10/22   Let's say I didn't apply for NSF grant and I got into grad school.
        Can I apply again in grad school?
        \_ Yes, in your first year.
           http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2001/nsf01146/nsf01146.htm#elig
           \_ deadline, btw, is Nov. 7th.
                \_ thx. Where can I get statistics so that I know what is
                   my likelihood of getting it, and if I should apply?
                   \_ http://www.orau.org/nsf/nsffaq.htm
                   \_ btw they will not accept letters from the Career Center
                      file; they need the prof to use a special NSF form. So
                      forget it :(  thanks for your help     -original poster

10/22   Why are the rc?.d scripts on solaris HARD links?
        What is wrong with soft links??  How can you tell a hard link
        anyway?  (why doesn't `file` specify a hard link the way it
        does to a soft link?). Please provide (URL containing) clue.
        \_ So if you move-aside/rename a file, the /etc/init.d
           script would still point to the right one? I'm sure this isnt
           the only reason, but it is one. I also think it's used with
           some binaries or library files. It's also good cuz you can
           update one and update all(like when overwriting the file with
           a newer version). Hard links may be faster too.
           Just guesses. I don't know the real reason.
           You should be able to detect hardlinks by looking at 'ls -l'
           output (a 2 or greater in 2nd column).
        \_ files that aren't softlinke are hardlinks.
        \_ You can delete the file the soft link points to and the link
           breaks. You can't break a hard link.
           \_ this still does not provide an explanation to why Solaris
              rc?.d scripts use hard links as opposed to soft links.
              \_ Give me a good reason why you would do it the other way.
                  \_ maybe some psycho wants to put them on a different
                     filesystem?  Can't do hard links across fs's.
                     \_ if you call this a good reason, you're a
                        major fucking twink.
                        \_ I never said it was a _good_ reason, just one
                           possible reason that might make hard links not
                           an option.
        \_ you obviously have no idea what a hard link is if you're trying to
           distinguish between that and a "real file" ...
           \_ i've got a hard link in my pocket.

10/24   anybody know of a PCI video card with DVI output?
        \_ ATI Radeon
           \_ sorry, I meant for the PC.  oh, and specific models would help...
        \_ http://www.tomshardware.com

10/24   I'm trying to configure my ethernet interface in FreeBSD. ifconfig -a
        doesn't show an "ed0" device, but it does show a "sis0" that I think
        might be the equivalent to "ed0". What is sis0, and can I use it as my
        ethernet interface?
        \_ man sis
        \_ the "letters" part of the device name is just the chipset.  I don't
           have an ed0 or an sis0.
        \_ ed0 would be a NE2000 card or a clone, sis0 would be, eg, a NetGear
           FA312 ether card.  Odds are thats your ethernet.
        \_ you are probably not tall enough to run bsd.  use linux.
           \_ And RIDE BIKE! too?  I think "windows" is the answer if you want
              to be mean about it.  ifconfig on linux and freebsd is
              essentially the same.  How would linux help?
              \_ Linux ethernet cards are reliably named ethN.

10/24   Using Check-point FW1, i have a 1 hour time-out which is very annoying
        to me.  i would like to eliminate it or make it VERY high.  Is this a
        really dumb thing to do, or is it only a slight risk for a lot of
        benefit?
        \_ You mean the TCP session idle timeout for NAT sessions or sessions
           for which FW1 is supposed ot keep state? I don't know about FW1 but
           IP Filter commonly used on *BSD has this timeout set to a really
           large value, something like 24 hours or so. The Linux 2.2 ipchains
           by default sets a very large timeout value too. I don't think this
           is big security risk but if you have a very large number of idle
           connections (e.g. thousands..), the software might run out of
           entries in its session state table.
           \_ earlier versions of IPFilter had a limit of 1024 state table
              entries--it's now been fixed.  We have the same problem with
              FW-1;  basically, it only comes into play when you have a
              connection that's idle for over 1 hour.  The idiotic thing
              with this value is that it's a global setting, and can't be
              done application-specific (ObFW1SucksPlug).  I don't believe
              there's not much of a security risk;  part of the reason it
              was done was to prevent idle connection hijacking.  You can
              get around it by running a simple script that echoes a single
              character on the target host every x minutes, assuming it's
              a login session.  If it's not (something like database,
              whatever) just set it to a reasonable level (2-3 hours) if
              you really need to.  -John

10/24   Is there some way in pine to instruct it to leave my msgs on the
        server? Is there some terminal based mail client that will do this?
        \_ Uh, isn't this the default behavior? My mail's still in /var/mail.
           \_ d'oh... my mail is no longer in /var/mail. any other
              suggestions?
              \_ Do you have a file called mbox in your home directory?
                 \_ ah... perfect, thanks. I did but I renamed it and now
                    pine appears to be using /var/mail. Thanks. What is the
                    explanation for this behavior?
                    \_ Apparently, you had a file called mbox in your home
                       directory.
                       \_ pine is weird.
                    \_ Explanation here:
                http://www.washington.edu/pine/pine-info/1998.11/msg00060.html

10/24   If I compress my MP3s using WinAmp and RealAudio, will Archos or
        others recognize its MP3 format? Iv'e noticed that RealAudio saves
        more info that WinAmp doesn't pick up.
        \_ try it!
        \_ good god, Real's MP3 encoder sucks ass.  Why aren't you using LAME?
        \_ ANYTHING http://real.com makes sucks ass. That POS format/program
           is worse than WMP. Can't believe one of their VP is now a Senator

10/24   My sshd used to accept connections from machines without matching
        reverse lookup.  Then, all of a sudden, today, it stopped.  I changed
        resolv.conf to use a nameserver with made up ptr records and it works
        fine, but the question remains, What changed?  There is no indication
        that sshd has been restarted since the machine was 60 days ago.  This
        is on solaris, using (foolishly) F-secure sshd 2.0-2 which is also the
        same as it has been.  (i did stop some services 2 days ago, but nothing
        that should effect this).
        \_ You've been hacked.
        \_ Maybe you have edited the hosts.allow or hosts.deny files and
           added or removed some rules on those? This would apply if sshd
           was compiled with support for tcp wrappers.
        \_ Or it actually _was_ doing reverse lookups and your DNS broke.