1/4     I want to test how my servers behave during a disk failure and
        a RAID reconstruction so I want to simulate a hardware failure.
        How can I do this in Linux without having to physically pull
        a drive? These disks are behind a RAID card and run Linux. -ausman
        \_ According to the Linux RAID wiki, you might be able to use mdadm
           to do this with something like the following:
	...

9/13    Thanks to Jordan, our disk server is no longer virtualized. Our long
        nightmare of poor IO performance should hopefully be over. Prepare for
        another long nightmare of poor hardware reliability!
        ...
        Just kidding! (I hope)
        In any case, this means that cooler was taken out back and shot, and
	...

2/14    You sure soda isn't running windows in disguise?  It would explain the
        uptimes.
        \_ hardly, My winbox stays up longer.
        \_ Nobody cares about uptime anymore brother, that's what web2.0 has
           taught us.  Everything is "stateless".
           \_ You;d think gamers would care more about uptime.
	...

2/18    Why does the system seem so sluggish lately?
        \_ Slow NFS is basically always the answer. --toulouse
        \_ Any truth to the rumor that soda will be decommissioned this summer?
           \_ Absolutely none. Soda might go down temporarily while disks are
              reorganized and stuff so soda doesn't suffer from such shitty
              performance nearly as much, but no, we've gotta maintain NFS and
	...

7/22    Playing with dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/<disk> on linux and bsd:
        2 questions, on linux when <disk>==hda it always gives me this off
        by one report i.e. Records out == records in-1 and says there is an
        error. Has anyone else seen this?  Second, when trying to repeat this
        on bsd, <disk>==rwd0 now, to my surprise, using the install disk and
        selecting (S)hell, when I try to dd a 40 gig disk it says "409 records
	...

10/27   I just read an article that Facebook had moved their database
        to all SSD to speed throughput, but now I can't find it. Has
        anyone else seen this? Any experience with doing this? -ausman
        \_ I hope you're not running mission critical data:
           http://ask.slashdot.org/story/09/10/27/1559248/Reliability-of-PC-Flash-SSDs?from=rss
        \_ Do you have any idea how much storage space is used by Facebook,
	...

8/3     VMWare + Windows XP + Validation question. I need to test stuff with
        Service Pack 3 installed. I have a valid key that I own (yeah yeah I
        actually *bought* a copy, please don't flame me for supporting evil
        M$). Is it possible to register the key once, and then duplicate it
        for testing purposes?  Will Windows or Microsoft detect copies and
        disable the rest the copies?
	...

7/28    Does it make sense to defragment disks on VMWare? My 80GB disk
        on VMWare isn't really using 80GB, it just uses what it needs.
        Will defragment do anything to it?
        \_ If you want to speed up disk operation in your VM, it's best to
           defragment the disks in your VM, then defragment the disk on your
           host machine where the VM files are.
	...

3/24    How are people transferring large files to one other person these days?
        When I need to send some videos to my parents, I upload them to
        my SpiderOak account, but they don't have anything like that,
        so I'm not sure how to get videos from them.  Does DropBox do this
        for free?
        \_ DropBox +
	...

12/18   Happy 25th birthday Perl, and FUCK YOU Larry Wall for fucking up
        the computer science formalism that sets back compilers development
        back for at least a decade:
        http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/18/print-happy-25th-birthday-perl
        \_ I tried to learn Perl but was scared away by it.  Maybe scripting
           lanauages have to be like that in order to work well?
	...

2/5     How is Firefox on version 10, while I still have 3.6 installed.
        I wait for the X.1 versions and they never come out.
        \_ I'm also on 3.6.26.  It claims that versions 4 - 10 are all faster
           than 3.6.x, but do they use more memory?  Thx.
           \_ Newer Firefox versions use less memory too:
              http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/mozillas_memshrink_program_brings_big_memory_savings_firefox_7
	...

6/5     In an effort to stabilize our services, we'll be rebuilding parts of
        the CSUA infrastructure over the course of this summer.  To give us
        some wiggle room, I've temporarily decreased soda's allocated RAM from
        8GB to 2GB.  If you need to run something that requires large amounts
        of memory, please send mail to root@csua.org and we'll try to
        accommodate your request.  --jordan
	...

3/19    When you're explaining the stack to people do you draw it with the
        highest addresses at the top or at the bottom?
        \_ When I explain any memory layout including stacks, I draw with the
           highest addresses at the bottom.  But I've seen people doing the
           other way.  -- yuen
           \_ do you by any chance have seen or have a jpg of the full memory
	...

7/25    What's up with that moving bit pattern that Win7 displays when it
        boots up?  (It's the one that's like in the Apple II days when you
        use the graphics memory for code or data while it's still in HGR
        mode.)  Is there a way to disable that?  It slows things down a lot
        every time I reboot my Win7 VM on my office machine if I RDP to the
        machine via DSL.  Thanks in advance.
	...

5/26    anyone use lxde?  supposedly it is less stupid than xfce and
        less bloated than gnome.  thoughts?
        \_ lol, does anyone still use desktop linux?  Get with the times
           buy a mac.  Now.  DO IT.  Go NOW.
           \_ but we prefer herring to Kool-Aid
              \_ "you have to yell, he's hard of herring"
	...

6/4     Is this valid C++ code?
        std::string getStr(void) {
            std::string str("foo");
            return str;
        }
        void foo(char *s);
	...

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.
	...