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User: quantum+bit

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  1. Re:-5 Rep on Oracle Subpoenas Apache Foundation In Google Suit · · Score: 2

    Indeed, Oracle's power play to try to force HP-UX customers using Oracle software on to Solaris/SPARC resulted in us taking a long hard look at Linux on x86-64; and deciding that was the best path forward.

  2. Re:Questions. on FBI Releases Document Confirming Roswell UFO · · Score: 1

    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

  3. Re:Sparc on Oracle Claims Intel Is Looking To Sink the Itanic · · Score: 1

    Even if Intel and HP completely deny it, their customers will be thinking it all along.

    Customers aren't stupid. It's blatantly obvious what Oracle's motivation is, and everyone I've talked to in the industry knows it. It's a direct shot at HP, aimed at sinking HP-UX. HP-UX + Oracle on Itanium is a very popular platform in the high-end monolithic database market, and Oracle is salivating at the idea if trying to convert some of that to Solaris + Oracle on SPARC.

    If Itanium is dying it's only because Oracle just killed it. They're hurting HP and pissing off their own customers by cutting off development for a platform that many companies invested in, not just in the past, but new generations of servers being developed and solid right now.

    Well screw them. We'll just go with x86-64. They can't kill that platform without committing corporate suicide. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go order a Dell server and try to suppress the vomiting.

  4. Re:Internet Don't Let Me Down on N.C. Official Sics License Police On Computer Scientist For Too Good a Complaint · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was more thinking let his boss know what you think. Lacy seems to be the head of the traffic department, so perhaps this:

    Secretary of Transportation
    Gene Conti
    gconti at ncdot dot gov
    (919) 733-2520

    1501 MAIL SERVICE CENTER (MAIL)
    RALEIGH NC 27699-1501

  5. Re:Internet Don't Let Me Down on N.C. Official Sics License Police On Computer Scientist For Too Good a Complaint · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I should have known someone would find it before long. Please remember that polite but firm messages are more likely to be effective in expressing the public's opinion than incoherent flamefests that will just get deleted.

    I 3 you Internets!

  6. Internet Don't Let Me Down on N.C. Official Sics License Police On Computer Scientist For Too Good a Complaint · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, they're investigating the guy because the report was "too good"? Since when do you need a license to be smart? It's no wonder the US is losing ground in the tech and scientific sector.

    I think the Internet needs to tell the people in charge exactly how ridiculous that is. Demand an apology at the very least, if not an investigation into the people who are making these accusations.

    Here's a link to get you started:

    http://www.ncdot.org/

  7. Re:Sen. Lieberman (DINOSAUR-CT) on Senate Panel Approves Cybersecurity Bill · · Score: 1

    Any Republicans who voted for him have no right to call themselves Republicans, IMO. Admittedly, my own party would probably label me as a heretic, but I don't mind (I'm registered as Republican)!

    IMO, the Republican party lost its way about 20-30 years ago and has been slowly getting worse. It's no longer conservative in any way, and many of its members are now pushing religious fundamentalism under the guise of "family values", and totalitarianism masquerading as "security".

    Whatever happens with the Democrats, I think it's time for a Conservative party to form and rise up out of the ashes.

  8. Re:So what? on Will Tabbed Windows Be the Next Big Thing? · · Score: 1

    I know that. However, it would be more efficient if the "working directory" could be dynamically updated when I (or a script) used the "cd" command.

    I don't use a Mac regularly, so I don't know if its terminal handles the right escape codes, I'd be shocked if it didn't. Plain stock xterm has been doing this pretty much forever.

    The sequence is ^[]0;string^G
    (where ^[ is Escape and ^G is the bell character)
    You can use that in your PS1 variable to automatically update the title every time you get a prompt. Or, depending on your shell, you can get fancy with it.

    Here's some magic from my .zshrc file:


    function title() {
            a=${(V)1//\%/\%\%}
            a=$(print -Pn "%40<...<$a" | tr -d "\n")
            case $TERM in
            screen)
                    print -Pn "\e]0;$a @ $2\a"
                    print -Pn "\ek$a\e\\" ;;
            xterm*|rxvt)
                    print -Pn "\e]0;$a @ $2\a" ;;
            esac
    }

    case $TERM in
            screen|xterm*|rxvt)
                    function precmd() {
                            title "zsh" "%m(%55<...<%~)"
                    }

                    function preexec() {
                            title "$1" "%m(%35<...<%~)"
                    } ;;
    esac

    A little complicated, but it keeps my xterm title set to "command @ hostname(dir)". The %55() is just zsh magic to abbreviate where necessary.

    If I'm in a screen session, it also updates the name of the screen window ("tab") to the command.

    Here's an excerpt from my .screenrc that keeps things rolling when I change active windows inside of screen:


    termcapinfo xterm* 'hs:ts=\E]0;:fs=\007:ds=\E]0;\007'
    defhstatus "screen ^E (^Et) | $USER@^EH"

  9. Re:... and that sucks on FreeNAS Switching From FreeBSD To Debian Linux · · Score: 1

    If you have something using ZFS today, you can export the pool, install Nexenta, and reimport, being back up in minutes.

    Maybe. (Open)Solaris is a bit pickier about wanting ZFS vdevs to be inside of GPT partitions. FreeBSD is layered on top of their GEOM subsystem, so it lets you put a ZFS vdev on just about anything. If it's inside of a bsdlabel partition, Solaris may not be able to find it to import the pool.

    It may very well work. Just be sure to have a good backup just in case :)

  10. Re:To much reinvention on One Way To Save Digital Archives From File Corruption · · Score: 1

    [quote]Of those you listed, the only one that does crc checksumming at every transition level is ZFS.. Store it on raidz2 and never suffer from bit-rot...[/quote]

    Just remember to run zpool scrub every once in a while to correct any bit errors. It's theoretically possible for them to build up over time and render blocks unreadable if you don't periodically scan and correct.

  11. Re:Ellison on Sun Microsystems To Cut 3,000 Jobs As Oracle Deal Drags On · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Also, high end Oracle databases typically run on either Linux for distributed (cheap) clusters, or HP-UX/Solaris on high end hardware for big monolithic installations. Oracle already has their own Linux distribution that they push pretty hard, and once they buy Sun they'll own a major commercial UNIX player, too.

    Oracle has traditionally been buddy buddy with HP, but since the announcement of the Sun deal, they've started giving them the cold shoulder. While I doubt they'd drop HP-UX support entirely (there would be outrage), I can certainly see them doing things to try to push people onto Solaris or Oracle Linux, on Sun hardware, and wrapping everything up as a neat package deal.

  12. Re:Apophis on NASA Downgrades Asteroid-Earth Collision Risk · · Score: 1

    Apohpis? Everybody knows it was Anubis who sent the asteroid.

    Just cut the red wire (but they're all yellow!)

    Yep, plan 3 works every time.

  13. Re:Linux vs. FreeBSD on Debian Elevates KFreeBSD Port to First-Class Status · · Score: 1

    One thing I noticed: a working and consistent sound system.

    QFT.

    Every time I've tried Linux on my desktop, one of the major things that's always driven me back to FreeBSD is the utter mess that is the Linux sound system.

  14. Re:Seems like Just a Console Title on Review: Champions Online · · Score: 1

    I would give it a 3/10 personally. COH was brilliant and I will likely return to playing it at some point, but this simply failed to make the grade.

    Ironically enough, CoH has gotten a lot better since it was sold to NCSoft and the lead designer left to go make Champions...

  15. Re:You could do this in COH too, actually on Review: Champions Online · · Score: 1

    No, you can't. The WoW PTR is only active when there's a new patch that they're testing.

    The City of Heroes test server by contrast is available all the time (except during closed betas, which isn't very often). Arena PvP traditionally takes places on the test server, because it's the easiest way for people on different servers to compete against each other since there's no cross-server PvP (yet).

  16. Re:Champions Online is a great game! on Xbox 360 Version of Champions Online Being Held Back By MS · · Score: 1

    CoH has had costume save / loading for a while now. Since last December I think.

  17. Re:in what book on RIAA Says "Don't Expect DRMed Music To Work Forever" · · Score: 1

    does the quote above appear? i've never read a harry potter book, so i didn't know they were in book 1

    It was either the sixth or the seventh, I don't remember exactly. Kind of think it was 7.

    Either way, it was well after both the series and Rowling herself were quite firmly established.

  18. Re:On slashdotting... on Alan Cox Quits As Linux TTY Maintainer — "I've Had Enough" · · Score: 1

    They should've run it on BSD... :P

  19. Re:Courier, Arial, Times New Roman on Typography On the Web Gets Different · · Score: 1

    Actually, yes, Arial is free. Microsoft gave it away under a freeware-style license, and while MS themselves no longer distributes it, the EULA allows for re-distribution so there are still a lot of sites that host it.

    See http://www.microsoft.com/typography/faq/faq8.htm
    or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web

  20. Re:Automatically or automagically? on Google Announces Chrome OS, For Release Mid-2010 · · Score: 1

    While this product is currently non-existent

    *cough*

  21. "Learning" on IBM Releases Open Source Machine Learning Compiler · · Score: 0

    Joshua? Is that you?

  22. Re:Google Owns Search on Microsoft Changing Users' Default Search Engine · · Score: 1

    Yeah, well, here in the U.S., a Hoover involves whipped cream and some other accessories, although it does have something to do with (ahem!) carpets.

    ...or warrantless wiretapping :P

  23. Re:Tilting at windmills on Enthusiasts Convene To Say No To SQL, Hash Out New DB Breed · · Score: 1

    who hasn't had a business need for multiple levels of aggregates (eg averages of sums across multiple groupings, say "average across all customers' total balances")

    Funny you should mention that. Window functions in the SQL:2003 standard address that need, and there was an article on Slashdot earlier today about PostgreSQL 8.4 being released with support for them. Oracle has for a while now.

  24. Try City of Heroes on Why Don't MMOs Allow Easier Transportation? · · Score: 1

    Transportation in City of Heroes is so much faster than other MMO's I've played. Train stations or boats allow you to quickly move from one to zone to almost others in the same level range. There's a multitude of shortcuts (Pocket D teleporter, day job teleporters). There are Supergorup base teleporters that take you to almost every zone. Once you get to level 25, you can get the Ouroboros portal, which you can summon wherever you want and allows you to instantly teleport to the key high-level zones that you visit a lot.

    That's just between zones. In the world itself, or even in instanced missions, you can move extremely fast if you pick up a travel power (first available at level 14). Flight is the slowest, but most versatile. "Slowest" is relative, it's still faster than epic flying mounts in WoW. There's also Super Jumping, Super Speed, and Teleportation, in increasing order of speed and difficulty to use.

    After hitting boost range and teleporting across a huge zone in a half dozen hops, when I go play WoW with friends it just takes so damn long to get anywhere. :( Especially in the old world where the ground mounts feel so slooooow.

  25. Try reading the articles you linked to... on Microsoft-Backed Firm Says IBM Is Anticompetitive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...and not just the titles. The HP one is talking about HP pushing for people to migrate off mainframes. Onto HP servers. Running Windows Server 2003.