Just over a minute, you have time to check out this great ad spoof.

Some time ago I asked for virtual machine advice. Having read the comments and other stuff on various blogs and sites I opted to try VMWare, VirtualIron and VirtualBox.

Here we are nearly a year later and I have to say that (IMHO) Bang for the Buck goes to...drum roll VirtualBox!

The basic edition is open source, well supported and just plain works. A small download of less than 30 MB will get you running.

It isn't a bare metal install, but on my testing with Linux as a host OS it screams running XP and OpenSolaris. I have an OpenBSD VM set up but haven't gotten X to work yet. Installing the guest extensions gives you all sorts of cool stuff.

Eleventy thumbs up!

A friend wrote me from her hotmail account today, to my gmail account. I replied, and a couple minutes later, I got a reply.. Oddly enough, it was this.. I guess the Hotmail/Gmail war is on. :)

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

        _____@hotmail.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: Gmail tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 DY-002 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons. The likely cause is a compromised or virus infected server/personal computer. If you are not an email/network admin please contact your E-mail/Internet Service Provider for help. Email/network admins, please visit http://postmaster.live.com for email delivery information and support (state 13).

The rumours are true, someone is making a documentary about Lemmy! Check out the trailer.

If you don't know who Lemmy is... for shame.

Man I remember when I first spun the Ace of Spades LP. That opening bass riff of the title track was something that sent a chill down my spine. "What the hell is this?!" my 14-15 year old mind thought. Yeah, I was hooked. Other Motorhead LPs, mostly imports, soon came home to be played endless times. I'm sure my parents loved it.

    I always have grand plans when I'm broke, but there's no harm in documenting my plans, should I accidentally get some money. I could have (theoretically) done this with my tax return and economic stimulus check, but those disappeared before they ever got to me. The evil ex-wife had them sucked away straight from the Fed. If she was computer literate enough to read this, then I could add a few more phrases to say how I feel about her sucking every penny I have away, but I'll save that for later.

    Anyways, on to the car.

    I've wanted to do an electric car conversion for a while. I've been trying to figure out the best way to do it. I've read countless pages where other people have built theirs. Most of the problems they run into are finding places to put batteries, or other idiosyncrasies with the particular vehicle. I want to avoid those. :)

    Right now, I drive 30 miles daily. 15 miles to work, 15 miles home. Other than that 30 to 60 minutes driving (depending on traffic) it is parked. Half of the drive is stop&go at up to 45mph (speed limit & lots of cops). The other half is one long stretch where I just have to get up to speed, and then coast. Sometimes in my regular car, I do exactly that. I get up to speed (about 80mph), for about 1/3 of the run, put it in neutral, and coast the rest of the way. It saves me a lot of gas.

    My concept is to make a "sand rail" EV. Most cars weigh 3,000 pounds or so. My TransAm weighs in at 3,400 pounds dry (no gas, no driver). Even something tiny like a Miata weighs 2,100 pounds. Looking around, a good ballpark for a sand rail, with engine, is about 1,000 pounds.

    I'd want a 4 seat version, just for the extra space. I'll explain space in a minute. I looked around online, and there are a bunch of different manufacturers, making almost identical frames. Not hard, since anyone who can weld can make a frame. It's the same technique as making a roll cage for a race car, which every town has a shop that can do.

    I'd like to find a semi-complete project. That would be frame, transmission, wheels, seats, brakes, and most of the lights.

    I found batteries for my bus. 1200A group 8d batteries, for $85/ea. They're "used", which appears to mean remanufactured, not taken out of a crashed truck. They're roughly 250Ah each. They each weigh 120 pounds too. They're not a lot of fun to move by yourself, I assure you. :) My bus takes 2 just to start (wired serial for 24vdc)

    It would require an electric motor (obviously), which would attach to the original transmission. A lot of them use VW bug parts, which is cool (cheap and readily available). The batteries would be mounted everywhere I could. Most of them have a long nose, which could hold 8. Around the motor could hold at least 2, and the remainder would be put under, beside or between the seats. I'd like to have at least 10 of these group 8D batteries, which would give me 2,500Ah.

    Then it would be a matter of skinning it. That is fiberglass or sheet metal to make it somewhat aerodynamic. A little Heat & A/C unit would be nice too. That should run on a power inverter happily, and there *should* be plenty of power to run it with for 15 minutes. Here in Florida, it's hot 13 months of the year, but on occasion, we get a cold day, cold enough to justify having heat, and not just a jacket.

    For recharging, since there is a minimum of 6 hours of daylight here (Florida), I'd cover the roof area with solar panels. That's part of why I'd want the 4 seat version, so it would have extra surface area.

    Worst case, I have to plug it in at home too, but at least it would get some charge while I'm at work.

    Now, all I need is money. I'm working extra now, which may pay the bills, but not pay for projects. I thought about bank robbery, but the profit vs risk isn't worth it. Banks don't keep enough cash on hand, and I'm not a good criminal, so I'd get caught. :) With my luck, I'd get $2,000, and end up in prison for 40 years. Prison definitely keeps me from doing cool projects. I've been thinking about prostitution, but as an average skinny white guy, the most I'm going to get from wearing a G-string on the corner is people begging me to put clothes on. :)

What is the densest CPU configuration motherboard available?

    I know in the Linux kernel, it handles SMP from 2 to 255 CPU's.

    I was talking to a friend, and we were considering what the most CPU's we could stick into a server is. Anyone can buy older CPU's at budget pricing. From what I understand, most of the older Opteron's were limited by design to 1, 2, 4, or 8 CPUs in one machine. I don't know the limit on P4's, nor the newer Opteron's.

    Where could I find a motherboard a huge density of CPU's?

    Wouldn't a 128 CPU 1.5Ghz machine be just a little faster than a dual core 4Ghz, assuming multi-threaded processes?

    Besides the cool factor of having 128 CPU's running at once, this could make one hell of a server or virtualization environment.

It seems a fan of Star Wars (a fan with 2 years of free time!) took the Special Edition release of Episode IV and edited the hell out of it.

I'll paste the changes from the post I was pointed to ( post can be found here) I like #70 (HAN SHOOTS FIRST) etc.

At the bottom of this JE you'll find the link to the DVD5 on TPB. I hope to see more people in the swarm by morning :)

original film name: Star Wars IV: A New Hope
new film name: STAR WARS: EP IV 2004 Special edition REVISITED
film studio name: Lucasfilm
Date Original Film Was Released: 25 MAY 77
Date Edit Was Released: 19 JAN 2008
Original Runtime: 121 minutes
New Runtime: 127 minutes
Amount of time Cut/Added: a lot added/a lot cut
Cuts removed/added/extended: way to many (see list of changes)

List of changes:
VIDEO

1 - Star Wars Logo: originally it receded way too quickly so this has been slowed down to match the speed in the rest of the saga.
2 - The crawl appears slightly earlier now, as it did pre ANH, so it appears at the correct music cue that Williams� intended, and how I remember it.
3 - As the camera pans down to Tatooine you now see the 3 moons instead of just 2
4 - Tatooine now rotates slightly as the ships fly overhead
5 - Re-coloured all lasers
6 - Removed the horrible blue hazing as the stardestroyers engine come into view
7 - Changed the explosion as the Tantive IV is hit to remove a lot of the smoke.
8 - Added a jerk to the motion of the Tantive IV as it is hit
9 - Speeded up the star field in that shot so the Tantive IV seems to be moving as fast as it did in previous shots.
10 - Colour correction of the whole film to remove the blue tint. The Tantive IV�s walls are now white.
11 - Re-coloured R2�s dome lights throughout the movie so they match closer to the rest of the saga. The front light now blinks from red to blue.
12 - Re-edited the Tantive IV corridor battle to fix continuity issues where troopers die more than once.
13- Added blaster flashes to all blasters that have them missing as they fire.
14 - Added blast flashes to the troopers where they are hit
15 - Corrected issues where the blasters flash as if they were fired on set but no laser bolts were present. Added the lasers to fix this throughout.
16 - Fixed the jump cut where 3PO & R2 cross the corridor on the Tantive IV & the doorway explodes.
17 - When Vader enters the Tantive IV a Stormtrooper lets go of the head of a dead trooper but that you can see that the actor slowly lowers his head. This has been fixed and the troopers head now drops at speed more like a dead body.
18 - Added blinking lights to Vader�s chest plate
19 - Vader�s eyes re-coloured to remove the red tint.
20 - When 3PO is looking for R2 a trooper falls to the floor behind him as if he has been shot but there is no laser fire. Added some lasers & a flash as the trooper is hit.
21 - Smoothed / fixed the jump cut as R2 extends his third leg and heads for 3PO & the one where he leaves 3PO
22 - Fixed the error in the scene where Vader is strangling Antilles the trooper in the background changes position in one shot. Originally his legs are closed and his blaster is in a totally different position.
23 - Fixed an FX issue when Leia is hit by the stun blaster the glow effect is missing on part of her dress.
24 - In the scene where R2 presses the button to open the pod door you now see his arm retract
25 - Re-coloured the interior of the escape pod to blue due to continuity issues in this scene.
26 - As the escape pod blasts off it now begins to rotate as it does in the rest of the shots
27 - When the imperial commander says �hold your fire� the trajectory of the escape pod has been changed so it is heading downwards and away from the ship instead or just heading straight which caused a continuity error in the next shot as we see the underbelly of the stardestroyer , which means it was heading downwards.
28 - Changed the stars & stardestroyer view from inside the pod so the ship & stars now recede at different rates
29 - You now see the escape pod enter the atmosphere of Tatooine.
30 - Every FX shot has been either touched up or redone in some form or another, but too many to mention every one.
31 - On Tatooine the escape pod canopy has been re-coloured to remove the odd blue colour
32 - In the some scenes the sky has been changed to match other shots.
33 - Added the sandcrawler from the OUT to replace the static shots when 3P0 thinks he is rescued
34 - Completely new canyon wipe so the rocky surroundings that R2 travels through matches closer to what Tatooine looks like in the PT. Also brightened the scene slightly
35 - Fixed a shot of R2 after he is captured where you see the mark of a restraining bolt before it is attached. In some previous shots it is also somewhat visible but I was unable to fix this.
36 - Fixed a placement continuity error with the restraining bolt that the Jawas fix to R2
37 - Added a battle droid to the scrap inside the Sandcrawler. Also brightened up the inside scenes Fixed
38 - Fixed R2�s eye dome in the shot inside the sandcrawler where it looks like you can see Kenny Baker inside.
39 - Inside the sandcrawler 3PO�s eyes blink as he stands. Fixed
40 - Re-coloured the sky in the SE shots of the sandtroopers & Sandcrawler so the colour the sky is less saturated and closer matches the sky we see at the homestead.
41 - When Beru calls to Luke as they are about to inspect the droids, bushes appear & disappear from shot to shot. Removed the bushes from the shots of Luke to fix this error.
42 - Removed a wire visible coming out of 3PO�s neck while Owen talks to him at the sale
43 - Removed the repeated shot of R2 & the red R5 unit to fix a continuity error. Replaced with a new shot.
44 - Fixed the pink sky effect just before this scene fades out.
45 - Added the missing glow from R2�s holo light in the garage.
46 - Brightened & desiderated the sunset scene.
47 - Fixed the colour problem in the shot where 3PO jumps as Luke activates the restraining bolt in the garage. In the 2004 DVDs this shot was sepia. An example of some very bad colour problems with these DVDs.
48 - As Luke races out of the Garage to use his macrobinoculars I have added 3PO running out of the doorway to fix an error that he suddenly appears out of nowhere.
49 - New macrobinocular graphics that add in 3PO. All other macrobinocular graphics changed too.
50 - Removed the droids tracks from a previous take make it look like it is being pulled along by a cord.
51 - When Owen shouts Luke the Treadwell droid is in a totally different place than the previous shot and a fly lands on the camera lens. Fixed both issues.
52 - In the shot where the Tusken raiders see Luke�s speeder travelling through the canyon the speeder suddenly seems to speed up towards the end and looks unnatural. Recomposited the speeder to fix this.
53 - Re-coloured the sky in some shots when Ben rescues Luke so it is more blue instead of very grey/ white, which it isn�t in the shot where Ben scares the Tusken raiders.
54 - Smoothed the jump cut where Luke ignites the sabre in Obi-Wan�s hut
55 - Added the missing ornament on Ben�s table in the shot of Leia�s hologram.
56 -Added the missing cloak on the wall behind Luke as he ignites the sabre.
57 - Re-edited the whole �Ben�s Home� not only to fix the continuity errors but also because the conversation about the force and Luke�s father is now all together and flows better instead of being split into 2 separate conversations. It now starts off with the viewing of the hologram and fixes the continuity problems.
58 - Added a new death Star sequence prior to the conference room scene to give the death star a better reveal. It now orbits a planet in all shots up until it is reported that it is fully operational.
59 - Changed the torture droids syringe arm. Removed the writings and added a laser effect.
60 - Mos Eisley approach re-edited. Removed some of the creatures on the first shot & extended the path of the landspeeder so it now fully enters the town.
61 - Completely removed the Ronto/ Jawa sequence.
62 - Removed the probe droid hit but the worker droid.
63 - Removed both Rontos from the checkpoint scene.
64 - Removed the probe droid from this scene also
65 - Fixed the ship that flies in front of the vaporator making it look tiny.
66 - When Luke looks over to the cantina it is heavily cast in shadow but as they approach there are no shadows. This has been fixed.
67 - Added facial movements to some cantina creatures.
68 - In the shot where you see Ponda Babba�s severed arm I have removed the blood & replaced the hand with the hoof like one we see him with in other shots.
69 -More facial movements & blinks for Greedo
70 -HAN SHOOTS FIRST!! Greedo no longer shoots either.
71 - Removed the Jabba scene
72 - As they approach docking bay 94 you see R2 at the side of 3PO but as the camera pans and he goes out of shot you suddenly see him appear again from a different direction, which would be impossible for him to appear so quickly. Fixed this error
73 - Re-added the fade wipe as they approach the falcon.
74 - Added the falcons dish in the docking bay shot and expanded the docking bay.
75 � Slightly re-edited the docking bay shootout to fix some continuity issues
76 - Fixed the issues with Hans �wobbly� wrist as he fires
77 - Added the missing middle strut to all the Falcons cockpit window scenes.
78 - Added the blue glow back to the Falcons engines.
79 - As the falcon escapes Tatooine it now actually does some manoeuvres instead of �listing lazily to the left�
80 - New Alderaan for all the viewscreen shots
81 - New Alderaan explosion
82 - Re-rotoscoped all lightsabres and fixed Luke�s green & wobbly sabre during the training session.
83 - Re-composited the holo chess character so they look more like holograms now.
84 - In close-up shots of R2 the background has the control light from the Death Star interior. These shots now have the correct background.
85 - Fixed the jump cut as Luke turns off his sabre.
86 - Added the colour to the remotes laser that was missing from the 2004 DVD�s
87 - In the scene where Vader says �I told you she would never�.� he gestures after he has stopped talking. This has been fixed.
88 - More asteroids when the Falcon reaches the Alderaan system
89 - New docking bays for exterior shots to match the new interior ones.
90 - Removed the blue screen pole that is visible as the Falcon enters the docking bay and the girder crane in the top left which isn�t there when you see the interior of the docking bay
91 - Added a glow to the shield light to all shots of the docking bay interior.
92 - Added the censored shot of the officer being hit as they break into the control room.
93 - Re-coloured the displays in the control room so they are no longer black & white
94 - The Death Star�s interiors are now metallic grey instead of the horrible blue.
95 - When Han, Luke & chewy wait at the elevator a trooper walks past them wearing a light coloured uniform but in the next shot it is a dark uniform. Re-coloured the light uniform to fix this.
96 - Added the censored shot of the officer being hit in the detention cell shootout.
97 - In the final shots of this sequence a trooper falls down the stairs but only the scenery was hit. The trooper now gets hit.
98 - In the scene where the stormtroopers are about to blast their way into the detention cell, the elevator door has visible signs that it has been rigged for to blast apart and looks a mess. Fixed this issue.
99 - New tractor beam matte shots.
100 - Recomposited the SE shot of the many stormtroopers as Han chases them to look more natural
101 - New wider shot of Luke & Leia as they swing across the chasm. They now look to be a lot higher up.
102 - Re-edited the lightsabre duel to give it a faster pace
103 - The lightsabre impact flashes cover both characters even though it should only be visible in front of the character closest to the camera. This has been fixed
104 - Removed the visible power cable from the lightsabre up Ben�s sleeve
105 - As Han & chewy reach the docking bay you can see the shadows of Luke & Leia awaiting their cue. Removed the shadows.
106 - Replaced the dummy of Ben as Vader kills him. You now see his face and Vader actually slices through him and you see him disappear.
107 � Removed the bar holding R2�s legs in place when the droids head for the falcon
108 - When Luke blasts the control panel the door blast door closes, but in the next shot it closes again. This has been fixed.
109 - As the Falcon leaves the docking bay it originally left very slowly even though the engines ignite and it should have accelerated faster. It does now.
110 - Fixed the wobbly holotable as Luke gets up to head to the gun port.
111 - Removed the horribly bad motion blur from the shots of Luke & Han in the gun port as the TIEs approach
112 - Redone the TIE battle sequence so the falcon no longer appears to be just sitting there and added a few new shots.
113 - Brand new explosions for TIES in this sequence
114 - Added a faster moving star field to all interior window shots of the gun port including shots that were missing a star field.
115 - When 3PO is entangled in the wires after the battle, again the close up of R2 has the death star interior background. It now has the correct Falcon corridor background.
116 - After the battle you now see the falcon enter hyperspace.
117 - Added the Hyperspace wormhole to the cockpit sequence.
118 - The Falcon now can be seen exiting hyperspace as it approaches Yavin.
119 - In the shot of the Falcon as it flies over the trees on Yavin IV the clouds have been changed to matched the rest of the sequence. I�ve also added the falcons shadow on the trees as it flies over.
120 - New interior shot of the Hanger bay. Removed the cardboard fighters and given the hanger greater depth.
121 - Fixed the following flip shots as they step off the transport vehicle.
122 - New Death Star schematics.
123 - Darkened the rebel briefing scene and once it is over the lighting becomes brighter.
124 - New up to date briefing room graphics for the display.
125 - A lot of the Rebel pilots have Blue insignias on their helmets but there is no blue squadron in the final draft. Re-coloured all blue insignias to red.
126 - The shot of Yavin & the Death star following the briefing room scene has been changed so that Yavin matches the SE Yavin
127 - When we see Han loading up his reward the Y-wing in the background is missing one of its engines because only half the ship was built. This has been fixed.
128 - Fixed the horrible jump cut of R2 as he is loaded into the X-Wing while Luke talks to Biggs & Red Leader.
129 - Added an extra stripe to one of the high view X-Wing shots to remove the repeated red leader X-Wing shots
130 - As the X-wing lifts off it now flies forward and not just straight up.
131 - As Luke leaves the temple you can now see the exterior of the temple from the rear cockpit window.
132 - Re-edited all Rebel command centre shots to fix issues where the image has been flipped (you can tell because 3PO�s dent on his head keeps swapping sides) Also Leia keeps changing position.
133 - Added Yavin to the rear cockpit windows of the fighters as they report in and to various shots throughout the battle.
134 - Ships engines are now again red and not pink.
135 - Re-coloured R2 so his dome is now blue and not black in all space shots.
136 - Fixed few flip shots of various pilots during the battle (the microphone keeps swapping sides)
137 - Added new shots throughout the sequence including a whole new TIE battle sequence
138 - The rebel command centre table now includes holograms
139 - The death star countdown clock & viewscreen is also a brand new updated display.
140 - The window at the back of Vader�s cockpit has been blacked out because there should be no window.
141 - Fixed issues where ships were missing in numerous scenes in the trench run when they should be in view. This includes both TIES & X-wings
142 - Fixed the issue with the Trench approach where the shots clearly change from a flat matte to a model shot after the flash and really jumps out at you. It flows together between both sources better now. Also both times we see it they used the same shot. Each one now has slight differences to them.
143 - When Vader fires at Luke and hits R2 he is actually firing beneath the X-wing but then next shot he hits R2 which would have been impossible. This issue has been fixed
144 - When R2 Is hit the next shot you can see no smoke or damage through Luke�s cockpit window. This has been fixed
145 - Added damage to R2s body to match the shot where he is unloaded from the X-Wing later.
146 - Re-coloured bit X-wing & TIE targeting displays
147 - A lot of shots throughout the Death Star battle the cockpit shots just have a plain black background. All cockpit shots now show what should be visible outside.
148 - When Red Leader is killed I�ve you see an explosion but nothing makes it. I�ve added the x-wing hitting the surface.
149 - Removed all of the �swinging TIES2 seen in the rear cockpit windows. The TIEs now more naturally according to the scene
150 - A very slight edit to the Biggs death scene. Luke now reacts better to the death of his friend.
151 - When the Falcon comes to the rescue and hits the left hand TIE fighter the laser both never actually hits the TIE fighter. This has been fixed
152 - You now see the death star begin to fire as it explodes
153 - New death Star explosion shot that integrates brand new footage and OUT and removed the shock wave ring.
154 - When Vader spins out of control you can now see stars through his cockpit windows.
155 - Chewie now gets a medal
156 - Brand new end credits that include the Revisited credits and also every member of OT.com that contributed in the forums up until the second week in November 2007

There are also some other minor fixes that aren�t listed, mainly because i have lost track of exactly how much has been done.

AUDIO

New 5.1 audio mix track with reversed surround channels fixed & a greater surround experience. The imperial march has now been added in places. Includes mainly a remixed 2004 DVD 5.1 audio track with elements of the Belbucus� restored monomix (many thanks Belbucus), laserdisc 5.1 audio, german 2004 5.1 mix, on set audio and new elements

There are quite a few differences in this mix but too many to mention so heres a few minor changes:

The alarm heard aboard the Tantive IV has reverted back to the original alarm that could be heard in the Mono mix.

When Luke first see�s the holo message in the garage scene Leia�s �help me obi-wan..� lines have now been synced to what you see on screen. It can also be heard throughout this scene and not just when we see the hologram as originally.

New music mix when we first see the Sandpeople to fix the horrible music cut in the original

When Obi-Wan scares off the Sandpeople, the Krayt dragon call has been reinserted.

Original Beru�s voice dub from the monomix . Now sounds more natural than the one we have become use to.

The fanfare has been reinserted when the x-wings begin their dive to the death star.

The lightsabres now have a subwoofer channel to give extra depth

A few alternate dialogue changes taken from both the mono mix and on set audio

As Luke and leia reach the chasm there is a shot of the stormtroopers as they follow them and you can hear a laser blast but no one has fired. this has been removed.

During the falcon / TIE dogfight there are a couple of instances where you can hear the sound of an X-Wing. these have been removed and the correct TIE engine sound can now be heard

Fanedit Details for the DVD-5 version:

* ReLeaSe DaTe 01.03.2008
* ViDeo
* auDio AC3 448kbps 5.1 DOLBY DIGITAL
* CoDeC MPEG2
* FRaMe RaTe 29fps
* ReSoLuTioN 720 X 480
* Subtitles ENGLISH
* SPANISH

NTSC DVD-5 with extras

* EXTRAS: �Changes & Fixes� subtitle trivia track
* �Revisited� first look trailer
* Trailer # 1
* Final Trailer
* Deleted Scene - Jabba The Hutt
* Deleted Scene - Jabba The Hutt in 3D
* �The Empire Strikes Back Revisited� Teaser Trailer

Faneditor�s comment:

I have to admit that i have always liked the special editions of the original trilogy, with a few minor niggles of course, so i was so excited when the 2004 DVD release was announced. I waited in line at midnight, got my box set and raced home to watch them. switched on my cinema system (luckily the neighbours were away) , loaded the DVD and prepared to be blown away. Then the film started and my face dropped. What the hell have they done to the surround mix? OMG Luke�s saber is green & Darth�s is pink. I thought these editions would have been better than my old VHS ones. Yes the picture quality is far superior but the new faults just plain ruined them for me. So I decided that the original trilogy DVD�s need fixing but just never got round to doing it until i was amazed by the ADigitalMan/ Darth Editous Hybrid DVD . I loved it so much i wanted to make my own

Additional comment:

Star Wars for the 21st Century. Two years in the making, this fan edit was created by a fan for the fans.
�Star Wars: Revisited represents perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated of any of the fan edits of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Inspired by the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, fan editor Adywan has created a breathtaking and powerful version of the film. Star Wars: Revisited not only fixes errors and technical limitations to the film that should have been made in the first Special Edition, but gives us a whole new vision for the movie, tying it to the rest of the Star Wars saga while correcting many of the excesses of the original Special Edition. Shots are re-mastered and restored, special effect shots are re-composited and whole new sequences are created, giving the viewer a taste of what the Special Edition could have been. Accompanied by a new Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, Star Wars: Revisited provides an exciting new visit to a galaxy far, far away.� synopsis by Sluggo - Originaltrilogy.com

External discussion links:
Originaltrilogy.com

Trailer:

Time needed for the edition: 2 years

Persons involved: Adywan

The DVD5 can be found on PirateBay

    So I had this wacky idea. I figured the folks who read my journal are probably the right audience for input on this.

    Let me explain the problem first. My day job has servers in quite a few cities. Sometimes connectivity is slow or even non-existant between the cities. Most of the cities are with the same provider, but transit different major providers.

    For example, say we have cities A, B, C and D. Between cities A and B, the connection may be >300ms. Between A and C it's only 45ms, and between C and B it's only 30ms. so, that could accumulate to be 75ms. That's much better than >300ms.

    The easy solution for day to day work is to SSH from A to C to B, which is a very manual process.

    Now for the idea.

    I've played with PPP over SSH a lot in the past. It's a lot of fun, and very reliable if you do it right. From home, I used to keep up a PPP over SSH link to my office, and use that as my default gateway, to get around pesky firewall rules. :)

  Oddly enough, the encryption overhead is more than mitigated by the data compression, despite what I've read on the subject.

    Huh?

    I have an PPP over SSH tunnel going from my desktop machine to one server. It's faster over the PPP link than directly, even though they'd both be taking the exact same route (the PPP link is initiated by my desktop. It's not a great example, but at 33ms for the ping, there's a 0.8ms deviation, in favor of the PPP link.

    With the PPP over SSH method, I've actually had much faster speeds than just the compression offers, because some home providers reduce the quality of service for particular protocols. I'm sure you've all noticed the recent bittorrent stories.

    So, what if I were to pick a machine in each facility, and set it up with PPP links to all other cities, and have those machines be routers for a private network? If we had say 10 networks, that would give 18 PPP connections per machine, or 9 unique routes that we could use, assuming we didn't do anything to keep a redundant link from being set up.

    I'm good with setting up the links. I could actually accomplish it in a very short amount of time. Of course, this is a production network, so I have to go through all kinds of hoops to do it. I'm trying to prove it between:

    My workstation
    My home machine
    My web server
    Another web server I control

    What I'm stuck on is the appropriate routing protocol. I was looking at OLSR or HSLS. These are designed for wireless networks.

    OLSR doesn't seem to like to play because these aren't wireless devices, they're established PPP connections.

    HSLS seems very primitive, and as far as I can tell, it will take a LOT of work to implement.

    OSPF/BGP looked like a decent option, but they are based on link state, not link quality. This is probably why I see this occasionally, because (almost?) all providers use BGP, which just gives us a route that's up, not a route that's best.

    The fastest way between sites is a good start, for our internal traffic. It would help out a lot with some aspects of the network.

    Ideally, I'd like to use it to pass traffic to the gateway. Expanding on the previous example, if reaching site D (a foreign network from this one), which is close to site C, and barely reachable by A, when I attempt to go to site D, it would actually route through A to C to D automatically. For internal use, this would just be cool. For the end users, routing their traffic through the best gateway would could make a world of difference to them.

    Obviously, the network would need very fast convergence, to be sure that if there is a route change, it wouldn't effect the outside users.

    Any ideas?

So I've come farther with the server room designs. We're also in talks with another provider in the colo we're in. It's good to keep a fallback plan. :)

    The new design is an 8'x16' room. We'll be using 2x6 joists (boards in the floor), and we're ditching the cement blocks to raise the room any farther. 6" up is still more than we require for running water. If we have 6" of standing water, we have bigger problems. :) We can still sandbag and sump pump it, so nothing's changed there.

    The new room allows for 4 racks comfortably, plus room to move.

    I found a good source for cooling information. It basically said we'd need about 24k BTU's. Home Depot sells window units that size for $399. Two of those would give extra cooling, plus enough redundancy should one fail.

    So, I'm sitting on the plans right now, to see if we're going to start building next weekend or not. :)

I want to talk about this, but my regular news site isn't exactly appropriate.

    When Nathan passed away (see Bad, Bad, Worse, previously posted), the medical examiner didn't decide immediately to what the cause of death was. They issued a death certificate that simply said "Pending". My wife (his mother) called to see if they knew the cause yet.

    It was clear to me what happened. His body was frozen in the position he was in during his seizures.

    damn, I'm thinking about what happened. That's when I start losing it. Excuse me if I ramble.

    Anyways, he was in the bathtub, frozen in his seizure position. When I pulled him out and started CPR, he was still frozen in that position. During his seizures, he'd get stiff, but would still be moving (aka convulsive seizures). I had tried to make him more comfortable once, at least in my mind, by moving his arm and head to a more comfortable position. This was impossible, so I just did what I could to make things soft. The one time he was in a "good" place (in the house, under normal house lighting), we held him until he just went limp (coming out of the seizure), and then I carried him to our bedroom. He slept in a bunk bed, so our grown-up bed was bigger and softer, and we could sit on both sides of him, without hitting our heads on the top bunk. :)

    The medical examiner's office said the report wasn't done yet, so I left for work. They called the house about an hour after I left, and said his cause of death was due to his epilepsy. In other words, the toxicology and tissue tests came back negative for anything else. The full report isn't complete, but will be soon.

    I want to read the full report. Well, I don't. I know that he died, and he isn't coming back, even though I'm finding myself in full blown denial fairly frequently. I want to know more about him though.

    We went through his computer, looking at where he went, and what he was doing. We already knew most of it, so there wasn't much surprising. I'm pretty good at computer forensics (oddly enough), so it was pretty easy to make a trail of everything he did.

    He didn't keep a diary, and looking around his room, it was like a young teenage boy's room.

    I guess we want to know more about him, because we don't want to lose him, even though he's already gone.

    I guess there isn't much more to say right now. The medical examiner confirmed what we already knew, and the details will be coming in a week or ten. They said "it takes 6 to 8 weeks for the report". Monday will be 8 weeks since they examined him. I know these aren't priorities for the labs, since there are live patients who need the work done immediately. It just sucks having to wait. But, what happens afterwards? We're sad for a long time, no matter what.

    I've always been the type person that likes to know how things work and why. I have a clue on how the human body works, but it's hard to accept "it just stopped", I have to know more.

    Think of it like a car breaking down. If my car just stops running, I don't say "oh well", and have it towed to get it fixed, I open it up, dig through parts, do an analysis, and then decide for myself if it's fixable or not.

    That day, that's what I did too. I did the basic checks (since I don't have an EEG or EKG). No pulse, no breathing, fix it. I tried, and tried, but in the end, I couldn't get him to start back up. I wanted desperately for him to gasp for air, or even his eyelids to flicker, but I had already made the diagnosis. I just wasn't willing to accept it. I'm still not.

    Every time I think about that day, it's like the outcome will be different. I re-live those minutes in my head over and over, just like it's happening.. well.. right now. I'm expecting to see him move, to breath, to live again. Sometimes in my head, he does. In reality, he died on Feb 10th, and has been buried for almost 2 months. I just don't want to accept it.

So I started back at one of my previous employers, I am once again employed. :)

    But, I'm waiting to get my access again to all the servers, so I'm gainfully trying to keep myself occupied, without thinking about recent life events.

    So, I come to you, to share the magic of the Rubik's cube.

    Back in the 80's, when it was popular, I was annoyed by the whole thing. Twist, turn, damn. Twist, turn, turn, damn. Ya, that's how I want to spend my day. So, I considered the other options to solve the puzzle. It's kinda like anything else, you have to be smarter than the device you're using.

    So, when I was a kid, I figured out how to take Rubik's cube apart. The next day I figured out how to put it together.

    After the early 90's, I thought I'd never use this fine skill again, until a few days ago. A friend has a couple boys, aged 10-ish and 13-ish. :) Ya, I'm still great at remembering ages and birthdays. The younger one says "Have you ever solved a Rubik's cube?" Ahhhh, he asked the right question. Sure, I've "solved" a cube.

    He tosses me the cube. This one is a 2x2x2 (4 tiles on each face). I've never seen one of these, mostly because I never cared to. I gave it a quick look, and gave a little tug to the blocks. "Sure, I can solve it, but you won't like how I do it." He asked how, and I explained that "This is an engineering puzzle, not a logical one."

    We went back and forth on that for about 10 minutes, so finally, I took it, twisted one side 45 degrees, and popped a block off.

    There's something you should know about the 2x2x2 Rubik's cubes. They're not like the 3x3x3 cubes. Besides having 8 blocks, there are also about a dozen sliders, 6 rotators, and a center hub. All this very carefully assembled by some of the highest paid workers in China, who I'm sure can build 10 a minute. :)

    With the one block off, it's now lost the integrity to stay as a single unit, and the whole thing crumbles in my hands, a couple dozen little tiny plastic parts, that I've never in my life seen before.. Ahh! A new puzzle. I like these. I spent about 10 more minutes standing at a kitchen counter, trying to put it back together. It seems easy enough, but I ended up with 2 extra pieces, and it wouldn't hold itself together.

    Ahh! an impossible puzzle, I like these even more!

    I took a baggie full of Rubik's parts home with me that night, and in the middle of yet another sleepless night, I sat at my desk solving the ENGINEERING challenge of the 2x2x2 Rubik's cube. (Actually called the Rubik's Jr., I believe).

    I won't give the secret away, but look at YouTube. :) It's not the perfect solution, but it got me close enough, after I was really really close.

    I sent it back home to the kids, in perfect condition. "Solved!" I even spent part of the day just spinning sides to see that everything moved ok.

    It came back to me the next day, as a bag full of pieces. Ahhh, the mighty children have learned the magic of an Engineering Challenge. They just haven't found how to solve it. They insisted that it just "came apart". I've seen some of their other fine works, that just "happened" and they claim to have had absolutely no influence on.

    I put it back together in perfect condition again, and my wife grabs it from me. "How hard could this be?" She's been playing with it for a week, without solving the logical puzzle. I'm tempted to take it as an engineering puzzle again one night, so she can think I solved the logical problem too. :)

    When I was job hunting, I found a position for someone working large fireworks for large presentations.. If there's something I like more than taking stuff apart and putting it back together, it's blowing stuff up. I'm like a kid at Christmas, on New Years and the 4th of July. I come home with my presents all wrapped in clear plastic, just ready to set up the mortar tubes, and start launching lovely packages of explosive goodness high into the sky. Wheeeee!

    I didn't even get a call on that job though. Oh well.

    {sigh} I have to wait 3 more months before I can blow up more stuff. I'm not enough of a pyro to do it any other time. Well, I'm usually not rich enough either. :) In good years, I'll spend about $300 to blow up in a night. Ahhhh.. Big Bada Boom

So I had an idea....

    That's usually the first line I say, when my friends roll their eyes, start throwing weird comments out, or get ready to walk out of the room. :)

    This one isn't bad though.

    We were looking at the prospect of building our own server room. Leasing space in a facility and paying for bandwidth is expensive. Really expensive.

    I know of two providers locally, one is Verizon FiOS business. Their cost for 20Mb/20Mb, with a whole bunch of IP's is about $200/mo. The other would be something closer to $1000/mo. Still, it's cheaper than the facilities, usually at $85 to $200 per Mb/s at 95th percentile, plus floor space, cabinet, power, port charges, etc.

    I'm putting together numbers right now on how to do it. Getting the bandwidth in is the easy part. Putting the room together is the hard part.

    My "office" at home usually has at least 3 machines and two monitors running in it. With the normal air conditioning, even if I tweak the A/C vents throughout the house, gets to 90 degrees or so pretty easily. Fans blowing the hot air into the rest of the house can usually bring it down to about 85 degrees. So, I have to cool it with an extra air conditioner. I bought a nice portable air conditioner from Home Depot a few years ago, and it's really helped through the summers. In the winter, leaving the window cracked is all I need to keep the room comfortable.

    That's just 5 pieces of equipment though. What happens when you want to move a couple dozen machines into a space like that? Either you live with the overheating, and babysit crashing machines all the time, or you cool it.

    So this idea will reside in a garage. I'm considering building a cube, 8'x8'x8', raised off the floor 1' to 2' (I have to measure the ceiling height). Two decent window air conditioners will be overkill, but that's (one of) my middle names.

    In time, it will have a couple (or few) Xantrax power inverter/chargers, a bank of batteries, automatic gas powered generator, solar panels to charge during the day, etc. We'll even consider putting in badge access for the door, and a halon fire suppression system. :)

    Really, if the cost goes down to 10% of the original cost, that leaves a good profit margin in a "facility" where everyone lives literally in the facility or a few blocks away. It's one thing to have "someone" on call or on staff, but having the best and most familiar people there is a very good thing.

    An 8x8 room should give us plenty of room to grow, and since we'd be building it as a free standing room inside the garage, it would be available for expansion as needed. If it got to the point where it was too big for the space, then it would be cost effective to redo it in a commercial space near by. Pretty much, if we stuffed it with servers, we'd already be making good money, or at least so I'd hope :)

    I'm still working on the idea.

According to commentator Therese Polletti at Dow Jones MarketWatch, "the RIAA's tactics are nearly as bad as the actions of mobsters, real or fictional. The analogy comes up easily and frequently in any discussion of the RIAA's maneuvers." Among other things she cites the extortionate nature of their 'settlement negotiations' pointed out by Prof. Bob Talbot of the University of San Francisco School of Law IP Law Clinic, whose student attorneys are helping private practitioners fight the RIAA, the illegality of the RIAA's use of unlicensed investigators, the flawed evidence it uses, and the fact that the RIAA thinks nothing of jeopardizing a student's college education in order to make their point, as support for the MAFIAA/Mafia analogy.

I'm cross posting this from my news site. Sorry, I didn't want to write it twice.

    I've been a little slack on posting thank you's for donations, and I apologize.

    The following folks have donated to Free Internet Press, either through a straight donation or subscription since our hardships started. You've all been so much help. You've kept food on the table. I'd say a roof over my head, but we've run enough news about the mortgage crisis that so many people are going through.

    Our economy is really rough. I've been trying to find work, and compared to late 2006, I'm finding 1/10 the available jobs in my field (Information Technology). I know almost everyone is feeling the same thing, with gas and food prices going up, but we aren't making more money. We really appreciate your help and caring!

Juan A $150
Blanche V hundreds
Larry M $6
Chris S $6
Lizabeth R $30
Kim D $20
Melode Q $20
Deborah M $103
Sherry S $3
Patrick M $3
Jagatguru K $50

    I don't like asking for help. My close friends know, I'm the guy who takes care of others. I'm always on top of everything, and I'm the go-to guy. Some friends know I'll loan them money and make my own bills a little late. If a car breaks down, a computer (or server) is acting quirky, a faucet is leaking, I'm there for them. Personally, I'm not comfortable being the one asking for help, but our close friends have been helping so much too.

    For all of our readers, we're striving to continue doing what we do best here. We're finding the news, and making it available as quickly and accurately as possible.

    I do have a grand plan for making Free Internet Press better. If we can get enough regular subscribers, we'll be able to grow our staff, with Intellpuke driving our journalists, and be able to bring even more news to you daily.

    Thank you all again.

JW Smythe
Editor
Free Internet Press

I was looking over my firewall logs and I have noticed that Slashdot is doing port scan on my ip adress. Or at least that's what my firewall thinks. I'm thinking what the fuck is this. It is coming from 66.35.250.150 .

I wonder if they let the site get infected with something or I pissed one of the ops off. It would be severely foolish if it was something intentional. Who or whatever it is, it seems to happen shortly after I cease activity on the site.