Sorcerer Multilib

Well, when Kyle was building a multilib implementation of Sorcerer, I thought he was wasting his time. He got a newer, faster computer, and in the space of a couple of months he built enough of a Multilib distrobution for me to start beta-testing.

It's truly a statement of the power of Sorcery to be able to entirely reconfigure the way the distrobution fits together, and have dependencies resolved automatically, in the space of a couple of months. I don't even think that Multilib was Kyle's main objective... he was slogging through our grimoire of spells, and I suppose he needed a distraction and something to challenge his mind.

So far, beta testing is going well. One I/R beta had uncompressed tarballs on it, and the installer could not handle that. The next I/R beta had a broken glibc, but Kyle mailed me a proper one. Soon my computer was running a multilib install and I was able to run quite a large chunk of software ever written natively, and the rest through emulators. Quite a feeling to know that you are operating something that could run any software ever created. :)

Unfortunately, a small change to Sorcery blew up that install. I should have backed up my filesystem, I know. Two days of troubleshooting later, with me doing broad strokes and Kyle investigating the particulars, we tracked it down to cp misbehaving in a Sorcery script, and so we had to use the force to fix it. "-f" in two places in one script, and I am well on my way of having a completely rebuilt Sorcery Multilib install. It's amazing just how much everything fits together, and how a small error in millions of lines of code could have such a huge impact on the stability of the system.

Some of the tricks I am using here is an MBR that lets me select which install of Sorcerer to run. Right now I am running x86_64 pure, and rebuilding the multilib in chroot. I'm thinking of reconfiguring the boot loader to just include the "other" boot option, rather than having three boot loaders, as they don't play well together, and I have been using a rescue boot disk much more often than I liked.

So, bleeding edge, wave of the future stuff in OS land here. One day this Multilib will be the default Sorcerer install. There are still some things to be sorted with the installer. It's certainly not for the feint of heart. We have been battling to get it more simple, for years, actually. Unfortunately, once a Sorcerer box is installed, it tends to stay that way. Most horrible blow-up-your computer errors usually happen to me, as I like to thoroughly test all my software at least once a month. When my system blows up, I usually restore from system backups when I remember to make them. So, the installer does not get used nearly enough... Maybe I'll have a bit of time to do some testing in that regard.

New arrival....

In the morning of 14th of February, at 5:41, Aiden Vorster was born. Here is a picture of him taking a nap, not even one day old yet. I would have been traveling back to work on this day, but luckily I got a trip off.

It was a natural birth, and I was blessed enough to be right next to my wife throughout. A natural birth really is something to see, and no words can describe it.

Little Aiden weighed 3.65kg at birth, and was 50cm tall. We got Aiden a car seat, and he has already been shopping with us twice so far.

It has been raining quite a lot in Namibia, and I would have loved to go out to the desert to see it, but my Land Rover is STILL in for repairs. At least I can see some changes being made every day, and hopefully it will be done in a week or two. It should hopefully still be nice and green in the desert. We can't wait to take Aiden on his first camp.

:)

WG Columbus Christmas trip 2010/2011

Our trip started out as normal.

Some of the crew left for greener pastures at other companies, and some days we had good weather, other days not so good. Streamer work was done on the good days, and we actually set about cleaning the entire spread of slime.

Which turned out to be a good thing, as not too long after that one of our electric engines burned out and we had to recover all our gear and head back to port for emergency repairs. So, we went to Mobile, Alabama for repairs. On the way there we had a nice Christmas party, and a few nights out with beers in port itself.

I bought a new camera in port as well. The old Canon video camera just did not take good enough pictures, and the format was NTSC. I am now the very happy owner of a Canon 550D. It takes video, and it's picture taking capability is quite good as well.

We were out of port before the trip ended, and we almost got all the gear out before crewchanging on the 11th. There was even some rough weather to make crewchange interesting. However, our helicopter pilots did not disappoint and soon we were all on our way home.

The video has been made, but unfortunately it can't be put on the internet due to SLB's policies on it's technology... no worries, it's not that interesting anyways...

Another holiday gone...

This past holiday went past far too quickly! We managed to get a lot of things done, despite Isolde being 7 months pregnant.

We finished up renovating the master bedroom, the outside laundry and also the vegetable garden. We got to go out to the beach for a few hours rest and playing in the sand and sun...

Of course the Jetta picked up a technical fault and spent two weeks in bits. It's still in bits, as when my mechanic was assembling it he found a broken pulley that needed to be ordered from South Africa. It's a really temperamental car, but hopefully after a bit of tuning it will be back to being kick-ass.

I had to go back to work, and am only a couple of days into the trip and missing home and family quite a bit. Isolde keeps me up to date with the happenings at home. She tells me that the Yellow Rover's brakes stopped working for a bit, and mysteriously fixed itself. The Land-Rover is still in bits, almost for a year now. I think I got the last spare part for it now, and now we only have to see whether it fits and then maybe next year we will get it back.

Speaking of next year, it looks like a busy year from this end already. Isolde and I discussed that we will be having a re-affirmation of our vows in the Rostock Ritz towards the end of next year. Our baby is arriving in early February if everything goes well, and I will be having a long three month holiday to help out at home.

Only five weeks to go before coming home.

*sigh*

Halfway there...

I have been looking at my website, and boy is it out of date!

There is a photo album link that does not work, a link to a business that I lost, and a lot of small things that is just not correct anymore.

Soon, http://evertvorster.com will be up to date again.

So, what am I up to these days? I am listening to music from Magnatune, mostly. I bought a lifetime membership for US$ 200 or something like that. I have been using music from that site in my videos for some time now, and they just keep getting better. The music site, not my videos...

Usually I make two videos at the beginning of the trip, one about the previous holiday in Namibia, and then one from the previous trip on board. I almost never have time for video editing at home anymore, as I have an interesting life, and prefer it that way.

So, here is the video of my previous trip in Namibia:



I am quite proud of this video, as I think I managed to get a nice balance of using music to drown out the noise, and then also get the peace and quiet from home in there. Also, I like how, at the end, I managed to find some footage of nature, even though I was surrounded by all this ugly civilization.

So, what do I do when I am not editing videos or listening to music? I am playing Vega Strike. It's an awesome game that has been ten years in the making, and it looks it. It's a space simulator with thousands of solar systems to visit and explore, and a rich community of people involved in it.

So, it's exactly in the middle of this trip now, and I am looking forward to getting home. Boy, do I miss my family.

-Evert-

Looking back.

Ah, it's back at work for me after another holiday. This one was blessed with good fortune and a great family.

Isolde and I have been married for a couple of months now. We are planning the church wedding to fall on the same day exactly one year on, so that we have only one anniversary. :)

But, first things first. The rest of the last trip went off without a hitch. We are shooting seismic in an entirely new way, and not shying away from the challenges, we are now actually getting bored. In seismic terms, this is good, and we would like it to stay that way.

During the previous work trip, Isolde told me she was pregnant, and while we don't know what sex the baby will be yet, I am quite excited at the prospect of becoming a daddy. This last break was nice, as me and Isolde are renovating the main bedroom, and will hopefully have it ready before the baby gets here. I spent some time sanding down the wooden parts of the room. It's all Oregon Pine under the layers of paint. How can anyone paint over such lovely wood?

Anyways, the laundry was started the trip before, and almost got finished before it was time for me to go to work again. Isolde tells me that they are almost finished now. The place is looking quite nice, and I have a feeling that this summer will be a nice one. The other thing that got built was the wind shelter around what will become the vegetable garden.

Of course the dogs started chewing on the shade netting, and we had to train them to leave the stuff alone. Of course the best idea is to make it so that they can't get to the netting in the first place. However, that is expensive, and besides, the dogs should learn not to chew everything that we make in the back yard. :)

Yup, so we had a busy time. So busy, in fact that I have not touched the video editor. There was an update to the thing... and the number of movies I made since that update is 0. But, since I am back at work, I might have the time now, after shift, to be able to cut that into something that someone might be able to watch.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post that video within the week.

Ah, the Satellite link at my work location was upgraded!

Wow, finally I can post some of my work to Youtube...:)

So, without further ado, here are my last few videos in chronological order...

December 2009 Henties Holiday

Messum Crater Tour

Kuiseb River Drive, Part 1

Kuiseb River Drive, Part 2

Visit to Spitzkoppe:

Namibia South Tour, part 1

Namibia South Tour, Part 2

Short Holiday in Namibia