Linux & Open Source

SQL Woes

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For the most part, managing my web server is pretty straightforward, especially because I don’t really get a ton of traffic. Its mostly just keeping things up to date through standard channels.

Occasionally I have a bit of a brain fart moment. I recently was doing regular Linux updates on the server. I noticed a message I had seen before about some packages being held back. Occasionally I will go through and update these, because I am not real sure why they are being held back, but don’t really see any reason they should be.

Then MySQL broke.

So I went digging in some logs and searching for solutions, and decided I needed to roll back the version. Following a guide I found, I discovered… I had done this before, which I now vaguely remebered. Because the old .deb file was still there from last time I broke it.

Anyway, this didn’t fix it, MySQL still was not launching.

I decided that maybe it was time to just switch to MariaDB, which I believe is the spiritual successor to MySQL. And the process was simple enough, I would not even need to dump my Databases. So I uninstalled MySQL, installed MariaDB and… It worked!

Then it stopped working.

I restarted the SQL service and it worked!

Then it…. Stopped working… Again…

So I checked logs again and corrected some issues there and again it worked, then a half hour or so later it stopped working.

One thing I had come across in troubleshooting the original MySQL issue was that there was a command, mysql_upgrade that needed to be run to change how some tables are configured. I couldn’t do that before because I couldn’t even get MySQL to run. But I could get MariaDB to run at least for a bit, and had successfully gotten this upgrade command to run.

So I decided to, once again, try MySQL again, so I uninstalled MariaDB, and purged everything out, rebooting a few times to be sure. And MySQL would not even install anymore, so more purging, this time, including the Databases.

One thing I was glad I had decided to do, “Just in Case” when MariaDB was “working” was dump the databases out with backups. I was glad I did at this point. So with absolutely everything purged, MySQL installed and was working.

I set about recreating the databases from the dumps, and while I was at it updated all the passwords, since I had to recreate the user accounts used by WordPress anyway.

And now everything is working smoothly again.

A couple of links that were actually helpful in solving my problem.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67564215/problems-installing-mysql-on-ubuntu-20-04

https://learnubuntu.com/install-mysql/

Programming Projects

Code Project: Automated List From Reddit Comments

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This is one of those quick and kind of dirty projects I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Basically, I wanted a script that would scrape all of the top level comments from a Reddit post and push them out to a list. Most commonly, to use on /r/AskReddit style threads like, well, for this example, “What is a song from the 90s that young people should listen to.”

Basically, threads that ask for useful opinions on list. Sometimes it’s lists of websites or something. Often it’s music. The script here is made for music but could be adjusted for any thread. Here is the script, I’ll touch on it a bit in more detail after.

## Create an APP for Secrets here:
## https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps

import praw

## Thread to scrape goes here, replace the one below
url = "https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/10c4ki0/name_one_90s_song_kids_born_after_2000_should_add/"

## Fill in API Information here
reddit = praw.Reddit(
    client_id="",
    client_secret= "",
    user_agent= "script by u/", # Your Username, not really required though
    redirect_uri= "http://localhost:8080",
)


submission = reddit.submission(url=url)
submission.comments.replace_more(limit=0)
submission.comment_limit = 1

for x in submission.comments:
    with open("output.txt", mode="a", encoding="UTF-8") as file:
        if "-" in x.body:
            file.write(str(x.body)+"\n")
            # print(x.body)

The script uses praw, Python Reddit API Wrapper. A Library made for use in Python and the Reddit API. It requires free keys which can be gotten here: https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps. Just create an app, the Client ID is a jumble of letters under the name, the secret is labeled. User Agent can be whatever really, but it’s meant to be informative.

The thread URL also needs filled in.

The script then pulls the thread data and pulls the top level comments.

I’m interested in text file lists mostly, though for the sake of music based lists, if I used Spotify, I might combine it with the Spotify Playlist maker from my 100 Days of Python course. Like I said before though, this script is made for pulling music suggestions, with this but of code:

        if "-" in x.body:
            file.write(str(x.body)+"\n")
            # print(x.body)

It’s simple, but if the comment contains a dash, as in “Taylor Swift – Shake it Off” or “ACDC – Back in Black”, it writes it to the file. Otherwise it discards it. There is a chance it means discarding some submissions, but this isn’t precision work so I’m OK with that to filter out the chaff. If I were looking for URLs or something, I might look for “http” in the comment. I could also eliminate the “if” statement and just have it write all the comments to a file.

Listening Habits

My Music Listening Habits for 2022

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It’s that time again, when I ramble on about what I’ve been listening to this year.  I don’t use Spotify so I don’t have a “cool kids” wrap up to share.  Instead you get this!  A blog post!  And some little 5×5 charts made from my Last.fm.  I kind of prefer starting on Artists over Albums, so without further ado, the top 25 for 2022.  Which unsurprisingly, is relatively similar to my previous years.

In a surprise to literally no one, including myself, my top 3 are pretty much the same as they have been for a while.  Aurora, CHVRCHES, and Sigrid.  Actually, I am a little surprised Sigrid is so high, I didn’t listen tot he new album a ton, or much Sigrid that I remember actually.  Aurora and CHVRCHES, not so much, I listen to both a lot.  Heck, I saw Aurora live this year.

Beyond that is a bit of new-ish stuff.  I’m still been digging on Radiohead’s Kid A Mnesia re-release, and I picked up a copy of OK Computer to add to that mix.  The Weeknd’s Dawn FM has become a pretty regular listen as well.  It’s an album I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I do.   Orla Gartland and Dodie slot in at numbers 6 and 7.  I almost went to see Dodie (and Orla) earlier this year but my wife had a Doctor’s thing come up and COVID was starting to ramp up again, so I opted to skip it.

Next on the list is Magdalena Bay, a newcomer to the list which a lot of the folks at the CHVRCHES discord recommended.  Another with this honor is Wolf Alice down in the number 17 slot.  I actually kind of prefer Wolf Alice to Mag Bay, but I picked up their album later, so they got less time to be listened to. Wolf Alice is a bit more, guitars and rock, while Mag Bay is more synth and electronic.  Also in this list of “Recommended by CHV People,” is Purity Ring at number 20.

Quite a few regulars on the list for a bit, though I want to comment on how much Raffaella has manages to stay in these lists.  I’m sure I mentioned it before, several times, but I had never hear of her back in 2019 before going to see Sigrid, and I’ve been listening to her music still, years later.  She hasn’t even really put out a lot of new stuff either, a couple of singles and a small sized EP.

I think Berlinist is new to the top 25, but this is entirely from listening to the Gris Video Game soundtrack.  It’s a good ‘relaxing music” album.  

There are a few missing that I’m actually surprised are missing.  Well, one anyway, which is Enya.  Not a new artist by any means, but I ended up with her entire discography, minus one, I think, at an estate sale, and I listened to quite a few of her albums recently.  It feels like it should have been enough to put her up there on the list.  It’s also really interesting because, Enya definitely reminds me of the same sort of, exotic, vocalizing, sort of style of Aurora.

Anyway, next up is the albums list, but a lot will have been covered by the Artists wrap up so I’ll just stick to anything interesting.

And it’s more or less an expansion of the Artists lists.  Most interesting, though not surprising is that every album from Aurora and CHVRCHES appears in this list.

I also noticed I forgot to mention the Cranberries.  Like Enya, I picked up a few Cranberries albums and I’ve been enjoying them.  It’s also funny because, Enya “feels” like an “Earlier Aurora” in a lot of ways, and The Cranberries, “feels” like an “Earlier CHVRCHES” in a lot of ways.  I could actually expand on this a bit with Sigrid too, because Alanis Morissette, “feels” like an “Earlier Sigrid.”

I guess my point is, the more things change,t he more they stay the same, and my overall musical tastes is about the same as it always has been, it’s just added the latest version of the same shtick.

Opinion/Editorial/Life

People I Follow Online and Social Media

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I actually wrote up a private journal entry about the whole Twitter mess, but I’m really really trying not to fuel that drama, so I’m refraining from actually posting anything about it. It’s gotten me thinking some about social media and following people online in general though. I’ve been online for a very long time and I’ve used computers almost my entire 43 years of life, and that is not an exaggeration. I am, and will forever be connected to technology as a core piece of who I am. And as such, I also flock to social websites. But the funny part is how each one sort of manages to slot into it’s own little place in my world. And how irritating it is when they try to change things and be something I don’t want them to be.

Take say, Instagram. I resisted Instagram for a while, and even once I started using it, I honestly have never been super committed to it. But I do like seeing other people’s photos. I have two accounts, one that is almost exclusively toys, and one that is “everything else”. Which is usually bands and musicians I like, family members, cats, food. In that order. Though lately, they keep trying to turn themselves into TikTok, which I hate, because I don’t want dumb video clips, I want photos.

Instagram of course is part of Facebook, though it serves it’s own purpose. Most of my actual contacts on Facebook are people I actually know. Family, all those people from High School I added when FB first launched, and friends, both from real life and online. Though I want to add that in this case, “Online Friends”, for the most part is, “Actual friends.” People I have been online friends for longer than I’ve been friends with anyone else. People I’ve been connected to cross platforms and in quite a few cases, people I have met with face to face at least once. I also use Facebook some for groups, but it’s pretty much limited to a couple of toy based groups and groups related to musicians I like. I tried using Facebook for news, but the comment sections are always cancerous idiocy so I had to drop all of the news sources I was following.

Beyond that, things get a bit more nebulous.

Take, for example, Reddit. I use Reddit a lot, probably more than is healthy, but i don’t have any friends on Reddit. I basically do not ever look at user names. I do follow a couple of accounts, but it’s mostly just people I actually know, and mostly for the sake of, “This is an easy way to remember who they are on Reddit”. I don’t actually look at their Reddit feeds, because I follow them all through other platforms where I will hear about things they want to say in a much more efficient manner. I do follow and check a shitload of subreddits and regularly browse posts on /r/all. My “Reddit Recap” for 2022 says i was in the “Top 1% of all Redditors”. I’m not sure I’m proud of that one. It’s probably the one place that’s great for getting good information from actual people on a wide variety of topics.

Then there are places like Twitter, which I’ve replaced the functionality of with Mastodon. These places, basically boil down to, “If your profile information meets any one of a dozen or so criteria, I will follow you”. Post about Video Games, Toys, Nerdy Tech shit, almost instant follow. Post snarky one liners about life that I emphasize with, that’s a follow. Post memes about cats or something frequently, but not so frequently it pollutes my feed, you bet, I’ll follow that. I treat Micro Blog platforms more like…. RSS for people’s shit takes and hot takes.

Which brings me to another way I follow people, RSS. I love RSS. RSS is so perfect for following and I am still fucking salty about Google Reader being closed and will always be because it basically killed RSS to the world. As of now, I follow around 500 blogs and news sites. I have a ton more bookmarks, waiting in a folder called, “Todo -> Add to RSS”. And i regularly go through this folder. The criteria for following a blog on RSS are similar to the Micro Blog criteria, but probably in a more broad sense.

I think in the end, I just like hearing people’s stories and random thoughts. Even if I don’t always give feed back with a comment or a like or whatever. I want to know what people think. Especially things that seem completely banal and pointless.

Advent of Code

Advent of Code 2022, I’m Done

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Well, I made it farther than my last “in real time attempt” in 2020 by 3 starts. I may check in one the puzzles each day, but my experience is, they only get more complex as time goes on, so I doubt I’ll be completing any more of them. Each day is starting to take a lot more time to solve out, the solutions are getting a lot more finicky to produce. We’ve also reached the point where the puzzle inputs also feel ridiculously obtuse. Like the Day 15 puzzle, where every number was in the millions, basically, for the only purpose of making everything slow without some sort of magic reduction math. Though skimming through other’s solutions, there didn’t seem to really BE any “magic reduction” option there. \

Which is fine. It’s not supposed to be easy. I don’t expect it to be easy.

But I have long ago accepted that things I’m doing for relaxation or enjoyment, should at least be relaxing and enjoyable. And These puzzles have reached a point where the amount of enjoyment and relaxation I get from them is no longer worthwhile.

So I’m choosing to end this year’s journey here.

Maybe I’ll go back and finish them some day, but more at my own leisure. I mean, I had started doing the old 2015 puzzles in the week leading up to this year’s event. I was never doing this in any attempt to get on the leader boards or anything anyway, hell I didn’t even start most day’s puzzles until the day was half over or later.

For what it’s worth, i did make a strong attempt on Day 15 but I just could not get it to output the correct answer, and I’m not real sure why. I couldn’t even get the sample input to work out, I was always one off. It’s possible, and likely, I was counting the space where the beacon existed, but my actual input data was off by a little over 1 million, and there are not 1 million beacons on the board. Plus it was 1 million under, where my sample input solution was 1 over.

I’m not even attempting today’s, for Day 16. I can see the logic needed, but the nuance to accomplish it will just take me too long to code out and like I said above, enjoyment and relaxation is the point. I don’t need to add hours of stress to my day.

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