Domain: watson-net.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to watson-net.com.
Comments · 31
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The jpeg aspect.
This guy is using jpeginfo for jpegs http://watson-net.com/blog/checking-the-integrity-of-all-jpg-files-in-a-directory/
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Re:Get Rid Of Paragon!
I had been using MacDrive before trying out Paragon. The version of MD I had (8 I think?) no longer worked when I upgraded Windows on one of my computers so I looked around for something else before buying the MacDrive upgrade. I saw Paragon had a promotion where you'd get a discount on a new copy of HFS+ for Windows if you proved you were switching from a competing driver (making it cheaper than the MD upgrade) so that's when I installed the evil trial.
It's only been a couple weeks since the disaster so I haven't yet had the confidence to install any new drivers yet. I'm planning on going back to MacDrive after I buy the upgrade. In the years I've used it (pretty much since Bootcamp) I haven't had any problems with it, I went looking for alternatives simply out of curiosity. If ain't broke, eh?
Looking back at your particular problem I've got a couple thoughts. First of all, some of the common compressed media formats like JPG and MP3 can be crudely verified by some sort of utility that attempts to inflate the compressed structure. This guy has a suggestion for JPGs and I think I saw someone else post a recommendation for MP3s. I suspect that files like PDFs generally won't open at all if there is any corruption in the format, you could try using Spotlight to find all PDFs and then open them all at once. Preview has always given me error messages if I try to open a corrupted PDF. I've also noticed that corrupted MOV files tend not to open, but I can't guarantee that this is a rule.
I might also try looking at some known corrupted files with a HEX editor. In the past I've encountered disk corruption that manifested as the binary contents of parts of files being entirely zeros. If there is some discernible pattern it may be possible to hack together some way to scan your files.
Although it may be moot now, from what I've read online Paragon HFS creates all sorts of issues with the HFS+ filesystem journal. It's indeed possible that it left your disk in a state where it was vulnerable to further problems. I'm also curious what package and version you were/are using in Ubuntu. It wouldn't surprise me if that driver is nowhere near as robust as it should be.
As someone who used to share many disks between Linux, Windows and Mac OS X I previously had come to the conclusion that the easiest solution was to use Ext3 formatting on disks that I wanted write access to from all three operating systems. Early on I had a minor filesystem problem with the HFS+ package I was using in Linux when writing files and from then on I mounted HFS disks in read-only mode. Now I very rarely use Linux to access the external disks I share between a Win/OSX dual-boot (gigabit network FTW). For Mac OS X I have a very good NTFS driver called Tuxera NTFS. I still occasionally mount Ext3/4 disks in Windows using Ext2Fsd (ignore the implications of the name). The Ext driver I was using in Mac OS X didn't have write capabilities for Ext4 last I checked, but I can't remember what it was called.
I hope at least some of this is helpful. Cheers. -
Re:When I was in high school
Bogodynamics
Well lets see - what you are experiencing is a large quantum bogodynamic field being emitted from various people. Probably in the order of several microLenat's -
Re:When I was in high school
Bogodynamics
Well lets see - what you are experiencing is a large quantum bogodynamic field being emitted from various people. Probably in the order of several microLenat's -
Um, the answer is in the link you posted.OFX is based upon SGML and, like XML, it is an attempt to take the best features of SGML and remove much of the associated complexity. OFX is not technically an XML application. The syntax of OFX differs from that set out for XML applications in that OFX omits end-tags
It's SGML, not XML. Unless you insist on doing it the hard way with a real SGML parser, I can't see what's wrong with using your own hand-rolled one. As you've already recognized yourself, it shouldn't be too hard.
Other alternatives would be to have an a preprocessor that converts it to XML, or maybe use some too-tolerant XML-parser. On the other hand, if the file format isn't XML, I can't see why it would be easier to treat it as if it were.
Am I missing something here, or is this truly a file format that is broken as a feature?
Mu. Yes, you are missing the distinction between XML and SGML. No, it's not broken as a feature, it just predates XML.
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Lots of People Still Don't BelieveSun and many others (Apache, X.org, *BSD, me, etc.) don't believe in the GPL.
It's easy to understand that they don't wish their contributions to be co-opted into the GPL realm. As Sun, and many others see it, that would reduce their rights. Avoiding a GPL lockup is undoubtably part of Sun's strategy.
Even RMS is very clear that copyleft is intended to achieve the much same effects as the patent system, though with a very different goal. see Wikipedia on GPL Ideology.
I personally think most technology patents have been a significant deterrent to industry adoption. I believe the GPL has the same effect. There's a huge disincentive for commercial businesses to make significant contributions to GPL projects. Unless their real goal is not to "make the world a better place", but instead to cripple the revenue stream of their competitors a la Microsoft's favourite tactics. I'm generally very cynical about any commerical donation of GPL code. If it's a real donation then it should be under a BSD-like "copycenter" license.
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Re:support free developmenMaybe that's what's wrong with the BSD license. Sun took BSD code, added stuff to it and now makes it impossible for BSD to gain any benefit.
There is nothing wrong with BSD license. It's quite simply a free license. Perhaps copycenter describes BSDL best :
copycenter: n.
[play on 'copyright' and 'copyleft']
1. The copyright notice carried by the various flavors of freeware BSD. According to Kirk McKusick at BSDCon 1999: "The way it was characterized politically, you had copyright, which is what the big companies use to lock everything up; you had copyleft, which is free software's way of making sure they can't lock it up; and then Berkeley had what we called 'copycenter', which is 'take it down to the copy center and make as many copies as you want'".
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thoughts...
Touch screens are one of those things that sound neat but in fact aren't. Also, the price seems a bit steep for the utility. I've seen new projectors for close to $600 (not that one would be appropriate for most kitchens)
As for the keyboard, the one you have selected looks really neat, and I personally think it would be cool to have one. However, I might question the usability aspects of it. We have a public area computer, and the number one concern with the keyboard is being able to move it around easily. In that respect, there are two problems with your selected keyboard. First, it has a wire and this can potentially be very inconvenient if you are trying to get it out of the way to clear up counter space. Secondly, it is floppy not rigid. If you have to flatten out the keyboard everytime you move it this will be annoying. Additionally, you couldn't type with the keyboard in your lap.
We have a wireless keyboard with an integrated trackball mouse. This is handy because there is only one device and it is easy to move around. These are hard to find, and the down side is that all pointing devices in keyboards suck. To offset the suckage but retain the benefit of an all in one wireless device, I would recommend setting up a combo keyboard and a separate wireless mouse.
As for spillage with the keyboard, this is a real concern, but I think you're probably going to have to just live with the risk. If you find a particularly suitable keyboard, you might want to buy two. Also, be aware that not all serious spills are fatal. I dropped a coke on our wireless one and we were able to crack it open and clean it out. -
Re:RIP USA
I invoke Godwin's Law. You lose.
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Re:Special app
not a marketing term , although moronic
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Re:Also...
You're owned . -
Re:Hacking is not an art...Untrue. You still need to follow some rules, otherwise it'd be complete gibberish. Even if you look at the famous Jabberwocky, rules are followed. The words themselves may be nonsense, but:
Poetry, or indeed any artistic expression, is all about intelligently manipulating a structured system in some creative way. Language is a supreme example of this, and programming can be as well. You cannot throw out every rule, as there would then be no context for understanding the art. Coding is more restrictive than spoken language, but that makes the art of coding all the more esoteric and challenging.- They still conform to proper phonemic structure of English;
- English grammar is upheld;
- The English phonology and alphabet are used;
- Rules of poetic structure are upheld (eg. rhyme, meter, etc.).
Ever read The Story of Mel? - They still conform to proper phonemic structure of English;
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Re:Language
Use this guide to help you out, ay chap? I cant find any online filters though, sorry. Make a small useless perl script if you must.
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Re:The girlfriend thinks computers are like her?
uhmm... even programmers get that feeling sometimes.
ever heard of voodoo programming
all major libraries and systems have quirks, so sometimes it's pretty darn near impossible to figure out why something works sometimes and not others...
of course computers are deterministic, sometimes it's just difficult to see it.
Heck, maybe women are deterministic (yeah right!) - just too to complicated to tell. -
Re:For those that haven't used imperial for ages..
It refers to the meter as 1/10,000,000 the distance from the pole to the equator through Paris
I wonder, though... in those days, did they think that there was something special about the line through Paris as opposed to, say, a line through the Atlantic ocean? Or was mentioning Paris just a political gimme?
I wonder if they originally intended to attempt to measure the effect of mountains and hills in the original definition of a kilometer, too... though at the scales involved, I don't suppose it would add up to much (especially with 1700s measurement accuracy).
Of course, now the meter is defined in terms of wavelengths of light of a certain radioactive element in a microfortnight, right? -
Re:After looking at this from farther away
A lot of interesting people have learning problems with issues like style. If you put each of them at a typewriter, however... Kurzweil's poetry engine seems to be little more than a wham-o-dyne Dissociated Press script. The inclusion of pronounciation parsing is cute, but hardly a leap in AI sciences. From another point of view, this has got to be the best documented piece of software I've ever seen. Maybe the GNU Project should start patenting everything they write. Would be interesting to see the GPL "hereby incorporated by reference".
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Re:The Story of Magic
I'm thinking you didn't remove the space. Try this link.
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Re:The Story of Magic
Damned word wrap.
Here go.
Magic
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Re:Hasn't really been a problem
It's worth noting that (at least according to the Jargon File) caffeine bonds to the same neural receptors as Ritalin. That may or may not have something to do with why coffee helps soothe your ADHD.
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Re:If anyone deserves some slack in this regard...
"Hacker" politics range widely, from left to right, from intensely political to completely uninterested in political issues.
There, under 77 words. And a hell of a lot more accurate.That depends on what you mean by "accurate." I would say that there's a Forer effect in your definition that isn't present in the JF entry. Your definition doesn't describe tendencies or characteristics whereby "hacker politics" is distinguishable from the politics of a random sampling of the population.
Now, it may be the case that "hacker politics" is indistinguishable from that of the population as a whole, in which case it would be equally accurate, and more concise, to say so. But in my (limited) experience, ESR's description is spot-on.
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Re:AI completeIt's defined at Foldoc
<pedantic>
Foldoc's reference is quoted from ESR's "Jargon File". (This fact foldoc does indirectly acknowledge).
</pedantic>So far as I can tell, the Jargon File's definition is canonical in the geek community. I believe it's the oldest, anyways; I recall seeing the definition in a early-90s text version.
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Re:Deadlines
someone just has to look through the executable for strings.
Oh my... looks like you never wrote something remotely similar to a backdoor. And I mean no just-for-debugging-and-then-i-remove-it backdoor, I mean a real one. A backdoor that's meant to be misused. E.g. you are writing some software for your bank
;) That kind of backdoor. The first rule is that the backdoor should be as invisible as it is possible. And some strange password-like string is the simplest way of shouting "hey, I'm here!"A real backdoor should look e.g. like the one legendary that once was in a C compiler... for more info see the jargon file entry on backdoor.
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baroque from the jargon file
This is common hacker jargon. If you've never seen it before, you should relay check out the jargon file here
is one reference.
And this is what it says:
baroque
adj.
[common] Feature-encrusted; complex; gaudy; verging on excessive. Said of hardware or (esp.) software designs, this has many of the connotations of elephantine or monstrosity but is less extreme and not pejorative in itself. "Metafont even has features to introduce random variations to its letterform output. Now that is baroque!" See also rococo. -
And how longuntil those on ROKSO harvests the addresses and spams them from Koria?
About 2 seconds? And how will you sue them? Which court? And if you win, how do you get the assets of a company run by some chickenboner that hijacked said insecure proxy and left no logs?
Nope. This bill will be part of the problem. False sense of security and a target for those that oppose The Lumber Cartel (tinlc).
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Re:Naturally soThe first actual (recorded) "bug" found caught in the relays of a computer system was found in 1947, however the term appears to predate that time--possibly back to the telegraph era.
There's an excellent etymology--or should that be entomology?--in the Jargon File.
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Backups
Always mount a scratch monkey
Especially in cases where alcohol is involoved, don't want the natives getting restless when the Monkey dies.
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Re:Define a problem domain for your language
And even if a human can write assembly better than a compiler, is it worth the cost? For the majority of us, the answer is clearly no.
Agreed! By the time loss of portability and maintainability plus development cost is considered, it will rarely be worth it. See: The story of Mel. I really doubt we want code like that these days.
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Re:Little endian
Some of you may remember the good old days of big endian machines. The standard low-byte high-byte order we know now was invented by Intel...
According to this, the DEC PDP-11 and VAX lines were little-endian too - I'm not old enough to remember these machines (apart from FORTRAN torture at college on a VAX), but I know enough that they form a huge chunk of the history of the Internet, and Unix. Before Intel.
despite the fact that base 10 numbers were still printed with the most significant digits on the left by Intel's C library.
Errr... and by the entirety of civilisation too.
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Re:How long before this goes into meatspace?
What's 31337?
Beware, it's ASP! -
Re:Open mouth, insert foot
>--and with utils like "linuxconf" (which I
>personally would never use; it takes over your
>entire system. My friends call it meinconf.
ROTFL! That's great! I'm going to go symlink linuxconf now. :)
Of course, this discussion has now violated Godwin's law... -
Re:More Anti-Americanism on /.
"the British for beating up on poor lowly Argentina (oops, we helped them in that)"
Actually, you didn't. Haig was used as a running boy by the UK to try & negotiate with the Argentinians. The only military action the USA was involved in was in the 1830's, in retaliation for something or other. There's a brief history lesson here for your education. Or just check a world map, compare the physical size of the UK vs Argentina. Woo, those bully boy Brits throwing their weight around protecting part of the UK - much as you might expect the US government to defend Hawaii, if attacked and occupied by a foreign power.
"Anti-Americanism is so frequent lately on /."
Might I suggest that you make things better by portraying yourself & fellow countrymen in a better light? Like by posting things that are actually true, instead of this pile of troll faeces?