I Can Haz Downtime?

Enabling our president w/technology

I read this article this morning. It occured to me that there are various OSS projects out there that can take down or overcome most of these roadblocks.
* A 2000 privacy rule that prohibits government websites from collecting and saving users' personal information limits their ability to customize content for individual visitors.
Okay, then don't save their info, tell their browser to do so via Google Gears or other such browser side storage mechanisms. It may not be in the spirit of the law, but it may be to the letter of the law.
* A 1978 law requires most White House communications to be archived, leading the Obama White House to block Instant Messaging rather than worry about any embarrassments that might come from freewheeling online chats.
Haven't these people heard of XMPP/Jabber? Logging of everything is an option on every jabber server I've ever run. Those jabber servers can also act as a gateway to other services.
* That law also requires Web pages to be archived every time they are changed.
How is this a blocker? Every sane person I know uses some sort of deployment tool to deploy versions of websites. Add a line or two into that deployment tool to make an incremental or complete rsync backup to an archive server. Sure, it will take a bit longer, but tada you have the archive you need.

New role at Engine Yard

I'm working with a new group at Engine Yard that is responsible for identifying the technological and procedural improvements to Engine Yard's current cluster offerings. The group consists of myself and 3 others (Dan Peterson, Lee Jensen & Taylor Weibley). We spent some time last week scouring our Systems Engineering queue, our Nagios alerts, various types of HelpServe tickets, HelpServe tickets from specific customers, queried the Account Managers and asked our Support people for input. So far we've come up with a multi-page Google Document summarizing what we've found. As we finish that document and start working through the items on that list I'll start blogging about them. The team is meeting in SF this week to review it, make recommendations to the new CEO and to lay the groundwork for what we're going to do about the items on the list. I'm still very curious to hear from customers about what they think. So, if your an Engine Yard customer please send me a direct tweet (d freeformz) or drop me an email (emuller@engineyard.com) if you want to provide some input. Thanks!

Re-setting Cast Iron Cookware

My cast iron frying pan (and dutch oven) were in dire need of a good scour (to remove some rust) and a re-seasoning. They haven't been treated as nicely as I would have wanted to treat them recently, and was not taken care of during our move to CA. So I wanted to strip off as much of the current seasoning that was already there and basically, start from scratch. Solution? Throw them in a self cleaning over and run them through a cleaning cycle. The pot/pan came out with most of the seasoning carbonized and flaking off. A thorough scrubbing with a brillo pad and Ajax cleaner cleaned up everything else. Bits of rust and carbon flakes. After that I needed to re-season the pots. My new method is much better than my old one. My new seasoning method
  1. Wash the pan thoroughly.
  2. Dry off as much water as possibly with some paper towels.
  3. Put it on the stove and set the heat on high for a few (5-10) minutesto make sure all the water has evaporated and the pan/pot get really hot.
  4. Turn off the heat.
  5. Pour some peanut oil into the pan. I think peanut oil is the best for this. I've used Crisco (most sites on the internet say to use Crisco) and Canola oil in the past. They are both okay, but I think peanut oil is the shit.
  6. Take some NEW, dry paper towels and spread the oil around as much as possible. You want the thinnest coat possible. Make sure to get both sides, the lip if there is one and the handle. Cover the entire pan. Use more oil if necessary. Remember to use a kitchen towel or something to hold the handle. But remember, don't use too much oil.
  7. Put some aluminum foil in the oven, on the lowest rack.
  8. Place the cast iron pan/pot, upside down on the aluminum foil.
  9. Turn the oven to 450 deg F.
  10. Bake the pan/pot for 90 minutes.
  11. After baking, let the pan/pot cool in the oven.
If the pan/pot needs a little more seasoning, start again from step #3 after the pot/pan has cooled. Don't try to do it in one step with more oil, you'll just end up with 'gunk' on the pan that comes off during cleaning after regular use. P.S. I also find this works much better in a gas oven than an electric one. I haven't really figured out why yet.