Made by Mikal – Page 44

Openstack compute node cleanup

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 20, 2011
Post category:OpenStack

I've never used openstack before, which I imagine is similar to many other people out there. Its actually pretty cool, although I encountered a problem the other day that I think is worthy of some more documentation. Openstack runs virtual machines for users, in much the same manner as Amazon's EC2 system. These instances are started with a base image, and then copy on write is used to write differences for the instance as it changes stuff. This makes sense in a world where a given machine might be running more than one copy of the instance. However, I encountered a compute node which was running low on disk. This is because there is currently nothing which cleans up these base images, so even if none of the instances on a machine require that image, and even if the machine is experiencing disk stress, the images still hang around. There are a few blog posts out there about this, but nothing really definitive that I could find. I've filed a bug asking for the Ubuntu package to include some sort of cleanup script, and interestingly that led me to learn that there are plans for a pretty comprehensive image management…

On syncing with Google Contacts

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 16, 2011
Post category:Google

So, I started with a new company a few weeks ago, and one of the things I missed from my previous company was having the entire corporate directory synced onto my phone. Its really handy as an on caller to be able to give people a call when something goes wrong, without having to dig around and find their details. Back in the good old days at Google the way you got this sort of data onto your phone was to run a script written by one of the guys on the gmail team. The script grabbed the LDAP directory, and pushed it into Google contacts, which you could then sync with your phone. Now I wanted something very similar -- especially as the contacts sync stuff with Android is pretty reasonable. However, I'd never coded with the Google public APIs before, and that turned out to be the hardest part of the problem. First off I wrote a little script which dumped the corporate directory into a text file. I mostly did this because I wanted other people to be able to run the script in as light weight a manner as possible -- for example, if we wanted…

Speaker For The Dead

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 14, 2011
Post category:Book

This is the second book in the Ender's Game series, and is better than the novelized Ender's Game, although it is impossible to beat the short story version. Ender has grown a lot over the time between this book and the last, and the story is compelling and believable. I really enjoyed this book.

By Blood Alone

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 7, 2011
Post category:Book

Maybe I've been reading too much combat fiction recently and need a change of scenery. Or perhaps its just that this book isn't as good as the last two (Legion of the Damned and The Final Battle). The characters aren't the strongest, and the plot is weaker than the previous two books. On the other hand, I did finish the book, and don't regret reading it. Oh, the cliff hanger ending is annoying too. [isbn: 9780441006311; 0441006310]

The Final Battle

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 7, 2011
Post category:Book

I somehow forgot to make a note about this book when I read it, I suspect because I was travelling at the time. This book was as good as Legion of the Damned and an enjoyable read. The book continues straight on from the previous one, and possibly should have been inside the same volume. A fun read. [isbn: 9780441002177; 044100217X]

The Difference Engine

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 5, 2011
Post category:Book

This is my first steam punk book, and I am not really sure that the genre is my thing. However, the book is clever and interesting and certainly explores an interesting alternate history. The book sort of lost its way in the middle, but picked up again towards the end. Overall, an ok but not stellar read. [isbn: 055329461X] [awards: nebula nominee 1991]

Woken Furies

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 24, 2011
Post category:Book

This is the third book in the Takeshi Kovaks series. It is similar to the second book, and follows on more strongly from that one that the first book. This is consistent with the overall arc if the series, so it doesn't bother me that it is different from the first book. Overall I liked this book, and read it fairly quickly. I think the end is good and was largely unexpected. [isbn: 0575081279]

Anathem

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 12, 2011
Post category:Book

At first I thought this book was just a descriptive work about a decidedly interesting alternate culture. That would have been in line with a lot of the Baroque Cycle. However, this book is so much more. There is an adventure store, some really interesting philosophy, and even a bit of romance. I enjoyed this book, even if it took ages to read its over 900 pages. [isbn: 9780061474101] [awards: nominee hugo 2009; nominee prometheus 2009]

Legion of the Damned

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 12, 2011
Post category:Book

This is a quite good combat science fiction book. I'm not really sure how I discovered this series, but I'm glad I did. There are some new ideas here, as well as some that mirror John Ring (incompetence in command) and Keith Laumer (alien invasion). Overall and enjoyable read, and I'll be reading more from this series. [isbn: 9780441480401]

A World Out of Time

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 8, 2011
Post category:Book

I was reading about cryogenics a couple of weeks ago, and that got me interested in stories around that topic. This book was one of those recommended as exploring the implications of being woken up after a long time. The first half of this book is better than the last half to be honest. I liked how the world had changed, and thought the employment prospects for a recently thawed person were both clever, and possible. However, the distant future world at the end of the book didn't seem as well done to me, and was a stretch at best. An ok book, but not the best I have read recently. [isbn: 345257502]