Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2001:February:21 Wednesday <Thursday>
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2001/2/21 [Computer/SW/Database] UID:20632 Activity:high
2/20    Why soda is so slow, ever heard of SWAP?
        70258 hkhung    18   0 26176K  6608K opause  17:16  0.05%  0.05% java_X
         1969 lila       2   0 21776K  3608K select   1:15  0.00%  0.00% screen
        56494 ilyas      2   0 13104K  1548K select   0:40  0.00%  0.00% screen
        50048 kane       2   0 11680K  8640K select   1:14  0.00%  0.00% screen
        78321 jones      2   0 11304K  6076K select   3:05  0.00%  0.00% pine
          851 mysql      2   0 11184K   176K poll     0:18  0.00%  0.00% mysqld
        20469 bray       2   0 10656K  9048K select   0:29  0.00%  0.00% pine
        84781 vadim      2   0 10184K  5128K select   1:00  0.00%  0.00% screen
        70635 chaos      2   0  9924K  5980K select   1:32  0.00%  0.00% screen
        33361 jon        2   0  9744K  5976K select   3:10  0.00%  0.00% screen
        \_ So why is soda running mysqld? And why hkhung (logged in from the
           \_ why not?
           farm) running java_X on soda?
           BTW, root is running screen -r. I sure hope we have the version
           of screen that doesn't have a local root exploit...
2001/2/21 [Uncategorized] UID:20633 Activity:high
2/20    For how long can you keep seeds in a dry and cool place before planting
        them?  I'm wondering about Jacaranda or Castanea seeds but my question
        is more general.  Note that I'm NOT asking about bulbs.  Thanks.
        \_ if you keep them more than 53 days and 6 hours, they will all die.
           \_ That's only in equitorial regions man.  I think that's more
              like 57 days and 19 hours in more temperate regions.
        \_ you can keep them indefinitely.  The longer you keep them the less
            likely they will sprout when planted.  Its not an absolute step
            function, and the 'half life' of the seeds depends on the seed.
2001/2/21 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:20634 Activity:nil
2/20    My hard drive just died. It was a Maxtor 27 GB, and as far as I can
        tell there is something physically/mechanically wrong with the drive,
        it's not just a software/boot record problem. Is there any way to get
        some of my data back? How much do "data recovery" services cost?
        what's a good kind of hard drive to get so this never happens to me
        again?
        \_ 1) Yes  2) More than you're willing to pay  3) It's called
           "backup"
                \_ anyone care to actually provide a helpful answer? (I do
                   backups, just not frequently enough).
                   \_ Those _are_ helpful answers.  There are ways and they
                      are incredibly expensive.  The only other reasonable
                      low cost way is to do regular backups.  Now maybe you
                      have learned something and won't attack someone for
                      providing the truth just because you don't like it.
                        --not the person who gave the 1-2-3 answers above
                   \_ 1) Yes
                      2) Probably on the order of $200-$1000 or more
                         if the platters are scratched.
                      3) No harddrive is failure proof, regardless of
                         what drive you get you need to understand that
                         it will fail and thus you should be doing backups
                         (and restoring from them) frequently enough to
                         make sure that a failure won't cause significant
                         data loss.
                         If frequent backups are not an option, then
                         consider getting a second disk and doing a
                         hot backup every night. At least this way you
                         can plug in a new drive instantly.
                         Consider mirrored raid. Get four disks and mirror
                         your content. The probability that all four disks
                         will fail at the same time is pretty small.
        \_ try http://www.drivesavers.com or for a more detailed selection,
  http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Computers/Services/Data_Recovery
           --hopefully helpful
        \_ We have not yet arrived at a reliable, consumer-priced hard drive.
           E.g., the IBM 75GXPs that everyone was fond of has people
           complaining about failures (see http://storagereview.com) for certain
           disk sizes.  Maxtor is known for failing disk.  Seagate ...
           well, they had business problems.  Western Digital seems too
           middle-of-the-road.  Our company got a set of 20GB IDE IBM disks
           about a year ago and 1 out of 5 failed after 6 months.  So, the
           answer is:  backups.
           \_ so, what's good consumer software to use for backups to CD?
                - not the original poster, but "scared straight"
                \_ Pretty much any CD-R burning software will be fine for
                   backups, but you'll have to choose files by hand.  CD-R
                   media generally doesn't work well with automated backup
                   programs because it's so small compared to the disks it's
                   backing up.  -tom
        \_ USB 2.0 == good.  Wait until the end of the year and you'll see.
                \_ uh, what does that have to do with hard disk
                   reliability?
                   \_ USB 2.0 is going to be a big flop, at which point
                      most people will switch IEEE1394, allowing them
                      access to cheap IDE hardware raid solutions.
2001/2/21 [Academia/Berkeley/Classes] UID:20635 Activity:nil
2/20    hey, who's in 152 this semester?  just curious...
2001/2/21 [Uncategorized] UID:20636 Activity:nil
2/20    http://www.beapimp.com -- kinda like amihotornot
        \_ I love these sites. Where do you find this shit?
           \_ came across it while reading fuckedcompany message board.
2001/2/21 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/Security] UID:20637 Activity:nil
2/19    http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/2364
        Potentially major security hole in linux kernels up through 2.2.18
        \_ Shocking.  A security hole in a linux kernel... who wooda thunk it?
        \_ no. it is _all_ kernels, we verified this last night
           you want to change, in /usr/src/linux/sysctl.c (around line
           1125, the line that reads int l, len to size_t l, len. - paolo
2001/2/21 [Uncategorized] UID:20638 Activity:nil
2/19    Is it possible to find a room in an aparatment or house within a
        walking distance from campus for $500/month?
        \_ Yes. http://www.calrentals.housing.berkeley.edu
2001/2/21 [Transportation/Car] UID:20639 Activity:high
2/19    U-Haul wants $56 for a move between towns (pick up the truck in
        town A and drop it off in town B). Is there a cheaper alternative?
        This is from South to East Bay and it's a small truck.
        \_ It's cheaper if you take back to where you rented it.
           \_ but you have to pay for double the mileage, and it might not
              be worth it depending on the miles.
           \_ When I rented, one-way was much cheaper, and I would have
              had to drive it back, and that wasn't even counting the extra
              miles.  (U-Haul)
        \_ If it's not too much stuff you need to move, rent a passenger
        van from Budget or Thrifty or whatever. get unlimited mileage,
        ask them to take out the seats.
        \_ if you have a car with a trailer hitch, you can rent a van-trailer
            with unlimited miles too.  Worked for me.  -ERic
2001/2/21 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus] UID:20640 Activity:nil
2/19    I want to use pair, string, and list of SGI's STL at
          http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl
        with VC 6.0.  I am having a hell of a time trying to compile the
        source, and using it.

        QUESTIONS:
        1) Are all of the STL's out there uses/have the same interface?
           \_ what part of S don't you understand
              \_ SGI's STL has some non-standard extensions, although
                 these are documented.
        2) Other than the not intuitive docs availalbe at the site, are there
           any recommended online/offline references which I can use without
           spending like months trying to figure things out?
        3) Are there more intuitive STL's out there besides SGI's?
        \_ There's a semi-standard interface that's defined with C++ (I
           believe it's part of the standard). I would rely on what's in
           the latest Stroustrup ("The C++ Programming Language", 3rd ed.,
           which for the record is considerably better than previous
           editions) both for the "standard" interface as well as the docs.
           It would be difficult to learn STL from what's on the SGI site
           (although it is a good reference). Stroustrup does a reasonably
           good job.
           As far as VC++ goes, the way we do it is to include the header
           files you want (all without .h's; i.e. #include <list>,
           #include <string>). When you do this, everything is in the
           std namespace, so it is probably easiest for you to do
           "using namespace std;" in your include headers so you can declare
           lists instead of std::lists. When you do this you use the std
           ostream and istream operators, which differ from the regular
           ones, but you probably won't notice much difference. Good luck.
           \_ Thanks for the tips.  That's very helpful.
              One more Q.  If I want to put all of the templates in the same
              dir as my project as in D:\myproject\, do I need to anything
              special since all of the STL files refer to each other as
              <file> instead of "file"?
              \_ Minus any special knowledge about what your situation is,
                 I would strongly urge you to leave the headers in the
                 VC++ directories where they are shipped. STRONGLY urge.
                 In answer to your specific question, include "" looks:
                 directory of included file, directory of including file,
                 compiler option /I paths, INCLUDE env. variable. include
                 <> looks: compiler option /I paths, INCLUDE env. variable.
                 So you might have a bit of trouble putting them in your
                 compiling directory. (This is all MS VC++ specific; actual
                 behavior of #include <> is "implementation defined".)
        \_ By the way, last time I checked MS VC++ shipped with a
           version of STL that didn't include hash_map.  If you end up
           using the MS VC++ STL and you need hash_map, you can get a
           stand alone copy from my web page at http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~emin
        \_ MS's STL was actually written by the folks at DinkumWare
           (http://www.dinkumware.com ; they have (costly) upgrades if
           you are in need of them, since they're more recent than the
           MS ones. Of more interest are their "bug fixes" at
           http://www.dinkumware.com/vc_fixes.html: well documented and
           quite helpful. The sstream one was of particular interest to me.
        \_ Try http://www.stlport.org -- it's still free, and it should work
           better.  Read http://www.stlport.org/doc/README.VC++.html for
           VC++-specific issues.  -- misha.
2001/2/21 [Reference/Tax] UID:20641 Activity:nil
2/19    Can a good CPA really save you more money than turbotax?  I finished
        doing my taxes with turbotax and I'm considering paying a CPA to do
        it again.  Just to see if he/she can find more deductions and ways of
        saving me money.  Has anybody done the same?  What was the result?
        Thanks.
        \_ Yes. Yes. Good.
        \_ If you did your taxes and ended up ahead (or even close to) the
           Standard Deduction when you Itemized, you might want to go for it
           (get the CPA).  If the Std was solidly in the lead, they probably
           won't be able to magically find multi-thousand-dollar things for
           you to deduct.
           \_ depends on whether you have 1099 income from independent sources
              or not.  With it, you can deduct items not incl. in the standard.
              \_ But presumeably TT would have caught that...
              \_ If you have 1099-MISC income of any import, go see a CPA.
                 The interactive "What-if" walkthrough w/ accountant nabbed a
                 good $6k extra return for me, at a cost of $500 for the
Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2001:February:21 Wednesday <Thursday>