the deltaTraffic weblog

cURL is a brilliant tool. Im using it in a script on a cron job to mail me if a certain page has changed. I get a “name lookup timed out”, though, but it seems to do the job regardless.

Now, how to work out how to set the job to run php every 30 mins round the clock.

or whay-hey! every 5 mins.

0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * php [directory]/script.php

I can always tone it down later.

So I arrive at 9:15 having walked with ap down Union st and by around 9:45 I know the pressure is now on to actually do some work, rather than the usual procrastination I usually serve up. I go through CS 3012 filespace to notice a ex1 file and work out how to print it out.; gone are the reams of print outs with the customer long gone. You have to sent your job to the printer computer and then print it. A mulitude of problems thus ironed out. Ahh the modern way of studying.

A nice enough woman angles to get my attention but I smile and get on with my task; I note shes the same one as the other day. Thinking now, I ought to make more of an effort to return the gesture; there again, the library is meant to be a place where that doesnt need to happen. whatever.

So I start on the mini assignment (not assessed I believe) and immediately have to look up what is meant by |x|. Naturally enough I go straight down a side alley (very wide if you do hilbert spaces), interesting but inconsequential; and examine elucidian spaces; later I discover |x| is the length of the string, rather than absolute value or distance. I note the monoids in passing and check out communicativity (mn=nm) and associativity (a+(b+c) = (a+b)+c) and glance over distributivity ( a*(b+c) = a*b + a*c ). The empty string is analysed and by around 10:45 I have two answers and a third that seduces me to greater curiosity.

3. what is the relationship between |uv|, |u| and |v| ?

plus another 3 that create a sensation of puzzlement.

So, the CSD account is available, so off to the helpdesk I go and get my login details. At last. To the meston 4 room and a lecture which I had read 2 months previously during my long vacation was issued and then another, the AI introduction on the other side of the building in another very large room and I was done.

I then ate my sandwiches in the sun and began a hard suduko with a large baby seagull to feed, eager for bread. I came to a fulll stop with the hard SD and went for a 10 min lie down. I got a another coffee and came to here to do this.

First I try to play jin (freechess java client) and it tells me java is not installed, amazing since java is taught using these machines, and I consider java games, or just that site, is blocked. Maybe elsewhere will feed my addiction to chess, something that contributed to my procrastination and thus failure at sussex. I failed at surrey to boot, but I had other things then to procrastinate with.

So during this type out I drank my cappacino and feeling not so tired, not so perky but comfortable that I can be more aware of whats happened today, reflection is a good thing.

Now; how do I solve a question like:

4. State a necessary and sufficient condition on T for T* to be finite. If T* is finite, list its members.

Going over todays events at university, and having done the essential of at least turning up on time, it seems to me I spent the whole day chasing my own tail.

The actual purpose of being there didnt really get realised: directing my own learning. Timetabled was 2 hours. Available was 6 hours for private study. Let see how that actually got used.

After a sucessful start (ie up at 7.50), entering the classroom at 8.50, the first lesson when ok, learning the basics of C, a few details, new, but mostly all known.

Anyway, 10am arrives and off to the newsagents to pick up my daily read of the guardian.

Lovely, looking at the pictures of todays politicians. A wander into Taylor building to pick up a pack of crisps and a coffee, I decide to go get my ID card, delayed since the promised friday afternoon as the machine had broken down. I join the queue, read more of the paper and get the card, to my delight (no more f’ups and delays) and then rush off to MacRobert to drop off my form for the use of the pianos there, now that I’m an official student.

The next lesson is approaching (11am), so to St Marys I go and wait for the class to start whilst doing the medium sudoko. I ask a question and listen to the software engineering material with keen interest. Out with the old top down process of making software, with experience required to make decisions at the outset that have ramifications throughout the project, and the need for a complete set of requirements before work starts; now, in with the weekly iteration where the usual suspects of planning, biz cases, requirements analysis, feasilibilities, design, construction and QA, each have different weightings according to the stage of the project. So for a given week you’d have the entire waterfall in condensed form. Here we have the adaptive software machine, the software team, highly flexible with enhanced prediction of the results.

12am.

That dreaded moment where the onus of the work is pushed from the lecturer back to me. So I have 6hrs ahead for some data input.

So what should I do now? I still dont have a CSD account so I cant look at the c programs to debug. So I decide to go for a swim! That was good and im out of there by around 12:45 and I walk straight over to Johnston to eat with the small coinage I have and get a surprisingly large meal for £2.26. After the grub, I notice a second hand shop inside Litluthi house and come out with a tome for 10p! on algol top down recursive compiling. Down the high st I walk, flicking through the bargin thinking a) compiling hasnt changed and the technique will stay the same forever b) why did I just add to the weight of my lacoste bag with a book on a fossiled language from the late 70’s? I grin that, well, I was taught by one of the developers of algol at Sussex, but thats all I know about it. A flyer merchant suggests I use the flyer as a bookmarker whilst she hands me for a book mark; and now that its in the mid 1 pm region, though I have raised my heart rate for a sustained period and learned the layout of the gym, had a bit of nosh, I am back to the point I was at exactly 10am. Its now 1:40pm-ish

I walk up Thom’s lane to the library and sit enjoying the sun on my sun-starved face, taking a power nap until 1:55. I remember this salient fact, as I looked at the watch face on re-entry to reality.

So, armed with my shiny new ID card, I dash into the library and get in for once without being buzzed in. Up to the second floor in the lift (a quick read of the sign “disabled users may not use this lift as the floor of the lift may not line up with the building floor”) and I get the 2nd to last of the remaining computer theory books (cohen). I realise by the yellow band on the outside and the stamps inside, that this is only available for 3 days. I think of a way of hiding one of the copies behind a stack of unused looking items, but think, perhaps I could buy it. I look in detail through the contents list and then head down stairs and get a pin for my card. Im then shown how to use the self checkout machine and out I go. Its around 2:30 and I have that, “what should I do now” feeling, again. Time to pick up my CSD account.

2:35pm, 2nd floor, computer science dept, meston building.

She looks through the slips of username / password slips and checks my name again: its not there. So, to helpdesk I go and nothing. No one there. I search for a computer, for about 30 mins waling around the building, but giving up, finding the Frank noble building to my help. login to UOA whatever that is. I sent helpdesk a mail.

[UPDATE:21:58 I check the webmail only to get in but receive this:

I then start with some more admin, having sent the writer of a chess program a mail asking for some help with a program Ive made, with not much expectation, setting up the aliases for my tutors.

Now, its about 3:10. I have to be at barclays before 4:30 so I spend the time looking up some stuff on hilbert curves on wikipedia and thats it. I get the bank statement, and buy a cake and cappacino at Ottakars at 4:35 and flip through the book, eliminating turing machines from my reading. I read the preface and some of the first 2 or 3 chapters and walk home via union st and union grove. from 2 onwards Im feeling tired and so I enjoy my nap in bed, enjoying the instant when I take the weight off my feet.

I have dinner, wash up, play a few games of chess look at last nights nohup of nmap and start this entry at 9:30 and thinking that I need to focus and not be sidetracked by fuckups in admin; ie create a double fuckup by adding to the original.

So I’ve made some sandwiches (I’ve over spent this week, not that I had much in the first place), written this, regurgitated the events (or nonevents in the sense of whats needed to happen) and started to think – perhaps this:

If I am wondering at 10am and 1:40 what I should be doing and fail to work out then and there, perhaps I should plan in advance?

/penny_drops

You can see what happens if you look for hosts on an address range.

try this:

dig www.number-10.gov.uk

and youll get

www.number-10.gov.uk. 6138 IN A 194.201.189.210

so what else is on the 194.201.189 block?

nmap -sL 194.201.189.0/24

or, to capture to a file:

nmap sL 194.201.189.0/24 -oN btdowningstreet

and youll see theres another government site next door.

nmap -A -T4 194.201.189.210

will show you that its running on windows and http is the only port open.

Anyway, so whats the point of this? If youre about to buy some hosting, you can see what sort of scale your prospective host is at. Have they bought a block if ip numbers from a larger provider or do they own the entire address space? Are they giving you an ip number in the same area as their own business site or are they selling you somewhere else? What machine is there? Whats the setup? Forewarned is forearmed.