If someone is looking for the Debian Installation installation ISO's which are actually useful in terms of resulting in a working x86 Desktop or Laptop, it can be found here. You can in theory find it linked off the Debian web site, but in deference to the FSF's feelings, it's hidden under a sign labelled "Beware of the Leopard".

Something I've been working on for a while.

I came across a reference to the song "The Vicar of Bray" in a comment in a New York Times opinion piece talking about Senator Flake's decision to denounce President Trump and his decision not to run for reelection. The question then was why there weren't more Republican senators saying the things being said by Senator Flake and Corker. And in that context, someone referenced the comic song, "The Vicar of Bray".

For those who are familiar with English history, the song is hilarious:


1. In good King Charles's golden days
When loyalty no harm meant
A zealous High Churchman was I
And so I got preferment
To teach my flock I never missed
Kings were by God appointed
And damned are those that do resist
Or touch the Lord's anointed

Chorus:
And this is law, I will maintain
Until my dying day, Sir
That whatsoever King may reign
Still I'll be the Vicar of Bray, Sir

2. When royal James obtained the crown
And Pop'ry came in fashion
The penal laws I hooted down
And read the Declaration
The Church of Rome I found would fit
Full well my constitution
And had become a Jesuit
But for the Revolution

3. When William was our King declared
To ease a nation's grievance
With this new wind about I steered
And swore to him allegiance
Old principles I did revoke
Set conscience at a distance
Passive obedience was a joke
A jest was non-resistance

4. When gracious Anne became our Queen
The Church of England's glory
Another face of things was seen
And I became a Tory
Occasional Conformists base
I damned their moderation
And thought the church in danger was
By such prevarication

5. When George in pudding time came o'er
And moderate men looked big, Sir
I turned a catinpan once more
And so became a Whig, Sir
And thus preferment I procured
From our new faith's defender
And almost every day abjured
The Pope and the Pretender

6. Th' illustrious house of Hanover
And Protestant succesion
To these I do allegiance swear
While they can keep possession
For in my faith and loyalty
I never more will falter
And George my lawful king shall be
Until the times do alter

------

P.S This comic song is also a great argument for the principle of separation of church and state.

P.P.S. The Wikipedia entry will explain many of the more obscure references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vicar_of_Bray_(song)

Since I ran out of quota in the US Regions, gce-xfstests's new lightweight test manager automatically started pushing test VM's running different test shards to Asia, Europe, and Australia. I suppose I should teach the LTM to make decisions based on the pricing for each region, since it's going to be cheaper to use European regions over Asia/Australia GCE regions. (And of course US regions are the cheapest of all.)

As my Signals and Systems professor once said when teaching us about control theory, "may your poles always be in the left half plane". Otherwise, things like this can happen....

This recent presentation explains more of the really cool things in Storage @ Google. For those people who have read the GFS paper or the Disks for Data Center paper, and who want more, this is for you.

[1] https://research.google.com/archive/gfs.html
[2] https://research.google.com/pubs/pub44830.html

I really like this write-up about the philosophy of testing compter systems/programs.

I ordered a new +Citibank US card since my old card most of the credit card (and the signature band) worn off. One of the downsides of the non-embossed cards. My old card did have my last name (Ts'o) correct. The new card.... well, it looks like the software which sent the text to the credit card generation / printing system decided to HTML escape my name one time too many. Oops!

I tried calling the customer service line, and talked to a very nice supervisor, and she had no idea how to even file a bug for something like this.

Quote from Linus:

“And yes, a large part of this may be that I no longer feel like I can trust "init" to do the sane thing. You all presumably know why.”

Context: https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/7/6/577