Invisible wrote:
> Really? I would have thought running around requires *lots* of muscle 
> power. (That's why I can't do it, for example...)

Comparatively speaking.  Running doesn't take unusual amounts of muscle 
power. Running when three 300-pound linebackers are holding you down takes 
unusual amounts of muscle power.

If you can't run fast, it's because you're doing it wrong. Don't think about 
your legs. Start running, then move your arms as fast as you can. Running is 
in the arms, not the legs. (Hence the "runs like a girl" concept.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Invisible wrote:
> After about 4 years the tape would wear out, 
> but that's hardly a big deal assuming you notice this and replace the tape.

And if you replace the disk drive on the same basis, you'll have better 
reliability. :-)

> I *have*, however, had endless issues with BackupExec not actually 
> ****ing working properly! >_<

That's the other problem. When's the last time you copied a file, then went 
to open it and found it wasn't there?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Stefan Viljoen schrieb:

> Makes sense. As far as I know the US military is one of THE most prolific
> users of the EM spectrum in the world. He's probably got his radar on or in
> a specific mode - I've read that the "ground tracking" mode on the Hughes /
> Westinghouse (?) "APG" sets US Navy F-18s (among others) use tend to do
> this. Apparently the F-22 (or is it the F-35?) have a "burn 'em down" mode
> on their radars - they are powerful enough to fry the electronics in an
> enemy plane with a single sweep, instead of shooting it down with a
> missile.

Heh, that's cool... they'll never see it coming... they'd better be sure 
to not "burn down" their friendlies though. And enemy fighter jets may 
be hardened against EM radiation. At least I'd expect the newest US 
fighter jets to be.

I guess it'll bee the F-22 though, which in terms of performance as a 
fighter jet seems to be superior to the F-35 (except at being a 
comparatively inexpensive "bread and butter" fighter, which is what the 
F-35 was designed to be). I guess there's a reason why the F-35 is on 
offer to allies, while the F-22 is not.


> I remember when Victor Belenko defected with his MiG in the 80's, USAF
> engineers were amazed to find that it used valves for its radar and
> electronics (valveotronics), instead of transistors. After they had
> finished beating themselves on the chest with their pride in American
> advancement and technology, some wise soul pointed out that the MiG would
> keep flying after being through the EMP of a nuclear explosion, AND its
> radar would be working - while USAF F-16s and F-15s would be falling like
> leaves because their digital flight controls would be melted, and their
> radars would be dead.

Hm, are they sure about that? Valve tubes are delicate things, too, 
aren't they? Give the EMP any place to couple in, and the voltages might 
kill the cathodes, I'd guess.

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On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:57:24 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> Never used DAT drives for backup, have you? ;-)
>>> No, only for the last 6 years.
>> 
>> I feel for you.  I had tapes that actually verified nightly that were
>> completely useless to restore from.  This is back in the DDS-1/DDS-2
>> days, so maybe it's improved - but here's the thing:  DAT stands for
>> "Digital Audio Tape".
> 
> We used to use DDS-3, DDS-4 and DAT-72. (Don't you love how all tapes
> have storage capacities "assuming 2:1 compression"? I have never seen
> any backup job achieve anything approaching 2:1 compression.) Never had
> any significant problem. After about 4 years the tape would wear out,
> but that's hardly a big deal assuming you notice this and replace the
> tape.
> 
> Never had any issues of any kind with restoring data from tape.

You've been lucky, then, is all I can say based on my experience.

> I *have*, however, had endless issues with BackupExec not actually
> ****ing working properly! >_<
> 
>>>> Horrible quality of storage media, and terrible shelf life IME.
>>> Really?
>> 
>> Yes, really.  With the DDS-2 tapes I was using at the time, the
>> manufacturer recommended no more than something like 10 or 20 uses.
> 
>> I'm glad I didn't pay for the drives - otherwise I'd have been more
>> upset that they burned out so quickly (about a year, IIRC - but I was
>> running backups on a more or less continuous basis as part of my
>> testing).
> 
> I think we had 1 tape drive wear out. (We had about 6 of them.) And it
> was the oldest, crappiest one of the lot.
> 
> Seriously, I did tape backups every single weekday for 6 years and had
> almost no issues related to the tapes or tape drives. That's not what
> I'd consider "unreliable".

I spent the better part of a 15+ year IT career dealing with backup 
systems (among other things).  I even managed to get "suspended" from 
work for a week because of equipment and media failures that prevented 
restoration of a system that actually did die (and of course, it was the 
finance system) at one job.

If the choice were to back up using DAT drives - even with modern tapes 
and drives - or die a slow and painful death in a horrible manner, I'd 
take the slow and painful death.  Even with the advancements in 
technology.

The technology is/has been notoriously bad, the media is crap, and the 
software for PC systems backups makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a 
dull instrument.

>> I had much better luck with DLT drives.
> 
> I have no idea what DLT is.

GIYF - "Digital Linear Tape".

Jim

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On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:50:33 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> clipka wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> That used to be true back in the 1.x days of Linux (like, 10 years ago),
> but nowadays I haven't had much problem with spaces in file names,
> except in lazy scripts I've written myself using "$@" and such. (And
> that's more because it's easier for me to skip the one-line script than
> to look up the proper quoting mechanism to get that in.)
> 
> Bash command-line completion, for example, will put quotes around names
> with spaces in them.  But yes, this wasn't always common, even long
> after Mac and Windows commonly used spaces in names.

Even still, though, on Linux you can run into problems with spaces in 
names.  Using scp to copy files from one openSUSE 11.1 box to another, 
for example, spaces (escaped and quoted) always cause me a problem.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Using scp to copy files from one openSUSE 11.1 box to another, 
> for example, spaces (escaped and quoted) always cause me a problem.

Well, yeah, scp is the wrong tool to use for almost everything, based on the 
concept that it's safe to log in remotely to a machine using the normal 
login mechanisms and then bet that stdin and stdout are parsable. :-)

-- 
   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 11:16:29 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Using scp to copy files from one openSUSE 11.1 box to another, for
>> example, spaces (escaped and quoted) always cause me a problem.
> 
> Well, yeah, scp is the wrong tool to use for almost everything, based on
> the concept that it's safe to log in remotely to a machine using the
> normal login mechanisms and then bet that stdin and stdout are parsable.
> :-)

I suppose I *could* use rsync, hadn't really thought about it much. :-)

Jim

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Darren New schrieb:
> 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.

Reminds me of a recent incident here in the city I live in (Cologne 
Germany).

They're building a new southbound subway tunnel (well, actually, 
/currently/ they're /not/ building, as far as I know).

Some months ago, suspicious noise was heard in a large public building. 
Construction workers came in and suggested that everyone better leave 
the building... *NOW*. And literally in a matter of minutes, the whole 
building - plus a few private houses - went "down the drain". Where once 
stood an ugly, 4-story-or-so concrete monster, now there was a gaping 
20-foot-or-so deep (give or take another 20) hole, some-hundred-foot by 
one-hundred-foot or so.

Two people were asleep at the time in the private homes that it took 
down with it, so there was some loss of life to mourn (fortunately there 
were not more casualties). And quite a number of people lost their 
homes. However, most of them mourned not so much the loss of a place to 
put their toothbrush, but rather the loss of irreplacable property - 
documents such as photos, letters and the like.

So did the city: The building that had collapsed was the historical archive.

And it was /not/ dry weather those days.

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Darren New schrieb:

> 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.

As I have Steam installed in "F:\Spiele\Steam", and the games it 
installed are located in subdirectories thereof, it must be doing 
/something/ right...

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>> 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.
> 
> That used to be true back in the 1.x days of Linux (like, 10 years ago), 
> but nowadays I haven't had much problem with spaces in file names, 
> except in lazy scripts I've written myself using "$@" and such. (And 
> that's more because it's easier for me to skip the one-line script than 
> to look up the proper quoting mechanism to get that in.)
> 
> Bash command-line completion, for example, will put quotes around names 
> with spaces in them.  But yes, this wasn't always common, even long 
> after Mac and Windows commonly used spaces in names.

Correct me - isn't Unix that OS that allows you to put *any* arbitrary 
octet sequence into a filename so long as it doesn't contain NUL or "/"? 
(E.g., you could name a file with ANSI escape sequences in it if you 
felt especially vindictive.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> The Steam installer allows you to choose where to install it. 
> 
> Cool. I'll remember that.
> 
> Of course, with Steam, you can just uninstall everything, reinstall to a 
> different drive, and then re-download the games, not losing anything at 
> all.

Not quite true: You lose any saved games, for example. And you have to 
re-download several GB of data, which could take several days.

What you can do instead is do a "game backup", and then later a "game 
restore". This is officially supported, and there are instructions 
somewhere...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> 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?

Didn't the USA come up with a crowd dispersal device which *actually 
does this*??

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> Actually, from what I remember of the Technical Manual, it's not a 1:1 
>> multiplicative correlation between warp speed and c, more like 
>> exponential.  Warp 1 *is* c, but warp 10 is 'occupies every point in 
>> universe simultaneously' and requires theoretically infinite 
>> energy...warp 9 is Really Really fast.  Because just 10x the speed of 
>> light still leaves months, if not *years* between most stars.
> 
> ... and it tears holes into the subspace, though they kept that secret 
> until some seasons into TNG. What was the speed limit after that? Warp 
> 5? Or was it Warp 3?
> 
> But then again, Warp isn't a multiple of c anyway, it's a level of 
> distortion of spacetime (hey, it messes seriously with /normal space/, 
> so how could they possibly expect to not affect /subspace/?) while you'd 
> still travel sub-lightspeed, possess a finite real mass, and just need 
> to travel a significantly shorter distance.

Until they invented the Trans-Warp Drive...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> Really? I would have thought running around requires *lots* of muscle 
>> power. (That's why I can't do it, for example...)
> 
> Comparatively speaking.  Running doesn't take unusual amounts of muscle 
> power. Running when three 300-pound linebackers are holding you down 
> takes unusual amounts of muscle power.

Compared to sitting still watching the game on TV, it involves *a lot* 
of muscle. ;-) And I can't really imagine that baseball requires less 
muscle power than football...

> If you can't run fast, it's because you're doing it wrong. Don't think 
> about your legs. Start running, then move your arms as fast as you can. 
> Running is in the arms, not the legs. (Hence the "runs like a girl" 
> concept.)

I rephrase: I can run very, very fast indeed. I can't do this for more 
than a few seconds, however.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> After about 4 years the tape would wear out, but that's hardly a big 
>> deal assuming you notice this and replace the tape.
> 
> And if you replace the disk drive on the same basis, you'll have better 
> reliability. :-)

Doubt it, but I don't have any numbers to prove anything either way, so 
it's an empty argument.

>> I *have*, however, had endless issues with BackupExec not actually 
>> ****ing working properly! >_<
> 
> That's the other problem. When's the last time you copied a file, then 
> went to open it and found it wasn't there?

The problems were more that you'd configure BE to perform a backup, and 
then next day it has crashed rather than perform a backup. VERY helpful.

In fairness, when was the last time you tried copying a file that 
somebody else was still using? Not so easy, is it?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:10:55 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> In fairness, when was the last time you tried copying a file that
> somebody else was still using? Not so easy, is it?

Trivial on Linux.  And on NetWare under the right conditions - file 
flagged shareable, no op-locks in use...

Jim

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Correct me - isn't Unix that OS that allows you to put *any* arbitrary 
> octet sequence into a filename so long as it doesn't contain NUL or "/"? 

Yes. This is what makes getting real production scripts really working a 
living hell on UNIX. :-)  Try to delete files more than a week old out of 
/tmp without ever giving anyone the opportunity to delete /etc/passwd, for 
example.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Didn't the USA come up with a crowd dispersal device which *actually 
> does this*??

Something like that, yes. Actually, it was for the military. The civilian 
police use the one that's just loud. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Compared to sitting still watching the game on TV, it involves *a lot* 
> of muscle. ;-) And I can't really imagine that baseball requires less 
> muscle power than football...

I think you haven't watched a lot of football. It's not like they don't run 
in football either. Indeed, other than the guys hitting the balls, I think 
most of the running involves coming in from the outfield and going back out 
again in the next inning. I suspect football players run more in 10 minutes 
than a whole ball team runs in an entire game.

> I rephrase: I can run very, very fast indeed. I can't do this for more 
> than a few seconds, however.

That's just practice. Really. When I first started doing stairmaster 
exercise, I couldn't go for more than 5 minutes or so. Within maybe 3 weeks 
of trying three times a day, a full half hour at a higher difficulty setting 
isn't even difficult.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> In fairness, when was the last time you tried copying a file that 
> somebody else was still using? Not so easy, is it?

Uh, yeah, it is, actually. Want my scripts to do it?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:10:55 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
>> In fairness, when was the last time you tried copying a file that
>> somebody else was still using? Not so easy, is it?
> 
> Trivial on Linux. 

As long as you don't care about correctness. ;-)

-- 
   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 15:59:15 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:10:55 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> 
>>> In fairness, when was the last time you tried copying a file that
>>> somebody else was still using? Not so easy, is it?
>> 
>> Trivial on Linux.
> 
> As long as you don't care about correctness. ;-)

Depends a lot on a lot of different factors.  Since you're backing up an 
inode, the inode is going to be generally valid (unless it's a special 
file of some sort), but whether it's the version that's being modified in 
memory on some computer somewhere over a network or not depends on when 
the user last saved the file.

Jim

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On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:54:56 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Try to delete files more than a week old out of /tmp without ever giving
> anyone the opportunity to delete /etc/passwd, for example.

I think this is exactly what tmpwatch is intended to do.....

Jim

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clipka wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen schrieb:
>> Huh? That doesn't sound right. An old strategic option the USSR
>> apparently had was to detonate a -real- big (50 megaton) thermonuke over
>> the US, but out in space / low orbit. The idea was to melt all radios and
>> computers, the entire US telephone network, etc. As far as I know EMP
>> damage is caused by the massive radio waves generated by a nuclear
>> explosion (besides all the "hard" gamma radiation, and other nasty stuff
>> besides heat and light). These induce current in conductors (i. e. they
>> fry microchips).
> 
> I think the story is slightly different:
> 
> - A nuclear explosion is caused by nuclear fission and/or fusion
> (actually primarily fission, even in a thermonuke aka H-bomb); the
> radiation given off by this is primarily gamma rays.
> 
> - As the gamma rays hit the atmosphere, they ionize it, turning it into
> a plasma.
> 
> - The plasma in turn "glows" in the whole EM spectrum.

Yes, that does make more sense. I seem to have had the wrong idea then...

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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clipka wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen schrieb:
> 
>> Makes sense. As far as I know the US military is one of THE most prolific
>> users of the EM spectrum in the world. He's probably got his radar on or
>> in a specific mode - I've read that the "ground tracking" mode on the
>> Hughes / Westinghouse (?) "APG" sets US Navy F-18s (among others) use
>> tend to do this. Apparently the F-22 (or is it the F-35?) have a "burn
>> 'em down" mode on their radars - they are powerful enough to fry the
>> electronics in an enemy plane with a single sweep, instead of shooting it
>> down with a missile.
> 
> Heh, that's cool... they'll never see it coming... they'd better be sure
> to not "burn down" their friendlies though. And enemy fighter jets may
> be hardened against EM radiation. At least I'd expect the newest US
> fighter jets to be.

I'd think that's where IFF would come in. You'd have your radar in some kind
of "auto-burn" mode - first sweep is IFF interrogate, and if the correct
coded response isn't achieved, next sweep is a "burn" sweep.
 
> I guess it'll bee the F-22 though, which in terms of performance as a
> fighter jet seems to be superior to the F-35 (except at being a
> comparatively inexpensive "bread and butter" fighter, which is what the
> F-35 was designed to be). I guess there's a reason why the F-35 is on
> offer to allies, while the F-22 is not.

Well at the prices their quoting, the -22 'd better make coffee, give its
pilot a massage, and take the dog for a walk too.

I'm seriously doubtful about the USAF planning regarding these aircraft. The
F-22 specifically, it is so HORRIBLY expensive, and they have bought much
less than the Air Force generals wanted. If they get into a fight with,
say, China, which has got thousands of Mig-21s and comparable aircraft, I
think they'll get whipped.

The simple reason being the F-22 is so expensive that the budget won't allow
for enough AIM-120's or whatever to be bought. So you got, say, 70 F-22s
sent to Korea or Taiwan for a fight with China (bear with my simplistic
view of international politics.) They take along 200 of the available 600
AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. They use those to shoot down (perfectly, and at
great range) 175 old, 1950's era MiGs.

But China has a thousand of those cheap aircraft. And the entire USAF has
only 600 AMRAAMs, of which many still have to be shipped to Taiwan or S.
Korea in order to get into the fight.

What happens next? The F-22s go "Winchester" - they have to engage in gun to
gun duels, at low level (where the 60+ year old Chinese Mig-17, for
example, is a KING of maneuverability.) The F-22 now has to go "low and
slow" in the weeds, against a fighter that was DESIGNED for that, while
itself is a beyond-visual-range 30 000 feet plus rather neurotic
thoroughbred. 

It's the Vietnam paradigm all over again, losing a tens of millions of
dollars price F-4 Phantom in blowing up a bamboo bridge that is
reconstructed that very night, with $3 Chinese bicycles once more carrying
ammunition across it for the Viet Cong.

> Hm, are they sure about that? Valve tubes are delicate things, too,
> aren't they? Give the EMP any place to couple in, and the voltages might
> kill the cathodes, I'd guess.

Could be, I'm not sure. I do suspect that valves though, physically larger
and more widely separated than densely packed transistors on a chip, might
have a better survivability? They might "twinge" to different frequencies
on the circuits they are in... plus I'd guess they have a
higher "capacitance" - i. e. they'd be able to absorb more voltage and / or
amperage before failing.

Plus, if they fail, they are much easier to fix, I'd guess. Open the radar
up and simply swop out the ones that have stopped glowing.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Darren New wrote:

> 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?

Hahaha! You're right - imagine driving 5 mph too fast and the next moment
your brain boils out of your ears... "I wasn't speeding
officerrrrrrrr...ARGHHH!" :) 

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Orchid XP v8 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?
> 
> Didn't the USA come up with a crowd dispersal device which *actually
> does this*??

Yeah, but it just makes you feel as if you're on fire if you are in the
beam. Most people immediately start moving around alot if they are on fire,
so its basically a second or two of agony and as soon as you move out of
the beam, it stops. 

Which isn't too bad for a crowd control device - anybody hit immediately
runs away, and isn't permanently injured.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Darren New wrote:

> You think dropping a tape and having the case crack and spill tape all
> over doesn't happen, or chipping or cracking a DVD? :-)
 
I've done both, the thing is, a portable HDD has more mass, so it tends to
hurt itself worse when hitting the floor after leaving a hand at 1.2m or so
above the ground.

I've often dropped uncased DVDs (I'm a clumsy oaf sometimes) and I've yet to
break one. Dropped a few DAT tapes as well, and that QIC like crap - never
had a problem.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Invisible wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen wrote:
 
> I'm glad it's not just me who constantly mis-spells "star". :-D

It's my keyboard! The **&%$ keyboard at wrk has its keys all placed one to
the left of my home keyboard.

Oh gods, I just misspelled "work" too!
 
>> To even get to more "close" stuff, 6 YEARS, 10
>> YEARS - or -thousands- of years (at LIGHTSPEED!) to another galaxy.
 
> Indeed. Without warp drive and the ability to vastly exceed the speed of
> light, it will just take such an absurdly long time to go anywhere that
> it doesn't bare thinking about. Think about it: how long ago did we land
> on the moon? And how long after that did we land on Mars? Oh, wait...

... we haven't. Yup, three years out, three years back, or something like
that?

And that's just in our solar system, never mind -real- interstellar stuff.
 
> 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.

Now that's a depressing thought. Spending millions of years getting there,
only to find that the star you were going to went nova or just collapsed in
on itself a few hundred thousands years back.
 
Serious case for some kind of hyperspace or space-warping technology.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Bill Pragnell wrote:

> Optimism, people! It was only a few hundred years ago people thought you'd
> fall apart if you went faster than a galloping horse... :)

Hahaha! Yeah... but I mean, Einstein has been proven right experimentally so
many times, even by items of technology that didn't not exist when he did
his "denk eksperimenten". I may be the typical cro-magnon who won't come
out of the cave and smell the mammoth, but lightspeed DOES seem to be the
ultimate speed limit...
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:17:16 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> 
>>>> I don't know, man... Backing up spinning disk to... spinning disk? Is
>>>> that such a sensible idea?
>>> 
>>> Why not? It's a backup. It's not like you can read a tape without
>>> spinning it. What are you going to back it up to, FLASH RAM?
>> 
>> Tape operates at much lower speeds. And since the only people who use
>> tape are people who want seriously reliable backup storage, it tends to
>> be very well engineered. (And stupidly expensive...)
> 
> Never used DAT drives for backup, have you? ;-)  Horrible quality of
> storage media, and terrible shelf life IME.

DAT saved my behind quite a few times. Never used a tape for longer than a
month though.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Stefan Viljoen schrieb:
> 
> I'm seriously doubtful about the USAF planning regarding these aircraft. The
> F-22 specifically, it is so HORRIBLY expensive, and they have bought much
> less than the Air Force generals wanted. If they get into a fight with,
> say, China, which has got thousands of Mig-21s and comparable aircraft, I
> think they'll get whipped.

Even given that the MiG-21 pilots would "see" the F-22 at all before 
being hit by some long-range AA missile, that would be a problem only if 
the U.S. of A. had nothing else to bring into the air besides their F-22s.

> The simple reason being the F-22 is so expensive that the budget won't allow
> for enough AIM-120's or whatever to be bought. So you got, say, 70 F-22s
> sent to Korea or Taiwan for a fight with China (bear with my simplistic
> view of international politics.) They take along 200 of the available 600
> AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. They use those to shoot down (perfectly, and at
> great range) 175 old, 1950's era MiGs.
> 
> But China has a thousand of those cheap aircraft. And the entire USAF has
> only 600 AMRAAMs, of which many still have to be shipped to Taiwan or S.
> Korea in order to get into the fight.
> 
> What happens next? The F-22s go "Winchester" - they have to engage in gun to
> gun duels, at low level (where the 60+ year old Chinese Mig-17, for
> example, is a KING of maneuverability.) The F-22 now has to go "low and
> slow" in the weeds, against a fighter that was DESIGNED for that, while
> itself is a beyond-visual-range 30 000 feet plus rather neurotic
> thoroughbred. 

You're having some misconceptions here:

(A) Besides being able to carry BVR AIM-120 AMRAAMs, the F-22 is 
designed to bear much cheaper AIM-9 Sidewinders into battle.

(B) Are you aware of what the F-22 can do in slow flight? Just take a 
look at this one - especially from 1:25 to 2:45:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTK3zeFRLO8&feature=related

(Thrust vectoring is the key to this, by the way.)

(C) As long as it's missiles against missiles, the MiG-21 will have a 
hard time getting a lock on the target. And when it comes to guns, the 
F-22 can always just outclimb or outrun the MiGs. Being good in a 
dogfight may be one thing, but being able to choose whether or not to 
enter into or leave one is another.

(D) You're forgetting about the countless F-15s, F-16s and F-18s (and/or 
the F-35s to come), that would fight side by side with the F-22.


> It's the Vietnam paradigm all over again, losing a tens of millions of
> dollars price F-4 Phantom in blowing up a bamboo bridge that is
> reconstructed that very night, with $3 Chinese bicycles once more carrying
> ammunition across it for the Viet Cong.

That's a totally different point. The U.S. of A. did have air 
superiority in Vietnam, and they will have it again and again and again, 
in whatever war you like.

The problem in Vietnam was that air superiority is only half the job 
when it comes to wrestling down an opponent in his own home country. But 
that doesn't make the F-22 inferior against MiG-21s.

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clipka wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen schrieb:
>> 
>> I'm seriously doubtful about the USAF planning regarding these aircraft.
>> The F-22 specifically, it is so HORRIBLY expensive, and they have bought
>> much less than the Air Force generals wanted. If they get into a fight
>> with, say, China, which has got thousands of Mig-21s and comparable
>> aircraft, I think they'll get whipped.
> 
> Even given that the MiG-21 pilots would "see" the F-22 at all before
> being hit by some long-range AA missile, that would be a problem only if
> the U.S. of A. had nothing else to bring into the air besides their F-22s.

Isn't this the way it is going? According to what I read on strategypage.com
recently, F-16s, F-15s and F-18 are wearing out and are not being replaced.
Additionally, much funding is being "saved" by decommissioning many
(hundreds, apparently) of these aircraft early as well, in order to spend
money maintaining the F-22 and F-35?
 
>> What happens next? The F-22s go "Winchester" - they have to engage in gun
>> to gun duels, at low level (where the 60+ year old Chinese Mig-17, for
>> example, is a KING of maneuverability.) The F-22 now has to go "low and
>> slow" in the weeds, against a fighter that was DESIGNED for that, while
>> itself is a beyond-visual-range 30 000 feet plus rather neurotic
>> thoroughbred.
> 
> You're having some misconceptions here:

Ok.
 
> (A) Besides being able to carry BVR AIM-120 AMRAAMs, the F-22 is
> designed to bear much cheaper AIM-9 Sidewinders into battle.

Of which there'll be how many? As far as I know the AIM-9X is not in
production anymore, and funding is being cut for buying it - again to be
able to afford "enough" AIM-120's and to feed the budgetary monster that
the F-22 has become.
 
> (B) Are you aware of what the F-22 can do in slow flight? Just take a
> look at this one - especially from 1:25 to 2:45:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTK3zeFRLO8&feature=related
> 
> (Thrust vectoring is the key to this, by the way.)

That's damn impressive! No, I didn't know that. That could come in very
useful in a low and slow situation. Though I wonder what the price is in
fuel consumption? High-alpha maneuvers like that probably need a lot of
thrust to be applied to keep from stalling?
 
> (C) As long as it's missiles against missiles, the MiG-21 will have a
> hard time getting a lock on the target. And when it comes to guns, the
> F-22 can always just outclimb or outrun the MiGs. Being good in a
> dogfight may be one thing, but being able to choose whether or not to
> enter into or leave one is another.

True, but that is a mark against the F-22 in my book. I was thinking when I
said that of the situation where US ground forces are under attack from the
air, and need to be protected against MiG strikes. So, the USAF sends the
F-22. It -has- to go low and slow to get at the MiGs, assuming it is out of
missiles. Sure, it can outclimb and outrun the MIGs, but it has no choice
now - it has to tangle with them on their terms, low and slow, to protect
US ground forces. Wouldn't that obviate its enormous speed and rate of
climb? (Though the slow maneuver you pointed me to above would obviously
help I readily agree.)

Also, that is if they have decommissioned all those F-16s and F-15s by that
time, of course - which seems to be the way they are going.
 
> (D) You're forgetting about the countless F-15s, F-16s and F-18s (and/or
> the F-35s to come), that would fight side by side with the F-22.

See above - it seems to me (I'm possibly wrong) that they are getting rid of
all those thousands of excellent aircraft in order to have F-22s and F-35s
as the largest percentage of available fighters. They can't do it
otherwise, the F-22 is simply too expensive to have it AND other fighters,
and still have enough $$$ for missiles, fuel, crews, training, etc.
 
>> It's the Vietnam paradigm all over again, losing a tens of millions of
>> dollars price F-4 Phantom in blowing up a bamboo bridge that is
>> reconstructed that very night, with $3 Chinese bicycles once more
>> carrying ammunition across it for the Viet Cong.
 
> That's a totally different point. The U.S. of A. did have air
> superiority in Vietnam, and they will have it again and again and again,
> in whatever war you like.
 
Ok. I meant it in the sense that, for the same effect, the United States
spends a billion on 10 aircraft of superlative quality, while China speds a
billion on a thousand aircraft of mediocre quality. But then those 10
aircraft only have 10 missiles each, because they themselves and their
missiles are so unbelievably expensive.

> The problem in Vietnam was that air superiority is only half the job
> when it comes to wrestling down an opponent in his own home country. But
> that doesn't make the F-22 inferior against MiG-21s.

I wouldn't consider it inferior - I fully agree that at BVR ranges (as long
as the missile supply lasts) it will probably knock anything flying out of
the sky, or just fuse enemy flight control computers with its radar. Where
I think it -might- have trouble though is when it is forced to move out of
its "comfort zone" - instead of high-altitude BVR, it is forced to go low
and slow, and use guns, against older aircraft that were specifically
designed to do that (while of course, being useless in the F-22's "comfort
zone").
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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>> I'm glad it's not just me who constantly mis-spells "star". :-D
> 
> It's my keyboard! The **&%$ keyboard at wrk has its keys all placed one to
> the left of my home keyboard.
> 
> Oh gods, I just misspelled "work" too!

Put the shovel down. ;-)

>> Think about it: how long ago did we land
>> on the moon? And how long after that did we land on Mars? Oh, wait...
> 
> ... we haven't. Yup, three years out, three years back, or something like
> that?
> 
> And that's just in our solar system, never mind -real- interstellar stuff.

That's just THE NEAREST PLANET in the same star system. Never mind the 
more remote ones...

>> 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.
> 
> Now that's a depressing thought. Spending millions of years getting there,
> only to find that the star you were going to went nova or just collapsed in
> on itself a few hundred thousands years back.
>  
> Serious case for some kind of hyperspace or space-warping technology.

And of course, almost none of the stars are where they appear to be. 
They'll all have moved by now. I'm not sure how easy it is to figure out 
where they moved to.

And - sometimes I don't think people get this - you reach Alpha Proxima 
and radio back to Earth to say "hey, we got here, what next Houstan?"

IT WILL TAKE CENTURIES FOR THE MESSAGE TO REACH EARTH! >_<

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>> Compared to sitting still watching the game on TV, it involves *a lot* 
>> of muscle. ;-) And I can't really imagine that baseball requires less 
>> muscle power than football...
> 
> I think you haven't watched a lot of football.

I make a point of not watching it, yes.

> I suspect football players run more 
> in 10 minutes than a whole ball team runs in an entire game.

Wait - are we talking about American Football here?

>> I rephrase: I can run very, very fast indeed. I can't do this for more 
>> than a few seconds, however.
> 
> That's just practice. Really. When I first started doing stairmaster 
> exercise, I couldn't go for more than 5 minutes or so. Within maybe 3 
> weeks of trying three times a day, a full half hour at a higher 
> difficulty setting isn't even difficult.

Heh. Last night, I set a new personal best for fastest dancing. ;-) Damn 
that was crazy!

There is apparently something wrong with my brain. When I come home from 
a dance class absolutely dripping with sweat and gasping for breath, I 
find myself thinking "yeah, that was a really great evening". It's like 
I *enjoy* hurting myself. o_O

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>> In fairness, when was the last time you tried copying a file that 
>> somebody else was still using? Not so easy, is it?
> 
> Uh, yeah, it is, actually. Want my scripts to do it?

Heh. I too have written scripts to do backup. It seems like all you have 
to do is copy a bunch of files, but it's never quite that simple in 
reality. You have to deal with files that are locked, files getting 
moved around or deleted while you're trying to copy them, file security, 
alternate data streams, not upsetting programs working on those files 
just because you want to back them up, and so on. If you want to be able 
to do stuff like back up or restore an individual Exchange mailbox, good 
luck doing that with scripting. If you want to back up over a network, 
now you have connection issues, authentication issues, people turning 
the target PC off while you're accessing it...

...this stuff is way, way harder to do right than it sounds.

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> And - sometimes I don't think people get this - you reach Alpha Proxima 
> and radio back to Earth to say "hey, we got here, what next Houstan?"
>
> IT WILL TAKE CENTURIES FOR THE MESSAGE TO REACH EARTH! >_<

I wonder how much power you need to transmit with to be heard that far away?

I mean isn't the transmitter on Voyager or whatever about to go out of 
range, and that's only just left our own solar system!

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> I wonder how much power you need to transmit with to be heard that far 
> away?
> 
> I mean isn't the transmitter on Voyager or whatever about to go out of 
> range, and that's only just left our own solar system!

I think if you could make the signal directional enough, you might not 
need that much power.

Isn't that one of the unusual properties of lasers? They can travel 
great distances without the beam spreading very much?

On the other hand, I wonder how much noise the signal has to be detected 
over?

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>> 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.

I don't know about you, but if my house burnt down, this would be a 
catastrophy. I would be homeless, and financially destitute. The bank 
isn't going to let you stop paying the morgage just because your house 
burned to the ground. And with no house to sell, it is impossible to buy 
a replacement. I'd basically be homeless for the rest of my life. I 
wouldn't be able to *afford* a computer! Why would I care about some 
holiday photos when I'm going to be spending the rest of my life on the 
streets?

(And then there's the "minor detail" that your backup copies will be in 
your house, and thus destroyed in the process...)

>> 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.

Well, as I say, it depends on what you're trying to do.

If you're trying to avoid downtime due to hardware faults, RAID is the 
right tool. If you just want to avoid losing a few specific precious 
files, a file-level copy seems more appropriate.

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scott wrote:

>> And - sometimes I don't think people get this - you reach Alpha Proxima
>> and radio back to Earth to say "hey, we got here, what next Houstan?"
>>
>> IT WILL TAKE CENTURIES FOR THE MESSAGE TO REACH EARTH! >_<
> 
> I wonder how much power you need to transmit with to be heard that far
> away?
> 
> I mean isn't the transmitter on Voyager or whatever about to go out of
> range, and that's only just left our own solar system!

I think Voyager uses something like 10 watts or so?
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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> On the other hand, I wonder how much noise the signal has to be detected 
> over?

10^26 Watts of star

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> I don't know about you, but if my house burnt down, this would be a 
> catastrophy. I would be homeless, and financially destitute. The bank 
> isn't going to let you stop paying the morgage just because your house 
> burned to the ground. And with no house to sell, it is impossible to buy a 
> replacement. I'd basically be homeless for the rest of my life. I wouldn't 
> be able to *afford* a computer! Why would I care about some holiday photos 
> when I'm going to be spending the rest of my life on the streets?

You ever heard of this thing called insurance?  Doesn't the bank demand that 
your house is insured against burning down (and various other stuff) before 
giving you a mortgage?

Besides, AIUI once you are declared bankrupt you can start again afresh, so 
assuming you didn't lose your job just rent somewhere until you can save up 
enough deposit to buy a new house.

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>> On the other hand, I wonder how much noise the signal has to be 
>> detected over?
> 
> 10^26 Watts of star

At which wavelengths?

I saw designs for digital filter that's supposed to recover a 2 mV 
signal burried in a 250 V carrier. (And this was an introductory DSP 
book.) This works because the two signals are at completely different 
frequencies.

If you look at the emission spectrum of the star and pick a wavelength 
where there's little or no emission, it could hypothetically work I guess...

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>> I don't know about you, but if my house burnt down, this would be a 
>> catastrophy. I would be homeless, and financially destitute. The bank 
>> isn't going to let you stop paying the morgage just because your house 
>> burned to the ground. And with no house to sell, it is impossible to 
>> buy a replacement. I'd basically be homeless for the rest of my life. 
>> I wouldn't be able to *afford* a computer! Why would I care about some 
>> holiday photos when I'm going to be spending the rest of my life on 
>> the streets?
> 
> You ever heard of this thing called insurance?

Sure. But I also know that an insurance company's job is to not pay out 
under any circumstances whatsoever. Their entire business model is based 
on preventing customers getting the money they're due. The fact that 
insurance companies are all doing so well indicates that they must have 
got very, very good at this.

> Doesn't the bank demand 
> that your house is insured against burning down (and various other 
> stuff) before giving you a mortgage?

I have no idea.

> Besides, AIUI once you are declared bankrupt you can start again afresh, 
> so assuming you didn't lose your job just rent somewhere until you can 
> save up enough deposit to buy a new house.

I don't know precisely how bankrupcy works, but presumably it means I 
get to lose all my savings, my pension and my car. (Fortunately, in my 
case not having a car isn't going to prevent me getting to work. It 
will, however, prevent my mum getting to work, and she earns multiple 
times my piffling income.)

Either way, exactly how many decades do you estimate it would take to 
save up the astronomical sum required for a deposit?

No matter which way you look at it, a computer is the least of my worries.

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> If you look at the emission spectrum of the star and pick a wavelength 
> where there's little or no emission, it could hypothetically work I 
> guess...

"Little or no" emission from a star is probably many orders of magnitude 
bigger than the biggest ever nuclear bomb on Earth though :-)

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/sun-images/solar_specbb.jpg

It may look on there like there is no emission below 100 nm or whatever, but 
in proportion there is still an almighty amount of x-ray and gamma emission 
from a star.  Standing out above this "noise" is going to be hard.

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clipka wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTK3zeFRLO8&feature=related
> 
> (Thrust vectoring is the key to this, by the way.)

Thrust vectoring owns the sky!  This thing can turn on a dime...Macross 
style!

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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Invisible wrote:
> I don't know about you, but if my house burnt down, this would be a 
> catastrophy. 

It's certainly not pleasant, no.

> I would be homeless, and financially destitute. The bank 
> isn't going to let you stop paying the morgage just because your house 
> burned to the ground. 

The bank has no way to force you to pay the mortgage. At least around here. 
They'll just take whatever's left.

But that's what insurance is for.

> And with no house to sell, it is impossible to buy a replacement. 

You need a better job.

> (And then there's the "minor detail" that your backup copies will be in 
> your house, and thus destroyed in the process...)

That's what a fire safe is for. Or a safe-deposit box.

> If you're trying to avoid downtime due to hardware faults, RAID is the 
> right tool. If you just want to avoid losing a few specific precious 
> files, a file-level copy seems more appropriate.

Sure.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Invisible wrote:
> Sure. But I also know that an insurance company's job is to not pay out 
> under any circumstances whatsoever.

Some are, some aren't. If your house burns entirely to the ground, it would 
be hard to argue that you weren't due all the money the policy was worth.

>> Doesn't the bank demand that your house is insured against burning 
>> down (and various other stuff) before giving you a mortgage?
> 
> I have no idea.

Certainly in this country.

> I don't know precisely how bankrupcy works, but presumably it means I 
> get to lose all my savings, my pension and my car. 

Not in this country.

> Either way, exactly how many decades do you estimate it would take to 
> save up the astronomical sum required for a deposit?

It took me about 3 or 4 years.

> No matter which way you look at it, a computer is the least of my worries.

True. And of course, you don't have any friends, either, who might be able 
to print out pictures for you off your hard drive. ;-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:54:56 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Try to delete files more than a week old out of /tmp without ever giving
>> anyone the opportunity to delete /etc/passwd, for example.
> 
> I think this is exactly what tmpwatch is intended to do.....

Well, yes. I meant "using a shell script". Someone wrote tmpwatch exactly 
because getting this sort of thing right is almost impossible to do, with 
the number of ways you can put junk into file names that make shell scripts 
break. (Indeed, that's the reason GNU had to add the -0 arguments to find et 
al.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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scott wrote:
> I mean isn't the transmitter on Voyager or whatever about to go out of 
> range, and that's only just left our own solar system!

You mean the one that has been running off batteries for 20 years? Yeah, likely.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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