Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2001:May:28 Monday <Sunday, Tuesday>
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2001/5/28 [Recreation/Computer, Politics/Domestic, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:21369 Activity:very high
4/422   Hey, I know!  How about blowing away the motd and replacing it with
        nothing?  That would be fun, huh?  Restored.
        \_ NUKE THE MOTD! NOT NUKING THINGS WOULD BE EVIL, COMMIE, AND
           LIBERAL.
                \_ Uhm, is there a point to all this?  Are you trying to be
                   funny?  Sarcastic?  Witty?  Something else?  Obviously your
                   intelligence far surpasses mine and I'm unable to figure out
                   what you're getting at without it being spelled out for me.
        \_ Yeah! Thanks for the suggestion!
        \_ get the date right.
           \_ Done. APRIL NEVER ENDED.
              \_ what's this recurring "April never ended" thing?  Yes, yes,
                 if I have to ask, I don't know...
                 \_ That's the clueless version of the line.  The Real Thing
                    goes, "Those who know don't tell, those who tell don't
                    know".
                    \_ That's really stupid.
2001/5/28-29 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:21370 Activity:very high
4/423   for thoes of you who multi-boot, what boot loaders do you use or
        recommend?
        \_ I have two boots.  I wrote an "L" on one and an "R" on the other
           with a paint pen and have not had any problems booting yet.
        \_ Use whatever boot loader your OS comes with. For Linux/i386, grub
           is a good alternative to LILO, though the installation is somewhat
           awkward. --Galen
        \_ I just use LILO... never had a problem.
        \_ grub
        \_ partition magic for fs layout and partitioning... well, *magic*,
           then lilo for boot records.
           \_ ditto.
        \_ bsd boot>
        \_ jtag emulator (Doh!)
        \_ The NT boot loader!
           \_ can the NT boot loader be installed independently of NT?  I have
              neither Linux nor NT on this system, so I don't have LILO or the
              NT loader.  FreeBSD's boot manager is a bit too spartan for my
              tastes.
                \_ In theory, yes, you can install just enough of NT to get
                   the boot loader but I was kidding.  No one would really do
                   this on a non-MS system.
        \_ osbs
2001/5/28-29 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:21371 Activity:very high
5/28    A year ago I backed up my home dir onto a CD-R.  Afterwards I tried it
        on a regular CD-ROM and all the files seems ok.  Now when I try to
        access it it complains about a corrupted directory structure?  What
        could cause this to happen?  Bad CD writer or bad disk?  And is there
        a way to recover from this?  Thanks.
        \_ If you backed it up on a CD you must not have cared about it.  I
           suggest you ditch the coaster and move on with your life.
           \_ CD-R's are fairly reliable, certainly more so than most tape
              media.  What do you do your backups on, troll?  They are
              susceptible to scratching, particularly if you write on the top
              surface with a ball-point.  They can also theoretically degrade
              over time, but they still should be better than most tapes.
              Have you tried it in different drives?  Sometimes a particular
              drive and a particular CD won't get along because of vibration
              or other issues.  -tom
                   \_ The other major problem with CDRs is that they are
                      exteremely sensitive to any sort of light. You can't
                      leave them lying around exposed to overhead light
                      or sunlight and then expect that they will work.
                      If you need reliable backups, I would suggest MO
                      or a external harddrive.
                        \_ hard drives are many orders of magnitude less
                           reliable than CD's, even CD-R's.  -tom
                           \_ An unpowered external hardrive will last
                              years as compared to the life of the ave.
                              cdr which is less than a few months. MO
                              is the way to go if you *really* care about
                              your data.
                                \_ MO is good (and recordable DVD is a
                                   successor to MO, not to CD-R).  But CD-R
                                   is pretty damn reliable; manufacturer
                                   claims are for 75 years, and I've never
                                   had a burned disk go bad on me.  Burning
                                   failure rates are fairly high, but that's
                                   not a longevity issue.  -tom
                                   \_ I'll bet you burn your CDRs and then
                                      put them in a cool dark place unlike
                                      above poster.
                                        \_ The back seat of my car in the
                                           parking lot doesn't count?!?!
                \_ Would you trust your data to one burn on a CD or the
                   typical 0/5/9 tape cycle where your data is likely to hit
                   tape multiple times and probably get a copy stored off
                   site?  I'll keep my stuff on tape, thanks.  It's easier to
                   manage, holds more, and less likely to result in a motd
                   post about "how do i get my stuff off this fucked up tape?"
                   Maybe you can explain why tapes are still in use if CDs
                   make superior backup media?  Everyone else must just be
                   stupid, huh?  In this case, he might get lucky and find out
                   it's just a CD device incompatibility issue, but then
                   again, maybe not.  I prefer to avoid "luck" with my data.
                   \_ The issue of the reliability of the media is
                      completely irrelevant to whether there's more than one
                      copy--you can do 0/5/9 with CD, too.  Are you really
                      doing multiple-level tape backups with off-site storage
                      for files on your home machine?  Of course not, you're
                      just trolling.  And I didn't say CD's make superior
                      backup media, I said they're more reliable than tape.
                      The limited size makes CD not useful as backup for
                      shared filesystems.  -tom
                      \_ More than one copy *is* important.  No one cares about
                         media reliability so much as they do about getting
                         their data back.  If one media type is slightly more
                         reliable than another but I have 6 copies on the
                         lesser media type, my odds of getting my data back are
                         better with the 6 copies on lesser media.  Tell me
                         you've got 3+ copies of each CDR?
                      \_ He didn't say it was a home machine.  He said it was
                         a "home dir" which is an entirely different matter.
                         And yes, it's easier to do 0/5/9 with tape than CD.
                         No, I don't do any backups for home, per se.  Files I
                         want to keep get tgz'd and copied to work where I do
                         incrementals/fulls/offsite.  But, oh yes, I forgot,
                         anyone who disagree with tom is automatically a troll.
                      \_ Interesting... what media do you recommend for backup
                         of a home system? (FWIW, right now my main strategy
                         is rsync of what I care about to several computers.)
                         --Galen
                        \_ the vast majority of home users don't do backups at
                           all, so if you're doing anything you're ahead of
                           the game.  I use CD's but if you have another
                           system that's probably fine too.  I just think
                           the first response was horribly ignorant.  -tom
                           \_ He never said it was a home system.  Read it.
                   \_ Dude, guys, is all that porn really worth the backup?
                      \_ hell yeah.  building up a good pr0n collection takes a
                         lot of time and effort.
                   \_ I'm with Tom on this one. -ausman
                        \_ Yup, that settles it.  This from the guy who has
                           trouble reading a dictionary and projects this
                           reading problem on others.  With friends like that..
                           \_ "To all the gossips and the liars, I will see
                              see you in the fires." -J. Cash
2001/5/28-29 [Transportation/Bicycle] UID:21372 Activity:very high
5/28    I'm thinking about biking. What do you guys prefer, street bike
        or mountain bike? What is more dangerous statistically speaking--
        if biking in SF/Oakland I might get hit by a car (and die), and
        if biking in mtn I might break a bone or two.
        \_ Statistically speaking, biking is safer than driving in any
           case, so don't worry about it.  If you like being in control,
           or the idea of going long distances, go with road biking.  If
           you like being out of control, and the idea of getting to very
           remote areas, go with mountain biking.  -tom
           \_ Stastically speaking anyone can make statistics say anything they
              want to support or oppose any position.  "How to lie with
              statistics" is available through amazon, thin, and cheap.
              statistics" is available through amazon, thin, and cheap. And
              no, there's no point in countering one set of statistics with
              another.  And none of this has anything to do with the original
              question anyway.  -reiffin
                \_ Oh, so statistics are inherently useless--instead of
                   trying to figure out what happens in the real world, we
                   should just use reiffin's world view as the authoritative
                   source for all information!  Man, no wonder you don't
                   sign your posts, and delete anything which disagrees with
                   you.  -tom
                   \_ The motto of the Berkeley Statistics department is:
                      "No prior knowledge required."  (See if anyone gets the
                      inside joke, alice should).
                        \_ the amusing thing is that reiffin used to work
                           for the statistics department.
                      \_ Heheh, I guess Blackwell didn't have a say in this
                         motto.  -- alice
                      \_ Heheh.  -- alice
                         \_ You are not alice.
                            \_ I am Alice. -alice@97.3
                            \_ Says who?  -- alice
                               \_ Ok, if you are alice, explain the inside
                                  joke.
        \_ statistically, little children bike.  are you a man or a baby?
           \_ Statistically speaking, fat slobs drive, are you a fat slob?
        \_ You can get a pretty nice road bike for less than you'll have
           to pay for a pretty nice mountain bike, it seems.  Neither seems
           more dangerous to me with respect to cars since the road rides I
           go on aren't on crowded roads during commute hours or anything
           like that.
        \_ Any ideas where to buy a good street/road bike and how much it
           could cost?
           \_ I like Missing Link.  Pretty much any road bike carried by
              a local bike shop will be good--they usually don't carry
              anything under $600.  -tom
        \_ Mountain bike for me.  If you went through Berkeley without
           mountain biking the Berkeley/Oakland hills, you are missing
           out on a fabulous experience.
        \_ If you're not planning to ride anywhere but streets,
           a road bike (or even a hybrid) will be a much easier ride.
           I have to expend much more energy to ride a mountain bike
           than a road bike, I assume because of the larger wheels.
Berkeley CSUA MOTD:2001:May:28 Monday <Sunday, Tuesday>