Almost as funny was someone at the NSA (the security organization) adding the "National Softball Association" to the disambiguation page for "NSA":-) Maybe they work in the mail room and were tired of sorting through all the softball-related catalogs they receive?
Yeah I blew that by putting the regexps in single-quotes (which is my habit but isn't what the OP was asking)
Where you'd need to be sure to escape the spaces is if you didn't put the whole regexp in quotes already:
Either sed s/of\ a\ pity/foreseeable/g somefile or sed s/"of a pity"/foreseeable/g somefile works, while sed s/of a pity/foreseeable/g somefile gets you an unterminated command error (as it should).
That's the distinction I was trying to make.
I'm just so used to putting my regexps in single quotes as a preventative that I did it automatically in my examples. (sed 's/"of a pity"/foreseeable/g' somefile is valid, but it includes the quotes as part of the string to be replaced.)
Time for lunch, I must be getting hungry and not thinking straight...
I acknowledge the possibility that there is something to the 'subconscious reception' argument, and that it's possible that some recording methods lose some content in the recorded material that's just not picked up in ABX 'sound quality' tests.
However, I'm not sure I buy that any methodology that just involves listening to one version and then the other and trying to find some sort of difference in emotional response, serves any purpose. It would be just too easy to get the placebo effect (or just plain-old confirmation bias) in there, if you know which version is which. That said, it would be interesting to try and study that hypothesis in some more controlled manner.
I do think that we probably agree on one thing, and that is that CDs are not and should not be the 'gold standard' of audio reproduction; live sound should be. The ultimate goal of a sound recording/reproduction system ought to be the ability to reproduce something that is indistinguishable from the original recording as it would be heard by someone actually present for it. (Admittedly, this only works for 'recordings' of something that actually occurred; things become more murky when you're dealing with synthesized music or sounds.)
Although I admire the simplicity of the audio engineer's credo that "if it sounds good, it is good," what constitutes 'good' is pretty vague, and it's easy to think that something sounds 'good' in your living room, just because it's recognizable. But that doesn't mean that it holds a candle to the real thing, and by not going for that goal the result is always going to be mediocre. (It's possible that even if we do go for that goal, the result will always be mediocre, but hey, at least we'll have really tried.)
I understand your point about PCM vs DSD (as an aside, are you aware of the history of DSD, particularly with regards to the DBX-700?), although I'm not sure that PCM has caused the sound-engineering decisions in the current crop of popular music as much as tastes and marketing pressures have. Music that is perceptually "louder" gets heard more; on the other end of the spectrum, music that's too quiet to be heard in a noisy automobile gets turned off. Even classical music on FM radio is pretty heavily compressed (in the analog sense).
Also, I think what really killed DSD was not so much an acceptance of its limitations but an elimination of some of the more egregious problems that it suffered at the beginning. The brickwall filters on the first generation of PCM recorders were truly hideous, particularly for folks coming from analog tape. Compared to a Sony PCM-F1, the DBX-700 was miles better. But the PCM systems improved (fairly rapidly) over time, and engineers learned new techniques and abandoned some old ones, and there just wasn't enough reason to justify the additional complexity of DSD. Had PCM systems not improved, I think DSD would have stood much more of a chance. It's not that people didn't care about quality at all, it's just that PCM and DSD stood, and continue to stand, on different sides of the quality/cost curve.
It's not impossible to edit in DSD right now (there was talk a few years ago about being able to do it in ProTools but I'm not sure it ever happened -- but there's no technical reason why you can't), it's just that nobody has really made a compelling argument why it's needed.
Agreed; 128kbit MP3 files, particularly CBR ones done with old encoders (the original Fraunhofer code seems particularly crummy, and was used until recently in some commercial products), are pretty terrible. Even rock or electronic music can have noticeable artifacts. The real question isn't "are there compression artifacts," it's more "do most people care?" Although there are definitely people who flat-out don't care -- particularly when they're only going to listen to music in the car, where the difference between the noise floor and pain is only 30-40 dB or so anyway -- I think there is a sizable, frequently under-reported, group of consumers who are desirous of quality but only when it doesn't come at a premium in terms of cost or complexity.
I think it's when you get into 192kbit or higher VBR MP3 files (slightly less for AAC and other, newer formats) that you start to lose a lot of people, in terms of their ability to discriminate that from the PCM original. At 256kbit, encoded with LAME, it's only a very small fraction of audiophiles who can (and then, I suspect it's only when they've practiced extensively). Above 256kbit/s, IMO it turns into a diminishing-returns proposition (and you might as well go for lossless formats if you want to archive for later recompression).
Actually, double-blind tests have a long and varied history in the wine industry.
Many people credit a certain 1976 blind test of wines for launching the California wine industry, and proving that Americans could make "serious" wine as well as (in fact, better than) the French. There was a repeat in 1986 and 2006, with similar results.
The solution is to not fucking drive while fucking drunk.
I agree. But what's "drunk"? I don't mean 'what does some guy say is drunk,' I mean, what is drunk?
There's no single right answer. That's the problem. And arbitrarily drawing a line in the sand is a crappy way to achieve just outcomes, particularly in cases right around the arbitrarily-drawn line.
It's just whining. There have been numerous double-blind ABX tests, many done by the folks over at Hydrogenaudio.org, comparing MP3 files to AIFFs, and with the right codec and right bitrates (depending on the type of source material), it's possible to get an MP3 that only the most refined ears can discriminate from the original. [1]
Of course, it's quite possible to make an MP3 that sounds like a tin-can telephone with one end held underwater, and I'd argue that many of the consumer-ripped files floating around the P2P networks fall into this category, but these files only exist *because* there aren't legitimate, professionally-made, DRM-free MP3s. (And because some people like getting stuff for free and don't much care about the quality when they do. But I do think there is a market for and profit in digitally-delivered music, for the people who can do it right.)
As more music begins to be distributed as MP3s, sound engineers will doubtless (if they have not already) begin studying the codecs and encoding procedures in order to wring the most quality out of a particular bit rate. Many amateurs and enthusiasts have already done this, and there is a sizable body of work devoted to the topic -- including the LAME encoder itself.
Also, looking towards the future, while CDs have pegged the standard for digital music as 2 channel, 44.1kHz, 16-bit PCM, there is no reason why an appropriately-crafted MP3 file cannot *exceed* it in terms of quality. The Apple iPod already supports (slightly) higher sample rates, I believe, and if consumers desire it [2], there's no reason why modern digital formats cannot encapsulate very high-definition audio.
The only people who I hear whining about MP3 are those with either an ulterior motive and a desire to try and keep the industry from moving away from a distribution model that revolves around physical objects, or those who just don't understand the technology. (There are a very small core of audiophiles and techies who seem to dislike MP3 because they prefer some other format, usually either for ethical/political reasons or technical ones, and there certainly is an argument in favor of using lossless formats in lieu of MP3 for distribution, but overall MP3 strikes a good balance between quality and portability. [3])
[1] One 'competition' that pitted serious self-described audiophiles against modern codecs is described in detail here: http://www.geocities.com/altbinariessoundsmusiccla ssical/mp3test.html. While well-trained ears could discriminate between 128kbit MP3s and PCM, they could not reliably tell the difference between 256kbit and PCM, on average. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
[2] Which is a big 'if.' The buying public, to date, has shown little interest in high-definition audio as such. The only exception to this is multichannel audio, but that only in movie soundtracks for surround sound.
[3] This does raise the question, though, of why the legitimate music-download sites don't take a cue from the late, great, AllOfMp3.com and just allow the *customers* to choose their format of choice for their downloads. There's really no particular excuse not to at least offer a few different quality/size options, particularly for popular music that is going to be enjoyed in a variety of settings (automobiles, portables, home stereos -- each lends itself to a slightly different EQ and compression).
I envy your optimism. My experiences have only reinforced my cynicism, however.
I always start my (thankfully frequent, usually RMA-related) tech-support calls with "hey, I'm on a bad connection, I might get disconnected...". Really, this is just my polite way of saying 'if you turn out to be dumber than a bag of hammers, I'm just going to hang up and call back in twenty and see if I can get someone better than you.' It's possible that I should just be up-front about this, but I figure why make enemies, even stupid ones.
Admittedly, this probably reinforces the crappy techs, because it means they get to log a short-duration call and the better tech that I might get on my second or third try will have to try harder to get the same numbers, but honestly I think the companies that run the big call-centers have internal QC methodologies that are so fundamentally flawed, that it doesn't really matter what you, as a customer, do. Anyone with a clue is going to get the hell out of a call center as quickly as they can, so they're always going to be idiot-heavy. Just do what you have to do, to get what you need.
I'm not really interested in helping them improve their metrics or even their quality, particularly since most companies seem so disinterested in doing anything about it themselves. All I want is to get the resolution I'm looking for as quickly as I can. If the easiest way to do that is to hang up and call back and get a different tech, that's what I'm going to do.
The rest of your advice is probably good, though. Although if I'm talking to someone that I know is a complete idiot, and they start doing something that's ridiculous or is going to cause me problems later ("okay, now let's try reformatting your hard drive..."), I'm either going to refuse to do it, or (if they're really stubborn) I'm going to dry-lab it and tell them the results that will get them to check off that line on their script and keep going towards the resolution I want.
Myth isn't an application, it's an appliance operating system that happens to borrow a lot of Linux code. Seriously. Unless you like pain, don't screw around with installing it, just get one of the "Myth-based appliance" distros (Knoppmyth or the Red Hat one if you swing that way), and dedicate a box to it. You'll be happier.
I would image that with that kind of test a cop can use his/her judgment and either let the driver of the hook or book him, at least in the borderline cases. I'm not convinced that leaving a 'man in the loop' is such a bad thing. In fact, if you look at how the U.S. justice system is set up, it is usually designed so that there are lots of levels where a person can step in and stop things. It's when people start turning the justice system from a people-driven system to an algorithmic machine that real travesties start happening.
There are always going to be borderline cases, and machines do a shit job at resolving them.
fuck you zonk! no, I've had enough of your bullshit! take this goddamn article down right fucking now and change the title you worthless fucking excuse for a yellow journalist! For fucksake you READ the goddamn article before you post it, I HOPE. Fucking immune from moderation troll-assed motherfucker, I will sacrifice my "excellent" karma to bring you down! Anyone want to clue me in on what's going on there? And what all the yelling is about?
I've experimented with it (an earlier version though) and it was pretty slick.
I didn't ever finish setting it up and getting it running, but I can't remember off the top of my head what problem I must have run into. I think I got distracted by the prospect of setting up ext3cow, which is an automatic timeshifting/versioning filesystem (but it pretty early/beta, not for production) and generally ADDed out.
I should go back and take another look at it. One of the things I really liked was that it was developed under Darwin, which is good because I often have severe problems getting Linux utilities working on my OS X systems.
FWIW, currently I just use rsync and a few cron scripts to back my computers' "Documents" folders up to a remote server, and then rotate the server's home directory to a second hard drive every night, keeping three days worth of copies. (So there's the current backup, a 'yesterday' and then two days worth before that.) It takes up a lot of space (4x the actual size of the data being backed up), and the backups on the server gradually increase in size (because if I move/rename a file, rsync will create a new copy of it instead of realizing it was moved) unless I clean them out periodically, but for an individual it works pretty well and avoids complexity.
Was anyone with a clue actually calling Dell's call centers anyway?
The only reason I've ever called a manufacturer's tech support line in years has been to get an RMA. And it's generally just irritating when they insist on taking me through their little script before they'll admit defeat and return the piece of junk.
The purpose of those call centers is probably mostly for "cupholder calls," and less so for support on their higher end products, which is where the virtualization hardware would be (at least initially). I assume corporations have direct access to Dell to process RMAs and warranty work, request on-site service, etc., without going through a callcenter drone.
The people that have the time and the resources to monitor this stuff are the big corporations Never doubt the spare time available to college students and the unemployed.
The big corporations have to pay big bucks to their PR firms to keep tabs on this sort of stuff. Average technologically-literate people, which is heavy on students, probably make up the bulk of Google News' audience.
Odd. Been using mutt continuously for years on noatime mounted file systems. And it's been working errorlessly. What's supposed to be broken for me? It depends on how you are using it. If you use mutt with Maildirs for storage then it's irrelevant; there aren't any issues. (Maildir format keeps track of message status by shuffling them between folders, there's one folder for new mail and another for read mail, etc., so atime doesn't come into play for status.)
The atime problem occurs when you use mutt with mbox-formatted stores, since it defaults (according to the Mutt wiki, anyway) to using atime in order to show whether there is new mail in a particular "folder." (A 'folder' in mbox format being, of course, a single flat file.) It doesn't use atime for message-specific status, only for the status of the overall mbox folder.
There is apparently a compile-time option ("--buffy-size") that tells mutt to use the mbox's file size in lieu of atime, which is another alternative for noatime systems, although it seems like a bit of a hack to me.
I have yet to use a browser that cannot be crashed with a webpage (except for Opera *eyes glitter*). And the list includes IE, FireFox, and Safari on Max.
How about Lynx?
Admittedly, it did have a remote code execution bug back in 2005, but I can't find anything more recent.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah I blew that by putting the regexps in single-quotes (which is my habit but isn't what the OP was asking)
Where you'd need to be sure to escape the spaces is if you didn't put the whole regexp in quotes already:
Either sed s/of\ a\ pity/foreseeable/g somefile or sed s/"of a pity"/foreseeable/g somefile works, while
sed s/of a pity/foreseeable/g somefile gets you an unterminated command error (as it should).
That's the distinction I was trying to make.
I'm just so used to putting my regexps in single quotes as a preventative that I did it automatically in my examples. (sed 's/"of a pity"/foreseeable/g' somefile is valid, but it includes the quotes as part of the string to be replaced.)
Time for lunch, I must be getting hungry and not thinking straight...
with phlegm instead of death and gore
A questionable improvement, to be sure.
(or do the spaces screw with regex?)
Yes, you need to escape the spaces when using sed; not sure about other regex implementations, although I expect them to be similar.
E.g., sed 's/of\ a\ pity/foreseeable/g' would work, as would sed 's/"of a pity"/foreseeable/g'.
Interesting. I assumed administrators at Wikipedia had that ability, but always assumed they did it via regular logs.
The Help:CheckUser page is a lot more informative, if you're not a WP admin (in which case you'll be denied entry to the parent's link).
Huh? TFA still works for me. Both the regular and the 'Print View' link, in fact.
I'm sure somebody will post the article text if it starts to go under, though.
They don't need Tor, they could just create sockpuppet accounts like everyone else who trolls Wikipedia, and hide their IP that way.
Also, most of the Tor endpoints are banned from editing Wikipedia (anonymously) due to abuse anyway.
I acknowledge the possibility that there is something to the 'subconscious reception' argument, and that it's possible that some recording methods lose some content in the recorded material that's just not picked up in ABX 'sound quality' tests.
However, I'm not sure I buy that any methodology that just involves listening to one version and then the other and trying to find some sort of difference in emotional response, serves any purpose. It would be just too easy to get the placebo effect (or just plain-old confirmation bias) in there, if you know which version is which. That said, it would be interesting to try and study that hypothesis in some more controlled manner.
I do think that we probably agree on one thing, and that is that CDs are not and should not be the 'gold standard' of audio reproduction; live sound should be. The ultimate goal of a sound recording/reproduction system ought to be the ability to reproduce something that is indistinguishable from the original recording as it would be heard by someone actually present for it. (Admittedly, this only works for 'recordings' of something that actually occurred; things become more murky when you're dealing with synthesized music or sounds.)
Although I admire the simplicity of the audio engineer's credo that "if it sounds good, it is good," what constitutes 'good' is pretty vague, and it's easy to think that something sounds 'good' in your living room, just because it's recognizable. But that doesn't mean that it holds a candle to the real thing, and by not going for that goal the result is always going to be mediocre. (It's possible that even if we do go for that goal, the result will always be mediocre, but hey, at least we'll have really tried.)
I understand your point about PCM vs DSD (as an aside, are you aware of the history of DSD, particularly with regards to the DBX-700?), although I'm not sure that PCM has caused the sound-engineering decisions in the current crop of popular music as much as tastes and marketing pressures have. Music that is perceptually "louder" gets heard more; on the other end of the spectrum, music that's too quiet to be heard in a noisy automobile gets turned off. Even classical music on FM radio is pretty heavily compressed (in the analog sense).
Also, I think what really killed DSD was not so much an acceptance of its limitations but an elimination of some of the more egregious problems that it suffered at the beginning. The brickwall filters on the first generation of PCM recorders were truly hideous, particularly for folks coming from analog tape. Compared to a Sony PCM-F1, the DBX-700 was miles better. But the PCM systems improved (fairly rapidly) over time, and engineers learned new techniques and abandoned some old ones, and there just wasn't enough reason to justify the additional complexity of DSD. Had PCM systems not improved, I think DSD would have stood much more of a chance. It's not that people didn't care about quality at all, it's just that PCM and DSD stood, and continue to stand, on different sides of the quality/cost curve.
It's not impossible to edit in DSD right now (there was talk a few years ago about being able to do it in ProTools but I'm not sure it ever happened -- but there's no technical reason why you can't), it's just that nobody has really made a compelling argument why it's needed.
Yeah, I apparently misread the URL and had it in my head that it was from 2003. Thanks for the catch.
Agreed; 128kbit MP3 files, particularly CBR ones done with old encoders (the original Fraunhofer code seems particularly crummy, and was used until recently in some commercial products), are pretty terrible. Even rock or electronic music can have noticeable artifacts. The real question isn't "are there compression artifacts," it's more "do most people care?" Although there are definitely people who flat-out don't care -- particularly when they're only going to listen to music in the car, where the difference between the noise floor and pain is only 30-40 dB or so anyway -- I think there is a sizable, frequently under-reported, group of consumers who are desirous of quality but only when it doesn't come at a premium in terms of cost or complexity.
I think it's when you get into 192kbit or higher VBR MP3 files (slightly less for AAC and other, newer formats) that you start to lose a lot of people, in terms of their ability to discriminate that from the PCM original. At 256kbit, encoded with LAME, it's only a very small fraction of audiophiles who can (and then, I suspect it's only when they've practiced extensively). Above 256kbit/s, IMO it turns into a diminishing-returns proposition (and you might as well go for lossless formats if you want to archive for later recompression).
Actually, double-blind tests have a long and varied history in the wine industry.
... whether that's due entirely to tester bias, or also to poor QC on the part of the winery, is an open question.)
Many people credit a certain 1976 blind test of wines for launching the California wine industry, and proving that Americans could make "serious" wine as well as (in fact, better than) the French. There was a repeat in 1986 and 2006, with similar results.
And a few years ago, Trader Joe's "Two Buck Chuck" won a 'double-gold' medal at a California wine fair during a double-blind test. (In other tests, it was usually last
The solution is to not fucking drive while fucking drunk.
I agree. But what's "drunk"? I don't mean 'what does some guy say is drunk,' I mean, what is drunk?
There's no single right answer. That's the problem. And arbitrarily drawing a line in the sand is a crappy way to achieve just outcomes, particularly in cases right around the arbitrarily-drawn line.
It's just whining. There have been numerous double-blind ABX tests, many done by the folks over at Hydrogenaudio.org, comparing MP3 files to AIFFs, and with the right codec and right bitrates (depending on the type of source material), it's possible to get an MP3 that only the most refined ears can discriminate from the original. [1]
a ssical/mp3test.html. While well-trained ears could discriminate between 128kbit MP3s and PCM, they could not reliably tell the difference between 256kbit and PCM, on average. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Of course, it's quite possible to make an MP3 that sounds like a tin-can telephone with one end held underwater, and I'd argue that many of the consumer-ripped files floating around the P2P networks fall into this category, but these files only exist *because* there aren't legitimate, professionally-made, DRM-free MP3s. (And because some people like getting stuff for free and don't much care about the quality when they do. But I do think there is a market for and profit in digitally-delivered music, for the people who can do it right.)
As more music begins to be distributed as MP3s, sound engineers will doubtless (if they have not already) begin studying the codecs and encoding procedures in order to wring the most quality out of a particular bit rate. Many amateurs and enthusiasts have already done this, and there is a sizable body of work devoted to the topic -- including the LAME encoder itself.
Also, looking towards the future, while CDs have pegged the standard for digital music as 2 channel, 44.1kHz, 16-bit PCM, there is no reason why an appropriately-crafted MP3 file cannot *exceed* it in terms of quality. The Apple iPod already supports (slightly) higher sample rates, I believe, and if consumers desire it [2], there's no reason why modern digital formats cannot encapsulate very high-definition audio.
The only people who I hear whining about MP3 are those with either an ulterior motive and a desire to try and keep the industry from moving away from a distribution model that revolves around physical objects, or those who just don't understand the technology. (There are a very small core of audiophiles and techies who seem to dislike MP3 because they prefer some other format, usually either for ethical/political reasons or technical ones, and there certainly is an argument in favor of using lossless formats in lieu of MP3 for distribution, but overall MP3 strikes a good balance between quality and portability. [3])
[1] One 'competition' that pitted serious self-described audiophiles against modern codecs is described in detail here: http://www.geocities.com/altbinariessoundsmusiccl
[2] Which is a big 'if.' The buying public, to date, has shown little interest in high-definition audio as such. The only exception to this is multichannel audio, but that only in movie soundtracks for surround sound.
[3] This does raise the question, though, of why the legitimate music-download sites don't take a cue from the late, great, AllOfMp3.com and just allow the *customers* to choose their format of choice for their downloads. There's really no particular excuse not to at least offer a few different quality/size options, particularly for popular music that is going to be enjoyed in a variety of settings (automobiles, portables, home stereos -- each lends itself to a slightly different EQ and compression).
I envy your optimism. My experiences have only reinforced my cynicism, however.
I always start my (thankfully frequent, usually RMA-related) tech-support calls with "hey, I'm on a bad connection, I might get disconnected...". Really, this is just my polite way of saying 'if you turn out to be dumber than a bag of hammers, I'm just going to hang up and call back in twenty and see if I can get someone better than you.' It's possible that I should just be up-front about this, but I figure why make enemies, even stupid ones.
Admittedly, this probably reinforces the crappy techs, because it means they get to log a short-duration call and the better tech that I might get on my second or third try will have to try harder to get the same numbers, but honestly I think the companies that run the big call-centers have internal QC methodologies that are so fundamentally flawed, that it doesn't really matter what you, as a customer, do. Anyone with a clue is going to get the hell out of a call center as quickly as they can, so they're always going to be idiot-heavy. Just do what you have to do, to get what you need.
I'm not really interested in helping them improve their metrics or even their quality, particularly since most companies seem so disinterested in doing anything about it themselves. All I want is to get the resolution I'm looking for as quickly as I can. If the easiest way to do that is to hang up and call back and get a different tech, that's what I'm going to do.
The rest of your advice is probably good, though. Although if I'm talking to someone that I know is a complete idiot, and they start doing something that's ridiculous or is going to cause me problems later ("okay, now let's try reformatting your hard drive..."), I'm either going to refuse to do it, or (if they're really stubborn) I'm going to dry-lab it and tell them the results that will get them to check off that line on their script and keep going towards the resolution I want.
Myth isn't an application, it's an appliance operating system that happens to borrow a lot of Linux code. Seriously. Unless you like pain, don't screw around with installing it, just get one of the "Myth-based appliance" distros (Knoppmyth or the Red Hat one if you swing that way), and dedicate a box to it. You'll be happier.
And if it brakes they give me a new one.
Naw, if it brakes you should probably take it to Meineke...
There are always going to be borderline cases, and machines do a shit job at resolving them.
no, I've had enough of your bullshit! take this goddamn article down right fucking now and change the title you worthless fucking excuse for a yellow journalist! For fucksake you READ the goddamn article before you post it, I HOPE.
Fucking immune from moderation troll-assed motherfucker, I will sacrifice my "excellent" karma to bring you down! Anyone want to clue me in on what's going on there? And what all the yelling is about?
I've experimented with it (an earlier version though) and it was pretty slick.
I didn't ever finish setting it up and getting it running, but I can't remember off the top of my head what problem I must have run into. I think I got distracted by the prospect of setting up ext3cow, which is an automatic timeshifting/versioning filesystem (but it pretty early/beta, not for production) and generally ADDed out.
I should go back and take another look at it. One of the things I really liked was that it was developed under Darwin, which is good because I often have severe problems getting Linux utilities working on my OS X systems.
FWIW, currently I just use rsync and a few cron scripts to back my computers' "Documents" folders up to a remote server, and then rotate the server's home directory to a second hard drive every night, keeping three days worth of copies. (So there's the current backup, a 'yesterday' and then two days worth before that.) It takes up a lot of space (4x the actual size of the data being backed up), and the backups on the server gradually increase in size (because if I move/rename a file, rsync will create a new copy of it instead of realizing it was moved) unless I clean them out periodically, but for an individual it works pretty well and avoids complexity.
Was anyone with a clue actually calling Dell's call centers anyway?
The only reason I've ever called a manufacturer's tech support line in years has been to get an RMA. And it's generally just irritating when they insist on taking me through their little script before they'll admit defeat and return the piece of junk.
The purpose of those call centers is probably mostly for "cupholder calls," and less so for support on their higher end products, which is where the virtualization hardware would be (at least initially). I assume corporations have direct access to Dell to process RMAs and warranty work, request on-site service, etc., without going through a callcenter drone.
The big corporations have to pay big bucks to their PR firms to keep tabs on this sort of stuff. Average technologically-literate people, which is heavy on students, probably make up the bulk of Google News' audience.
I read that it wasn't actually any better than normal chemicals, it just wouldn't kill you.
Personally, that seems "better" to me.
The atime problem occurs when you use mutt with mbox-formatted stores, since it defaults (according to the Mutt wiki, anyway) to using atime in order to show whether there is new mail in a particular "folder." (A 'folder' in mbox format being, of course, a single flat file.) It doesn't use atime for message-specific status, only for the status of the overall mbox folder.
There is apparently a compile-time option ("--buffy-size") that tells mutt to use the mbox's file size in lieu of atime, which is another alternative for noatime systems, although it seems like a bit of a hack to me.
I have yet to use a browser that cannot be crashed with a webpage (except for Opera *eyes glitter*). And the list includes IE, FireFox, and Safari on Max.
How about Lynx?
Admittedly, it did have a remote code execution bug back in 2005, but I can't find anything more recent.