Author archives: Mike
Maybe a signal-based timeout watcher should be in every Twisted app (Just a little something to log any uncaught blocking...)
Written by
on
in
Snaking.
Very long day today. Some template rework on the VoIP project. Lots of debugging on Cinemon to try to catch a hanging condition. Eventually decided to use the trick from James Knight to track down every blocking operation in the application.
So far only found one block of 5s or more; the point where the ...
The Eye's Contention
Written by
on
in
Vindaloo.
My eyes lack
Sufficient beauty
To stay awake
Tired Longings
Written by
on
in
Vindaloo.
Tonight I want to build something
Spanning ages and cultures
Bridging truth and faded myths
It is just fatigue I guess
It would be best were I to go to sleep
Shidan suggests a predictive dialer app (Doesn't seem hard, but is it what I want to do...)
Written by
on
in
Snaking.
Shidan was mentioning that they might be interested in a predictive dialer application. It's a fairly straightforward system, you have a statistical algorithm that tries to predict how many operators will become free over the next X seconds (taking currently length of each call into account), another algorithm figures out how many connections will go ...
The key to Asterisk, it turns out... (Is rebuilding kernels obsessively until you find one that works...)
Written by
on
in
Tuxedo.
Tim was having such pain building Asterisk on FreeBSD I decided I would try again under Gentoo. Used a fresh kernel version (2.6.15-r5), did a build with the 2.6.14-r5 .config, re-emerged the nVidia driver, rebuilt the zaptel svn, rebooted to the new kernel, saw ztdummy had failed to load, so rebuilt zaptel again and noticed ...
To poetry events this weekend (we go) (Slam on Friday, Meetup on Saturday)
Written by
on
in
Vindaloo.
For those poetry writers in Toronto, there's a Poetry Slam on Friday at 9pm at the Victory Cafe (581 Markham Street, near Bathurst and Bloor). Poetry slams being competitive live poetry composition/reading. There's a $5 cover at this one. For the less rambunctious lovers of the word, there's a Poetry Meetup on Saturday at 4pm ...
When did I lose the joy in playing with new computers? (Not even remotely a hardware guy any more...)
Written by
on
in
Vindaloo.
Dad gave Rosey a new laptop a week or two ago. I've been dragging my heels on getting it set up for her, but tonight I decided to get cracking on it. Nothing too involved, getting the networking set up, checking out what's there, figuring out how to install Linux on it so I can ...
Those features you just want to avoid (Impedence mismatch is a powerful disincentive...)
Written by
on
in
Snaking.
I've been avoiding one of the features on the todo list for the VoIP project for quite a while, mostly because it seemed poorly defined and not particularly useful. Decided to just go ahead and bash through it yesterday. Still not finished, but the poorly defined part is done, the rest is just figuring out ...
To Fix Warm Words
Written by
on
in
Vindaloo.
To bring light back to this world
Requires a philosophy you have
In the past rejected out of hand
To love the universe in whole
To see the patterns playing out
Behind each troubled care-wrought face
To love them for their frailties
For their base unkempt passions
But most for their higher nature
Deep behind ...
Smoke Escapes
Written by
on
in
Vindaloo.
A smokestack rises
There across the city
But the air is too cold
The smoke cannot escape
It falls back to the earth
Mike C. Fletcher, the VRPlumber, is a philosopher of design turned computer programmer based in Toronto, Canada. He works primarily in the Python programming language, and maintains a large number of Open Source software packages. You can reach him at: mcfletch@vrplumber.com.