vCenter 5.1 is a pain!

I'm wishing I could just use 5.0, but I need some of the 5.1 functionality for nested virtual servers...

After running the Simple Setup, I get an error trying to log into the web client:

Failed to connect to VMware Lookup Service
https://:744/lookupservice/sdk - SSL certificate verification failed. 

Rebooting and waiting ten minutes for the service to start up fixes this.

After successfully logging into the web client with admin@System-Domain account, it doesn't list any available vCenter servers.  It appears that the vCenter service never registered with the Lookup Service, so this has to be done manually, per the doc at http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2033620.  See the "Registering vCenter Server with Inventory Service" section.

cd C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\VirtualCenter Server\isregtool

register-is.bat https://machinename.corp.com:443/sdk https://machinename.corp.com:10443 https://machinename.corp.com:7444/lookupservice/sdk

This seemed to work well.  Loads of text scrolling by during the register.  After connecing back up to teh Web Client, There was a message showing the following (not exactly, I didn't capture this verbatem):

Unable to connect to one or more vCenter Servers:
https://:xxxx

So I'm pretty back to where I was before trying to register the vCenter server with Inventory Manger.

Linux Swap Create Init Script

I use an SSD as my primary drive.  I used to have a swap partition on it (I know, bad idea on SSD) and it had probs w/ data corruption and the swap randomly being disabled.  Linux supports trim for SSDs, but trim won't do anything for swap that's always on a specific set of blocks in the SSD...

If we need swap space, but don't want it to always hit the same part of the SSD, we should be able to use a swap file in /tmp, allocating 2GB at boot. At least in Ubuntu, /tmp is cleaned up each boot, so when we create our swap file, trim has the opportunity to put the file on some fresh SSD sectors.

Here's the init script for this:


#!/bin/sh
#
# setup swap file init script
#

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          atop
# Required-Start:    $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $syslog
# Should-Start:      $local_fs
# Should-Stop:       $local_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Monitor for system resources and process activity
# Description:       Atop is an ASCII full-screen performance monitor,
#                    similar to the top command, but atop only shows
#                    the active system-resources and processes, and
#                    only shows the deviations since the previous
#                    interval.
### END INIT INFO

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
SWAPFILE=/tmp/swapfile
NAME=init_swap.sh
DESC="tmp swapfile creator"

case "$1" in
        start)
                echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
                if $0 status >/dev/null
                then
                        echo "    Already Running."
                        exit 0
                fi

                test -f ${SWAPFILE} && rm ${SWAPFILE}
                dd if=/dev/zero of=${SWAPFILE} bs=1M count=2048
                mkswap ${SWAPFILE}
                swapon ${SWAPFILE}
                echo "        Done."
                ;;
        stop)
                echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
                $0 status >/dev/null && swapoff ${SWAPFILE}
                test -f ${SWAPFILE} && rm ${SWAPFILE}
                echo "        Done."
                exit 0
                ;;
        status)

                if swapon -s | grep -q ^/tmp/swapfile

                then

                        echo "Swap is enabled"

                        exit 0

                else

                        echo "Swap is not enabled"

                        exit 1

                fi

                ;;

        *)

                N=/etc/init.d/$NAME

                echo "Usage: $N {start|status}" >&2

                exit 1

                ;;

esac

exit 0

Way cool dream about freedom of information...

I find myself sitting in a college lecture hall, much like the old ones at Shasta College. There are two people up front, a man and a woman; I’m not sure which of them was actually the instructor. They seem more interested in each other than teaching and put on some music, using an iPod, that they want the class to listen to. It’s hard to hear and the class gets restless.

People in class start suggesting better things to listen to. I’m tired and slump down in my chair, half asleep. My friend Jon, sitting diagonally behind me says we should listen to something. I say lethargically that I can’t even hear him. He starts the song playing on his laptop.

As I glance over, I see the album cover on the screen and I’m pulled into the music!

I find myself on a floating airship, totally steam-punk style. It’s an elongated oval hewn from yellow wood, with two great propellers spinning underneath, one at each end, and the ship is probably fifteen feet long. Offset from the perimeter of the craft by a small walkway is a bookshelf that wraps most of the way around and is loaded with books facing outward. All of the ship’s wood paneling is carved with intricate symbols.

Listening to the music, I look into a gap between a coupe of the books, and it seems that the shelf is forever deep, despite the ship only being a few feet across.

Glancing around, I see that there are four well dressed and well mannered fantasy creatures, each a different species having a variety of ears and humanoid/animal faces.

As the music plays, the creatures chatter about how the Marxists, the Librists, and the Serialists are no longer being persecuted and that they can finally return to society.


INTERPRETATION:

The school scene is symbolic of the poor state of our educational systems, or perhaps any social program that’s in place that perpetuates the state of our society. The teachers work to satisfy their flesh while they do a crappy job of feeding the class whatever the system has given them to teach.

The students represent “society”. They are fed so much BS through the schools and the media that, although they know that there’s a problem, most can’t figure out what to do about it.

The magnificence of the airship stands for a golden age that will come when information flows freely. The truth speaks for itself, and dysfunction cannot be hidden by bureaucracy. The books are the wealth of information that is unavailable to us.

The persecution is our world’s corporate and political attacks on free speech, whistle blowing (reform), and on file sharing.

The Marxists bring social change or reform. The Librists are keepers and sharers of knowledge. The Serialists are those who digitize and preserve information.

That the persecution is over gives me great hope!

Quick swim report from today - 1.3 miles, ~53deg water, ~45 min

I stopped wearing a wetsuit the week before last as Folsom lake was starting to warm up pretty good. We have had a few cloudy, cold, days since then, though. Today was one of those. I really didn't feel like getting in when I got to Beals Point today and was already feeling a little chilled before getting into the water. I'm really glad I got in, though. It always feels good swimming, running, etc. once I get moving.

There were five of us in the water today. We swam straight across to the tree and stopped to wait for the last two people to make it across. I was starting to feel pretty cold standing there so followed the levy making the return trip. My form felt a little sloppy, probably because I was thinking about being chilled and not staying as focused as I could have. About half way back, I could feel the blood-flow cut off to my forearms, hands, and lower legs; They didn't really feel any more cold than the rest of my skin, being in the chilly water, but all the muscles that far out became very sluggish and weak. Not a problems for swimming, though, since that uses all the bigger muscles in closer to the middle.

This used to happen to me when I rode motorcycle year round. To keep warm on rides in the winter, my body would restrict blood flow to the arms and legs, but the core would just be radiant with heat. When I'd get to where I was going and get off the bike, the valves controlling blood flow to my extremities would all open back up and I could feel hot blood flush through my arms again as circulation returned to normal.

It's interesting having a crash course in cold tolerance while swimming, but it's a little unnerving because it takes place out in the middle of the lake. I recall, back when I used to ride lots, that staying warm was mostly a matter of keeping focused and not worrying about how cold my fingers felt. I kind of expect that if I paid lots of attention to my form and kept my body calm, I could stay comfortable for quite a bit longer in these conditions. It's also good to know that the body goes through a predictable process as it starts to cool off, so one should be able to clearly assess when it starts to become a risk to stay in the water longer. The body is highly adaptable and robust, and our limits are mostly mental in unfamiliar environments.

Running and familiarity with one's body...

I've been exploring a different style of running for about a month now in which one lands on the midfoot or forefoot instead of the heel with each step. Without getting into that too much, I wanted to post a response from this thread on a Minimalist Runner forum:

Pain, or sensation, is objective information about what's happening in our bodies. There are a rainbow of sensations that we can experience. The way we respond to each sensation depends on it's colour. By it's nature, sensation draws our attention, but the more familiar we are with the (colour of the) sensation, the better we understand it, the more control we have over how much awareness we put toward it.

Some sensations we are familiar with. Of these, we recognize some but put little thought into them unless needed. For example, the sensation of each step as we walk, we pay little mind to unless we are traversing rough terrain. Other sensations we are familiar with, like the sensation of a pulled muscle, we pay much attention to because we know (instinctually and logically) that antagonizing this sensation means we can do great or irreparable damage to our bodies. New sensations, we pay much attention to. We contrast them with similar sensations from other parts of the body, etc. New painful sensations certainly raise a flag saying that we need to figure out what's going on.

I, also, have been adjusting to running on the forefoot over the last ~month, and have gotten to experience all kinds of sensation from my body. To begin with, I get the sore calves during almost every run. They are getting much stronger, but the sensation of my calves getting tighter and tighter during a run has gotten very familiar. It is an indicator how how much more I can push my calves until they need to repair, so during a run, if they hurt a lot, I go easier. If they feel really good and I want to push, I do. After I run, I take a day off to let my muscles repair and I am stronger for the next run.

What you mentioned about the occasional joint pain during a run, I think I can relate to. Since many of the muscles I use running on the forefoot are underdeveloped from years of heelstomping, they tire out and begin to break down quickly, per the calf muscle paragraph above. As the sensations from these muscles become more intense, we naturally try to offload the stress from them to neighboring (auxiliary for the particular activity) muscles. This puts new stresses on our joints, etc. As my muscles get tired, my form gets sloppy, and my joints start to feel it. This is my body saying that it is too tired to push hard without possibly getting hurt. When I get to that point, I don't always walk, although there's probably nothing wrong with that, but I will change around the activity some until I get home. For example, I might increase the cadence of my footsteps and pay particular attention to how softly I step, etc.

:-) In short, you're not being an argumentative jerk, you raise an interesting point. In Born to Run, Chi Running (haven't read yet), and all over the minimalist running sites, they mention listening to one's body. I think this ultimately means getting familiar enough with our bodies that we know what each colour of sensation coming from them means. We learn to be in tune with what our bodies are experiencing, in addition to our own mental games while running. When we understand our bodies well, we know when we can push further and further without getting hurt and we also know when to stop. This allows us to run closer to our limits often in a controlled manner.

On a side note, you mentioned the blister thing. One a hiking trip, we had better pay attention to that blister or we're going to be miserable and risk infection if it gets bad. I've seen pictures of ultra-marathon runners coming home w/ huge blisters, but they are running races and are planning on taking the time when they're done to care for these wounds. If you want to keep running all week long, it's worth making the effort to not get the blister.

An Old Rant

We are each responsible for our actions on the web.

It is not realistic to expect to completely regulate copyrighted resources on the web as this can not be done without restricting access to free (as in speech or beer) resources. It is also unreasonable to expect to use copyrighted materials for free without consequence.

Entities which choose to do business on the internet and distribute their copyrighted resources there need to consider that the value of the web is rooted in the ideas woven into it's design from the beginning: openness and sharing. The value of our web to our society is in it's ability for us to create virtual communities where we can share knowledge and experience, allowing for and encouraging specialization and advancement in all fields. To effectively do business on the web, entities need to distribute their property in such a way as to (1) provide incentives to their customers to buy product through their distribution channels and (2) make their distribution channel as accessible or more accessible as their competitor's.

In thinking about this, it seems as though value to a web oriented culture is most intrinsically found in providing services and platforms that build upon it's strengths. It is counter intuitive to try and build a business on the web around sales of generic media (copyrighted materials) and policing customers to make sure they pay for it. There are millions of people on the web who love to make content for free and who are, frankly, often times better at it than the companies who are trying to sell the same thing.

The Myvu Wearable Display

The Myvu crystal looks like first relatively practical platform for the average, everyday, gargoyle. They offer full vga, 640x480, resolution; just the minimum for graphical applications, and ample space for light console work. At $300, this is the first vga wearable display within reach of the average geek consumer.


Myvu Reviews:
On Gizmodo - A comparison against the Zeiss Cinemizer
CrunchGear - Just a review
Geardiary
Engadget
Gadling
Gizmag

These all rehash pretty much the same things: They're not HD, but still really cool. They're nearly unanimously recommended if one travels a lot, but otherwise found hard to justify at $300. You'll look like Jordie wearing them. That's where the monocle hacks come in ;-).


Myvu Hack Links:
Make - Myvu display in a wearable computer
Make - Myvu solo goggles take apart...
Make - Myvu crystal as a wearable headmounted display



Images:
flicker - myvu parallax - This is a great set of images showing the internals and how to modify a myvu to be less intrusive.


VGA->RCA Converters:
http://www.amazon.com/VideoSecu-Computor-Presentation-Converter-VGA2TV/dp/B000X3FAJU/ref=pd_sim_e_4
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000CD08Z?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=cnet-ce-20&linkCode=asn

At least w/ my EEE, one of these would be required. Some higher end systems have native hardware support for RCA.