I've found there is very little I can't do with cron and scripting - in fact I, like many others, have cron jobs that check up on other system processes.
This all worked well until I had cron die on a SCO box. I eventually figured out what job screwed it up but that screwed up everything else that cron managed and left me feeling rather uneasy about relying on cron (I mean, if it can be killed by an errant script...).
So...I've been considering launching cron from init with the respawn option to ensure that it stays running. Does anyone see a problem with this?
For smoke smell try ozone. You can hire a restoration company to bring one in, buy one for several hundred dollars or rent one from a rental place. That's what the pros use to deal with flood and fire smells.
My nagging problem with TIA is not that they want to be efficient about analyzing the info they have but that it implies an unholy collaberation between the military and, well, everyone.
My question: Did I miss some law change that requires all banks, credit-card processors, ISPs, video rental stores, libraries, stores, etc. to funnel all their transaction and customer information to the military?
The scope and implications of this project terrify me but I want to be rational as well. Without data, all the analytical capability in the world is useless.
Speak with peers who have done it. I'd start with Home Depot. They worked to deploy 90,000 terminals. I don't know what Win2k costs in that volume but even if it is as low as $50 you will be starting off with a 4.5 million dollar head start. That pays for a lot of development.
And when you say you want "flexible", what's more flexible than a system that you have complete freedom to tailor, can be deployed on whatever hardware you deem appropriate, and doesn't come with ties to the future whims of a proprietary OS provider.
Same reaction here. I have personally burned ~500 CDs so far this year for project archives, client data deliverables etc. Percent for music: 0.
And this pales in comparison to where I used to work where we had an automated machine and bought our CDs in lots of 5,000-10,000.
Even there we were very small fry compared to places like the telcos. Where we had one automated burner to handle our monthly peaks the telcos have somethink like a bank of 20 running through the month. That's a lot of discs and again, 0 are for music.
IANAL so I've always wondered about the following: Let's say I have a company and I build a bunch of for-internal-use-only custom modifications of GPL software. That seems fine by GPL standards.
But...
What if I decide to sell my company? The software I've developed is certainly an integral part of the value of my company. Would GPL require me to publish all of the modified source code if I sell the company?
Dialogic (now Intel) used to support SCO. Now it's Linux and Windows. Our app (fully automated telephony system handling IVR, call transfers, bridging, etc. features and a volume of over 10,000,000 minutes annually) runs on Dialogic/SCO but we're porting it to Linux. It's been reasonably painless - we're just testing extensively due to the platform change, Dialogic driver change from 2 to 5.1, etc. Downtime is not an option so our CEO will not allow the app to run on Windows (tee hee, how often do you see an enlightened CEO like that??).
There are some Linux CATI (not strictly telephony but call-center support) projects over at FreshMeat. Ericsson is using Linux in their "Carrier Class" systems. I've spent time with Vovida and Bayonne at LinuxWorld Expo and some Telephony conferences and they seem to be reasonably vibrant projects.
This setup is very similar to SailMail which I have used on several crossings of the Pacific. Yes, it's really slow but that's not a big deal when you are just sending a few paragraphs of text around.
The last time I sailed across the ocean last July (in the Pacific Cup Race) we used an Iridium phone with the data option. We were able to send back a couple of digital pictures but the phone bill for the week was something like $200. Next time we'll save the pix till we hit land.
All this reminds me of the guy doing a writeup on the then-new Windows 95 years ago. He was apparently trying to get his article in on deadline when it became time to "fall back". He wrote that he was impressed by the fact that Windows told him that the time had changed back and asked if he wanted the computer's clock reset.
He answered "yes" but became rather less impressed an hour later when, once again, it asked him if the clock should be reset. For fun he kept answering yes each hour till he was done with his article.
Database, cron and other timezone problems aside, at least a properly set up *nix always knows what time it is both locally and in UTC so the other programs at least have a shot at running properly.
They are invaluable. I've been using a pile of old ones I got from my dentist back when I was a kid. Unfortunately my current dentist uses ones that have replaceable tips so my free supply is limited.
My favorite is the LED Petzel "Zipka" (sp??). It's quite small, the batteries last a very long time, and the unit is thin enough on your forehead that it doesn't get in the way when you have to squeeze back/under/over/beside your desk/rack/computer to see/insert/remove a serial-number/cable/screw...
While it is true that you have conversion costs in generating and delivering the electricity, the place where electric mowers beat gas is in air pollution. Small engines do not have all the exhaust-gas sensors, computer-controlled timing and fuel delivery, catalytic converters and such that cars use to reduce pollution. The typical mower engine spews far more pollution than a recent (like last decade or two) car even though the car engine is several times larger.
The other nice thing about electric is that when a electric mower hits a tough bunch of grass it pulls more current (ie. powers up) as the motor is slowed down. Just push a bit slower and it will speed back up. Hit a tough bunch of grass with a gas mower and it gets slowed down out of it's best-power speed and often stalls.
Where the hell does the RIAA pull a "just 50%" number? Let's see - I burn ~600 CDs per year at work for client deliveries, archives, source-code escrow etc. Data backups on my home server add some more. This is far fewer than in my previous job where we had a 4-drive Rimage auto burner to handle deliverables and burned thousands of CDs per year.
So...if the average of the most fanatic group was listed at around 10 CDs per year then to reach 50% usage for music I alone am offsetting 60 fans who burn a copy of every album they buy. My former company is offsetting hundreds more.
But wait, I rip/burn music at home to listen on my Rio CD/MP3 player. My base MP3 collection is about 5-6 discs. As I buy new music I often rip it and then reorganize my MP3 cd collection to reflect new stuff I like and to eliminate the stuff I've discovered I don't like. I burn new discs and destroy the old ones (cds in microwaves are fun). So while I may be "using dozens of CDs for burning music" (all of which I have purchased and for which I still have the original CDs I might note), it's just the same stuff being reorganized over and over.
But why am I wasting my breath - it's just a hypothetical number they invented to try to prove a point anyway - it seems to have no basis in either fact nor result.
Our previous voice/data provider gave us 1.5Mb bandwidth (they had fiber access to the building and offered services to the tenants). Indeed, you could download a big file and get 1.5Mb performance. Still, everyone in the office complained about how slow browsing was (figuring this out was actually my first foot-in-the-door as a consultant). The problem was latency - typical ping times to various places on the internet would routinely exceed 250ms.
That provider declared bankruptcy (doesn't narrow the field of suspects too much I'm afraid) and left California. We now have a T1 split into half voice and half data - ie. half the bandwidth we did before - and everyone is amazed at how fast things became. The real difference is that the round-trip latency is generally more like 20-40ms or an order of magnitude faster than with the previous carrier.
Note: we are with a "smaller company" and are quite happy with the service. I've "been serviced" by the big unnamed telco (Should Be Castrated...) and it has always been terrible. Terrible for home voice, terrible for home DSL, terrible for business voice and terrible for business data. The big guys are doing what they always do - spreading FUD instead of providing good service.
Formats/protocols are most important where exchange of data or interconnections take place. I'm not sure that, say, Oracle would need to make its internal file formats public as long as the interface to the outside world was standard and any client programs developed/purchased adhered to that standard (SQL92 as an example). As long as you have the freedom to dump your data from one system to another you have the freedom to change at (relatively) low cost.
Similarly, the biggest problem with Word/Excel/etc. formats comes when the government expects you to purchase single-source vendor-specific products that support those proprietary formats as the cost of doing business with the state.
The public would be up in arms if the state decided to only allow General Motors cars into government office parking spaces. The effect of using proprietary formats and protocols is little different.
We know that vendors, especially Microsoft, will interpret things so the result is the complete opposite of whatever the government/courts intend so in addition to your comments on "completely specified" I would add a time frame - ie. "1 year following publication" or "following wide industry adoption" or possibly just limit formats those with an accepted RFC.
Also, the specs must be completely released for permanent, no-strings, royalty-free use. You don't want a format to become widely used and then have the "owner" retract permission to use it royalty free (see GIF, MP3, JPG, etc).
Or another linux-powered web-cam: http://www.stardot-tech.com/netcam/index.html. Just add 802.11 and an antenna and you should be fine except for power. Most buildings - even ones under construction - have some power. If not, a deep-discharge RV battery should run one for a long time. Or add a solar panel if you have enough light. I think the stardot is used at the north pole but they have the whole setup rigged to wake up and send a picture via satellite phone periodically to reduce power consumption.
The poster did not mention the one BIG consideration: budget. This is an easy problem with sufficient application of $$$.
2.2T or 6.6T, while being the potential penalties the law specified, are naturally uncollectable.
One could, however, bankrupt the company and send a message to any other scumbag who thinks this is a good business model which is, of course, the goal.
In a previous job we needed to do some benchmarking and testing. The first pass was to script some stuff using wget. Once everything looked fine (we could really slam the server) we turned it loose on the public.
Oops. The site collapsed nearly instantly. The problem was that people with slow modem connections kept connections active for a couple orders of magnitude longer than happened on our internal network and the server ran out of resources.
Microsoft's free tool can simulate a mix of connection speeds and I believe you can find similar functionality in many of the web test tools you will find in a freshmeat.net search.
I second the call to cut out soda - you can drink an amazing amount of calories.
The other one to watch out for is breakfast cereal. Pour yourself your regular bowl and then take a measuring cup and see how many "servings" you have. I think the average for men is three. This is even more serious since lots of cereals are fortified and when you triple your "recommended" daily dose of some things like iron and then add the iron you get from your other foods you may come surprisingly close to levels that are considered toxic. This is worse still since recent reports showed that many cereals far exceed the listed amounts of vitamins.
It does take work to keep the weight off but look into what lifestyle changes you can make that will minimize the time loss and other adverse parts of working out.
I have managed to get down to 11% body fat (not bad for age 44) by cycling to work (6 miles each way) and then doing a bit of weight lifting at the gym before showing off and getting to work.
Cycling takes me about 5 minutes longer than driving in traffic so that's a wash. I get my exercise during my commute so that doesn't cut into my day. I save $60/month on parking and pay less than $40/month for the gym so I come out ahead financially.
It's a struggle to get into the habit but well worth it not only for the looks and physical health but also for mental acuity and that is one thing geeks can't afford to lose.
Slashdot Mirror
I've found there is very little I can't do with cron and scripting - in fact I, like many others, have cron jobs that check up on other system processes.
This all worked well until I had cron die on a SCO box. I eventually figured out what job screwed it up but that screwed up everything else that cron managed and left me feeling rather uneasy about relying on cron (I mean, if it can be killed by an errant script...).
So...I've been considering launching cron from init with the respawn option to ensure that it stays running. Does anyone see a problem with this?
For smoke smell try ozone. You can hire a restoration company to bring one in, buy one for several hundred dollars or rent one from a rental place. That's what the pros use to deal with flood and fire smells.
My nagging problem with TIA is not that they want to be efficient about analyzing the info they have but that it implies an unholy collaberation between the military and, well, everyone.
My question: Did I miss some law change that requires all banks, credit-card processors, ISPs, video rental stores, libraries, stores, etc. to funnel all their transaction and customer information to the military?
The scope and implications of this project terrify me but I want to be rational as well. Without data, all the analytical capability in the world is useless.
So the FAQ dated 03/00/2001 (???) says the thing is expected to be delivered by 2000 - I hope the web site writer is not associated with engineering.
It's also not comforting that I am supposed to have a "zip-cord" just to get the info pack.
And when you say you want "flexible", what's more flexible than a system that you have complete freedom to tailor, can be deployed on whatever hardware you deem appropriate, and doesn't come with ties to the future whims of a proprietary OS provider.
Same reaction here. I have personally burned ~500 CDs so far this year for project archives, client data deliverables etc. Percent for music: 0.
And this pales in comparison to where I used to work where we had an automated machine and bought our CDs in lots of 5,000-10,000.
Even there we were very small fry compared to places like the telcos. Where we had one automated burner to handle our monthly peaks the telcos have somethink like a bank of 20 running through the month. That's a lot of discs and again, 0 are for music.
IANAL so I've always wondered about the following: Let's say I have a company and I build a bunch of for-internal-use-only custom modifications of GPL software. That seems fine by GPL standards.
But...
What if I decide to sell my company? The software I've developed is certainly an integral part of the value of my company. Would GPL require me to publish all of the modified source code if I sell the company?
To: Tech department
From: Management
Moving all the data from the East to the West is NOT what we meant when we said "copyleft"!
Dialogic (now Intel) used to support SCO. Now it's Linux and Windows. Our app (fully automated telephony system handling IVR, call transfers, bridging, etc. features and a volume of over 10,000,000 minutes annually) runs on Dialogic/SCO but we're porting it to Linux. It's been reasonably painless - we're just testing extensively due to the platform change, Dialogic driver change from 2 to 5.1, etc. Downtime is not an option so our CEO will not allow the app to run on Windows (tee hee, how often do you see an enlightened CEO like that??).
There are some Linux CATI (not strictly telephony but call-center support) projects over at FreshMeat. Ericsson is using Linux in their "Carrier Class" systems. I've spent time with Vovida and Bayonne at LinuxWorld Expo and some Telephony conferences and they seem to be reasonably vibrant projects.
So yes, Linux is used in telephony.
The last time I sailed across the ocean last July (in the Pacific Cup Race) we used an Iridium phone with the data option. We were able to send back a couple of digital pictures but the phone bill for the week was something like $200. Next time we'll save the pix till we hit land.
He answered "yes" but became rather less impressed an hour later when, once again, it asked him if the clock should be reset. For fun he kept answering yes each hour till he was done with his article.
Database, cron and other timezone problems aside, at least a properly set up *nix always knows what time it is both locally and in UTC so the other programs at least have a shot at running properly.
They are invaluable. I've been using a pile of old ones I got from my dentist back when I was a kid. Unfortunately my current dentist uses ones that have replaceable tips so my free supply is limited.
My favorite is the LED Petzel "Zipka" (sp??). It's quite small, the batteries last a very long time, and the unit is thin enough on your forehead that it doesn't get in the way when you have to squeeze back/under/over/beside your desk/rack/computer to see/insert/remove a serial-number/cable/screw...
While it is true that you have conversion costs in generating and delivering the electricity, the place where electric mowers beat gas is in air pollution. Small engines do not have all the exhaust-gas sensors, computer-controlled timing and fuel delivery, catalytic converters and such that cars use to reduce pollution. The typical mower engine spews far more pollution than a recent (like last decade or two) car even though the car engine is several times larger.
The other nice thing about electric is that when a electric mower hits a tough bunch of grass it pulls more current (ie. powers up) as the motor is slowed down. Just push a bit slower and it will speed back up. Hit a tough bunch of grass with a gas mower and it gets slowed down out of it's best-power speed and often stalls.
Oh please!! Do you really expect anyone who reads /. to try to fix an old mower when they have the opportunity to convince their wife to buy a robot?
Wait a minute. Slashdot readers have wives??
Aha - now I know where it went! Microsoft Word must have autocorrected everyone's 10MBs to 10Mbs.
Where the hell does the RIAA pull a "just 50%" number? Let's see - I burn ~600 CDs per year at work for client deliveries, archives, source-code escrow etc. Data backups on my home server add some more. This is far fewer than in my previous job where we had a 4-drive Rimage auto burner to handle deliverables and burned thousands of CDs per year.
So...if the average of the most fanatic group was listed at around 10 CDs per year then to reach 50% usage for music I alone am offsetting 60 fans who burn a copy of every album they buy. My former company is offsetting hundreds more.
But wait, I rip/burn music at home to listen on my Rio CD/MP3 player. My base MP3 collection is about 5-6 discs. As I buy new music I often rip it and then reorganize my MP3 cd collection to reflect new stuff I like and to eliminate the stuff I've discovered I don't like. I burn new discs and destroy the old ones (cds in microwaves are fun). So while I may be "using dozens of CDs for burning music" (all of which I have purchased and for which I still have the original CDs I might note), it's just the same stuff being reorganized over and over.
But why am I wasting my breath - it's just a hypothetical number they invented to try to prove a point anyway - it seems to have no basis in either fact nor result.
That provider declared bankruptcy (doesn't narrow the field of suspects too much I'm afraid) and left California. We now have a T1 split into half voice and half data - ie. half the bandwidth we did before - and everyone is amazed at how fast things became. The real difference is that the round-trip latency is generally more like 20-40ms or an order of magnitude faster than with the previous carrier.
Note: we are with a "smaller company" and are quite happy with the service. I've "been serviced" by the big unnamed telco (Should Be Castrated...) and it has always been terrible. Terrible for home voice, terrible for home DSL, terrible for business voice and terrible for business data. The big guys are doing what they always do - spreading FUD instead of providing good service.
I am all for this in spirit. A few comments:
Formats/protocols are most important where exchange of data or interconnections take place. I'm not sure that, say, Oracle would need to make its internal file formats public as long as the interface to the outside world was standard and any client programs developed/purchased adhered to that standard (SQL92 as an example). As long as you have the freedom to dump your data from one system to another you have the freedom to change at (relatively) low cost.
Similarly, the biggest problem with Word/Excel/etc. formats comes when the government expects you to purchase single-source vendor-specific products that support those proprietary formats as the cost of doing business with the state.
The public would be up in arms if the state decided to only allow General Motors cars into government office parking spaces. The effect of using proprietary formats and protocols is little different.
We know that vendors, especially Microsoft, will interpret things so the result is the complete opposite of whatever the government/courts intend so in addition to your comments on "completely specified" I would add a time frame - ie. "1 year following publication" or "following wide industry adoption" or possibly just limit formats those with an accepted RFC.
Also, the specs must be completely released for permanent, no-strings, royalty-free use. You don't want a format to become widely used and then have the "owner" retract permission to use it royalty free (see GIF, MP3, JPG, etc).
Or another linux-powered web-cam: http://www.stardot-tech.com/netcam/index.html. Just add 802.11 and an antenna and you should be fine except for power. Most buildings - even ones under construction - have some power. If not, a deep-discharge RV battery should run one for a long time. Or add a solar panel if you have enough light. I think the stardot is used at the north pole but they have the whole setup rigged to wake up and send a picture via satellite phone periodically to reduce power consumption. The poster did not mention the one BIG consideration: budget. This is an easy problem with sufficient application of $$$.
2.2T or 6.6T, while being the potential penalties the law specified, are naturally uncollectable.
One could, however, bankrupt the company and send a message to any other scumbag who thinks this is a good business model which is, of course, the goal.
In a previous job we needed to do some benchmarking and testing. The first pass was to script some stuff using wget. Once everything looked fine (we could really slam the server) we turned it loose on the public.
Oops. The site collapsed nearly instantly. The problem was that people with slow modem connections kept connections active for a couple orders of magnitude longer than happened on our internal network and the server ran out of resources.
Microsoft's free tool can simulate a mix of connection speeds and I believe you can find similar functionality in many of the web test tools you will find in a freshmeat.net search.
The other one to watch out for is breakfast cereal. Pour yourself your regular bowl and then take a measuring cup and see how many "servings" you have. I think the average for men is three. This is even more serious since lots of cereals are fortified and when you triple your "recommended" daily dose of some things like iron and then add the iron you get from your other foods you may come surprisingly close to levels that are considered toxic. This is worse still since recent reports showed that many cereals far exceed the listed amounts of vitamins.
It does take work to keep the weight off but look into what lifestyle changes you can make that will minimize the time loss and other adverse parts of working out.
I have managed to get down to 11% body fat (not bad for age 44) by cycling to work (6 miles each way) and then doing a bit of weight lifting at the gym before showing off and getting to work.
Cycling takes me about 5 minutes longer than driving in traffic so that's a wash. I get my exercise during my commute so that doesn't cut into my day. I save $60/month on parking and pay less than $40/month for the gym so I come out ahead financially.
It's a struggle to get into the habit but well worth it not only for the looks and physical health but also for mental acuity and that is one thing geeks can't afford to lose.
Google's cache