Mephistos

I have stated elsewhere how I am a study of opposites – especially when it comes to such things as my desire to be farming and working outside, with horses versus what I actually do with technology. Normally, aside from minor record keeping with the farm tasks, there is very little overlap between the two. However, that changed the other day, interestingly enough because of the weather. And it occured to me how often this is the case.

In general with the farm, especially growing crops and with delicate lifestock like horses, weather is something that we keep an eye on. If there are winter storms, flooding, severe weather, or what have you we make changes in the daily routines and check on animals a lot more often. In some of those cases, as a winter or especially a spring storm blows in we will often put them up in the barn – often just in the nick of time.

Case in point of how this relates to my career in information technology. Every day that I see a big severe storm on the forecast I am always doing extra checking to make sure that systems are staying online, that I continue to have power to my servers, and that my multiple telecommunications connections are still online. Just this past week, we had a fairly severe storm (of a spring nature, lots of wind, lightning, rain) blow in – the severity of which caught me and apparently most forecasters by a bit of suprise. Anyway, I came out of a resturant and everything was dark in the area. This including my server locations.

Just like I would do as a storm was coming in with the horses, I went into an emergency mode taking care of getting servers offline before the batteries died and eventually the restoration of everything once power was restored. Anyway, the point of all this, now I have twice as much reason to be the weather junky that I have typically been in the past.

I noted on something that come across my inbox yesterday that mysql is being sold to Sun. I was kind of shocked and a bit disturbed by this. A note, the deal was reported worth one billion dollars. Not a bad deal of you were one of the two contributors to the code (see below).

First my shock, I was under the impression that mysql had been developed and released under the GNU GPL licensing schemes. Which basically I thought meant that the code was free for everyone to develop and that everyone got to use all the contributions that came from everyone developing the code base. And that all this development leads to great things on the software package and everyone is happy. Apparently however, there are some variations where the GNU GPL licensing allows for code to be wholly owned by a few people – in this case apparently two. And I guess, though I didn’t realize this, that they have not taken any code developments from anyone else – otherwise how would they be able to sell the mysql product to Sun?

Now my disturbance – Sun has a bit of a bad track record with things from an open source stand point. What is even worse about this particular product that they have acquired is that it is used by, well I suspect millions of computers, but if not, easily approaching the first million for sure. I know in my server room there are now less then 20 installations of mysql, possibly more. Now when all of those were installed there were no license fees of any sort associated with using them. Now that Sun has purchased the product, will that change for the future usage of the product? Beyond that, will the product have new innovations in the future that keep up with technological demands? Or will it become stagnant, wither, and eventually die?

So, here it is January 23 and I have not as of yet decided if I am going to make it to Gulf Wars this year. For those not in the know, Gulf Wars is one of the major wars that is put on by the SCA. Oh, and for those that may not know the SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism- or in simple lay terms the group of crazy people who creatively like to play like they are in a different time period. Now, back to Gulf Wars – our regularly scheduled blog event.

Gulf Wars is one of the major wars where we do medieval things for entire week with a minimum (in theory) modern mundane things to bring is back. Things include the all important heavy fighting, lots of arts and crafts, drinking and hanging out, telling stories, more drinking, archery, lighter fighting (rapier style), yet more drinking, and of course my favorite equestrian activities. That alone is worth the trip, given that I have done that four times out the last eight years, with horses in tow to boot. It is the largest known world event as far as equestrian and the SCA is concerned, having upwards of 45 horses in attendance the last few years, less the year after Lady Katrina blew in. Oh yeah, you were thinking the other Gulf Wars – this one is in Mississippi, a little town about an hour from the cost.

So, anyway, I am sitting here contemplating my lack of jousting and in general equine activities of late today at the office. (For those counting, it is nearing 9:00 and I am still at the office, but obviously taking a break). Anyway, I starting thinking about seriously if I was going to be able to attend this year or not. Money is being a bit tight, especially with hay prices and a few other things I have going. Beyond that, is the issue of selling the truck that was not working and not having one right now. Heck, technically I don’t even have a trailer at the moment. And of course there is the getting the horses practiced and ready too, especially given the likely weather between now and then.

There are a few other SCA events I could attend, but not any that are equine until the 1st of March and it is more the seven hours away in a different kingdom. Maybe I should just content myself to sitting this one out and doing some heavy fighting early this spring instead. After all, it is the odd year and I have never made it to an odd year GW yet. Still, I would really like to attend and catch up with some old friends that I have not seen in a while – well to be exact since last year at GW. Maybe I will take off for the last couple of days, drive down in the car with the saddle, get a rental horse, and play a bit that way? Or could maybe borrow truck and trailer from Clay/John and let them use my car? What about Bitzer? What about tentage given the one has gone to other hands? What a bunch of questions.

Keep posted for updates and if any of my SCA or especially friends from GW see this, let me know – as I would love to drop a hello your direction.

Short little observation regarding technology that occurred to me this past weekend at a larger upscale bookstore. I had simply ran into store to pick up a copy of one of my favorite periodicals — the mere mention of which brings to mind another blog I need to write about my negative feelings toward technology regarding things such as books, magazines, and even a general distrust of the delivery systems to keep my magazine in prime condition through out its travels until it reaches my hands. I hear you though, enough with the rambling, I am getting back to the topic.

I recall back in the early- and mid-eighties when computers were still relatively new and I was one of the few that just had to figure out and learn everything that could be learned about them I got into a shareware software deal with a teacher of mine. Yes, I was the ultimate geek, I tinkered and learned about computers, bought my Timex Sinclair 1000 in 1981 (that took ten yards mowed at ten dollars each), and was good friends with a teacher that I did not even have in class at the time. Anyway, we got about fifty diskettes in the 5.25 inch floppy variety loaded with software that was free, less the basic cost of the diskette itself. Most of it was shareware, which was in theory if you used it, send a bit of money to support the development of further projects, updates, etc and some of it was just freeware. Anyway, the average disk would have anywhere from just a few executables to sometimes approaching a few hundred. Keep in mind, these diskettes held the major amount of 360 kilobytes of information. Yes, that is kilo – not mega. So amongst the jewels of educational and business software, there were a number of computer based games – the vast majority of which were based on the classic board games that I had been playing the previous decade (that was the seventies for those of us keeping count).

So, what does this trip down memory lane have to do with my being in the bookstore this weekend and old being new again? in the bookstore, on the shelf right below the revamped, shiny version of the Stratego and Risk board games, was a new board game called Age of Empires III – oddly a board game based on a popular computer game. And the implication is that perhaps the previous two Age of Empires were done as board games as well. Interesting thing is Age of Empires, if not a direct lineage back to Risk and Stratego, is at least the offspring of something was influenced by the two a few generations before. The world turns, the circle is complete, everything old is new again.

The following is from my blog over on MySpace (Medieval Jouster), I thought it would be good to include it over here as well, as this is the main place I intend to blog from this point forward. It is a few days old, mostly detailing things from weekend just past (11th-12th of January).

For those that may be wondering why there is NOT much going on this blog – it is the off season for the Northern Hemisphere as far as jousting is concerned. Especially for those of us that live more then an hour or two from the Gulf Coast in North America. Even more limiting is that in 2007 I did most of my jousting in the Northern reaches of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan and it looks as if that is where a good deal of it will be again this coming year (though I am also looking at trying to do some in the Carolina’s as well).

Anyway, the point is that jousting and preparation for jousting this time of year is about as boring and uninspiring as it gets. I spent the biggest part of my weekend tracking down and procuring hay for Jack, Angel, and the rest of the horse gang. This was no small feat given the draught we had from early summer forward this past year. Of course, once hay was found, you sure couldn’t tell anything of the draught. Since back in December, we have now been very wet and are probably catching up with some of the amount we are behind on – to the point of trying to flood some over the last week or so. Anyway, back to the hay, went to get it and nearly hung up the truck getting to where the hay was. Then of course it was spitting rain, thankful of that, as it had been raining a bit harder up until that point. And get this, starting the day the temperature had been in the upper 40′s. By the time we got out to load the hay it 40. During the 30 minutes we loaded the hay it dropped to 36 degrees.

Then came the fun of unloading it when I got it back to the barn where the horses are stabled currently. This was of course followed by then trudging the 1/4 mile with feed while hay went back on a psuedo carry-all on the tractor. But Jack and Angel were excited and glad to see me with the feed. They must have been watching – as they started getting frisky when I walked behind the barn, still a good bit to the pasture. That is what makes the winter time barely bearable with the horses.

Anyway, the point of all this is the ground is wet, muddy, and churns up way to easy. It is mostly rainy, or as it tried a bit yesterday, snowy, and if conditions are right, in this area, some kind of slushy icy mix. And the forecast for this week, may have solid ground, but that is only because it is going to be frozen with highs of around 20 degrees in the forecast I looked at last week (ice in the water troughs to be broken and removed – what fun). So, for at least another month or two not much in the way of riding or practicing – but a LOT of effort required during the short term to keep everything ready.

Right now I am sitting here being bummed just thinking about how long it has even been since I have ridden. I knew I should have taken advantage of those last opportunities when I thought it was too cold or was just too busy as the last days of fall slipped away. I will be looking forward to early/mid March when Jack and I can hopefully slip off toward the Gulf Coast and participate in Gulf Wars – one of our favorites.