A Sysadmin's Nose, Music

Book-whacking - 1st September

I sometimes wonder, looking at a pair of books, if I'm the only person in the world who has read both of them. I figure the odds are quite good if the books are obscure - say The Culture of Sex in Ancient China and Genetics, Speciation and the Founder Principle - but it's not impossible with quite popular books.

This is of course similar to Google-whacking, where people try to find two words which occur separately on many pages but only once together on the same page. But there's no actual way to know with books, so it's just speculation.

A Sysadmin's Nose - 29th August

John and I were in our server room this afternoon when we noticed a strange burning smell. After much checking of hardware, I eventually nosed down the culprit, an old DecStation which had obviously suffered some kind of cooling failure. It was running non-essential services, so we simply powered it down - if it had actually caught alight, it might have set off the sprinkler system, which would have been a disaster.

Music - 16th/17th August

Our performances of The Banishment of Sekar Taji went off wonderfully: "... a stunning display of precision and melting shapes, against a musical backdrop as soothing as the lapping of waves at a lake's edge" (John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald)