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xiaodown

98 karma · joined October 30, 2015

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xiaodown··on Visualizing Meltdown on AWS
That's not the only issue; there's also a lot of compliance issues that having a hosting company can take care of. There's whole sections of PCI and HIPPA compliance that you can just write off as "not our problem, talk to AWS".
xiaodown··on Eve Online alliance leader banned after threatening to cut off betrayer's hands
Nah, there's no role-play.

The difference is between "Ok nerds, log in your eve clients, get on mumble, and undock and press F1 to shoot this guy. Someone pull up the map on Dotlan so we can see where we're going. Someone ping me on Jabber when you found the hostiles." vs. "Capsuleers, please board your spaceships, and prepare to undock and fire your weapons. Gallente pilots, break off formation and assist the Logistics wing!"

xiaodown··on Eve Online alliance leader banned after threatening to cut off betrayer's hands
He ... has a history. Plus, I mean, trying to get out-of-game details like address/name is a big no-no in Eve (and should be in any internet game).

Leave it in game.

xiaodown··on Eve Online alliance leader banned after threatening to cut off betrayer's hands
Dreddit is recruiting, if you want to come back! https://dredditisrecruiting.com/
xiaodown··on Eve Online alliance leader banned after threatening to cut off betrayer's hands
I was there; AMA.

I'm in Test Alliance Please Ignore. I was sitting on coms when this all went down - The Judge stole everything not nailed down, flipped the citadel to Goonswarm, and everything went to hell.

Some background: TEST and Co2 have been best friends for about a year and a half, until recently, when (there's some one-sided propaganda in this statement) the Co2 leadership (really just GigX) decided that having friends wasn't as good as shooting everyone. So, Co2 and TEST reset standings to neutral or hostile, and commenced fighting.

Goonswarm and TEST have been, at various times over the past 10 years, best friends, bitter enemies, and - where we are now - sort of "frenemies", where we are not friendly, and we shoot each other, but we also don't invade each other's space, and we're more likely to fight together against common enemies in big fights.

So... back to last night...

TEST quickly organized a fleet of space-haulers to bring them Test Cultures (an in-game item that we jokingly have claimed as our own - http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=2319 ), and tell them that, while we didn't like GigX, we had no problem with most of the Co2 line members and they were welcome to evacuate their assets safely with our help.

(times in pacific)

  (8:44:29 PM) pleaseignore.com: 
  Situation developing:
  
  The Judge stabbed GigX in the back. The 68FT Keepstar now belongs to Goonswarm. Many fortizars across Impass 
  belong to Test. This is a huge blow to Circle-of-Two and we hope their line members can see the writing 
  on the wall for this war now. 
  
  For now, we are running an aid flotilla, in part for the memes, but in part to sincerely extend the 
  olive branch to the line members of Co2 who remember when we were good friends. Feel free to join the 
  flotilla and bring a hauler with Test cultures to 68FT. We want to offer them our support, for the shit 
  they don't want to asset safety, because we aren't total shitheads. (I'm speaking for other people 
  because I'm totally a shithead)
  
  The war isn't over, but we just got a huge boost. Be ready to burn GigX's sov. Be ready to fleet up and 
   finish off our front, so we can help the allies who have been showing up for us. 
  
  #### SENT BY Farmstink to All online test @ 2017-09-12 03:44:29 EVE Time ####
Goonswarm, though, hates Co2, and wanted to come and screw with them, now that they owned the big space citadel where all of Co2's assets are. Well, TEST thought that would be funny, too, so I and another titan pilot created a chain of warp-bridges to help Goonswarm get to the Co2 main system as quickly as possible, so that they could play with their food.

  (8:53:30 PM) pleaseignore.com: 
  Also, this is kind of a fantasy moment for goons right now. We will be bluing them temporarily and 
  allowing them safe passage through our space while they play with their new food for the next 
  week or so. 
  
  #### SENT BY Dran Arcana to All online test/allies @ 2017-09-12 03:53:30 EVE Time ####
At one point, we thought that GigX had managed to disband the alliance entirely - which would have dropped all of Co2's sovereignty and left their space wide-open for the taking... which would have been a long night of work for us.

  (10:31:48 PM) pleaseignore.com: 
  GIGX DISBANDED CO2
  
  WOT
  
  #### SENT BY Lomgrim to All online test/allies @ 2017-09-12 05:31:48 EVE Time ####
  (10:32:17 PM) pleaseignore.com: 
  Time to toast boys. Get in fleet 1 mumble, now. Impass is free for the taking and we're fucking taking it.  
  
  #### SENT BY Xiaodown to All online test @ 2017-09-12 05:32:17 EVE Time ####
But that was a rumor - info was coming fast and loose for a while there. What ended up happening was just that The Judge was twitch streaming Co2 Alliance Chat, and when GigX got on, he made real-life threats against The Judge. Which, I mean, the rule is leave it all in-game; shooty-shooty-lasers at people in game, but have a beer at fanfest. Anyway, his twitch stream is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/174199105 but it's long and boring if you don't play eve. I don't know what timestamp the GigX threat is made, but here are some screenshots: https://i.imgur.com/2vhedbl.png (Baekkel is an alt of GigX), and https://i.imgur.com/g966goh.png

Once everything calmed down, the "Talking in Stations" podcast had all the involved people online and did a long podcast about it: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/174164252 - and WHILE GigX, The Judge, and a bunch of notables in Eve were online, GigX announced that he had been permabanned: https://clips.twitch.tv/AdorableAmorphousHedgehogCopyThis

So, that's how it went down. Just sayin. Sorry for all the Eve Jargon.

xiaodown··on The Startup CTO’s Guide to Ops (1 of 3): Guiding Principles
> While I love reading Hacker News posts about the amazing infrastructure at successful companies, I worry that these discussions may encourage an over-emphasis on perfection and scale.

God yes! I read all these blog posts about people's amazing automated deployment systems that use 17 different technologies where they have F on top of E on top of D on top of C on top of B on top of A on top of Kubernetes on top of Docker on top of AWS, and it's like, A.) When did you actually do any, you know, "work" - the stuff that you can charge clients for and make money? And B.) What's going to happen when some company or someone releases a patch or security update for any of the 7829271 applications in the stack that breaks everything?

You know what we run? Linux. On AWS. Using chef - although every community cookbook I ever look at makes me less sure that that was the right call (most community cookbooks make me think suicide might be the right call).

xiaodown··on Truly Seamless Reloads with HAProxy
I mean, "apachectl graceful" has existed for 20+ years. Sending a graceful (USR1) to apache will cause it to re-read its config, close and re-open log files, and send a signal to all children that they should exit after their current work is finished. If they have no work, they die immediately. New children are created under a master process that has the new configuration.

I know that HAProxy is not an apples to apples comparison with something like apache, but I don't see how something similar would be a huge burden to add.

xiaodown··on Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
So, for reference, I'm a guy who has multiple cards. I have two debit cards and a credit card.

The credit card is a credit card (and I mostly use it for company purchases that get reimbursed).

The two debit cards correspond to two different checking accounts. I have a "main" checking account that my check gets deposited into, and another account that I use for, mainly, online purchases or recurring subscriptions like netflix or anything where I am worried about card security. I transfer money into the account, then make the purchase, never leaving more than a hundred bucks or so floating in the account. That way, I limit my own pain in the event that someone gets hacked or my card gets leaked online - I'd much rather not be able to pay netflix than not be able to pay rent.

At one point, I also had a home depot card when my wife and I were fixing up our house in preparation to sell it.

I have a wallet that functions effectively as my phone case and wallet in one, and reducing the number of cards I have to carry around to - potentially - drivers' license, one payment card, and clipper card would be fantastic.

xiaodown··on Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
It wasn't going to be so much that, as a card that you could put multiple credit cards on, but that still functioned entirely like a credit card - meaning it could be swiped in vending machines, by waitresses, and everywhere that accepts cards, without the need for an apple pay or google pay or whatever NFC payment hardware.

It's for people that keep multiple cards in their wallet.

xiaodown··on Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders
From the website:

> What This Means For Backers: > It’s been a long road with a lot of obstacles. The support of our amazing backers has been incredible, which makes this announcement even harder. We were so incredibly ready for production in order to hit our deadlines but without capital it is impossible for us to move forward and we will not be able to fulfill any pre-orders.

soooo... no.

xiaodown··on The Long Dark is the survival genre at its brutal best
So, as a sandbox, it's fairly complete. The full version will include a story campaign, but that's not been released, even in part.

In other words, there's not really a reason you couldn't play it now.

xiaodown··on The Long Dark is the survival genre at its brutal best
Yes, the map is always the same as in the terrain is the same and the major buildings are in the same spot.

However, every playthrough, the resources are distributed randomly throughout the map (in designated spawn spots; for example, there may be 4 or 5 places in one zone that a rifle will spawn, but it'll actually spawn at most at one of them); food resources are randomly distributed; and there are these "secret bunkers" on a couple of the maps that are randomly done as well. There is exactly one per map, and the potential spawn places for them are all difficult to reach.

Also, some houses/huts/etc are generated and may not exist in all maps (i.e. there are maybe 8 "spots" where a house could be but in any given playthrough there could be only one or two with the other 6 being burnt down, inaccessible shacks), and that affects the available resources - you can go into houses and find canned goods, better clothes, etc.

The reason the map is the same is because the sandbox is only the pre-release game - there's going to be a single player campaign with a story, so the map corresponds to the story.

Also, trust me, the familiarity with the map is not a down side that detracts from game play. Much like a real survival situation, you're too busy trying to not starve or freeze to death to worry about it.

My problem with the game is the impracticality of eating as much as the game says you have to eat. If you're hunkered down in a shelter, chilling in a warm sleeping bag with many warm clothes on, near a fire, and your body temperature is fully normal, you don't need to consume 4000 calories in a day. But, in the game, it seems like 2kg of cooked deer meat will only get you through 8 hours. In a real survival situation, that should be like several days' worth of food at least.

xiaodown··on The best board games of 2016
There's lots of not-so-deep ones out there in the new "board games renaissance", too - like Forbidden Island / Forbidden Desert, Sheriff of Nottingham, or recently this year, Secret Hitler.

They take like 2 minutes to set up, 2 minutes to understand the rules, and are loads of fun even for kids (maybe not so much on the kids with the Hitler).

xiaodown··on There's the Wrong Way and Jacques Pépin's Way (2011)
Oh god, my mom has a glass (pyrex?) cutting board. It's SO BAD for knives, and all of her nice knives are so dull, I can barely stand to cook in her house.
xiaodown··on [dead]
Yep, i'm no expert, but a BGP looking glass seems to suggest that all of the best paths (chosen by AS pathlength?) are not being advertised to peers... But some routes are being advertised? Idk

    Router: Palo Alto, CA - US
    Command: show ip bgp 104.244.42.193

    BGP routing table entry for 104.244.42.0/24
    Versions:
    Process           bRIB/RIB  SendTblVer
    Speaker          261897778   261897778
    Last Modified: Nov  7 06:11:36.675 for 00:02:37
    Paths: (4 available, best #3)
    Advertised to update-groups (with more than one peer):
    0.2 0.3 0.6 0.7
    Advertised to peers (in unique update groups):
    129.250.47.126  129.250.9.146   128.242.180.62  80.150.168.193
    128.241.2.58

    Path #1: Received by speaker 0
    Not advertised to any peer
    13414 13414
    116.51.31.10 (metric 14530) from 129.250.0.18 (129.250.0.18)
    Origin IGP, localpref 120, valid, confed-internal
    Received Path ID 0, Local Path ID 0, version 0
    Community: 2914:370 2914:1405 2914:2406 2914:3400 65400:4134 65420:4134 65460:4134

    Path #2: Received by speaker 0
    Not advertised to any peer
    13414 13414
    62.73.183.110 (metric 28640) from 129.250.0.30 (129.250.0.30)
    Origin IGP, localpref 120, valid, confed-internal
    Received Path ID 0, Local Path ID 0, version 0
    Community: 2914:370 2914:1204 2914:2205 2914:3200 65400:4134 65420:4134 65460:4134

    Path #3: Received by speaker 0
    Advertised to update-groups (with more than one peer):
    0.2 0.3 0.6 0.7
    Advertised to peers (in unique update groups):
    129.250.47.126  129.250.9.146   128.242.180.62  80.150.168.193
    128.241.2.58
    13414 13414
    129.250.195.210 (metric 7029) from 129.250.0.115 (129.250.0.167)
    Origin IGP, localpref 120, valid, confed-internal, best, group-best
    Received Path ID 0, Local Path ID 1, version 261897778
    Community: 2914:370 2914:1007 2914:2000 2914:3000 65400:4134 65420:4134 65460:4134
    Originator: 129.250.0.167, Cluster list: 0.0.0.6

    Path #4: Received by speaker 0
    Not advertised to any peer
    13414 13414
    129.250.195.210 (metric 7029) from 129.250.0.116 (129.250.0.167)
    Origin IGP, localpref 120, valid, confed-internal
    Received Path ID 0, Local Path ID 0, version 0
    Community: 2914:370 2914:1007 2914:2000 2914:3000 65400:4134 65420:4134 65460:4134
    Originator: 129.250.0.167, Cluster list: 0.0.0.6
edit: sorry about formatting, i've tried to clean it up.
xiaodown··on [dead]
Yep. It's always good to know there's a [preexisting solution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_protocol).

Queue hordes of people typing "man finger"...

xiaodown··on [dead]
status.twitter.com redirects to https://status.twitterstat.us/ which presumably is their official status page. Which, by the way, reports that all systems are operational.
xiaodown··on IO domain DNS failure
AWS response:

Hello,

Some customers have reported intermittent resolution issues with .io domains. We can confirm that Route 53 DNS services are operating normally at this time and these issues seem to be related to the .io top-level domain provider.

We've investigated the issue and are primarily seeing incorrect responses from two of the .io nameservers: ns-a4.io and ns-a2.io. These nameservers are returning NXDOMAIN intermittently for domains that do exist. As a result, once a resolver receives the erroneous response, it will cache the non-existence for the negative TTL, which for .io is set to 3600 seconds (1 hour).

One suggestion we have is to increase the TTLs for your domains in Route 53 so that the resolvers cache DNS answers for a longer duration.

Best regards,

(Customer support rep name redacted)

Amazon Web Services

We value your feedback. Please rate my response using the link below.

xiaodown··on IO domain DNS failure
Yep, rather than no such domain or a bad delegation, the "bad" servers seem to just be down now.
xiaodown··on IO domain DNS failure
Getting significantly worse now.
xiaodown··on Exploiting Linux kernel heap off-by-one
Ubuntu vulnerability list: https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-security/cve/2016/CVE-2...

(TL;DR: Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) is listed as "needs triage", no other releases are affected (14.04/16.04/etc))

xiaodown··on Show HN: Twitch Installs Arch Linux – A cooperative text-based horror game
Eh, yeah, but it usually links to the "basic" version (which, I assume, is compatibility mode for old school vi).

    root@dicks:~# which vi
    /usr/bin/vi
    root@dicks:~# file /usr/bin/vi
    /usr/bin/vi: symbolic link to `/etc/alternatives/vi'
    root@dicks:~# file /etc/alternatives/vi
    /etc/alternatives/vi: symbolic link to    `/usr/bin/vim.basic'
    root@dicks:~# file /usr/bin/vim.basic
    /usr/bin/vim.basic: ELF 64-bit LSB  executable, x86-64, (snip)
    root@dicks:~# vi --version
    VIM - Vi IMproved 7.4 (2013 Aug 10, compiled Jan  2 2014 19:39:32)