Blathering for Wednesday, 07 May 2008

09:16: $10 theft cost a $250,000 spill cleanup
09:16: " The 3,500-gallon spill of a toxic chemical into San Pablo Bay over the weekend cost an estimated $250,000 to clean up - and it was all for a lousy $10 worth of brass. The thieves who caused the spill of the chemical toluene at Reaction Products in Richmond were after the valves on holding tanks - the latest example of a crime wave involving barely precious metals that yield a few dollars at the recycling yard but can cost taxpayers big bucks."
09:57: Professor sues own students
09:58: "Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional expose, which she promises will "name names.""
09:58: ... I guess that's one way of retaining control in the classroom


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Syndicated 2008-05-08 02:58:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley

The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 1 and 2

It occurred to me over the weekend that it was odd that I was updating books I had recently read on a book site like goodreads, given that all I'm doing by entering data on their site is blogging someplace that not even I remember to read. I'm therefore going to move all of that stuff over to here, and then try to remember to blog about books I've read recently in the future. Don't worry though, I don't get much time to read in between work, study and kids, so it wont be too many posts.

Dad got me these books for my birthday last year, and they were awesome. The books are about a future tank squadron which takes on mercenary jobs, none of which ever seem to be clean or simple. Along the way you end up learning that they're all just misfits who haven't managed to find any other job which is a better fit for them. Worse than that, I'm left with the impression that in the back of their minds they all realize that they're running on borrowed time. David Drake has a unique position to comment on what its like to fight in a war, given he is a Vietnam veteran. These stories are fantastic science fiction, and often leave you with a realization that war often isn't simple, or fair. I first encountered David's writing when I was a kid reading a remaindered anthology called "Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow", which was a collection of short war science fiction stories. Luckily for me 15 or so years after I first encountered them I still think they are great stories. These books are highly recommended. [isbn: 189238969X] [isbn: 1892389738]

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Syndicated 2008-05-07 12:21:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley

A Stainless Steel Rat is Born

This was another book I read as a kid and had fond memories of. When I found it at Powell's books for under $4 I just had to pick it up. Harrison seems to focus on "pulp science fiction" -- all of the stuff I have seen from him has been short and easy reading, as is the case with this book. What do you do if you're stuck on a farming planet, smart, and bored out of your brain? Apparently the answer is to turn to a life of crime for entertainment. That's what James DeGriz does, and he is a great anti-hero while he's at it. Great book. [isbn: 0553279424]

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Syndicated 2008-05-07 12:19:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley

Estimating the progress of queries on MySQL

I've been doing a lot of batch updates on one of my databases at home recently. show processlist says something like this:

mysql> show processlist;
+-------+------+---------------+--------------+---------+-------+----------+------------------------------------------+
| Id    | User | Host          | db           | Command | Time  | State    | Info                                     |
+-------+------+---------------+--------------+---------+-------+----------+------------------------------------------|
| 18354 | root | maui:37403    | smtp_servers | Query   | 57234 | Updating | update ips_218 set reverse_lookup = null |
| 22286 | root | maui:37348    | smtp_servers | Query   | 38103 | Updating | update ips_80 set reverse_lookup = null, |
| 22851 | root | maui:54982    | smtp_servers | Query   | 34091 | Updating | update ips_19 set reverse_lookup = null, | 
| 23351 | root | molokai:58232 | smtp_servers | Sleep   |    57 |          | NULL                                     |
| 23496 | root | maui:40923    | smtp_servers | Query   | 29973 | Updating | update ips_62 set reverse_lookup = null, |
| 23906 | root | maui:38068    | smtp_servers | Query   | 26794 | Updating | update ips_83 set reverse_lookup = null, |
| 25675 | root | maui:56438    | smtp_servers | Query   | 12505 | Updating | update ips_82 set reverse_lookup = null, |
| 25846 | root | maui:41334    | smtp_servers | Query   | 10948 | Updating | update ips_90 set reverse_lookup = null, |
| 26437 | root | maui:41139    | smtp_servers | Query   |  6211 | Updating | update ips_66 set reverse_lookup = null, |
| 26773 | root | maui:32885    | smtp_servers | Query   |  3526 | Updating | update ips_76 set reverse_lookup = null, |
| 27073 | root | maui:42607    | smtp_servers | Query   |  1148 | Updating | update ips_11 set reverse_lookup = null, |
| 27202 | root | molokai:50688 | smtp_servers | Query   |     0 | NULL     | show processlist                         |
| 27203 | root | molokai:50689 | smtp_servers | Sleep   |     2 |          | NULL                                     |
+-------+------+---------------+--------------+---------+-------+----------+------------------------------------------+
14 rows in set (0.20 sec)

Now, wouldn't it be nice if MySQL provided some extra information about the progress of those queries? Like for example the number of rows which have been updated so far, or an estimate of how long the query has left to run? I'm ok with such queries not being very accurate, but I assume the storage engine has to have some idea of how many rows are in the table and how many it has touched already.

Perhaps something like this already exists and I haven't noticed? I'm using innodb if that matters.

Update: it seems like innodb can answer this question for me:

mysql> show engine innodb status \G;
...
---TRANSACTION 0 40056, ACTIVE 39794 sec, process no 22984, OS thread id 3020733328 waiting in InnoDB queue
mysql tables in use 1, locked 1
6672 lock struct(s), heap size 748864, undo log entries 909825
MySQL thread id 22851, query id 351217 maui 192.168.1.93 root Updating
update ips_19 set reverse_lookup = null, reverse = null, reverse_extracted
...

That doesn't give you an estimate of percentage complete though. I assume there is a 1:1 correlation between undo row entries and rows altered by the query?

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Syndicated 2008-05-07 08:26:00 (Updated 2008-05-07 00:03:34) from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley

Blathering for Tuesday, 06 May 2008

12:57: I am RICH and I want to spend it on YOU tonight
12:57: "I am so rich. Goodness, gracious. My, my, my. I am so, very, very wealthy. How many dollars do I have? That's a question only my team of ten fat accountants can answer, because they have golden calculators which I bought for them with my money. And what is on those golden calculators? Numbers. And those numbers equal the dollars in my bank accounts, which are huge... In my vehicles I have stored many bottles of rare, delicious wines. These wines are hundreds of years old and covered in dust and cobwebs, which means that they are the most delicious kind, and that they were grown from grapes which were so succulent and juicy that the poor grape-pickers of France wanted to eat them right then and there. But they were whipped, by my shift-leader vintner, who makes sure that the best grapes in my vineyard go only into the wine. That's right, my great grandfather, who was also rich, owned the vineyard where this wine was made. And it's really strong too, it can get you wasted quickly."
12:57: (And so much more)
14:37: Why is it that all ecommerce sites in Australia are terrible? Take for example Canberra Sand and Gravel. I want a quote on some sleepers, so off to http://users.tpg.com.au/csgfysh/products.html. There they have a list of the products they sell, but not the prices. So now I know what a sleeper looks like (in case I've never been in the outside world before I suppose), but still have no idea what they cost. Thanks guys.


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Syndicated 2008-05-07 05:57:00 (Updated 2008-05-06 23:04:55) from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley