Category Archives: bloglike

Weird Moments in Virtualization

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I find that Xen has a settings file named “permitted_clock_jitter” in /proc/sys/xen. I found this out when trying to discover why my DomU machine won’t shut down, but instead claims that it “Cannot access the Hardware Clock via any known method” and that “Time went backwards.” The latter claim, particularly, seems dubious, but the shutdown log is pretty adamant.

Note: if you got here by searching for that error message, I’d like to first say “ugh, sorry,” and then let you know that I solved this in the end by giving up on Xen and doing a normal install of Debian on the server I was setting up.

A Good Pair of Frogs

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In repose on their rock.

In repose on their rock.

The frogs pictured above are White’s Tree Frogs, who are part of an exhibit we installed at the Discovery Place. When I was setting up the computer equipment there, I would often go look in on them in their space, and they would always be looking around with that froggy equanimity which I think comes across pretty clearly in the picture. They also liked to sit nearly on top of each other, which they are not doing here.