Just came across a post by this in meta-mod
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=279801&cid=20356001
http://slashdot.org/~ThinkFr33ly
seems to only post in MS sensitive issues
seems to take MS side

Definitely -1 Troll seeing as their is no shill mod.

Love meta-modding - come across some really good stuff and some atrocities

I love doing surveys - had the most recent staff questionnaire returned in record time. The old squeaky wheel thing.

Not sure if it is the time of year when intelligence deserts /. for families but had a hard time spending my mod points - -1 crap mostly.

There is a lot to be said positive about the Firehose. Good chance to read and think before the story hits the front page if it ever does. The differing views between submitters on a single topic are fascinating.

Found 1 journal entry and 1 AC worth modding up (but it took some serious work).

The rest I blew on a single (sci) article coz they looked OKish and non-troll. Small piece of encouragement to those who care like me about such stuff.

Posted to the hose at least to see if I can get Mr/Ms Shill to de-lurk and defend themselves.

Are you seeking a haven from the craziness of modernlife?
http://quantumville.myminicity.com/

Is Mono part of the default Ubuntu (Feisty) install?

This morning Synaptic decided to update the Mono install. Don't want it. Don't use it that I know of.

Is there an easy way to get rid of Mono?

sudo apt-get remove XXXX

What is XXXX?

Or is there an easy way to upgrade to Debian ? SID(?). Am on dialup - so prefer bandwidth friendly (sneakernet?) method.

Wanted 1 copy latest Gutsy Gibbon iso (x86 32 bit) delivered by hand in a bar/pub in the city in Brisbane, Qld, Australia in exchange for a beer of your choice.

If not you what about your friend who you have in Brisbane?

I have done the free snail mail delivery before from Canonical and it always way out of date.

Think Icy Cold Beer for a disc that is just cluttering your house. If you are not the beer type what about coffee instead?

Judas Unchained - some spoilers follow

Finished Judas Unchained a few days ago and here are some thoughts on it as promised.

One it wasn't just long but felt long as well. Some of this may have been due to the interrupted reading on the bus to and from work and only being a shortish trip didn't help. I don't have a problem with multiple POV stories and overlapping timelines. It just seemed he was taking his own sweet time to go anywhere with it.

Two - some of the tech was really interesting - not the ftl or wormholes, but the small stuff. Drive arrays, wet wiring, memory skill dumps - not new ideas or even unusual - but stuff that if it wasn't there you might wonder had he thought about it. Reasonably well done and integrated into the story.

Three - the premise - nice, not just a big nasty but a really nasty nasty, not deliberately evil either. Well presented and depicted.

Four - characters. With so many there were some everyone was bound to like. Mind you, Ozzie was almost overdone as the one everyone would like. I wouldn't have cried if Orion had been eaten. I like how Mellanie got blasted - have I been reading too much GRR Martin if fun characters suddenly die/get taken out of the action.

Five - end. Unlike Night's Dawn trilogy - I don't want to strangle him.

Six - the other aliens - Silfen, Raeil, Torchee. Intersting enough.

Seven - tech change. Humans are going to be screwed if we come up against a hostile alien who can adapt and have faster tech evolution than us. Finished H Turtledove Howeward Bound a few weeks back and now Judas Uncahined. If humans didn't change faster than them we would have lost/been exterminated. I think RL Forward had a story - life forms on a neutron star that once started on the tech path, out evolved us - due to the time scales - but they were friendly.

Eight - the package. Overall reasonably well done and a good read.

There is lots of stuff I have probably missed. Like I said it was a disjointed read - first novel was over a year ago and now this one interupted. Probably enjoy much more when I get to reread the lot.

PS: I am still looking for a copy of Gutsy Gibbon - will swap for a beer. You or your friend bring the x86 gutsy cd to Brisbane city and I buy you or your friend a beer.

For those who care about such things
336612^7031232+1 is prime
[2,116,617 digits]
http://seventeenorbust.com/
http://www.free-dc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=12670

10th biggest known prime

and I just missed it

So a couple of things didn't want to play well with Dapper, so I upgraded to Feisty and no I am not going to try the 1.1 GB upgrade to Gutsy via dialup right now or wait 6 weeks for the cd to be posted (by which time the updates are huge again).

1) Is anyone reading this in Brisbane Qld have a Gutsy Gibbon cd to an upgrade for x86 32 bit? I will buy you a beer in the city for it.

or
2)how to fix my sound and mouse which worked nicely under Dapper but are now working but slightly screwed. Sound was loud and clear under Dapper /etc/alsa/alsa-base ...
options intel_hda model=ALC882 /*or something close to that*/

On boot says model not recognised "auto probing BIOS", I get sound and all 5.1 channels but is very soft - I have to turn the volume up.

My mouse an IBM optical scroll mouse (with lever rather than wheel), I had working great. Now the scroll lever doesn't work consistently. I installed imwheel and that helped a little but not a lot.

I have my /home on a separate partition, could something have carried over it didn't like?

If I was in NZ - I would be scouring every flea market and secondhand shop in the region.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22612604-5003402,00.html

"A BOUTIQUE brewery in New Zealand has offered a lifetime supply of beer in return for a stolen laptop."

"A "lifetime supply'' equal to about 12 beers each month was offered to anyone who could name the thief, Mr Croucher said"

I am not sure that is a real lot but free beer is free beer.

I have cddb from freedb.org downloaded locally for when I am offline and because it is faster.

I have the most recent updates.

And yes I have been submitting back for years when I get a cd that doesn't get a match. Please forgive my errors.

The problem:

I want to search it in a a useful way. I have tried googling, including a search targetted at sourceforge.net, for an app that sits over ~/.cddb

Say I have five tracks by one one or more artists and I want to know which, if any album, they are all on.

At present freedb online search isn't working and seems a waste of bandwidth when all the data is available locally.

System specs: Ubuntu Dapper. Fast enough that am running 2 instances of grep against the files in ~/.cddb and not producing any real slowdown on machine.

Grep might be useful in some instances (eg a fairly unique song title or artist spitting out the name). But I would like a pretty interface against an index as my wife may also want to use this.

Some ideas:
import into a proper (SQL) database, index and search using a pretty gui (OpenOffice?).

Beg Firefox extension developers to write an extension that imports the data into a "webpage", and search that.

??? - out of ideas.

Have I missed the obvious? Are my search skills failing me?

Specific example of i/o requirements.

I want to know what cd's James Taylor Traffic Jam appears on.

I did from ~/.cddb > grep -ri "traffic jam" ~/*

and got a whole long list of directory/filename info which if I had output to a file I could have then parsed that to give me a list of filenames (assuming I have a clue).

The application links at freedb.org point out for linux "Freedb Easy Navigator" other than the players which use cddb. However - other than being freeware and a binary blob I have no information on it and I can't find a linux version to download.

While I wait to find the motivation to fix my computer I am surviving on puppy linux and playing XGalaga.

What is the best score you have got and level reached?

I have 2 working optical drives, usb ports, modem (adsl broadband is about 2 weeks away). No harddisks. Hence puppy.

Welsh National Anthem - Jimi style (maybe).

I originally posted this here:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=505852
you may have to be a member to get access

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.thereddragonhood.com/pages/jimi.html
"...
that a wild and emotional arrangement of the Welsh National anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, played on a distorted electric guitar, had been tacked onto the end of the tape. ...
especially as it sounded just like Jimi Hendrix. ...
Chapman told Goddard about the tape and Goddard reckoned it was entirely possible that the recording was of Hendrix, since Williams had known Hendrix well. ...
It has proved impossible to shed any more light on the recording, which you can hear by using the controls above. Jimi is dead, of course ...
"

Doesn't appear to be a hoax but possibly a genuine find:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1112325956

They are seeking someone
"We would know exactly who made the recording if we could find Viv Williams, formerly of Crickhowell, Powys. He must now be about 64 years old. If you know his whereabouts, please let us know."
who they think can confirm or deny the story.

Link to music file
http://www.thereddragonhood.com/sounds/land_of_my_fathers.swf

Went to the front page but no Poll on front page - space replaced by latest tags box.

Are others seeing this?

[Update: 29/11/2006 6.17am] Crunch time sucks. Logged in at home FF1.5.09 on Dapper. Poll on Front page, an IE thing? A test? Maybe the eds noticed not so many could the poll.

Quite boring, actually, considering I looked forward to this.

I have 4 mod points left...

It might be short and to the point, but it's also true. We rage against countries who support censorship and spying, including the US, but short snappy comments like this always seem to get modded down.

I suppose I could just accept that short, snappy posts like this get modded down and write long boring ones about US policies, but then they might never get read!

At least all of my positive comments outweigh it and leave my Karma "positive".

P.S. The Anonymous Coward poster was not me rotfl!