Open Loop 0

2012-06-01: Drinking beer with our right brain. Introducing Open Loop. Being compelled. Thinking Fast and Slow. The time that Jamie deleted all of his nginx configuration files.

Notes & Links

Transcript

Here is an AI generated transcript of this episode. This has not been edited or checked for accuracy, yet.

All right, I Got my Hebrew Did we have a good good?

Gully, no, no, no, but I went home and made a bad decision You had some yeah No, I didn’t I was that was a better decision You know you blogged about that About about the the beer class last night.

Yeah.

Yeah, I did and I didn’t get any link And I was I was there plus one and everything Quick edit All right So now what do we do?

I’m I’m editing the past to link to you So I’m sort of busy at the exact this exact moment.

All right good.

It’s important to correct the past Yes, okay there Lest lest we be stuck with a crappy future exactly All right, there we go it’s it’s like it’s like you were always there And I was I Enjoyed the beer class I Thought the beer class was really good.

It was not what I expected.

No, no I got the impression you weren’t even expecting beer.

I Wasn’t sure because I didn’t know if they could do that but No, it was really good But it was I didn’t expect to have to get in touch with my emotions Just To drink beer right just to drink beer because usually it’s the opposite and I enjoyed the beers and I thought that it was a Great way to enjoy beer with friends Much more enjoyable way to drink beer with friends than to Reminisce about stone fruit as he mentioned So we should help anybody who’s listening which is probably nobody yet the beer class Talked about it was Josh pepper peppers and what he talked about was how to enjoy beer By remembering what that beer reminded you of yes, so starting with a color What was it after a color sound a sound right?

muted trumpet muted trumpet You know in the sound one.

I thought some people Were just making stuff up to sound smart Yes, yes this this this structure this approach from your tasting does not remove the Does not remove the arrogance.

No, no, no, it gives you something different to be arrogant about perhaps even more arrogant Right, right because of that time that I went to Paris and you weren’t there right or when I was in Monte Carlo That’s right at the high-stakes tables Yeah, I drink in the the DVR, but it was a cool cool thing and and we have a beer We have a beer from there Yeah from the four firkins from the four firkins not not one.

That was part of the class.

No and And I’d be happy to talk about the four firkins, even though they don’t pay for any advertisements No, they’re doing a great job.

I know and The fact that they are so at least at least for me just off of just off the highway makes it terribly convenient Well, I mean honestly they could be a Three-day horse carriage ride and you’d still want to go there.

I would I wouldn’t as much I mean, I wouldn’t go there as much as I you’d want to want to yeah, and maybe even more Well their last location was exactly that Texas So what so you you kind of picked this beer Gary I think this I picked this beer this is Hebrews Bittersweet Lenny’s RIPA double India pale ale with rye malt I’m I’m I’m usually not a big fan of the India pale ales.

I find them a little bright and shallow But this one Well, it’s a double so it’s got a little more body and plus it’s got rye and I’m a complete sucker for anything I the rye is what gets you.

Yeah, exactly.

I like the IPA as I like them bright Hobby I don’t think they’re shallow, but this is a really good beer.

Yes.

I’m glad you’re enjoying it I am quite I enjoy it quite a bit.

I haven’t had it before.

Mm-hmm.

So you should try it If you’re listening, absolutely get on and listen to the rest of this podcast Just hit pause right now Comeback after a three-day horse ride And join us on this 10% ABV journey So what are we doing here?

Should we should we tell people what we’re doing?

We should tell me what we’re doing here This is uh, I think that I think it’s called a podcast Do you still call it that?

Yeah.

Wow, and every time you say that we have to pay Adam Curry money So this is the podcast open loop this is open loop zero Meaning the first one and zero meaning that it may not even be the first one No, I really enjoy starting projects with the zero.

I think it removes any sort of tension and pressure About the first one.

Oh That’s not working.

No, I Have this awesome new mic for it that mic is so cool Honestly, it’s huge.

It’s it really I mean it’s just I can sit at my so it’s a it’s the blue What is yeti yeti pro?

Mm-hmm because I’m pro and It’s shockingly good.

It’s much better than I am It makes me feel professional sitting here talking into it.

I feel kind of like Edward Murrow or George Clooney in that movie The one over here with Edward Murrow, yeah.

Oh So I got this microphone for our podcast Gary I Think that’s awesome.

I sent an email to you.

It was a short email Said why aren’t we doing a podcast?

You’ve done several podcasts.

I have I Enjoy all of them.

I’ve done none of them and And so to prepare for it.

I got a $50 microphone Cuz if you’re gonna do something you have to have the right equipment you have to have the right equipment It makes everything go so much easier and you don’t have the right equipment.

Why would you even try?

Right, right.

All you’re gonna all you’re gonna find out is that you don’t have the right equipment and then you’re gonna be mad They’re gonna ham it ha you just do it right out of the gate don’t don’t worry about it.

Yeah, I I am speaking with my Much speaking through my much-used Sennheiser e816 s It sounds very good as well.

Thank you.

Yeah, it has been studying.

I look cooler.

I’m sure you do So it’s been standing on the mic stand Since the last time I recorded a podcast so I did have to brush off some cobwebs and shoo away some small creatures But how long has it been since you’ve done a podcast?

probably 18 months What was the last one?

I think the last one was it was either Brian Schumacher.

Who’s this crazy a Musician in town or it was our good friend Matt Bauer Both of those would be good Yeah, both of them were quite enjoyable and in unexpected ways So, why has it been 18 months I have an 18 month old Or almost a two-year-old yeah, there you go.

Yeah, it’s That’s a I used to have my third child used to be podcasting and now it’s actually a third child So, what are we trying to do with open loop that’s a great question There’s a higher chance of me enjoying podcasts that I am in then ones that I have not in I think that I can see that I Enjoy most things I’m in as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, and so when you said why aren’t we doing this?

I thought why aren’t we exactly we need to it makes no sense The world will be a much improved place as soon as we start.

Let it let us let us begin so We’re here.

We are.

Hmm.

We have begun.

We have begun.

Welcome to zero.

So the name of this podcast is open loop And if you’re still listening, you probably know us.

That’s right.

Thank you, Jim All right, something made you send that email yes, but we could add something interesting Hmm and And it sounded like a fun thing to try Fantastic.

So there we go easy enough Your your links wiki.

Yes.

I Love my links wiki.

I love your links wiki and I have a question about it.

Yeah Can any wiki Also be in addition to whatever else’s also be a links wiki.

Could it be like a wiki that also has links?

Yeah, not just a dedicated link wiki, right?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, totally.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it would have to just be so If you go to links dot thing will said comm I have my link wiki which is where I keep my bookmarks and I’ve got bookmarks on there for I think going back six years and the very first bookmarks were done with delicious Which everybody knows delicious and I did it when delicious was you know had two dots in the name before Yahoo bought it and screwed it all up and Then I went to pin board and use pin board and I really you know I like that asset and as you know, I started playing around with media wiki and semantic media wiki and for Boy, I don’t know six months.

I felt like I could do this in semantic media wiki.

So finally I did and created this This link wiki and it’s at links dot thing.

I’ll say calm And it’s been a ton of fun and I’ve been able to do things with it that I never you know that I always wish something else would do and Now I can do it and do it quite easily and it’s a you got to have media wiki and you have to have semantic media wiki as well as a few other plugins and After that you can just clone a few pages off of my link wiki well a few it’s more like 60 and After you’ve gone through all the effort of setting up a wiki and then import that content You can have your very own and some Garrick we got to get yours set up.

We have to get mine set up Well, that’s why I asked because I don’t know that I necessarily want it dedicated, but I’d like to smush it into Yeah, you could just do it on your existing.

Yeah Yeah, you just have to not overwrite the main page or you know Right, right collisions.

So I’m looking at links that thing will said calm right now.

Yeah, and the the third one down is a really ugly looking typepad URL Which makes me wonder about if you’re if you’re if your link bot is slacking off well my link bot so link bot checks every link, but he checks five an hour and he Won’t check it if it hasn’t been If it has been checked in the last three months so link bot every hour wakes up and he finds five random URLs that haven’t been checked in the last three months and he makes sure that it still resolves it to a 200 and if there’s a 301 redirect he’ll follow that and update the URL and Those all sorts of good hygienic things for cuts off the cuts off the UTM’s cuts off the UTM’s all the tracking codes Fixes all that up, huh?

so but he Only five an hour.

He’s only does five an hour.

Huh?

So he sends me an email every time he runs to tell me what he did and I he’s not meant to be purely autonomous I have to I have to follow behind him and fix things every once in a while, but you know, he’ll get better with time Like we all do He’s just I mean he’s what he’s 35 lines of Python code and you know this you can’t expect too much from 35 lines of Python code.

I’m all very confused Does the link bot live in the media wiki install?

No Okay is his own Python app that lives completely independent and he only communicates with the wiki via the public APIs Oh, okay.

I thought he has his own account.

So in recent changes, you can actually see everything that link bot did just like a person Okay Which is awesome because if he makes a mistake, you can just go and undo his mistake, right?

Right and I mean I is that is that how all the rest of the like the you you had taken a look at the Wikipedia and the other media wiki bots and that’s how they live as well as sort of outside of post an account.

Yeah yeah, they all have a bot account and then they run jobs and though and they are they interact as a User would interact so they’re they’re not given any special privileges and In fact actually link bot doesn’t even interact just as a user.

He actually interacts with semantic forms and Posts his changes as a form a form submit So if link bot tried to do something that the form Didn’t allow for example if he tried to put a string where a number was expected the form wouldn’t validate So he’s got a you know, so he’s got all sorts of protection on which is good.

Huh?

Yeah, huh?

Well, you know they say that on Wikipedia Wikipedia has a literal army of robots and The suggestion is that if Wikipedia were to turn all those robots off That Wikipedia would fall apart in about two days.

Sure.

Sure because they couldn’t pull together an army of interns fast enough Exactly, even even with all the people they have they still need the robots helping out and it’s actually I think It’s the part of it’s the part that I think a lot of people when they look at wikis and I had this same Affliction for years was and when I looked at wikis, I would look at T wiki or like some of the really, you know, the simplistic wikis Because the wiki can be made of you know, 20 lines of PHP code.

Mm-hmm, and you just kind of feel like mmm can’t really do what I want to do here and the reality is that a Really good wiki is is a fairly complicated beast.

And when you look at media wiki, whether it’s the templates or bots or Extensions There’s incredible capability there.

But as with anything it takes a learning curve and you know, that’s you know, I think it was two years ago now that I decided I was gonna really learn media wiki and It’s just been one of the most enjoyable kind of Explorations that I’ve made in tech for a while even with all the PHP that you know makes you want to jump out of your skin, but Just because the the developer ecosystem around media wiki is so enjoyable and I just never seen an open-source community.

That’s so open and friendly and Just a really great group of developers to be around which is pretty fun So I think everybody should check it out in those two years you have Created a garden a garden a large garden a large garden of wikis.

Yeah Something compelled you something said it’s media wiki.

You need to figure out media wiki and and you did and it took two years and you’re figuring out robots and Seemingly esoteric aspects of the ecosystem yet your Right, you’re still you are still being pulled in that direction.

Yeah.

Yeah Huh?

Compelled yes, that’s where I’m going with this Like you can’t not do media wikis right now Can’t absolutely yeah must yeah, you must yes Have you been able to identify the attributes that are that are that are so compelling Well, it’s got all the right things right it’s got It’s got technical curiosity It’s got a high rate of return.

So, you know putting in a certain amount of effort gives you The enough satisfaction of return that you want to keep making that investment and it’s just incredibly Yeah, the deeper you go the more I want to learn And that’s not true for all the tech that you have you are exposed to yeah Well, I’m most I mean, honestly, a lot of the tech is shallow a lot of the tech has no more there there Yes, you get five inches deep and you’re done and there’s really nowhere else to go And so, you know, I think that’s you know, WordPress is pretty deep and you can go a long ways in there But even that I think kind of it, you know, it’s not quite as deep as something like media wiki but it yeah, but it but there’s a lot there so and you know the thing that I also think is Powerful about wikis and media wiki is that You know, we’ve talked about this before about the idea of public versus private commercial versus residential kind of spaces as it relates to the digital world and to the Internet and What’s great is that?

wikis to me feel completely Open public and I keep wanting to think of terms like people sourced Wikis are open sourced for the development but the the development of the PHP and the code is one thing but then you can develop on top of that just with your web browser and pointing at a form and To me that feels like something different that feels like something that’s even more open than What we traditionally would think of as open source and like it doesn’t feel like crowdsourcing to me like that I don’t know for some reason that feels like something different than what can happen in In a really robust wiki ecosystem and so I think that as the web gets more and more commercial It’s it’s great that there’s this really vibrant non-commercial space as well and And it’s good to know what’s going on in all of them Yes.

Now you’ve also been compelled you wrote a you had a brilliant cartoon about that.

Yes I’ve recently been thinking of all the all the tech and all the projects and all the things that I do that that just seems so Obvious like of course I do that Right, but right like How could I not play Kubb?

That’s ridiculous, what do you mean I couldn’t do that?

No, I have to do that Everybody’s googling Kubb right now.

It’s k-u-b-b And when you when you said hey we should do a podcast it took me all the way back to autumn of 2004 when I said hey, I think I need to figure out how to do a podcast and how I would be up until ridiculous hours in the morning Troubleshooting tech and trying to figure out how to make an RSS feed by hand and and all of that stuff and then I figured that out and then I sort of Recovered for a while then I found something else that I good god I have to do this and I found that those are the things that I’ve really enjoyed And and I sort of feel a little bit Anxious right now because it’s not clear to me what this thing is.

It’s gonna keep me up until 2:30 in the morning Hmm You know what my mic has It’s got a mute button a mechanical mute button.

So like if I were gonna cough Right, right.

I can’t press it But here’s what’s weird and maybe you know why?

It’s always lit You know where it is That’s what it is.

Isn’t it?

You gotta know where it is.

It’s always lit and then when you press it it blinks And that sounds like a really smart mic It’s awesome Super awesome.

So what are you so you don’t know what you’re compelled to do right now.

I I don’t There’s not a there’s not a there’s not a one thing.

There’s not a big thing in in the Buffy universe There would be a big bad So do you think that’s just part of getting older?

That It’s not one thing it’s like a hundred things a hundred small things You know like that I don’t like that I don’t I don’t like that that that makes me feel old and And it makes me feel old and tired and I don’t feel like I want to be either.

Yeah.

Well, I don’t feel either You don’t feel either.

No, no, no, and there’s there’s there’s stuff to do.

But what is the stuff right?

What is the what is the stuff that needs to be done?

And that’s one of the things why I really I am very intrigued by the work that you’re doing in the media wiki stuff because it shows me that there is a place that is really deep And and obviously Rewards that exploration very highly some would say a black hole Don’t talk about this book the thinking thinking book the thinking book Yeah, I think that is It’s a really interesting framework for thinking about yourself So this is thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman, which Amazon kept kept kept kept kept saying I should buy and if there is an indictment of Recommendation engine robot thingies algorithms it is that it is that Amazon Continually said I should buy this book And it wasn’t until you said I should buy this book that I actually did And it’s a great book it’s a great book it’s I think I even commented as I was reading it like wow I haven’t Enjoyed reading a book in forever as much as I have enjoyed reading this book.

So what I loved about the book so the book is about how you think and how you how these two The author Kahneman suggests that there’s these two systems system one and system two System one being this autonomous part of your brain that you can’t control that Is constantly at work determining if you’re going to be attacked by a lion or Reading the word stop on a stop sign and then there’s this system to which does work that you have to think about and he goes into some depth on how the two work together how they differ from each other and I Like particularly the part about how system to this thinking part of your brain is particularly lazy And is happy to just take whatever system one throws at it.

Yes System one says hey system - I need an answer in system - says, okay.

What’s an easy answer?

Yeah, you’re good You’re good.

You don’t need yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, just fine.

Just keep going And so I mean I really felt like it was an important book like it was the kind of book that That everybody should read in a way to be kind of like an operator’s manual for how you Approach decisions and I think after I’ve read this book I’m constantly Wondering as I make decisions, you know, what am I being impacted by what system?

You know, what’s at play here?

why am I making the decision that I’m making and You know, I think at some level I think it makes you a better decision maker, right?

There’s nothing wrong with that I mean, that’s a that’s a good thing Particularly if what you do is make decisions You should read this book Yes, if you say if you sell things you should read this book If you buy things you should read this book.

So that’s pretty much everybody because everybody pretty much sells or buy something Well, I don’t want to do anything bought sold or manufactured or manufacture anything bought or sold or sell anything bought or manufactured I’ll still read the book You’ve seen the movie boombox Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

That’s the one of the poster.

That’s the movie poster.

Yeah, and this is the last the last scene of it Okay, it’s last scene.

I think I’m too old.

He tells the The girl’s father that he really wants to be a professional kickboxer Yeah, poor strategy Say hey read the book Happy birthday to Dan Grigsby EOM awesome We got we got a talk Kubb Nationals.

We do.

Oh, man, it’s it’s it’s looking intense already You need to you need to talk about Kubb.

You need to tell Everybody what is Kubb?

And well, yeah, just what is what is Kubb?

What is Kubb?

Kubb is Kubb is a deliciously simple Wooden lawn game where you throw batons that tiny little pieces of wood and try to knock them down at 8 meters and then Shorter than that.

They’re not so tiny They’re not so tiny, but they’re smaller.

They’re smaller.

They’re small enough that if you throw the baton, right?

The baton will just jump right over them As it does many times.

Yes, it does many times I got I got a game and a half in tonight Before before dinner and I really enjoy that Just play by yourself.

Yes Yeah, I play both sides.

Yeah It’s impressive And it doubly hurts when you do badly Against yourself.

Yes, like oh man.

Do you ever get really lopsided games?

Yeah, yeah, and then it flops the other side and then I and then of course I win Yeah, and this is just killing the other side.

Yeah moves everywhere field goobs everywhere It’s just a mess just a mess, but it’s uh, you have that permanently set up in your yard, right?

I do I do I Find it very relaxing to just throw wood across the lawn at the at the end of a very stressful day Who want right exactly.

Yeah, right some people chop wood I throw wood throw wood.

Yeah, what I love I love so much about this game One there’s as you and I have noticed over the past what five six months there is no tech Anywhere near this game as much as I try Really hard Rollback to give you credit.

I have been digging Planet Coupe watching the Des Moines guys on the YouTube So the guys in Des Moines are doing the YouTube so there’s that much tech Yeah, and they do a pretty good job of filming the games I think But 90 96 teams in Eau Claire and so this is what I love about the game is that it’s so highly concentrated in this region I Don’t imagine that outside of this Upper Midwest area That that it’s heard of until you get around to Sweden We’re going to Nationals.

We’re going to Nationals.

We’re gonna smoke Nationals.

It’s June 1st July 15th.

Oh, yeah, July 14th and 15th in Eau Claire in Metropolitan Eau Claire headed up by Eric Anderson Eric Anderson, I was an Anderson captain Kubb captain USA Kubb.

Is that what it is?

Is that what his handle USA Kubb dog?

so I Remember the Chad’s Oh the Chad tell Chad’s the Chad’s of Fox Valley.

Yes.

I am thinking that the Chad’s need their own Chad tournament Well, I think they had one I was thinking about this tonight the Chad’s introduced not only us into like how you can play a highly competitive Kubb, but also a method of a two-person play That I think in and of itself is its own game Right the the two-person Like beach volleyball.

Yes.

This is this is Chad Kubb rules It’s too much.

It’s please wear more clothing it’s two person teams each person throws two batons Then the next person throws two then the first person throws one and then the second person throws one Oh, that’s how I do when I play with a two-person team.

That’s how I do it.

How do you do?

Yeah, I played it this weekend with my In-laws and I was playing on the team with my brother-in-law and we did two and two one and one Yeah, you know it’s critical because if you throw too bad You got that one to recover or even if you’re on a hot streak and you throw two good ones Get your other guy in there get him throwing a couple of nice batons And then you come in with those cleanup batons and I’m telling you they’re magical They are magical and what are we seeing now?

We’re seeing a Three person team tournaments.

We’re seeing six person term team in tournaments It needs to be a two person Chad rules tournament to perhaps I see you just saying it’s got to only be two Yeah, no three people.

No, it’s a person just to uh-huh And you can only play a maximum of two batons at a turn.

I love it.

Yeah That would be awesome it would be it would be intense so kubachucks Kubb chucks Kubb chucks were up to what we got five five guys five guys We need one more guy and then we split up split up.

So so I can’t be I can’t be I can’t be captain of team team be I might be able to co-captain team be You gonna take team B?

Well, why would I have to take team B?

I’m just Your idea Yeah, I think that would be the right way to do it But you’re the captain of the kubachucks The Kubb chucks is our coupe team.

I changed the I changed our Our Subtag, what do you call it?

description site description.

Oh Yeah Yeah.

Oh, but it didn’t take you take it back.

What is go?

Well, it’s cashed, you know, so you gotta oh, yeah uncash it.

What are you cashing with?

nginx Yeah, the one true way.

I Obviously, I mean I don’t do it in a w3 Oh total cash or super cash or mega cash or giga cash or super WordPress?

Mega cash I just belong there.

It’s not the right way.

I do it in the web server.

Yeah nginx Right.

So what do you do?

What do you gotta do to?

You just gotta wait Or I have to type lots of stuff on a terminal Understand I understand.

Did I tell you what I did?

Well, I did that so To delete my cache.

I have to have to delete all of the cache files.

So there’s this directory called Fast EGI cache that I configure and it’s got all these cache files in and they’re nested So you got a deleting them as you can’t just do our m* Is they’re not in that directory there and they’re nested.

So I You know did a fine dot type F I exact RM to delete all of the files who find all the files in there and delete them And so I was doing that over and over and over again.

And yeah, I also use z shell and in z shell I use a shared history and So I was working also on my nginx configurations and so I was in the nginx configuration directory And I wanted to edit a file.

So and I just edited that file.

So I hit up and hit return And then I realized that when I hit up it had captured the find the recursive find and delete and I had a hit return and I had deleted every nginx configuration that I had.

Oh Yeah, that’s really bad So I cried for a while Yes, and then I tried to think well did I back those up?

you know because I back up to that server and in Switzerland, right and It turns out I back up everything but I don’t back up my config files I back up all my content So then I tried I tried getting the config by connecting GDB the debugger to the running nginx and dumping the nginx memory and trying to get the configs that way Wow, I wouldn’t have even thought of that.

Yes It’s terrible.

Did it work?

No, not at all.

Oh But then the light bulb went off and yeah, as you know, I use Linode and Big fan of Linode and I have Linode Snapshot backup so I was able to just restore one of those to a different host So I brought a host up for about an hour got the files off of it put them on my my real host and Voila, I had my config files back.

So nice a big win for virtual private servers and a big win for turning backups on What do you think of Fully baked because it sounds like you are it sounds like this WordPress setup is more baked than Others especially by default By baked I mean most Where it mostly serves either either static either serves a cache or a flat file Well, what that’s what it was, right?

Yeah.

I know.

Yeah.

Yeah, you mean big like it’s a static file Like it’s a static site.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I mean nginx actually has some really great stuff for that like Yeah, like it’s set up so that if PHP stops responding it’ll still serve the cache file You know, I said my cache is pretty high to a day and my WordPress stuff is you know Responds in like 40 milliseconds or something.

It’s super fast and And I hit it with a ton of traffic and it does fine it’s great I don’t have to worry about it at all.

Yeah, so it should be I could get fireballed.

Come on Come on gruber Fireball me I dare you So do you buy that whole thing that coobs a thousand years old?

There’s there’s a certain lameness to the game That makes me think That that’s that screams 1980s to me But the put outside of that I don’t really care yeah, yeah, that’s what they said on That’s what Dobby said from Des Moines, yeah, he like he wants to believe keep hope alive And and the fact that from what I understand International championships take place in Gaultland I’m not sure it matters Right.

We’re gonna go there.

Oh I Don’t know if the Kubb Chuck’s can go this year.

Oh, we can’t go this year, but I think we’ll have to go next year That’d be awesome, that’d be awesome I could send the rest of the family off to some reasonable part of the continent And we’ll stay on some remote island throwing wood for a weekend sounds great Yeah, and from what I can tell from the YouTube videos you can’t wear shoes on No shoes no shoes you could walk around on wood blocks If if the terrain looks it looks dangerous and might hurt you you can you can strap some wood blocks to your feet but no