So R. Convinced me to visit the new Stamford Chelsea piers. I had been doubtful because I didn’t like the fact they were charging an exorbitant fee to play squash. After a quick tour I liked they had different opportunities and especially their 50m pool. It must have been over 15 years since I swam in a regulation pool. So anyway we signed up.
Considering the pain I am having with my left knee since the last brick, I am going to be swimming a lot lot more for the next few months. Well bring on the cl.
Author: waveeq
Facebook SchoolFeed App
I have been getting bombarded by requests to join schoolfeed which is a facebook app. Knowing enough about facebook apps, I know that I really don’t want to ever join.
The entire concept behind these companies that make facebook apps, is to get access to your personal data. And then re-sell it to make advertising dollars. Now in general I am not against that. But as a user my question is what do I get in return ? ? All schoolfeed provides is access to the people that went to highschool with me. Well facebook is already doing that. So added value = 0 !!!
Now it becomes schoolfeed goes through extraordinary lengths to make sure they maximize the data they are collecting from your facebook account. They collect access to all your profile info, your posts, your images, and then on the reverse ask to get access to all of your friends and their info as well. WOW!!!
Ok so they ask access to all this info. You might say big deal. Well it boils down to 2 things.
1. they will maintain this info even if you disallow them from facebook as app. You have to go to schoolfeed to actually delete your account.
2. They are not very honest and forthcoming about their terms of service and privacy policy. In fact on their website they don’t even link to it from the homepage . The links I found are below. If you read through it is the equivalent in english of saying “you installed the app, we own your a** and your data don’t like it too bad “. Now that just takes the cake.
http://your.schoolfeed.com/privacy.php
http://your.schoolfeed.com/tos.php
Conclusion: This is the sort of practices that app makers should avoid on facebook. My suggestion Do not install this app.
Soaking Rain
We had a new neighbor move in downstairs. Previously it was a bunch of recently graduated college kids who could care less if I biked on the trainer for an hour or more. Now it is an old lady ready to retire. The first day I biked on the trainer after 45 mins the new neighbor knocked on the door and asked what I was doing ? She said it sounded like a freight train in her apt — her over exaggeration .
Considering we are moving soon , and R insisted I decided I would bike outside for the rest f the time at this apt.
As it turns so far I am batting .8 for it to rain the day I have to bike.
Yesterday was pelting rain. And I had to bike 1hr with repeats. I got home and decided I was being a wimp for trying to get out of it.
Start of training 2012
After running an easy 10k turkey-trot over thanksgiving I am back to training. Or whatever you can say is training for triathlons. So far it is still out-season training at EN. So the volume is fairly low. But with enough other things to deal with , like moving, trip abroad, etc training takes a back-seat.
So I started this week with the plan to hit very day till I leave for my trip abroad. Still have to figure out the logistics of working out for tris while in Pakistan .
Pakistan consulate
So R. And I got done with the Pakistan consulate finally. I had to get a new passport and she had to get a visa.
My passport stuff was rather easy. I just had to get all the paperwork in place, which I already had. And then get a self-addressed envelope to get the stuff back in. So it was easy enough to make it a day in the city. Get all of the stuff ready and they send it back to me. Got it bak in 6 days.
Rhians was more interesting. She tried to got earlier in the week , but didn’t have all of the paperwork. So we decided to make it a day before thanksgiving. My only restriction was I don’t talk. Got there pretty early. The guy behind the counter asked for her to photocopy some more stuff, which we did. Then she went back , and the guy asked if very loudly “so why do you want to go to pakistan ” . I found it funny enough to laugh. She said it was her husbands family, to which the next question who is your husband? She gave my name and showed a copy of my passport. I find it very reassuring the Pakistan embassy will allow anyone to claim to be married to anyone else, wish I had known that earlier 😉 . After the last question he took the passport and asked us to pick it up at 4pm. When we got the passport it had a written notation that “husband is a Pakistani”. Though all of those are valid questions and statements and I do not detract from any of them but still the approach seemed very misogynistic.
Ctrl+reset
Close to 4 months of being off and it feels weird to write a training log. Started running after a back injury 3 weeks back. This weekend was the 1st bike ride. Feels good to be back but need to regain some fitness. Quick stats running about 8 min/mi and bike FTP around 220 watts. No swimming till oct1st
FTP Test
So finished my latest ftp test. Did the test from the office after work, on my regular stamford bike route. These tests always hurt, and hurt a lot. The idea is ride your heart, legs out for 20mins, break for 2min, and then repeat for 20mins.
The pnorm power you generate is your FTP. So my new ftp is 203. A jump of 12 watts . I will take that.
2 horrible weather days
Is it just me or is new england having the worst weather.First the cold weather would not go aways till mid march. And then now the rain. Seriously can I have sun please . Or is it time to move to CA or maybe AZ. Took advantage of the horrible weather by letting my legs recover . Didn’t do any major workouts for 2 days. Wow what a difference.
Fencing on clusters
So I will write one of my few tech blog posts. Yes I know, a rarity. Linux clusters are pretty common place these days. redhat clustering is just 1 of the several ways to achieve it. The one thing that I have found out the hardway is always , always check if the cluster you are working on has fencing. If it doesn’t have fencing , set it up immediately. Basically a HA cluster without fencing is the equivalent of not having HA.
fencing is a very simply concept. All it means is that if server A notices server B in the cluster has issues, it can reboot or power it off using a lights out management system (could even be drac) . Even the most simple fencing of shoot-the-other-node-in-the-head gives you a lot of stability.
So lesson learnt setup fencing. Test fencing.