Dave's Good Stuff

I’ve got the bug again.
I can’t help it. I remember having so much fun building my own computers 7-10 years ago. I’d find the fastest video card I could (it was all about the monster gaming rig back then), then the best motherboard to support it, a top-of-the-line CPU (I preferred AMD back then) to run it, and fast memory to carry it all. Once that was nailed down, I’d go for speedy hard drives, a rockin’ sound card, optical drives, fancy internal cabling, and finally an easy to work with aluminum case with a power supply beefy enough to run it all to hold all the guts.

Back then, it was all about pushing the most polygons in the least amount of time for maximum framerates.

I operated that way for years, until I got tired of lugging around the heavy rig to LAN parties. So I opted for my first pre-fab computer in the form of a desktop-replacement laptop. I’ve used it steady and with very few problems for the last 5 years or so. Ironically, once I finally decided to go with an easily transportable laptop for LAN parties, the LAN parties fizzled out. No matter, I still love having a laptop around for general portability.

To this day, I’ve not owned a desktop that I haven’t either put together entirely on my own from the motherboard up, or at least heavily modified one way or another. Nor will I. I won’t – no nay never – buy a pre-fab monstrosity from Office Buy, or Best Depot, or some Corner Geek Shop.

A laptop? Sure. A desktop or server? No. Nay. Never.

Now, having updated my server to the latest version of FreeBSD, I’ve got the bug again. All that playing around with the guts of FreeBSD, relearning this and that, up and woke the bug up again. Which is good and convenient, because I’ve had some interesting fixed disk issues with the new kernel.

Hardware issues
Part of the upgrade involved utilizing the onboard Promise RAID on the Gigabyte GA-7DXR. I’m not convinced that’s the root of my problems, but I’m not convinced it ain’t. For starters, and most likely completely unrelated, I’m getting the following errors in dmesg:

GEOM: ad0: partition 1 does not start on a track boundary.
GEOM: ad0: partition 1 does not end on a track boundary.
GEOM: ad0s1: geometry does not match label (16h,63s != 16h,255s).
GEOM: ad5s1: geometry does not match label (255h,63s != 16h,63s).
GEOM: ad7s1: geometry does not match label (255h,63s != 16h,63s).

I suspect FreeBSD’s installer for those messages, actually. But, since the upgrade, I’ve had two spontaneous and unannounced reboots. The first time, there were no indications of anything amiss in the logs. The second time, I found this:

ar0: WARNING - mirror protection lost. RAID1 array in DEGRADED mode
kernel: unknown: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (1 retry left) LBA=765023
kernel: unknown: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (0 retries left) LBA=765023

Followed immediately by a 7 hour gap in logging clearly indicative of another hard reset. Pretty sure that’s RAID related.

That 7 hours ended when I noticed the server stuck in POST at an angry FastBuild screen demanding attention, and had to rebuild the array in order to get past POST. It worked, and all is up and running again, but with diminished confidence.

The research I’ve had time for has yielded sparse results, indicating either that I have a serious problem that needs immediate attention and I’d better have solid backups or I’m screwed to Taiwan and back, OR… it’s nothing serious and has been showing up for the last few FreeBSD releases.

I’ll dig into fdisk, atacontrol, smartctl and sysctl in more depth this weekend to see what that turns up, and then I’ll turn my attention to hardware research.

Server Plans
When some funds clear up, I’m going to build a new server to operate as a media center/file server for the family. It’ll be a beefy box with built in data redundancy, lots of drive space, backup power, and not much in the way of gaming potential.

I may entertain MythTV or something like it to replace the rental DVR (and then some).

So, the bug is back, but it’s purpose is vastly different now. Framerate has taken a distant backseat to reliability now… well, at least until Diablo III comes out…

Jami saw my PuTTY screen a couple of weeks ago while I was preparing a major home server upgrade. Upon noticing the frantic scrolling green text of a compile in progress (I have my term colors set to mimic the old Apple //e I grew up with), she belted out “What’s that?! What are you doing?! Is that some sort of crazy ‘Logo Rhythm’ thing?!”

She’s prone to sudden and unexpected outbursts. It’s her way.

One such outburst involved the History Channel. While on the couch together I was watching the History Channel (and it wasn’t about Hitler!) while she and a friend of ours who was sitting on the other couch, were talking about flowers, or butterflies, or ribbons, or some such thing. Upon noticing what I was watching, Jami immediately belted out “Boring!! What is that?!”

I couldn’t help but start laughing. As did our friend. As did, or course, Jami. The passion with which she evoked the single word “Boring!” was admirable. Thus, it immediately joined ranks with the many inside jokes we’ve developed over the last two(ish) years. I did not, however, change the channel.

This time, having asked with equal passion (and a touch of fear) about those crazy “Logo Rhythm” things, I knew immediately what she was talking about. She was talking about “Logo“, that old teaching tool for up and coming programmers where you push the little turtle this way and that. I’m not sure what that says about me that I knew immediately what she was talking about, other than perhaps that I’m critically geek. It’s my way.

New inside joke: Check.

Her childlike enthusiasm and high intensity are just two of the many things I adore about my wife. Put the two together and you have a definite distinct incomparable third.

Lest you think I make fun too much, ask her sometime about “squeeze more bees.” I’m certainly not above my own butchered colloquialisms… Then there’s my penchant for self injury… In short, I’m a bit of a mess.

Now, if you’re reading this, then the server upgrade is complete and all is back in order. I’m finally current, having not upgraded my poor server in over six years.

The two major upgrades were FreeBSD 5.x to 8.x including all the userland components, and Apache 1.3.x to Apache 2.x (yes, I finally made the move). Additionally, I reconfigured the hardware to take advantage of the Gigabyte GA-7DXR onboard RAID1 capability. Yeah, it’s an old motherboard, and I’m just mirroring, but it still works and I don’t need blazing performance. I just need some assurance against drive failure.

I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I tried things out over at Blogspot, and while it’s a great service, and I applaud the whole free blogging service idea, I’m too much of a control freak. I want to run my own stuff. I’m just a geek that way, I suppose.

So… posting will resume here.

Thank you.

This morning’s ride was a touch on the damp side. It rained last night, and I debated swapping the ‘Relli (I’m still looking for a good name for it…) for the Kona, but decided that the dry spots in the driveway were indicative enough of rain-past vs. rain-current that I’d risk it. It wasn’t too bad. A little damper than I’d like, but the spray wasn’t bad, and the frame had only a few spots on it when I was done. A little water and some paper towels took care of it nicely.

Last night’s ride was phenomenal. A slamhammafest, I hit an average of 18 MPH on my long ride home, coming in at 51 minutes and 1 second, beating my previous best by 6 minutes and 4 seconds. Of course, that previous best was on the Kona, so I would expect a much better time on the Torelli, even laden with heavy frame bags and lighting. I was tired when I got home, but nowhere near as tired as I was when I first started this back in November ’07. I’d be so beat after riding almost 8 miles that I didn’t even feel like taking the panniers off the bike and upstairs. Hammering it solid for 50 minutes now has me tired and soaked with perspiration, but a shower and a drink and I’m ready to go.

Chalk one up in the Health->Endurance column under Benefits of Regular Exercising…

There were some interest things coming across the intarwebs this morning, so I thought I’d share some of them. I don’t plan to make linklists a regular thing, but for some reason, it felt right this morning…

Serious injury results from an allegedly improperly assembled Walmart bicycle. The family is suing the retail giant. Story here. On the first ride for the 13-year-old boy, the handlebars “detached from the steering stem, causing Plaintiff to lose control of the bicycle, flip over the handle bars, and strike the ground, hitting his right shoulder on the curb, and causing Plaintiff severe and permanent injuries.” Don’t trust department store bikes. Spend the extra money and go to your LBS. Your health and mobility is just too important.

Noah has some fantastic tips for reducing fuel consumption here. It all boils down to planning ahead, and realizing that most of what you need is within easy biking distance. The comments section on his post led me to the Twike. It ain’t cheap, but how freakishly cool! It reminds me of the go-one³.

Warren-T says he rides because it’s fun. Honestly, it’s really as simple as that, no matter what fancy frilly reasons you lay on top of it. We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun. Someone else, isn’t having nearly as good a time. He’s mad as hell and ain’t gonna take it no mo’. Can’t say I blame him.

Breaking news… people are immature! One of my favorite reads is the Tuscon Bike Lawyer. Today he laments about immature people responding to the natural state of the human body. Ok, maybe it’s not the natural state to be nude on a bicycle, but it is the natural state to be on a bike. Unfortunately, via Recumbum, there are no naked rides for Kansas. However, if you’re of the mind, half naked little people in Australia will pour copious amounts of booze down your gullet. Duder looks a little like a tiny Arnold.

Bike Noob has a new toy. He lost his other bike computer, and picked up one with cadence. He’s having some problems getting the magnet to register with the cadence sensor, and one of the comments has the out-of-the-box idea of putting a rare earth magnet directly in the pedal spindle. It’s tough to see, but that little nubbin sticking out along the axis of the pedal is a magnet. So simple, and yet brilliant.

Tangentially related to cycling, in that cycling makes use of terrain which can, in turn, be mapped, and which also typically takes place in some sort of weather, fans of Google Maps, Map Mashups and weather tracking may appreciate efforts put towards mapping the 2008 US storm season.

On a completely unrelated note, our lead IT tech just sent out an e’mail telling everyone that the Exchange server was down. Seriously.

I don’t know how honestly useful it will be, but it’s geeky cool factor is off the charts. As seen on /., and straight from my childhood… Goosh!.

Here be files to download.

Here Be Screenshots

The Stats Sheet… no input required, simply play and watch the numbers gather.

The Match Sheet… plug in the match points and table size, and then for each inning, the balls pocketed in the “Balls” column, and why the inning ended in the “Finish” column. It’s that easy!

Billiards and Pool Stuff

The following are all Excel 2003 spreadsheets I use to keep track of my Straight Pool games. They’re provided as is, though I do tweak them a bit every now and again. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment below. I’m always open for suggestions and ideas.

• Straight Pool (14:1 Continuous) Scoresheet (~220KB .zip)

  A handy (at least for me) spreadsheet I built that takes most of the work out of playing Straight Pool. All the players need do, aside from actually bringing a laptop with them to make the recording of the match easier and the statistics real-time, is in the shaded columns place the number of balls potted, and then place a letter in the adjacent column indicating why the inning ended, be it a miss (m), a safety (s) or, Heaven forbid, a foul (f).

  What you get…

  • 1 worksheet for stats across 10 games
  • 10 worksheets, one for each game, on which match points, table size and scores are entered.

  What it does…

  • displays the total balls potted
  • tracks the current rack
  • tallies the balls potted in the current rack
  • figures the balls remaining in the current rack
  • determines the foul the player is on (with appropriate penalties for consecutive fouls)
  • knows the number of successful safeties
  • tells of the number of unsuccessful safeties
  • calculates the player’s current score
  • reveals the player’s high run
  • computes the number of runs 5 and over
  • enumerates the number of runs 10 and over
  • reckons the number of runs 20 and over

  As you can see, it’s chock full of geekish goodness. Enjoy!

• Straight Pool (14:1 Continuous) Three Player Scoresheet (~313KB .zip)

  This spreadsheet is pretty much the same as the other, keeping track of all the same things, except it does so for three players, rather than two. Sometimes it’s fun to play a game of Round Robin Straight. It keeps everyone involved and feeling good.

• Equal Offense Scoresheet (~18KB .zip)

  This one is pretty simple.

  1. For each frame in a game, put your run in the first column, and the reason the run ended in the second, be it a miss (m), a safety (s) or, Heaven forbid, a foul (f).
  2. Watch the pretty graphs draw themselves!

After playing with the spreadsheets last Sunday, some weaknesses became apparent. I’ve updated the spreadsheets to address those weaknesses.

To wit:

I now track the total number of balls potted, the current rack number, the balls potted in the current rack and the balls remaining in the current rack. This will help with score keeping if you’re anything like us and sometimes forget how many balls a player potted in their last inning. Without a dedicated score keeping lackey, it’s sometimes tough to keep track.

An interesting, if not entirely useful statistic would be the percentage of racks finished by each player. The formulas for keeping track of the current rack and ball count was tough enough, I’m really not sure how I’d go about that.

I also fixed some miscalculations in the 3 person score sheet. The stats for the third player were not being calculated correctly. They are now.

So, without further ado…

Straight Pool Scores and Stats Sheet [~220KB .zip file]
Three person Straight Pool Scores and Stats Sheet [~320KB .zip file]

While not nearly as complex as my Straight Pool Scoresheet, my Equal Offense scoresheet might still come in handy. I’ve used it (in one of it’s many incarnations) for years as a way to gauge my progress (always in the positive, btw – I’m doing something right).

You can download it here [.zip ~17KB] if you’re of the mind.

On the Scoresheet worksheet, each inning is split into two columns, the 1st for your score, and the 2nd for the “Frame Conclusion.” I’ve used drop down menus for the 2nd column… you have the options of “f” for Foul and “m” for Miss. The rest of the columns are self explanatory.

The Trends tab is there to show progress over time.

EO, in case you didn’t know, is basically one person Straight Pool. It’s structured so you can get a real sense of improvement and progress.

From the Pool & Billiards FAQ:

Same rules as straight pool (14.1) except as noted. (You must be familiar with those rules, or EO won’t make much sense, especially the break shot with the 15th ball.) Each player gets ten turns alone at the table; a turn begins with an open break of a full rack, and ends on a miss, foul, or run of twenty. Respot any balls that go in on the open break, and start with ball in hand in the kitchen. There is no penalty for scratching on the break. A foul does not subtract points, it just ends the turn, but balls made on a foul do not count. There is no head-to-head play, so there are no safeties.

There are variations you can apply, such as allowing three misses before you close the frame, or limiting yourself to 15 ball runs (preventing having to think about the break shot for the next rack). If you start one way, though, do yourself a favor and be consistent.

I’ve been toiling away for the last few days on a way to keep score during 14:1 Continuous (Straight Pool) matches in the most geekish way possible – with a spreadsheet. I hate trying to do the math while I’m playing a game of 14:1 on those little score pads built into the table, or worse yet, on an abacus style score string hung above the table. It’s distracting from my world beating runs of 6, or even 14 balls at a time! Using a handwritten scoresheet just means more math, and not much in the way of decent analysis.

Hence, the spreadsheet solution.

The rules are pretty involved, especially around fouls and the penalties therein, so it took a while to get it right. Frankly, I’m not convinced I have gotten it entirely right. So, while I’m making this spreadsheet available, use at your own risk, and if there’s money on the game, don’t come running to me if the score keeping isn’t entirely accurate. This is pre-alpha type stuff here, people.

That said, try out my Straight Pool Scores and Stats Sheet [~220KB .zip file] if you’re of the mind. There’s also a three person version [~320KB .zip file] available if you like to play three person Straight Pool.

All the cells are locked and the workbook and all included sheets are protected, but there is no password. I did that simply to ease the transition between cells, and to prevent any errant fiddling in the middle of a heated match.

The first sheet, “Stats” is where the matches are summarized. You shouldn’t have to do anything here but gaze in wonder at your prowess.

The rest of the sheets, named “1″ through “10″ are the matches. You can edit the colored cells, and they are:

• Match Point is the number of points to win the match.
• Table Size is there in case you want to know the table size you played the match on. I know… it’s only ever legitimate on a 9′ table, but sometimes it’s fun to mess around on 7′s and 8′s.
• The column under the heading “Balls” is where you record the number of balls you made that inning. The next column under “Finish” is where you record why you quit shooting, be it a foul (f), a safety (s), or a miss (m). It’s important that you use the letters f, s and m in order for the stats and scores to be accurate.

I would like to work in a way to highlight when a rack is done. It might be nice to know how many racks it took to get to a certain score over time as a way of gauging progress.

Let me know what you think of it. I look forward to hearing what all three of you think!

With a $5 purchase of anything, Sharks is offering free pool(!) Sunday afternoons. Free pool is one of my favorite things in the world. Of course, it’s not technically “free” if you have to buy something to get it, but for $5, several hours on a 9′er is hard to beat.

The GF and I went up there just before 2 to meet another friend of ours. Our plan was to get some Straight Pool in, and generally start to whip our games back into shape. I’d spent the morning elbow deep in geekery building a spreadsheet that takes in the score for the inning, and what caused the inning to end, be it a foul, safety, or a miss, and automagickally calculate all sorts of nifty, but ultimately useless stats. I couldn’t wait to try it out. You know how I love my stats!

Not long after we sat down, the captain of another team I’ve been wanting to play on asked me what my afternoon looked like. They were getting ready to start a make-up match, and were short some players. Of course, at that point, my afternoon cleared right up! I ended up winning three and losing 1. I should have won, but I played the player instead of the table, and relaxed too much. He blundered past me by virtue of too many mistakes on my part. It could have been worse, though. The captain told me to show up Tuesday night ready to play. :)

The rest of the afternoon went pretty well. We shot some terrible 14:1 and put the spreadsheet through it’s paces. It could use some tweaking to make it easier to use while we’re shooting, but other than that, it’s not too bad. I may post it here once I’ve worked out some of the issues.