As some of you already know, me and my wife are planning to see the world, all while working and making money. We first left Israel and traveled to Finland, where my wife worked and studied at Helsinki University. After 5 months of working and seeing Finland (and Lapland), we took a taxi to St. Petersburg, Russia, where we spent some wonderful time walking around one of the most romantic and beautiful cities on our planet. My wife then flew to Israel to give her thesis for her masters degree, and to be with her parents before we start our “Big” tour. In the mean time I stayed some more in St. Petersburg to explore it a bit and learn the Russian language, and 4 weeks later here I am in Morocco, staying with my dad, until my wife joins me and we’ll continue our trip.

Why did we start this trip at all?

My wife wants to see the world. She spent almost 10 years in academia. I thought about it long and hard, and decided it suits me as well, and thought it would be a great idea to do this together. I also wanted to travel but never got around to doing it. Friends of mine travelled immediately after they completed their military service, but I was working in the hi-tech industry, being the geek that I am. India could wait, with its promises of endless beach parties, hallucinogenic drugs, and women.

But why a boat?!

I looked at the map of the world, and said, ok, Europe, Russia and Africa, no problem, huge landmasses. much of Asia as well, like China, Japan, Vietnam, etc.

But the islands, and all the way to Australia, is mostly water, plus we want to see the great barrier reef, and..! we need to keep working, so having an office with internet and electricity is critical or else we won’t have money to fund all this.

Where next?

If all goes according to plan, here are our next steps:

1. Buy a camper, and fit it with internet connectivity & solar panels
2. Travel for a month in Morocco, discovering the country’s beauty and culture
3. Take the ferry to Spain, and start criss-crossing europe, all the way to Russia
4. Criss-cross all over Russia, all the way to China
5. Once in China, travel to Hong Kong, where we will try to build a boat!

With the boat built, these are our next steps:

1. Reach Japan and explore it
2. Reach Vietnam and explore it
3. Reach Thailand, and the Philippines, and explore them
4. Reach the Great Barrier Reef, and sail around Australia
5. Reach India and explore it
6. Cross the suets canal, into the mediterranean sea
7. Explore the countries in the mediterranean
8. Reach Morocco again, rest there for a while
9. Sail up to the nordic region, all the way to Sweden

In Sweden, my wife plans to start working on a doctorate, this means we’ll stay there for a few years, and also means the end of our “big” tour.

A possible extension of the tour, wold be to cross the atlantic, all the way to Canada and the Thousand Islands region, which we want to explore with the boat.

They want me to pay $75 just to boot a rescue CD on my machine which failed to boot a new kernel, around 24 hours ago (it has failed, because they initially set only 46mb to my /boot/ partition, which is not enough for modern kernels). So basically, my data is being held hostage for a $75 ransom, until next month where I am entitled to another 15 minutes of free support. Then I will be able to ask them to spend the 2 minutes to boot a rescue CD. Then I will be able to SSH into the box, and get my data.

Besides, Their support staff takes hours to respond, their billing staff even longer, and they are not helpful at all, leaving you on the edge, eating your own fingernails. I mean, around 18 hours until receiving the answer from them that they won’t help me without me paying the $75…??

Why anyone works with them is beyond me, especially when there are so many superior competitors in the market, with Remote Boot and KVM-IP features (Hey, With those features I could have fixed my own server in less than 10 minutes! been there, done that!).

Goodbye Ultrahosting… and “good luck” surviving as a hosting company…

RabbitMQ is a software service which you typically run on many servers, either in a local Lan, and/or across the Internet. The services all connect with each other in a very fault tolerant(1) manner, and allow you to transmit messages between those servers very quickly. A producer of messages inserts messages into one or more queues. A consumer of messages subscribes(2) to one or more queues. A software can be a producer, or consumer, or both a consumer and a producer of messages. This can be used to facilitate communications between many servers, on many topics, with any possible combination of routing and subscriptions, and access control. For really non-techie managers: Imagine it like a series of tubes in a house, with water containers on the roof being the producers, and taps all around the house being the consumers

(1) By “Fault Tolerant” I mean nodes can fail, then maybe come back up, but the rest of the nodes that are still up will keep running and transmitting messages with each other. In addition, when the fallen nodes come back up, any messages they stored on disk will be reloaded and retransmitted. Nothing is lost.

(2) The manner in which consumers subscribe to queues and exchanges is quite complex at first look, but fear not, some reading and then experimenting will fix it for you. Hopefully thanks to this guide, you will have a working, solid set of servers to start experimenting with.

Update: Found this awesome Slide Show about Interop with RabbitMQ. It explains the advantages of using AMQP and RabbitMQ, and I strongly recommend you check it out.

Assumptions for this guide

The first assumption is that you have 3 servers, two are on a local lan, while the third is in another data center, and not only is it on another completely different IP network, it even has another domain name!

Here are the server names we’ll use for this guide:

ren.AcmeNetwork.com on 192.168.1.101
stimpy.AcmeNetwork.com on 192.168.1.102
dynamite.WildCoyote.com on 10.0.0.150

The second assumption is that you are running under Ubuntu 9.10 Server, and your boxes are connected to the internet so that they can fetch the rabbitmq-server packages (and related packages).

Step 1 – Setting up RabbitMQ

Fortunately, RabbitMQ have released packages for most popular operating systems. The OS of choice for me is Ubuntu 9.10 Server, however I’m pretty sure you can adapt this easily to any other operating system. Ubuntu’s repository currently contains an older version of RabbitMQ 1.6.0, but we want the latest and greatest. So here’s how we do it:

root@ren:/root# wget http://www.rabbitmq.com/releases/rabbitmq-server/v1.7.2/rabbitmq-server_1.7.2-1_all.deb
root@ren:/root# dpkg -i rabbitmq-server_1.7.2-1_all.deb

Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?

If Ubuntu or Debian complain that some dependencies were missing, just issue an apt-get -f install to correct the issue. The dependencies will be satisfied, and the RabbitMQ installation will complete successfully.

You will notice Ubuntu will install quite a few erlang related packages (RabbitMQ is written in Erlang, which is a great thing). When apt-get is done,  your RabbitMQ server will already be installed and running, and this is where people usually start scratching their heads and start to google their way around. The guides on the RabbitMQ site, while technically correct, lack in the “Teach by example” area.

And before you continue! Some best practices and preparations:

1) First, Let’s change the default guest password (“guest”) to something else (the part in bold is what you type):

root@ren:/root# rabbitmqctl change_password guest 123456
Changing password for user "guest" ...
...done.

# Start RabbitMQ shortstop names definition
192.168.1.101  ren       ren.acmenetwork.com
192.168.1.102  stimpy    stimpy.acmenetwork.com
10.0.0.150     dynamite  dynamite.wildcoyote.com
# End RabbitMQ shortstop names definition

root@ren:/root# cat /var/lib/rabbitmq/.erlang.cookie
EOKOWXQREETZSHFNTPEY

Ok so now we know Ren’s cookie. Before we change the cookie on Stimpy and Dynamite, we must stop rabbitmq-server – Why? Because the cookie is used to communicate the shutdown request to rabbitmq-server. If we change this cookie before we shut it down, we will no longer be able to shut it down!

root@stimpy:/root# service rabbitmq-server stop
Stopping rabbitmq-server: rabbitmq-server.
root@stimpy:/root# echo -n EOKOWXQREETZSHFNTPEY > /var/lib/rabbitmq/.erlang.cookie
root@stimpy:/root# service rabbitmq-server start

root@stimpy:/root# service rabbitmq-server stop
Stopping rabbitmq-server: rabbitmq-server.
root@stimpy:/root# echo -n EOKOWXQREETZSHFNTPEY > /var/lib/rabbitmq/.erlang.cookie
root@stimpy:/root# service rabbitmq-server start

And this is how it’s done in the command line:

root@stimpy:/root# rabbitmqctl stop_app
Stopping node rabbit@stimpy ...
...done.
root@stimpy:/root# rabbitmqctl reset
Resetting node rabbit@stimpy ...
...done.
root@stimpy:/root# rabbitmqctl cluster rabbit@ren
Clustering node rabbit@stimpy with [rabbit@ren] ...
...done.
root@stimpy:/root# rabbitmqctl start_app
Starting node rabbit@stimpy ...
...done.

root@dynamite:/root# rabbitmqctl stop_app
Stopping node rabbit@dynamite ...
...done.
root@dynamite:/root# rabbitmqctl reset
Resetting node rabbit@dynamite ...

...done.
root@dynamite:/root# rabbitmqctl cluster rabbit@ren
Clustering node rabbit@dynamite with [rabbit@ren] ...
...done.
root@dynamite:/root# rabbitmqctl start_app
Starting node rabbit@dynamite ...
...done.

And here’s the actual walkthrough. First let’s install the dependencies:

root@ren:/root# apt-get install mercurial zip unzip subversion erlang-dev erlang-src erlang-tools erlang-nox

Next we’ll go into the rabbitmq lib directory, and get the plugin sources from the Mercurial repository:

root@ren:/root# cd /usr/lib/rabbitmq/lib/
root@ren:/usr/lib/rabbitmq/lib# hg clone http://hg.rabbitmq.com/rabbitmq-public-umbrella
destination directory: rabbitmq-public-umbrella
requesting all changes
adding changesets
...
...
12 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved
root@ren:/usr/lib/rabbitmq/lib# cd rabbitmq-public-umbrella/
root@ren:/usr/lib/rabbitmq/lib/rabbitmq-public-umbrella# make co
root@ren:/usr/lib/rabbitmq/lib/rabbitmq-public-umbrella# make

cd ../rabbitmq_server-1.7.2
# Yes, the plugins directory isn't even created for us initially. We'll just
# make it now:
mkdir plugins
cd plugins
ln -s ../../rabbitmq-public-umbrella/erlang-rfc4627
ln -s ../../rabbitmq-public-umbrella/rabbitmq-jsonrpc
ln -s ../../rabbitmq-public-umbrella/rabbitmq-jsonrpc-channel
ln -s ../../rabbitmq-public-umbrella/rabbitmq-mochiweb
ln -s ../../rabbitmq-public-umbrella/rabbitmq-mochiweb/deps/mochiweb

Now we should tell rabbitmq to activate those plugins:

rabbitmq-activate-plugins

Now restart rabbitmq-server and you’re done:

service rabbitmq-server restart

Congratulations!

Let’s go over what we’ve done quickly:

1. Downloaded and installed RabbitMQ Server 1.7.2
2. Made it a bit more secure, and also configured short hostnames for all of our cluster nodes
3. Connected all of our rabbits together into a cluster
4. Downloaded & Compiled the provided umbrella plugins
5. Activated some plugins

If everything went smooth, you should be able to start playing with queues, exchanges, etc. I hope you are excited as I was, when you send your first messages onto the queue and start receiving them on the other side of your network.

I would love to hear your feedback and corrections on this guide.

Here goes:
ingredients-

• 1 big or 2 medium onions
• 2 garlic teeth (or cloves.. or whatever you call it)
• 1 yellow pepper
• 2 red peppers
• Handful of rinsed coriander
• 1 bag of fat noodles (egg noodles)
• 1 can of coconut oil
• 1 can of syruped diced pineapples
• Soy, Chilli, Curry, Sugar, Salt

Make the magic:

1. Boil the noodles and screen.
2. Pour a 1/4 cup of oil (Canola) into a wok
3. Cut the Onions to 4 quarters and then separate to layers
4. Chop the coriander
5. Cut peppers to thin strips
6. Crush the garlic

Toss the veggies in order of appearance: onions, peppers, garlic, coriander. Add soy (generously), salt and sugar. Toss in the wok. let it fry a bit. Add 2 spoons of Chili sauce.

Add the diced pineapple as you wish, then add a cup of the syrup.

Add the noodles, stir until the sauce colors the noodles. Add more soy generously, add the can of coconut oil, add yellow curry generously and more sugar (at least 2 spoons).

Stir fry until texture thickens and the coconut is fully yellow, along with the noodles.

et voila! curry noodles. if it’s anything like what I got here, then you’re in for a treat! bonap people!

Since joining, I hosted one cool person, and joined several real life meetings (last one being yesterday night). We are also about to host a lady from France this coming Saturday.

I have to say that so far, my experience has been very positive. The members of the site who seem to “get” the idea, are positive and friendly, and that’s really great because it gives you a sense that something is right with the world, and that it’s easy to make new friends, hear amazing stories about their travels around the planet, and learn from their experience.

They are also extremely helpful when someone comes with a question or request, and I believe this is the spirit of being “good” to each other as people. If only more people lived their life in that spirit, the world would look more like a big family, than a bunch of people living their life alone.

My love and respect to the organizers of the site, and to the participants who really put their soul into the thing.

Their site: http://www.couchsurfing.org

Update: I have hosted another guy from Michigan, USA. He was simply awesome!!! I really love CouchSurfing.org

The realization I’ve come to, relates to technology chat rooms and the kinds of people that frequent them. You have chat rooms for subjects such as Linux, MySQL, PHP; you will find a lot of noobs in there, and the population is quite varied, sometimes rude, sometimes just plain stupid, but definitely full of trolls and other creatures

And then you have a channel such as #bash and this is where things get quite wonderful. So, What kind of person goes to a channel about Bash? (Bourne-Again Shell). What I found was a bunch of hackers, with a great sense of humor and the ability and willingness to help people, and educate them about proper bash scripting. They are the right mixture of geek / mature IT person / mature developer, that I have come to appreciate and respect over the years.

One of my own personal favorites is the Yemenite soup and the accompaniments, and for me it’s no longer just about the soup but also about the ritual

Serving

The soup is served in a deep dish along with “S’khoog” (A special, very spicy condiment), Lemon Halves, “Hil’bé” (I will explain later), and some kind of bread (The Yemenite use, in order of preference: “La’khoukh”, “Kubané”, or a simple Khala bread). If chicken is used, and it contains bones, a special bowl is placed in the middle of the table where the bones can be properly disposed of.

Soup Ingredients

I want to explain this part, before I list the ingredients. If you ask a Yemen cook what they put in their soup, the answers will vary. I have therefor used my own observations and guesses from the many Yemenite soups I had (and I had plenty), to put together the following list of ingredients. While it may not be accurate, the result is so close to the original that I can not personally tell the difference, and this makes me feel confident enough about this list. If you think I have skipped something, do let me know!

• Pressure Cooker, or a large pot with a good lid
• Wooden Spoon, Sharp Knife
• 1 medium sized onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 4 medium ~ large potatos
• 4 tomatoes
• 6 medium sized carrots
• Canola oil
• Meat (select one of the following):
  • 6 chicken <– My favorite
  • 1 kilogram of beef <– Most popular
  • 2 cow legs <– Most original
• Spices:
  • Ha’wa’yég
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Beef or Chicken Stock (Cubes or Powder)

Preparation

Vegetables: Grind the tomatoes and dispose of the skin. Grind 4 of the Carrots into the same container with the ground tomatoes. Cut the remaining 2 carrots into pieces of ~2cm each. Peel the potatoes (I know the potato skin is very healthy, but we are doing this for two reasons: 1) it is the traditional way; 2) this way the spices can infiltrate the potato easily and you get a nice, delicious yellow cooked potato). Keep this on the side for now, we will add this to the soup later.

Meat: Throw finely chopped onion and garlic into the pot, along with 3 spoons of Canola Oil, and fry until slightly golden. Put the meat along with 4 generous spoons of Ha’wa’yég in the pot and stir slightly, so that the meat touches the bottom of the pot. The idea is to “close” the meat by frying it slightly from all sides. Add Salt & Pepper.

(While this is frying, put 2 litters of water to boil).

Once the meat is lightly cooked on all sides, carefully pour the boiling water into the pot, and stir. Now add the vegetables we prepared earlier (including the carrots and potatoes). Bring it once to boiling point, then lower the fire and let cook for: 1) Pressure Cooker: 45 minutes 2) Regular Pot: 90 minutes.

Your soup is now ready!

Optional: I add two tea spoons of S’khoog along with the vegetables. It makes the soup interesting

Accompaniments

Hil’bé

This is a very interesting, and some say very healthy bitter grain which “jellies” when it comes in contact with water. You add two spoons of this powder in a bowl (do not use a metal bowl), juice from half a lemon, a bit of salt, and half a tea spoon of S’khoog. Here’s the tricky part: How much water you add depends on how finely your grain was ground. I suggest you start with 5 spoons of water (in addition to the lemon juice). The solution will be very watery at first, but give it a few minutes and it will start to Jel. If it becomes too solid, add two more spoons of water and stir. The end result should feel like a light pudding. The enzimes in the grain produce small air bubbles, giving this condiment a unique, airy texture.

S’khoog

Ahh… We have come to the most revered and sensitive of condiments for Yemenits. A true Yemen will eat everything together with S’khoog. The recipe varies like the stars in the sky. Each family has her own technique and unique blend, different amounts of ingredients, different philosophies of cutting the ingredients, and in short, if you find a specific kind of S’khoog that you like, you will have to keep going to the same family/restaurant to get it exactly right, and even that may not happen, since the primary ingredient of S’khoog is green peppers and they are different every season.

There are generally two types of S’khoog: Red & Green. Explaining how to make S’khoog is not within the scope of this article, and I will skip it altogether. I would also like to say that preparing S’khoog is not for the faint of heart. I have seen many red hands in my past, to know how painful it can be to prepare this condiment without gloves, for example.

Finale / how to eat it

Of course, there are no rules here. Personally, I start by putting a teaspoon of Hil’bé and a teaspoon of S’khoog in the soup, along with a teaspoon of Lemon. You can also throw bread into the soup to soak it up, very delicious. It’s supposed to be spicy, and your nose will be runny by the time you finish eating this soup. If you had the Flu, kiss it goodbye.

1. Galaxies have massive black holes in their center. These black holes slowly swallow everything, light, matter, planets, etc.
2. At some point in time, every black hole will reach a certain critical mass and explode, sending out a super massive wave of matter and energy / radiation, to a huge distance.
3. Once this wave reaches another nearby galaxy, it will push the matter from the edge of the galaxy towards the center, towards the black hole. This could trigger another explosion of that black hole, as in turn, it inevitably reaches critical mass.
4. The second explosion will partially negate the energy and mass flying from the first, and some of it will join and actually boost the wave, creating an exponentially faster wave of energy and matter.
5. A chain reaction is created as more and more galaxies join the party, creating a wave of destruction so massive, absolutely nothing survives.

The process described above produces a new, very hot “primal” universe. The larger chunks will attract more matter, and slowly grow into larger chunks and then into heavier planets. Some will attract other chunks into orbit, as all chunks are hurtled against each other. Some will grow large enough to form black holes and then the story begins all over again.

What do you think?

Is it because supposedly that person in the wheelchair is helpless, and an easy prey? Is it this kind of inner ferocious instinct usually found in carnivorous mammals?

Or is it because he thinks she is desperate for Sex and will do anything? Or maybe he is imagining her stiff legs and the thought of her dead limbs is arousing in a very perverse way?

This reminded me of the story of Safran and his dead arm, from the book “Everything is Illuminated” by Jonathan Safran Foer. In that story, Safran, supposedly the author’s grandfather, has a dead arm from birth. This somehow gets him into the arms (and underwear) of most of his village’s women… to the point where it has become a sort of a “secret weapon” for him, which he used to “fish” for his gipsy, non-jewish girlfriend. I seriously recommend that book by the way, it’s awesome in so many ways. And definitely read the book BEFORE you see the movie.

All this is nature. We are the planet, part of it. The planet produced us, and we can continue existing, or we might cease to exist soon. It is our decision, but our decision is natural, guided or misguided as it may be, and we will either kill ourselves, or allow ourselves to continue to exist. It is up to us, up to our “nature”, to control our own future.

At least until planet Nibiru comes for a visit in a few years and kills us all