(Re-posting with formatting that'll survive the SAVE process...)
Data protection legislation means that storing it with a hosted service is illegal unless I encrypt it myself before sending it offsite - I'm only aware of one tool which claims to be able to do this and still send data as a binary delta (it uses the rsync library) and that tool is still not particularly common in Linux distributions and not very widely used.
Based on my limited understanding of crypto, when you encrypt data it should turn into pseudo-random noise, so if *any* bits change the whole thing changes (unless you're doing a block-cypher, but if it's chained-block then every portion *after* that will also change). So for large files, this seems like the delta would end up being practically the entire file, wouldn't it?
Data protection legislation means that storing it with a hosted service is illegal unless I encrypt it myself before sending it offsite - I'm only aware of one tool which claims to be able to do this and still send data as a binary delta (it uses the rsync library) and that tool is still not particularly common in Linux distributions and not very widely used.
Based on my limited understanding of crypto, when you encrypt data it should turn into pseudo-random noise, so if *any* bits change the whole thing changes (unless you're doing a block-cypher, but if it's chained-block then every portion *after* that will also change). So for large files, this seems like the delta would end up being practically the entire file, wouldn't it?
One thing I'd like to really stress: whatever system you choose, test it before you need it. I recently graduated from an art school and made sure that I had copies of all my course work (animation frames, composited video, etc) and class demos on rewriteable DVD. Six months later I found that at least five of my disks had become coasters; apparently the erasable CD labels I affixed caused the disk layers to separate over time. (And yes, the disks were stored in cool/dry places.)
In a separate incident, I bought some backup software and found that the instruction manual glossed over certain items. I did a test on a spare drive and found that one of the backup options made a snapshot of the data on the logical drive but also the partition information for the physical drive, instead of just the logical drive: any partition changes made after the image was taken (even if it did not affect the drive being mirrored) would be erased/undone if you tried to restore from that snapshot.
Many people have also noted that the original poster did not specify what kinds of things he wanted his backup/archive to protect against: Acts of God (fire, flood), Acts of Child (virus, "Daddy, what does this button do?"), or Acts of Accident ("rm -f...WAIT, NOT THAT FOLDER!!"). Obviously, each will require a different solution. I'm not sure if this is is practical, but: if you're trying to archive edited work, could you maybe put a secondary copy on (S)VHS? At least half the/. questions about long-term storage have a reply that points out that TV stations have tape libraries going back >>20 years, and as a last-last-chance backup, it might not be too bad as far as image quality goes. And you can always put more than one project on a tape, with 5-10 seconds of black in between. (What's the line? "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of quarter-inch tapes") I have no idea how much data is on a DV tape, so it might not be possible to do this...but what the heck, even dumb questions can lead to new ideas sometimes, right?;-)
There have also been the suggestion to use some kind of parity-generating software; I think that's a good idea, so I'm parroting it. ("Arrk! Polly wants a cracker.")
For WinAmp, I like "RockSteady" by Piettro Pro. You can tune the gain time and amplification levels individually, although the presets it comes with seem pretty good. (I'm on v2.1, don't know if there's a newer version.) You can also set it to control the left-right speakers together or independently, although independent control sometimes has problems on songs where they cycle the L-R balance rapidly, but that shouldn't be a problem with classical music.
Between him and the other admins, probably rather far. Look at what's currently listed on various parts of the/. site (and affiliate sites):
BSDs to be Merged
IPv4 Headers
George Foreman USB iGrill (yes, it's a page on ThinkGeek, but it doesn't show up in the RSS feed on the side. It's possible the RSS hasn't updated, but when was the last time you heard of a grill being powered off the USB port?)
Those alone are enough to make me think twice about what I see on/. today, but there's other articles that I suspect are also forgeries:
Gnomemeeting Closes the Source
Enlightenment goes 1.0
New Whitespace-Only Programming Language
I'm not familiar enough with any of them to know how plausible they are, though I suspect they're not very likely. (I'd also list the "Can You Trust Microsoft On Security?" article, but the business world questioning Microsoft's practices--that's one's too out-there to be a joke.;-)
In short, I suspect some fun is being had with us, so artfully that we're not even fully aware of the depth of it. For myself, I'll wait until tomorrow before I read anything here today.:-]
Wasn't it revealed that in at least a few cases stock photographs were used?
That's what I've heard as well, from multiple sources: that the film clips of people "dancing in the streets" was from an event that occurred about a year prior [to the September terrorist attacks].
Unfortunately, I've only heard this statement spoken: I haven't seen it printed in a newspaper or written on a website, though I'm told that's where my "sources" got it from (websites that investigate story credibility). Can anyone point to somewhere that we can all confirm this?
So what's the difference, in this instance, between the Microsoft EULA and the GPL? The only difference I see is that Microsoft is spelling out specifically what they intend to do.
Well, with the GPL software, one could go into the source code and rip out the parts that say "Update module X, and oh yeah disable bypass mechanisms [A-WYZ] and install these DRM modules". Because of the ability to get at the source code and modify it, it isn't really feasable to build software that disables previous versions: the person can choose not to install it, or rewrite it if they do.
This is why we need some sort of association (I don't think the term "union" is really applicable) to point out breaches of the ethics code, and if nothing else publicly shame companies which fire employees for refusing to violate it.
Isn't that part of what SlashDot is ("has become")? A place to point out when a company decides it's OK to take away users' rights and/or decide "what's good for them"? Forget YRO, the "Microsoft" category alone is almost a shrine to such stories... (There are other sites, too, but only a handful that reach the kind of audience/. does.) It seems to me that the only difference between this site and the organization you mention is that--as has been observed time and again--we seem to spend most of our time talking to each other about things, and not enough time talking to the non-geeks who don't know any better.
--
Violating my own "Do not post while unconscious" rule...
Yes, it makes me uneasy, but I think that if you look, you'll find that most M$ patches/upgrades/etc. have no "uninstall" capability.
And, by limiting the release of the patch to SP2, we once again get pushed into obtaining the latest version of an M$ product to fix problems they didn't get right in v1. (Or v2, v3, v4, v5, v5.1, v5.2, v5.2 SP1....)
You are correct; they *were* available shortly after they aired. (I tried viewing "Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger" via 56k and had some minor problems keeping a good stream near the beginning, but other than that it seemed fine.)
Slashdot Mirror
(Re-posting with formatting that'll survive the SAVE process...)
Based on my limited understanding of crypto, when you encrypt data it should turn into pseudo-random noise, so if *any* bits change the whole thing changes (unless you're doing a block-cypher, but if it's chained-block then every portion *after* that will also change). So for large files, this seems like the delta would end up being practically the entire file, wouldn't it?
Data protection legislation means that storing it with a hosted service is illegal unless I encrypt it myself before sending it offsite - I'm only aware of one tool which claims to be able to do this and still send data as a binary delta (it uses the rsync library) and that tool is still not particularly common in Linux distributions and not very widely used. Based on my limited understanding of crypto, when you encrypt data it should turn into pseudo-random noise, so if *any* bits change the whole thing changes (unless you're doing a block-cypher, but if it's chained-block then every portion *after* that will also change). So for large files, this seems like the delta would end up being practically the entire file, wouldn't it?
One thing I'd like to really stress: whatever system you choose, test it before you need it. I recently graduated from an art school and made sure that I had copies of all my course work (animation frames, composited video, etc) and class demos on rewriteable DVD. Six months later I found that at least five of my disks had become coasters; apparently the erasable CD labels I affixed caused the disk layers to separate over time. (And yes, the disks were stored in cool/dry places.)
In a separate incident, I bought some backup software and found that the instruction manual glossed over certain items. I did a test on a spare drive and found that one of the backup options made a snapshot of the data on the logical drive but also the partition information for the physical drive, instead of just the logical drive: any partition changes made after the image was taken (even if it did not affect the drive being mirrored) would be erased/undone if you tried to restore from that snapshot.
Many people have also noted that the original poster did not specify what kinds of things he wanted his backup/archive to protect against: Acts of God (fire, flood), Acts of Child (virus, "Daddy, what does this button do?"), or Acts of Accident ("rm -f...WAIT, NOT THAT FOLDER!!"). Obviously, each will require a different solution. I'm not sure if this is is practical, but: if you're trying to archive edited work, could you maybe put a secondary copy on (S)VHS? At least half the /. questions about long-term storage have a reply that points out that TV stations have tape libraries going back >>20 years, and as a last-last-chance backup, it might not be too bad as far as image quality goes. And you can always put more than one project on a tape, with 5-10 seconds of black in between. (What's the line? "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of quarter-inch tapes") I have no idea how much data is on a DV tape, so it might not be possible to do this...but what the heck, even dumb questions can lead to new ideas sometimes, right? ;-)
There have also been the suggestion to use some kind of parity-generating software; I think that's a good idea, so I'm parroting it. ("Arrk! Polly wants a cracker.")
For WinAmp, I like "RockSteady" by Piettro Pro. You can tune the gain time and amplification levels individually, although the presets it comes with seem pretty good. (I'm on v2.1, don't know if there's a newer version.) You can also set it to control the left-right speakers together or independently, although independent control sometimes has problems on songs where they cycle the L-R balance rapidly, but that shouldn't be a problem with classical music.
Good luck!
Between him and the other admins, probably rather far. Look at what's currently listed on various parts of the /. site (and affiliate sites):
Those alone are enough to make me think twice about what I see on /. today, but there's other articles that I suspect are also forgeries:
I'm not familiar enough with any of them to know how plausible they are, though I suspect they're not very likely. (I'd also list the "Can You Trust Microsoft On Security?" article, but the business world questioning Microsoft's practices--that's one's too out-there to be a joke. ;-)
In short, I suspect some fun is being had with us, so artfully that we're not even fully aware of the depth of it. For myself, I'll wait until tomorrow before I read anything here today. :-]
-PC_Freak
Unfortunately, I've only heard this statement spoken: I haven't seen it printed in a newspaper or written on a website, though I'm told that's where my "sources" got it from (websites that investigate story credibility). Can anyone point to somewhere that we can all confirm this?
-PC_Freak
Isn't that part of what SlashDot is ("has become")? A place to point out when a company decides it's OK to take away users' rights and/or decide "what's good for them"? Forget YRO, the "Microsoft" category alone is almost a shrine to such stories... (There are other sites, too, but only a handful that reach the kind of audience /. does.) It seems to me that the only difference between this site and the organization you mention is that--as has been observed time and again--we seem to spend most of our time talking to each other about things, and not enough time talking to the non-geeks who don't know any better.
--
Violating my own "Do not post while unconscious" rule...
And, by limiting the release of the patch to SP2, we once again get pushed into obtaining the latest version of an M$ product to fix problems they didn't get right in v1. (Or v2, v3, v4, v5, v5.1, v5.2, v5.2 SP1....)
You are correct; they *were* available shortly after they aired. (I tried viewing "Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger" via 56k and had some minor problems keeping a good stream near the beginning, but other than that it seemed fine.)