A Tree for Jimmy from Ralph
A Happy Romp through Space regarding the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Monthly Archives: April 2005
Darcs use case
Here is a simple example illustrating the coolness of Darcs over, say, Arch or anything else.
Trying out XFS
I’ve used most of the different filesystems in Linux. My most recent favorite has been JFS, but things like starvation with find have really been annoying me lately. To summarize, here is my experience with filesystems:
- ext2: very slow, moderately unreliable
- ext3: somewhat slow but reliable
- reiserfs: fast, unreliable (cross-linked data after crash issues)
- jfs: usually fast, somewhat unreliable (similar issues after crash, plus weird charset issues)
The one major Linux FS not in that list is XFS. So I decided to give it a whirl, switching my 40GB /home on one machine to XFS. So far, it’s been good.
There are two articles at IBM developerworks about XFS that were useful. There’s also a useful filesystems comparison from Novell.
The answer is…
The answer to the pickup poll is $75. That answer scored third place.
A darcs that can pull from git
Sweet.
Juliusz Chroboczek has announced a working prototype of a darcs that can pull from git. This follows a long discussion on darcs-devel about how darcs could interoperate with git.
Benefits from a real world switch from CVS to darcs
I found this article while surfing today. Looks like a good read:
Benefits from a real world switch from CVS to darcs
One thing the author didn’t mention, since everything is presumably on a LAN in their environment, is the substantial performance benefits in darcs from not having to hit the net for so many activities.
Period Clothes
Some fun reflections from Marty.
Our New Pickup!
Yesterday, we got our new pickup! It is exactly what we wanted. We didn’t need one of these yuppie trucks that works year-round, goes faster than 55MPH, and has a fully intact body. No, what we need is something that we can use every other week or so to haul stuff off to the dump. Something that works most of the year. Something cheap.
So I’ve assembled some photos of this wonder. We’ll begin with the high-quality metal body:
Click here to read more (and see more photos)…
Next up, the jug of antifreeze it came with, “just in case”:
Next, the luxurious interior:
And now, the high-quality floor — only one hole in 25 years:
Recent bodywork to improve the exterior:
Loose mystery wires at the rear bumper:
And finally, this wonder of modern transportation in all its glory:
YAPGE: PR Firms
In today’s installment of Yet Another Paul Graham Essay, he’s talking about PR firms. The article begins like this:
“Suits make a corporate comeback,” says the New York Times. Why does this sound familiar? Maybe because the suit was also back in September 2004, June 2004, September 2003, November 2002, and February 2002.
The Yes Men
Greencine just sent us The Yes Men, a hilarous real-life documentary about a group of activists who run a website that parodies the World Trade Organization. The funny thing is, people periodically think that these guys are the real WTO and invite them to appear on TV, speak at conferences, etc. And they do it.
The film documents their various hijinks. Whether its from a program recycling human waste to end 3rd-world starvation and boost the profits of McDonald’s, or an assertion that private schools would lead to fewer people that question the WTO, or even an outlandish costume resembling the male anatomy, the really horrifying thing is that everybody thinks they’re serious. The real people at these conferences think that they are absolutely serious in their descriptions of the WTO. They were even quoted in the Canadian parliament.
It’s a fun film to watch, as well as being eye-opening. It is shocking what people these days are willing to accept in the name of free trade.