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| 11/23 |
| 2011/11/16-12/28 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Computer/HW] UID:54230 Activity:nil |
11/16 We'll be taking all CSUA machines offline in the near future for a Soda
Hall server room reorganization (we're being moved to a neighboring
server cabinet). Downtime will hopefully be minimal. --jordan
\_ Thanks for all your work keeping the machines running! It's
been awesome having soda actually working again.
\_ Update: this is tentatively scheduled for Saturday afternoon.
\_ Update II: done!
\_ Glad to be of service. --jordan
\_ Ditto. -ausman |
| 2010/5/6-7 [Computer/HW, Computer/SW] UID:53819 Activity:nil 51%like:53821 |
5/6 Syzygryd Salon at GAFFTA on Friday, May 14th:
http://www.syzygryd.com/2010/syzygryd-salon-at-gaffta-on-fri-may-14th
It's a great opportunity to learn more about the project, and a chance
to play with some of the hardware and software we'll be demoing.
-dans |
| 2010/3/24-4/14 [Computer/HW] UID:53760 Activity:nil |
3/24 Soda is not allowed to connect to agae for Usenet. Which server
should we use?
\_ The campus no longer runs a Usenet server. For class newsgroups,
use news.csua (aka <DEAD>news.berkeley.edu<DEAD>); for others, there's a good
list of public servers at http://newzbot.com. --mconst |
| 2010/2/22-3/12 [Computer/HW] UID:53723 Activity:nil |
2/20 There was a failure validating the SSL/TLS certificate for the server
<DEAD>mail.csua.berkeley.edu<DEAD>
The reason for the failure was
self signed certificate in certificate chain (details)
We have not verified the identity of your server. If you ignore this certificate validation
problem and continue, you could end up connecting to an imposter server.
If the certificate validation failure was expected and permanent you may avoid seeing this
warning message in the future by adding the option
/novalidate-cert
to the name of the folder you attempted to access. In other words, where\
ver you see the characters
<DEAD>mail.csua.berkeley.edu<DEAD>
in your configuration, replace those characters with
<DEAD>mail.csua.berkeley.edu/novalidate-cert<DEAD>
Is anyone else getting this error trying to send email?
\_ motd format policy was here.
\_ using pine? |
| 11/23 |
| 2010/1/23-25 [Science/Disaster, Computer/SW/Security, Computer/HW] UID:53658 Activity:low |
1/22 Tornado at Brentwood! http://weather.yahoo.com/storm/USCA0128.html \_ oh noes a widdle weather. \_ yawn |
| 2009/12/7-2010/1/3 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW] UID:53574 Activity:nil |
12/7 How many TCP retransmits are too many? Here is what I get:
3594143433 segments received
3760174421 segments send out
3801829561 segments retransmited
\_ rephrase. you can never have too much money. or too little.
what is, is.
\_ You always get a few, but I have a bunch of squid servers that
I just noticed have 500/second, which seems really high to me.
They do about 20MB/sec at peak so this is a retransmit every
40K? This is kind of hard to believe, because they are working
fine.
More details have been requested so here they are:
Each server has apache and squid installed and serves about 10M
requests/day out of memory in 5ms or less. They are configured
as memory only squid servers. They are middle tier caching
servers, sitting between an application layer and an API.
They have 1Gb/sec uplinks to shared switches, which each have
1 Gb uplinks to the core routers. No other servers on the
switches are showing this behaviour and the switches themselves
are not overloaded. Further investigation shows that 99% of
the connections on the servers are sitting in TIME_WAIT, which
I actually think is the cause of these retrans. I am still trying
to figure out who is rudely dropping all their connections to
these servers, but it is hard, since all traffic is through a load
balancer (NetScaler). |
| 2009/11/24-12/6 [Computer/HW] UID:53542 Activity:low |
11/24 What is the best 25-32" monitor out there? I am ready to upgrade
my 9 year old CRT. -ausman
\_ How much money are you willing to spend, and how good do you
really need it to be good? Are you willing to pay $900 for the
industry standard monitor used by graphics artists, or are you
so cheap that you'll only want to pay up $400 for something that
is good enough for coding and checking email? $900 or $400?
I've uploaded an Apple LED Cinema Display 24" vs. Dell Ultrasharp
2408WFP, pixel-to-pixel comparisons for you monitor pixel peepers
out there. Does it mean anything? If you're not a pixel peeper, no.
link:bit.ly/DellVsApplePixel
\_ I spent $1k on my last one and will probably spend about that
this time. I might spend more if I really thought it was worth
it, but not $15k. If I can get really good quality for less,
I would be happy to spend less, but I doubt that is true.
I like to buy good things and then use them for a long time. -a
\_ "Best" is subjective. And sorry, I have no recommendation in
the 25-32" range. For 24.1", Eizo CG243W.
\_ $2200 eh? Do you have one? Is it worth it?
\_ I have a really old L565 and somewhat outdated S2410W
(paid around $1700). Zero complaints about L565. S2410W
uses Samsung's PVA panel, and I'm not quite satisfied with
it. CG243W uses the latest NEC IPS panel. If it had RGB
back-light, I'd pay $3000 for one. As is, I'm just very
tempted.
\_ Self correction. Apparently, even CG243W uses LG panel. Where
has all the high-end gone.... Also, the new SX2462W appears to
use the same IPS panel, at much cheaper price, but without
hardware calibration and some other really high-end features.
That might be a reasonably good buy. I'm just going to wait it
out until there's a no-compromise (to me anyway) model.
\_ Additional information. Looks like CG232W is the one using NEC
panel. It's actually smaller (22.5") but has the same resolution.
\_ CG232W has a $15k price tag. That is too much for me.
\_ I hate to sound like an Apple fanboi but when I tried out
the 24" Apple LED Cinema Display, I was completely sold.
Stay away from Dell Ultrasharp 24" unless price is an issue.
Check out http://Amazon.com user reviews.
\_ Curious why? I have a Dell Ultrasharp 24" and it has been a great
solid monitor, used for over 2 years now. -ERic
\_ It's a perfectly fine monitor for its price. It has MORE
features than the Apple Cinema display, by leaps and bounds
AND you can buy several Dells for the price of one Cinema
Display. Spec-wise, it is brighter, more contrast, yadda
yadda yadda. However, not everything is about features.
There's a reason why most graphic artists still prefer the
Mac-- better rendition of colors, and the color-balance
is simply calibrated very well. I wrote a review on
Amazon about this, and it used to be on the top review
(10/11 people thought it was useful). I just went back and
found out my review is now shifted to the bottom, WTF! They
also took out a near microscopic comparison of
pixels which I uploaded without giving me any warning!
FU Amazon. Anyways here it is:
link:bit.ly/DellVsApple24
\_ We have a bunch of 24" Dell Ultrasharps at work and some
have failed, but they were replaced under warranty. They
look fine when they are working. The Dell 20" and 30"
seem more reliable. If money was no object I'd go with Apple.
\_ 24" is fine, too. -ausman
\_ I am going to get the Apple 24" thanks for all your advice. -ausman |
| 2009/1/2-8 [Computer/HW, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:52310 Activity:low |
12/31 SOMEONE PLEASE FIX KEG! Why does it keep crashing?
\_ It's hard to tell. The risk of crashing seems to increase with
disk activity, or so it seems, but debugging the kernel doesn't
seem to yield much info. Email root for detailed info; I don't
have a deep understanding of the problem --t
\_ How about a backup LDAP server? I don't need files as much
as access.
\_ We do (did?) have a backup LDAP server. I think that it's also
suffering from old failing hardware, but again, root
(particularly Steven) hould have accurate-up-to-date info. The
new server won't arrive for a little while yet, and it's only
one server to replace several servers that have been failing in
recent times.
one server to replace several servers that have been failing
in recent times.
$PLEA_FOR_DONATIONS
--t
\_ Where do we send money to again? -ausman
\_ A check made out to the CSUA and mailed to 337 Soda
Hall, UC Berkeley, Berkeley CA 94720 or PayPal to
politburo@csua.berkeley.edu are the preferred methods.
--t
\_ Okay, I got some details on server roles, for reference.
soda: login, www, mysql
scotch: DNS
vermouth: mail, primary LDAP
keg: NFS, secondary LDAP, backups
screwdriver: linux mirror, mysql
lifesaver (now dead): LDAP, backups
---
Screwdriver and scotch don't mount NFS, so generally are the
only computers to survive a keg failure. --t
\_ New hardware is on the way! ETA 1 wk or so
Then give us a week to set it up and whatnot |
| 2008/12/5-10 [Computer/HW] UID:52180 Activity:nil |
12/5 Does anyone know of a cheap IR detector that can be hooked up to a
windows PC and set to send keystrokes to specific apps? I've cobbled
together a simple media PC and would like simple pause, rewind, etc.
\_ A quick google search for "usb ir sensor" uncovers this:
http://www.home-electro.com/tira2.php |
| 2008/10/16-17 [Computer/Networking, Computer/HW] UID:51550 Activity:nil |
10/15 Has anyone else used dnsmasq for DHCP and PXE booting? Have you found
a way to specify the 'next-server' option with dnsmasq?
conventional DHCP daemons let me specify 'next-server', I can't
figure out how to do it with dnsmasq. Thanks - danh |
| 2008/9/5-12 [Computer/HW] UID:51070 Activity:nil |
9/5i Anyone reccomend a good place to look for replacement cover parts for a\
dell inspiron 8200 ? The dell site is useless for determining what parts\
to order since there are no pictures
\_ ebay? Look at http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins8200/en/index.htm at the manuals -- most likely the service manual. Late to the party. Hope this doens't get deleted. |
| 2008/7/23-28 [Computer/HW] UID:50667 Activity:nil |
7/23 Translate server error:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/15/chinese-restaurant-c.html |
| 2007/11/13-16 [Computer/HW, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:48631 Activity:nil |
11/12 What is diff between SAN and NAS?
\_ NAS=Network Attached Storage. Appliance which provides disk
to servers/clients via file-based protocols (NFS, CIFS, iSCSI).
SAN=Storage Area Netwoork. Provides direct fiber connections from
multiple servers to a single storage array. -tom
\_ Here is another way to explain It: They're very similar in that
they are both technologies to have storage separate from the
server. However with NAS, the storage protocols run over the
server's normal network interfaces. With SAN they go over
special 'dedicated' storage-only connections, typically fiber.
Furthermore, SAN uses a different storage-optimized protocol,
whereas NAS typically operates over general network protocols
such as IP. -ERic |
| 2007/10/17-18 [Computer/HW] UID:48347 Activity:kinda low |
10/17 mail server is broken?
\_ soda: yes. use a real mail server. |
| 2007/8/22-23 [Computer/HW] UID:47708 Activity:low |
8/22 my server rack is out of control
http://urltea.com/1ahk
\_ "Free PORN at <DEAD>www.puretna.com"<DEAD> WTF? |
| 2007/8/22 [Computer/HW] UID:47702 Activity:nil |
8/22 my rack. still huge.
\_ Are you referring to your boobs or your penis?
\_ How vulgar! Server rack, of course! |
| 2007/8/21-22 [Computer/HW] UID:47692 Activity:nil |
8/21 My giant rack is feeling pretty huge this morning.
\_ Are you male or female?
\_ Salma Hayek needs to give birth soon or she's going to
explode: http://urltea.com/1a1w
\_ Hers were big even before pregnancy. |
| 2007/8/10-12 [Computer/HW] UID:47584 Activity:low |
8/10 I want to get off of Dell's postal catalog mailing list.
How do I do this? Thanks.
\_ Found this from http://www.dell.com
http://membership.dell.com/myaccount/subscription/SubListRemoval.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2urep4
\_ That was awesome. Thanks. |
| 2007/6/6-10 [Academia/Berkeley/HKN, Computer/HW] UID:46862 Activity:low |
6/5 I live in Berkeley and need to get rid of an old obsolete PC and
a monitor (from previous century). Is there an electronics recycling
facility nearby?
\_ http://accrc.org. They'll even come pick it up for free. --mconst
\_ what he said. no recycling fee! -brain
\_ could try East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse
\_ Berkeley Marina Pier
\_ Pig! You could accidentally splash an alternative housing
person that way.
\_ I prefer to call them "Urban Campers"
\_ How about Used Computers on Shattuck?
\_ pft. Don't do business with them.
\_ Berkeley Neighborhood Computers (BNC), they give these
machines to needy families. If you're still around campus
talk to any of the Tau Beta Pi or HKN officers, as they
often volunteer with them.
\_ I never heard of them, so decided to google them. Looks like
they might have combined with ACCRC. This is the most recent
news I can find of them:
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/news/2003/05may/050503computerrecycling.html |
| 2007/5/31-6/3 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Computer/HW] UID:46805 Activity:nil |
5/31 I'm trying to set up Thunderbird to read my soda mail. Does the soda
mail incoming server use POP or IMAP? And what are the incoming and
outgoing server names? Thanks.
\_ I think you're going to want to use mead.csua for both incoming
and outgoing. I am almost positive we don't have unsecured pop,
though we should have IMAP working. Good luck. |
| 2007/5/24-28 [Computer/SW, Computer/HW] UID:46739 Activity:low |
5/23 Streetline Networks is hiring: /csua/pub/jobs/streetline
We deploy our sensors on mesh networks to assist cities in
analyzing and improving their parking situations. We do
everything from low-level hardware design to websites for
data presentaton. Check out the file above and our website:
http://www.streetlinenetworks.com
-- peterl
\_ Did you know Noah?
\_ Decent bagels.
\_ No, this guy used to work at Dust.
\_ What's his last name?
\_ Treuhaft
\_ Do you know bill? |
| 2007/2/22-26 [Computer/HW] UID:45793 Activity:nil |
2/22 Oh great Root, is IMAP server still down? How are people d/ling
their emails nowadays? Or has the mail server settings changed?
-pmw |
| 2007/2/20-23 [Science/GlobalWarming, Computer/HW] UID:45776 Activity:nil |
2/20 Second Life is truly retarded:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/20/second_life_analysis
The coverage was less than complete, however. For example, there was
scant mention of Linden Lab's scaling issues. Second Life's servers -
which are hosted exclusively by Linden Lab - can only support between
50 and 100 avatars in one place at one time. Newsnight's party crashed
after only 30 "guests" arrived. Melbourne's The Age reported Ben Folds
launching an album before an "in world" audience of 25.
\_ I suspect the motd has exactly 1 Second Life subscriber. |
| 2006/12/18-23 [Computer/HW] UID:45467 Activity:moderate |
12/17 Sun hardware question. I have a machine that has two graphics
cards. When it boots up, the boot messages appear on one display,
but when dtlogin runs the Xserver, it appears on the other display.
Any idea how to get it all to appear on one display?
\_ Try configuring it to explicitly start the dtlogin on :0.0 or :0.1
and see which works.
\_ How do you do that?
\_ Take a look at /etc/dt/config/Xservers. -ERic
\- the boot messages are controled by the eeprom output-device
pointer [probaby ... dep on version of OBP]. the issue
may be where you frame buffer /dev/fb points to rather
than the display used. hard to guess without looking
at your system etc. --psb |
| 2006/10/20-24 [Computer/HW, Computer/SW/Unix/WindowManager] UID:44890 Activity:nil |
10/20 My Gnome Desktop makes lots of noises at me. I rarely know where
they are coming from (filtered mail I don't see maybe?). Is there
some (way to set up a) sound log that I can check to see which app
fired off which sound file at time X, or anything like that ? |
| 2006/10/5-7 [Transportation/Car/RoadHogs, Computer/HW] UID:44688 Activity:nil |
10/5 Next Saturn Vue may have builtin bike rack:
http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2006/10/gms_builtin_bik.html |
| 2006/9/1-3 [Computer/Networking, Computer/HW] UID:44235 Activity:nil |
9/1 I want to add a quick and dirty alias for a server on my local machine.
So instead of using some-really-long-host-name, I want to use srlhn:
scp me@srlhn:foo
But if I put that into /etc/hosts, it requires an IP address, and this
server may be changing its IP address from time to time. I'm not
running DNS. Any suggestions?
-- tcsh user suffering from RSI
\_ read the ssh config man page,
just edit your personal ssh settings in
~user/.ssh/config
Host srlhn
HostName some-really-long-host-name
\_ my fingers and I thank you. |
| 2006/8/24-25 [Computer/HW] UID:44132 Activity:high |
8/24 Server naming schemes for the 21st Century:
\_ A coworker used ex-gf names.
\_ "We need a new server provisioned"
"Damn it, and I really liked my current gf, too..."
\_ Name of room, type of computer, and main use of server, separated
by underscores?
\_ How psychotically lame can you get..
\_ Yeah, imagine how totally lame it would be if IT people
valued usefullnes above cuteness. What a fucking concept.
\_ kitchen_uwave_pr0n
\_ kitchen pr0n?? Oh HELL yes! BRING IT ON!
\_ let's just say rotating food won't be the only display
option on your microwave anymore
\_ That's what cnames are for. (Prefer Culture ship names, myself)
\_ racial slurs
\_ how many are there in English?
whitey
honkey
nigger
kike
wetback
spic
wop
chink
nip
gook
towelhead
sandnigger
nm wikipedia is way ahead of me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_slurs
\_ terrorist organizations
\_ guilty celebrities who beat the rap
\- Nick Byram and I came up with Lebanese Factions as an
OCF Nomenclature Proposal ... we might have been slightly
short of 20.
\_ guilty celebrities who beat the rapa
\_ guilty celebrities who beat the rap
\_ Go Juice!
\_ Planet names. If you have nine servers, sorry, one of them will no
longer be supported after the next scheduled Automatic Update.
\_ That's no...oh.
\_ You can just supplement with fictional planet names. Coruscant
etc.
\_ Mountains (tame, management-compatible), drinks, porn stars,
countries (tame, MC), elements (t, MC), drugs, common words
off urbandictionary, something vaguely logical (OS, function,
location code) -John
\- the best names are sort of sui generis. like
kim and ernie in old berkeley days. i also thought
the central-sparc, gg-sparc names were clever ...
my old machine was jurassic-sparc.
for the youth: EECS really did have a p0rn star
name scheme a while ago. the most bizarre nameing
name scheme a while ago. the most bizarre naming
scheme i can think of was Cimarron's "system calls
common to SysV and BSD" nomenclature. --psb
\_ We have a demo server that used to crash much too
often. It's named demolition.
\- not http://democratic-party.foo.com?
\_ Yeah the most logical is boring old sequentially-numbered
codes involving machine location and type. My company scrapped
our old "fun" names (the Linux boxes were all something to do
with cold/winter/penguins, the Suns were things involving
suns/stars/hot, although we also had fish like halibut, not sure
what that referenced. But with blade servers they wanted the name
to tell the location. They are incompetent anyway though.
\_ The problem with the location in the name is what happens
when it moves? I cannot stand names like: sparc34_b202_eng24
\_ Four-letter words.
\_ Four-letter dirty words for body parts: cunt, dick, cock, boob.
What else?
\_ My first company used element names, and they let the engineers pick
the elements. So people usually pick names or symbols that were
close to their names.
\_ server location / OS / function and a number. For sites with
zillions of non-unique systems. E.g sfouxsvr00123
\_ use DNS delegation properly. http://uxsvr123.sfo.yourcompany.com
\_ A "good" naming scheme will use this AND have loc codes
in the hostname, so it's also visible in NIS and ADS. Most
sensible name setups use a combination of "logical" names
and CNAMEs. -John
\_ I kind of like D&D monster names. Lots there to choose from.
\_ Famous drag queens and transvestites.
\_ Sci-Fi character names. I still have fond memories of an
Indigo 2 named jadzia and my dual headed ss10 named zaphod.
Nobel laureates and fields medalists work too, but they are
not as much fun.
\_ For a group of Sun boxes, members of Sun Ra's Arkestra.
\_ Our sysadmins are currently running though old video game-related
names for our servers. My favorite is CongoBongo.
\_ I tend to name my home machines after Japanese monsters. Gamera,
Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, etc.
\_ Vegetables
\_ % finger -m dquayle@potatoe
finger: unknown host: potatoe |
| 2006/8/14-17 [Computer/HW, Computer/HW/Display] UID:44001 Activity:low |
8/14 This is a fun little app. For someone spending too many hours in front
of his PC, at least I can watch the day pass over the globe on my
desktop. Ah, I see dawn approaches the Roman empire...
http://codefromthe70s.org/desktopearth_dl.asp
Oh and it looks pretty nice across two monitors.
\_ It's too bad it's just random clouds instead of real-time satellite
imgs so we can see Iraq/Lebanon burning
\_ Well, there is a real-time cloud update feature based on weather
satellite images. right click on the tray icon. But the default
server in the list is some kind of distribution network that
seems hosed. And I can't seem to force it to get a new image.
So maybe try a different server first and test it in a browser.
Ok nm I fooled it by changing the date. But it's from weather
satellites... so it looks like the weatherman's stuff on TV.
\_ How can we sleep while Leba-non's burnin'?
\_ My battery's rated 60 months although I have to honestly say that
I've never reached 60 months in the past 4 battery changes I've
done in my life. I usually run them down, which is usually after
3-4 years, call AAA when I need a jumpstart, and get a new one.
\_ Isn't there a unix-y version of this? i forget the name.
\_ xearth
\_ Does that do satellite pics? -John
\_ Could something like this be done with Google Earth?
\_ Nope. There was one for X that had nicer graphics
called xglobe.
\_ Thanks, I remember xglobe. Any ideas if there's
anything MacOS-native like this so I don't need to
run an xserver just for my screen background? -John
\_ maybe try this -op
http://gabrielotte.com/osxplanet.html
or this ($) http://www.xericdesign.com/earthdesk.php
\_ Very cool thanks! -John
\_ Update: this is still cool. And the cloud data is another level of
interestingness. (I can watch weather patterns developing. Right
now there are interesting storms off the coast of Japan. Damn I
wish I was running this when Katrina hit) |
| 2006/6/21-26 [Computer/HW, Computer/HW/Laptop] UID:43452 Activity:nil |
6/21 Dell notebook explodes at conference meeting in Japan
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32550
\_ Dude!! Get a Dell!
\_ Get a Dell, lose a ball |
| 2006/6/15-17 [Computer/HW] UID:43404 Activity:nil |
6/15 In YM, AIM, G Chat, and other programs... are they smart enough to
do point-to-point, intranet to intranet communication when they are
close (same subnet, domain, etc) to each other? Or do they all go
to a centralized server?
\_ It all goes to Mother Brain Chat Server Central.
If you are concerned about this, either install your own
local jabber server, or investigate
Off The Record messaging (OTR). There are plugins
for Gaim and probably other stuff too.
\_ I'm a sysadmin and an engineer, and I've yet to find a Jabber
server for *nix that I can figure out how to install _and_ get
working with more than one client. What am I missing here?
\_ I have this working in Debian:
http://www.jivesoftware.org/wildfire
I have seen it work with Psi and Gaim on unix and
windows. - danh
\_ yahoo seems to default to trying to connect locally on the same
subnet -- or at least that's what I can make out of the strange
connections to my co-workers |
| 2006/4/24-25 [Computer/HW] UID:42819 Activity:nil |
4/24 Cal attire shown a few times in this trailer.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/united93/hd |
| 2006/4/24-25 [Computer/SW/Mail, Computer/HW] UID:42817 Activity:nil |
4/23 Soda problem: I don't seem to be able to post to newsgroups
with trn. I get:
cat: /var/lib/news/whoami: No such file or directory
(re-entering cbreak mode)
inews: From header: address syntax error
-jrleek
\_ On a side note, can someone install tin?
\_ Whoever installed tin, thank you!!
\_ Hmm.. tin says none of my newsgroups exist on the server.
\_ try "tin -r" and make sure you have the correct remote
server "NNTPSERVER=agate.berkeley.edu" in your setenv. |
| 2006/3/7-8 [Computer/HW, Computer/Domains] UID:42120 Activity:low |
3/6 I would like to get a virtual phone number to use for
forwarding calls to different locations at different times. I
don't want a toll-free number, because I don't want to be
charged when people call me. Any suggestions for companies
that offer this?
\_ how about a SkypeIn number? Combine with SkypeOut, you can
forward the phone call anywere in the world.
\_ If you're feeling adventurous you can set up an Asterix box (there
are Asterix images for WRAP and Soekris if you want an "appliance")
and register an international number. I forget where to do this,
but there are a number of organizations that will let you have a
number, for free and for charge. Or Vonage does something similar
if you want commercial + SIP, although I'm informed quality is
crap (never tried it.) If you're interested in setting up your
own SIP gateway, several colleagues of mine have done so and are
calling everywhere pretty much for free; I'd be glad to put you
in touch with them. Don't know about toll-free, though. -John |
| 2006/2/12-15 [Recreation/Interesting, Computer/HW] UID:41808 Activity:nil Cat_by:auto |
2/12 Multitouch interactive display:
http://gprime.net/video.php/multitouch
\_ http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch |
| 2005/12/20 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Computer/HW] UID:41095 Activity:moderate |
12/20 Is soda connected to an ntp server? The clock is about 25 seconds
behind.
\_ Thanks for pointing this out. It turned out our old /etc/rc.conf
didn't specify the full path to ntpd, and so the new FreeBSD rc
files were refusing to start it. It should be working now. You
can run "ntpq -p" to see which NTP servers (if any) soda is
connected to, and how far off our time is from theirs -- please
let me know if you ever notice it's not working. --mconst
\_ I just checked, and ntpd wasn't running; I've restarted it.
You can run "ntpq -p" to see which NTP servers (if any) soda
is connected to, and how far off it is from their time. --mconst
\_ Actually, soda's clock looks fine. Maybe it's you.
\_ It's fine now, but was slow earlier. You'll have to take my
word for it. |
| 2005/12/17-19 [Computer/HW] UID:41060 Activity:nil |
12/17 Lightsaber Choreography Competition:
http://www.sabrecomp.com/download.htm
\_ i think the winner still isn't as cool as 'art of the saber' |
| 2005/12/7-9 [Computer/HW, Computer/SW/OS] UID:40910 Activity:nil |
12/7 I'm using Gallery 1.x right now for my online photo album,
and I'm wondering whether I should upgrade to 2.x. Is
anyone using 2, and is it worth the upgrade? Thanks. |
| 2005/11/11-12 [Computer/SW, Computer/HW, Computer/Companies/Google] UID:40540 Activity:nil |
11/10 "In Soviet Russia..." http://csua.org/u/dzf Quick notes about Soviet computer industry from a lecture -- thought someone might be interested. -- misha. \_ NGMD = Nakopitel' na Gibkix Magnitnyx Diskax NMD = Nakopitelyakh Magnitnikh Diskov NZMD = Nakopitelyah na Zhestkix Magnitnyx Diskov Cool notes. Thanks. If you're into E. block useful appliations, google for POLY PLAY. -John |
| 2005/11/2-4 [Computer/SW/Mail, Computer/HW, Computer/SW/Editors/Emacs] UID:40406 Activity:nil |
11/2 Does anyone still use VM (Vmail) in Emacs? I reluctantly switched to
Outlook 4 yrs ago when I switched job, and I haven't used VM since
then.
\_ Used it until ~1 year ago. It unfortunately hasn't been updated
for several years. It's really solid for what it does, but it
doesn't do IMAP. I switched to the similar "Wanderlust" which
does support IMAP and haven't looked back.
\_ In the VM 7.19 from http://www.wonderworks.com/vm there is an
vm-imap.el dated 5/30/2003.
\_ VM's IMAP support is marginal. You can pretty much use it
like POP to fetch mail, but you can't do things like
disconnected operation etc. ... if you need to use it just
like POP because your server only supports IMAP not POP,
it's fine, but if you need to do server synching, marks,
disconnected operation, etc., VM is not your bag. -pp |
| 2005/8/19 [Computer/HW] UID:39178 Activity:nil |
8/18 Hey Ilyas. Re: Intelligent Design. Please prove that P(C)<0.5. For
extra credit prove P(C) << 0.5. |
| 2005/8/10-13 [Computer/HW] UID:39084 Activity:kinda low |
8/10 The thread below has digressed into wikipedia ramblings, so I'll ask
here. I read the essay "Intelligent Design: The Scientific Alternative
to Evolution"
(found here: http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/publications.htm
this weekend trying to figure out what ID proponents are actually
saying. From reading this I found that the authors were making
strawman arguments against evolution and didn't appear to understand
physical science or probability. Have you read this essay? Do any ID
proponents ever address the weak anthropic principle? Is the 10^-150
probability the number they use in general to show something as
unreasonably improbable? -emarkp
\_ Math is hard. Big numbers are scary. Someone must have done it.
\_ I don't understand what the weak anthropic principle is supposed to
explain. I think 'cosmological constant tuning' needs an answer.
On a somewhat related note, I read an article somewhere that some
experimental data shows that possibly some constants aren't really
constant, and change somewhat as time passes. -- ilyas
\_ In that essay I mentioned (in the section "The Fine Tuning of the
Universe") the authors say: "The force of gravity, the mass of
the electron, the charge of the proton, etc. are specific, real
values. Were they even slightly different from what they are, not
only would life not exist, nothing (of any significance) would
exist." They argue that this specifically suggests design. But
the weak anthropic principle is that if the universe weren't
tuned to life, then we wouldn't be here to observe it. This
directly contradicts their assertion--they should at least
address it. The fact that they don't even mention it is
suspicious at best. -emarkp
\_ It is a counterfactual assertion that does not render the
current state of affairs any less puzzling. Sure, if constants
were different nobody would be there to comment. But someone
IS there to comment, and constants ARE the way they are.
-- ilyas
current state of affairs any less puzzling. Sure, if
constants were different nobody would be there to comment.
But someone IS there to comment, and constants ARE the way
they are. -- ilyas
\_ The point is there is a selecting event (i.e. our
existence) which makes those constants unremarkable. If
we were to observe a universe at random and the constants
were amenable to life, that might be something. But our
universe isn't a random one. It had to have those
constants. -emarkp
\_ What you said is exactly right. Our universe doesn't
seem to be a random one.
\_ Let's imagine a lottery winner pondering what events
lead to his winning ticket. He might say: 'well given
that I _did_ win, the particles in the Universe must
have danced just right so I had to have won. So the
fact that I won (at odds of millions to one) is wholly
unremarkable.' Really, the real reason it's not
remarkable is because millions of people played, so
someone had to have won. In other words, lots of
Universes makes our constant unremarkable. Our
existence does not. -- ilyas
\_ But should the lottery winner conclude that
someone chose him to be the winner? -emarkp
\_ He shouldn't he if knows lots of people
played (parallel Universes). Except in
our case, it's unclear whether it's
cheaper to assume lots of players or
a benign lottery agency. I think this
is best taken 'offline.' -- ilyas
\_ Then your analogy falls on its face.
An unlikely event occurs (Bob wins the
lottery). It doesn't follow that Bob
was chosen by a designer. -emarkp
\_ No, it doesn't follow. I wasn't
saying it does. As I said,
Bob knows lots of people play the
lottery. We don't know whether
lots of people play or whether
someone just decided to give us
the ticket. Not only do we not
know, we don't even know whether
it's more _likely_ lots of people
play, or whether someone gave us
a winning ticket. That's the point,
we have less information than Bob
about our situation. But, just as
in Bob's situation, the anthropic
principle doesn't explain anything,
something else does. My point is,
despite the fact our state of
knowledge is different from Bob's
the two situations are exactly the
same, and in Bob's situation, nobody
invokes the anthropic principle.
So we shouldn't invoke it in our
case either, because our state of
belief shouldn't matter as far as
explanations are concerned. -- ilyas
\_ (1) It's "an"thropic.
(2) It's not invoked to explain
anything. It's invoked to show
that the reasoning that
Life=>special is specious.
-emarkp
\_ Anyways, what is your answer
to the following:
P(C=true,L=true) is low, yet
C=true and L=true. Are you
claiming the above probability
isn't low? If so, why? I
claim it is low on
'maximum entropy' grounds.
Notice how the anthropic
principle cannot be used to
answer this question, although
it is essentially the same:
life + constants -> special.
-- ilyas
\_ I know I'm going to regret
getting back into this,
but if P(C) is the
probability that the
laws of physics create
a universe conducive to
the rise of intelligent
life, C=>L. -tom
\_ No, P(C) is the
probability the constants
assume the values they do
in our Universe. -- ilyas
probability the
constants assume the
values they do in our
Universe. -- ilyas
\_ Same conclusion:
C=>L. -tom
\_ I mean what you say
is true, but I
don't see how this
observation helps.
You can conclude
that P(C) <= P(L),
but how does this
address the
question about
P(C,L)? -- ilyas
\_ I mean what you
say is true,
but I don't see
how this
observation
helps. You can
conclude that
P(C) <= P(L),
but how does
this address
the question
about P(C,L)?
-- ilyas
\_ The question
about P(C,L)
is not
meaningful,
since life will
arise if the
conditions
exist for it.
The only
relevant
part is
P(C). -tom
_______________________/
Just because C implies L does not mean
P(C) fully determines P(C,L). For that
to happen you would need C iff L.
I don't understand why event implication
means questions about the joint
distribution are not 'meaningful.'
They seem perfectly meaningful (and
puzzling) to me. -- ilyas
to happen you would need C iff L. I
don't understand why event
implication means questions about
the joint distribution are not
'meaningful.' They seem perfectly
meaningful (and puzzling) to me.
-- ilyas
\_ I was right; I regret getting back
into it. -tom
\_ Go pee somewhere else then.
\_ Non sequitur. We know precisely nothing about any
other universes. If you can point to another
universe that we can observe that has the same (or
similar) constants, that would say something. Since
we can't (yet? ever?) observe other universes, we
can't evaluate how random this one is. -emarkp
\_ Let L be an event 'life exists.' Let C be an
an event 'cosmological constants have the values
they hold in our Universe.' Your claim: P(C|L)
is high. My claim: P(C) is low. That P(C|L) is
high does not explain why C is true, though P(C)
is low. P(C|L) is high just because of the way
conditional probability works. To put it another
way, you have to explain why L is true, even
though P(C,L=true) is low. Or if you like, you
can marginalize out C, and reasonably claim
P(L=true) is also low. Or to put it yet another
way, you are offering features of the distribution
P as an explanation for why we have P and not
some other distribution P*. Naturally, that
kind of argument doesn't make sense. -- ilyas
P(L=true) is also low. That's an entirely
symmetric question, and an entirely symmetric
argument would be 'life exists because our
cosmological constants are the way they are.'
At this point, the argument becomes circular, and
I can ask a question about the joint event:
i.e. why is C=true and L=true, though
P(C=true,L=true) is low. Saying 'it's true
because it happened' isn't answering anything.
-- ilyas
\_ No, I don't "have to explain why L is true".
ID says P(C) is low, thus we were designed.
But that doesn't follow. All we know is that
P(C|L) is nonzero, and that P(~C|L) = 0.
Also, we don't actually know that P(C) is low
in the first place. -emarkp
\_ So you are saying that the joint probability
of the constants being what they are, and
life existing is high? How do you figure
that? -- ilyas
\_ No, I'm saying that P(~C|L) appears to be
low (I think my statement that it =0 may
too strong) and that P(C|L) is nonzero.
Everything else is being pulled out of
someone's rear end. -emarkp
\_ Well, you are right that I am making
an assumption that P(C,L) is
reasonably uniform, but this is a
common assumption in science
(see 'maximum entropy'). The anthropic
principle doesn't answer the 'joint
event question.' If you make the
argument that P(C,L) isn't low then
you have to explain why maximum
entropy isn't an appropriate assumption
to make. -- ilyas
(see 'maximum entropy'). The
anthropic principle doesn't answer
the 'joint event question.' If you
make the argument that P(C,L) isn't
low then you have to explain why
maximum entropy isn't an
appropriate assumption to make.
-- ilyas
\_ Dear lord...I actually find this
conversation interesting. I
think I'd better lie down until
it goes away. -mice
\_ (1) Do we know that P(~C|L) = 0? If either
\_ I already retracted
the claim. -emarkp
\_ sorry, just
saw that.
the fundamental constants change over
time (some evid that they might) or
changes in one could be offset by
changes in another (perhaps yet
unknown constant - there is still
that pesky problem of dark matter and
dark energy) then P(~C|L) may not
be zero weaking the case for design.
(2) What exactly is L? Do we really know?
We have only one data point to look
at. Perhaps other arrangements can
give rise to L.
(3) Why is it less probable that ID is
the answer than say some natural
process that produces an infinite
number of universes? If you have
an infinite number of universes
then you will have an infinite
number of universes EXACTLY like
our own.
\_ I find ilyas arguing FOR intelligent design AGAINST
a Mormon to be highly amusing.
\_ Yeah, because people must always argue from an
agenda, and not just follow where the argument
might lead. Grow up. -- ilyas
\_ ilyas, you always have an agenda.
\_ Grow up anonymous troll. -emarkp
\_ My agenda is to legislate Jesus into
your heart. -- ilyas
\_ You're hurting me. -mice
\_ Width of universe compared to age of universe compared to speed
of light taught me that.
\_ http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2004/pr-05-04.html
"contrary to previous claims, no evidence exist for assuming a
time variation of this fundamental constant [fine structure
constant]"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050418204410.htm |
| 2005/6/1-2 [Computer/HW, Computer/SW] UID:37914 Activity:nil |
5/31 my friend who tries to email me got this message:
The message cannot be delivered due to a configuration error on
the server. Please contact your Administrator.
< http://soda.csua.berkeley.edu #5.3.0
since no one on motd complains, i presume this is not a real issue,
no? |
| 11/23 |