Actually, I deliberately avoided stating what editor I use for my Verilog code and spice models. Revealing my own religious bias would not have added anything to my question.
But, for the record, I use "echo >>file". No, just kidding.
Fortunately, I don't use OrCAD or PSpice, windows or otherwise! I use all-unix tools, inlcuding Hspice. Don't know how much longer that will last, though.:~{
Is it really a sharply divided preference? Aren't there many people like myself who dislike both editors almost equally?
Almost every Emacs user I know, also occasionally runs VI, usually for a quickie edit, not wanting to wait for emacs to load. And, that even includes quite a few "kitchen sink" emacs users, i.e. people who even check their email and browse usenet and the web via emacs.
Believe it or not, not everybody is a strong partisan in this particular religious war.
But then I work mostly with hardware engineers. Perhaps software people are more partisan?
If Spam didn't work, why do I get a hundred pieces of it every morning?
Gee, I don't get ANY spam. Not one single item!
Of course, I DO get a lot of really nice, friendly emails from people wanting me to get rich, attract beautiful women, and participate in wonderful, risk-free investment partnerships with Nigerian ex-cabinet-ministers. Internet people are SO friendly and helpful! I can't wait to hear back from some of them.
- RockyMountain
PS: Gotta go. The credit card company is calling. Something about over-the-limit? Must be a mistake.
This chois of Debian is for HP's internal use of Linux (If u read bhind the links).
No, actually. The choice of Debian was for products shipped to customers. I know first hand, since I was responsible for one of the products that switched from Debian to Red Hat.
Internal use is fairly ad-hoc, and includes various distributions.
HPs first foray into Linux was Red Hat. Then they switched to Debian. Then they switched back to Red Hat. They are also listed as partners in United Linux.
In short, HP can't make up their mind. Note that the new Itanium 2 (McKinley, IA64) products such as zx2000, rx2600, zx6000, are all shipping with Red Hat, not Debian. Also true I think, for rx5670 and rx9610.
Having read the spec, and taken a peek at the O'Reilly book, I would definitely want to use BEEP, assuming a I was writing an application that called for a new protocol. (Which I'm not, at present).
Unfortunately, for me there's still one obstacle: The lack of a perl Net::Beep module.
Yup, I'm that lazy! Until someone else(!) makes it easy in my favorite language, BEEP might as well not exist.:-)
Anybody know of such a project in the works? My search of CPAN, Google, etc., about 6 months ago, turned up nothing.
Can you document the claim that hash collisions cause silent data corruption? Or even that they cause a failure of any sort?
If this is true, surely it must be documented somewhere, or have been discussed in a credible forum? I did a little searching, and didn't find anything. Please post a URL to elevate your comment from unsubstantiated rumor to informative information.
In most hash-based indexing algorithms I know of, hash collisions incur a perfomance penalty, but not a data loss.
I browsed much of your web site, but didn't see anything about breathing or pressurization. I assume you will wear a pressure suit? Your own design, or where are you getting it? Or will you pressurize the whole capsule?
Ancient bug in Microsoft C
on
Pet Bugs?
·
· Score: 1
I found an interesting one in a Microsoft C library back in about 1987.
They had some sort of io port writing library call poke_io(addr) or some such. Since the 8086 instruction set only allowed constant addresses rather than variables, they used self-modifying code to implement the poke. But the 8088 CPU had a small instruction-prefetch queue that was not coherent, and the instruction being modified had sometimes already been prefetched by the time they modified it.
So, the code randomly failed some times and not others. Also, the code loading allignment made a big difference in how likely it was to fail. Re-link, and it failed. Add a printf and it started working again, etc....
When I reported it, Microsoft eventually fixed it, but of course I had to write my own routine in the interim.
Can someone explain this OpenNIC thing to me? I don't get it. And I can't read their FAQ, because it's in the ".glue" TLD!
Sounds like a group who have set up alternative "top level" domain servers, in competition with the ones we all know and love.:-)
And, no technical reason why not. But WHY?
I would have thought that a universal namespace was an obviously desirable thing. If I understand it right, they hope that enough individuals and ISPs will switch over to their superset name space, and thereby create a defacto standard. Fat chance!
I can't immagine anybody bothering to register with them. Would you rather your server be accessible within the (like-it-or-not) universal namespace, or only by specially configured clients or clients connecting from via selected ISPs?
My Palm m100 had the exact failure the author described.
To Palm's credit, they did the right thing and promptly replaced it. The replacement didn't look exactly new, which bothered me because the broken Palm they were replacing was less than 1 week old!
But, they did another thing that I thought was despicable: They tried to refuse to issue a warranty-return RMA, claiming that it must be opperator error: I couldn't really know for sure that was broken, without first getting their tech support to "talk me through my difficulty". And to get that, I was asked to PAY for a tech support contract. In other words, they tried to make me pay to have them honor their warranty.
The bottom line: After I went mildly balistic, they backed down and agreed to issue an RMA. The replacement arrived promptly ans has worked ever since. But the bad taste lingers, and next time I need a PDA, I may well consider a Handspring or something else before I go back to Palm.
As a former aerobatic pilot, who frequently flew between -4 and +6 G, I'm familiar with this subject matter. I'm no longer active in this sport because of inner ear dammage, probably unrelated to the aerobatic activity.
Space launches have steadily reduced their peak G forces over the years. During the Mercury and Gemini programs, the Astronauts were exposed to as much G force as modern jet fighters do in a dogfight, and for as long. The heavier Saturn launch system of Apollo was gentler, and the Space shuttle is very tame by comparison. Russian cosmonauts still get a better (in roler-coaster terms) ride than their American counterparts.
Given how tame the shuttle is, maybe it's technically true, if misleading, to say that roler coasters give the rider more G that an Astronaut experiences. (They did after all say "astronaut", not "cosmonaut") A space shuttle jockey, just barely goes over 3G. Some roler coasters may peak at 5. But here's the difference: The shuttle sustains the 3G for the entire duration of the post-SRB-separation boost. That's several minutes of continuous burn. I doubt whether any roler coaster ever peaks over 3G for more than 2 or 3 seconds at a time, if that.
The physiological risks associated with high G are not determined by the magnitude of the G alone, but mainly by other factors:
The duration that high G is sustained. Long duration deprives the brain of blood long enough to cause very bad things to happen. No real risk there on roler coasters.
The onset-rate. How suddenly the G force starts and stops. High onset rates cause all kinds of problems, including back and neck problems, inner ear problems, and even brain dammage in extreme cases. Once again, no issue in a well-designed roler coaster.
Head movement. High G forces, especially combined with high onset rates, are aggrivated by sudden head rotation. This can be a problem even if the G forces are only momentary. Inner ear problems can result. Roller-coaster designers have little control over this factor, so perhaps it is a real concern.
Negative G. (Negative means the blood rushes to your head). High negative G can cause all kinds of problems, including burst blood vessels in the eyes. I've personally never heard of a roler coaster that goes beyond about -0.5G or so, and even then for less than a second, so I doubt that this is an issue.
Sudden transitions from positive to negative, or vice-verca. All the bad things associated with high positive G are accentuated if it immediately follows a period of negative. And vice verca if negative follows a period of positive. This will become a real issue if roler coasters ever start exploring the negative regime. Frankly, I doubt that they will. The average rider views positive G's as exhilirating fun, but would find negative to be obnoxious and uncomfortable.
Frankly, I'm much more worried about the structural design and maintenence of the coaster than the G-profile. But then, I've flown to WAY higher positive and negative G forces than either roler coaster or space shuttle experience, and I know the breathing techniques, and I know to keep my head relatively still. Roler coasters all seem really disappointing to me.
I'm a hardware design engineer, and I see the same trend in the large corporation that I work for. In our case, the work goes not to individual contract employees on site, but rather to outsource companies in Asia that bid on the job, who in turn hire direct employees at very low wages.
A skeleton crew of direct employees (including myself) remiains to oversee the work.
The model is not working very well. There seems to be a huge gap between the former direct employees and the contractors in many areas, including knowledge of the company, products, and market, in technical and language skills, and commitment to quality and results.
Our highly centralized upper management is in deep denial that there is anything wrong with the model. After all, we now have more "engineer months" assigned to the project, so it will obviously work out just fine!
The datahand is awesome! Best keyboard I've ever used, by far. I douldn't do my job without it. I've listed some pros and cons below:
PROS:
Integral keyboard and mouse. The key-operated mouse function is clumsy and slow, but having a single hand position for both is a big plus, ergonomically.
Also, after the learning curve, I can type much faster on the datahand than I ever could on any other keyboard. It enables you (or rather, forces you) to touch type not only the alphabet, but also the numbers and punctuation. And it's FAST.
Best of all, my experience (YMMV) was that that my RSI problems have gone away totally. No more wrist, finger, elbow and shoulder pain!
CONS:
As supplied, it's useless unless you happen to like the pronated angle. I happen to like the hands suparnated about 60 degrees, and had to modify the keyboard. Buy two swivelling camera mounts, bolt them to the table at the right spacing, and attach the hand units. Voila! Ugly but very effective.
It's available only in PS2, not USB. This can be a problem with some workstations (e.g. HP). A Y-mouse PS2/USB adaptor can fix this problem, but it took a lot of fiddling to find one that works right.
The learning curve is a little steep. It took almost a week to become productive, and perhaps 3 months before my typing speed had caught up with my original flat keyboard speed.
The key spacings are just a little too far apart. For people with large hands, that's great. I have one large and one small hand, and for the small one, it's a stretch.
The quality is a little dicey. I've had to return it for repair 3 times in the 3 years I've used it.
Despite all these problems, it's still the best thing since sliced bread.
Sorry to inform you, but I have tried without success to obtain a laptop contribution from my employer.
Unfortunately, it seems that large corporations are not interested in helping small charities or individuals doing charitable works. If you are not a well-known big-name charity, they just ignore you.
I'll email you directly, if I find a laptop before December 5.
I also have family in Cape Town, but nobody I know regularly travels to Pretoria. I live near Denver.
I've also sent my email address to Johannes. So, if someone in the Denver area finds a laptop, but needs me to help transport it, they can get a message to me via Johannes.
"Doing charitable work" is not the same as "being a charity". Johannes did not mislead or misrepresent in any way. He described the work he does, and he explained that they depend on contributions. I choose to make my personal donations wherever I see worthwhile work being done, regardless or charitable registration. But you are right, corporations won't see it that way.
I agree with you that these are the questions corporations will ask, and unfortunately, I agree that corporations will just say NO based upon the answers. I consider that sad, because I also understand Johanness' situation: If he's not a big-name internationally recognised charity, he's hosed when it comes to asking for donations from corporations. And it's the little guys who do most of the good works in the world, which is what makes this really sad.
I work for a large multinational corporation which has historically (but not so much recently) been VERY generous towards charities. But they are so mired in beaurocracy and politics that an "out of band" request for a single low end lap top will probably get nowhere. How sad that big, wasteful organizations like Red Cross and United Way get all the attention. (And look at what Red Cross tried to do recently, mis-using our Sept 11 contributions! As a donor, I was outraged.)
By the way, I am the one who offered to hand carry it to Cape Town, and pay shipping the rest of the way, myself. I live near Denver, in case anybody else manages to scrounge up a Laptop, but not the postage. I leave for Cape Town December 5. Johannes now has my email address, so donors can contact me through him.
Perhaps I'm cutting the poster more slack than most, but that's because I lived in Africa for 24 years, myself. Between extreme poverty, opressive legislation, poor health care, and illiteracy, he's got his work cut out for him.
It's not the Red Cross or some big-name charitable foundation that does most of the everyday good works in Africa. It's individuals and small grass-roots organizations you'll never hear of if you live in America or Europe.
He didn't claim to represent any kind of registered charity. He said what type of work he was doing, and asked for help. Plain and simple.
And what exactly is he asking for: A million bucks? The crown jewels? No. One old, decrepit computer that would otherwise go the the scrap heap. Well, if it's a scam, I'd take that risk.
Now, how about some positive posts, from people who are willing to make an effort to help?
I will ask my employer. They are a big, political, beaurocratic corporation, so I don't hold out much hope.
I don't care HOW cheap you think such a laptop appears to you on eBay, you are obviously out of touch with what it is like to live and do charity work in Africa.
The South African Rand is almost worthless. What little value it has, is almost completely negated by the country's draconian foreign exchange control regulations. The rand is NOT a hard currency as most of us know it: It can only be exchanged with the permission of the government, and only in tiny amounts, subject to a mountain of regulations and paperwork.
When last I did the research, South Africa's per capita GDP was about $10k or so.
I take my hat off to anyone willing and able to do charity work at all in that environment.
I'm sure that sydb didn't mean his post to be offensive. It's just that we, in the industrialized western world, take so much for granted!
I can not promise anything, but I will ask my employer on Monday. (Here in the US it is thanksgiving holiday, so no business until Monday). We do occasionally have older laptops that we no longer need. Unfortunatly, if I do find one, it may well have Y2K issues.
I will be in Cape Town in December, so hand delivery is a possibility at least that far. I won't be in Pretoria, 'though.
On Monday, I'll email you directly, whatever the outcome.
Sounds like I was running into an application limit and mistaking it for a filesystem limit. If I recall, the application which failed at 2GB was downloading a single large file (maybe lftp or curl, or wget, I forget.) Since I assumed it was a filesystem limit, I didn't think to try a different application.
Nitpicking my own earlier post...
They will have VERY close to sea level weight at that altitude. About 98%, actually.
Astronauts in earth orbit feel weightless, even though they are still subject to (almost) 100% of earth's gravity Assuming a "low earth orbit" (200-500 miles), the actual figure is 94% to 97.5%.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I deliberately avoided stating what editor I use for my Verilog code and spice models. Revealing my own religious bias would not have added anything to my question.
:~{
But, for the record, I use "echo >>file". No, just kidding.
Fortunately, I don't use OrCAD or PSpice, windows or otherwise! I use all-unix tools, inlcuding Hspice. Don't know how much longer that will last, though.
Is it really a sharply divided preference? Aren't there many people like myself who dislike both editors almost equally?
Almost every Emacs user I know, also occasionally runs VI, usually for a quickie edit, not wanting to wait for emacs to load. And, that even includes quite a few "kitchen sink" emacs users, i.e. people who even check their email and browse usenet and the web via emacs.
Believe it or not, not everybody is a strong partisan in this particular religious war.
But then I work mostly with hardware engineers. Perhaps software people are more partisan?
If Spam didn't work, why do I get a hundred pieces of it every morning?
Gee, I don't get ANY spam. Not one single item!
Of course, I DO get a lot of really nice, friendly emails from people wanting me to get rich, attract beautiful women, and participate in wonderful, risk-free investment partnerships with Nigerian ex-cabinet-ministers. Internet people are SO friendly and helpful! I can't wait to hear back from some of them.
- RockyMountain
PS: Gotta go. The credit card company is calling. Something about over-the-limit? Must be a mistake.
This chois of Debian is for HP's internal use of Linux (If u read bhind the links).
No, actually. The choice of Debian was for products shipped to customers. I know first hand, since I was responsible for one of the products that switched from Debian to Red Hat.
Internal use is fairly ad-hoc, and includes various distributions.
Not really...
HPs first foray into Linux was Red Hat.
Then they switched to Debian.
Then they switched back to Red Hat.
They are also listed as partners in United Linux.
In short, HP can't make up their mind. Note that the new Itanium 2 (McKinley, IA64) products such as zx2000, rx2600, zx6000, are all shipping with Red Hat, not Debian. Also true I think, for rx5670 and rx9610.
Having read the spec, and taken a peek at the O'Reilly book, I would definitely want to use BEEP, assuming a I was writing an application that called for a new protocol. (Which I'm not, at present).
:-)
Unfortunately, for me there's still one obstacle: The lack of a perl Net::Beep module.
Yup, I'm that lazy! Until someone else(!) makes it easy in my favorite language, BEEP might as well not exist.
Anybody know of such a project in the works? My search of CPAN, Google, etc., about 6 months ago, turned up nothing.
to informative information.
Informative information? I really ought to use "Preview" before "Submit".
Can you document the claim that hash collisions cause silent data corruption? Or even that they cause a failure of any sort?
If this is true, surely it must be documented somewhere, or have been discussed in a credible forum? I did a little searching, and didn't find anything. Please post a URL to elevate your comment from unsubstantiated rumor to informative information.
In most hash-based indexing algorithms I know of, hash collisions incur a perfomance penalty, but not a data loss.
I browsed much of your web site, but didn't see anything about breathing or pressurization. I assume you will wear a pressure suit? Your own design, or where are you getting it? Or will you pressurize the whole capsule?
I found an interesting one in a Microsoft C library back in about 1987.
They had some sort of io port writing library call poke_io(addr) or some such. Since the 8086 instruction set only allowed constant addresses rather than variables, they used self-modifying code to implement the poke. But the 8088 CPU had a small instruction-prefetch queue that was not coherent, and the instruction being modified had sometimes already been prefetched by the time they modified it.
So, the code randomly failed some times and not others. Also, the code loading allignment made a big difference in how likely it was to fail. Re-link, and it failed. Add a printf and it started working again, etc....
When I reported it, Microsoft eventually fixed it, but of course I had to write my own routine in the interim.
Can someone explain this OpenNIC thing to me? I don't get it. And I can't read their FAQ, because it's in the ".glue" TLD!
:-)
Sounds like a group who have set up alternative "top level" domain servers, in competition with the ones we all know and love.
And, no technical reason why not. But WHY?
I would have thought that a universal namespace was an obviously desirable thing. If I understand it right, they hope that enough individuals and ISPs will switch over to their superset name space, and thereby create a defacto standard. Fat chance!
I can't immagine anybody bothering to register with them. Would you rather your server be accessible within the (like-it-or-not) universal namespace, or only by specially configured clients or clients connecting from via selected ISPs?
What am I missing here?
My Palm m100 had the exact failure the author described.
To Palm's credit, they did the right thing and promptly replaced it. The replacement didn't look exactly new, which bothered me because the broken Palm they were replacing was less than 1 week old!
But, they did another thing that I thought was despicable: They tried to refuse to issue a warranty-return RMA, claiming that it must be opperator error: I couldn't really know for sure that was broken, without first getting their tech support to "talk me through my difficulty". And to get that, I was asked to PAY for a tech support contract. In other words, they tried to make me pay to have them honor their warranty.
The bottom line: After I went mildly balistic, they backed down and agreed to issue an RMA. The replacement arrived promptly ans has worked ever since. But the bad taste lingers, and next time I need a PDA, I may well consider a Handspring or something else before I go back to Palm.
Space launches have steadily reduced their peak G forces over the years. During the Mercury and Gemini programs, the Astronauts were exposed to as much G force as modern jet fighters do in a dogfight, and for as long. The heavier Saturn launch system of Apollo was gentler, and the Space shuttle is very tame by comparison. Russian cosmonauts still get a better (in roler-coaster terms) ride than their American counterparts.
Given how tame the shuttle is, maybe it's technically true, if misleading, to say that roler coasters give the rider more G that an Astronaut experiences. (They did after all say "astronaut", not "cosmonaut") A space shuttle jockey, just barely goes over 3G. Some roler coasters may peak at 5. But here's the difference: The shuttle sustains the 3G for the entire duration of the post-SRB-separation boost. That's several minutes of continuous burn. I doubt whether any roler coaster ever peaks over 3G for more than 2 or 3 seconds at a time, if that.
The physiological risks associated with high G are not determined by the magnitude of the G alone, but mainly by other factors:
The duration that high G is sustained. Long duration deprives the brain of blood long enough to cause very bad things to happen. No real risk there on roler coasters.
The onset-rate. How suddenly the G force starts and stops. High onset rates cause all kinds of problems, including back and neck problems, inner ear problems, and even brain dammage in extreme cases. Once again, no issue in a well-designed roler coaster.
Head movement. High G forces, especially combined with high onset rates, are aggrivated by sudden head rotation. This can be a problem even if the G forces are only momentary. Inner ear problems can result. Roller-coaster designers have little control over this factor, so perhaps it is a real concern.
Negative G. (Negative means the blood rushes to your head). High negative G can cause all kinds of problems, including burst blood vessels in the eyes. I've personally never heard of a roler coaster that goes beyond about -0.5G or so, and even then for less than a second, so I doubt that this is an issue.
Sudden transitions from positive to negative, or vice-verca. All the bad things associated with high positive G are accentuated if it immediately follows a period of negative. And vice verca if negative follows a period of positive. This will become a real issue if roler coasters ever start exploring the negative regime. Frankly, I doubt that they will. The average rider views positive G's as exhilirating fun, but would find negative to be obnoxious and uncomfortable.
Frankly, I'm much more worried about the structural design and maintenence of the coaster than the G-profile. But then, I've flown to WAY higher positive and negative G forces than either roler coaster or space shuttle experience, and I know the breathing techniques, and I know to keep my head relatively still. Roler coasters all seem really disappointing to me.
I'm a hardware design engineer, and I see the same trend in the large corporation that I work for. In our case, the work goes not to individual contract employees on site, but rather to outsource companies in Asia that bid on the job, who in turn hire direct employees at very low wages.
A skeleton crew of direct employees (including myself) remiains to oversee the work.
The model is not working very well. There seems to be a huge gap between the former direct employees and the contractors in many areas, including knowledge of the company, products, and market, in technical and language skills, and commitment to quality and results.
Our highly centralized upper management is in deep denial that there is anything wrong with the model. After all, we now have more "engineer months" assigned to the project, so it will obviously work out just fine!
I'll be looking for a new job soon.
The datahand is awesome! Best keyboard I've ever used, by far. I douldn't do my job without it. I've listed some pros and cons below:
PROS:
Integral keyboard and mouse. The key-operated mouse function is clumsy and slow, but having a single hand position for both is a big plus, ergonomically.
Also, after the learning curve, I can type much faster on the datahand than I ever could on any other keyboard. It enables you (or rather, forces you) to touch type not only the alphabet, but also the numbers and punctuation. And it's FAST.
Best of all, my experience (YMMV) was that that my RSI problems have gone away totally. No more wrist, finger, elbow and shoulder pain!
CONS:
As supplied, it's useless unless you happen to like the pronated angle. I happen to like the hands suparnated about 60 degrees, and had to modify the keyboard. Buy two swivelling camera mounts, bolt them to the table at the right spacing, and attach the hand units. Voila! Ugly but very effective.
It's available only in PS2, not USB. This can be a problem with some workstations (e.g. HP). A Y-mouse PS2/USB adaptor can fix this problem, but it took a lot of fiddling to find one that works right.
The learning curve is a little steep. It took almost a week to become productive, and perhaps 3 months before my typing speed had caught up with my original flat keyboard speed.
The key spacings are just a little too far apart. For people with large hands, that's great. I have one large and one small hand, and for the small one, it's a stretch.
The quality is a little dicey. I've had to return it for repair 3 times in the 3 years I've used it.
Despite all these problems, it's still the best thing since sliced bread.
Business Unit Manager (Job title)
Hi Johnannes,
Sorry to inform you, but I have tried without success to obtain a laptop contribution from my employer.
Unfortunately, it seems that large corporations are not interested in helping small charities or individuals doing charitable works. If you are not a well-known big-name charity, they just ignore you.
I wish I had better news.
Derek.
Thanks,
I'll email you directly, if I find a laptop before December 5.
I also have family in Cape Town, but nobody I know regularly travels to Pretoria. I live near Denver.
I've also sent my email address to Johannes. So, if someone in the Denver area finds a laptop, but needs me to help transport it, they can get a message to me via Johannes.
"Doing charitable work" is not the same as "being a charity". Johannes did not mislead or misrepresent in any way. He described the work he does, and he explained that they depend on contributions. I choose to make my personal donations wherever I see worthwhile work being done, regardless or charitable registration. But you are right, corporations won't see it that way.
I agree with you that these are the questions corporations will ask, and unfortunately, I agree that corporations will just say NO based upon the answers. I consider that sad, because I also understand Johanness' situation: If he's not a big-name internationally recognised charity, he's hosed when it comes to asking for donations from corporations. And it's the little guys who do most of the good works in the world, which is what makes this really sad.
I work for a large multinational corporation which has historically (but not so much recently) been VERY generous towards charities. But they are so mired in beaurocracy and politics that an "out of band" request for a single low end lap top will probably get nowhere. How sad that big, wasteful organizations like Red Cross and United Way get all the attention. (And look at what Red Cross tried to do recently, mis-using our Sept 11 contributions! As a donor, I was outraged.)
By the way, I am the one who offered to hand carry it to Cape Town, and pay shipping the rest of the way, myself. I live near Denver, in case anybody else manages to scrounge up a Laptop, but not the postage. I leave for Cape Town December 5. Johannes now has my email address, so donors can contact me through him.
Perhaps I'm cutting the poster more slack than most, but that's because I lived in Africa for 24 years, myself. Between extreme poverty, opressive legislation, poor health care, and illiteracy, he's got his work cut out for him.
It's not the Red Cross or some big-name charitable foundation that does most of the everyday good works in Africa. It's individuals and small grass-roots organizations you'll never hear of if you live in America or Europe.
He didn't claim to represent any kind of registered charity. He said what type of work he was doing, and asked for help. Plain and simple.
And what exactly is he asking for: A million bucks? The crown jewels? No. One old, decrepit computer that would otherwise go the the scrap heap. Well, if it's a scam, I'd take that risk.
Now, how about some positive posts, from people who are willing to make an effort to help?
I will ask my employer. They are a big, political, beaurocratic corporation, so I don't hold out much hope.
But at least I'll try. Will you?
eBay? Let's get real, here!
I don't care HOW cheap you think such a laptop appears to you on eBay, you are obviously out of touch with what it is like to live and do charity work in Africa.
The South African Rand is almost worthless. What little value it has, is almost completely negated by the country's draconian foreign exchange control regulations. The rand is NOT a hard currency as most of us know it: It can only be exchanged with the permission of the government, and only in tiny amounts, subject to a mountain of regulations and paperwork.
When last I did the research, South Africa's per capita GDP was about $10k or so.
I take my hat off to anyone willing and able to do charity work at all in that environment.
I'm sure that sydb didn't mean his post to be offensive. It's just that we, in the industrialized western world, take so much for granted!
I can not promise anything, but I will ask my employer on Monday. (Here in the US it is thanksgiving holiday, so no business until Monday). We do occasionally have older laptops that we no longer need. Unfortunatly, if I do find one, it may well have Y2K issues.
I will be in Cape Town in December, so hand delivery is a possibility at least that far. I won't be in Pretoria, 'though.
On Monday, I'll email you directly, whatever the outcome.
Thanks. Very helpful link.
Sounds like I was running into an application limit and mistaking it for a filesystem limit. If I recall, the application which failed at 2GB was downloading a single large file (maybe lftp or curl, or wget, I forget.) Since I assumed it was a filesystem limit, I didn't think to try a different application.
Question...
What are the individual file size limits, and overall filesystem size limits for each of the various journalled filesystems?
I ran into the file size limit on ext2 just recently (2GB, I think it was), and I want to upgrade to something that handles larger files.
Thanks.
Nitpicking my own earlier post...
They will have VERY close to sea level weight at that altitude.
About 98%, actually.
Astronauts in earth orbit feel weightless, even though they are still subject to (almost) 100% of earth's gravity
Assuming a "low earth orbit" (200-500 miles), the actual figure is 94% to 97.5%.