A couple of years ago, I recovered data off some 5 1/4" floppies that were written in 1987/88. The problem was that the data has just plain rotted and a disk controller wouldn't read any of them. I tried pulling off individual sectors, but maybe only got 25%. I then bought a "Catweasel" card designed to read Amiga disks on a PC, found some Linux driver code, and started hacking. I wrote some Python to parse the raw data pulled off the disk, extract what it could by ignoring sector headers (mostly broken), looking for sync marks, and then playing guessing games around areas with bad MFM clock bits to get the CRCs to work. My code then spat out a file of what it had managed to get along with "goodness" flags for that pass. Over multiple passes, with merging of files to keep best copy of each sector, I managed to get 100% of the data off the disks but it took around three months of hacking around. All I had to do then was find a cracked version of the proprietary DOS backup software (Fastback) on a Russian hack site, run it in a dosbox, feed it the floppy image files one by one, and my data all came back. It was about 50k lines of x86 code (and same again in 68k) for a game called Carrier Command that I wrote in the 80s (wikipedia is your friend). I'm considering making it available at some point so people can see how bad my coding was back then!

We mainly employ CS grads, and have good rates of pay and even better benefits, but we still struggle to find enough good people. Fortunately, with the Greek and Spanish economies doing down the pan, we're getting a lot of good applications from elsewhere in the EU.

I'm currently trying to finish a novel. I have never done any creative writing before, but then along came a zany idea, which I had to get it out of my head and into a file. The idea itself took but moments, yet writing the 130k words I'm now up to has taken 18 months, a great deal of hard work and whole load of learning. So, when someone pops into a writing forum and says "Hey, I've had a great idea, and now I just need a writer" everyone tries to be gentle with them. No, really, we do.

I used to write computer games and it was much the same there. Yes, original ideas are important, but the implementation stage - where raw ideas meet harsh reality - is when talent and experience are essential. Ian

No, it burns it inside the cylinders, hence the term "Internal Combustion". Ian

We've got all the IP addresses.
Ian

You forgot sport!

My understanding is that trim won't be done when partitioning but instead when a file system is created. So, fdisk won't have trim capability added, but mkfs will. So, creating a new filesystem over the top of valuable data will be a BAD THING but my view is that only one skilled in the art of marketing/political talking could ever have presented this as being a good thing.
Ian

> a CostCo run is out of the question I've used my bike to go to CostCo a few times. I leave it with the guy on the front door to look after (hey they are Security Guards, they can keep my folded bike secure!) and put my purchases in various bags and panniers, with the really big stuff going on the rack. If I'm buying a lot of stuff, I take my bike trailer. However, the real key to shopping by bike is to shop regularly at local shops rather than doing a huge "arctic exhibition" style run every few weeks. When out buying my lunch, I also buy whatever we're going to need for the meal that evening. We do have lots of stuff in stock, but the fresh stuff gets bought 1-2 days before we need it. Ian

I want to dye a virgin. Ian