netwrker/uk

Please take the time to watch this video and spread the word....

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 12:52:00 +0000

Please take the time to watch this video and spread the word. Seriously. Please. I came across it last night and he made me cry. For just a few short minutes, he opens up his heart and gives us a glimpse of his short life; his pain and his suffering.

He’s an inspiration, but he also just shows what’s wrong with the world at the moment: One of the silent majority who has decided to speak out about what he experiences every day.

If you do anything today, please do this and I dare you not to be moved by him!

So, Would You Snog, Marry or Avoid me?

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:46:00 +0100

So, Would You Snog, Marry or Avoid me?:

Go on…. Let me know! :D

How old were you when you lost your virginity?

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:32:00 +0100

I was 17 when I first had sex with another guy (the first half of 1999 was a mad time for me); a friend and then boyfriend, called Richard. He was the same age as me and although we only together for a few days (it carried on for about another 6 weeks, but long-distance), he was my first.

However, although I’ve been in relationship with one or two guys since then, they’ve never really lasted that long (a few weeks at a time), nor have I ever done anal with anyone.

Its not something that many people realise/think about gay guys: Not all of us like anal sex. For me, its always scared me and I’ve never been with someone I trust enough to try it. Its not something I regret by any means, but maybe one day if I find the one for me and I may then be willing to try it.

(You wanted honest and nothing off-limits, well there you go!)

Feel free to keep asking! :)

Do your parents know you're gay?

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:24:00 +0100

Yep. And I think this was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. I had no idea what would happen, how they would react, anything. To have to say “I’m Gay” without knowing if I’ll be kicked out of the house, beaten or embraced with love is beyond frightening.

Unfortunately, I came out at school thinking it would be no big deal. A few friends would know, well the class I was in at the time, but that would be it. Within hours it had spread around half-a-dozen schools in the area (was just at time when the first PAYG phones were out so people could text/call each other), and every pupil in ours knew (including my brother who never found it out from me, but has since forgiven me for that).

I had never expected that and as such for the next week I dreaded going home - did my parents find out from my brother, did they overhear someone talking about it in Tesco’s, etc.? At the end of the week, I really couldn’t take it any more.

We all sat down at the table for tea and ate. I said nothing, and afterwards my parents washed up while my brother went upstairs, still I said nothing. Even as my parents when shopping at Tesco’s, and an hour later when they came back I was still sat in the same place, silent. At that point through shear exhaustion, I came out.

They were great about it. Said they had suspected something, but they didn’t care. After a short conversation (which I don’t remember much of) I went up to my room and I think fell asleep.

In fact, later that year both my parents admited it was a little bit of a shock to them, but they knew instantly that they had to support me. My dad even said that after nearly 20 years in the Police, much of which was spent in Central London, he had seen homophobia and the damage and hurt it causes, and vowed to protect me if I needed it. My mother had a few gay friends when she was younger in the 80s and supported many of her friends through difficult times too. They just never expected it would be me that was gay too; I never gave them any inkling that I was that way inclined.

it took a while for them a while to come to terms with it themselves, but they (and my brother) still support me to this day and I love them all with all my heart; nothing has really changed between us, despite this.

How old were you when you realised you were gay?

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:09:00 +0100

Looking back, I was probably around 11 when I started to like boys. There wasn’t a realisation at the time as initially it seamed normal; I didn’t know what gay was nor saw it as a label or understood the significance of liking boys. However, around 12 I moved with my parents to a new town and a new school, and the people there were different. I just got a feeling it wasn’t right; so for the next four years I completely switched off that side of me.

I never had a girlfriend, fancied a girl or really even talked to one. I was friends with a couple of guys through my senior-school years and for a while that was fine. It wasn’t until I was about 16 that my gay side started to push back. Towards the end of 1998 I started to accept that I was gay, especially after speaking with people on-line who were gay as well.

I eventually came out a few weeks after my 17th birthday in 1999 to the school after a bit of a drunken accident at a party forced my hand. For alot of people it was a shock, both for the fact that I was gay and that I had come out.

It was a very different time back then unfortunately and it took me a long time to go from knowing, to realising and then to acknowledging being gay. And although I probably regret not coming out sooner, coming out at school when I did was almost unheard-of at the time, let aloneat the ages some of boys come out at now.

Honesty Hour. No questions are deleted. Nothing is off limits. Ask me anything. Though one wonders if I'll grow to regret this now! lol

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:37:57 +0100

Honesty Hour. No questions are deleted. Nothing is off limits. Ask me anything. Though one wonders if I'll grow to regret this now! lol

I’ve been following this a lot since the news started...

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:18:25 +0100

I’ve been following this a lot since the news started breaking on Wednesday and it just moves me. I know in the USA there’s a lot of issue with LGBTQ youth in schools (to which almost anyone with power is largely ignoring), but I think this case is even more significant. Not least because it’s another in a long list of cries for help and/or release, but because for a short time, he had his brief, actual hope.

Despite his hardship for so long at the end of last year and the start of this, he started to see light at the end of the tunnel. Through family, friends, counselling and his music (with tribute to Lady GaGa there), saw hope, so much so that he recorded his own ‘It Gets Better’ video (this video). You can see the pain he’s been through when he talks and even though he is young he wants to pass a true message from someone going through it back out to those that need it.

Four months later, he killed himself.

All this hope, promise and belief that he managed to find in himself once again was taken way, beyond the point of no return, and one final sleep was the only way out he could now see.

All around this world, this must stop. The ignorance portrayed, and the hate give out, by Religion/the Religious or by those who see the world built around their morals, especially in those countries that consider themselves free and civilised, is really angering me. I know there are exceptions to the rule, and I know that there are those with faith that do truly follow the tenants of love, life and tolerance, but something must now give.

To those that use nothing more than belief and ignorance to perpetuate their hate, yet preach love, and want nothing more than to enforce their morals on everyone while at the same time extolling the virtues of freedom and choice - this boy’s blood is on your hands, along with all those before and any in the future that suffer this emptiness (although I hope with all my heart we are so close to the end).

I know my words can never mean much to him now and probably as a single person, my abilities to change the world, or even a small bit of it, are limited, but for as long as it takes, I will stand with those who are bullied or victimised for something they didn’t choose and is simple a part of who they are.

Dear Bullies,

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:13:00 +0100

Dear Bullies,:

There are people who are white, there are people who are black, there are people who are Latino/a, there are people who are Asian, there are people who are Australian, there are people who areBritish, there are people who are Icelandic, there are people who are gay, there are people who arestraight, there are people who are bisexual, there are people who are lesbian, there are people who are pansexual, there are people who are just plain sexual, there are transgender people, and there are cysgender people (in short, not trans), there are people who are asexual, there are people who are beautiful, there are people who have frizzy hair, there are people who have high cheekbones, there are people who have acne, there are people who are a little larger than most, there are people who are a little bit thinner than most, there are people who wear Lady Gaga tees, there are people who wear strictly Armani, there are people who rock out with their Crocs out, there are old people, there are young people, there are toddlers, there are people who are a collage of all of these identities whom we don’t know yet, because they are still in utero, there are people who boycott Starbucks, there are people who don’t know any other coffeeshops, there are people who work out five times a week, there are people training to be triathletes, there are people who have never seen a dumbell in their lives and have no plans to, there are people who can run five miles, there are people who can walk three meters, there are people who can’t walk at all, there are people whocan’t hear, see, smell, taste, who see colors as sounds and hear sounds in concepts and there are people who are majoring in philosophy and business and recreation and people who will bestereotype straight, fixing up the house on the weekends, and loving his kids, and there will be thegay men who consider homosexuality to be just another trait, and there will be gay men who will be the baddest fabulous-est queeniest bitches on the block, and there will be super butch and less butch lesbians, and there will be people will 1,000 friends on Facebook, and there will be people whoprefer the company of books, because books really GET them, and there are people who will marryand people who will sleep around, people who will marry a career, and people who will devote their lives to what they believe in. There will be people who are confident, but more often there are people who deep down, feel insecure, and not good enough, and though encompassed by a sea of people every single day, they feel alone. There are people who don’t know the meaning of the word “alone” at all, but I’ve never met one. There are seven billion people in the world, but above anything else, there are people, who are really just trying to get by.

So kindly lay off those people you think are weird. If you put that energy you are using to put someone else down into figuring out your own true identity, I promise you that, even for you, your life and your feelings of self worth will get better. And you know what? Maybe the world will be a better place.

R.I.P. Jamey Rodemeyer. Despite people telling you that you horrible and disgusting and wrong for your love, you were, are, and forever will be fucking perfect. I hope you can see that now, wherever you are.

I won’t take credit for this; written by Love, Sex and Ramen.

My view of Madeira as I came into Funchal yesterday on the Ferry...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 21:30:19 +0100

My view of Madeira as I came into Funchal yesterday on the Ferry from Porta Santo. So wonderful and dramatic. I’ve more of these to come, but it’s views like this that make this island fantastic and such a great place to visit.

The Oxford skyline on a glorious summers Sunday afternoon.

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:27:00 +0100

The Oxford skyline on a glorious summers Sunday afternoon.

Distribution is not Murder with MCollective

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 22:51:00 +0100

I work as a Systems Administrator for a UK-based major music streaming website and we pride ourselves on our ability to grow efficiently and make extensive use of open-source tools and programs whenever possible.

We’re growing fast and although we haven’t reached the ceiling, some of the tools we used are tweaked versions of the ones developed when we had just a few servers. Knowing that there is this ceiling, and its approaching fast, I’ve been putting in some time recently researching on how to take it to the next level.

One of our senior developers suggested something he’d seen previously: Murder. Developed by Twitter last year to help them get code out to their thousands of servers, they were able to tap into the distributed peer-to-peer capabilities of Bittorrent as a powerful alternative to their original from-central-server pull configuration.

However, their tool is configured to drop into Capistrano. With us using Puppet to manage our server’s configuration, we have instead installed and configured MCollective instead, and therefore we needed to write a client and agent to integrate the two.

Making Murder

Murder is essentially in two parts: a BitTornado backend (with some slight reconfiguration to improve speed on a low-latency network but no changes to the actual libraries) and three custom scripts to make the torrents, provide the tracker and seed/peer the files themselves.

I took the configuration changes from Murder and forward-ported them to the latest version (the one in their Git responsibly is over a year old) and repacked them all into .deb packages (we run Debian on all our servers). Their changes disable UPnP (not needed outside of a home network), drop all the timeouts, decrease the time between updates from the tracker and imposing a limit on the upload and download speeds stopping transfers from swamping the network and server resources.

However, their choice was to set each peer to only download from one other, essentially cascading the updates through the system almost one server at a time. However my tests with this method was not particularly fast - upping the client limit to a maximum of two peers showed big improvements and I was able to transfer a 180Mb test file (an ISO image) between twelve servers simultaneously in 28 seconds.

With these changes added as a diff to the current BitTornado package, and another package created for the Murder programs, we added them to our internal repository and pushed them out with Puppet.

MCollective

MCollective is the spark here and I’m sure what your most interested in. I must however make a point right from the start: This is only the second program I’ve written in Ruby (the first being a multi-threaded latency monitor to analysis the different parts of our site and the different stages of each request to pinpoint issues in serving our site). Additionally, this is the first experience I’ve had in working with MCollective. Anyone who does use it, or takes a look at the code; feedback is welcome. Just don’t expect the most efficient code it could be right now!

In essence, the client program processes the arguments, does some sanity checking, then creates a .torrent file with murder_make_torrent before launching a separate thread which seeds the package with murder_client.

system("/usr/sbin/murder_make_torrent #{$opt[:package]} #{$opt[:tracker]} #{$opt[:torrent]}")
$opt[:seeder] = Thread.new($opt[:package], $opt[:torrent]) { |package,torrent|
  system("/usr/sbin/murder_client seed #{torrent} #{package} #{get_address($opt[:tracker].split(':',2).first)}")
}

The .torrent file is read, encoded into a base64 string and then sent to each agent via the main thread along with the name of the package, the location of the tracker and the application for which we’re deploying.

$opt[:package_hash] = Base64.encode64(Marshal.dump({
  :package => File.basename($opt[:package]),
  :tracker => $opt[:tracker],
  :torrent => IO.read($opt[:torrent])
})).split(/\n/).join

Each agent takes that data, launches a class which matches to the name of the application we’re deploying to (which in turn handles the specifics of deploying each application), and then runs a method corresponding to an action (for example, add() when we’re adding a new version or upgrade() for applications which supports only a single concurrent version at any one time).

class Deploy "deploy",
           :description => "Agent to deploy our website, including Assets and Tomcat files.",
           :author => "Jonathan Wright ",

  DeployPackage.valid_actions.each do |act|
    action act do
      # Get the details passed to us from the API
      application = request[:application]
      version = request[:version]
      package = request[:package]
      # Make sure that there's a class for this application's deployment
      reply.fail! "Application #{application} not available" \
        unless Agent.const_defined?(application.capitalize) \
            && Agent.const_get(application.capitalize).class.is_a?(Class)
      # If a class exists, create an instance of it so we can work with it
      worker = Agent.const_get(application.capitalize).new(reply, logger, version, package)
      # Now make sure that the action requests has a method for it, then run
      reply.fail! "Command not valid for target" \
        unless worker.do_validate(act) # <-- this is a custom method of worker's parent class
      reply[:output] = worker.send(act)
    end
  end
end

It will then launch murder_client as a peer, download the file and then extract it or process it as required. Although not currently enabled as part of our first round testing, it can then create a new thread which will run for a maximum of 30 seconds (using Timeout.timeout()) in which it will re-seed the package back to the network at the same time it’s processing the copy it has.

begin
  # This needs to be done in a separate thread as so not to interfere
  # with remainder of the deployment
  @thread = Thread.new {
    begin
      # We'll also wrap this in a Timeout class; fixed time run
      status = Timeout::timeout(@@timeout) {
        system("/usr/sbin/murder_client seed #{torrent} #{package} #{address}")
      }
    rescue Timeout::Error => e
      # We should always reach this section as the program as once the
      # timeout it reached Timeout::Error is raised
      nil
    end
  }
rescue => e
  # If we can't start the tread, we won't worry. Just make a note of it
  @logger.debug "Could not start thread for seeding #{@package}"
  @thread = nil
end

First Tests

Our first tests (completed yesterday) had distributed a 25Mb file containing around 2,200 images, css & javascript files among 41 servers in less than 30 seconds; an action that had previously taken between 3 and 10 minutes our original rsync method. It should be noted that the majority of servers completed in less than 15 seconds with the main seeder becoming increasingly important in serving the content as the nodes completed and disappeared from the tracker.

With the re-seeding thread enabled I expect this to drop as all the nodes stay available for longer.

I also tested with a smaller set of assets at 1.7Mb (about 350 files) and the program was able to distribute that file and extract it to the same 41 severs in 2.2 seconds.

The code isn’t yet read for full release, and I will do that in due course. A few things are needed first:

Like the Agent part of the code, I would like to make the client part into a dynamic class-loading version which will separate logic and action. Much of the current code is heavily biased to our internal business processes and would need to be changed by any person wishing to use it before they could;
Export the configuration to MCollective itself - far to much of it is within the program and classes as they’ve been written and added I’ve coded it all. This will also make it much easier to configure the program from within Puppet by altering the template for server.cfg;
Rework BitTornado changing it’s namespace to Murder and combine the Libraries and Programs into one package to avoid conflicts with BitTornado and easier package management; plus
Bug fixes (as I find them…) and more testing!

If you would like to see a copy of the current code, drop me a note on @twitter or leave a comment.

This just about says it all really! :) #Yes2AV

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:02:39 +0100

This just about says it all really! :) #Yes2AV

A cracking shot of Oxford. The more I get to know this little...

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:16:27 +0100

A cracking shot of Oxford. The more I get to know this little City, the more I love it!

In the great British tradition, any notion of public transport...

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:00:06 +0100

In the great British tradition, any notion of public transport went out of the window as soon as the snow settled. Buses were getting stuck all over Oxford, but this is the main bus point for Oxford and everything here is out of service!

A Wisp of Contemplation: Why Christians shouldn't/cannot be homophobic:

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:58:41 +0100

A Wisp of Contemplation: Why Christians shouldn't/cannot be homophobic::

juniourr:

First, I’d like to point out that this is an examination as to how Christians cannot be homophobic, not Muslims, Jews or adherents to other religions. As well, I am not generalising all Christians nor all members of the LGBT community.

Secondly, all sources and quotes etc. are given their…

On parts of the river that weren’t frozen yet the snow...

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:00:00 +0100

On parts of the river that weren’t frozen yet the snow still made it’s mark, and these punts weren’t going anywhere! Still, made for a lovely shot!

You know it’s bad when the snow is settling on a frozen...

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 10:00:07 +0100

You know it’s bad when the snow is settling on a frozen river! Although in all fairness, it’s only around two feet deep and very slow running, so it’s easy to freeze over if it gets cold enough, but still…

Speed Cameras Are Back On In Oxford

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:22:00 +0100

Speed Cameras Are Back On In Oxford:

I’ve been keeping my eye on this topic over the last few days as for the first 48 hours or so, nothing other than ‘deaths and serious injuries on the roads had increased’ had been released. However, an updated article from earlier on, just as the initial heat and interest around this started to die down suddenly shows a different picture:

Slight Injuries:
2009: 70; 2010: 55 (down since they were switched off);
Serious Injuries:
2009: 13; 2010: 13 (no change);
Fatalities:
2009: 0; 2010: 0 (no change); and
Total Accidents:
2009: 62; 2010: 60 (down since they were switched off).

Matching periods of 08/2009-01/2010 and 08/2010-01/2011, accidents and injuries at sites where the cameras have been placed have gone down, not up as is initially suggested.

To back up their figures, they need to cover the whole of Oxfordshire:

Slight Injuries:
2009: 982; 2010: 999 (slightly up since they were switched off);
Serious Injuries:
2009: 160; 2010: 179 (up since they were switched off);
Fatalities:
2009: 12; 2010: 18 (up since they were switched off); and
Total Accidents:
2009: 885; 2010: 867 (down since they were switched off).

This is not as clear cut as they’ve been making it out to be over the last two days and I don’t find it that surprising that it’s taken until now for the rest of these figures to be released. So, yes, while there is a significant increase in the amount of deaths (up 50%) and overall, injuries across the county are up 2.18%, injuries at camera sites are down 22.1%. This combined with the fact that accidents are down 2.16% overall means that they have had to manipulate the statistics to back up their argument.

They have used a set of figures, loosely related to the ones they should have used, to justify a decision which I believe is in some way incorrect. £600,000 should be used to fund more police in cars to patrol the area, interact with the public and deter bad driving rather than just switching on camera.

After all: “Today the Police are switching back on Speed Cameras in the country after statistics show that accidents and injuries around camera sites have fallen” isn’t quite as catchy a headline!

I’ll happily admit that the Snow was a surprise, but the...

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 09:30:07 +0100

I’ll happily admit that the Snow was a surprise, but the temperature certainly wasn’t (man it was freezing that week). All being said, you can never fail to find a student completely unprepared for the winter, let alone the snow!

Yep, this is (some of) me! I’d just never seen snow like...

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:00:06 +0000

Yep, this is (some of) me! I’d just never seen snow like it! Two hours of flurry and we have eight inches of the powdery white stuff. These aren’t shoes either, they’re full on boots standing in the snow.