Southern Bread Blog

I finally broke down and bought some of this from SmokingPipes.com. It is one of their consistent top sellers, and I have developed a big affinity to dark latakia blends so I figured I’d fire it up. I’m glad I did. It’s truly a great smoking and tasting tobacco. When you first open up the can you get a whiff of all those orientals. But, the more you smell it, you will notice a smokey flavor. It smells almost like hickory. It’s very interesting and not at all out of place.

I found that it lit easily and stayed lit without much trouble. It did smoke a little wet toward the end of the bowl, but a little air curing should fix that the next time around. The flavor was dark as expected with hints of that smokiness I mentioned earlier. There was also a very suttle spice type undertone that added another interesting element. Overall this is a very nice, complex blend and I’ll keep some on hand in the future. If you like latakia blends then you should really try this one out.

• Here is it’s review on Tobaccoreviews.com
• You can buy it online here

For those of you that are interested in playing the upcoming Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar MMORPG, they are having a special pre-release pricing program. If you pre-order the game you get a special activation key that allows you to subscribe for only $9.99 per month instead of the post-release price of $14.99/mth. You will also get early access to the open beta program. In addition, you will be able to carry your beta characters over into the live game and will also receive two special in-game items. It’s a great deal for you Lord of the Rings loving RPG’ers out there. More details can be found here.

I’ve been a sysadmin for about 10 years now and I’ve noticed quite a few things along the way. One of the things that I keep encountering is the necessity of having some programming skills in your sysadmin toolbox. Back in the day, system administrators were responsible for all phases of a computer system. You didn’t have seperate database admins, backup admins, network admins, etc. You had one guy who had to manage printing, integration, database management and everything else the company could throw at him. That’s why it was absolutely necessary for every sysadmin to know how to do some programming.

Now, when I say programming, what I’m talking about is not the type of programming that developers do. Developers are usually locked in on one language and are responsible for getting large projects out the door either as part of a team or as a consultant. It’s necessary for developers to be extremely familiar with the language that they are paid to know. They should instinctively know how to layout functions and know pretty quickly what their language can and can’t do. Basically, they should be gurus, or close to it.

No, the type of programming that sysadmins do is more of a mash-up of coding, batching and scripting. Different problems demand different languages to solve them. You don’t want to have to whip out C++ or Java just to write a login script that maps a few drive letters. And vice-versa, you would never want to use something like perl to write a Windows-only file upload utility. In my opinion here is a short list of how sysadmins should arm themselves:

Two scripting languages on each OS?! Yes. But, wait before you click on out of here. What I mean by “know” is that you should know how the language works and what it takes to compile/run it. You should have a working understanding of it’s syntax and most importantly, you should know where to find documentation for it. You don’t have to be a guru of these languages and you probably never will. You just won’t use them enough to get that way. Lest you doubt your need for multiple languages, here is an example of some things that I’ve had to whip out some programming skills for over the years:

These are just a few examples. There are dozens more. Now, I’m not saying that you have to know how to program in order to be a decent syadmin. But at some point in the future you are going to slam your fist on the desk when you have to pony up $1000 for something that could be fixed with a few lines of vbScript or perl. Your bosses will thank you too when you show them all the money you have saved them by not having to go buy software every time something simple comes up.

Looking for a few minutes of fun? Playing in the Shadows of Angmar beta and need character name? Then try the Hobbit name generator at Chris Wetherell’s site. There’s also an Elf name generator for you pointy eared types. For the record, I’m Drogo Boffin of Whitfurrows. Also on the Lord of the Rings note, I’ve been playing in the Shadow’s of Angmar MMORPG beta and I am really digging it. I can’t say anything about it much because of the non-disclosure agreement, but I think I’m allowed to say that it’s going to be really fun for those RPG-inclined among us. If you are a LOTR fan then you should mark it down on your calendar to check out upon release.

Just in case you missed it, a bill that would require political bloggers to “register as lobbyists” was stripped out of the lobbying reform bill that congress is working on. Slashdot is reporting it this morning:

Wow! That is a lot closer than it should have been, but it doesn’t surprise me. The negative political buzz-phrase being used for the last decade in this country is “special interests”. Any time a politician wants to slam his opponent, he will accuse him of bowing to “special interest groups”. But what exactly is a special interest group? I have news for you people: It’s you. Special-interest groups are how most common people in this country get a hearing from politicians. Organizations like the NAACP, AARP, NRA, NEA, AICPA, AFL/CIO and the like are all special-interest groups. Take the AICPA(American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) for example. If you are a CPA in this country then you are almost certainly a member of this special-interest group, and with good reason. You pay your dues for the leadership of the AICPA to lobby politicians on your behalf. Otherwise, how in the world would your voice get heard. It’s not like you can just take a vacation day, fly up to Washington and get a meeting with your Senator. No, you let the AICPA do that for you.

Special-interest groups are paid to lobby congress on the behalf of your “interests”. That is how 90% of Americans get there voices heard in the political halls of the U.S. Sure, some interests are bad and some lobbyists like Jack Abramoff are creeps. But that doesn’t mean that the system as a whole is a bad one or that special interest groups should be silenced. In some ways, special interest groups are the traditional ties that bind most average Americans to the people they elect. So tell me. How in the world does somebody writing a political blog even faintly resemble a lobbyist or special interest group? They don’t. Most political blogs are not directed at politicians. They are directed at the grass roots; at you and me. This direct to the people, from the people model is scary to many liberals in Washington. They have always enjoyed the liberal filter that the major media outlets have supplied.

The Dan Rather Bush National Guard document scandal showed many Democrats the power of this direct-to-many internet model. It was only a matter of time before they set their eyes on blogging as a threat. I’ve said before that I hate politics and I do. I hardly ever read political blogs. But the thought of making them register as lobbyists just sends chills up my spine. We already had to suffer the total destruction of the first amendment called McCain-Feingold. This would have been just one more step towards a “Minister of Information”.

I read the latest blurb about the upcoming Rush album on Power Windows today. I’m a HUGE Rush fan and I can’t wait to get my hands on any new material they dish out. That being said, I must say that I’m dissapointed though by what I’ve been reading. I’ve commented before on my feelings about Neil Peart’s elevated self-image, but he always seems to come out with some good lyrical material nonetheless. This time around it’s looking different though. It looks like he’s taking the easy way out, by focusing on “religion in America” (that’s code for “I’m gonna bash Christianity bloody”) as the lyrical theme for the new album. That is so weak. How about tackling a subject that hasn’t been rehashed over and over for the last 100 years. It’s just going to be another Christianity bash-fest, and to be honest I’m starting to get pretty sick of it. It’s boring.

I’ve always thought that you can tell when a TV series starts running out of material or losing ratings because they start infusing more and more sex into it. It’s the same with literary work as well. You can tell when someone is starting to run out of ideas when they start bashing Christians. The whole world has been bashing(and killing) Christians since Nero. What more could he possibly bring to the table that is new or will change anybody’s opinions about anything. Maybe Neil should focus on the plight of Christians in his own native country, Canada. I’m convinced that what we are seeing in Canada right now is the first Christian “persecution by political correctness” in history. If Neil styles himself an intellectual, then he should show it by covering a topic that late night comedians haven’t already beaten to death.

The company I work for recently moved into a new office building and subsequently a new computer room. The server room is very small and our server rack barely fits inside it. We have an indepentent AC system doing the cooling for it, but it still needs some sort of temperature monitoring in place to make sure that if the AC unit fails, then someone knows about it pronto. The most “off-the-shelf” stuff are the NetBotz units made by APC. They are plug-and-play network boxes that monitor everything you can think of. They also start at about $1000.

I went on the search for a cheaper alternative and found the 1-wire temp/humidity/flood sensors provided by iButtonLink. They are just the bare sensors with serial connectors for interfacing. The software to query the sensors is called digitemp and runs on Linux and Windows. We already have a monitoring script that runs every 10 minutes to check if certain critical services are down, so modifying it was easy. You can do it with some simple Bash code:

mailto="admin@domain.com"
maxtemp=75

temp=`digitemp -t0 -q -o3 | tr ’.’ ’ ’ | awk ’{print $2}’`
if [ $temp -gt $maxtemp ]; then
   echo "The server room is above the critical 
   temp threshold of $maxtemp." | 
   mail -s "CRITICAL TEMP: $temp" $mailto
fi

Just run that from a cron job every few minutes and you’re good to go. I’m not interested in humidity/water monitoring at the moment, but I’ll post an update as soon as I get those running with some more code.

I love Firefox. If you don’t use it as your main browser then you should. One of the coolest things about it is the ability to add extensions to it, and the community of extension creators that has built up around it over the years. I found a rockin extension on digg yesterday called Tab-Effect. It adds that extra little bit of eye candy that we all crave. It animates transitioning between tabs sort of like Vista and OSX. Unfortunately it’s Windows-only for now, but I’m sure that will change. Grab it here.

Screenshot:

Christians use the phrase “ask Jesus into your heart” a lot. It’s used as a synonymn for the act of salvation. A lot of times it’s combined with something else like “repent of your sins and ask Jesus into your heart”. I think it’s ufortunate that, that has become such a widely used phrase. It doesn’t really tell you anything about what salvation is. It leaves you with the impression that salvation is achieved by feeling really warm and fuzzy about Jesus. That couldn’t be further from the truth, though. The other problem is that it comes from a misinterperetation of scripture. I can only suppose that the phrase has it’s origin in Revelation 3:20:

This is the only place this saying could have come from. If you read the rest of Revelation 3 though, it’s clear that this passage has nothing to do with salvation. This passage is part of Christ’s letters to the seven churches. If the audience in question are churches then why would he be telling them to get saved? I’m really not sure what that passage means but I know it doesn’t mean salvation. That’s an important point to remember when reading scripture. Sometimes it’s perfectly legitimate to know what a passage doesn’t mean even though you aren’t sure what it does mean.

I’m going to do one of those game logs for this one. I’m watching it about 2 hours behind on DVR:

-Jim Tressel must have painted that sweater on. That’s gross. Hey Jim, you know they come in other sizes besides petite small.

-Wow, Ohio State took the opening kickoff 93 yards for a TD. Florida has to respond with some points to show OSU that they can’t just own them.

-Florida responds with a great return, to which OSU counters with the most horrible face mask I’ve ever seen.

-Florida just had a great, methodical drive down the field and capped it off with 7 points. This thing looks like a shootout already. OSU looks rusty on defense. Tebow ran one up the gut for about 8 yards.

-Oh crap. It’s a Pac-10 ref. crew. I hope Bob Stoops isn’t there.

-OSU: 5 yard return. Urban Meyer must have found the kicker and reminded him not to kick it to the fastest guy in America again. I bet he was nice about it too.

-3-and-out! Man, the defensive speed of Florida just shut down OSU. That and the fact that Florida is crushing OSU’s receivers at the line.

-Florida has good field position again after a late hit on the punt-return. They should really cash this in and make a statement to OSU.

-I hate Tebow.

-TD Florida!! Percy Harvin scored on an option pitch. That dude is a freak. It’s so not fair that he is a freshman. I hate him too.

-Oh no. The Pac-10 crew is reviewing the TD. We all know their wonderful track record.

-LOLOLOL!!!! That review was so wrong. He was down a full yard from the goal line. How in the world did the Pac-10 get to work this game after the debacle at Oregon. LOL!

-Well, it took 11 minutes but OSU finally has a first down. Good job guys.

-Uh oh, Ted Ginn is going to the locker room.

-Ok. Case closed. The SEC has the fastest defenses in the country. A Florida defensive end just ran down Troy Smith from behind.

-Interception!!! Florida’s defensive line is running Troy Smith ragged. That was a pressure sack. You can tell that Smith isn’t used to this kind of pressure.

-This is sick. Florida is ripping OSU a new one. They have 105 yards to OSU’s 11. I might get to sleep at a decent hour after all. One more TD and it’s hello Seinfeld reruns on TBS.

-I knew I should have bought some jocky strap stock before this game started. Percy Harvin just left a road of them down the field of them on a reverse.

-I hate Tebow, but I love Tivo. No commercials for me tonight.

-Dang. Another touchdown. Florida has them 21-7 at the start of the second quarter. Here comes the 51 days off talk by the pundits.

-Maybe Ted Ginn, Jr. can throw the ball to himself or something. Troy Smith just got drilled despite the fact that the defender was being held like crazy.

-The Pac-2 crew strikes again. That roughing-the-passer call was weak.

-Here goes Pittman for an OSU TD. That was a sweet run. 21-14 UF.

-Barry Alvarez is calling him Urban Meyers. Isn’t the coaches name the first thing you should memorize when calling a game? I bet he calls him President Boosh.

-Gosh. Leak is on fire right now. Tick, tick, tick. Just counting down ’til the time when the real Leak will come out of hiding and throw some atrocious interceptions.

-That big blue rockem-sockem robot on the Toyota commercial is killing me right now. That thing is freakin’ me out.

-This might be a game after all. OSU forced a punt. YAAAAAYY!

-OSU comes back and has a 3 and out. Florida’s defense has a clear advantage at this point.

-Deshaun Wynn has got to learn not to run backwards. Backwards is bad.

-OSU’s defense already looks tired. Hands on hips isn’t a good sign in the second quarter. Florida has held the ball for almost 20 minutes already.

-Ok. Florida is destined ot win this game. Their kicker is 4 of 13 for the season and just nailed a 43 yarder to the wall and made it look effortless.

-Total Yards, Florida: 209 / OSU:69

-Wow!!! Florida just stopped them twice on 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1. Florida’s defensive line is playing lights out. Florida should really step on their throat right now if they want to control the second half.

-The worst kicker in America just made #2. The planets are aligned for UF.

-Troy Smith got sacked and put it on the turf. Florida picked it up and has it on the 4 yard line. Troy Smith just hasn’t seen this kind of speed before. He is getting run down from behind by linemen.

-Touchdown Florida!! It’s 34-14 UF. OSU’s defense is blowing. There were about 3 wide open receivers on that play.

-Halftime…

-Second half kickoff. Does ESPN have Kirk Herbstreit on suicide watch?

-To add insult to injury, Florida gets the ball back to start the half. Here comes the UF self-destruction. First two plays are a botched snap and a false start.

-OSU held them to 3 and out and then Florida kicked a terrible punt. If Florida lets up they will lose. Same as the Auburn game.

-Earl Everett just sacked Troy Smith without a helmet on. OSU’s O-line just cannot handle Florida’s front four. Maybe Troy can cut out early and attend a Heisman function or something.

-Ted Ginn is on crutches now. That’s too bad. Who knew losing your wide receiver would make your offensive line stink. He looks like a q-tip with that white spandex cap on his head.

-You knew that was coming. Holding on OSU. The story of this game is Florida’s defensive front four owning OSU’s o-line. That, and Eddie George’s suit.

-Man, OSU might as well not even have an o-line. Florida is dismantling the pocket as soon as the ball is snapped.

-Now OSU’s defense is starting to break down. That time-of-posession is starting to take it’s toll on them. Florida’s receivers aren’t getting touched off the line.

-Why is the camera man keeping the camera on Laurenitis when it’s obvious he got racked up. Let the poor guy suffer in peace.

-Another sack.

-My goodness. Percy Harvin just left 5 more jockey straps on the field. He could make a hammock from all the jockeys he’s collecting.

-Tebow gets another TD. There’s 10 minutes left in the game and OSU still hasn’t gotten 100 yards of offense. LOL! This game is over. Go SEC!!!! This should shut the Michigan fans up for good.