To stress the memory, I use both stream (memory benchmark util) and memtest86 (as others have pointed out). For stressing disks, I use bonnie or bonnie++ (disk IO benchmark). To check for bad media, use the "badblocks" command -- it'll destroy any data, so be careful!
I use the dnetc client (distributed.net) to tax the CPU.
Sorry for the self-reply! The util was called PC-CONFIG, and it's at http://www.holin.com. Great package. It's shareware, though. The prices are reasonable, however.
My favorite pre-web ftp site (after the original SIMTEL archive went down) was Garbo: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi. It's web-enabled now (change "ftp" to "http" in the url), though most stuff is really dated now.
Scrounge around the "sysinfo" and "sysutil" directories. There are a bunch of old utils that do what you're looking for.
There was a german DOS utility. I can't remember the name, but I think it was simply "config" (or was it "pcconfig" or "pcinfo"?). Anyway, that utility could identify damned near anything in a PC (CPU, chipsets, memory, motherboard, etc.) and it ran some diagnostics. I tried to locate it again for this post, but I couldn't find it. If anyone knows where it went...
Also, if you're looking to set up an old box for pleasure, you can usually get the OS of your choice here: http://386page.gooddays.org
What an awesome find! I have something to contribute to this site (DESQView 2.60), but there's no contact info at all. If the maintainer of this site is reading (and you are interested), post here and I'll send it to you.
Our shop has deployed a half dozen terrabyte servers in-house using a pairs of 8- and 10-port cards (they just announced the 12-port cards, BTY) and fully populated with 120GB and 160GB drives in various arrangements on Linux machines.
There have been some bumps with the hardware, but 3Ware has been responsive to our bug reports, and our current revs of the drivers/firmware have been solid. The drivers have been incorporated into the main kernel, and you can download the latest driver from 3Ware's site.
The 3dm software is great for managing and monitoring the arrays. It has a web interface, email notification, and SNMP access (I think).
Give them a fair evaluation and you should be impressed.
Ditto. Since we don't use the phone much, we have a pre-pay phone from ECallPlus. I like it most because: 1) You pay for what you use. If I only call 10 minutes this month, I only get "billed" for 10 minutes; and 2) I don't have a contract tying me down. I can drop the service whenever I wish.
You do need to add to the account every 90 days (minimum card is $20 -- that's only $7/month) and you must make a call once a month for the phone to remain active.
The largest card is $100 -- 400 minutes, or $0.25/minute. Yeah it may sound high, but that includes long distance (ever overseas to many countries) and taxes/fees. I love it.
For the price of a bare-bones landline and a minimal cell phone, we come out ahead with the prepay.
You're wasting your breath, man. Every caffeine-related thread I point out that caffeine isn't the safest substance in the world. And every time I'm either (mostly) ignored or flamed. Many posts I can get an "Informative" or "Insightful" but not when you question a vice of the majority of/. readers.
This is the first study that I'm aware of that shows a possible health benefit from caffeine. Sure, it may have emotional benefits, but so can any harmful substance. Sniffing glue or smoking cigarettes might make me a more productive worker, but the related substances are almost certainly unhealthy.
I simply stated that this might be only study showing a positive health benefit to caffeine, and that there are plenty of studies showing no effect, and even a few showing negative effects. My anectdotal account of my reading the book was just that.
The book's author concludes that 3 cups of coffee per day (what the headline summary states) is way too much. Daily intake (like a morning cup of cofee) is "chronic". If you want his analysis, read the book.
All I'm saying is that readers should be cautious before they believe that their coffee and Mountain Dew habbit might actually be healthy.
And I never drank coffee to look "cool". Coffee is some fine-tasting stuff!:)
In the early 90's, Yahoo was awesome. It was the first search engine I was introduced to. After the big "portal" craze that ruined Lycos and others, Yahoo hasn't been worth the time to load in my browser.
Instead of being good at anyone thing, it's horrible at all things it does. Want tosearch? Go to Google. Want to see stock quotes? Hit Etrade. Want weather? Go to weather.com. Want nice categories? Hit dmoz.org.
Why anyone continues to care about Yahoo these days is simply beyond me.
I read Caffeine Blues by Stephen Cherniske a while back. Before the book, I was a regular coffee and soda drinker, and Penguin Mints were a staple on my desk. Since reading it, I've been caffeine-free for 6 months. And I've felt much better ever since.
The book cites tons of studies, and none of them claim anything beneficial about caffeine consumption. At best, most industry-funded studies showed no harm, and some of the more nuetral studies showed potential problems associated with chronic caffeine intake.
In fact, prior to reading this book, the only good thing I read about caffeine was about 10 years ago on Hyperreal's chemistry archive. I found a tidbit that said some study showed that coffee drinkers were less prone to suicide than non-coffee drinkers. I can;t seem to locate it, though.
I'm not preaching to anyone -- I still sneak in a morning coffee. And I really do miss my regular morning cup. However, if a die-hard (and quite rational) coffee drinker can be turned by this book, then all I'm saying is tread carefully. Thumb through this book while drinking a latte at Barnes and Noble.:)
Very true. I wish there were a decent open source raytracer (I haven't found any that match up to POV). As kick-ass as POV is, I'd much prefer something more free. Reading the license gives one the feeling that they'll never go that way, though.
I discovered POV-Ray on a BBS back in 1995. I had a 386DX-40. My favorite included scene was those funky fish. I remember tracing that scene at 640x480 at full quality with anti-aliasing and it taking a day or two of dedicated compute time (I used the DOS version to squeak every last cylce out of the box). Now I can do that same scene at 1280x1024 in minutes.
For my own scenes, it was like this: Add an object, start render before bed, see results in morning, add next object, start render before work, see results when I got home. Repeat.
Gotta love those slow days.
Some day (maybe 10-20 years from now?) we'll hopefully be able to render our way through POV-Ray scenes in real-time. Wouldn't that be sweet!
Re:Render Engine is nice, but modelers?
on
POV-Ray 3.5 Rendered
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· Score: 4, Funny
I think Moray is featured on the site. Haven't used either, though. I craft my spheres and checkerboard floors by hand, thank you very much.
Good article. When I was researching stevia about a year ago, I didn't find any negative press. Certainly something to keep an eye on. Thanks.
The article says the FDA was petitioned 3 times for use of stevia as a sweetener, and rejected each time. I have to wonder how many timed the other big ones (saccharine, aspartame, & sucralose) had to petition. Funny how aspartame was never recalled after the many negative reactions it caused in people (or I seem to recall a big fuss about it, anyway).
Science aside, I'm still inclined to believe that big monied interests have a lot to do with the holdup. I mean, there's a lot of proven harmful products out there (cigarette, for example) that haven't gone away yet.
First saccharine (Sweet-n-Low), then aspartame (NutraSweet, expired 1992), now currently suctralose (Splenda). I'm sure there's more. Industry will crank out a new calorie-free sweetener every time they can get a new patent.
The industry is a crazy one.
I personally use stevia -- a non-patentable, naturally-occuring no-calorie sweetener. Great stuff, if you're into the artificial sweetener thing. We even grow some at home, though we've yet to get a reasonable yield.
I'm no big conspiracy buff, but I've read that big corporate interests (our beloved Monsanto, maybe?) paid off the FDA to disallow stevia to be marketed as a sweetener, paving the way for profits on the patented lab-grown chemicals that we injest in our diet soft drinks.
Note, that I do have a huge box of pink saccharine packets I bought from Costco (a US price club). As Diet Coke once said, "Just for the taste of it!" I can't stand aspartame, stevia is to pricey to use everywhere.
My point? Um... I don't remember. However, if you read up a bit, the sweetener industry is an interesting one. Plus I couldn't not plug stevia.:)
We don't let kids smoke before a certain age. We don't let kids marry, drive, drink, have sex, etc. before a certain age (or at least most of us prefer they don't).
There's a reason for this: kids aren't ready for certain things.
I hold that religion is one of those things that a child's mind cannot handle.
I won't push my atheist beliefs on my kids. It will get an equal explanation to other religions. My child may decide to follow her father's footsteps blindly, but I certainly hope that she'll choose a path later in life which is based on her own reasoning (doesn't even need to be logical) and not because some person or group pushed it on her.
Yes, anything is "potentially harmful". Religious followers who hold extreme views are far more common than other extreme views.
Me to my daughter: The Mormons believe that Joseph Smith found... yadda-yadda-yadda. They believe that you can only go to heaven (or that planet) if you're baptised. Etc.
My Mormon mother-in-law to my daughter: Joseph Smith found... yadda-yadda-yadda. You will go to hell is you're not baptised. A woman's place is in the home, subordinate to her husband, and she must overpopulate the earth with children."
I'm being sarcastic in my paraphrasing of my mother-in-law. However, you see the difference between stating the simple facts about a belief and pushing your views on a unprepared child. My daughter doesn't watch much TV (by design), yet she somehow has this notion that she must marry and crank out offspring. This is a direct result of her grandmother's teachings. I ask you, is it right to tell a little girl that her worth as a person is lessened if she doesn't marry and have kids?
I'm atheist, but I could give a hoot if my children (after being protected from institutionalized brainwashing) decide to join a religious group after they become legal adults. I believe I am right in my belief, but I'm not so arrogant and "selfish" to push my belief on my kids as fact. It's their choice to make when they're capable.
Religion is fine as a personal belief, but as an institution, it's dangerous. Recruiting young ones in hopes of gaining future tithing income to fatten tax-free coffers is sickening.
Hmm... Sounds like you'd like to take all children away at an early age away from their parents and foster care them in the state, in order to prevent "early religious indoctrination before they've come to the age of rationality."
Kindly get a grip. I simply stated that children aren't capable of grasping religion, and should wait until a more mature age to be introduced to it. Parents are free to teach their kids most anything, within reason.
Kids shouldn't consume as much junk food as they do, yet most parents feed all kind of garbage to their children. Most people indoctrinate their children into religion, often to the point where later in life they can't make a rational appraisal of their own faith. Some people instill hate (KKK, etc.) into their kids.
Should the State come in and take the kids to avoid these things? I don't believe so. However, parents should not be so selfish as to think they're not harming their kids (and, by extension, future society) in some way for doing these things.
In summary, consenting adults are free to take on any ideals they wish (within reason -- my nose, your punch, yadda...). Pushing potentially harmful ideals on a young child is morally wrong.
People get upset because God is talked about in public school and say "Freedom of Religion and the right to not believe" and then get upset when a schoolboard decides that "Lord of the Flies" should not be freely available to the very same children by saying "Freedom of speech".
I'm talking about teachers stating as fact their religious beliefs during school hours. That's not cool by me.
If like-minded folk want to use time before/after school hours to discuss matters of faith, fine by me -- even if a teacher leads the meeting. But when a 1st grade teacher states matter-of-factly "Jesus loves you" to her class during class hours, that's just not appropriate.
I don't object to the beliefs of others, just their poor judgement on when and where they should express them. Would you appreciate me going to your religious gatherings and stating my atheist views as fact to you (assuming they weren't solicited)?
People... there are other people who feel uncomfortable when people are talking about low down scumbags in washington.... so should we not allow that. Should children be forbidden from speaking about congressmen?
It's not the discomfort -- it's the time and place.
When I dine with friends and family, I bow my head at the meal's prayer (out of repsect for the househole, not for religious reasons). I'm still uncomfortable, but it's not my place to tell people not to say grace at their table.
However, school is not the place for religious or patriotic indoctrination. School is for learning.
As an atheist myself, I always felt uncomfortable with The Pledge. I still find a mandatory recitation of it too close to the 2 Minutes of Hate (or whatever), but just in the other extreme.
My 7-year-old daughter, who attends public school in Utah, is always coming home with little sayings and tidbits about Jesus and god. I haven't jumped on the school or her teacher just yet, but I may if it continues.
Thers's nothing wrong with religion, in terms of personal choice. However, children are too young to contemplate the philosophical and metaphysical consequences of a religiouos faith. Hell, even many seemingly intelligent adults can't give a good reason for their faith (or for their denouncement of my lack of it).
I wish religious followers would leave children alone and let informed adults come to them when they reach an age appropraite to do so.
Assuming this only applies to drives sold with these units, manufacturors might start making easy at-home upgradable units. Imagine buying a Tivo with a 10GB drive, then being able to replace it with a commodity 160GB drive from Circuit City.
I can't imagine the computer industry allowing commodity hard drives to be taxed like this. There's just no way I could see it happening.
Slashdot Mirror
I use the dnetc client (distributed.net) to tax the CPU.
Sorry for the self-reply! The util was called PC-CONFIG, and it's at http://www.holin.com. Great package. It's shareware, though. The prices are reasonable, however.
Scrounge around the "sysinfo" and "sysutil" directories. There are a bunch of old utils that do what you're looking for.
There was a german DOS utility. I can't remember the name, but I think it was simply "config" (or was it "pcconfig" or "pcinfo"?). Anyway, that utility could identify damned near anything in a PC (CPU, chipsets, memory, motherboard, etc.) and it ran some diagnostics. I tried to locate it again for this post, but I couldn't find it. If anyone knows where it went...
What an awesome find! I have something to contribute to this site (DESQView 2.60), but there's no contact info at all. If the maintainer of this site is reading (and you are interested), post here and I'll send it to you.
There have been some bumps with the hardware, but 3Ware has been responsive to our bug reports, and our current revs of the drivers/firmware have been solid. The drivers have been incorporated into the main kernel, and you can download the latest driver from 3Ware's site.
The 3dm software is great for managing and monitoring the arrays. It has a web interface, email notification, and SNMP access (I think).
Give them a fair evaluation and you should be impressed.
You do need to add to the account every 90 days (minimum card is $20 -- that's only $7/month) and you must make a call once a month for the phone to remain active.
The largest card is $100 -- 400 minutes, or $0.25/minute. Yeah it may sound high, but that includes long distance (ever overseas to many countries) and taxes/fees. I love it.
For the price of a bare-bones landline and a minimal cell phone, we come out ahead with the prepay.
You're wasting your breath, man. Every caffeine-related thread I point out that caffeine isn't the safest substance in the world. And every time I'm either (mostly) ignored or flamed. Many posts I can get an "Informative" or "Insightful" but not when you question a vice of the majority of /. readers.
I simply stated that this might be only study showing a positive health benefit to caffeine, and that there are plenty of studies showing no effect, and even a few showing negative effects. My anectdotal account of my reading the book was just that.
The book's author concludes that 3 cups of coffee per day (what the headline summary states) is way too much. Daily intake (like a morning cup of cofee) is "chronic". If you want his analysis, read the book.
All I'm saying is that readers should be cautious before they believe that their coffee and Mountain Dew habbit might actually be healthy.
And I never drank coffee to look "cool". Coffee is some fine-tasting stuff! :)
Instead of being good at anyone thing, it's horrible at all things it does. Want tosearch? Go to Google. Want to see stock quotes? Hit Etrade. Want weather? Go to weather.com. Want nice categories? Hit dmoz.org.
Why anyone continues to care about Yahoo these days is simply beyond me.
I read Caffeine Blues by Stephen Cherniske a while back. Before the book, I was a regular coffee and soda drinker, and Penguin Mints were a staple on my desk. Since reading it, I've been caffeine-free for 6 months. And I've felt much better ever since.
The book cites tons of studies, and none of them claim anything beneficial about caffeine consumption. At best, most industry-funded studies showed no harm, and some of the more nuetral studies showed potential problems associated with chronic caffeine intake.
In fact, prior to reading this book, the only good thing I read about caffeine was about 10 years ago on Hyperreal's chemistry archive. I found a tidbit that said some study showed that coffee drinkers were less prone to suicide than non-coffee drinkers. I can;t seem to locate it, though.
I'm not preaching to anyone -- I still sneak in a morning coffee. And I really do miss my regular morning cup. However, if a die-hard (and quite rational) coffee drinker can be turned by this book, then all I'm saying is tread carefully. Thumb through this book while drinking a latte at Barnes and Noble. :)
Very true. I wish there were a decent open source raytracer (I haven't found any that match up to POV). As kick-ass as POV is, I'd much prefer something more free. Reading the license gives one the feeling that they'll never go that way, though.
For my own scenes, it was like this: Add an object, start render before bed, see results in morning, add next object, start render before work, see results when I got home. Repeat.
Gotta love those slow days.
Some day (maybe 10-20 years from now?) we'll hopefully be able to render our way through POV-Ray scenes in real-time. Wouldn't that be sweet!
I think Moray is featured on the site. Haven't used either, though. I craft my spheres and checkerboard floors by hand, thank you very much.
The article says the FDA was petitioned 3 times for use of stevia as a sweetener, and rejected each time. I have to wonder how many timed the other big ones (saccharine, aspartame, & sucralose) had to petition. Funny how aspartame was never recalled after the many negative reactions it caused in people (or I seem to recall a big fuss about it, anyway).
Science aside, I'm still inclined to believe that big monied interests have a lot to do with the holdup. I mean, there's a lot of proven harmful products out there (cigarette, for example) that haven't gone away yet.
The industry is a crazy one.
I personally use stevia -- a non-patentable, naturally-occuring no-calorie sweetener. Great stuff, if you're into the artificial sweetener thing. We even grow some at home, though we've yet to get a reasonable yield.
I'm no big conspiracy buff, but I've read that big corporate interests (our beloved Monsanto, maybe?) paid off the FDA to disallow stevia to be marketed as a sweetener, paving the way for profits on the patented lab-grown chemicals that we injest in our diet soft drinks.
This paper is a good reference.
Note, that I do have a huge box of pink saccharine packets I bought from Costco (a US price club). As Diet Coke once said, "Just for the taste of it!" I can't stand aspartame, stevia is to pricey to use everywhere.
My point? Um... I don't remember. However, if you read up a bit, the sweetener industry is an interesting one. Plus I couldn't not plug stevia. :)
or they'll send in Sexual Harassment Panda!
We don't let kids smoke before a certain age. We don't let kids marry, drive, drink, have sex, etc. before a certain age (or at least most of us prefer they don't).
There's a reason for this: kids aren't ready for certain things.
I hold that religion is one of those things that a child's mind cannot handle.
I won't push my atheist beliefs on my kids. It will get an equal explanation to other religions. My child may decide to follow her father's footsteps blindly, but I certainly hope that she'll choose a path later in life which is based on her own reasoning (doesn't even need to be logical) and not because some person or group pushed it on her.
Me to my daughter: The Mormons believe that Joseph Smith found... yadda-yadda-yadda. They believe that you can only go to heaven (or that planet) if you're baptised. Etc.
My Mormon mother-in-law to my daughter: Joseph Smith found... yadda-yadda-yadda. You will go to hell is you're not baptised. A woman's place is in the home, subordinate to her husband, and she must overpopulate the earth with children."
I'm being sarcastic in my paraphrasing of my mother-in-law. However, you see the difference between stating the simple facts about a belief and pushing your views on a unprepared child. My daughter doesn't watch much TV (by design), yet she somehow has this notion that she must marry and crank out offspring. This is a direct result of her grandmother's teachings. I ask you, is it right to tell a little girl that her worth as a person is lessened if she doesn't marry and have kids?
I'm atheist, but I could give a hoot if my children (after being protected from institutionalized brainwashing) decide to join a religious group after they become legal adults. I believe I am right in my belief, but I'm not so arrogant and "selfish" to push my belief on my kids as fact. It's their choice to make when they're capable.
Religion is fine as a personal belief, but as an institution, it's dangerous. Recruiting young ones in hopes of gaining future tithing income to fatten tax-free coffers is sickening.
Kindly get a grip. I simply stated that children aren't capable of grasping religion, and should wait until a more mature age to be introduced to it. Parents are free to teach their kids most anything, within reason.
Kids shouldn't consume as much junk food as they do, yet most parents feed all kind of garbage to their children. Most people indoctrinate their children into religion, often to the point where later in life they can't make a rational appraisal of their own faith. Some people instill hate (KKK, etc.) into their kids.
Should the State come in and take the kids to avoid these things? I don't believe so. However, parents should not be so selfish as to think they're not harming their kids (and, by extension, future society) in some way for doing these things.
In summary, consenting adults are free to take on any ideals they wish (within reason -- my nose, your punch, yadda...). Pushing potentially harmful ideals on a young child is morally wrong.
I'm talking about teachers stating as fact their religious beliefs during school hours. That's not cool by me.
If like-minded folk want to use time before/after school hours to discuss matters of faith, fine by me -- even if a teacher leads the meeting. But when a 1st grade teacher states matter-of-factly "Jesus loves you" to her class during class hours, that's just not appropriate.
I don't object to the beliefs of others, just their poor judgement on when and where they should express them. Would you appreciate me going to your religious gatherings and stating my atheist views as fact to you (assuming they weren't solicited)?
It's not the discomfort -- it's the time and place.
When I dine with friends and family, I bow my head at the meal's prayer (out of repsect for the househole, not for religious reasons). I'm still uncomfortable, but it's not my place to tell people not to say grace at their table.
However, school is not the place for religious or patriotic indoctrination. School is for learning.
I assumed nothing. I was told by my daughter that it was her teacher who stated these things.
Why don't you just not say the phrase 'under God' ? Seems like a pretty simply fix to me.
This was not referring to the religious aspect, but more of the patriotic conditioning. School is a place to learn the facts, not be indoctrinated.
My 7-year-old daughter, who attends public school in Utah, is always coming home with little sayings and tidbits about Jesus and god. I haven't jumped on the school or her teacher just yet, but I may if it continues.
Thers's nothing wrong with religion, in terms of personal choice. However, children are too young to contemplate the philosophical and metaphysical consequences of a religiouos faith. Hell, even many seemingly intelligent adults can't give a good reason for their faith (or for their denouncement of my lack of it).
I wish religious followers would leave children alone and let informed adults come to them when they reach an age appropraite to do so.
I can't imagine the computer industry allowing commodity hard drives to be taxed like this. There's just no way I could see it happening.