Made by Mikal – Page 74

The Stainless Steel Rat Goes To Hell

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 11, 2008
Post category:Book

This book is weak compared to some of the best Stainless Steel Rat books. It suffers from the same almost-impossible-to-believe plot lines as The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World and The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You. Frankly, the book also jumps around a lot, and I found it hard to follow. On the other hand, this series has never pretended to be great literature, and this book is light years better than the work of the world's most boring author. [isbn: 0812551079]

Iron Master

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 9, 2008
Post category:Book

This is the third book in the Amtrak Wars series. I think this is a better book than First Family, which suffered from not having much plot development. This book on the other hand moves the plot along, whilst being interesting. You also get to learn more about the Iron Masters, as well as how dodgy the First Family is. A good read. [isbn: 0671653385;0722185189]

paramiko exec_command timeout

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 6, 2008
Post category:Python

I have a paramiko program which sshs to a large number of machines, and sometimes it hits a machine where Channel.exec_command() doesn't return. I know this is a problem with the remote machine, because the same thing happens when I try to ssh to the machine from the command line. However, I don't have any way of determining which machines are broken beforehand. Paramiko doesn't support a timeout for exec_command(), so I am looking for a generic way of running a function call with a timeout. I can see sample code which does this using threads, but that's pretty ugly. I can't use SIGALARM because I am not running on the main thread. Can anyone think of a better way of doing this?

MythNetTV release 6

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 4, 2008
Post category:Mythtv

New things in this release: Better testing: r114: Unit tests for video.py r148: Updated unit test now that we create more tables r151: Start work on syndication unit tests r153: Unit test for bad syndication dates, as well as more flexibility in db connections needed for this unit test r157: Nicer unit test failure output, and refactor GetVideoDir() into the utility module r181: Slightly improve syndication unit tests r183: Add flag parsing to unit tests, and fix some more flag name changes Better documentation: r117: Added a man page for video.py -- I'm not 100% happy with its name though Bug fixes: r114: Fixed a bug where the new filename for video transcode could be the same as the input filename, resulting in video corruption. This was found with one of the new video.py unit tests r116: The logic for the --prompt flag was the wrong way around. Fixed. r119: Nicer download status messages r121: Handle 404s in feed updates better r129: Slight tweak to SVN submit script r131: More accurate tracking of proxy usage (update during download, instead of just at the end) r137: Proxy budget being exceeded doesn't count as a failed download attempt r143: Subscribe now renables…

The Malloreon

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 4, 2008
Post category:Book

This is the followup series to the Belgariad. Its mostly a sequel series, but is quite readable and worth the effort. 1988: Guardians of the West 1989: King of the Murgos 1989: Demon Lord of Karanda 1990: Sorceress of Darshiva 1992: Seeress of Kell

The Seeress of Kell

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 4, 2008
Post category:Book

The conclusion to the Malloreon. Quite a good read, although the plot twists are predictable. [isbn: 0345377591]

Books read in September 2008

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 2, 2008
Post category:Book

Enchanters' End Game Robot Visions Forward the Foundation Foundation Foundation and Empire Guardians of the West The Stainless Steel Rat for President King of the Murgos Second Foundation Sticklers, Sideburns and Bikinis (not fully read yet, its a reference book) Foundation's Fear (didn't finish cause it sucked) Demon Lord of Karanda Sorceress of Darshiva

Sorceress of Darshiva

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 1, 2008
Post category:Book

This is book four of the Malloreon. It feels like not much happens in this book, although there is plot development happening. I guess it more feels like this book is a connector between the book before and the book after, and not much more. On the other hand, it was an engaging read. [isbn: 0345369351]

Demon Lord of Karanda

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 29, 2008
Post category:Book

I needed something to cheer me up after the previous sucky book. This one did the trick. Again its pretty standard Fantasy stuff, and there were no surprises, but its fun to read. [isbn: 0345363310]

Foundation’s Fear

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 28, 2008
Post category:Book

This book is a solid zero stars in my mind. I got to page 372, but simply couldn't wade through the chore any longer. The plot meanders, and its not clear to me where the story is going. Worse still, basically nothing has happened yet. I am a little surprised, given the generally positive LibraryThing reviews. I should have read the Amazon reviews instead. Some examples: Normally, I do a lot of my reading on the train (BART for those of you familiar with San Francisco), getting to and from work. An engrossing book keeps me awake and I read it relatively quickly. "Foundation's Fear", especially the first half of it, set a record for putting me to sleep. There were days in when I only managed to read a couple of pages. A paragraph or two and I'd be out, even before the train started moving. As others here have pointed out, there is a lot of boring dialogue and description and much of it focuses around the Voltaire and Joan of Arc artificial entities. Hundreds of pages of philosophical noodling and descriptions of imaginary scenes conjured up in cyberspace become numbing. And another: This book is not good,…