Comment Is anyone still surprised by this? (Score 1) 898
After more than a decade of codified nanny-state crap of this very sort over there, is anyone still genuinely shocked by these examples of their stupidity in action?
Comment This is different from SETI@Home...how? (Score -1) 136
Seriously, why is this news?
Comment Live CD (Score 1) 622
Most distributions offer a LiveCD option that can be run from the disc (or USB stick) without installing to the hard drive.
I prefer Fedora 14 or Ubuntu 10.10, but that's just a personal preference. Functionally, they aren't very dissimilar.
Comment Re:Too fucking bad.. (Score 1) 502
This is probably one of the douchiest opinions I've seen voiced here, and that's saying something. Your lack of humanity is just appalling.
Others have already made the common-sense rebuttals vis-a-vis proportionate response, lack of actual harm inflicted, unlikelihood of danger to society, etc, so I won't belabor those points.
People like you need to step back and take stock of your philosophy on life and human society, because you're dangerously close to a belief that we're interchangeable automatons gliding through life on inflexible etched rails.
Others have already made the common-sense rebuttals vis-a-vis proportionate response, lack of actual harm inflicted, unlikelihood of danger to society, etc, so I won't belabor those points.
People like you need to step back and take stock of your philosophy on life and human society, because you're dangerously close to a belief that we're interchangeable automatons gliding through life on inflexible etched rails.
Outlook Plug-In Keeps Tone of Your Email In Check
119
Meshach writes "A new plug-in for Outlook will warn you if an email you are about to send is 'too emotional.' Basically the plug-in scans the email for emotions such as elation, humiliation, excitement and fear. A user can set how much emotion they want to allow in their messages and if exceeded the threshold a warning will pop up."
Copyright and the Games Industry 94
A recent post at the Press Start To Drink blog examined the relationship the games industry has with copyright laws. More so than in some other creative industries, the reactions of game companies to derivative works are widely varied and often unpredictable, ranging anywhere from active support to situations like the Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes debacle. Quoting:
"... even within the gaming industry, there is a tension between IP holders and fan producers/poachers. Some companies, such as Epic and Square Enix, remain incredibly protective of their Intellectual Property, threatening those that use their creations, even for non-profit, cultural reasons, with legal suits. Other companies, like Valve, seem to, if not embrace, at least tolerate, and perhaps even tacitly encourage this kind of fan engagement with their work. Lessig suggests, 'The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check with a lawyer.' Indeed, the more developers and publishers that take up Valve's position, the more creativity and innovation will emerge out of video game fan communities, already known for their intense fandom and desire to add to, alter, and re-imagine their favorite gaming universes."
Comment Re:Time to take out the old laser... (Score 1) 389
My thought was lower-tech...a moderate caliber, high-powered rifle would do the job nicely. I'm thinking .30-06, which should work well on traffic enforcement cameras, too.
Submission + - Design directives for big home RAID?
The Last Gunslinger writes: I'll preface my question by saying that I have a lot of data that I'd like to keep online...in the storage sense of the word, not the interweb sense. By a lot, I mean terabytes.
My current RAID setup is hardware based, and is on its second iteration. The controller is an old MegaRAID PCI32 4xATA/100 device from LSI. The first build used 4x250GB ATA drives, configured as a single logical RAID5 volume. The current build uses 4x500GB ATA drives, setup as two logical volumes: one 16GB RAID0 for the OS (Ubuntu Intrepid), and one 1.5TB RAID5.
I'm down to the last 50GB of that volume, and that's even after I've been shuffling data to various offline drives lying around my office...probably close to another TB or so.
As I prepare to rebuild my storage array, I'm looking to change several aspects. First off, the write performance on the RAID5 volume is bollocks...fast writes for the first 64MB, but sustained writes show the rate drops to ~4MB/sec. Most files I handle are CD ISO sized or larger, so this is a big issue. As I'm intending to use SATA-II drives this next go-round, I'm ditching the LSI controller and going to software RAID.
My questions to the community are around building and partitioning an array of this size. Assuming I use 5 or 6 drives of 1TB capacity...
My current RAID setup is hardware based, and is on its second iteration. The controller is an old MegaRAID PCI32 4xATA/100 device from LSI. The first build used 4x250GB ATA drives, configured as a single logical RAID5 volume. The current build uses 4x500GB ATA drives, setup as two logical volumes: one 16GB RAID0 for the OS (Ubuntu Intrepid), and one 1.5TB RAID5.
I'm down to the last 50GB of that volume, and that's even after I've been shuffling data to various offline drives lying around my office...probably close to another TB or so.
As I prepare to rebuild my storage array, I'm looking to change several aspects. First off, the write performance on the RAID5 volume is bollocks...fast writes for the first 64MB, but sustained writes show the rate drops to ~4MB/sec. Most files I handle are CD ISO sized or larger, so this is a big issue. As I'm intending to use SATA-II drives this next go-round, I'm ditching the LSI controller and going to software RAID.
My questions to the community are around building and partitioning an array of this size. Assuming I use 5 or 6 drives of 1TB capacity...
- Should I look for a mobo that supports RAID in the BIOS, or stick with the more portable OS-based approach?
- How should I slice up the total array into logical volumes?
- Is there any logical volume size limit I need to observe?
- I currently use EXT3...should I be looking at another FS?
Thanks!
Comment Windows-Live-searched? (Score 1) 179
In his blog about troubleshooting spinlocks in his wife's PC, Mark talks about how he "Windows-Live-searched" some term he needed to identify.
A bit later, he uses the term again and remarks parenthetically about how it "rolls off the tongue."
After forcing my gorge down, I had to ask the question: was he making an obsequious dig at the stupidity of the messaging terminology used by MS, or is he really fellating Ballmer & co.?
A bit later, he uses the term again and remarks parenthetically about how it "rolls off the tongue."
After forcing my gorge down, I had to ask the question: was he making an obsequious dig at the stupidity of the messaging terminology used by MS, or is he really fellating Ballmer & co.?
Submission + - THG pubishes detailed lab review of AMD Spider (tomshardware.com)
The Last Gunslinger writes: Tom's Hardware Guide has published detailed results of their laboratory analyses of AMD's recently released Spider platform, including the Phenom 9500 and 9600 running on 790FX chipsets. Amongst other interesting details, the 2.4GHz Phenom 9700 has been pushed back to Q1 2008. The 2.3GHz Phenom 9600 benchmarks on average 13.5% lower than Intel's Q6600 quad-core CPU...and the MSRP for the Phenom is about 13.6% less as well. Much is made of the AMD OverDrive utility, by which the THG labs were able to OC the Spider platform by 25% (3.0GHz) using air cooling alone.
First R600 Review - The Radeon HD 2900XT 157
mrneutron2004 writes "Tweaktown seems to have the first review out of the gate on AMD's flagship R600 core. 'Our
focus today is solely on the HD 2900 XT 512MB GDDR-3 graphics card –
it is the first GPU with a fast 512-bit memory interface but what
does this mean for performance? ... After taking a look at the GPU and the card
from PowerColor as well as some new Ruby DX10 screenshots, we will
move onto the benchmarks and compare the red hot flaming Radeon
monster against Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTX along with the former ATI GPU king, the Radeon X1950 XTX."
WarGames Sequel Now Filming 439
iluvcapra writes "This news is a little late, but on November 20th WarGames 2: The Dead Code began filming in Montreal. (I only became aware of the new production when I read that MGM is suing the rightful owner of WarGames.com for his domain name.) The film will be produced and distributed by MGM — distributor of the original WarGames — and directed by Stewart Gillard, director of such gems as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3. Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, the team behind the original film, are not involved. The plot revolves around a hacker breaking into a terrorism-simulation computer."
Detecting Tailgaters With Lasers 1136
stoolpigeon writes "Police in Arizona are using laser range finders to detect and ticket tailgaters. An officer can now measure not only the speed of passing vehicles but also how close they are to one another. The detectors described in the article are built by Laser Technology Inc., a company that provides lasers for traffic control, engineering, and even tactical/military solutions. The article mentions how tailgating is connected to many accidents and incidents of road rage; this observation fits my experience."
TiVo File Encryption Cracked 250
An anonymous reader writes "TiVo file encryption has been cracked. Details on the project can be found on the wiki. Mac and Linux users rejoice!" The project page says, "The conversion still requires the valid MAK of the TiVo which recorded the file, so it cannot be used to circumvent their protection, simply to provide the same level of access as is already available on Windows."
Weird Al Premiere Cancelled Due to Net Leak 266
SilentChris writes "In what's probably a first, AOL cancelled the 'World Premiere' of Weird Al's newest video 'White and Nerdy' due to it being leaked on the internet. Al writes on his MySpace page: 'Apparently, the video has already leaked online, and AOL doesn't feel comfortable doing a World Premiere promotion for a video that a number of people have seen already ... Anyway, it's really a bummer... it would have been great promotion for the album... but hey, life goes on.' As for the video? Arguably Al's best work (but I'm a little biased)."
