Subversity -

Server Migration

sub — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:28:24 +0000

I've moved this site (subversity.net) to a new server. Everything appears to be working well. However, if you notice any bugs, please report them here.

CCNA Certified

sub — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:01:06 +0000

I took the exam for Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices part 2 (ICND2) yesterday and passed. Cisco has validated my scores and I am now a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)!

Sync LVM Volume to Amazon S3

sub — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:17:25 +0000

I wrote the below shell script that syncs an LVM logical volume with an Amazon S3 bucket today. It's not pretty, but it works (though needs more error checking.) If you have any issues, improvements, or comments, please feel free to let me know. Ubuntu users can get s3cmd simply by typing sudo apt-get install s3cmd.

Curious Reversion

sub — Sat, 30 May 2009 09:47:37 +0000

I seem to be gravitating back towards interests I had when I had in high school.

6 years ago I had it all figured out. I was a member of Quaker Hill Fire Department and my master plan consisted of enlisting in the U.S. Air Force, pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice, and starting on the path to becoming a state trooper. Somewhere in those plans I would also get married and own a self-sustaining farm.

NLCT @ Twitter

sub — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:15:18 +0000

What is NLCT?
NLCT is a Twitter bot written by me, Charles Hooper (@charleshooper,) in Python. The source to the bot is currently closed source but will be opened under either a GPL or BSD-style license as soon as some important modifications are made.

How does the NLCT bot work?
The NLCT bot works by "retweeting" any mention of its name by people it's following. To get followed by NLCT, simply follow it, and within 24 hours it will begin following you back provided that you appear to be from Connecticut.

Smart-phones, Social Media, and their Impact on my Social Life

sub — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:43:37 +0000

Sometime late last year, like anyone else living in Los Angeles, I purchased an iPhone. During the first month or so – a period I now refer to as the novelty stage – my friends and coworkers and I would share with each other the newest, greatest applications we could find. When we weren't actually engaged in conversation, we were probably sitting in a circle with our eyes glued to our phones. I had wondered if owning a smart phone was ruining my social life.

Auto Type Juggling and Unsanitized Input

sub — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:21:36 +0000

I would like to think that one day we will all be past the point where we are constantly finding silly bugs and vulnerabilities caused by unvalidated or unsanitized user input. Unfortunately for us all, we're not. In this article, I will attempt to describe a rather overlooked result of PHP's type juggling.

Multihomed Ethernet on Linux using a bridge interface and STP

sub — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:58:10 +0000

Link Aggregation is an excellent way to increase the potential available bandwidth to a server or other network device. It also provides redundant pathways from one device to another. However, should your upstream switch or network device go down then you will experience an outage that will last until the device comes back up or is replaced. Often times, this is unacceptable for servers or applications that require High Availability. Fortunately, the use of a bridge interface and Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) will allow us to multihome our Linux servers across two different switches.

Silence is Defeat is back online

sub — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:54:10 +0000

I just got this email in my inbox -- Incidentally, this was after seeing silenceisdefeat.org listed on eBay.

Silenceisdefeat has changed domains
You're receiving this email because you have the account '*' on the SilenceIsDefeat public access unix system.

read more

What's up, Chuck?

sub — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:51:23 +0000

At work I'm currently researching systems and process automation for our internal servers. I have also been researching distributed datasets and am currently looking at the Cassandra project. Other things that have made it to my brain: Heartbeat, Linux Virtual Server, and DRDB for High Availability solutions.

So what about when I'm not at work? Believe it or not, Web-based RPGs have played a big part in my "off-work, on-line" time for awhile now, so I guess I'll update anyone who is here from any of those games: I've quit Bootleggers. Roderik, if you read this: Keep my points, haha. The short story is that I had been IP banned (due to a mis-understanding, not due to anything malicious) but there was a bug in the appeal forum's authentication that allowed anyone to access the details of those bans. This made my ban public knowledge. While Sabin was certainly kind enough to fix it as soon as it was brought to his attention, I decided that it made a good "walking away" point.

So what's next? Well, I've been playing Downtown Mafia as well as doing some game development of my own. I'm currently writing a code-base for some web-based RPGs I have had ideas for. I may eventually try to sit down and learn ActionScript/Flash/Flex and start making my games a bit more... "immersive" but, for now, regular HTML (with maybe a little bit of JavaScript) will suffice. And of course, with web-based game development comes web-based game development research...