The grading for my class is now completed. These students did remarkably well on a hard course, and I’m proud of them.
I think I’ve found what broke in that server – one of the RAM chips was faulty. That chip is presently removed, and the server is sitting in a back room running a stress-test program which I named “forkbunny.”
(No, really – it forks off a bunch of little processes and reproduces like crazy, and does all sorts of things to strain the memory and the virtual memory)
Next: To get some research work done. Such as, trying to decipher this letter one of my collaborators sent me. It’s not that he doesn’t speak English, it’s that half the time he doesn’t make sense even when he does.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 
Forkbunny? *laugh* You have such a way with names.
There’s a neato program called memtest86 that stress-tests memory on peecees very very thoroughly. It’s been real helpful at diagnosing machines – you just set it up, walk away, and go back hours/days later and it’s recorded all the statistics of what’s happened.
Neat! Thanks.
(Although there’s still something irresistible about having a program that jumps around memory and forking off little bunnies…)
You know… I’m sure there is a naughty thought in that statement. I just can’t articulate it.
Well, it’s probably not about forking like bunnies. Actually, that wasn’t on my mind at all when I chose the name – for some reason, the central machine popping out little devices that run around frantically, fill up memory and then exit made me think of a large device that shoots out bunny rabbits into a field. Vertically and at low speed, so they land and start eating the grass.
Yes, I had been working late. Yes, I was slightly sleep deprived.
It’s still a cool mental image.