Oct 29 2015

Happy 18th Birthday, Noah

Happy 18th Birthday, Noah! I hope that you have a great day today, and that this upcoming year is your best one yet! Not too long ago, I saw a video of someone solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded, (after only looking at the cube for about a minute), and it made me think back to solving them together. It also made me think of the cube that we made using photos, and not realising that it would be absurdly more difficult than ones with just colours—since you would have to have each square oriented correctly as well.

Noah's custom Rubik's cube for his birthday in 2009
Click to enlarge

Remember that?

Anyway, I hope that you have a great birthday! Maybe we’ll get to talk sometime soon. I would like to hear about all the things that have gone on over the last six years, and especially what your plans are for college.

Love ya’, kid,
–Zach

Oct 09 2015

Amavisd fails to start due to BerkeleyDB, libdb, and db.h

Yet again, I had troubles with restarting amavisd after some package updates. You can see about the other problems that I’ve had with the application in these two previous blog posts: missing SpamAssassin rules causing amavis to fail and start-up failures due to a missing Perl IPv6 module.

This time, the problem was related to the backend database used for Bayes filtering within SpamAssassin, although it wasn’t readily clear what the problem was. After updating SpamAssassin, I saw the following message from Portage (Gentoo‘s package manager):


* You need to configure your database to be able to use Bayes filter
* with database backend, otherwise it will still use (and need) the
* Berkeley DB support.
* Look at the sql/README.bayes file in the documentation directory
* for how to configure it.

At first, I thought that there was a problem with my MariaDB installation, but then I remembered that I’m currently still using BerkeleyDB (BDB) for SpamAssassin.

After trying to stop and restart amavisd, zapping the configuration (which was a problem mentioned in one of my previous posts), manually killing the running amavisd processes, and a few other things, I was still left with a configuration that would cause amavisd to fail on startup:


* Starting amavisd-new ...
Problem in Amavis::DB or Amavis::DB::SNMP code:
BerkeleyDB needs compatible versions of libdb & db.h
you have db.h version 6.0.30 and libdb version 6.0.35
Compilation failed in require at (eval 93) line 20.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 93) line 20. [ !! ]
* ERROR: amavisd failed to start

Out of sheer desperation, I attempted what seemed to be an unlikely fix by recompiling BerkleyDB (via emerge -v dev-perl/BerkeleyDB). Lo and behold, amavis decided to start after that recompilation! It’s a bit strange to me that the standard tools like revdep-rebuild and emerge @preserved-rebuild didn’t catch this problem.

In any case, third time is a charm with amavisd. Hopefully there won’t be any further problems when attempting to reload or restart it.

Cheers,
Zach

Sep 30 2015

The Iron Giant: Signature Edition experience in theatres

Tonight was an outstanding evening for me, as I got to experience The Iron Giant in the theatre again, just like I did 16 years ago in 1999. The film has been enhanced, and it was brought back to theatres across the United States by Fathom Events for one night only: 30 September 2015 starting at 19:00 local time.

The Iron Giant Signature Edition ticket stub
The Iron Giant: Signature Edition ticket stub

If you haven’t had the honour of seeing Brad Bird’s (Animator of The Fox and the Hound, and writer/director of some greats like The Incredibles, and Ratatouille), then please do yourself a favour, and find a copy (either an older version to buy, or even stream it). It’s a truly remarkable film that spoke to me when I first saw it as an adolescent years and years ago.

Back in 1999 and for some years to come, I couldn’t get enough of The Iron Giant because I loved the hand-animated artwork, the incredible story, and some of the great one-liners and comedic scenes. Thereafter, it slipped to the back of my mind, but was never really forgotten. Then, several years ago, I got the joy of reliving it and experiencing it with a really great kid. It took on a completely new meaning to me when I saw the remarkable lessons that it taught—love conquering fear, being who you are, and doing everything within your power to help people.

The Iron Giant Signature Edition ticket stub
The Iron Giant and Hogarth Hughes
(Click to enlarge)

This time around, I got to see it (and introduce it) to my best friend in the world. She also enjoyed it (but, of course, I knew that she would). 🙂 Before the film started, they were showing various trivia questions about it (like in the screenshot above). I knew most of them, but this one in particular was really cool. By the way, the answer was Ted Hughes, which made Hogarth’s name even more significant. All in all, I can’t think of a better way to spend an evening than with a great friend, a fantastic film, and a hefty dose of nostalgia.

Cheers,
Zach