0.75 GB of Seattle

I just finished uploading tons of photos of Seattle here (hint hint hint: click the link), the result of a 3-day Summer vacation.

Great trip, though I can’t say I love Seattle in the way I do Chicago or New York. It’s a frequently grey place, has a significant homeless problem (though not nearly as bad as Portland), food’s generally expensive, waterfront isn’t much, and it has football weather in June. That being said, it has some great things in it, and some of them are quite photographically awesome. Trip was very much worth it for those things.

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Ansible 0.5 features Enterprise Cowsay Integration

The development branch of Ansible 0.5, codenamed “Amsterdam”, now synergistically leverages cowsay during the execution of ‘ansible-playbook’, if cowsay is installed.   This improves your core competencies while also fulfilling opportunity for increased value-add.   I’m told it is also awesome.

__________________________________ 
< TASK: [write app configuration] >
 --------------------------------- 
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||


ok: [127.0.0.1]

This is my single greatest open source accomplishment.  Dear other config apps: you just got served.

Ansible 0.4 Released

Ansible 0.4, codenamed “Unchained” hits the ground running.

This release is a little over a month in development and has over 30 distinct contributors.   

Major features include:

  • ansible-pull for extreme scaleout using just git and cron!
  • sudo support to users other than root
  • —private-key option for pem files (EC2, etc)
  • inventory format supports groups of groups and group variables
  • dozens of module upgrades
  • built in facts — no depdency on CLI tools requiring Ruby!
  • various bugfixes

https://github.com/ansible/ansible/downloads

Everything available in 0.4 is reflected in the latest documentation:

http://ansible.github.com

The next release, 0.5, “Amsterdam”, has quite a lot of interesting features in the pipe as well, including major code improvements aimed at accelerating future development, improved reporting, and performance.   Look for in it in about a month or so.

Goodbye 5D, Hello Fuji X Pro1!

Test shot:  Fuji X-Pro1, 35mm f/1.4, ISO 6400!

So yeah, I now no longer own a SLR. Though I had been pondering the Olympus OM-D as an upgrade to my Panasonic GF1 Micro 4/3rds camera (which has been great), I decided instead to do something completely different after thinking about it over and over again, and not feeling in love with the idea of the OM-D. I replaced my 5D instead.

The new camera is the Fuji X Pro 1. Ignore anyone talking about focusing issues on internet, these folks are too much into gear, posting on the internet, and doing everything but shooting pictures. There’s too much to love about this camera, from the hybrid viewfinder (seriously, wow), great EVF, to the amazing ISO response, dedicated controls, great quick menu structure, and awesome build quality. Plus, it’s crazy light.   The 35mm is 50mm equivalent on full frame, which is a perfect focal length. I’m probably going to pick up the 60mm macro as well and maybe save the 18 for later. Two lenses is about all I want to haul around most of the time.  

I really liked the micro-4/3rds lineup, and this is bigger than that, but I think that’s a great alternative to a small digital camera, and this is a really good alternative to a DSLR.  The best part is it feels like I’ve got a good film camera in my hands again. It more or less has a soul to it. 

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My Working Theory Of Open Source Project Leadership

After running Cobbler for 4-5+ years, observing countless other OSS projects, and now starting up Ansible, here is my current operating theory of the way Open Source projects should REALLY be run.  I have refined this over the years.

I offer this up in that people can look at it and say “wow, that is not how I run my project” and maybe look at it differently.  For if you are giving away code and NOT reaping the rewards of community contribution, maybe you gave away some code… but what else did you get?  If you’re just developing a project and it happens to be free code, you really should learn to expand your horizons a bit, and you can be surprised at what comes.

I’m long away from my days of drinking the Open Source proverbial Flavor Aid, so this is intended to be extremely practical advice to a project leader.

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What I’ve Been Listening To Lately

So I’m historically more of a classic rock guy and that’s not so much the case anymore.  I blame playing with synthesizers.

Here’s what’s been going through my iPhone lately.  Some slightly older stuff, some not, maybe it will give somebody something new to listen to.

  • Jónsi’s “Go” — 2010 solo album from 1/2 of Sigur Rós that I was late discovering.  It reminds me in many ways the first time I heard the Shin’s New Slang or Know Your Onion, but on a completely different, maybe even better level.    Amazingly good.   Apparently he also scores Matt Damon films about zoos.   I’m holding out for him also doing Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles, we need more of this.
  • Sigur Ros’s “()” — on a similar front, really nice pseudo-ambient, one of the better imaginary language albums out there, not so new, and less happy than the previous mention.   Great stuff.
  • Parts and Labor’s “Satellites”, “Receivers”, and “MapMakers” — I’ve mentioned how much I love these guys before, but it’s just a great mix of noise, and happy but usually undecipherable lyrics about apocalyptic landscapes.  Exceptionally good coding music.   Don’t go by samples and laptop speakers, it’s meant for loud headphones or good speakers.
  • Anamaguchi’s “Dawn Metropolis” — I don’t usually listen to chiptune, but when I do, I usually listen to this.  Stay thirsty, my friends. 
  • Electric Owls’s “Ain’t Too Bright”, some gaps, but really really good on quite a few tracks.   Is that a Taurus on “Magic Show”?   Some pretty good writing and even some acoustic blue-grassey tracks in there too.  
  • Blitzen Trapper’s “Furr” — still in halfway rotation after a while.  I don’t like their generic newer stuff and there are some marginal tracks (mostly the louder ones), but particularly the title track is pretty amazing, as are relatively simple bare-bones tracks like “Not Your Lover” or “Echo”.  I’m kinda of a sucker for basic piano.
  • Boards of Canada’s “Campfire Headphase” — also not so new.  While I like “Music Has A Right To Children” a lot, this is a nice mix between sequenced sounding things and textural stuff. 
  • El Ten Eleven’s self titled debut album — 2 piece loop-heavy acoustic instrumental stuff, kind of post rockey but not too much, with a decent hint of jazz.   And not quite as grating as Medeski Martin and Wood, which I don’t care for that much.
  • Ulrich Schnauss’s “Far Away Trains Passing By” — kind of minimal ambient techno.   I particularly like the character of the reverb.  
  • Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit — self titled — I’m a sucker for Hammond organ.  And they do a very nice cover of Psycho Killer live too.
  • Van Halen’s “Balance” — ok this is old.  I liked Van Halen for a long time, but for whatever reason I thought I was mostly a Roth fan.  I’m stupid, the playing here is pretty darn amazing.  And it’s harder.  (The ‘04 tour with Sammy was pretty good in Greensboro, even playing the Roth bits).

Older stuff on my top albums list that are holding up:

  • The Shins —Oh Inverted World.   I don’t really play any of their other albums anymore, this was the apex, but it’s a great apex.
  • The Wallflowers — Bringing Down The Horse — I mentioned being a sucker for Hammond Organ right?  Rami’s kinda hard to beat for that.
  • Warren Zevon — self titled — there aren’t enough good songs about headless thompson gunners written by other people that are also on albums with songs about werewolves.
  • Ben Folds — Rocking the Suburbs
  • Fountains of Wayne — Welcome Interstate Managers — this has for whatever reason become a driving album for me.
  • Guns N Roses — Live Era 87-93 — amazingly great for the cover of “It’s Alright” alone.
  • Porcupine Tree’s —Fear of a Blank Planet — odd content, but hit on a really good aesthetic with this one
  • The Minibosses’s — Brass — the 9-minute guitar medley of Megaman 2 has serious staying power
  • Neil Young — Live At Massey Hall, Live Rust — enough said.

Anyway, there you go.