Archive for December, 2006

FreeBSD: Slurm… the IPTraf alike for FreeBSD

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

For many moons I have wanted an application like IPTraf for FreeBSD. Well through lack of trying and a certain amount of stupidity I couldn't find one. All good things come to those who wait... to stumble across things late at night. I was watching an rsync backup happen across the network while reading BSDForums and I stumbled across Slurm. It's not quite the same as IPTraf but its close enough... in fact in some ways it's easier to use.

It's missing the per port break down and the connection list that IPTraf has. But to be honest all I really want is ascii graphs :-) . It is easier to use in my opinion because it just does what I want.. draws a cool graph and lets me know something is happening when I worried that I fucked something up again :shock: .

Slurm

And you though this was going to be a late night rant about a fictional soft drink :-)

Merry Bloody Christmas

Monday, December 25th, 2006
Nothing sums up Christmas better then robot Santa. He is my hero on this day!
Robot Santa

Image taken from Futurama Madhouse.

Apollo Space Mission Proves Galileo Galilei Correct

Saturday, December 23rd, 2006

One of the hardest things to get your head around when you are a kid (or even now as an adult I will admit) is that the time it takes objects to fall to the ground is the same even if they have different masses. It's just doesn't make sense that a lighter object falls at the same speed as a heavier one. After all the heavier one pulls on your hand more and your instinct tells you it is going to fall more quickly.

Well here is some excellent footage from the Apollo space mission where a hammer and a feather fall at the same rate toward the moon. The lack of atmosphere removes the effect of drag on the feather. It really does look fake... but it isn't.

Of course wikipedia has some excellent information on our long lost scientific friend including information on how he showed this to be true on earth.