking of Latvians, he and some other eagle eyed readers may be surprised to see me revert my theme. I’ll admit, I’d wanted to have featured images with superimposed headings since at least 2009, but I just never got around to it. When I finally implemented it, I longed for what my site always looked like. The colours and features may have changed, but the over all structure has largely stayed the same this whole time. It’s not pretty, but it’s mine.

And so we bid farewell, off to another work week. Here’s hoping we’ll have fewer Bashgate embargoed-Xen fun!