Denial of Service?
I noticed today that our main webserver wasn't responding very well.
When I checked the output of top, the load average was running
steadily at about 20! This on a machine that generally runs a load of
about 0.4. Even stranger, all the work was being done by the proxy instance
of our webserver, which does basically nothing.
Since we were running an older version of apache - 2.40 - the
first thing I did was pull down the latest, 2.47, and upgrade. The load
dropped down, but I thought I'd see if I could get more data, so I set
the error log level to 'info'. Suddenly there were megs and megs of
errors piling up in the error log for the default virtual host, all
looking something like this: Broken pipe: core_output_filter:
writing data to the network. I don't see anything out there on the
web linking this particular error to any known denial of service
attacks, but it sure seems fishy.
[/net]
Cheap Labor Conservatives
Finally a short, pithy phrase that summarizes much of what makes the bad guys, well, bad. Thank you, 'Conceptual Guerilla', whomever you may be.
[/media/weblogs]
Thu, 24 Jul 2003
Finally a short, pithy phrase that summarizes much of what makes the bad guys, well, bad. Thank you, 'Conceptual Guerilla', whomever you may be.
[/media/weblogs]
Programming as a Job
Philip Greenspun points out that IBM no longer seems interested in American programmers, but then asks if current working conditions for American programmers are really any better than those in the third world anyhow. Part of Philip's argument is that the 60 hour weeks required by IBM of its workers "effectively. . .means that he has no right to write about anything that happens to him for most of his waking hours."
This made me wonder if Philip's belief in the importance of long hours for programmers, argued here, still applies. It does, responded Philip, but should only be necessary for the first few years of one's career, so that one has a chance to build one's skills and reputation. However, he believes this is no longer as relevant, since conditions for programmers have worsened to the point that one would be better off as, say, an airline mechanic.
If one's motivation for career choice lies mainly in finding stable, enjoyable, and financially rewarding work, then the aircraft mechanic thing is probably not a bad idea. I guess the catch is that for me and, I suspect, many of us in the web industry, there's more to be desired in a job - call it significance, relevance or what you will. Helping people communicate and manage their information more effectively feels like it might lead to some improvements in the world, particularly when the people we're helping are engaged in some positive enterprise, as opposed to building land mines or cruise missiles.
That's why I'm pretty happy being the web hamster for a nonprofit, and hope to expand upon that role in the future. I've done my time in the Fortune 500 cubes and I'm not sorry to hear that those jobs are leaving these shores; while I did learn a few things, it was a soul-killing environment that I can only hope will be improved upon by the cultures in which the work lands. My time in startups, while more rewarding for my social life and professional skills, still lacked the greater meaning that would be desirable in the activity that consumes most of my waking hours. The nonprofit life is far from perfect, but there is a certain satisfaction to seeing one's work help enrich society in some way beyond selling widgets.
[/net]
Tue, 15 Jul 2003
Fri, 11 Jul 2003
Philip Greenspun points out that IBM no longer seems interested in American programmers, but then asks if current working conditions for American programmers are really any better than those in the third world anyhow. Part of Philip's argument is that the 60 hour weeks required by IBM of its workers "effectively. . .means that he has no right to write about anything that happens to him for most of his waking hours."
This made me wonder if Philip's belief in the importance of long hours for programmers, argued here, still applies. It does, responded Philip, but should only be necessary for the first few years of one's career, so that one has a chance to build one's skills and reputation. However, he believes this is no longer as relevant, since conditions for programmers have worsened to the point that one would be better off as, say, an airline mechanic.
If one's motivation for career choice lies mainly in finding stable, enjoyable, and financially rewarding work, then the aircraft mechanic thing is probably not a bad idea. I guess the catch is that for me and, I suspect, many of us in the web industry, there's more to be desired in a job - call it significance, relevance or what you will. Helping people communicate and manage their information more effectively feels like it might lead to some improvements in the world, particularly when the people we're helping are engaged in some positive enterprise, as opposed to building land mines or cruise missiles.
That's why I'm pretty happy being the web hamster for a nonprofit, and hope to expand upon that role in the future. I've done my time in the Fortune 500 cubes and I'm not sorry to hear that those jobs are leaving these shores; while I did learn a few things, it was a soul-killing environment that I can only hope will be improved upon by the cultures in which the work lands. My time in startups, while more rewarding for my social life and professional skills, still lacked the greater meaning that would be desirable in the activity that consumes most of my waking hours. The nonprofit life is far from perfect, but there is a certain satisfaction to seeing one's work help enrich society in some way beyond selling widgets.
[/net]
911 (or, Your Local Precinct) is still a joke
Today was the third time I've felt threated enough by a reckless driver to call the police. Again, use of the phrase 'reckless driver' was immediately effective in communicating the situation to the 911 operator. This time, based on what I've been told in previous incidents, I told the 911 operator that I wanted to file a complaint against the driver. She directed me to the nearest precinct.
I was impressed at how nicely finished the precinct facilities (on 4th street, downtown Minneapolis) were. For all the complaints we hear about the availability of funding for police and fire services, quite a bit has been spent recently on this building. Lots of natural light, wood furniture, exposed HVAC in the style so popular in the warehouse district, and tasteful, framed b&w photos on the walls depicting police officers engaged in the community. The human resources at play were another story - one officer manned a desk that featured a phone ringing every minute or so. Since the average conversation seemed to last three to five minutes, there was quite a backlog.
When I arrived, there was one woman waiting to speak to the officer. After both of us waited for ten to fifteen minutes, the officer started putting callers on hold and motioned her over. She had a difficult time explaining her problem to the officer, partially because she had been lead to expect something different from the officers she had talked to whenever the crime she was a victim of had happened, and partially because the phone continued to ring every minute.
Another ten or so minutes later, and it was my turn. The officer acted surprised that I had been told to file a complaint, as his belief was that, unless I had been physically injured or an officer had seen the incident, there was nothing that could be done other than making the 'reckless driver' 911 call. When pressed, he mentioned that the only other possible measure would have been a Citizen's Arrest at the time of the incident, which he averred would be difficult given that the potential arrestee was driving off in the truck in question. The officer was uninterested in accounting for the 911 operator's instructions to visit the precinct to file a complaint against the driver. Eventually we agreed that the conversation wasn't going anywhere, and settled on having the precinct's active Sgt. call me to discuss the situation. Two hours later, this hasn't happened.
I thought it telling that the other woman at the precinct had also been told conflicting things by different parts of the police department. This has certainly been my experience, both with this and previous reckless-driving incidents. What a waste of citizen's time.
[/rant]
Wed, 09 Jul 2003
Today was the third time I've felt threated enough by a reckless driver to call the police. Again, use of the phrase 'reckless driver' was immediately effective in communicating the situation to the 911 operator. This time, based on what I've been told in previous incidents, I told the 911 operator that I wanted to file a complaint against the driver. She directed me to the nearest precinct.
I was impressed at how nicely finished the precinct facilities (on 4th street, downtown Minneapolis) were. For all the complaints we hear about the availability of funding for police and fire services, quite a bit has been spent recently on this building. Lots of natural light, wood furniture, exposed HVAC in the style so popular in the warehouse district, and tasteful, framed b&w photos on the walls depicting police officers engaged in the community. The human resources at play were another story - one officer manned a desk that featured a phone ringing every minute or so. Since the average conversation seemed to last three to five minutes, there was quite a backlog.
When I arrived, there was one woman waiting to speak to the officer. After both of us waited for ten to fifteen minutes, the officer started putting callers on hold and motioned her over. She had a difficult time explaining her problem to the officer, partially because she had been lead to expect something different from the officers she had talked to whenever the crime she was a victim of had happened, and partially because the phone continued to ring every minute.
Another ten or so minutes later, and it was my turn. The officer acted surprised that I had been told to file a complaint, as his belief was that, unless I had been physically injured or an officer had seen the incident, there was nothing that could be done other than making the 'reckless driver' 911 call. When pressed, he mentioned that the only other possible measure would have been a Citizen's Arrest at the time of the incident, which he averred would be difficult given that the potential arrestee was driving off in the truck in question. The officer was uninterested in accounting for the 911 operator's instructions to visit the precinct to file a complaint against the driver. Eventually we agreed that the conversation wasn't going anywhere, and settled on having the precinct's active Sgt. call me to discuss the situation. Two hours later, this hasn't happened.
I thought it telling that the other woman at the precinct had also been told conflicting things by different parts of the police department. This has certainly been my experience, both with this and previous reckless-driving incidents. What a waste of citizen's time.
[/rant]
Dorothy Parker epitaph strangeness
I was listening to c-tec's '97 album Darker last night and wondering a bit about the last song, epitaph. So after five years of owning the CD, I actually looked at the liner notes, and saw that the writing was credited to Dorothy Parker, with rights granted by the NAACP. Unexpected for an industrial tune. Thanks to the net, I now know a few new and surprising things:
- Parker was a suicidal poet who left her musical estate to MLK jr.
- The last line of the song is And watch the worms slip by, slip by. Yuk.
[/general]
I was listening to c-tec's '97 album Darker last night and wondering a bit about the last song, epitaph. So after five years of owning the CD, I actually looked at the liner notes, and saw that the writing was credited to Dorothy Parker, with rights granted by the NAACP. Unexpected for an industrial tune. Thanks to the net, I now know a few new and surprising things:
- Parker was a suicidal poet who left her musical estate to MLK jr.
- The last line of the song is And watch the worms slip by, slip by. Yuk.
[/general]
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