Swappiness

So, here’s what happens when you sign up for 4 different swaps that are going on all at the same time:

General Mayhem and Major Panic launch an all out offensive on your free time and peace of mind.

What is a swap, you ask?  I’m not sure if it’s something that’s kind of particular to Ravelry or not, but basically, you sign up, you’re assigned a partner (either secret or not), you fill out a questionnaire, read their questionnaire and then put together a package for the other person to receive in the mail. It’s a way of getting to know a bit about someone else from somewhere else in the world, to make something, buy things just for that person, and then get a package yourself that was put together with you in mind.

Before I’d decided I was moving, I signed up for 4 swaps: a book and yarn swap, a color-based swap, a friend event swap, and a Lost-based swap.

The book and yarn swap was just supposed to be a used paperback and some yarn, so not too much of a stretch. There was some poring over my bookshelf though, trying to pick the right book to send on. My literary tastes are not everyone’s. Also, the yarn my assigned swap partner most knits with is thick, chunky yarn. I mostly have thinner, lacier yarns in my stash. I ordered some yarn for her online, but it took so long to get here that I ended up going through my stash and picking out some aran-weight yarn that I’d forgotten I had. The package was still sent a few days late.

Then, it didn’t get there for three more weeks! I was truly panicking. When I was a teenager, we’d have secret swap things at summer camp. I could never afford anything nice (or really anything at all) to give my secret swap partner, and was always too embarrassed to tell the organizers I couldn’t get them anything. The person who I was assigned to would end up empty-handed, and I hated how awful I’d make them feel. I was so worried that this would happen again that I sent out another book with some yarn for my book and yarn partner. I just couldn’t let someone else down again. Fortunately, the first packaged arrived just after I’d sent the 2nd. So she gets two books and even more yarn!

She asked if there was anything I’d like sent over from Germany, and I remembered how tasty the Aachener Printen was when I visited Aachen to see the Aachenal Dome a few years ago. She sent me three baggies full, and they arrived today!

Now, I just have to put the other three swap packages together. The Friend Event deadline isn’t until 21st June, but I want to get it sent before I move. The Color Swap deadline is the 1st June. the Lost swap package needs to be sent before the finale this weekend.

Only three of the swaps were to include a handmade item;  and I finished the lace scarf I knit for the Friend Event swap a couple of weeks ago.  Over the weekend I completed the lace shawl I knit for the Color Swap, and I’m furiously trying to finish up the last couple Dharma Initiative Logo dishcloths I’m making for the Lost swap. I’ve got the extras I ordered online (thankyou, cafepress!). I just need to finish the dishcloths, add some goodies and get this out the door to my swap partner.

The term, swappiness, is one used in Linux particularly.  It’s a parameter you can change on your operating system to move processes from the physical memory (RAM) to the virtual memory (SWAP partition).   More swappiness = processes get moved to the disk earlier.  Less swappiness = processes stay in memory longer. It’s better to keep processes in physical memory longer because reading and writing to disks is much slower than reading and writing to physical memory.  But you have to have balance.  If there are too many processes for the memory to handle it can slow down the whole thing, so moving some process to disk gives it the space to be able to complete it all, eventually.

I’ve got too much swappiness I think.  I’ve got too many processes going right now, and I have to juggle too much I’m doing right now, with all my apples up in the air.  Or all my processes grinding down my hard disk.

Well, there you go.  I’ll bet you never expected a technical analogy on a knitting blog.  I’m going to get back to my hopelessly overcommitted swap-making now.