Author Archives: tim

Ubuntu Compute and Storage Build

Posted on October 18, 2015 by tim

The goal of this machine was to replace the oldest active computer in the house. This old computer predates – by over three years – the first recorded entry on this blog for computer builds. (First build: core i7). This … Continue reading →

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Secret Share 1.4.2 on Maven Central

Posted on September 5, 2015 by tim

Secret Share in Java on Maven Central Just completed a release of the Secret Share in Java project to Maven Central. Search for it using search.maven.org. GroupId: com.tiemens ArtifactId: secretshare Version: 1.4.2 This release features a “simplex” matrix solver implementation … Continue reading →

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Stealth Updates and Unstable LSI Drivers

Posted on September 4, 2015 by tim

(Just FYI to everyone out there, since this is not easy to find right now.) If you’re seeing this message: mpt2sas0: log_info (0x31080000): original (PL), code (0x08), sub_code (0x0000) Then you need to visit http://mycusthelp.info/LSI/_cs/AnswerDetail.aspx?&inc=8484 The short answer: Avago Tech … Continue reading →

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Ubuntu 14.04 Unity 3D RAM

Posted on August 30, 2015 by tim

My AMD Server seemed to be running out of RAM this morning. Checking the processes, it appeared that Unity 3D was using approximately 18G/32G (i.e. with no virtual machines running, the OS was still using 18G). Why? I don’t know … Continue reading →

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Freenas Backup Machine

Posted on March 1, 2015 by tim

The goal of this machine was to be a “small, inexpensive, bring your own HDs, standalone backup solution”. For these purposes, that meant using a small case that still had at least 2 internal 3.5″ bays. For Freenas, 9.2.1.9 was … Continue reading →

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What is AngularJS – the key is client-side

Posted on October 13, 2014 by tim

After working with AngularJS for a couple of months now, I can finally express a concise answer to “What is AngularJS?” It is: MVC where the model is on the client side MVC where the view is a template based … Continue reading →

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Amazon SDK broken dependencies

Posted on September 30, 2014 by tim

If you have received this error message: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unsupported cookie spec: default It is because Amazon made their SDK dependency look like this: +— com.amazonaws:aws-java-sdk | +— org.apache.httpcomponents:httpclient:[4.1, 5.0) -> 4.4-beta1 | | +— org.apache.httpcomponents:httpcore:4.4-beta1 i.e. they made an open-ended … Continue reading →

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Use a DSA to implement your DSL (insipired by Cucumber)

Posted on September 21, 2014 by tim

This post was inspired by The Training Wheels Came Off by Aslak Hellesøy, author of The Cucumber Book. TL;DR – Use a Domain Specific (testing) API to implement your Domain Specific Language That article describes the motivation behind removing web_steps.rb … Continue reading →

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Computer Science Hard Things

Posted on June 28, 2014 by tim

There is a popular saying about Computer Science (see here and here): There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. — Phil Karlton There is a funny variation that makes it “There are only … Continue reading →

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Agile non Evolutionary Stable Strategy

Posted on June 27, 2014 by tim

Starting with a quotation I saw at a rest stop while on vacation: Dryland farming works best when in a wet year. This was on a placard explaining that Dryland farming had a string of successful years when it was … Continue reading →

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