Rob Gallagher
Leaping into the new year
Jan 5th
With the addition of a leap second on December 31st, 2008 went on for a bit longer. This was interesting for me as we operate a pair of stratum-1 time servers, ntp1.heanet.ie (MSF-synched) and ntp2.heanet.ie (GPS-synched), both of which are in the ie.pool.ntp.org rotation. ntp2.heanet.ie maintained accuracy throughout, however ntp1.heanet.ie drifted by 1 second for a short while. This is to be expected however, as the MSF signal does not pre-announce the leap second.
Before Christmas, I began monitoring traffic to and from both servers in anticipation of some funky patterns in or around new years. We did get a surge of traffic, just not in the way I was expecting…
On new years eve, ntp2.heanet.ie suddenly became extremely popular – receiving 1.34Mbit/s of traffic at it’s peak. ntp1.heanet was slightly less in demand, spiking at 721.06Kbit/s. Both boxes reached their highest traffic levels since we put them into service at the end of November. However, from the graph it appeared that the traffic spike arrived several hours before midnight.
Drilling down, the largest amount of traffic was seen by ntp2.heanet.ie in or around 18:00 on the 31st with further spikes at 20:00, 21:30 and just before midnight. The only conclusion I can come to is that a large amount of people were frantically synching their clocks before heading out to the pub 
Further reading: Dave Malone collected quite a bit of information the last time a leap second appeared.
Refreshing ftp.heanet.ie
Dec 16th
Here’s a presentation I gave at the ILUG AGM on the new architecture powering ftp.heanet.ie; our well-known mirror server and consumer of copious amounts of bandwidth.
TLD monitoring
Nov 26th
Now this is a good idea, TLD monitoring with nagios.
It highlights some interesting information, such as the large amount of open resolvers.
Time to dust off this blog
Nov 10th
So this blog has gone a little fallow recently – 6 months without a post…er…it’s overgrown with brambles at this stage 
Hopefully I can make it a bit more regular again. Either that or replace it with a black times new roman font on white background page.
Some interesting material on the new architecture for ftp.heanet.ie to follow.
Spring 2008 anime season
Apr 3rd
So April has rolled around again and it’s time for some new series – here’s some of the highlights, in no particular order:
First off the bat we have Code Geass R2 (April 7th?). This is probably the most anticipated show of the new season, I hope it delivers.
Then of course there’s, Golgo 13 (April 11th). Oh yeah. I believe this is the first TV outing for Duke Togo, he’s a good counterbalance to the glut of moe and dating sim shows this season I’ve been reading a lot of the Golgo 13 manga recently so I’m really looking forward to this one.
Macross Frontier (April 3rd) – We already had a sneak preview of the first episode back in December, the storyline appears to be direct remake of Macross 7. Episode 1 was pretty impressive and of course, it’s more Macross
Real Drive (RD Sennou Chousashitsu) (April 8th) : The latest Production IG/Masamune Shirow offering with some of the staff from the GITS TV series. Must watch:
“In 2061, 50 years after humanity developed the “Net society” that depended on information networks despite their security issues. To improve security, a new network called Meta Real Network — or “Metal” for short — was developed. People’s personal memories are reduced to information and placed within “protected virtual stand-alone organic cyber enclaves” called bubble shells online. The result was a virtual “explosion” of creative freedom as people felt safe enough to explore instincts and desires on Metal that they would not otherwise explore in real life. This “friction” between the Metal’s alluring lack of restrictions and rules-bound reality led to trouble and incidents that investigators known as “cyber divers” must handle. Masamichi Haru is one such cyber diver.”
Himitsu: Top Secret (April 8th).
“The story takes place five decades from now, when brain scanners have been perfected to the point that the government can retrieve up to five years’ worth of memories from people’s minds — even if they are dead. The investigators of the National Research Institute of Police Science’s 9th Forensics Laboratory must weigh the ethical choices in the ultimate invasion of privacy as they delve into people’s minds to solve crimes.”
Allison and Lillia (April 3rd): A World War II-type conflict has been going on for about a hundred years, two people set out to find a treasure (??) that can end the war. This looks quite impressive.
Toshokan Senseou (Library War) (April 10th): This is a quirky one, sounds like a cross between Fahrenheit 451 and Read or Die.
“Based on a light novel series by Arikawa Hiro, illustrated by Adabana Sukumo.
In the year 2019, the explosion of information and misinformation became a direct threat to society. In a daring decision, it was decided to create a new government agency dedicated solely to information management. Now some thirty years later, the government still monitors and controls information, suppressing anything they find undesirable, but standing against their abuses of power are the libraries, with their special agents called ‘the book soldiers.’”
Kaiba (April 10th): From the director of Mind Game and Cat Soup, produced by studio Madhouse (rock!).
“A sci-fi love story set in a world where digitization of memory made physical death obsolete. A world where memories can be stolen and altered, and replaced in a new human body. Kaiba wakes up in a room wthout knowing who he is. He has a pendant with the photograph of a woman he does not remember. After being attacked all of a sudden, he has to flee to space, meet various people, and rediscover the world.”
Kamen no Maid Guy (April 6th). Fist of the North Star meets He is My Master? This has the potential to be completely wretched or hilarious, or both:
“Fujiwara Naeka is a typical 17 year-old high school student. Or so we thought. She’s really one of two surviving heirs of a tycoon who has the right to inherit his mass fortune when she turns 18 in half a year. Fubuki, a young and beautiful maid, and Kogarashi, a big burly maid guy with a mask, have been assigned to keep Naeka and her brother Kousuke safe from those who would plot their demise, and to steal the fortune she would inherit.”
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the above series’, a more complete roundup can be found here (which the above is mostly based on).
