yaleman.org

Another great article from the Netflix Blog - Linux performance analysis in 60s

In 60 seconds you can get a high level idea of system resource usage and running processes by running the following ten commands. Look for errors and saturation metrics, as they are both easy to interpret, and then resource utilization. Saturation is where a resource has more load than it can handle, and can be exposed either as the length of a request queue, or time spent waiting.

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Some cute little remote control cars!

Jabba’s Sail Barge

A micro-set of Jabba’s Sail Barge - really named the Khetanna.

Update 9/3/2016: It seems this triggers the VPN-detection mechanism on Netflix’ services, blocking access to all streaming. Thankfully it seems Internode has worked out how to make Netflix content unmetered on IPV6, so it’s no longer required!

Currently access to Netflix via Internode is unmetered, but not if you’re using their IPv6 connectivity. I’ve got a Mikrotik router and wanted to see if I could force it down to IPv4 without disabling connectivity for my desktop machine (which I use mainly for Netflix). It seems just blocking one range (currently) is enough:

The carb rebuild kits arrived yesterday, with all the associated bits and bobs I need to fix most everything on them. I previous mentioned that they included the floats, but they don’t, which hopefully won’t prove to be an issue. The floats look to be in good condition and I’ve seen mention of repairing any pinprick holes with epoxy, which should serve to get the bike on the road at least initially.

I’m sick as a dog right now with a sinus infection, but I can’t help try and do something useful on the bike 🙂 The carb rebuilt kits haven’t arrived yet; they still have to come apart and I need to identify what work they need before I can do anything.

They’re already off the bike so I thought I’d take the bottom off to get to the floats and valves. The screws on the fuel bowls are partially obstructed by the bracket which holds the throttle linkage. Four screws, three came out easy. Left hand one of the two in this shot is the grumpy one. 🙁 I’m going to have a go at making it a slot-head screw, and if that doesn’t work it’s time for another application of mister easy-out.

Computers on the internet have IP addresses, and web sites are stored on some of those computers. The Domain Name System - DNS for short - is the way that your computer translates Domain Names (yaleman.org, google.com) into IP addresses. The simplest analogy I can think of is a community-based assistance service which matches people and their street addresses.

A very contrived example:

• **Adam **wanted the street address for **Betty **in Cardiff.
• He looks in his local address book, and it’s not there.
• He calls his directory assistance service who don’t have Betty’s address, so they call someone else on his behalf.
• The “someone else” is one of fourteen international switch boards who direct requests to other local directory services.
• It directs Adam‘s service to the service for Cardiff.
• The Cardiff service provides Betty‘s address - 123 Fourth Avenue.
• Adam visits Betty for tea. Great success!

Replace directory assistance with DNS server, address with IP address, Adam for your PC and Betty with your favourite web site and you get the idea of where we’re going with this.

Since the front brakes only worked enough to stop you rolling backwards on a slight incline, I figured I had to at least bleed the brakes. To do that, I needed to take the top off the brake fluid reservoir and flush the fluid out.

One of the screws came out nicely after the usual ‘crack’ of breaking the mechanical lock. The other one, not so much. I used a perfectly sized phillips head screwdriver, which promptly made a mess of the steel of the screw. It was like twisting in butter, sadly.

… and found some injectors I was going to use on another project a decade ago.

I wonder…

It’s fate, really!

This is a quick video I took of draining the fuel tanks on the Virago last night. More and more I realise that it was a great idea! 🙂

Along with the fuel pump and igniter controls, so far I’ve found some curious Mitsubishi electronics on this bike. The “BOOST SENSOR” is the most curious - it’s actually just a vacuum-activated switch used to change the timing based on engine load.