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| 2005/5/5 [Computer/SW/Unix] UID:37525 Activity:high |
5/5/ Can anybody think of a good way to save a directory structure without
the files? Like say you wanted to create the /usr/share/man
directory skeleton preserving directory permissions and ownership
but not keep any files as tar would normally do. I dont want to do
an tar/untar of everything and then go back and delete the files,
because we are looking at a few hundred megs in files. I have
various klugy ways to do this, but wondering if there was something
slick with existing utilities. Note: I want to *store* this
information (in a form which can be used to rebuild the tree
structure if necessary). I dont want to merely clone an existing
tree to another part of the disk, minus the files ... although i
suppose you could clone the tree and tar that skeleton and then
delete the tree.
\_ find /usr/share/man -type d | xargs tar rnf man.tar --mconst
\_ tar -n will do it! Thanks.
\_ tar -n will do it, but that isnt an option on all tars.
i suppose you can do a find -type f > /tmp/exclude and then
do tar cf man.tar -X /tmp/exclude ... but ugh. any other
thoughts?
\_ If your tar doesn't support -n, you could use zip:
find /usr/share/man -type d | xargs zip -g man.zip
\_ I suppose zip is a fact of life now even in the unix
\_ I suppose zip is a fact of life now in the unix
world and i shouldnt feel impure to use it. |
| 2005/5/5 [Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity] UID:37526 Activity:nil |
5/5 http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/04/social.security.ap If GWB cuts social security for the middle and upper-middle class, then doesn't it simply mean SS = welfare system for the old people? Second question. If we can invest in private accounts, can we invest in foreign stock market? -SS dumb guy |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Health/Disease/AIDS, Health/Disease/General] UID:37527 Activity:moderate |
5/5 Britta vs. Pur, round 1. Pur says it filters out bacteria whereas
Britta makes no such claim. Pur costs 1.5X more than Britta. Britta
(IMHO) has an acceptable after-taste, whereas I can't taste anything
in Pur. What are you thought?
\_ I don't believe that Pur filters (or any filter) will remove
bacteria. To do that, UV light filters are needed. These sorts
of filters merely remove dissolved solutes (like ions, etc.)
\_ There ARE filters that can remove bacteria, but these
tend to be the exotic ceramic camping ones.
\_ Can these filters remove virus as well?
\_ OK, but I was referring to household water filters.
\_ I just find it so much more convenient to have the filter hooked
right up to the tap, so I prefer PuR. I tried Brita before
and it tasted fine. No idea if they've made a tap device by
now. -bz
\_ I thought they always had it. I used Brita tap thing for years.
\_ I'm guessing you actually mean "1.5X what Britta costs", and not
really "1.5X more" |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Computer/SW/OS/Solaris, Computer/HW/Laptop, Computer/HW/CPU] UID:37529 Activity:kinda low |
5/5 I am not familar with Solaris, so, I may be biased... My impression,
from a desktop/laptop user point of view, is that Linux has
better userability than Solaris10, eventhough Solaris 10 also come
with a gnome desktop environment. However, I find myself in a
rare position of not knowing how to articulate this point to
some of the Solaris fanatics. Their argumenet is that since S10
is also equipped with GNOME, userability is the same as Linux.
1. is this arguement flawed?
2. if you think Linux indeed has better usability, any concret example
of userability is more than gnome desktop TIA
\_ From a user point of view, the biggest advantage of Linux is
all the software it ships with. All of that *can* be added to
Solaris, but it isn't there out of the box. Another advantage
of Linux is that for most tasks the actual hardware is faster,
assuming you are running Intel/AMD. Sun has the advantage for
problems that fit within the larger CPU cache, but are larger
then the (smaller) Intel cache.
\_ No Linux desktop user has any basis for say his desktop is superior
in usability to the S10 desktop. This is like the dateless ugly
girl at the dance picking on the other ugly girl for not having a
date.
\_ Thanks for erasing my post and adding bullshit at the same
time.
\_ it's ok, I read it already. -- OP
\_ that is why I post this on motd. If i think i am in a
position of being objective, i probably can make assessment
on my own. having said that, from little things such as
ls, man command, to the way driver installed on S10, I
still think Linux is friendlier.
\_ BWWAAAAHAHAHAHA! Man, it's 'friendlier' until you have to do
low down systems level programming. Then it's 'friendly'
in the same way your 320lb cellmate 'Butch' is friendly.
\_ ^320lb cellmate^neurotic 320lb cellmate
\_ Is that what the server world has really come down to? One
version of 'ls' is "friendlier" (meaning: the way you learned
it on the one system) therefore that system is superior? I'm
curious how many non-Linux systems you've used and for how
many years each.
\_ Your point is correct, but I've just watched (again)
a bunch of presentations tearing gaping new assholes in
Windows security. Maybe he should have mentioned this.
Usability is actually pretty decent. -John
\_ What about drivers? Unless you buy hardware from Sun, you're
going to have some serious problems with hardware support. In
addition, the number of binary-only desktop applications seems to be
dwindling (for example our users would like to be able to use the
latest Matlab and Acrobat reader but those aren't available on
Solaris/x86). In addition, even though Sun includes Gnome, I doubt
Solaris x86 comes with as many popular open source applications as
there are in a typical Linux dist (but then I could be wrong, I
haven't used Sol10 myself yet although Solaris 9 loses hands down in
this area even though it also comes with Gnome).
\_ Easy fix for that: just buy Sun hardware.
\_ I don't understand the desire on the part of some people to attempt
to compare the quality/friendliness/whatever of the desktop
environments of what are really server systems. If you want a nice
GUI, buy a Mac. If you want to play games, work in an office, and
have the largest variety of desktop apps, buy Windows. If you want
a server system and you're the one making the buying deicision, the
question is not "Is this Gnome better than that Gnome?" The
question you're answering and the 'debate' you've involved in is
meaningless.
\_ Someone has to develop the apps for the server system and
that lucky person often gets to use it as a desktop. It is
true, though, that using a PC/Mac as one's desktop and
remotely connecting to the server to code makes sense
depending on the app being developed.
\_ Yep, I've got the kind of luck where I have to use CDE
at work. As far as desktops go, Linux is easier to use
on x86 because there are just a lot more people using it
and improving it. Also, I'd have to say GNU utilities are
generally superior to default solaris ones. |
| 2005/5/5 [Reference/Law/Court] UID:37530 Activity:high |
5/5 Missed this one. Canadian court says you don't have religious
freedom:
http://csua.org/u/byr
\_ Hey whoever edited this: reply, don't mangle my words.
\_ It's just part of Canada's culture of life! |
| 2005/5/5 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/Crime, Politics/Domestic/Immigration] UID:37531 Activity:high |
5/5 Heh. It's hard to make a pinko happy: http://csua.org/u/byq \_ No, it's easy. Just put them in charge. It's more of an "I'm always right" ideology. |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Consumer/Audio] UID:37532 Activity:moderate |
5/5 Apropos of the post below about super-high end headphones. If you
guys are plugging those things into iPods or other MP3 players,
you might want to take a look at this:
http://home.comcast.net/~machrone/playertest/playertest.htm
\_ "super-high end"? You need to google for a pair of Sony R10's
or even some of the more expensive Grados or Stax. The Etymotics
are decent, but the Shures are nicer.
\_ I have the Shures E3c, and while they are good for sound
isolation, loud for the volume, and are very comfortable,
the Etymotics seem a little better performing and the wire is
much more flexible. I recommend a headphone amp with it though
as it is MUCH less efficient than the Shures. I like my Shures
as sound quality isn't as important as me being able to hear
the music at a reasonable volume. -rollee
\_ Oh, and I'd get the E3 pro version over the E3c if only
to avoid looking like yet another iPod weenie with
white earbuds.
\_ None of you guys actually read the link, did you? My
point in posting it was that it's a little silly to
buy really high end headphones for an iPod when
(as the article demonstrates), the headphone preamps
under load on most MP3 players are completely shit.
Interestingly, the only preamp that held up under
his 60hz square wave test with a load attached was
the iPod shuffle. --op
\_ Portable MP3 players can't supply enough current to
drive low frequencies into 100 ohm loads? Man, this
is a completely surprising development. I would never
have guessed that. They should invent something to
overcome this. Oh wait, they have already -- it's
called a headphone amp (which has, oh, an input
impedance of 100K ohms?).
\_ Since you didn't read the article, I'll
explain the surprisng part - the iPod shuffle
DOES reproduce the 60hz square wave without
distortion under load, unlike all the other
players he looked at (including the older iPods).
Thanks for being an unfriendly stupid git.
\_ To quote: "My *main* point ... [is] it's silly
to buy really high end headphones for an iPod
when ..." [emphasis added]. I responded to
what you said was your "main point" by noting
that 1. it is a well known problem, and
2. there is a simple solution which has been
in use for many years. Whether the Shuffle
can drive the one pair of phones used in the
article is largely uninteresting, because
many of us have headphones that present much
more demanding and difficult loads that what
has been tested in the experiment. |
| 2005/5/5 [Computer/SW/Unix] UID:37533 Activity:nil 66%like:34926 |
5/5 Today is 05/05/05 whether it's MM/DD/YY, DD/MM/YY, or YY/MM/DD.
\_ Thanks for sharing.
5/5/ Can anybody think of a good way to save a directory structure without
the files? Like say you wanted to create the /usr/share/man
directory skeleton preserving directory permissions and ownership
but not keep any files as tar would normally do. I dont want to do
an tar/untar of everything and then go back and delete the files,
because we are looking at a few hundred megs in files. I have
various klugy ways to do this, but wondering if there was something
slick with existing utilities. Note: I want to *store* this
information (in a form which can be used to rebuild the tree
structure if necessary). I dont want to merely clone an existing
tree to another part of the disk, minus the files ... although i
suppose you could clone the tree and tar that skeleton and then
delete the tree.
\_ find /usr/share/man -type d | xargs tar rnf man.tar --mconst
\_ tar -n will do it, but that isnt an option on all tars.
i suppose you can do a find -type f > /tmp/exclude and then
do tar cf man.tar -X /tmp/exclude ... but ugh. any other
thoughts?
\_ If your tar doesn't support -n, you could use zip:
find /usr/share/man -type d | xargs zip -g man.zip
\_ I suppose zip is a fact of life now in the unix
world and i shouldnt feel impure to use it. |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Reference/Religion] UID:37534 Activity:high |
5/5 Pretty much sums it up on Evolution vs. "Intelligent Design"
Bob Novak: Why don't we teach evolution and intelligent design and let
students figure it out on their own?
Unknown scientist: Fine. Why don't we teach students the South won the
civil war and let them figure it out on their own? Why don't we teach
students that the moon is made of green cheese and let the students
figure it out on their own?
http://www.balloon-juice.com/archives/005059.html
\_ It's clear that evolution + religion are sensitive topics that
should perhaps not be taught in high schools. Let them learn
chemistry, biology, algebra, calculus, etc, and stop at evolution.
Leave evolution as advanced topics in college.
\_ cuz fact is the north won, fact is moon is made of rock..
evolution is an observation but can't be proven
\_ Sigh...
\_ moon is made of rock is an observation but can't be proven
\_ You know, the role of the schools is to teach science. It is not
to lord science over religion, but it also shouldn't back down on
teaching scientific principles when they conflict with someone's
religion. Evolution predicts a number of things, such as common
ancestry which have led to discoveries in genetics and
pharmaceuticals. It's a tested theory that has passed the tests
that have been thrown at it. Believers need to learn not to fear
science, and atheists need to stop trying to disprove religion.
-emarkp
\_ because it's too easy to disprove religion? -tom
\_ To the degree that religious claims can be tested, they
should be.
\- proof has nothing to do with religion. it's like talking
about what is a fair voting system to pick my favorite
color. --psb
\_ It is difficult to disprove the statement:
"I believe God has a plan"
For this, you need to prove God does not exist, or
prove God exists and does not have a plan. God is
unfortunately not able to consult.
\_ Sorry, you guys have it all backwards. Try "proving
religion" first in an empirical fashion, then we'll
talk about "disproving religion".
\- you are still missing the point. religion isnt about
empirical evidence. do you have empirical evidence
of the infinitude of primes? "was jesus a real person"
is an empircal question. what is the speed of grace
in the ether is not. --psb
\_ No, you are missing the point. Religion is fine
if it merely an abstract study of thoughts. However,
it is not fine when people attempt to utilize it to
legislate or condone certaint types of real world
actions. When you bring religion into the real world,
then there is a requisite that it be empirically
sound. You don't build a bridge based on pure math,
that would be stupid. You build bridges according
to structural engineering, which is applied mathematics
based on firm empirical footings. We don't legislate
or mandate according to fiction, why should we
give a free pass to religion?
\- Once again: you can ask something like "if the
govt worriess less about distributional consequences
does that help spur growth" and look for empirical
evidence by looking at say the change in gini
coeficients vs gdp growth rates. However, what does
society owe poor people is not an empirical
question. It's not about an enginering optium and
arguments about it dont involve Lagrange multi-
pliers. Not all *important* questions are empirical.
I suppose there is an elevated discussion to be
had about what is called "logical positivism" but
I dont think that is what you are after. Yes we
can all agree bridges falling down on their own is
bad and an empirical theory of bridge design is
better than buidling bridges through prayer, but
to take a locally relevant example: how much money
should a society spend on bridges to look cool,
how should bridges be funded, what should be the
system to decide these question ... those are not
empirical questions. is slavery wrong because
of empirical reasons or abstract ones? how about
free speech? or are these not important questions.
i'd hate to think the only thing wrong with
racist hiring practices was it may not be an
optimal capitalist strategy [see e.g. richard
epstein: forbidden grounds].
\_ I think you're confusing religion with
philosophy. Or rather the behavioral guidance
of religion with the factual guidance such as
"King David lived in 171482 BC and sired 12824
sons". The evolution argument isn't about
behavior; it's about history and scientific fact
versus "what does religion say is fact".
\_ On the contrary, you are arguing that there
is no empirical foundation to the concept of
morality, but there is, i.e. sociology and
psychology. Granted, these areas of study
are amorphous, they deal with exceedingly
complex questions not easily broken down,
but to argue that society itself is not
empirical by nature is simply false. We
have already established that behavior
itself is highly empirical, as is concepts
of general asthetics. In fact, one may
argue that the concept of religion should
be studied in a pure empirical fashion as
a sociological question, i.e. why do religions
exist and on what basis? One could even argue
that religions are merely promulgated worldviews
and that society has developed them due to a
lack of technology before the advent of
science. As for justification of moral values,
i.e. should slavery exist or not, there are
empirical underpinnings in the sense that humans
have this concept of mirroring of minds, and as
such we have an emotional basis for not wanting
to enslave humans in general, (which is probably
why it's easier to enslave africans vs. europeans
because africans are different visually to
other europeans causing this emotional bond
to be weaker). Is nature inherently efficient?
Absolutely not. This is mirrored in our society.
Is its inefficiency a justification for clouding
the issues in the guise of religion? Probably
not.
\_ Who (except maybe tom) is trying to disprove religion? Is
this just another one of your straw men?
\_ I see it all the time. Tom is just one of them. -emarkp
\_ I don't see many web sites disproving religion. I think
most scientists are bright enough to not want to get
into circuitous and pointless conversation with you
ultra-right Christian fundamentalists. I do however
I see far more web sites promoting religious solutions
over scientific methods (Scientology, voodoo, etc).
What do you have to say about that?
\- In my experience in a place like berkeley, you see
a lot of hostility toward religion or mocking of
religion [church is hypocritical, religion people
are naive etc] rather than a specific desire to
assert it is false, god doesnt exist etc. Of course
there are people like Holube, and it is pointless to
speculate on their agenda and motivations, although
at some point with aaron/holube-ping I'd say it got
personal rather than issue directed. As with the
anti-SUV camp, there are specific issues worth talking
about [like proslytism] but the vague hostility seems
pretty intolerant, given that the majority of religous
people *around here* are pretty much the live and let
live type and the people doing the condemning are
selectively tolerant liberal hedonists.
\_ However, is it not true that religions themselves
are generally intolerant of other religions? Is
it not true that there has been much blood spilled
in the name of religion? If there is intolerance
against religion in general, perhaps it is because
religion itself is generally intolerant.
\- I think it is a lot more reasonable
to suppose voting for BUSHCO2004 is
giving tacit support to Abu Graib than
going to Easter Mass is an endorsement
of T. Torquemada. ok tnx.
\- is msft intolerant toward linux? how about
the mfgrs of cialis toward the mfgrs of viagra?
yes, i think we can agree intolerance is
often bad. we can agree the problem of
relativism is a tough or for societies to
relativism is a tough for societies to
grapple with. are you intolerant of bestiality?
well to be a little less glib: i believe there
is much conflict among societies for structural
reasons [see e.g. Man, the State and War], and
since religion is an important element in
societies it's likely to be a proximate
explation for a lot of stuff. with the rise of
capitalism/imperialism/colonialism/totalit-
arianism in the 20th cent, is it a surprise
they play a role in the story of ww1/ww2?
the muslim invaders of india and europe didnt
specifically want to pick a fight with hinduism
or xtianity, they just wanted stuff. athens and
sparta or the greeks and trojans didnt fight
over gods or souls but for more material and
security reasons. i think material concerns
are a big part of the 30yrs war, but i have
to think about that and check some things
before weighting in on this standard case
of a relig war. |
| 2005/5/5 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:37535 Activity:nil |
5/5 Is it just because the Windows users are quieter or embarrassed to be
Windows users, or are they really a minority/plurality on the motd?
\_ Actually, I've noticed less ranting about Windoze. |
| 2005/5/5 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:37536 Activity:moderate |
5/5 John Howard, George W. Bush, and now Tony Blair. All sent
troops, all had protestors to deal with, who swore to bring
them down "for the people." All now re-elected.
Muwhahahawa.... War is man's greatest legacy. Forever here.
\_ You dipshit. Labour just lost a significant number of seats.
Blair was not "elected" to anything. Labour still holds parliament
but by a slim margin. It is entirely likely that they may sack
Blair in favor of a party leader seen as less radioactive.
Also, Labour's new majority is so slim that they will likely no
longer be able to prosecute a war that is supported by only
20% of the British public.
\_ you lost get over it.
\_ Hi freeper! Your stupidity is revealed by your continuing
insistence that a prime minister is "elected." Here's a
Yahoo! news article that explains pretty clearly what
might happen. I think that they even use mostly two
syllable words, so you're in luck.
http://csua.org/u/byy (yahoo! news)
\_ Oh do teach me something about a parliamentary
government wise one. Tell me about the hostage
while you are at it.
\_ The PM in Spain (Aznar?) didn't get re-elected. But maybe it's
because of the explosion days before.
\_ yeah they tried to blame the communists.
\_ Basques, actually. -John
\_ Whoever wins gets to rewrite history, how things came about and
how they made the world better. I have no doubt that 50 years from
now, Blair and Bush will be revered like Gods, for saving earth
from the tyranny and threat of Al Qaeda and Sadam Hussein |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:37537 Activity:moderate |
5/5 I have only owned Macs until getting a cheap pc recently, so I don't
even know what registry is. What book/ resource do you recommend
that will help me become a competent windoze user, starting with
securing it from virus/attacks? tia
\_ get a router for internet access if you havn't done so already,
PC magazine recently had an article on how to secure your PC. At
the hardware level you need a firewall/router, then at the software
level you need anti-virus software, spyware scanner, and firewall.
and finally you should also keep your windows up to date with
windows update.
\_ Don't run programs you don't trust. Macs are not intrinsicly safer
in this respect but far fewer malwares exist for Macs. Also, learn
to recognize what can include executable code. A non-exhaustive
list includes EXE, BAT, COM, SCR, MSI, PIF...
\_ And beware of e-mail attachments with names like
"foobar.jpg.exe".
\_ Windows' default is 'Hide extensions of known file types',
which is really quite dangerous. You can show all file
extensions at Explorer->Tools->Folder Options->View->Advanced
\_ Ah, I always wonder who would fall for "foobar.jpg.exe",
now I know. I always enable extension display, but just
because I like it, not because of security.
\_ Create a normal user account for yourself that's not in the
Administrators or the Power Users group. Use the
Administrator account only to install new software and to
change settings.
\_ I wonder how often people actually do this... On unix
this is a given, but on windows I don't know anyone that
actually do this.
\_ Everyone who cares about security and who understands
the implications of being logged in as admin. all the time
(you don't have to be an uber-geek to see it)
\_ Are you saying I don't care about security and ...? I
always auto-login as Administrator, but then, none of my
Windows boxes can communicate with the outside world. I
do all my "internet" stuff on FreeBSD boxes and iBook.
\_ I started doing this a couple months ago. But now when I log
in as non-admin, I can't see in the Start menu some of the
programs that I installed as admin. So I still have to log in
as admin to run those programs.
\_ I don't. Never had a problem. If I had something nasty on my
PC it could screw me anyway. Just backup your shit. I guess
it might prevent some worm stuff from installing itself if
you're worried about that. So, I guess if you're new to the OS
it might be a prudent move. Too much hassle for me though.
\_ Use Firefox instead of IE as much as possible. That's the #1 thing
that I did when I was a windoze user (I switched to Mac last year)
\_ this is bullshit. i like firefox but yeah. not like firefox is
without bugs.
\_ Why did you get a Windows PC? |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:37538 Activity:nil |
5/5 Libertarians rejoice: President Bush has presided over the largest
overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon
B. Johnson.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3750 |
| 2005/5/5-7 [Computer/HW/Memory] UID:37539 Activity:moderate |
5/5 Is it a good idea to buy refurbished flash drives?
\_ Is it a good idea to be with a refurbished girl?
\_ No. Virgins are preferred.
\_ no moving parts, acceptable.
\_ Finite number of writes to a flash device. Of course, the
number is in the hundreds of thousands (if memory serves),
so you're likely safe buying refurbished, except in very
extreme circumstances.
\_ How do you refurbish a flash device? -John
\_ Probably hatever problems people had when they returned them
were really user error. |
| 2005/5/5-9 [Uncategorized] UID:37540 Activity:nil |
5/5 I'd like to open up PDF files and then make annotations on it. What
are some softwares to you? What do you personall use and recommend? thx |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:37541 Activity:nil |
5/5 Anyone has recommendation on parental control software for
Windows? Thanks. |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity] UID:37542 Activity:low |
5/5 This has got to make social conservatives happy:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/05/cheerleaders.law.reut
\_ Screwing around with football related traditions in Texas does not
strike me as wise for a conservative Texas politician. I hope
it bites them in the ass. |
| 2005/5/5-9 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/China] UID:37543 Activity:low |
5/5 Investment time: I'm looking for a mutual fund that is the best
approximation of a "Chinese S&P500". Does such a thing exist?
Ideally the fund would be based in the US so that it's subject to US
reporting requirements.
\_ No. Most Chinese companies are not really in the stock market
yet, and those that do are so-called "Red Chip" stocks that
don't really give you many shreholder rights. Stick to Hong
don't really give you many shareholder rights. Stick to Hong
Kong and Taiwan for now.
\_ I did some more research and found that FXI is probably
the closest to what you want. It is 25 red chip and H
series shares traded on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
But the Red Chip stocks are all minority shares in
companies run by the Chinese government.
\_ pp is right. china is doing well, but chinese firms are
not well regulated and can steal your money. There are
a couple of china mutual funds like MCHFX, but they have
not been performing as well as the Pacific ex-Japan funds,
which benefit from China's growth but do not have the
drawbacks of investing directly in China's companies
\_ I'd recommend Vanguard's Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund. As of
March, the top five countries in its holdings by percentage were:
Korea: 20.2%
Taiwan: 14.8%
South Africa: 11.5%
Brazil: 11.0%
China: 8.4%
Thus, taken together, China and Taiwan represent over 1/5 of the
entire fund's holdings. -dans |
| 2005/5/5-9 [Consumer/Audio] UID:37544 Activity:nil |
5/5 I'm using Skype right now. It is a very effective tool and is a good
replacement for my unreliable cell-phone. So far I've only used
PC-to-PC version and the latency is a lot lower than Yahoo and MSN
talk. I think as long as you unblock your firewall and the ping is
fast (less than 100ms), the quality is pretty good. I haven't used
Skype-Out (PC to phone) or Skype-In (phone to PC), but my friend said
it's pretty good. However, Skype-Out to India sucks... I guess the
latency really gets to them.
\_ It really depends. .ch to .au is great, .ch to 300 meters down
the road is ass. They also locate a bunch of their major nodes
in places like Latvia (Lithuania?) to save money, so your mileage
may vary. Plus there were a few nifty security problems reported
with it a while ago. Unfortunately, interest in pgpfone seems
to be pretty dead. -John
\_ I've used both SkypeIn and SkypeOut. I found that Skype has
best sound quality. SkypeIn comes in second. SkypeOut is by
far the worse. All of them are kind of hit and miss. Sometimes
it worked like a charm, other times, it's untolerable. I mostly
call US from major cities in China/Taiwan. The experience of
calling Papa New Geninue was a nightmare. |
| 2005/5/5-9 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37545 Activity:low |
5/5 I have a Hitachi/IBM Travelstar 80G HD that occasionally makes loud
clicking noise unrelated to head seek. Today while moving a 150M file
I started hearing that clicking noise again, and 1 min later my
computer freezes. I rebooted, tried copying other files and it's fine
and went back to the same file, and it freezes again. Help?
\_ Download the diagnostic from the http://hgst.com web site.
You may be able to query S.M.A.R.T. data, but you probably need
to replace the drive.
A controlled 2 second sound every 15-30 minutes of idle is normal
though for new Hitachis.
\_ Your drive has become defective and will fail "soon". Move all
data to working drive ASAP.
Go to the http://hgst.com web site and enter in your HD serial number to
determine if it is still in warranty. If so, register for RMA and
return problem drive.
\_ I went to the Hitachi web site and they refused to give me a RMA
until I run their diagnostic tools which returns a specific error
code they want. Unfortunately my laptop has no
floppy disk so I had to take it out, buy a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter
and boot from there. However, their tool SUCKS because it would
code they want. Unfortunately my laptop has no floppy disk so I
had to take it out, buy a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter and boot from
my desktop. However, their tool SUCKS because it would
exit for no reason. After dicking around for 2 hours I found out
that unplugging my CD-ROM made it go through. Then, the sucky tool
took 2 hours to scan the disk, then went to the repair mode, which
did the EXACT SAME redundant scan for repair. After 3 hours, it
gave up and finally gave me an error code. I went back to the
Hitachi web site, put in the code, and they said they will mail me
a repaired drive AFTER I send mine in, in 3 weeks. There's no
"Advanced RMA" like Western Digital, where they send you a new
HD before they received yours. FUCK HITACHI/IBM DRIVES. FUCK THEIR
SUCKY TOOLS AND SUPPORT.
SUCKY TOOLS AND SUPPORT. -op
SUCKY TOOLS AND SUPPORT. -op P.S. http://www.mctubster.com/hd.html |
| 2005/5/5-9 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:37546 Activity:nil |
05/05 What's your favorite free sound recording program for Mac OS X?
\_ It's way, way overkill for this task, but I generally use
SuperCollider http://sourceforge.net/projects/supercollider
\_ I use SparkME, but I'm not sure you can get it anymore.
CD Spin Doctor (comes w/ Toast) is okay as well.
\_ Have you checked out Audacity? Supports OSX, Win32, Linux, among
others...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity |
| 2005/5/5 [Uncategorized] UID:37547 Activity:nil |
5/5 man, that motd.official is too damn long. |
| 2005/5/5-6 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:37548 Activity:high |
05/05 How lightsabers work:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/lightsaber.htm
\_ Oh cool! Marshall Brain can write stupid fanboy bullshit too!
\_ yep, and you can write stupid content-free motd bullshit too! |
| 2005/5/5 [Politics/Domestic/Gay, ERROR, uid:37549, category id '18005#8.55875' has no name! , ] UID:37549 Activity:nil |
05/05 What's the Matter with Liberals?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17982 |
| 5/26 |