meme

[yesthattom]

Please comment with ONE thing you think I should do or try to do in 2008. Big or small, silly or earth-changing.

Comments

[onecrazymother.livejournal.com]

Get something yummy from Rocco's pastry shop, on Bleeker Street. I was there the other night with bensong1 and it was fabulous.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Work on a presentation to help folks think theoretically, not practically. Sometimes the answer can be revealed by a web search of the error code; more difficult to solve are the ones that can be solved by methodical thinking. If there's a problem with e-mail, you want someone who's going to methodically check:

1) Did the message leave the email program of the sender?
2) Did the message leave the sender's machine?
3) Did the message arrive at the recipient's machine?
4) Did the message arrive at the recipient's e-mail program?

If 2=yes and 3=no, is there a transient place that the message could be tracked at (routers, firewalls, etc), and if so, did it make it there?

This is a silly example, but one that's very important. Often just knowing "how things work" can help debug problems, and way too many people rely on what they have experienced before directly, instead of taking a step back and *thinking* about pathways and whether or not things make sense.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Like the "Debugging" chapter of TPOSANA?

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Probably, i've been meaning to go back and read that the past few nights so I could give you a good answer to this question....

But like today, in our team's IRC channel, a teammate said, "hey, there are these 2 Oracle slaves, and one is 18 hours behind, the other is caught up, and they're usually the same. What's wrong?"

I offered that it might be a dead disk in the RAID pool -- though the hardware is different, if they're usually the same lag behind the master, their RAM/CPU/disk speed/etc are similar. So what would cause something to be catching up slowly? I know very little about Oracle, but I do know that they do block-level replication, sending the blocks changed to the slaves and the slaves then apply the changes.

It could also have been a RAM chip gone bad, but a disk is more likely. The "obvious" answer might have been "long running query on the one slave that's not on the other", etc. Now, if it were that, I'd look pretty silly checking out hardware configs, and there's a lot of getting involved with app (like database, email, whatever) level goose chases when it turns out to be hardware. Some of it's intuition, some of it's general "how things work", but in a nutshell....

yes. Teaching debugging skills.....or even teaching "how to think". how to question everything without losing all your friends. How to think objectively. you're good at that, and I wish more people were.

[softlywhispered.livejournal.com]

Come visit me again!

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Are you still in Tampa? Do you know if there are any Linux/Unix user groups or computer groups that have monthly meetings and need speakers? If I can connect a trip with promoting the book, it increases the likelihood of a visit.

[softlywhispered.livejournal.com]

I am still in tampa, I know theres the Sarasota Linux User Group (Slug) list that has meetings, I have no idea if they have formal ones or not. I'll ask Ian.. He can give me more info.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Get a dog.

Actually, with the amount of travel you (and sometimes C, right?) do, it might not be practical. And I don't know if you have allergies. But I could so see you enjoying an energetic and not too small dog.

[kazmat.livejournal.com]

Work on a publicity campaign for lopsa to significantly grow our membership.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

That I'll do.

[conall.livejournal.com]

Come back and visit Dublin. SAGE-IE would love to have you speak again... ;)

[emboline.livejournal.com]

Buy one of those old Snoopy snow cone machines. They rock!

[mrfantasy.livejournal.com]

Go see Joe Jackson on the 15th or 16th of April in NYC.

With me.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

The 15th is better for me.

[arkham1010.livejournal.com]

Bake an apple pie.

From scratch, making your own crust.

Very satisfying, and damn good pie when I did it!

[likethewatch.livejournal.com]

In a similar vein...

Learn to cook a meal that you like to eat.

[cinema-babe.livejournal.com]

Get to know me.

Or, um, instead, commit to do 2 (safe) things that normally makes you uncomfortable

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

You live in Somerset? How difficult is it to get to Bloomfield?

[seasings.livejournal.com]

Dance!
And let me know when you're going... ;)

[sigje.livejournal.com]

come to the bay area.. give a presentation (that's the nonselfish bit)
SEE ME! (and really really see me!) You keep coming out but then you don't call and say hey free time come play!

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

You can count on it. In 2008 I will (1) speak at BayLISA, (2) see you, (3) have some free time with you.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Write another book?

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Oh god no. Please please please no. I still haven't started promoting my last one. Starting another would be too painful.

[dpfesh.livejournal.com]

Volunteer somewhere close to your interests.. Old people, Blind or Deaf people, Little Kids, Holding little babies in the hospital, teaching people to read, helping out at an animal shelter..etc.. volunteermatch.org can help you find all kindsa things in your area. Even if it's 1 time.

Have a nice 2008 :)

[naughty-halo.livejournal.com]

be more aggressive with a certian someone who wants to hang out but is shy sometimes... ;-)