Author: adamo

I am a Greek DevOps Engineer ranting about everything, from email to sports; to living in Athens, Greece.

Με το κεφάλι στην άμμο (part 2)

Στην αρχή έφυγαν οι ιδιωτικοί. Αλλά εγώ είχα δουλειά. Μετά έφυγαν οι συμβασιούχοι. Αλλά εγώ είχα δουλειά. Ύστερα φύγανε τα βύσματα της ΕΡΤ. Αλλά εγώ είχα δουλειά. Και έτσι όταν έρθει η σειρά μου θα με περιμένει κόσμος, όχι για να μου συμπαρασταθεί.

Winter is coming.

Γιατί τις λένε αύρες;

@hakmem συγχώρεσε με γιατί είναι αργά και δεν καταλαβαίνω. Γιατί την λένε αύρα;

Ομολογώ πως κι εγώ δεν το είχα σκεφτεί. Και μια και οι εξηγήσεις από το slang.gr δεν μου αρκούσαν εφαρμόζοντας την παλιά δοκιμασμένη τεχνική που περιγράφει το XKCD:

The problem with wikipedia
The problem with wikipedia

Υπολόγιζα πως ο χαρακτηρισμός προέρχεται από κάποιο συνδιασμό των γραμμάτων AVR, AVRA, AVRO μια και με το aura δεν έβγαινε τίποτε. Φτάνουμε έτσι στο λήμμα “Armoured Fighting Vehicle” στο οποίο και βρίσκουμε το link “Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers“:

Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE) is the title given to a series of armoured vehicles operated by the Royal Engineers (RE) for the purpose of battlefield engineer support.

Φαντάζομαι το “Αύρα” προέκυψε από το AVRE κατά την παρουσία των Άγγλων στην Ελλάδα μετά την απελευθέρωση. Μπορεί και πριν. Αν κάποιος ξέρει ας μας πει.

Update: Η Άνυα γράφει:

“Λοιπόν ρώτησα πιθανότατα το AVRE να έγινε αύρα, αλλά όπως μας ενημέρωσε άλλος συνάδελφος που ασχολείται με αυτά, οι πρώτες αύρες ήρθαν στην Ελλάδα μετά την μεταπολίτευση… άρα μάλλον δεν προέρχεται από την εποχή μετά την απελευθέρωση, καθώς τότε δεν είχαν χρησιμοποιηθεί τουλάχιστον στην Ελλάδα”

A Feast for Crows

I let a week go by before writing about “A Feast for Crows“. I have mixed feelings about the book. With all that went on in “A Strom of Swords” one is left expecting what more has G.R.R. Martin has thought and how is this all going to end? Maybe this is why he was forced to split the continuation of the Storm into two books (three volumes actually) but I cannot help thinking that he has turned this into a cash cow. I quote from the Wikipedia page of the book:

In May 2005 Martin announced that the “sheer size” of his still-unfinished manuscript for A Feast for Crows had led him and his publishers to split the narrative into two books. Rather than divide the text in half chronologically, Martin opted to instead split the material by character and location, resulting in “two novels taking place simultaneously” with different casts of characters. A Feast for Crows was published months later, and the concurrent novel A Dance with Dragons was released on July 12, 2011. Martin also noted that the A Song of Ice and Fire series would now likely total seven novels.

At least it is not like what Brian Herbert did to the Dune saga.

Maybe after I read the two volumes of “A Dance with Dragons” I will look into this book more fondly.

(A Storm of Swords) (A Dance with Dragons)

On Abstraction

A twitter conversation I followed minutes ago sparked this memory:

“the purpose of abstracting is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.”

I think the first time I used the above argument from Dijkstra was when huku and @_argp made their excellent presentation about memory allocators back in OWASP AppSecEU 2012.

[EWD340]

remote power-on

From my INBOX:

Back in the days with no remotely-controlled power we had a server with another computer set face-to-face, such that the CD tray was hitting the power reset button of the neighbor. Unfortunately, this one has the power button on top, and you have to hold it in order for the box to shut down.