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Comment Re:Learning Lab (Score 1) 287

"How are you UPS'ing for 6 hours?"

Sorry I missed the "How" part at first:
Deep cycle motor boat wet batteries coupled to an inverter. Not recommended anywhere for home use but sure cheaper than dry batteries which cost at least twice as much for the same efficiency. I now have two 12 volts batteries and I used to have 4. They are around 100$ a piece and I change them every 6-7 years or so since the power rarely go down around here so they last a long time. Most of the time, they cycle when I simulate a power outage to test the batteries. 1 hour power out test every 2 month and one test until the batteries are drained like once every six months or so.

Use at your own risk, I don't recommend or endorse anything here ;-)

Comment Re:Learning Lab (Score 1) 287

"How are you UPS'ing for 6 hours?"

Yes, I used to use it as an Internet server with live websites and such on it but I have since moved those to a real data center because bandwidth was cheaper. I used to be able to stay up 48 hours on batteries if I shut down the desktop but I have reduced the number of batteries to half what it used to be after moving to a real data center for live sites that need to be up all the time. I also have a small generator that I can use to recharge the batteries but I usually do not bother now. I have to plug and start the generator manually. The desktop is in another room with electrical wiring running to that room. The desktop uses more power than the server because of the 4 screens and video cards. Nice video cards suck a lot of power. One of the desktop screen is a 50 inches TV not plugged into the UPS circuit. I use a USB extension cord for the wireless dongle that allows me to control the playing on the TV with a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Same kind of setup in the real data center, one big server running a bunch of qemu VMs with virtual networks separated by firewall rules.

You must still have enough room to hang clothes and what not in your 42u rack then...

Comment Re:Learning Lab (Score 1) 287

Maybe, I don't see the use for u-racks anymore for a home data centers. I just use a desktop with four screens attached to it and one server with 64GB RAM acting as file server/firewall/router and running a bunch of virtual machines with qemu. XVNC or RDP for VMs running a graphical interface, ssh for others. I also have a UPS to keep everything alive for 6 hours if power goes out, about 20 hours if I shut the desktop down and use a laptop instead.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 55

Interesting, the "shadow of the hype" is still hype. You seem to be underestimating me.

Apart from that, you are basically saying the same thing as I do and rest assured I have been following your recommendations for quite a while, especially the part about: "you could be making decisions for yourself based on the actual arguments and data involved."

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 55

Please watch the TV Show Manhattan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Yet, back then, at some stage, almost the whole scientific community was hyped on ThinMan which ended up being trashed. Implosion prevailed.

All I am saying is don't jump to conclusions and follow the scientific community hype too easily.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 55

I never mentioned large black holes and I was using the quote to demonstrate that we still do not know what is going on really yet.

Anyway, this seems recent enough ( April 30, 2014):
"Black hole atoms now join a long list of candidates for dark matter particles, from supersymmetric neutralinos, WIMPs and axions to warm sterile neutrinos and many more, Dokuchaev told Space.com. Verifying whether any of them is the real deal will require catching one first, he added."

http://www.space.com/25691-dar...

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 0) 55

Do you need anti-matter for "annihilating the Milky Way's halo"?

Dark matter could be made of black holes:

"There have been many candidates for this theorized "dark" matter, and in truth it is probably some combination of them: hot or cold gas, neutron stars, white or brown dwarfs, exotic particles and, yes, even black holes!"

https://van.physics.illinois.e...

Comment Re:Dial up can still access gmail (Score 1) 334

Some stupid student had pictures of himself naked with his gay friend in his University home folder! ;-)

Some normal student with a sexlife had private pictures in his private University home directory.

There is a difference between common sense and privacy. University conditions specifically forbid private use anyways. It has to be for University related activities, like conducting research on security vulnerabilities for instance ;-))

although I was tempted to post the gay guys pictures somewhere public.

Why would you do that? What exactly tempted you?

Puberty, stereotypes, society ??? Important thing is I didn't.

Comment Re:Dial up can still access gmail (Score 2) 334

This isn't practical when you don't have a dedicated phone line for it and even then many ISPs had systems set up to not allow you to keep connections on constantly like that.

Also, I remember signing up with a big telco where I live that advertised unlimited access. I phoned them and told them up front that I was going to be on 24/24 and they said; no problems, so I signed.

I quickly discovered that they would hang up after 6 hours. We had to dial-in again and they seemed to purposely change the IP address everytime, anyway, I never got the same IP twice in a row.

God what fun I had using dyndns short DNS records TTL and all kinds of "adjustments" to have something relatively stable. User knew the network would go down for 10 minutes everyday during a business day and they got used it.

OK, I have to stop. I am laughing my heart out.
 

Comment Re:Dial up can still access gmail (Score 1) 334

Thanks, I see what you mean. It is pretty much like typical cable/dsl modems look nowadays.

I don't recall encountering those although I would replicate the functionality by connecting the modem with a serial cable to a linux router. I pretty much always used a linux router from the start. Even nowadays, I always have the "ethernet" cable/dsl whatever modem in pass-trough mode to the Linux router through an RJ45 connector.

I remember setting rules on linux routers for the following use case you described, those were on coaxial ethernet :-)
" because once a computer thinks it has an always-on network connection it tends to try making remote connections for all sorts of things unless you lock it down. So the modem was always connected pretty much. This isn't practical when you don't have a dedicated phone line for it and even then many ISPs had systems set up to not allow you to keep connections on constantly like that"

Comment Re:Dial up can still access gmail (Score -1, Troll) 334

Haha, I have never been so nasty but I fooled around a little I have to admit.

In IT classes, we had like 20-30 work stations running SunOS with X. I would set my display to another student station,
DISPLAY=other_student_ip ; export DISPLAY
wait until the teacher comes to his station then launch netscape with a porn site target URL. I had good laughs back then. Student would usually try to close the netscape windows while the teacher would give him a suspicious look maybe thinking it was already open and minimized and that the student had just maximized the window by mistake. I could have got caught easily I assume if he left it running and instead investigated where that window was coming but I didn't risk much getting caught.

Also, X allowed you to get the keys typed on any station and steal login credentials then access other student accounts.

Some stupid student had pictures of himself naked with his gay friend in his University home folder! ;-)

Back then the laws weren't very clear about such activities as long as you didn't tamper the data, steal it for your own use, use it to blackmail somebody, try to get money or other advantages from it, etc. so I stayed on the safe side and only looked around although I was tempted to post the gay guys pictures somewhere public. Like today, I must have already been some kind of a white hat since I didn't and didn't mention it to anybody either.

 

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