4/16    Do Berkeley teach design patterns these days?  Are design
        patterns useful?
        \_ You should check the class web page for 169 (software engineering)
           and maybe some grad classes with the same title.  Hey look,
           one of their main textbooks is "Extreme Programming Explored".
        \_ yes, very useful if you want to be an architect
        \_ Berkeley teaches English too.  Much more useful than design
           patterns.
           \_ A sentence fragment.  Another.  Good device.  Will be used
              more later.
              \_ English learning goodly how to on motd grammar speling and
                 goodness are muchly so!  Discuss.
                 \_ You missed it.
           \_ Has Berkeley introduced a class yet on how to chill the fuck
              out and just get to the point if someone asks you a question
              instead of changing the subject if you dont know the answer?
              \_ Such a class was proposed, but the Rhetoric professors engaged
                 in ad-hominem attacks on the person who proposed it.
        \_ You should check the web pages for 169 and maybe some grad
           classes with the same title.

4/16    Do programmers at startups normally get raises every year (assuming
        they are doing a good job etc)? Or is there some kind of
        understanding that people don't get raises until the company hits
        certain technical or financial milestones?
        \_ maybe it depends on how well you're being paid in the first place.
           if they're underpaying you and not giving you a raise, they'll
           find it hard to retain even semi-competent people.

4/16    Hamas_leader_002 go boom.  Long live Hamas_leader_003!
        \_ hey man, he needs to show he's not giving stuff away, so he
           can get the vote he needs for disengagement - what better way
           than to blow up terrorists?
        \_ hey man, #2 was a murderous piece of shit and earned his place in
           heaven with his 72 virgin brides.  kill them fast enough and the
           others will get the idea that being a terrorist leader isn't the
           fun flashy and lucrative adventure anymore it was for Arafat and a
           tiny cadre of his senior PLO buddies.
           \_ Yeah, its worked really well at stopping that terra so far!
              \_ ditto.  That, along with the promise of permantly occupies
                 westbank.
                 \_ *MAY BE* Sharon is making false promise of permantely
                    occupies Westbank for now, to build political support for
                    withdraw from Gaza.  At the same time, kill one or two
                    guys in Hamas to show they withdraw according to their
                    own will, not defeated by PLO.  Once withdraw from
                    Gaza is completed, *MAY BE* he will announce withdraw
                    from the Westbank as well.  It's just my personal fantacy,

4/16    How much should I expect to pay to have a car painted?  How can I tell
        if a place will do a good job?
        \_ You need to get a recommendation from someone else otherwise you
           don't stand a chance of picking a good place from the phone book.
           Painting costs about $80/hour.  The last time I got hit, they
           charged the insurance company 4.5 hours to paint *2* side panels
           on my car.  For a non-insurance vanity job they will probably not
           fuck you over on the hours that hard but it ain't cheap.
           \_ I'm interested in buying a very specific model of used car, and
              If I don't have to concern myself with color/paint condition it
              will make the search much easier, so what should I expect to pay
              to completely repaint a normal-size car?
              \_ why don't you just call a few places, or are you scared of
                 talking to real people...
                 \_ Yes, I was hoping for anonymous motd advice.
                    \_ Guestimate: $2k to $3k.  Probably not worth it for
                       your used car plans.  My wife's car is a small hot
                       little 2 door.  The local place wanted $7k to touch it.
        \_ You get what you pay for.  Ask them about the procedure
           they're going to follow.  It should range from several
           hundred bucks for someone to clean the existing surface,
           mask off the unpainted exterior surfaces, and spray on some
           new paint, up to several thousand for someone to do it
           properly.  To do a proper job of it, they would need to
           remove all the trim, partially dismantle the car to get
           access to painted surfaces that are not external (open your
           door -- notice that the paint continues inside the sill and
           jamb, and think about how that will look if that surface is
           skipped while changing colors), strip the paint off down to
           bare metal, remove and replace any old bondo, sand it
           smooth, apply some number of coats of primer, some number
           of coats of colored paint, and some number of clearcoats.
           They will need to sand out irregularities in the finish
           between some coats.  The number of coats will depend on how
           you want it to look at the end.  A good painter should be
           able to help you find a good cost/benefit point for what
           you want to do (or help you understand why what you want is
           prohibitively expensive).
        \_ Related question:  A passenger smacked the edge of my car door
           into a wall and now there's a small nick in it that bugs me.
           there's also a tiny dent in the edge--is it difficult to fix
           this sort of thing?  -John
           \_ maybe with a significant change in lifestyle and some therapy,
              but it's a longshot.  usually uptight assholes who obsess about
              their cars tend to stay that way for life.  Or is that not what
              you meant?
              \_ No actually I meant that a nicked car door makes it less
                 intimidating when I bear down on militantly aggressive
                 twats who drive shitty cars with "visualize world peace"
                 stickers and who haven't showered in months.  Next? -John
                 \_ Thank you for proving my point.
                    \_ You had a point?  I asked how hard it is to fix
                       small dents, you responded with pointless insult.
                       Do us a favor, don't reproduce.  Moron.  -John
           \_ dump her.
              \_ The passenger was the boss.
                 \_ And that cheap fucker didn't offer to repair the damage?
                    \_ That's why I'm asking.  I want to know if it'll be
                       cheap to fix, so I can continue being a gracious host
                       and not tie said person to my hood like a cheap
                       hunting trophy as punishment.  -John
                       \_ those things are expensive to fix, most people
                          don't bother with it because it takes a lot
                          of effort and luck to get it right.  Having said
                          that, if you ask for paying the damange, you will
                          be look like a cheap asshole for some reason, even-
                          though everyone knows it's expensive to fix it.

4/16    Why gamers don't vote:
        http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004-04-14&res=l

4/16    I use a 250GB WD disk with a single ext3 filesystem for making
        backups, and it had a directory that containted all my system
        snapshot backup directories.  Yesterday, I discovered that the
        directory has somehow turned into a text file containing the
        content of /etc/login.defs. Is there a way to fix this without
        removing all the hanging inodes, and thus removing all the backups?
        I've heard people complain about ext filesystems.  What reliable
        filesystems do you recommend for use on a linux non-root filesystem
        used for making backups?
        \_ Sigh... ext2: suck0rz.  ext3 = ext2 + pseudo journal = suck0rz with
           pseudo journaling.  I haven't used reiserfs enough to comment.  I
           have used xfs extensively on 2.2 and 2.4 boxes and in those
           environments, xfs = suck0rz.  I haven't ever used jfs or any of the
           less common linux file systems.  I've read the xfs on 2.6 has been
           greatly improved but that's what they said for xfs on 2.4 right
           before I lost 2 terabytes on 2.4 xfs.  Using some psychotic reverse
           logic, I'd recommend JFS or Reiserfs only because I haven't used
           them yet and thus haven't had data loss on those FSs.  ;-)
           As far as your repairs go, try this:
                1) dd the drive to another drive so you have a copy and then
                   do the following on that copy so you don't fuck up the only
                   copy you've got,
                2) try a simple forced fsck on the copy and see what happens.
                   a second forced fsck and a reboot is worth the extra 30
                   seconds of effort if the first doesn't work just because,
                3) if that doesn't work, there are a number of file recovery
                   utilities out there that *may* be able to recover some of
                   your back up files,
                3b) if this is company data, there are professional data
                    recovery firms that *will* recover most, if not all, of
                    your lost data in this situation but they will charge you
                    anywhere between $20,000 and $80,000 and will not guarantee
                    success to any degree before they start.
                4) good luck, I've been there, corrupt FSs suck.  It sounds
                   like you don't have a second backup or anything on tape.
                        --motd storage guru
                   \_ Thanks. I don't have a second backup, but that seems like
                      a good idea. What's the best way to get 250GB on tape?
                      perhaps I'll get another 250 GB disk and firewire
                      enclosure.
           \_ Your "VaporWare has no bugs" logic makes me suspicious of your
              "storage guru" status, but what specific problems are you aware
              of with ext3?  -Not a Linux Fan, but using it.
              \_ It should have been clear to anyone with basic English
                 reading comprehension skills exactly what I meant and why I
                 said that.  However, for you I shall explain: since all of
                 the linux FSs I've used extensively have severe problems,
                 the only alternative when seeking a viable FS is to try
                 something unknown.  It may have bugs.  It may not.  It should
                 have been clear from my own description of my own logic in
                 that regard that I wasn't vouching for FSs unknown to me in
                 extensive daily usage.  As far as ext3 is concerned, it has
                 the same corruption problems as ext2 since it is little more
                 than ext2 with pseudo journaling kludge on.  Once you get
                 over your core comprehension problem we can discuss my
                 qualifications vs. those of others on the motd for storage
                 guru status.  I know of at least one person here who works
                 for Veritas.  Other than that I'm unaware of and never seen
                 any exceptional knowledge from other motd posters.  If you
                 prefer I can simply stop answering storage questions since
                 my flawed logic has so clearly tainted my advise in your
                 eyes.  I don't care either way.  -- msg
                 \_ What is wrong with ext3 other than "I have experienced
                    crashes"?  Is it a performance problem with small files,
                    large files, filesystem corruption, metadata operation
                    problems, a problem with crash recovery due to async
                    operation, journaling strategy or implementation etc.
                    If you really were a file system guru, you would have
                    given feedback in these terms.
                    \_ Nonsense.  I'm not a paid consultant for the motd.
                       Back to reading comprehension and context.  Since the
                       op was concerned with FS corruption, what do *YOU*
                       think I was talking about?  --msg
                    \_ What filesystem do you recommend?
                       \_ It depends on the purprose obviously.
                          I wouldn't recommend GPFS for a desk top
                          but for a high performance set up, GPFS
                          has an interesting design.  Are you setting
                          up a mail spool?  db?  newsspool?  Home p0rn
                          and warez store?
                          \_ One for snapshot-backups, another for
                             all-purpose sever, mail, web etc.
                             \- for my decent sized data operations,
                                say ~1tb, i use freebsd. minor vinum
                                problems but in general very solid,
                                even in the face of yank-the-cord-out
                                type crashes. for my "large data" either
                                we dont really care too much about
                                performance or reliability [batch processing
                                on scratch data] or we use sort of exotic
                                stuff that probably doesnt apply in your case.
                                andrew hume is a "large data" consumer who
                                doesnt like linux and is someone i'd trust
                                on blind faith, although that was a while ago.
                                i dont know if he has changed his mind with
                                linux 2.6. i'm not totally clear what his
                                problems where. i've seen linux corrupt data
                                for unknown reasons, bad memory, bad ethernet
                                driver in addition to crashes. the only major
                                problem i had on freebsd had to do with the
                                whole box crashing ... which may have had
                                something to do with a raid card [it looked
                                like a hw prob, but it wouldnt manifest when
                                the same hardware was running linux, knoppix]
                                etc. and dont get me started on about linux
                                block/char dev, caching, dumping issues.--psb
                                \_ you consider 1tb to be decent sized?  uhm,
                                   yeah, whatever.  that's peanuts.
                 \_ Hear hear, ext2/3 is absolutely horrible in case of
                    catastrophic failure. It is exceedingly crash sensitive,
                    surprisingly even more so than UFS, which at least
                    attempts to appear crash resilient with it's fsck
                    hell. I just recently lost my umpteenth ext2/3 partition
                    last week on a new machine when an IRQ conflict
                    kept hanging the machine. -williamc
                 \_ Random question -- is it easy to get fbsd fs (any) to work
                    with linux?
                    \- why dont you install fbsd and run with linux application
                       compat options.
                       \_ Because fbsd is just a lot more difficult to use than
                          linux.  For instance, linux compat isn't, as you
                          well know.
                          \_ freebsd harder than linux?  holy shit, son!  where
                             did you get *that* idea from?  the free, online
                             freebsd handbook is clearly organised and has
                             updated to answers to all your major setup, config
                             and performance questions.  linux is a mishmash of
                             google searching and prayer.  --  old **nix admin
                             \_ Uh ... huh.  Like why ports doesn't work?
                 \_ What is your opinion/experience with reiserfs?
                 \_ I have used ext3 extensively with no issues. I have
                    about 6 TB of storage with file sizes of several GBs.
                    What exactly is the problem?
                    \_ that's what we call 'getting lucky' in the IT world.
                       i hope you're keeping really good backups.  of the
                       80 or so tb had on ext3, about 5tb spontaneously
                       corrupted with no advanced warning.  unrecoverable.
                       my company no longer uses linux for storage systems
                       after the zillion crash and data loss event.
                    \- on performance issues you can look at the freenix
                       paper by bryant forrester hawks. i dont know if there
                       is an update to the paper [pls post if you know] --psb
                       \_ What if performance isn't an issue?
                          \- then use AssOS with AssFS
                \_ ok another question, how easy is it to mirror
                   all partitions, including /, in freebsd with
                   software RAID ?
                   \- hmm, this is an interesting time to be asking.
                      if you are not invested in freebsd4 you might look
                      at GEOM. anyone using GEOM? also, in my experience
                      if you are not pretty familar with veritas, disk suite,
                      vinum etc you could be getting yourself into trouble
                      by booting off of it. after a machine has crashed is
                      not when you want to be reading man pages because
                      you used to do everything with GUIs etc. --psb
                      \_ heh, aint that the truth.  make sure you've got a
                         bootable recovery cd and keep it up to date.  this
                         applies to all boot disk raid systems.
        \_ summary of above: ask a performance question regarding your
           intended workload.  ask a reliability question based on your
           expected failure modes.  if your most likely failures are
           due to putting the system into random states w/ bad hardware,
           bad power, or bad kernel modules: you need off-line backups.
           we've been running a multi-TB filesystem on a dual processor
           dell xeon server w/ software RAID0 striping for over a year
           that gets completely beat on by local processes and NFS clients
           who use it as volatile scratch space, yet we've never had a
           problem.  it lives in the relatively controlled environment
           of a machine room.  i believe we're using ext3 w/ relatively
           stock redhat 9 software.
           \_ ext3 on redhat, hehe, you've got another copy of anything
              important, right?  it took about year before i started seeing
              problems, but maybe you wont see that since you're not keeping
              data there long term.
              \_ Some people have apparently had issues. At least two of
                 us on the motd have not. Your experience does not match mine.
                 Maybe your hardware sucks or there is some other variable.

4/16    Any recommendations for a IDE to Firewire enclosure?
        \_ I've been happy with my ADS enclosure (they make the Pyro 1394
           cards).
           http://www.google.com/froogle?scoring=p&q=1394+ide+enclosure+ads&btnG=Search+Froogle

4/16    Why do dogs (specifically pomeranians) eat their own poop?
        (serious question).
        \_ Just a guess- same reason cats bury their poo- to cover
           their tracks so that predators can't track them?
        \_ Dog eat their poop cause it's tasty.
           Cats cover their poop cause it's stinky.