The Lair

Jumped into a server today after what seems like ages. The memories and remnants of a bygone era. It seems like yesterday when the biggest worry I had in my mind was how I was going to cope with the amounts of traffic a website was attracting.

A few minutes before I upgraded a few things and made an obligatory reboot:

Up 315 days, 23:23, 1 user …

In comparison to some legendary uptimes, 10 months or so without a reboot isn’t all that big a deal – but at least it proves to me that I can still setup a server and make it stick; even in the face of some hardcore traffic (regrettably, most of the heavier bursts have been from spambots – no slashdotting or digg avalanches here).

What’s even more interesting to me though; is how quickly life and interests and indeed, focus seems to have changed in a mere 315 days. Doing a quick count on my fingers, I realize that I don’t usually have any time to turn on an IM client at work, nor even stay on a browser for more than a few hurried minutes. Compared to the reasonably well-informed-of-happenings-on-the-internets-self of a few months ago, this is scarily different. I bounce between Slashdot and a few other sites between meetings, take a quick look at the email client before yet another seemingly interminable conference call, read yet another document before heading off to do my usual walkabout.

Yes, I’ve become a suit. I kid myself that I am one of those cool suits; because using a noisily squawking fluffy duck and a fake plastic cutlass as props seems to be novelties around here. The most scary part of it all is how little time I have to bitch about not doing what I really wanted to do when I started in this field – sit down, and write code.

Already wondering if next year will bring more of the same.

In no particular order – the events of the past week and a half or so –

Number of near death events: 4
I forgot that some roads are now one-way (a lifetime of habit on familiar streets) and ended up looking in the wrong direction for oncoming traffic.

Number of new bloggerati met: 2
Although one guy (you know who you are etc) was a brief meeting. The Fascist was, gratifyingly, almost exactly as I had imagined – although he sounded odd over the phone.

Random acts of desperation: 2
I still don’t have a DSL connection. A couple of days after I landed, I lugged my laptop over to a cafe (with hideously priced smoothies) just to enjoy the free wifi on offer. I felt simultaneously bad and good about the whole thing. Bad, because ye know – I didn’t really want to go to that place. Good because, well.. internet.

I also sent a plainitive SMS to tezcat asking for news of the internets. He rose to the occasion with a summary that would have done any summer-upper (sumerian?) proud.

Random three wheeler dudes talking to me about politics: 5
No really. I don’t care. Please stop. Why doesn’t my usual non-committal grunt work with you anymore?

Random three wheeler dudes talking to me about rising prices: umm. lost count
I’m still operating on UK prices and conversions. I laugh mockingly at your puny 2 quid fare. Well, no. The beer is annoyingly expensive. Maybe I’m just going to the wrong places.

New eateries scoped out: 4
The Sizzle was decent (their website still no worky, btw). Photos taken. Not sure if my whipping out a camera was the reason for being offered a questionnaire at the end of the meal or not. Maybe it was just a slow day, which is why the manager/owner chappie came over and asked us about the meal.

At the other end of the spectrum, also went (twice!) to a place near Nawala named “The Chinese Steam Boat”. Their gin is vile and filthy cheap. I highly recommend it. Decent food too, I guess.

Number of cumulative hours spent in a gaming cafe getting my ass kicked by screaming twelve year olds: umm… 15ish, I think
*mumble mumble* I was having a bad day or three, ok?

Number of paranoid bus conductors heard screaming at people to grab hold of their own bags: about 3
Yeah, bombs on buses, yadda yadda.

There’s more, but that’s probably for later.

It seems vaguely like something from a movie. Or failing which, at least a grander, larger scale version of a time capsule. Unfortunately, time capsules and archive footage usually serve to remind us of the awful hairstyles of the 80s and the cringeworthy aspects of our past. But this time, there’s pretty serious business afoot.

Way up in the arctic circle, there exists an island named Svalbard. (Yes, this Svalbard, as featured in the Pullman books). That’s the site of the “doomsday vault” (more properly, the Svabard Global Seed Vault). The wikipedia entry says that the vault was planned in 2005, I found a BBC link with some concept drawings.

The purpose of such a remote vault? No seedy business, I assure you (ok. C’mon. You had to know I was going there). The mission (via Wikipedia and also via an article in Nature)

… provide a safety net against accident loss of diversity in traditional genebanks. While the popular press has emphasized its possible utility in the event of a major regional or global catastrophe, it will certainly be more frequently accessed when genebanks lose samples due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts and natural disasters. Such events occur with some regularity. In recent years, some national genebanks have also been destroyed by war and civil strife. There are some 1400 crop diversity collections around the world, but many are in politically unstable or environmentally threatened nations.

The first set of seeds from Africa arrived yesterday. Go forth and … sprout?

And while this is an awesomely laudable cause, I do have this reminder from another field. There’s no point taking backups if you don’t test restoring the backup. How do these people know that the seeds are viable? (I mean, I’m sure there is some way – like taking temperatures from the germinating seeds or something). I haven’t found out how it happens yet, though.