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For years we had FreeBSD for performance, NetBSD for portability, and OpenBSD for security. Now a new project, focused on innovation, has worked very hard and is ready to release its first version: DragonFly BSD 1.0. Federico Biancuzzi interviewed some of these innovators to discuss their interesting points of view.
Matthew, could you give us a short history of the steps that brought you from being a FreeBSD developer to becoming the DragonFly BSD project creator?
Matthew Dillon: Well, while at Berkeley (1985-1989) I used CSRG's BSD 4.3 quite a lot and even did a little driver work for the Perkin-Elmer we had to play with. I had already done considerable work in the embedded world. Working with Berkeley's UNIX really piqued my interest in UNIX and operating systems in general. After graduating I began using Linux, and contributed to some of the early Linux kernel work. But once the USL lawsuit was resolved and the BSDs started gaining momentum I returned to my roots and began actively using FreeBSD. Later on I began using it on BEST Internet's machines, which of course resulted in a large number of bug and patch submissions, which eventually led to a commit bit as a FreeBSD committer. However, that relationship had always been quite fractious, primarily due to the inability for some FreeBSD committers to accept the work on its face. For example, I had to fight tooth and nail to get the VM changes between FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x into the tree.
However, while committer relations have always been an issue, DragonFly split off from FreeBSD-5 over major architectural differences, not anything else. We really do feel that FreeBSD-5 is taking the wrong approach to SMP and building something that is so complex that it will ultimately not be maintainable. We think we have a better way.
Hiten, Jeffrey and Joerg, could you introduce yourself?
Joerg Sonnenberger: I'm a 20-year-old student of mathematics and spare-time programmer. I have investigated different fields of CS in the past years and got a bit bored last year. That's why I'm here.
Jeffrey Hsu: I was one of the early FreeBSD committers 10 years ago, working in the kernel and on many of the compiler and language ports. I did the first JDK port to FreeBSD. Recently I've done a lot of work on the FreeBSD networking stack, mainly adding SMP locking and improving TCP. When Matt started DragonFly, he invited me to join and I've been here ever since. I find the friendly project atmosphere a refreshing change.
Hiten Pandya: I am a 17-year-old and I live in the United Kingdom (UK). I have been working on FreeBSD for a good five years, since 1999, and as a committer since summer of 2003. I was aware of DragonFly and Matt's plans at about the end of May 2003, i.e., before it was publicly announced, and I have worked on it since its inception in early June 2003.
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I still work with FreeBSD people often but my primary interest is in the advancement of DragonFly because of the adopted methodologies. I really do not have anything against FreeBSD, because without that, we would not have DragonFly. For me it is just a matter of preference and I like to work with a smaller (committer) team because it is easier to get work coordinated and actioned without too many interruptions. At the end of day, it's all about advancement of technology and ideas. Politics has little to do with it. My interests roughly scale from Operating Systems to Clustering. I have worked on various projects, including Apache HTTP, Jakarta Tomcat, xMach, IBM's Journal File System for Linux and OS/2, DCE UUIDs, SCTP network protocol, and such. Over the last five years, I have written numerous amounts of technical documentation, device drivers, subsystems and embeddable systems on *BSD and Linux. In the past few years, I have also worked extensively on Bioinformatics applications such as BLAST and Phylogeny and Annotation tools, thus my interest in developing SSI-type technology among others, like Checkpointing.
What is your role in the project?
JS: I'm doing a lot of the driver and low-level hardware work e.g. by investigating and backporting the various changes of FreeBSD CURRENT. Another field is keeping the system compiler up-to-date.
JH: I do mostly the same things as before: adding MP support to the networking stack and improving the TCP algorithms.
HP: My role in DragonFly is hard to describe in a few words. I try to do whatever is necessary for the Project like coordinating developer effort, help with features, liaise with BSD and Linux developers, try to keep peace and clear any misconceptions held by others, stop people from unwanted ranting on the lists, etc., etc. If there is work that needs to be done but no one has picked up the ball due to constraints, I generally tend to them. Basically, anything and everything; starting from core kernel work to documentation, web site updates, anything.
I have worked in these areas many times before so most of them aren't a problem. I usually read CS papers to see how DragonFly's approach compares to others, what interesting things we can take from NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc. Additionally, I try to stay aware of developments in the CS industry from time to time.
While we are on the topic of who's who, I would like to thank the following people: the DragonFly Team — especially David Rhodus — for providing support whenever possible. I typed this up on a notebook donated to me for DragonFly work by Chris Beuchler and Scott Ullrich.
Who do you think should try DragonFly BSD?
MD: Anyone at all.
JS: Anybody with a certain understanding of computers and UNIX. I'm not sure whether I want to use DragonFly for a productive system now, but it runs fine most of the time and has a decent performance. I'm re-commenting it to Linux and other BSD users and haven't received negative replies yet.
JH: Anyone who likes Unix(tm) should give DragonFly a try. We're based on FreeBSD 4, the most stable and the fastest FreeBSD version we've ever released as a project (the next closest one in terms of quality was FreeBSD 2.2.5). In DragonFly, we work hard to maintain backward and forward compatibility with FreeBSD 4. We even have two compilers in our system, gcc2 and gcc3, and all the infrastructure in place around them to generate either FreeBSD 4 binaries or the newer gcc3-format binaries. In fact, I do much of my DragonFly kernel development on a FreeBSD userland and just compile and copy the kernel over and reboot.
HP: Anyone can try DragonFly, whether it fits their needs or not is up to them to decide. Currently, the DragonFly community is pretty much a mix of various types of people, some are taking the "hmm, interesting, let's wait-and-see" approach, while others are dissatisfied with SMP methodologies adopted by FreeBSD or are interested in upcoming features of DragonFly.
Note, we are not trying to vouch that DragonFly is very stable right now, because there are still a lot of unstable changes to be made. SSI is definitely going to be one of many, although most people have found it reasonably stable for their work.
What main advantages does DragonFly BSD provide against Net/Open/FreeBSD?
MD: Well, our primary competition (if competition is even the right word) is FreeBSD. FreeBSD had always been on the forefront of implementing new ideas and if DragonFly is about anything it's about implementing new ideas. We are not trying to support every platform under the sun (NetBSD) and while security is important to us, it isn't a focus like it is in OpenBSD.
What DragonFly aims to provide is a SMP-capable infrastructure that is inherently easy to understand and develop for. Our primary advantage over FreeBSD is in the methodologies we have chosen to follow in the development of the kernel's infrastructure. We feel that in the long term our infrastructure will be easier to develop and maintain and lead to levels of stability that rival and surpass the mid 4.x releases of FreeBSD.
We have some long term goals, such as SSI (Single System Image) support, which are going to be years in the making, and we have chosen to develop a number of models, such as a new threading, messaging, and IPI messaging model, which we feel will be superior to the other BSDs, and Linux, particularly when used in an SMP environment.
JS: At the moment, we have the speed of FreeBSD 4 and the ongoing work to support SMP. Ask me at the end of the year and DragonFly might be the IA32 reference for performance.
JH: We have the most advanced networking stack and have even more improvements in the pipeline, so the disparity will only get larger as time goes by. In addition, our MP support is a departure from the outdated SMP model. Today's MP hardware is not symmetric, so if you were to add MP support to an OS today, why not use techniques that are more suitable to today and tomorrow's technology? Our networking stack is designed to scale to large number of processors, more than the 2 or 4 that SMP hardware can effectively run on today.
HP: It would not be right to say FreeBSD is a competition because our code-base started with that as the root; but I will not deny that we have a very practical and sane goal-set in mind.
Our advantage from my point of view is that, we are blending in technology and code from other BSDs and Linux (not directly taking code in the latter case). Net/Open/FreeBSD have their own individual advantages, portability, security and implementing new ideas, respectively.
For e.g., NetBSD has made some interesting advancements in their VM system and in its network stack, we occasionally take a peak at them and see how those changes can be better integrated with our model. Most of the times, it would mean tailoring the original code to a large extent, but at the end of the day, the result would be much better code and performance.
Pretty much what Matt said about long term goals, the end result should be practical and not losing out on single-processor performance. We plan to clean out the unnecessary items that we have inherited and create smaller, faster and efficient replacements. We believe that creating a powerful abstraction (like LWKT messaging) is much more important than just implementing a subsystem because everyone else in the neighborhood is doing it.
It seems that you have chosen a development cycle more similar to OpenBSD than FreeBSD, why?
MD: I wasn't comparing development cycles between the BSDs so it is coincidence. But possibly it is coincidence borne out of necessity. We do not have the developer resources that FreeBSD has and so our release cycle is going to be slower (perhaps twice a year instead of every 4 months), and we cannot maintain half a dozen release branches in parallel so end-users will have to upgrade to keep up with developments. We do plan on having a stable tag that at least tracks security changes between releases, however.
JS: We don't have the resources to follow a CURRENT + STABLE + RELEASE system like FreeBSD does. It would also slow down development a lot, which is not very useful in the current state of DragonFly.
I don't think we will announce releases every half year, but that isn't decided yet. It puts pressure on us as team, which is both positive to get stuff ready, but also means overhead.
HP: Not by choice as Matt said, but the OpenBSD development and release cycle is good to keep most bugs out of the system, in my opinion. Secondly, we lack the resources and hardware to keep up with tons of release cycles. Not a bad time to say, the team members would appreciate to have different sorts of hardware if possible.
Right now, the only people with any powerful hardware is David Rhodus and Matt. Both have been very generous in providing resources when possible to help development.
Would DragonFly use a branch for ports like OpenBSD does?
MD: Probably not. We have been in rigorous discussion over what kind of ports/packaging system we want to have. We have already agreed that the core ports/packaging system visible to end-users should be a binary system rather then a source build system. This isn't to say that sources would not be made available for customization purposes, just that most users just want to get a port/package installed as quickly as possible. While the BSD ports/packaging system does have a binary install capability it is insufficient for our needs.
The other thing we've decided on is to give the ports/packaging system the ability to isolate installations. One of the biggest problems one has maintaining a large multi-use system is when upgrading a package for one particular subsystem. Upgrades to the packages for one subsystem can interfere with packages already installed for another, and sysops cannot afford to have upgrades break unrelated subsystems. So, for example, we want there to be isolation between the packages associated with, say, the mail subsystem, and packages associated with, say, a workstation user. The two subsystems might install the same package or might install different versions of the same package... we want that to work.
JS: No. I want to reduce interactions between ports and base system, FreeBSD partly succeeded in that part. OpenBSD has a lot of stuff in base and needs such branches e.g. to support updates of the package management tools.
Had you considered using NetBSD
pkgsrc for external software
instead of maintaining your own ports collection?
MD: We are considering everything. Nothing is set in stone yet.
JS: Yes, we have. I like
pkgsrc, because it would save us
an enormous effort for setting up a few thousand apps. But
pkgsrc also has the
problem of support too much and being slowed down by that. If a FreeBSD ports
is outdated, the
pkgsrc port is even more likely to be.
Someone sent a fake mail on 1st April 2004 featuring a Theo de Raadt interested in LWKT multiprocessor technology. That was funny, but have you had any contact with the real de Raadt now that OpenBSD is working on SMP introduction?
MD: For some reason I usually respond to good April Fool's jokes before I realize that they are April Fool's jokes, so I actually responded to Theo on that one. We did have an interesting discussion but Theo is totally focused on security, and while security is important to us, it isn't our focus.
How does LWKT compare with FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x, NetBSD 2.0 and OpenBSD SMP technologies?
MD: Well, neither NetBSD nor OpenBSD are really designed for SMP. I don't say that in a bad way ... It's simply that with so many platforms to support it's difficult to do a proper ground-up SMP implementation in OpenBSD or NetBSD. FreeBSD was able to do a ground-up SMP implementation primarily because they only had support for two or three platforms (but of course we in the DragonFly project feel that FreeBSD went off in the wrong direction when they did that).
IMHO, I believe LWKT to be a far superior environment for SMP (and UP as well) over the traditional process model that the other BSDs use and over the mutex-centric model that FreeBSD-5 uses. That's one of the primary reasons why we forked the DragonFly project off. LWKT provides an extremely efficient and scaleable programming environment on both UP and SMP systems. FreeBSD-5 has pretty much abandoned UP performance.
JS: It is simpler to use and less error-prone. The token abstraction often simplifies code compared to the mutex model used by FreeBSD 5 and NetBSD. The thread handling itself is very neat too, because it doesn't try to be smart, but simple. No fancy preemption mechanism other than the well-known soft interrupt handling, no ping-pong of kernel threads between CPUs. This is important for performance and makes the system more deterministic.
AMD and Intel have announced some plans for dual core CPUs. Until they become available we can play with Intel HyperThreading technology. What type of interaction is there with LWKT?
MD: Well, we inherited the hyperthreading capable code from FreeBSD-4 when we forked so DragonFly does run hyperthreaded. I have never liked hyperthreading, though, because it results in a nonsymmetrical set of CPUs, which greatly complicates the scheduler's job. FreeBSD-5 has been trying to schedule for hyperthreaded CPUs for over a year now with very little success (i.e. threads still get scheduled inefficiently). DragonFly does not try to schedule specifically for the hyperthreading case but LWKT does a pretty good job and we are at least on par with FreeBSD. We are not going to focus on hyperthreading, though, because it involves an enormous amount of scheduler work for very little gain.
Hyperthreading was a good idea at the time, but it is clear that the future is going to be multi-core.
JS: At the moment, HTT is handled just like another real CPU. We can avoid some pitfalls, because we are not tempted to use spinlocks. But there isn't any preference in the scheduler yet and we know of some problems with NICs, so HTT support is in a bit of flux right now.
Would multithreaded network stacks like that of FreeBSD 5 be possible with LWKT?
MD: FreeBSD-5 multithreads its network stack using a reentrant mutex model. We are taking an entirely different approach. Instead of making the network stack reentrant we are partitioning the work on a connection by connection basis and distributing it across multiple threads. Each thread operates independently of the others and operates without needing mutexes or network-specific locking of any sort. Jeffrey Hsu has been doing most of this work and we feel that it is already far superior to the FreeBSD network stack model. Among other things, we pay very careful attention to the L1/L2 CPU caches and our model partitions the work between CPUs and focuses more on maintaining locality of reference for the PCBs and less on load-balancing. The result is far less duplication of data across CPU caches on an SMP system. We believe that this will result in superior performance in heavily loaded environments.
JS: Well, why would you want to do that? I'm following the changes in the FreeBSD 5 network stack to allow fine-grained locking and those are huge. You could do something similar with tokens, but that would be expensive and slower than the mutex system. The work Jeff put into our tree to partionate work across the CPUs is much more promising and I'm investigating the adoption of the model for other parts of the kernel.
JH: Sure. Multithreading our networking stack in the form
of running
netisr interrupts on multiple CPUs was the first thing we did. To
this day, FreeBSD still does not have multiple TCP threads running on multiple
CPUs. So we're actually ahead here.
Polling vs. Interrupts: With FreeBSD you can use polling to improve network performance on busy interfaces. What about DragonFly? Do you plan to introduce polling support in other areas?
MD: We inherited the polling code from FreeBSD, so we have it. Polling is not really needed for more modern NICs, though, because the cards have their own burst/batch/idle timers and can generate a far lower interrupt rate then the actual packet rate.
JS: We already inherited the polling support for the network interfaces, yes. I'm not sure whether it is really worth the effort. The high interrupt rate is reduced by smarter hardware. Most Gigabit-Ethernet devices support that and it greatly reduces the need for polling. Other parts of the system are similar and the overhead of polling has to be carefully evaluated. ATA polling sounds interesting though :)
JH: DragonFly has the same device polling that comes with FreeBSD.
Is DragonFly BSD TCP/IP stack hardened enough to avoid Paul Watson's RST attack?
MD: I believe that Jeff committed some work recently to narrow the possibility of that attack.
What about a bit more of randomness for numbers like dynamically allocated TCP ports and processes PID?
MD: I don't see much point in doing that, though Theo would
probably disagree with me. There are only 65535 ports and it takes very little
time try them all. We have a
randompid sysctl option (inherited from FreeBSD),
and I have no objection to adding a random-port option. But it isn't a
JS: I don't believe randomizing PIDs gives us any advantage in security. Hiten committed a patch for the randomization of TCP ports.
Do you have any plan to add memory protection systems?
MD: We will be adding support for the NX (no-execute) page
table bit, but I'd rather not try to use segmentation tricks to get non-executable stack support for earlier CPUs. I am on the fence, actually. I
could probably be persuaded to hack the segmentation for earlier CPUs but I
would prefer not to. The real problem is the inherent insecurity of C code.
If it comes down to it I'd rather modify the compiler and libraries (even if it
makes the result inefficient) than modify the operating system. We already
have the propolice patches integrated into our GCC and it is turned on by
default in gcc3.x (DragonFly installs both gcc2.95.x and gcc3.x in the base
system). Our compiler currently defaults to gcc2.95.x and will remain
defaulted to it for the first release, but by the second release we will have
moved entirely over to gcc3.x. There are other tricks one can play, such as
malloc() addresses and such. I am perfectly willing
to implement library tricks to reduce the possibility of a hack.
JS: We already ship with a propolice-enabled compiler and base system. Separation of write and execute bits on a per-page base might be added later, but it is not a priority. For AMD64, it is easy to support, for IA32 not.
Is anyone working on virtualization extensions to have multiple independent systems running at the same time? And what about the support of VMware or free virtual machine like Xen?
MD: There are one or two people that have been playing with Xen and DragonFly.
JS: Supporting Xen is a very nice project on its own. As far as I know, nobody is currently working on it. This might change after the system API has stabilized a bit and the native support for AMD64 / x86-64 is ready. Supporting extensions like User-mode Linux is not a priority and I don't think we would add it, because it is far too special.
HP: The idea of porting DragonFly to run over Xen was Kip Macy's. He and I discussed the idea for a good four hours or so and had pretty much things figured out. He has done the hard work of porting and adjusting a lot of the drivers, but there are still a few more rough edges that need to be sorted. I have not been able to do much there apart from getting it running because I got tied up with more important things with regard to DragonFly.
DragonFly runs fine on VMware since Day One. Well, except for a few hiccups that we had, two of which were due to some VMware errata items, and one was an ATA timeout issue that also disappeared with the latest version (4.5.1 or something). I have successfully run DragonFly on VMware with Linux and Windows as the host Operating System.
As for VMware running on DragonFly, that's a totally different ball game.
There are various way to create a cluster. You can use a special software like SETI@home does, you can use some external software that interact with the kernel like openMosix, or you can modify the way the kernel manages resources, removing differences between local and remote. How would DragonFly clustering work?
MD: One of our major goals is to implement SSI (single-system image) clustering. Our goals go far beyond Mosix.
Ctrl+E let's you save a running software session and restart later. Who had the idea? How does it work? Is this feature usable for clustering or virtualization?
MD: This was Kip Macy's idea. He saw that the core dump support was severely lacking in many areas. One thing led to another and we realized that we could walk the memory map, save modified anonymous memory, and record the inode numbers for open files, and thus actually save enough information to make simple programs checkpoint-able.
The checkpointing feature serves several purposes. It is in fact good enough to checkpoint simple programs (where the only open descriptors are associated with files, not counting stdin, stdout, and stderr). It can be used for debugging -- by checkpointing a program and then restoring it in a gdb environment. And we are using some of the checkpointing infrastructure APIs elsewhere in the kernel just to clean things up. Finally, by maintaining this relatively simple module we have a basis in place for the implementation of process migration in a future clustered environment.
It should be noted that DragonFly does not cluster (at the kernel level) yet. We are a few years away from achieving that goal. But it is our goal.
HP: We have plans to checkpoint network connections and the whole system, in the future. It was being discussed between Kip Macy and me.
The installation tool runs from a LiveCD. Are you considering creating a LiveCD with a complete system like FreeSBIE or KNOPPIX to promote DragonFly?
MD: I think at most we might pre-install an X environment. The problem with creating a "complete" system is that half the packages become obsolete the day after the release is burned. 99% of the people who would use such a release are also operating in a networked environment with Internet access, so my feeling is that whatever packaging system we come up should integrate network access and provide an incremental binary update facility.
JS: I'm planning to do that, yes. I was thinking about adding the important bits to the build-infrastructure, but it was decided to wait until our package system is ready. One important feature before this would happen is adding transparent decompression support either via a special userland lib or directly in the kernel. That's why KNOPPIX can support such an amount of software and what is currently lacking in DragonFly.
Do you plan to release binary updates?
JS: Later, yes. Having a binary package system and having a binary update system complements itself. Both are very useful for mass deployment and are a major part of any enterprise system.
HP: Yes, there are plans to release binary updates for security and upgrade. Quite a coincidence, because I, Joerg, and David Rhodus were discussing this just a few days ago. A lot of people just want to update their system and be done with, i.e., they don't care about source distribution but only in the quality of the update process (i.e., a smooth one).
Compiling ports and packages, world builds, take a very long time, they do not provide a marketable advantage. Most people do not have anything to do with the source code, so giving them the ability to update their packages using a binary system is a must; just think how long it takes to compile OpenOffice or any desktop system.
It is about time that someone in the BSD camp revolutionized system updates. One of goals focused on by the DragonFly Team is to implement (or at least organize) an update system that can be managed by just using PGP-signed binary updates; i.e., most of the base system packages do not require recompiling because they are seldom changed. The only part which the user would need to recompile is the kernel. Of course a few utilities which depends on kernel structures would be tagged specially for rebuild but the rest can just be updated using a binary update system.
Of course, nothing is set in stone, yet, but this sort of Binary Update system would become most helpful when DragonFly reaches its stability period (in a year and a half, I predict), in which ABI incompatible changes will be done once in a blue moon. The core project members (including David Rhodus) are discussing the issue.
DragonFly BSD is a young project and I'm sure you'll be happy to find new developers. What type of contributors are you looking for? Which area would you like to add manpower to?
MD: We are looking for a broad spectrum of developers and users/testers. Primarily we are looking for people who already have a good idea what they want to do rather then people looking for something to do, e.g., people who say, "I'd like to build an advanced checkpoint interface," versus people who say, "I'd like to help out with the project but I don't know where to start." Everyone is welcome, though.
JS: The userland development is currently pretty stalled. We could need additional manpower to cleanup the source tree, merge changes from the other BSDs, and start writing our threading library.
For the kernel, there is also a lot to do. One advantage of a small team is the reduced chance of conflicts :) If you want to contribute, send us a small note or come to our IRC channel, we don't want to waste your and our time by duplicating work.
HP: Sure, more people to help out is not a bad thing, but right now we need people who have some sort of a focus on what part to play in the big picture. Of course, we could use people who want to write documentation for DragonFly, pretty much like the FreeBSD Handbook or the NetBSD Guide. That does not mean we will be ignoring the "I need guidance" types; I for one do not mind educating more people about the DragonFly kernel or documentation framework or anywhere we could use help.
To summarize, most of the outstanding tasks require the developers to have some sort of expertise in the area or ability to pick up things quickly. That applies to the documentation as well.
Since the time I gave DragonFly a documentation framework, Justin Sherrill has done a lot of work on it like importing the FreeBSD Handbook and modifying it for us; but in order to add more DragonFly specific content, one would need to know it properly in order to produce precise and resourceful documentation; of course the Team members will try their best to help the volunteers.
Are you going to use a drastic solution to fight the new XFree license? For example, using only freedesktop XOrg?
MD: We consider X to be a third-party program, so it has no direct effect on the distribution. My personal feeling is that we would take a wait-and-see attitude to see what comes out of the XFree flap.
JS: We have an overwrite port for X.org floating around, but this doesn't affect us that much. I have read a lot of the license agreements in XFree86; the change is not that big, as long as you don't want to sell CDs like OpenBSD. Even then, you might have to do it anyway.
Do you have any idea to replace sendmail with something more modern?
MD: I'd like to integrate a second MTA into the base system and perhaps even default to it. Postfix maybe. Sendmail is fairly difficult to maintain.
JS: It's a question of time. Personally I strongly prefer Postfix over Sendmail, but I have neither the time nor the need to push any change.
HP: That might happen. See, once a package system is developed, we plan to compartmentalize the various parts of the base system so that we can provide packages like MTAs in a better way.
Can we expect to see a web server in the base system?
MD: Probably not, or if you do it will be a very simple one. Apache is too often updated to be a good candidate for base-system inclusion.
JS: I wouldn't count on it.
HP: I highly doubt if that will happen; if you see our answers to the Perl question, we are trying to reduce the amount of third-party items in the base system unless they are highly important, like a system compiler.
What is the status of IPv6 support?
MD: It should be working. We had some issues with connect failing but they should be worked out now. The IPv6 code needs to be rewritten from scratch; the original KAME code (I think I have the reference correct) was, and still is, a huge mess.
JS: There wasn't much effort to keep up with KAME development, partly because it's very difficult to merge changes when you only have lots of snapshots and have to sort out the important changes from the noise.
JH: We have the same IPv6 code that's in FreeBSD. I was in Tokyo last week at the Network World/Interop BSD BoF to reach out to the Japanese BSD user community and met with some of the KAME team members who expressed a readiness to cooperate with us in updating our IPv6 code to the latest KAME version, so our users can look forward to even better IPv6 support.
HP: IPv6 works fine, most issues were resolved. As from the development and update point of view, it needs thought and the whole thing is sitting at the very bottom of our list. The KAME work is hard to stay on par with, but some of the KAME developers are very nice and helpful.
What is the plan for IPSEC? Is there any problem with crypto import/export because Matthew lives in the USA?
MD: No, crypto doesn't seem to be a problem in the U.S. any more. IPSEC is being maintained but as with IPv6 it's a huge hack in the system. Currently we are doing no new work in the IPv6 arena but, certainly, any work the other BSDs do with IPv6 will be looked at closely.
HP: It is pretty much sitting in the same boat as IPv6. They are low priority right now because other things in the kernel need to be stabilized and cleaned up.
Are you going to remove Perl from the base system? If so, why?
MD: We are definitely removing build dependencies on Perl, so we don't need Perl to build the system. We haven't decided yet whether we are going to remove Perl from the base. It isn't that we don't like Perl. The real problem is that Perl goes through so many incompatible changes that the version in the base system inevitably winds up becoming obsolete and interfering with newer versions of Perl that people might want to install.
JS: Perl is a big system and still changing a lot in incompatible ways. Just look at the various ports in FreeBSD, which support either Perl 5.6 or 5.8. The same holds true for GCC, but having a compiler is a much integral part. Most dependencies on Perl are already gone. Both buildworld and buildkernel work without Perl. There still some Perl scripts in our source tree that have to be replaced first.
HP: Pretty much what Matt said. It is better to keep dependency on third-party applications down to a bare minimum. There are plans to improve upon our release framework so that we do not need to keep third-party applications such as Perl and Sendmail in the source repository, and they can be just fetched at release/ISO build time.
One can argue why we would keep a dependency on the Internet for a process such as release builds; but since 99% of the people who will do release builds have a decent connection to the Internet, that argument effectively becomes a moot point.
You have just imported GCC 3.4 in the tree and applied propolice patches. Don't you think that propolice should be included in GCC itself?
MD: I do. Propolice isn't useful unless people use it, and the GCC folks do not have anything remotely similar on offer. If they do not like the propolice patches then they should create APIs within the GCC framework to make it easier for the propolice people to hook in the features.
JS: Yes, I hope it will be part of it one day. It is difficult to maintain GCC, every additional patch increases that burden.
Federico Biancuzzi is a freelance interviewer. His interviews appeared on publications such as ONLamp.com, LinuxDevCenter.com, SecurityFocus.com, NewsForge.com, Linux.com, TheRegister.co.uk, ArsTechnica.com, the Polish print magazine BSD Magazine, and the Italian print magazine Linux&C.
Return to the BSD DevCenter.
Copyright © 2009 O'Reilly Media, Inc.


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Searching for Common Surnames
By Juliana Smith
I was watching the news this morning and an ad came on advertising a furniture sale for "National Smith Day." Wow, why was I not apprised of this holiday? Was there a parade? Surely, the news media is slipping. They should have been all over this.
Apparently I missed the actual celebration since it was on January 6th, but as a Smith (albeit by marriage), I appreciate the gesture. After all, it's not every surname that gets a furniture sale in its honor. (Or is it? Note to self: Check to see when "National Szucs Day" falls this year. We need a new sofa.)
Not to seem ungrateful, as a family historian I feel that a little guidance through the bazillion or so Smiths in U.S. records will be more useful than say a 20% discount on a new ottoman. So in the spirit of "National Smith Day," I offer these tips for locating your Smiths (or Browns, or Kellys, or Johnsons, etc.).
Remember Your Ancestor Was an Individual
Your ancestor was a unique individual, despite his or her common moniker. Yes, there may have been a boatload of James Smiths in his city, but how many of them were about his age? Had a wife named Martha? Attended his church? The more you learn about your James Smith, the easier he'll be to pick out of the crowd.
I like to create profiles for my commonly-named relatives (and it doesn't hurt for the non-so-commonly-named either). Gathering all the records I have, I extract everything I know about him or her and condense it into a summary of sorts. I use the profile to formulate my searches and review it often when I'm brainstorming new research avenues. Here's one I created for James Kelly.
Use Family Structure
You'll notice on that the profile I included the names and birth dates (estimated wherever necessary) for his parents, siblings, spouse, and children. This will help me identify the family group in census records, and is particularly useful when working with pre-1850 censuses. Using the estimated dates can help me project how old family members would be in each census year. I used this chart to help keep track.
When I was looking for James living with his parents and siblings in 1830, I was able to make a template of sorts that predicted which columns in that census would have tallies. I searched for his father James using both Kelly and Kelley surnames (while they weren't creative with given names, apparently they were flexible with the spelling of their last name), going directly to the 1830 census. Using the template, I found a family that very closely matches the family structure of my Kelly family. The yellow line is my template, and the green line is a family I found in the 13th Ward of New York City.
Now I can go to that census entry and figure out who's who. Since the census page is not very clean, after verifying the indexed items, I used the printable index page and matched the people up with my spreadsheet.
While I have two extra girls in the household, it's quite possible that they died young and I'm just not aware of them. There was a cholera epidemic in 1832 that killed 278 people in the 13th Ward by early August of that year, so it's possible the girls were among them. This family was also particularly hard hit by consumption (tuberculosis). On James profile we can see that at least two of his siblings died of the disease, as did his daughter and a niece who is not on this profile.
Now that I have a possible match, I'll be turning to church and other records to see if I can confirm my theory that this is indeed my Kelly family. There is a very old Catholic parish right in the area where I'm hoping the family left records.
Follow Your Ancestor with Chronologies
One of the best ways to identify your ancestor is to know where he lived. Many records include a location or address. Think about vital records you have, city directories, census records, military records (like draft registrations), and even home sources that list an address and help you to place your ancestor in a particular place at a particular time.
Using these records and arranging them chronologically allows you to follow your ancestors through the years. Once you have a framework, it's easier to zero in on where he or she was in the gaps. I create timelines for my families and have found them particularly helpful with my Kellys, Millers, Smiths, and other common surnames.
Get to Know His FAN Club
Yes, you're not the only one in your ancestor's fan club. FAN stands for Friends, Associates, and Neighbors. Your ancestor's life was most likely not a solitary life. Community played a huge role. The people that were chosen as witnesses to marriages, sponsors of children, business partners, and executors of wills were typically not picked up on the streets to be a part of your ancestor's life. They were most likely chosen because of a connection. Your ancestor may have chosen where the family settled based on the neighbors. There may be a connection there as well.
Make a list of the people you see interacting with your ancestor and seek out their records. Sometimes they can even be used to help identify your ancestors. For example, you may find their neighbors traveling to the U.S. with them in passenger lists. Or perhaps the same man who was a witness at your ancestor's marriage in one state, shows up living near your ancestor after he's moved to a new state. That person can be part of the supporting evidence that you have the right John Smith.
In addition, researching the people in your ancestor's life may reveal that the ties go beyond community and that they are part of the extended family.
Juliana has been writing and editing Ancestry.com newsletters for more than thirteen years. She's looking forward to meeting some of you at the DuPage County (Illinois) Genealogical Society's 37th Annual Conference in St. Charles, Illinois on Saturday, February 25. Click here to register.
Other articles in the 15 January 2012 Weekly Discovery:
Family History Tip: Siblings Death Records

subset: commoncrawl


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Date: Wednesday, January 9th, 2013
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Onalaska looking to spend $250K on Omni Center repairs and upgrades
For nearly two decades, the Omni Center has been a staple in Onalaska -- providing the community a place to hold big events.
It also serves as the home of the Coulee Region Chill hockey team.
Now the city is looking to make some big improvements and repairs to the facility that are coming with a hefty price tag.
The city has already spent more than $67,000 this past year for upgrades and repairs.
The cost in repairs is going to more than double in the coming year, and there's even more to come in the future.
At 20 years old, the Onalaska Omni Center has seen its share of wear and tear.
"It's not caving in," said Kelly Hanson, the center's general manager. "There's not large holes, (and) there's not leaks. It's just something that, over a course of time, you're going to need to repair it."
The center's general manager says 2012 was a good year for business, with increases in ice and banquet services, but even so, the center was not profitable.
Hanson said part of the solution could be in upgrades and repairs.
"We're all up to code, but could we use a better lighting package to decrease the costs?" asked Hanson. "Sure. Are there some repairs? Yeah, there are repairs everywhere."
That's why the City of Onalaska has budgeted for some big improvements to the center.
They include repairs to the roof at just under $29,000, new rink lights at $30,000 and and a new ice resurfacer at $82,450.
These along with several more items, total $250,000 in repairs for 2013.
"It would increase our sales, (and) it would increase our volume," said Hanson. "The longer we can run the facility the better."
But even with a quarter of a million planned for improvements, some things didn't make the list, including a new chiller unit for the rink and a new paint job to the facility.
"Funding is always a problem; we don't always have the money to do it," said Dan Wick, director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Onalaska. "We put what we thought were the critical items that needed to be done, and we put some things that we can continue to look at further off that we will plan for which years we will do them."
Hanson said even if some upgrades and improvements take a while, the changes coming will keep the center operating for decades to come.
"The Omni Center is here for the community," said Hanson. "It's been recognized as that, and so we're going to put forth the efforts to maintain a beautiful facility and make it work to its potential."
The exact number for future repairs is still in the works, but it comes to an estimated total of $645,500. That's on top of the planned $250,000 being proposed for the 2013 repairs and upgrades.
The City Council will be putting the Omni Center's repair and upgrade plan to a vote this Tuesday.
If approved, the changes will start sometime after March.
Copyright 2013 by WKBT News8000. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


text:
"Charity begins at home," Thomas Fuller wrote, "but should not end there." With Thanksgiving upon us, it's time once again to take stock and give thanks, which is easy (for me, anyhow) to lose sight of in the workaday world of bills, stress and everyday worries that sometimes seem insurmountable. As school children, we are taught that the first Thanksgiving began with the Pilgrims stepping off Plymouth Rock, but a bit of research (www.wikianswers.com [2]) informs us that this is a "hotly debated" topic and goes on to say, "It is believed that the first 'Day of Thanksgiving' actually occurred before the arrival of the Pilgrims. This festival was completely religious in nature and did not involve any feasting." (OMG!) And it did not involve Plymouth Rock. "On 4 December, 1619, a group of settlers from England arrived at Berkeley Plantation on the James River, now known as Charles City, Virginia. This group dedicated this day of their arrival as a Day of Thanksgiving to God." Hmmm.
It would seem that my own family traditions, including homemade chopped liver and chocolate cream pie, are a bit of a stretch (if Wiki's answer is to be believed), but thanks, nonetheless, are in order. To that end, I look to the community-at-large for ways that I can give back, and from my vantage point, the food-fest propels. Just before diving into the charity pool, I received an invitation to take part in the first Sullivan County "Tweet-up" held last week in Bethel, NY ( www.catskilldistillingcompany.com [3] ), and (having no clue what a "tweet-up" is) my interest was piqued. Co-sponsored by Green Door Magazine's Akira Ohiso (www.greendoormag.com [4]) and Large Media's David Binkowski (www.davidbinkowski.com [5]), the event was designed primarily to bring people together.
"When it started out, a tweet-up was simply a small group using the new [Twitter] technology," Binkowski explained, "and presently, we are launching a local chapter here in the Catskills to give residents and weekend visitors an opportunity to participate. For city dwellers, who call the Upper Delaware Valley their 'second home,' we want them to understand that this region is on the cutting edge of technology as well, and that their attachment to social networking reaches beyond the city limits."
As folks gathered to learn about tweeting, we schmoozed, snacked and made some new friends, exchanging ideas and information, just as our hosts intended. Distillery proprietors Stacy Cohen and Monty Sachs were on hand and were the first to admit that tweeting was new to them. Guests ranged in age from 21 to 90, giving me the impression that the curiosity factor runs high here at home, and so we shared our "handles" (I can be followed [uh oh] by looking for @jonathanfoxIMHO) More importantly, The River Reporter is on board, and can be followed by searching for @TRRnews. Before leaving, I learned that there will be future events, scattered about the region... so stay tuned.
Giving out my twitter handle does not count as charity (LOL), so I packed up the dog and headed out to the M&M Auto Group in Liberty, NY to say "hi" to Santa and help kick off the Toys for Tots campaign with the fine folks at Thunder 102 radio (yep- @thunder102). Country singing sensation Jimmy Wayne (@jimmywayne) was in the house, and as the National Spokesperson for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), he gave of his time and (IMHO) considerable talents to lend a hand locally (www.sullivancountycasa.org [6]).
Signing copies of his best-selling book, "Paper Angels," in which Jimmy shares about his tough childhood growing up in the foster care system and the steps he's since taken to support kids in similar circumstances. Wayne posed for pics with his legion of fans, and later that same day, he joined country crooners Al Stream (www.AlStreamMusic.com [7]), local boys-make-good Nashville superstars Ken and Barry Somerville (www.somervillebrothers.com [8]) and Texaco Country Showdown winner Jason Casterlin (www.jasoncasterlin.com [9]) at SUNY Sullivan's Seelig Theater where they performed many of their hits for a sold-out crowd, with proceeds benefiting CASA.
Giving back is all important for these entertainers, and I decided to put my money where my (loud) mouth is and participate by donating to both worthy causes on behalf of The River Reporter. Dharma and I will also be on hand (and on-air) at Santa's Village (sponsored by Hilltop Homes) on December 14 and 15 to join the Thunder team, whose mission states that "No child in Thunder Country should be without a toy for the holidays." For more information on the spectacular (and free-to-the-public) holiday village in Monticello, call 845/807-7555.
Donating to Toys for Tots and CASA are only two of the many fine organizations and events scheduled for the season and it is my fervent wish to make many other stops along the way, including some photo-ops of the Santa Express which will be "Spreading the Magic of Christmas with Santa and all his North Pole friends on an annual 100-mile journey through Sullivan County on Santa's lighted and musical sleigh" (www.facebook.comsantaexpress [10]). Mustn't forget that Hannukah is just around the corner (beginning December 8) but first—Thanksgiving!
[For another take on Thomas Fuller's "Charity begins at home…" see today's editorial on page 6.]


text:
Excellent thread! The NBA definitely needs to shorten their seasons.One of my favorite and most exciting seasons that I've watched was the 98-99 season,not only because the Knicks made it all the way to the NBA finals but because there was a certain thrill factor to it being only 50 games.You saw a Knicks team,that was really more talented than what their record showed, knock off a 1st seeded Miami Heat team.I believe that had that season been longer than what it was the Knicks would have not gotten hot at the right time to make the run that they did.
As entertaining as the NBA is, its seasons seem redundant and sluggish at times.Things don't start really picking up until the playoffs come around.You have teams that don't take the regular season that serious and only bring their A game in the postseason and teams that beat up on a lot of lesser talented teams in the regular season but get exposed in a seven game series.
The NBA regular season can be very predictable.It is rare that you see a surprise team come up out of nowhere and win 50 games.It pretty much is set in stone which teams are going to easily make it to the playoffs and which teams aren't.I don't care if teams like San Antonio Spurs and the OKC Thunder beat up on eachother during the regular season because most likely those teams will make it far in the playoffs and face eachother.Championships aren't really determined until mid May.
The regular season is something that is used to market teams and players in order to get fans of these teams and players to empty out their pockets for 6 months.If someone is just an NBA fan and not a fan of a particular team I think it is better for that person not to watch any NBA games until mid March.I feel that if the NBA season were shorter you wouldn't see teams like the Miami Heat sleep walk during the regular season but take their schedule a bit more serious.You would also see teams that are not that talented, but tend to be streaky, finish with a higher seed and even win a playoff round. These are a couple of benefits that the NBA could receive if they featured lesser games on their schedule.


text:
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#154399 - 01/24/06 05:55 PM zog machine
Registered: 07/28/05
Posts: 270
Loc: Israel
I was watching the movie "American History X" the other day (for the 3rd time... since it was TV prime-time), and this time I noticed the lyrics that one of the characters in it, "Seth", sings:
"My eyes have seen the glory of the trampling at the zoo, / We've washed ourselves in niggers blood and all the mongrels too, / We've taken down the zog machine Jew by Jew by Jew, / The white man marches on!"
Now my obvious question is, what the hell is a zog machine?
Edited by Logwood (01/24/06 06:45 PM)
#154400 - 01/24/06 06:04 PM Re: zog machine
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/03/00
Posts: 10538
Loc: this too shall pass
#154401 - 01/24/06 06:22 PM Re: zog machine
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 3467
Loc: Marion NC
It seems to me it may have been an abbreviation or a trademark for Zyklon B gas, which was the main agent used by the Nazis in their death camps once they got them really rolling._________________________
#154402 - 01/24/06 06:30 PM Re: zog machine
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 3467
Loc: Marion NC
But the context was supect, so I did some looking around. ZOG stands for Zionist Occupation Government, stemming from an accusation by or belief oin the part of neo-fascists that there is a Zionist conspiracy to take over if not the whole world at least the government of the United States. And that would make more sense than the abbreviation for Zyklon, which I still think I saw somewhere or other.
Then there was Zog, king of hmmm was it Romania or Albania? One of them -nias. But the ZOG machine would most likely be from Zionist Occupied Government._________________________
#154403 - 01/24/06 06:54 PM Re: zog machine
Registered: 07/28/05
Posts: 270
Loc: Israel
Wow, that link is spot-on, tsuwm, thanks. Also made me think I should've perhaps posted a warning: so sorry if the quote/lyrics offended anyone.
Thanks for that etymology bit, teD.Quote:
Then there was Zog, king of hmmm was it Romania or Albania? One of them -nias. But the ZOG machine would most likely be from Zionist Occupied Government.
Yes, most of the definitions I got for "Zog" were of him... "president of Albania from 1925 to 1928 and king from 1928 to 1939..."
Bunch of useless dictionaries...
#154404 - 01/24/06 08:29 PM Re: zog machine
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 07/17/00
Posts: 3467
Loc: Marion NC
Wow, that link is spot-on, tsuwm, thanks.
I respectfully disagree:
We're taking down the zog machine . . ..
To me that is more likely to mean we are taking down the Zionist Occupation Government machine by killing the people who are operating it, not taking down the machine spitting out zyklon b. Why would the neo-fascists want to celebrate taking their killing machine down?_________________________
#154405 - 02/11/06 02:42 AM Re: zog machine
Registered: 02/11/06
Posts: 1
well i was pondering about the lyrics also we'v taken down the zog machine jew by jew by jew a zog machine was basicly a gas chamber used to kill the jews so what does it all mean why would they want to F@#$ up their own killing machine and they sure as hell would'nt used jews so maybe on the other hand we've taken down the Zog Machine Jew by Jew by Jew meaning they have revealed it and made it a true killing machine by killing jews who knows!!!
#154406 - 02/11/06 10:23 AM Re: zog machine
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 03/15/00
Posts: 6511
Loc: lower upstate New York
I'm sorry, I don't understand you (and I'm not sure I want to...).
#154407 - 02/11/06 07:42 PM Re: zog machine
Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 03/15/00
Posts: 11613
Loc: Louisville, Kentucky
This thread has now reached the very border of my tolerance level.
#154408 - 02/22/06 08:59 AM Re: zog machine
Registered: 02/22/06
Posts: 1
ZOG is the short hand for Zionist Occupation Government. Trust me I am majoring in The History of World War II the after affects with a minors in Race Relations and Racist Propaganda. Skin heads believe that there is a this whole conspericy working against them and it is all from the govenment and they must destroy it before it destroys them and what they stand for "The master Race". The song is by a band called Skrewdriver, they are a skin head band from the south.
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During the 2008 season it seemed Brad Lidge was unstoppable. And he pretty much was. He converted all 41 save opportunities during the regular season as well as seven more in the postseason. Lidge always found ways to get the job done. Now a days he is content on finding ways to blow the save.
Lidge entered the game in the ninth after Roy Oswalt (9-13, 3.12) pitched an incredible game going eight innings and only allowing one run. Oswalt was in line for the win and having only thrown 101 pitches many thought he could have finished off the game. Instead Charlie Manuel brought in his closer. Lidge allowed a lead off single to former Phillie Matt Stairs. He then intentionally walked Adrian Gonzalez before hitting Ryan Ludwick with an 0-2 pitch to load the bases. A balk would allow the runner to score from third and send the game into extras. It was Lidge's fifth blown save in 22 chances.
The way the Phillies have been hitting lately, they were even lucky to have Lidge in a save situation. Coming into last night's game the Phils had only scored seven runs in their last four games getting swept by the Astros at home. San Diego's Mat Latos (13-5. 2.29) did a great job keeping the cold streak alive. Latos went seven innings allowing only one run on five hits.
The Phillies eventually would pick up their closer in the 12th inning when Jimmy Rollins scored the winning run on a Placido Polanco single. The box score will say Rollins scored on Polly's single. What it won't say is that Padres centerfielder Luis Durango made a perfect throw and Rollins had to adjust his slide going wide to avoid the tag. It was a slide that provoked adjectives like 'fantastic' and 'unbelievable'.
Well whatever you thought it was, it was the game winner for a team that desperately needed a win. This win puts the Phillies only two games back in the NL East and tops in the Wild Card a half game ahead of the Giants.
Worth noting: Rollins was one of the few bright spots with three hits at the top of the lineup. Ryan Howard continues to struggle going 1 for 5 with four strikeouts.
58 Comments
Thanks for setting me straight on the Fuentes thing. I thought that since the Phils had the worse record that we had priority. This not being the case, I feel stupid and retract what I said about Phils management. Would have been nice to have him.
The Dipsy
Pingback: Lidge balked at save, Phillies win in extras 3-2 « Acrylic Sports
Where's Scott Eyre??
ahh!! i feel ridiculous… i watched the bottom of the 11th & said 2 myself… okay rollins is leading off… i have a good feeling & fell asleep during his at bat i think (mayb commercials)… wow… just wow
Well, this old man just couldn't stay awake, I fell asleep right after the top of the 11th around 1:15. But, What a great way to wake up! Seems like it took weeks to move up a little on Atlanta. Good job Phitins.
Lidge was just awful last night. He had horrible command, plunking a guy on a pitch that was supposed to be high cheese, he couldn't even control his intentional walk pitches!! Then he balks because he thought he was going to drop the ball?
From MLB Rules-
"If there is a runner, or runners, it is a balk when —
(I skipped a-j to get to the point)
(k) The pitcher, while touching his plate, accidentally or intentionally drops the ball;"
I couldn't find a rule for what would happen if he'd just "fell on his face", but maybe that would have been better??? I don't know but did anyone stay up for potgame live? Did Botallico talk about it?
Excuse me- "postgame live" -Although potgame live might have been fun to watch too.
As bad as things have been the last week remember that the Phils are have the best win percentage in 1 run games in MLB.
Lidge has been outstanding for the last 3-4 weeks, I can excuse that blown save and will say that he showed some heart to get out of that inning. Would of been easy to fold the tent and go home with a numbing 3-2 loss.
The hitting is not there at the moment but the Padres are no joke of a pitching staff. Phils did an amazing job of grinding that out after getting OUTSTANDING pitching all around last night. Remember a guy named Chad Durbin? This bullpen has come around and it starting to resemble 2008.
For all the flak this team has taken the last 4 days and rightfully so, give credit where it is due.
AGAIN a PhilliesNation writer doesn't get his facts straight.
Yesterday, Michael Baumann incorrectly said that Ryan Howard "continued his run at remarkable incompetence" in another thread when it's very clear that he was hitting well (close to .300 avg), leading the league in RBI and starting to hit more home runs before he got hurt on Aug 1. Not sure how that's "remarkably incompetent".
Now, Kieran Carobine states about Brad Lidge, "Now a days he is content on finding ways to blow the save."
Keiran….before last night Lidge had been perfect in August. In 10 games prior to last night dating back to Aug 1, Lidge had given up ZERO runs, walked ZERO and only allowed 4 hits in 9.1 innings. And he converted 7 out of 7 saves.
And, if you take out the meltdown on July 31 in Washington when he served up the 3-run walk-off to Zimmerman, he was perfect in save opps (5 for 5) dating back to July 8th when he blew a save against the Reds.
So my question is….just how is he finding ways to blow the save??
Granted, the outing was frustrating to watch. Hitting someone on 0-2 and then balking in a run had me ready to pull my hair out. But, seriously, how often does he balk anyway?
And, give the guy credit. He buckled down….UNDER PRESSURE (The Pads could have won on any kind of hit)…and got the 3rd out.
The gameday was littered with mike bull schmidt… no need to feel stupid, Dip. I mean, it's not like they make the waiver crap easy to understand.
Think it's funny that everyone complains about Jimmy (always complaining about him hitting leadoff) but no one says a damn thing when he does something like he did last night. There is NO ONE else on the team that scores in that situation… 3-5 with 2 runs a game where runs were not coming easy.
It's also interesting to reflect on how important Durbin is/was to this team… at one time, he was an afterthought but the guy has really been the one consistent cog in that pen.
"Now a days he is content on finding ways to blow the save."
What kind of asinine and off-base comment is that? Do you honestly think Lidge is content with his performance? He's been working hard to right himself from last season and was doing a darned good job lately. There are other "elite" closers who've blown four and five saves this year. Get off Lidge's back. Maybe he isn't the 2008 Lidge, but to trash his attitude with your unfunny analysis is unacceptable.
It's time someone said something positive. The Phils' pitching was very good, and the offense did just enough against the toughest staff in the league. The Phils won this game on a very aggressive "small ball" type of play. To expect an offensive outburst against the Padres is expecting too much.
Wheeler and TMac were mentioning about how engaged Jimmy was last night. Like maybe he's coming to life. The team NEEDS that spark, that energy from him.
Durbin is really the rock of that pen right now. Need to find a way to keep him.
Gameday thread: 600 or so entries. Maybe 50 of them were worth something. Honestly, some of you people need help.
George, did you read my post a few minutes ago at 9:50?? I said basically the same thing. And I'm really getting tired of some of innacurate statements by these writers. Michael Baumann STILL hasn't defended his dumb statement from yesterday abut Ryan Howard.
Pat, Brian…seriously…you guys can do better than this!!
I can't fault the Dipsy for being confused about the waiver rules. One professional piece I read didn't really have a clue, either, stating only that Fuentes had been traded-as though he didn't even have to go through waivers!
I'll also give Baumann a pass for his Ryan Howard "incompetence" remark. I'm pretty positive he was talking only about Howard's streak since he came off the DL. Maybe he should have worded his piece better to reflect that, but it's not the cardinal sin that everyone made it out to be. (Let's face it; Ryan has looked incredibly incompetent LATELY!)
The Lidge comment today, however, was and always will be out of line.
Dont worry, the next loss some will be ready to fire and trade everyone.
Some were foaming at the mouth to rip Charlie for pulling Oswalt and waiting for Lidge to fold.
I didnt agree with pulling Oswalt 1 bit however the job eventually got done and ground was gained on Atlanta and the wild card lead is back.
Championship caliber teams find a way to win games like last night.
Side note: If that was "playoff atmosphere" from San Diego, that is sad. Those fans need to have another gear. Great representation from the Phils fans last night, dont expect any different today and Sunday
Lidge was not going to be perfect the rest of the season. Get over it. He's been pitching a lot better in tough spots than he did last year.
Yes, he was pretty painful to watch last night. So was most of the offense.
We're still catching Atlanta.
Really glad to see JRoll engaged and taking a leadership roll last night, don't know if it was normal and maybe the cameras just caught it last night, but hope it was the unusual and will now become the norm.
I get the feeling Cholly may have asked for a leader to step up in one of his many meetings lately. Glad to see our former MVP take the job.
@Chuck, we agree most of the time- you are absolutely right to take on the editors when they write inacurrate opinions, but IMO you shouldn't bash other posters-they're not professionals, and in an open forum are entitled to their opinions too. (Well except maybe Bravo Man) I'm glad the site is so popular.
Chuck, your post came up while I was composing mine. So no, I hadn't read it.
I'm not so sure these statements are inaccurate factually, because no facts have been cited in either case. That's what's truly troubling to me. This blog is basically opinion, but opinions need some basis in fact to be more than just incendiary bull crap. If Carobine could quote a psychological report or two to back up his Lidge statement it would be a different story. But without that it's just a load of manure, and not worthy of being posted on PhilliesNation.
I agree; these guys can and SHOULD do better.
Maybe Baumann WAS referring to Howard's RECENT activity since coming off the DL. I'll give him that. However, my argument is that Ryan is essentially still rehabbing (that excuse will be over soon though) and that if anyone expected him to be on fire after the DL stint then they had false expectations.
It's funny how another fellow blogger on this site has to come to Baumann's defense, though. Michael, I'm still waiting for you to back up your argument.
Lefty, I am assuming that you are referring to my comments about the Gameday threads??
Some of those (most of them) are ridiculous and laughable. Read some of jeff's comments.
I don't expect perfection from Lidge, I just want to know if he'd have been better off falling as he said "on his face" rather than dropping the ball. (please refer to post at 9:22) I wasn't trying to be a smart—, I looked up the dropped ball rule because I really want to know. Does anyone have any idea? I looked on CSNPHilly .com, and just about every source I can find.
Had he fallen instead of stepping off, would it have been a balk? Anyone?
I may have disagreed somewhat with pulling Oswalt, but I could easily see Manuel's point. Oswalt swinging away, and perhaps even having to run to first could have proven just enough to tire him the rest of the way. He could have returned in the ninth and easily given up a one-run lead. I can see the point of trying to get the leadoff hitter on base to try for some insurance.
Well, Oswalt was dominating in the 8th and seemed like he still had a lot in the tank. He was at 102 pitches. While reasonable minds can differ, I'm leaving him in.
The Dipsy
Lefty: If the pitcher is in the act of throwing and he falls, it's still a balk because he didn't complete the pitch. The most famous "falling off the mound" was the first Allstar game played at Candlestick Park in SF. I've forgotten the pitcher's name, but he was making his pitch when a wind gust actually blew him off the mound. It was called a balk, even though it certainly wasn't a matter of the guy trying to deceive the runner.
I suppose that if Lidge had rolled the ball forward as he fell, it could technically be called a pitch. But that would be an umpire's judgment call. Also, in that case he may not have been able to retrieve it in time to get the runner at home.
I will say this Oswalt looked pretty good. I was worried a little about him at first. No moving on to my point and im sure some know this if Oswalt where kept in the game and blew the headlines here and other places would of been different. Everybody would of have been saving why did Cholly keep Oswalt in. This is the way it has gone for the Phils this year. On a side note i think it was RAJ intention to have Baez be plan B for Lidge. As well all know that isnt working out. Chuck i gave on the Eyre thing 2 weeks ago. Although it would have been great to have him. Next year and I dont know RAJ is going to have to rebuild the bullpen basically. It would be nice if he could start now by signing someone but i dont see that happening the Phils dont have many trade offerings.
@Chuck – I was hoping you weren't talking about me!
No seriously, I think the more the merrier (as long as it doesn't shut the site down) , and everyone's opinions are fair game. I like the poster you mentioned a lot, we seldom agree, and he's a glass half empty type, but he's a true Phils fan!
I find it similar to what people say about our stadium attendance, at CBP and on the road. You can say what you want about Phillies fans,
"they booed Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt" etc. etc., but they're ALWAYS there. Petco Park can't get people to come see the best team in the NL right now, Atlanta can't fill their place either. We may say what we want when we want, right or not- but we're there.
IMO -It's the same in here, there a only a very few real trolls. Mostly it's a pretty good group, and they speak their minds, and I'm just saying it's okay.
The day Philly fans stop booing something is the day all sports will cease all together
I couldn't find that anywhere in MLB rules but I do vaguely remember the All Star thing. So basically once his mitt hit the ball there was nothing else he could do, but step off and make sure the ball didn't drop because that's a balk, and falling wouldn't have helped.
Just a minor detail that everyone seems to be forgetting about:
Oswalt was due up in the top of the 9th… you want to start the last inning with an out in a one-run game? Charlie's move was the right one. Lidge came really close to the save (2 outs, 0-2 count on Ludwick to end up hitting him… and then the balk). It's unfortunate, but it happens.
The way Oswalt breezed through that 8th and the way the bats are (hopefully were) stuggling it's an easy call for me. Oswalt at 101 pitches, let him start the 9th. You'd still have the top of the order to get a run with 2 outs to play with.
If he were around 115 pitches then I could understand. And if Oswalt got into serious trouble, I would go to Lidge.
But it all worked out and that's the important thing
On the Cholly pulling Oswalt subject, don't forget that in the 7th Roy2 gave up two well hit balls that Werth and Ibanez made good plays on. It's true that he pitched better in the 8th, but Lidge had been going pretty good lately. I'm okay with the decision. Just doesn't work out sometimes.
Lefty, no, I wasn't referring to you. You make sense and seem to have a level head. No worries.
While I could have argued for Oswalt to stay in, I also agree that Charlie made the right move. With the way Lidge had been over the last month (really since July 8th if you forget the Zimmerman walk-off), you have to make that move.
And, like Manny said, he almost got it done.
Seriously, though, guys….Blanton vs. Garland today. Is anyone else a little worried about that matchup?
If that is Roy Halladay in the same scenario last night, is anyone saying that going to Lidge is the right move?
Not being nasty about it, just curious?
But that was a great show of faith by Charlie to put the 9th in Lidge's hands and I move that can pay off greatly down the line
Not too worried as Blanton has been better lately. Not sure that 3 runs can get it done today but know this offense can hit Garland.
Amazing state posted last night during the post-game interview with Rollins: The Phils are 24-6 this year when he wins and something like 550-227 all-time when he scores. There is no doubt that when he gets on base and has a big game, the Phillies win. It is that simple.
Unreal job by Oswalt last night. The Lidge balk was just so typical Lidge BS as he walks a tight rope all the time but hey you gotta dance with the girl you brought.
Padres bullpen is all kinds of nasty. Not one pitcher in that pen who appeared in the game last night had an ERA above 2.65. Gregerson, Adams, Hatcher, Bell all have ERA's under 1.80. While there pitching is flat out outstanding their offense is so meager. It is amazing that that team scores enough runs to win games.
Now onto the real issue(s). How awful are Utley and Howard right now? They clearly were not ready to come back and I would not mind if we saw the following lineup for a week so the two of them could get their timing back: Rollins, Polanco, Ibanez, Werth, Sweeney, Victorino, Ruiz, Pitcher. The fact is those two guys are just killing rallies all over the place. Howard looks befuddled at the plate (he takes a remarkable amount of fastballs and swings are a ton of breaking pitches) and Utley's bat just looks slow (he quite literally cannot hit a fastball as he simply rolls over on it and taps it to second base.
Adam you make some good points however Utley and Howard will not get their timing back sitting on the bench. However maybe instead of starting both they should start one an sit the other. Or some sort of thing like that.
As you said with Lidge "you gotta dance with the girl you brought" apply the same to Utley and Howard.
A week off will do them no good unless they are actually hurt. They will get their timing back and in the mean time we just need some more soild pitching. Steal a page from SD's playbook.
Yes. With the pitcher due up in the top of the 9th in a one-run game you have to go to your closer…who has been really good lately. I don't care if it's Oswalt, Halladay or Cy Young. (Well, maybe Cy goes back out there)
Chuck- Garland being a sinkerballer is actually to our advantage. It stops us from trying to hit home runs that end up as pop-ups. We've hit him pretty well, but his record at home is way better than on the road. My guess is that Joe B will also benefit from pitching at Petco. (Just get through the 1st flippin inning Joe) By the way for those that did not see it, I posted an interseting article last night that showed Petco ranked 30th (last) in every hitter friendly stat. Obviously a big reason why their pitching is so good this year. The article gives a lot of good info about CBP too, and ranks all stadiums from hitter friendly to pitcher friendly. If you'd like to read it, it's in last nights game thread at 9:39pm.
Manuel applied the unwritten rule of baseball for the 9th inning of a one run game. An insurance run is the goal and you don't want an automatic out with the pitcher leading off. If you don't have confidence in your closer, then chances are the team won't get to the playoffs. Also keep in mind that Manuel may have concerns of keeping Oswalt fresh for his next start and later for the remainder of the season. After all, Oswalt finished with a 102 pitch count after 8 innings.
Saw that Strasburg will have surgery that will require 12-18 months of recovery time. No one has to be afraid of him for the rest of this season and next. Since the Phillies were "responsible", do you think they could award us the NL Championship simply out of gratitude? Thank God for the win last night, but we're still not hitting.
Someone here was critical of "Gameday" threads. It's really more of chat filled with rants as a release valve for frustrations. Of course, the rants are not to be taken seriously. And one should not expect analysis or revelation about the game itself. That's why I don't bother going there. I prefer to be analytical rather than spontaneous and take the time for researching stats to support my arguments. 🙂
That was me that mentioned the Gameday threads. I rarely participate. Occasionally, it's fun to check it out and the come-from-behind win against the Dodgers a few weeks when we got to Broxton again was one of those games.
But, I guess you're right…it's just a place to rant and there really isn't much value to most of the comments.
It's about run expectancy. 1 inning of RO over Lidge is not going to be more than the about .13 runs leading off with a PH over the P is worth. Always the decision to make, regardless of the score. It's just sentiment that would make you do otherwise.
I like sentiment, though, but certainly not with a 1 run lead in a tight playoff race.
Actually, I don't mind the matchup today. When Blanton gets hurt, its very often from the long ball and, Petco being a place where you have to hit the ball 500 feet to get it out…well. Garland doesn't impress me much. Go Phils.
The Dipsy
lets go phillies!
Frankly, I am stunned as well about the comments made regarding Lidge's performance. He has been as good as we've seen him in a long, long time. Perfect in August until last night and yet NO meltdown as we have seen in the past.
Kieran, lighten up.
Regarding the performances by both Utley and Howard. Ryan had been on the wane since at least 6 games before his stint on the DL. He was 2 for 20 with 2 runs scored and 3 rbi (all in 1 game). And, if you think he is striking out more now – he had 12 strike outs in those 20 atbats – that is an astounding 60% of the atbats where he struck out. Since coming off the DL, he is 4 for 29, no extra base hits, 1 rbi in 7 games, no runs scored and 16 strike outs (which is a better percentage than prior to the DL).
Please, you can stop using the fact that he needs to get back in sync after his off time – that is not the case. I don't recommend sitting Howard or not for any period of time anyway but, the man needs something. Perhaps to relax?
Chase is another story. No problems with striking out, at least not anywhere near the size of Howard's but he is not the hitter we fell in love with for sure. Chase hit 1 hr in the month of June. 87 atbats, 1 hr for the entire month. He had 5 extra bases in that month a .368 slugging percentage. Since Chase came off the DL, not too much difference. No hrs since, hitting .237 in August with 2 doubles – the only extra base hits he's had. He has 4 rbi compared to Ryan's 1 in August. Wow.
Please, talk help me to understand extended slumps again? This is the heart, the big $$ of our lineup and they are in complete fail mode now.
The O needs some help – who do they fire next?
Here's my issue with Howard. I have no problem with the timing argument. All players go through slumps of various lengths from time to time. A lot of that has to do with timing, stance, whatever.
But it just doesn't seem like Ryan is even seeing the ball. Last night…… I think it was the last at-bat when he struck out looking……..he just shook his head. It wasn't even close. It was a strike and with two strikes, Ryan needs to be in a protect mode right there.
My buddy at work brought that up last year, he just is not seeing the ball. Perhaps he needs specs? I don't know, how does that logic apply to earlier when he was a legitimate .300 hitter with occasional power.
I think it's all mental. He is killing himself thinking about the pitches and that leads to the "freeze" as witnessed last night.
I was very heartened to see Jimmy Rollins stepping up, what was it, three out of four times last night? Where Rollins goes, so will the offense, it'll just take them a couple of days to catch up with him. Don't worry about Utley, he'll follow where Jimmy leads… eventually.
As for Howard, I think he's in a place where he's trying too hard. He knows he's better than this and it's frustrating him. He needs to step back, be willing to take a few more called strikes and WATCH the ball. He knows it.
Despite giving up a run, Lidge nailed the Padres down when he needed to. The Brad Lidge of 2009 would have fallen right over and allowed another four runs before the inning was out. If the O had been doing anything in the past week or two, a tie score would have been nothing to worry about.
A couple of these articles on this site have been as negative as Wheels and McCarthy have been lately. What's up with that? There are some worrisome things going on, but the way some of the articles are telling it, we might as well pack it in right now.
@Brooks: There's only one explanation for Chase and Ryan right now. They were brought back from Triple A too soon. Each could have used a few more games to get their swings back, or at least somewhat, and they were rushed right back up. Understandably so, maybe, but it has hurt the team.
We don't need home runs, we need bases. And we need to get around those bases to home plate. I'd rather see eight guys come up hitting singles and doubles as long as there's someone on base to capitalize on it. This team clawed its way to second place on small ball.
And I hate to get on the rest of the team, because no one would have thought we'd be in second place without Utley and Howard for a significant part of the season, but they've slowed down, putting it all on those two guys. Like I said before the Giants series, this is where they have to start serving notice to the rest of the NL and especially the Braves.
You can see how he's not following the ball with his eyes… he's not seeing the ball well. But when he starts seeing it better, hold on to your seats!
A slight flaw with the ashburn. When a game goes this long people tend to only remember the end of the game. The person who played the best in this game by far, was roy oswalt. Not even close. Great that durbin kept it scoreless and he should be second, but oswalt deserves the ashburn.
Ryan's definitely not seeing the ball well right now… it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that. He's not picking it up; he's guessing. Prior to his stint on the DL, there was no guessing… the time off definitely affected his focus/timing but he'll get it.
I commented on the gameday… I don't post gameday often because I get too frustrated with how quickly people are ready to storm CBP with burning pitchforks BUT it is funny to look back and see the ebb and flow and some of the dumb comments after a game like last night… I get a kick out of it.
Reading the Gameday thread is good in the morning while I'm drinking my coffee. Last night's thread must have been some kind of record with the amount of impulsive comments. Not all were bad and I DO understand the frustration.
It is a shame that Oswalt lost victory due to Lidge's balk but at least the Phils got a win. Got to give Lidge the benefit of the doubt on this one. Takes a while to recover from jet lag from a cross-country flight.
Oswalt should have gotten the Ashburn Award for this game. He pitched masterfully.


text:
The Real Gift of Parenting
By Rick Hanson, Ph.D., and Jan Hanson, M.S., L.Ac., 2006
As you brave the holiday shopping crowds -- trying to decide whether to give Barbie or Big Bird, Legos or (good grief) an iPod -- or hassle with returns and sales in January, it's easy to feel a little overwhelmed, and distracted from the real gifts that are at the heart of parenting.
But happily, when you relax a bit and come back to yourself, the true gifts of parenting come back to mind, the ones that go deeper than giving our kids toys and games -- or even a college education.
Over and over again, a hundred times each day, we freely offer a hug, a smile, a touch, a scolding, a sandwich, a paycheck earned, a story read, a bed tucked in, a goodnight kiss. So many things, so rapidly readily given that we hardly notice them -- but they are the fabric of family, new threads added many times each hour, warm and cozy and nurturing, the blanket of love in which we wrap our precious vulnerable beloved children.
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We let our children have us when we feel all too "had" by others. We give even when others haven't given enough to us: our coworkers, our boss, our spouse, our own parents.
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Our children give us so much to be sure. The act of parenting has its own rewards. And we need to take care of ourselves so that we can continue to have something to give to our children.
But parents don't give to get. And in the moment of giving to a child we often don't get back much at all. Fundamentally, parenting is not an exchange; we are not playing let's-make-a-deal with our children.
Parenting is an ongoing process of healthy sacrifice; the sacrifice of attention, time, energy, money, personal agendas, and all the activities we would prefer to do if we were not parenting.
Of course, we sacrifice not as martyrs but with our eyes open, freely, with strength, with all the ordinary little heroic acts that make up the daily life of a parent.
We sacrifice our individual selves into relationship with our children. We release for a moment the sense of contraction as an isolated self into the joining of love, a love that may feel for some as if it partakes of something that's ultimately Divine.
Sacrifice means "sacred act." During this seasonal time, of plunging into the dark to be renewed for the swelling of the light, a period that's sacred in many cultures around the world - it's a lovely, self-nurturing thing to reflect a bit on what may be for you the sacred essence of parenting.
(Rick Hanson, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, Jan Hanson, M.S., L.Ac., is an acupuncturist/nutritionist, and they are raising a daughter and son, ages 16 and 19. With Ricki Pollycove, M.D., they are the first and second authors of Mother Nurture: A Mother's Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships, published by Penguin. You can visit their website at www.nurturemom.com or email them with questions or comments at email@example.com (unfortunately, a personal reply may not always be possible.)


text:
June 27, 2001: Piercing the heart of a globular star cluster, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope uncovered tantalizing clues to what could be a strange and unexpected population of wandering, planet-sized objects. The orbiting observatory detected these bodies in the globular cluster M22 by the way their gravity bends the light from background stars, a phenomenon called microlensing. These microlensing events were unusually brief, indicating that the mass of the the intervening objects could be as little as 80 times that of Earth. Bodies this small have never been detected by microlensing observations.See the rest:
Theoretically, these mystery objects might be planets that were gravitationally torn away from their parent stars in the cluster. (Normally, planets orbit stars, just like Earth circles the Sun.) However, astronomers estimate that the wandering celestial bodies make up as much as 10 percent of the cluster's bulk - too numerous to be "orphaned" planets. The objects could be brown dwarfs, "failed stars" that are 80 times more massive than Jupiter. They're called failed stars because they don't have enough hydrogen in their cores to shine as stars. Or, these small, dim bodies could be a new class of objects.
Astronomers are planning more Hubble observations of the center of this dense cluster of 10 million stars. They expect to detect another 10 to 25 microlensing events, enough to yield direct measurements of the true masses of the small bodies.
Microlensing is an indirect way of obtaining information on celestial objects, such as planets or brown dwarfs, which are too dim to see.
Here's how microlensing works: As an unseen body floats across the face of a background star, it acts like a powerful lens by gravitationally bending the starlight and thus creating two separate images of the faraway star. Even Hubble can't resolve these images, because the bending angle is about 100 times smaller than the telescope's angular resolution. But the object's gravity also amplifies the starlight, causing it to brighten as the body passes in front of the star.
Microlensing events are brief, unpredictable, and rare. Astronomers improve their chances of observing one by looking at many stars at once. That's why astronomers pointed Hubble at a dense cluster of 10 million stars. They figured that some of the stars had planets or other objects around them. Some of the objects eventually might pass in front of background stars, causing microlensing events. In this case, the background stars are in the galactic bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy. Only the "sharp eyes" of Hubble can penetrate the core of a dense cluster of stars and monitor stars well beyond that region.
The telescope monitored 83,000 stars every three days for nearly four months, looking for slight increases in starlight. A spike in brightness provided evidence that an unseen body in the jam-packed cluster was passing in front of a star. The increases in brightness were transitory. Six of them lasted less than 20 hours and one stretched for 18 days. Based on the duration of the eclipse and the amount of brightening of background starlight, astronomers estimated the masses of the unseen bodies. In the case of the six short microlensing events, the objects are much smaller than a normal star, perhaps 80 times Earth's mass. The 18-day microlensing event was caused by a star. A typical star like our Sun is about 300,000 times more massive than Earth and 1,000 times heftier than Jupiter, the solar system's most massive planet.
Credits for the Hubble image: NASA, Kailash Sahu, Stefano Casertano, Mario Livio, Ron Gilliland (Space Telescope Science Institute), Nino Panagia (European Space Agency/Space Telescope Science Institute), Michael Albrow and Mike Potter (Space Telescope Science Institute)
Credits for ground-based image: Nigel A.Sharp, REU program/AURA/NOAO/NSF


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