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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> In fact, half the stars in the night sky probably DON'T EVEN EXIST ANY
> MORE. It's just that it's taken that long for the light to reach us.
Not for naked-eye stars. There's only a couple of thousand of those, and they're
almost all within a few thousand lightyears. The galaxy is only 10-15 thousand
lightyears across, so most stars are probably still as they appear to be
(barring recent novae, etc).
It's the other galaxies which are significantly back in time.
> > It just somehow... sad.
>
> Yeah.
Optimism, people! It was only a few hundred years ago people thought you'd fall
apart if you went faster than a galloping horse... :)
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Orchid XP v8 schrieb:
> I've seen quite a few programs (mostly stuff ported from Unix, oddly
> enough) which don't like spaces in pathnames.
>
> Wanna take a guess what the customary place to install programs is?
> Yeah, it's C:\Program Files.
Which is why native Windows programs have long since become a lot more
sane in this respect.
On unix, where even now it is still quite common to do stuff in some
command line shell, it is pretty uncommon to put blanks in filenames,
because it would be a hassle to even "cd" there.
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Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>
>> Stefan Viljoen wrote:
>>> *brrr* - I shiver at the thought of a mobile HDD as a backup device...
>> Why? If you have two copies, then crashing one doesn't affect the other.
>
> If you use a single one? Then again, single IS NOT a backup...!
It's still a backup. You're 99% less likely to lose both than to lose one.
Yes, you might drop the external drive on a concrete floor the same day your
main disk quits, but how likely is that compared to either one dying alone?
And yes, even if you have six backups, they could all go bad at once. (See,
for example, the 2012 movie. ;-)
> incident I'm thinking about I referred to in my other post, a simple fumble
> and the portable drive lands on a concrete floor...
And then you go buy another and make a new backup. It was just bad luck that
the primary died before you made another backup.
You think dropping a tape and having the case crack and spill tape all over
doesn't happen, or chipping or cracking a DVD? :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Invisible wrote:
> For the average home user, if your house burns down, you're not going to
> give a **** about the holiday photos and the copy of Nero you just lost
> - YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO LIVE!!
Not true. Well, Nero, maybe, but holiday photos and pictures of people who
are now dead and such are irreplacable. You can always get somewhere new to
live, or fix the house.
> This is a very, very dumb way to do backup. A file-level copy will be
> drastically faster. (It doesn't involve mirroring all the useless empty
> sectors.)
Depends how your RAID works. Windows doesn't mirror empty sectors because
the RAID understands the file system. Linux and hardware mirrors empty
sectors because you can put any file system on top of the RAID.
> Also, if you do a file-level copy, you have options such as compressing
> the data and putting multiple backups on a single backup harddisk, doing
> differential or otherwise partial backups, and so forth.
But it's no longer an identical copy. If you use a RAID backup, then if your
primary fails, you can restore the backup in minutes. Plus, there's
(theoretically) no downtime during the backup process.
> In theory, until the disks are spinning at full speed, you don't get
> that "cushion of air" for the heads to "fly" on, which should result in
> wear. Of course, no doubt manufacturers know all about this and have
> come up with ways to at least reduce the problem...
Yes, there's a finger that lifts the heads until the disk is up to speed.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:10:10 -0500, Jim Henderson wrote:
> decates
Though occasionally not that much experience in spelling words like
"decades". ;-)
Jim
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scott schrieb:
> I wonder how long the "pulse" of radar would need to be - the engine
> could charge up a big capacitor to discharge in a roof mounted dish -
> hmm maybe not that sounds a bit too much James Bond :-)
That would be an EMP device then I guess.
Much more reliable than a radar when it comes to frying electronics
(much broader spectrum, so it couples in via virtually everything), and
allegedly pretty easy to build. Strange enough, no terrorist has yet set
off one in NY or LA.
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On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:32:04 -0500, Aydan wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:53:14 +0100, clipka wrote:
>> > I wouldn't be too much surprised if HDD manufacturers would know ways
>> > how to optimize drives for one usage pattern or the other, so that
>> > maybe indeed powering up and down might kill a server HDD quickly,
>> > while 24x7 usage might shorten the life of an office computer /
>> > consumer HDD.
>>
>> That seems to be reaching to me.
>>
>> Jim
>
> Not that reaching. WD sells HDs which are specifically for 24/7 usage. I
> think the difference is the lifetime of the bearings which is dependent
> not so much on actual age but on revolutions and temperature.
Could be, or it could just be a marketing ploy by WD.....
Jim
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On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:33:50 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>> Wanna take a guess what the customary place to install programs is?
>>> Yeah, it's C:\Program Files.
>>
>> Then there's also the button that lets you choose a different location
>> to install to - part of pretty much every modern installation program
>> on Windows.
>
> There is *usually* such a button, yes. Not always though.
>
> And it's not unheard-of for a program to malfunction if you change this
> setting during installation. (You'd think if they offered you the
> option, they'd implement it so it works. But not always...)
That comes down to QA on the program and installer, sure.
Jim
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Does that include Team Fortress 2, HalfLife 2, Counter-Strike: Source,
> Portal, Crysis, Crysis: Warhead, and Mass Effect?
I have Thief3 installed. The Windows dir is like 4x the size of the program
files dirs.
> Each individual game typically eats about 4GB or so...
Steam needs to give you that option, yah. Did you ask them? :-) I don't
remember if Steam asks where to install Steam when you install it. I don't
see any obvious way to change it after the fact.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> Maybe not, that's sounds like a good idea! If you can aim and modulate it
> right a one-second high intensity burst might do the job on a computerised
> injection and ignition system...
And your brain. You realize it's basically microwaves, right? Like from your
oven?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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