> You have to pay for a front-end to MySQL ? The world's most popular open source database doesn't have a free front-end? em... sorry, I just didn't know this and am exclaiming out loud... please move along.
As long as we're off-topic here.. The world's most popular interface to a filesystem, mysql, does have quite an excellent, free, open source front end: phpMyAdmin. However, Curt Hibbs, the author of this highly Windows-centric article, chose to go the eye-candy route for maximum brownie points with highly impressionable, brain-dead users. I had to exercise active restraint to not hate on Ruby/Rails because of this.
Why can't you dweebs understand? No matter how fancy you make your OS X^M^M^M^MpostgreSQL, those of us that prefer to use filesystem^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^MmySQL as database will never switch.
> This is a massive distortion. There are dozens of folks who are just as level-headed as Linus.
If you have the time (and energy), please name a few with a short summary as to why they qualify as being as level-headed as Linus. Please don't take this as an attack, I'm genuinely curious - maybe I'll learn something.
You calling me a silly poster or the OP? I was simply wondering. I dislike both Microsoft and Apple, in that order. But I'm not bashing anyone here - I was simply curious. Your answer provided some insight - thanks.
> Wow, that was unnecessarily offsensive post, you are right, it needs a better home page.
It may have been a tad offensive, but his point is quite valid. And instead of writing in your journal how pissed off you are, I think it would have been more useful to either a) contact the author/webmaster and ask them to put up a simple "WTF the software you're about to download does" page, which isn't hard to do at all, you can even link directly to the damn README.txt file if you're lazy, or b) do it yourself in case you are the author/webmaster. *I* am pissed when I have to waste a lot of time to find out basic info about a piece of software. What's next - require would-be users to read the source code to figure out WTF your software does? C'mon people, use a little common sense!
> I would make the assumption that since jpeg is over 18years old, compression algroithms are at their limit for this image format.
Uh, dude - they just came out with this! So how can you say that? I would say this will actually ignite the minds of open-source compression experts (no, not literally) to rethink their approach to compressing JPEG, since they now know it's doable loselessly.
> What part of "This call may be monitored" did you not understand?
My problem is a little different, and I'm not sure you would understand (although I certainly hope so). I do not want all places I call to say that to me. I would like a choice. "Do you mind if there's a 2% chance that we will record your call, for marketing, monitoring, spying, etc.?" Yes I would mind, thank you very much!
Whereas you are perfectly happy with all your calls being recorded, as long as they tell you about it. To you it sounds like "hello there, how are you, we're doing a little research, won't you help us out?", while to me it sounds more like "ok, now we're lubing your butt with some KY Jelly, prepare for penetration." *I* would like the option of saying "no." Capisce?
What nerve corporations have these days! And how willing to submit the average person is!
> I think it would be better if he kept his router actually, that way he could play dumb and say "I thought I was connecting to my router, I didn't know I was freeloading, really." Could anyone make a dispute against him in that situation?
Lets simplify this. You are a program that doesn't know anything about the world, because you are a de-centralized program. You are started by your master ("user," in human speak). What do you then do? Who do you connect to? Surely if you had an address hardcoded somewhere you would no longer qualify as being decentralized. Do you start walking the IP space, trying to connect to 1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.2, and so on? Oh, so the IPs you have coded in your config are "only hints," huh? Okay, then you should be able to cope with all those "hints" having gone bad. When those hints are all bad, what do you do, Mr. D. Centralized Program?
Update: this appears to have been adressed in 2.6.10-bk12. From the Changelog:
ChangeSet@1.2247.2.4, 2005-01-07 15:58:52-08:00, torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org
Fix do_brk() locking in library loader
The regular executable loader path doesn't need the locking,
because it's the only user of its VM. But the same is not true
at library load time. So get the mmap semaphore.
This is a perfect example of/. failing. This thread is next to useless for finding information related to fixing this problem, especially regarding the 2.6 kernel. So let me share (don't ask me why).
What Alan Cox and Linus have to say on the subject:
http://kerneltrap.org/comment/reply/4503
Alan Cox already fixed it in 2.6.10-ac, I assume this to be as of ac6, but you should grab -ac10 (or whatever is the latest):
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan/ linux-2.6/2.6.10/
This method is unlikely to make it into the mainline kernel.
grsecurity also fixes it, using do_brk_locked():
http://www.grsecurity.net/linux-2.6.10-secfix-2005 01071130.patch
This method is also unlikely to make it into the mainline kernel, but it should work fine.
Both of these "fixes" present their own set of problems; I am not familiar with the -ac patchset and it would foolish to apply it to a production environment. The grsecurity "secfix" patch is specified for use _after_ applying the main grsecurity patch, so for those that don't use/desire it may pose a problem.
This is rather shameful, that an official patch does not exist days after the advisory was published. This is Microsoft bad, or worse! It makes Linux look like a toy, not a serious contender in the enterprise. SIGH
Don't forget Supermicro - they make excellent server-class components, from motherboards to barebones to complete servers. You can pick parts up used parts from eBay and other used-parts dealers.
If you are going to go cheap and built it yourself from commodity components (not server validated), this is what I recommend: buy as good quality components as you can afford (for example, get an ASUS, Abit, etc. motherboard) and get two of each. This is to cover yourself in case a) the component in question dies and b) it is no longer manufactured down the line when it does die. Certify both sets yourself, if you have a spare case build a standby machine and make sure the same boot hard drive boots in both boxen (I would recommend cold-swap IDE carriers if you're gonna go IDE, they make it easy to swap drives especially in a data center environment where you need to be in & out, and they usually have a fan which aids cooling). M$ operating systems usually have a problem booting on even slightly different hardware, while Linux is usually much more forgiving.
In the end, it depends if this is worth your time as opposed to just paying a company (say, IBM) to deliver the machine and cover it with a service contract. In my case, it is, as I am also the service department, and am paid for it. I offer same-day service as I stock parts that can potentially break, and am intimately familiar with the servers as I am the one who built them.
Also: as someone already pointed out, you can pick up some older hardware that still has plenty of power. For example, a dual Pentium 3 server/workstation-class machine. It may have SCSI and come with a few drives. So you can use SMP kernels and run in RAID mode and learn about these technologies if you're not already familiar with them. When you need more power, just scale the underlying hardware up (say, to a 4-way Xeon 3.2GHz;)
I have a lot of friends and family scattered around Europe that I keep in touch with. I know the calling abroad game as I've been doing it for decades. It is still a royal pain in the arse.
Before VoIP, your only choice other than paying your regular LD provider a ton of money per minute was a calling card. These things are very problematic and inconvenient to use. First, you have to choose one that appears to have good rates to where you are calling. Then you have to read the fine print to see if they charge a connection fee, a maintenance fee, and so on. Usually, what appears to be a good deal isn't, unless you use up the whole amount in one call, or very few long calls. Then, after you find one that appears to be good overall, there's the difficulty of actually placing the call. Sometimes it's hard to very hard to get through, and it's a pain in the ass to keep calling their number, enter your pin, then dial the number. Some/most of these only allow a set number of attempts per call, so you have to keep calling back every X failed attempts. During peak usage of their network, like during the holidays, this becomes a huge problem. Then, if you get through, during peak usage call quality is fair at best, as they lower the bitrate to accommodate a larger volume of calls.
Some providers allow you to sign up. It works the same as a calling card with but you are billed monthly. Sometimes they can read your home phone # so you don't have to enter a PIN every time you call. More convenient, but still inconvenient to use and annoying when you can't get through.
Then there's pure VoIP, like Skype. Very convenient. No more wasting time finger-dialing 30-digit sequences of numbers. Add them to your address book then simply select & click call. Problems: very expensive (compared to the rates offered by calling cards) and sometimes you still can't get through.
The adage of "what appears to be a good usually isn't upon closer inspection" applies here too. Skype, for example, boasts ~0.02/min to Western Europe. Yeah, if you call a land line. But it's pretty much a rule - when you call Europe, you'll be calling a mobile phone. I have friends who don't even have land lines. And the price for calling mobile numbers is much higher. And _not_ competitive with what the calling cards offer.
So, it's pretty much a mess. I refrain from calling, as most of my friends have email and we keep in touch on a weekly basis. Add IM into the mix and you've got even less of a need for calling. Then some of them have broadband and headsets, so we can place calls for free over the net. The problem with this is that we must both be in a certain place at a certain time. When the planets align just right, it happens:)
For emergency use, I purchased 10 of SkypeOut credit which I use when I need to call someone and express my love toward them I can't deal with the calling cards any longer, and I'm willing to pay a premium price for this advantage for my limited use. If I'd be a heavy user, I'd probably use the cheapest service that worked, tho.
While this is certainly interesting to see, what I like the most about it is that it actually proves the insanity of the Megahertz race. Using the P3/600Mhz as my low end and P4EE/3460 as my high end, I am not noticing any significant instance where the expensive whore is faster by at least an order of magnitude.
Let us not forget that it's not just the CPU but the whole supporting cast that has vastly improved over the years. Even with all the improvements in non-CPU technologies such as RAM, chipset and FSB, a P4 Gallatin CPU running at 3460 MHz does not perform 6x (3460/600=6.06) faster than a P3 Coppermine CPU running at 600Mhz in most cases (not counting the SIMD benchmarks that rely primarily on SSE2, etc.).
So what does this mean? It pretty much means that the great majority of us are buying marketing hype. At retail.
> This week's deadly Asian Quake and Tsunami may have been so powerful, that it changed the rate of Earth's rotation. In a Reuters article, a NASA geophysicist theorizes that the quake compacted the Earth enough to speed up the planet's rotation by 3 microseconds.
This is nothing more than media sensationalization; it is not significant in any way, shape or form other than passing as news to the average joe, in turn selling more newspapers/products/ads. Nothing here to see, please move along (maybe to redcross.org?).
> This chip from Micron, costs less than $2K and does 500 full-frame megapixel images per second.
Now imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!
Seriously now, this made me think of a couple of things. One is that this technique, which a lot of you say is worthless, is actually adaptable, so nobody's stopping you from using better sensors.
For example, if you use a sensor with a "snapshot" shutter, one that records the whole frame at the same instance, and not the über-cheap ones they used with "rolling" shutters, you eliminate their time/resource consuming task of "slicing."
Then imagine using your megapixel sensor, that runs at 500 fps native, and adapting it for use with this technique. You can use "just" 10 sensors to achieve 5000 fps. And I do believe your image quality will be much better than theirs.
Another idea: add a few additional sensors in a closely-spaced secondary plane to cover any "holes" so you don't have to crop down your final output quite so tight. Think of digital image stabilization in consumer camcorders.
Just some food for thought. I just don't like it when people knock things. Heck, this procedure sure is more fun than sitting on your ass all day reading/., so stop bitching (that's plural you, not you in specific, Anonymous Coward).
I'm looking for a stand-alone alternative. del.icio.us is great, but when the site goes down (as it did when this was posted), you are f-d. What's a good alternative that will do something akin to it? Something that requires a database/server install is fine (and actually preferred, as it's accessible over the net) - the main requirement is that there be some way to back up my data and, in case the server crashes/burns, I can set up a new serv[er|ice] and simply reload my backup. Which I can't do with del.icio.us. I like knowing my data is safe on a DVD-R somewhere.
I am loathe to use the service because I forsee investing a lot of time and energy in organizing my huge collection of personal bookmarks and I do not wish to risk wasting it in case del.icio.us goes offline (as it certainly will in 1 [week|month|year|decade|century]).
Ideally, the software would also create a local copy of the page(s) bookmarked, as all pages certainly will go offline (see above).
Slashdot Mirror
> You have to pay for a front-end to MySQL ? The world's most popular open source database doesn't have a free front-end? em... sorry, I just didn't know this and am exclaiming out loud... please move along.
As long as we're off-topic here.. The world's most popular interface to a filesystem, mysql, does have quite an excellent, free, open source front end: phpMyAdmin. However, Curt Hibbs, the author of this highly Windows-centric article, chose to go the eye-candy route for maximum brownie points with highly impressionable, brain-dead users. I had to exercise active restraint to not hate on Ruby/Rails because of this.
You're an^H^Hright! Blame it on morning sickness (-:
Why can't you dweebs understand? No matter how fancy you make your OS X^M^M^M^MpostgreSQL, those of us that prefer to use filesystem^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^MmySQL as database will never switch.
Yet Another Linux Distro In Search Of A Purpose.
> This is a massive distortion. There are dozens of folks who are just as level-headed as Linus.
If you have the time (and energy), please name a few with a short summary as to why they qualify as being as level-headed as Linus. Please don't take this as an attack, I'm genuinely curious - maybe I'll learn something.
It's a joke..
> Hong Kong laws provide for a maximum of 4 years in prison and $6,400 fine for every copy distributed without copyright owner's permission.
$6,400 Hong Kong dollars which are, like, 2 American.
You calling me a silly poster or the OP? I was simply wondering. I dislike both Microsoft and Apple, in that order. But I'm not bashing anyone here - I was simply curious. Your answer provided some insight - thanks.
> Wow, that was unnecessarily offsensive post, you are right, it needs a better home page.
It may have been a tad offensive, but his point is quite valid. And instead of writing in your journal how pissed off you are, I think it would have been more useful to either a) contact the author/webmaster and ask them to put up a simple "WTF the software you're about to download does" page, which isn't hard to do at all, you can even link directly to the damn README.txt file if you're lazy, or b) do it yourself in case you are the author/webmaster. *I* am pissed when I have to waste a lot of time to find out basic info about a piece of software. What's next - require would-be users to read the source code to figure out WTF your software does? C'mon people, use a little common sense!
Why were they running on Windows in the first place? They probably don't know how to properly configure Windows anyway.
> I would make the assumption that since jpeg is over 18years old, compression algroithms are at their limit for this image format.
Uh, dude - they just came out with this! So how can you say that? I would say this will actually ignite the minds of open-source compression experts (no, not literally) to rethink their approach to compressing JPEG, since they now know it's doable loselessly.
> What part of "This call may be monitored" did you not understand?
My problem is a little different, and I'm not sure you would understand (although I certainly hope so). I do not want all places I call to say that to me. I would like a choice. "Do you mind if there's a 2% chance that we will record your call, for marketing, monitoring, spying, etc.?" Yes I would mind, thank you very much!
Whereas you are perfectly happy with all your calls being recorded, as long as they tell you about it. To you it sounds like "hello there, how are you, we're doing a little research, won't you help us out?", while to me it sounds more like "ok, now we're lubing your butt with some KY Jelly, prepare for penetration." *I* would like the option of saying "no." Capisce?
What nerve corporations have these days! And how willing to submit the average person is!
> I think it would be better if he kept his router actually, that way he could play dumb and say "I thought I was connecting to my router, I didn't know I was freeloading, really." Could anyone make a dispute against him in that situation?
/. kinda incriminates him LOL
I think posting to
SSID: hacmeidareu
Lets simplify this. You are a program that doesn't know anything about the world, because you are a de-centralized program. You are started by your master ("user," in human speak). What do you then do? Who do you connect to? Surely if you had an address hardcoded somewhere you would no longer qualify as being decentralized. Do you start walking the IP space, trying to connect to 1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.2, and so on? Oh, so the IPs you have coded in your config are "only hints," huh? Okay, then you should be able to cope with all those "hints" having gone bad. When those hints are all bad, what do you do, Mr. D. Centralized Program?
Decentralized, my ass.
Update: this appears to have been adressed in 2.6.10-bk12. From the Changelog:
ChangeSet@1.2247.2.4, 2005-01-07 15:58:52-08:00, torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org
Fix do_brk() locking in library loader
The regular executable loader path doesn't need the locking,
because it's the only user of its VM. But the same is not true
at library load time. So get the mmap semaphore.
This is a perfect example of /. failing. This thread is next to useless for finding information related to fixing this problem, especially regarding the 2.6 kernel. So let me share (don't ask me why).
/ linux-2.6/2.6.10/
5 01071130.patch
What Alan Cox and Linus have to say on the subject:
http://kerneltrap.org/comment/reply/4503
Alan Cox already fixed it in 2.6.10-ac, I assume this to be as of ac6, but you should grab -ac10 (or whatever is the latest):
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan
This method is unlikely to make it into the mainline kernel.
grsecurity also fixes it, using do_brk_locked():
http://www.grsecurity.net/linux-2.6.10-secfix-200
This method is also unlikely to make it into the mainline kernel, but it should work fine.
Both of these "fixes" present their own set of problems; I am not familiar with the -ac patchset and it would foolish to apply it to a production environment. The grsecurity "secfix" patch is specified for use _after_ applying the main grsecurity patch, so for those that don't use/desire it may pose a problem.
This is rather shameful, that an official patch does not exist days after the advisory was published. This is Microsoft bad, or worse! It makes Linux look like a toy, not a serious contender in the enterprise. SIGH
Don't forget Supermicro - they make excellent server-class components, from motherboards to barebones to complete servers. You can pick parts up used parts from eBay and other used-parts dealers.
;)
If you are going to go cheap and built it yourself from commodity components (not server validated), this is what I recommend: buy as good quality components as you can afford (for example, get an ASUS, Abit, etc. motherboard) and get two of each. This is to cover yourself in case a) the component in question dies and b) it is no longer manufactured down the line when it does die. Certify both sets yourself, if you have a spare case build a standby machine and make sure the same boot hard drive boots in both boxen (I would recommend cold-swap IDE carriers if you're gonna go IDE, they make it easy to swap drives especially in a data center environment where you need to be in & out, and they usually have a fan which aids cooling). M$ operating systems usually have a problem booting on even slightly different hardware, while Linux is usually much more forgiving.
In the end, it depends if this is worth your time as opposed to just paying a company (say, IBM) to deliver the machine and cover it with a service contract. In my case, it is, as I am also the service department, and am paid for it. I offer same-day service as I stock parts that can potentially break, and am intimately familiar with the servers as I am the one who built them.
Also: as someone already pointed out, you can pick up some older hardware that still has plenty of power. For example, a dual Pentium 3 server/workstation-class machine. It may have SCSI and come with a few drives. So you can use SMP kernels and run in RAID mode and learn about these technologies if you're not already familiar with them. When you need more power, just scale the underlying hardware up (say, to a 4-way Xeon 3.2GHz
I have a lot of friends and family scattered around Europe that I keep in touch with. I know the calling abroad game as I've been doing it for decades. It is still a royal pain in the arse.
:)
Before VoIP, your only choice other than paying your regular LD provider a ton of money per minute was a calling card. These things are very problematic and inconvenient to use. First, you have to choose one that appears to have good rates to where you are calling. Then you have to read the fine print to see if they charge a connection fee, a maintenance fee, and so on. Usually, what appears to be a good deal isn't, unless you use up the whole amount in one call, or very few long calls. Then, after you find one that appears to be good overall, there's the difficulty of actually placing the call. Sometimes it's hard to very hard to get through, and it's a pain in the ass to keep calling their number, enter your pin, then dial the number. Some/most of these only allow a set number of attempts per call, so you have to keep calling back every X failed attempts. During peak usage of their network, like during the holidays, this becomes a huge problem. Then, if you get through, during peak usage call quality is fair at best, as they lower the bitrate to accommodate a larger volume of calls.
Some providers allow you to sign up. It works the same as a calling card with but you are billed monthly. Sometimes they can read your home phone # so you don't have to enter a PIN every time you call. More convenient, but still inconvenient to use and annoying when you can't get through.
Then there's pure VoIP, like Skype. Very convenient. No more wasting time finger-dialing 30-digit sequences of numbers. Add them to your address book then simply select & click call. Problems: very expensive (compared to the rates offered by calling cards) and sometimes you still can't get through.
The adage of "what appears to be a good usually isn't upon closer inspection" applies here too. Skype, for example, boasts ~0.02/min to Western Europe. Yeah, if you call a land line. But it's pretty much a rule - when you call Europe, you'll be calling a mobile phone. I have friends who don't even have land lines. And the price for calling mobile numbers is much higher. And _not_ competitive with what the calling cards offer.
So, it's pretty much a mess. I refrain from calling, as most of my friends have email and we keep in touch on a weekly basis. Add IM into the mix and you've got even less of a need for calling. Then some of them have broadband and headsets, so we can place calls for free over the net. The problem with this is that we must both be in a certain place at a certain time. When the planets align just right, it happens
For emergency use, I purchased 10 of SkypeOut credit which I use when I need to call someone and express my love toward them I can't deal with the calling cards any longer, and I'm willing to pay a premium price for this advantage for my limited use. If I'd be a heavy user, I'd probably use the cheapest service that worked, tho.
While this is certainly interesting to see, what I like the most about it is that it actually proves the insanity of the Megahertz race. Using the P3/600Mhz as my low end and P4EE/3460 as my high end, I am not noticing any significant instance where the expensive whore is faster by at least an order of magnitude.
Let us not forget that it's not just the CPU but the whole supporting cast that has vastly improved over the years. Even with all the improvements in non-CPU technologies such as RAM, chipset and FSB, a P4 Gallatin CPU running at 3460 MHz does not perform 6x (3460/600=6.06) faster than a P3 Coppermine CPU running at 600Mhz in most cases (not counting the SIMD benchmarks that rely primarily on SSE2, etc.).
So what does this mean? It pretty much means that the great majority of us are buying marketing hype. At retail.
> This week's deadly Asian Quake and Tsunami may have been so powerful, that it changed the rate of Earth's rotation. In a Reuters article, a NASA geophysicist theorizes that the quake compacted the Earth enough to speed up the planet's rotation by 3 microseconds.
This is nothing more than media sensationalization; it is not significant in any way, shape or form other than passing as news to the average joe, in turn selling more newspapers/products/ads. Nothing here to see, please move along (maybe to redcross.org?).
> This chip from Micron, costs less than $2K and does 500 full-frame megapixel images per second.
/., so stop bitching (that's plural you, not you in specific, Anonymous Coward).
Now imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!
Seriously now, this made me think of a couple of things. One is that this technique, which a lot of you say is worthless, is actually adaptable, so nobody's stopping you from using better sensors.
For example, if you use a sensor with a "snapshot" shutter, one that records the whole frame at the same instance, and not the über-cheap ones they used with "rolling" shutters, you eliminate their time/resource consuming task of "slicing."
Then imagine using your megapixel sensor, that runs at 500 fps native, and adapting it for use with this technique. You can use "just" 10 sensors to achieve 5000 fps. And I do believe your image quality will be much better than theirs.
Another idea: add a few additional sensors in a closely-spaced secondary plane to cover any "holes" so you don't have to crop down your final output quite so tight. Think of digital image stabilization in consumer camcorders.
Just some food for thought. I just don't like it when people knock things. Heck, this procedure sure is more fun than sitting on your ass all day reading
I'm looking for a stand-alone alternative. del.icio.us is great, but when the site goes down (as it did when this was posted), you are f-d. What's a good alternative that will do something akin to it? Something that requires a database/server install is fine (and actually preferred, as it's accessible over the net) - the main requirement is that there be some way to back up my data and, in case the server crashes/burns, I can set up a new serv[er|ice] and simply reload my backup. Which I can't do with del.icio.us. I like knowing my data is safe on a DVD-R somewhere.
I am loathe to use the service because I forsee investing a lot of time and energy in organizing my huge collection of personal bookmarks and I do not wish to risk wasting it in case del.icio.us goes offline (as it certainly will in 1 [week|month|year|decade|century]).
Ideally, the software would also create a local copy of the page(s) bookmarked, as all pages certainly will go offline (see above).
Wow, you guys are a real downer! You're all saying he's crazy, he can't do it, it's suicide. I really hope this guy succeeds and shuts you haters up.
New rule: Anything that Wal-Mart wants is inherently evil.
Therefore, RFID must be evil.