Jay’s Thoughts on Stuff

I manage a virtual call center of 400+ VMWare workstations hosted on a cluster of ESX 3.0 servers. In order to make sure all users are logged out, any hung processes are killed, and locally cached profiles are deleted, every workstation has a scheduled task to reboot once per week. In a physical call center (which I also help manage), this taxes the DHCP server a bit, but otherwise doesn’t hurt anything.

The ESX server concept assumes that most virtual machines will not be running full tilt all the time. That’s usually true. Most computers, most of the time, run at well below 50% capacity. The value of the ESX server lies in sharing those normally fallow resources out among multiple virtual machines. If the average CPU and memory utilization on 100 Windows XP desktops is around 50%, then the ESX server only needs 50% of the actual physical resources to service the same number of virtual machines. When one machine is running at 95%, another is probably only running at 5%. ESX dynamically allocates CPU cycles and memory to whichever VM needs them. This works great until you have a scheduled job that launches on all 400 virtual machines at the same time. Rebooting takes a lot of resources.

Needless to say, once every week all the ESX servers went Red. By itself, that’s still not such a big deal, just annoying. Unfortunately, like every other battery in caught in the Matrix, the virtual machines don’t know they’re virtual and really don’t like beind denied access to what they believe are their exclusive resources. Sometimes they are so unhappy that they go on strike.

The lesson? Stagger scheduled tasks so that every virtual machine is not running at full capacity all at the same time. It’s a little harder to configure, but it will save you time in end user support.

Brandon Vera and Anderson Silva are simply awesome fighters. Silva’s classiness as a winner is completely unmatched, but Vera doesn’t have all that bad of an attitude either. They might come across as arrogant, but the truth is that they are both really that good. Now that Silva has moved up and Vera has moved down to 205 lbs, it would be interesting to see the two in the octagon together. However, Vera is obviously not in peak condition at the lower weight. I don’t think he could handle Silva right now. Maybe after he’s had some time to acclimate?

And while I’m on the UFC…Brandon Markham was the beneficiary of either a brilliant fake-out strategy or else a jaw-droppingly lucky shot.

This week I began seeing this error whenever I tried to start a Microsoft Management Console window via an MSC file:

Snap-in failed to initialize.
     Name:Group Policy Object Editor
     CLSID:{….}

When I clicked OK, the Console widow opened as normal. When I tried to expand the Local Computer Policy tree, it displayed this error:

Snap-in Creation Failed. The snap-in is not created, it may not be installed properly. Name:Group Policy Object Editor

CLSID:{….}

 

The same thing happened if I tried to edit a GPO within the Group Policy Management snap-in. I reinstalled the Win2k3 Admin Pack and the GPMC, but that didn’t fix it. I opened the Add/Remove Snap-in dialog box in MMC and received the first error again, but this time for a different snap-in: “Software Installation (Computers)”. Then again for “Software Installation (Users)”.

Funner and funner.

I opened a new MMC window and opened the Add/Remove Snap-In dialog box again. No error this time. I added all the same snap-ins from my older MSC file. Still no error. I opened the Local Computer Policy and the GPMC. Still no error. I saved the new MSC file and re-opened it. Still no error. I closed it and re-opened it using RunAs and my administrator account. The errors were back. I realized the shortcut to my old MSC file includes the option to always RunAs another account. I opened my old MSC file without using my administrator account, and it launched with no errors.

So I deleted the locally cached profile for my adminstrator account and tried it again. Same error. I reinstalled WinXP SP2. Nothing. I checked for recent SMS packages. Still nothing.

Then I got a call about a virtualized server at another site that had stopped responding. First step in troubleshooting a problem is almost always to verify that the problem is actually as reported. So I opened a cmd window and tried to ping the downed server.

‘ping’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Huh!? @$%^#!

C:\>dir c:\windows\system32\ping.exe
 Directory of c:\windows\system32
08/04/2004  01:56 AM            17,920 ping.exe
               1 File(s)         17,920 bytesC:\>echo %path%
C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\Wind…

 

tracert, nslookup, arp…same thing. I copied the path value out of the Computer Properties and re-assigned it via command prompt, but it would only remember it until I closed the cmd window. I checked the environment reg key, and everything looked alright. I verified the permissions on the key and forced them down through the tree. Windows still ignored the path statement and returned errors from the GPMC.

I hate these kinds of problems!

Well, you know what they say. If at first you don’t succeed get a bigger hammer…or just reinstall. So I went in search of an XP OS disc. No luck. I had to make a disc from an iso file on the corporate install folder. I put the disc in, rebooted, and selected R for repair.

More than thirty minutes later, I typed in the company’s corporate product key, but it wouldn’t take. I started calling around, looking for another key. I tried six different keys before I found one that would work. Apparently, this iso file was created from an MSDN copy of XP.

But, hey! Look! I can ping again! Woohoo!

A whole freaking day wasted.

As I said before, the fight over stem cell research was a huge waste of time. All those murderous cry babies are just that and very little more. “But it’s for the children! It’s for the poor crippled guy in the wheel chair! Waaa!” This reinforces something that I have believed for a very long time, though I don’t always practice what I preach.

Do what’s right. Let God worry about the consequences.

Sorry it’s been so quiet around here lately. I’ve been very busy and suspect that will continue for a few more weeks yet. I was on call for a week and busy with several big projects at work. I’m also prepping the house for sale. I just finished remodeling one bathroom and making some other small repairs. Now I have to refloor the kitchen, paint the exterior trim, and rearrange all the furniture and decor to be more generic and bland.

Since Matot-Masei is my birthday parsha, I definitely need to post something about that.

This week’s Mussar lesson is on trusting in Providence. I have a lot of opportunity right now for exercising trust.

It is really nice harvesting fresh food from my own garden. Despite a very strange growing season, I have some very promising beets and zuchini plants. I’ve never grown either one before, so I’m very pleased with the results. One thing, though. If you ever have the pleasure of eating fresh beets rather than the kind that have been soaking in a can for six months or more, be prepared for a rather shocking digestive outcome the next day. 8^O

On another note, the marigolds and petunias haven’t helped a bit. The flea beetles are eating the marigolds almost as fast as they eat the bok choy.

Technorati Tags: gardening, flea beetles, marigolds, organic, companion planting, beets

This is my last post as part of the Strength exercise of Mussar, and I’ve decided not to follow the rules. I’m supposed to be writing about things in the news. Instead, prompted by a bitter and terribly misinformed letter I received yesterday, I’m writing about something personal.

If you’re much like me, you frequently find yourself adopting moral opposition to the majority. Perhaps I’m just a contrarian or an attention-seeker, but I prefer to believe I value righteousness over acceptance. The existence of this blog probably doesn’t help my case.

In recent years I have frequently found myself the object of unfounded animosity and accusations. If my detractors are to be believed then I am a hateful, selfish, wife-beating brute who has exchanged grace for law. Never mind that I have never struck or even shoved a woman in my entire life. Never mind that I spent nearly two decades…well, never mind any of that. Nobody who reads this blog will be convinced of anything by yet another post on the same old same old. The main thing is that I have learned some valuable lessons from those conflicts.

It takes strength to persevere against determined opposition, especially moral opposition. It also takes strength to surrender contrary to pride. It takes great spiritual discernment to know when to fight and when to walk away. Someone once told me that when I find myself in severe conflict, I should always be ready to ask myself, “Is this the hill I want to die on?” If the answer is no, then I should seriously consider swallowing my pride and backing down. I’ve had to do both. I stood my ground, and sometimes I won. I surrendered, and sometimes I still won.

Technorati Tags: mussar, strength, perseverance, pride

I just finished watching the documentary Zeitgeist…OK, I’m lying. I just finished scanning through it. I watched the first 25 minutes then started skipping through.

They definitely got off on the wrong foot with me by making several disprovable assertions and claiming certainty about some things that are based on card-houses of unlikely or unprovable assumptions. For example, they start out by implying that most, if not all, mass violence is the result of religion and patriotism (aka tribalism). The religion claim has been thoroughly debunked repeatedly over the last hundred years or so, most recently and possibly most thoroughly by Vox Day in The Irrational Atheist. On the contrary, religion is a moderating influence that helps to contain the natural agression of mankind. The irony of the movie’s claims against religion is that they are perfectly in line with the zeitgeist of today’s “intelligentsia” yet are at least as false and manipulative as the move claims are religious institutions. That doesn’t mean that religious bureaucracies are necessarily benevolent or honest, of course. They are still made up of people after all, and people are the real problem.

That takes care of the disprovable assertions. On to the house of unprovable cards.

Another irony of the movie is that it begins with a quote decrying the reliance on authority over truth rather than authority out of truth, but then it shows our supposed evolution from bacteria and the supposed evolution of all theology from astronomy through astrology. The theory of evolution, whether correct or not, is an unprovable set of speculations based on other speculations based on assumptions stemming from the a priori disbarring of even the possibility of divine intervention in natural history. In other words, complete acceptance of TENS (the theory of evolution and natural selection) is a complete acceptance of authority over truth rather than authority out of truth.

The same is true regarding the evolution of religion. The movie adopts some historical revisionism as well as a huge load of historical speculation and labels it TRUTH. There is some truth to be had, however. Here’s what I think happened: God knew exactly what was going to happen on earth from the moment he created the universe. He designed things into that creation so that certain truths could be gleaned from careful observation. People way back when were smarter than us and managed to combine oral tradition, divine revelation, and astronomical observation to arrive at those certain truths regarding the nature of mankind, God, and the future course of history. They understood something of the nature of blood in our relationship to the divine (certainly more than I do) and the need for divine intervention and in order to bring about a full restoration of that relationship. Satan was able to use their smarts against them in building counterfeit theologies that incorporated a lot of truth into a lot of B.S. (Kind of like politicians, theologians, and movie makers.) Babylonian, Greek, and Egyptian gods were killed and resurrected because the really bright people of those days knew that had to be part of any true theology. They drew certain stories out of the movements of stars and planets because those stories are actually there.

That’s when I skipped ahead a bit. The rest of the movie seems to point out several examples of the masses being manipulated by clever politicians and marketeers. There is a lot of good information in there that people need to know. I probably would have watched more intently if I hadn’t already learned most of it from other sources. I already know that people are violent, greedy liars, and that we all want to believe otherwise. We’re prepared to swallow any amount of b.s. to maintain our belief in the essential goodness of humankind. Blech. At some level we’re all murderers. We’re all thieves. We’re all gullible lemmings.

There is really only one source of completely reliable truth. I don’t mean human translations or interpretations of ancient revelations. The Bible would be totally reliable if we still had it in its original forms, but people have gotten in the way. It’s still pretty darn good and the closest thing we have to absolute truth in written form, but there might be a corrupt word or even a paragraph here and there. The only reliable source of truth is God. Our big problem is that we are corrupted receivers, hence the hundreds of different religions and the thousands of denominations within them. The problem is us, not God.

Technorati Tags: zeitgeist, tens, evolution, politics, marketing, conspiracies, pentagon, world trade center, war, atheism, atheists, religion

Just a thought…by keeping certain nations free of nuclear energy, one can more-or-less assure their relegation to obscurity when their oil runs out. Of course, they wouldn’t be ignorant of that possibility.

Have you ever played Risk with someone who lacked self control? That’s how I imagine an oil-rich nation run by people like Ahminadab might react when approaching the end of its oil. Of course, that’s not an excuse to invade, but it is reason to keep an eye out and to be prepared.

Natalie Lambert has drive or determination or focus. Whatever you want to call it, it still amounts to strength. It takes more than mere ambition or ego to swim 54 kilometers across Lake Ontario in 23 hours and 19 kilometers across Lake Erie in 8 hours. I wish I had more of that.

Technorati Tags: natalie lambert, mussar