/dev/chat

Faheem Mitha

12:04 AM

@terdon a random google search finds this -> getentry.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/getentry/na/V00813/?filetype=html

I see J00586 and V00813 on the same page. What gives?

Also, this -> metalife.com/Genbank/J00586_197753

This looks like it might be variant accession numbers. What fun!

Oh. the -O thing was because I wasn't using quotes around the url.

Shells are so annoying.

Faheem Mitha

12:56 AM

@terdon the dbfetch faq says something about this -> ebi.ac.uk/Tools/dbfetch/faq.jsp#Q1

Braiam

1:23 AM

and then, I need to build chromium from sources to check a bug... :(

Faheem Mitha

@Braiam Did this sentence have a beginning?

Braiam

1:55 AM

no way!

casey

3:30 AM

Bytes transferred: 790,028,296,277 (63%).

almost there!

Faheem Mitha

3:59 AM

@casey almost where?

Faheem Mitha

4:22 AM

VTC, people -> unix.stackexchange.com/q/163712/4671

REACHUS

10:35 AM

Hello, I have a question regarding the choice of distribution.

I have 2 requirements:
1. Something that wouldn't require lots of configuration after the installation but rather have preconfigured setup I could later adjust to my needs.
2. Ability to easily update all the necessary things (like the GCC, for example) - I guess I mean by that a good package manager (something similar to MacPorts on OS X).

It would be great if you could recommend me something.

Braiam

@REACHUS almost any popular distro will fit

REACHUS

I was thinking about Ubuntu or Fedora

Braiam

10:50 AM

both fit... the only difference would be that Ubuntu uses apt-get (to install software) and Unity (the desktop environment), while Fedora uses yum (to install software) and Gnome Shell (the desktop environment)

Braiam

1:45 PM

I need your expertise @FaheemMitha, read this question and tell me what I'm asking, please

Ramesh

1:56 PM

@Braiam man, it's annoying when people doesn't see that you are trying to put in a Q & A that might be useful for someone and simply downvotes.

Braiam

@Ramesh upvote my comment, they are downvoting because they think is a dupe

Faheem Mitha

2:27 PM

@Braiam Sounds reasonable. Upvoted. I think you've confused the tiny little mind of the AU voters by asking a question that is superficially so similar to one already asked.

I think apt-get -f install can also be used to check for brokenness. Though maybe check is better.

Braiam

@FaheemMitha yeah, but unlike check it tries to fix them

I prefer the readonly option

Faheem Mitha

@Braiam Fair enough.

casey

@FaheemMitha almost to 1.25 TB at which point I'm starting up another 1 TB transfer.

Faheem Mitha

@casey For what? Missing context.

casey

data

Faheem Mitha

2:45 PM

Wow. Lots of data.

Braiam

3:01 PM

tries to answer a question... but finds none

meh, found one

Ramesh

4:00 PM

Just wondering do we have a paste solution for this?

derobert

4:44 PM

@Ramesh Odd no one gave the obvious answer of cat; echo; cat ... gave it now.

Ramesh

@derobert I believe sometimes people tend to overthink and forget the basics :)

If we are given root access for 5 minutes to a machine, can we have the machine setup for a complete destruction by a normal user using setuids?

derobert

@Ramesh sure, cp /bin/bash ~user/bash; chmod u+s ~usr/bash would probably be sufficient.

Ramesh

What does the above command do? It gives root privileges for an user in all bash sessions, is it?

derobert

It puts a set-user-id root bash in that user's home directory. Oddly, it didn't work when I tried it. Bash seems to drop its suid...

Works with dash though.

Ramesh

So is this setuid enough for performing dangerous commands like rm -rf and so?

derobert

4:51 PM

Basically, when anyone runs a setuid program, that program runs as the owning user. So a root-owned u+s program always runs as root.

So when I run that root-owned u+s dash in my home directory, it runs as root. In other words, I have a root shell.

I can then of course do anything.

Ramesh

But from what I understood, there is still some concepts of effective user ID and real user ID that are supposed to prevent this, right?

derobert

Your effective user id is what is being set. It's also used for permission checks. So it's the one that matters.

(apparently it'd work with bash if I ran ./bash -p)

anthony@Zia:~$ ./bash -p
bash-4.3# touch /oh-noes
bash-4.3# rm /oh-noes

... yep, it works.

bash-4.3# id
uid=1000(anthony) gid=1000(anthony) euid=0(root) groups= ...

you can see the real id is still 1000, but the effective is 0. And the effective is clearly the one being used for permission checks. And of course, if your euid is 0, you can change your real id arbitrarily.

Ramesh

So I login as normal user and do a ` chmod u+s ~usr/bash ` and then do a ./bash -p is it?

derobert

root has to do the chmod, not a normal user.

well, more precisely, the file's owner has to. And the file's owner is the user that it'll switch to.

Ramesh

apologies. yeah.

derobert

5:00 PM

That's not the only way to give yourself root permanently if allowed 5 minutes to do whatever as root. I can think of quite a few more... In short, don't give root to people you don't trust!

Ramesh

No that was a question in an interview. I was thinking on /etc/sudoers and giving access to the user.

derobert

visudo is pretty quick. So is editing the PAM config for su (if you know what you're doing, which of course you should research before your 5 minutes as root). Or replacing various system binaries with backdoored versions (if prepped in advance). Or...

Pandya

Wonderful combination! Ubuntu 14.10 released on Diwali 2014(Festival of Lights in India & last day of year)

Faheem Mitha

@Pandya The last day of the year?

The Festival of Explosions, more like. Trying to go to sleep here, but these lunatics won't let me.

derobert

Sounds like you need earplugs.

Faheem Mitha

5:04 PM

@derobert They're uncomfortable.

Wow, Tim is still at it.

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha these are the days I wish it rains.

derobert

@FaheemMitha They come in a variety of styles... Well, I guess they do here. Not sure what you have over there.

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh You aren't in India, are you?

Ramesh

►

Faheem Mitha

@derobert I guess they do. I've never really investigated.

derobert

5:06 PM

@FaheemMitha Sounds like you're not getting any sleep until you do :-P

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha No. I am in US for higher studies.

derobert

Ah, yeah, then you can definitely find many styles in the US...

Faheem Mitha

@derobert They'll stop eventually. Either they'll have to go to sleep, or they'll run out of crackers. Whichever comes first.

@Ramesh Right, Texas. You're lucky, then you don't have to care.

@derobert I'm sure. Unfortunately this isn't the US.

derobert

@FaheemMitha Wow, I'm tired. I read the @FaheemMitha at the start of that message as being the author...

Sorry about that.

Tyler Maginnis

And I can fight only for something that I love, love only what I respect, and respect only what I at least know. --Lennart Poettering

Faheem Mitha

5:09 PM

@derobert No problem. I didn't really notice.

derobert

Personally I'm fine with the 33-ish dB foam ones intended for shooting (and useful for sleeping through anything). And the Etymotic flanged ones are nice for having an even frequency response....

Faheem Mitha

@derobert you sound like a connoisseur.

Tyler Maginnis

0

Q: nameservers erased after systemctl restart network.service

I'm working on centos 7, and having problematic behaviour when setting network interface from dhcp to static ip configuration. I edit /etc/resolv.conf, and run systemctl restart network.service The changes that I made are gone, and a generic file is created: cat /etc/resolv.conf # Generated b...

Faheem Mitha

Noise is not much of a problem in the US, in my experience. With the possible exceptions of bad inner city parts. And New York City.

Tyler Maginnis

hahahahahahahahahaha I'll let this one sink in SysD heck

derobert

5:13 PM

@FaheemMitha Hah, yeah. I like things (say, music, especially) quieter than most people. I basically wore those Etymotic ones the entirety of AWA and AUSA. And on the car trip to and from Atlanta, when the other guy was driving (and listening to his music).

@TylerMaginnis It's RedHat. If OP had cared about his config files, he'd have installed Debian. /me ducks

Faheem Mitha

@derobert I see. I'm very sensitive to noise too. Which makes living in India even more trying than it would be otherwise. Do you have Amazon links or something? Wouldn't hurt to take a look.

@derobert debian/rules.

Tyler Maginnis

@FaheemMitha What region in India are you located? I know someone in Garwhali near the Infinity hackerspace

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha you do not like thunderstorm/rainy sounds to sleep at nights?

Faheem Mitha

@TylerMaginnis Bombay.

@Ramesh Not especially. I used to, when I was small, I think.

Tyler Maginnis

@derobert I'm using Debian right now and haven't had any issues configuring startup with SystemD.

derobert

5:17 PM

@FaheemMitha amazon.com/gp/product/B0044DEEU6 is the ones I have. But you'd probably want standard fit, not large.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Ok, thanks.

Amazon helpfully tells me they ship to here.

derobert

... standard fit is supposed to be more common.

@FaheemMitha and of course I picked the color by whichever was cheapest when I ordered.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert What, you didn't color-coordinate your ensemble?

derobert

Nope, it was like a whole $1.50 cheaper not to!

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Ah

derobert

5:20 PM

Also, not sure what it's like wearing those while sleeping. Haven't tried. But they're great in that everything sounds the same, just quieter. Normal foam earplugs aren't even, so things sound weird.

Its weird putting them in, you first think they're not doing anything. Until you realize when you take one out, wow, it's definitely louder.

Faheem Mitha

Available on amazon.in, surprisingly. Not sure how long it would take to arrive, though.

amazon.in/Etymotic-Research-ETY-Plugs-Protection-Earplugs/dp/…

@derobert I see.

:

derobert

@FaheemMitha At a mere 3x markup, no less!

@FaheemMitha I think Amazon has been oneboxed for a while. Though they sent it back to Amazon US.

And of course put their referrer code in there, I suspect.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Not quite that much.

@derobert 2.5x, actually.

derobert

2,160.00 INR = $35.27, Google tells me...

Which yeah, is 2.7x. At least compared to the $12.90 for the white/clear ones

Tyler Maginnis

3,670,499 INR/year is the average U.S. salary for an I.T. person

1,468,199 INR/year is about what the average Indian I.T. person makes

derobert

5:31 PM

Such precision! And @FaheemMitha hopefully they pay you more than 1½ million, especially since you seem to have to pay thrice as much for everything...

Faheem Mitha

@TylerMaginnis I thought the difference was larger. Are you putting Anthony's calculations in context?

@derobert I'm unemployed, so no.

@derobert It's currently Rs 60 to the dollar. Give or take.

Tyler Maginnis

@FaheemMitha Yeah, I'm just going by what I know about the cost of outsourced I.T. employees in countries like Pakistan and Thailand.

I can get a bilingual Thai technical worker for about $20,000 U.S.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert You have to pay thrice for imports. India does manufacture things locally. Not electronics, unfortunately. And if they did, they would do a terrible job of it.

@TylerMaginnis Ok. That's per year, I suppose?

Tyler Maginnis

yeah, that's per year

that's the salary point for devs.

derobert

@FaheemMitha Hopefully it's per year, unless @TylerMaginnis is involved in something far more shady than outsourcing.

Faheem Mitha

5:34 PM

@TylerMaginnis That's not really a lot of money even here.

Tyler Maginnis

@derobert what would that be? "in-sourcing?" lol

Faheem Mitha

About a lakh a month. Though academics here get paid even more badly. I was reading some quite shocking statistics about how little people in the IITs get paid.

derobert

@TylerMaginnis Something forbidden by the 13th Amendment, I believe.

Faheem Mitha

@TylerMaginnis do you actually work with Asian people, or is this just theoretical?

Tyler Maginnis

@derobert a $3.95 all you can eat Chinese buffet got caught breaking the 13th amendment in my city

derobert

5:37 PM

@TylerMaginnis $3.95. Wow. I suspect the 13th Amendment was the least of your worries if you actually dared to eat there...

Faheem Mitha

If they followed the 13th Amendment they'd get rid of the H1B.

Tyler Maginnis

@FaheemMitha I have a buddy who owns a manufacture facility in Thailand; he has his own I.T. department and H.R. department, so when I need someone, I broker the resource through his H.R. department; they show up to work at his facility. It's better than the alternative.

Faheem Mitha

@TylerMaginnis The alternative being picking someone randomly?

Tyler Maginnis

@FaheemMitha Sure, because you never know who you are selecting when you decide to work with an offshore company. At least this way, the workers go to an office, and have a sense of accountability at work.

my only rule, really, is always have enough $$$ for payroll.

Faheem Mitha

@TylerMaginnis Yes, I see.

derobert

5:39 PM

@FaheemMitha Yeah... We have a lot of stupid policies. Our immigration laws are definitely in the top ten.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Agreed.

Tyler Maginnis

yipee. I'm almost done coding this C#/ASP.Net MVC business process app

Faheem Mitha

@terdon ping.

derobert

@TylerMaginnis Congrats, then you can shut down that annoying blue-screen producing OS!

terdon

@FaheemMitha Yes, sorry, but I've been swamped these past couple of days. I have a deadline and am also moving and really don't have time to breathe. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Faheem Mitha

5:49 PM

@TylerMaginnis Hey, this is a nix channel.

Tyler Maginnis

@derobert man, you have no idea! I had a full install of CYGWIN Unix emulation on this machine @ work, and I get a bit distracted... I break the entire install. + I'm responsible for a Linux system distribution, so I have to have Ext3+ support on a Windows box.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon No problem. Was just getting weird behavior from this server,and thought you might be able to shed some light.

Tyler Maginnis

@FaheemMitha I assume the BSOD is right around the corner.

derobert

@FaheemMitha From which server? Some reason only @terdon can help?

Faheem Mitha

Let me just tell you what I'm seeing. It is pretty simple. I'm currently asking for like 44 sequences, but it is only returning 10.

Tyler Maginnis

5:50 PM

@FaheemMitha maybe the Indian intelligence community is intercepting your traffic with its extra-legal surveillance.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert No, it is just a bioinfo server that terdon is already familar with.

Tyler Maginnis

@FaheemMitha 34 of those sequences are now in the hands of Covert Indian Operatives.

derobert

Ah.

Faheem Mitha

@TylerMaginnis lol

derobert

@TylerMaginnis Nah. They're probably already sold them on to the NSA.

Faheem Mitha

5:52 PM

I doubt Covert Indian Operatives are that efficient. Like the rest of this benighted country, they are probably busy noise-making outside, and disturbing everyone.

It sounds like a invasion is going on here. Though it seems to be gradually winding down. This is supposed to be a poor country. They shouldn't have enough money for crackers.

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha poor country? lol

derobert

@FaheemMitha "poor" has, unfortunately, never stopped a country from having plenty of munitions to go around.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon it would be super-helpful if the wretched server would tell me why it is doing what it is doing.

derobert

Thankfully, the only thing being blown up is quiet & tranquility.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert you're pretty much a wizard at this, so if you have the time/inclination for a diagnosis, say so.

@Ramesh ? You object to that description?

I wonder if the server cuts stuff off based on data size.

derobert

5:55 PM

@FaheemMitha Well, I don't know anything about bioinformatics, but I can try...

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha yeah.

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh How so?

@derobert It's just a get request, I assume. I'll give you the command line. One sec.

Ramesh

If you consider people, then definitely we do have poor people. But if it is wealth wise, our politicians should be having half of world's share.

Faheem Mitha

wget -c "http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/dbfetch/dbfetch?db=ena_sequence&id=M23243,M28132,M28‌134,M35332,M38103,M38105,M54906,M60955,M60961,M64239,V00813,V01563,V01564,V01565,‌X00933,X00934,X01018,X02843,X02858,X02859,X02862,X03056,X03057,X03058,X03059,X037‌61,X05502,X16954,X16955,X17177,X17179,X58411,X58414,Y15968,Y15972,Y15975,Y15976,Y‌15977,Y15978,Y15980,Y15981,Y15982,Z72382,Z72384&format=fasta&style=raw" -O - >> ./mouse12rss.test.fasta

@Ramesh Oh, the money is very very disproportionately allocated. No doubt about that.

Partly it is a cultural problem.

To put it colloquially, those Indians are crazy. And yes, that is a quotation.

Ramesh

And I believe you are aware of this.

Faheem Mitha

5:58 PM

Well, an adapted quotation.

@Ramesh Aware of what?

Ramesh

click on the link I shared.

Faheem Mitha

Ok

derobert

@FaheemMitha Ok, that's a wget line. What's happening with it?

terdon

@FaheemMitha Honestly, it would be very helpful if you would tell me what you're doing. You keep giving me cryptic messages and errors and you have yet to provide me with a list of accession numbers whose sequences you want to retrieve. I think that's what you want to do. I'm beginning to understand why you don't post many questions :) I still don't understand what your final objective is.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert that wget request is supposed to download a fasta file, one sequence for each of those ids, but it only gets like the first 10 requests.

@terdon That's a little unkind.

@derobert here is the context for that command line - the dbfetch thing - ebi.ac.uk/Tools/dbfetch/faq.jsp#Q4

terdon

6:00 PM

@FaheemMitha We are in classic XY problem territory. I honestly don't know what you're attempting. You have a list of accession numbers and want their fasta files right? Where are these accessions?

derobert

@FaheemMitha Well, that's better than the java.lang.NullPointerException I got when I tried it...

Faheem Mitha

@terdon I just posted them. above,

4 mins ago, by Faheem Mitha

wget -c "http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/dbfetch/dbfetch?db=ena_sequence&id=M23243,M28132,M28‌134,M35332,M38103,M38105,M54906,M60955,M60961,M64239,V00813,V01563,V01564,V01565,‌X00933,X00934,X01018,X02843,X02858,X02859,X02862,X03056,X03057,X03058,X03059,X037‌61,X05502,X16954,X16955,X17177,X17179,X58411,X58414,Y15968,Y15972,Y15975,Y15976,Y‌15977,Y15978,Y15980,Y15981,Y15982,Z72382,Z72384&format=fasta&style=raw" -O - >> ./mouse12rss.test.fasta

terdon

@FaheemMitha Those are completely different to what you had given me before.

Faheem Mitha

This returns the first 10.

@terdon If you want the complete set, I can give the complete set. This is just a subset. I'm trying to figure out why this ebl service is behaving the way it does.

Once I understand why it is doing what it is doing, I can work around it.

derobert

@FaheemMitha is there something being lost in that copy/paste? I get a null pointer exception here.

Faheem Mitha

6:03 PM

I guess I could try writing to the ebl, but I've not had much luck with bioinformatics people.

@derobert You get a null pointer exception with wget?

let me try pasting it somewhere else. actually. I'll try gist.

derobert

@FaheemMitha Well, that's what the server is returning to me.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Ok. Let me try a paste with gist.

derobert

The first obvious thing to try is for me to grab it from here, on my probably much faster connection. Maybe its just timing out.

Ramesh

Wow, I have 99 upvotes for my comment here.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Dunno, it's coming through pretty fast. I could try my VPS in the netherlands, i suppose.

@derobert gist.github.com/4b37fcb04fd59cf88d10

that's the same thing.

derobert

6:07 PM

Ok. Copied from the gist, it works. Presuming grep '>' mouse12rss.test.fasta will find me the different results in there, I get 10.

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh I'm actually surprised to see a wealthy politician get convicted of anything in India. Maybe she has powerful enemies.

@derobert Right, that agrees with what I'm seeing. I guess I should remove those 10 and see what I get.

terdon

OK, so the problem is that sometimes it doesn't find the sequence so it gives you a webpage right?

Faheem Mitha

18 years? Jesus.

derobert

@FaheemMitha I just did that. Wow, it's taking forever to download the next set.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon The current issue with dbfetch is that it is just fetching the first 10.

derobert

6:09 PM

But it gave me a lot more.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon if you are busy with other stuff, just forget about it.

terdon

@FaheemMitha Yes, I ran it in a loop and it fetched all of them but some were not sequences. Accession numbers change unfortunately.

derobert

V00813 isn't in there though

Faheem Mitha

@terdon So I've discovered. Sigh.

derobert

It gave me J00586 instead it appears...

Faheem Mitha

6:10 PM

So, should I just fetch in much smaller pieces? And what's an educated guess at what is going on here? Also, @terdon since you are here, would saving this wretched data to disk and distrbuting it with my project be a bad move?

slm

@Ramesh that's funny

Faheem Mitha

Maybe I could ask EBL...

terdon

@FaheemMitha I am just having trouble understanding what you need. You seem to have one set of sequences already but need more. I would be happy to help but I really suggest you post a question here (I doubt it would be on topic though) or on Biology or on biostars.org, explaining what you need from start to finish. I am 99% sure this is far simpler than it appears but I don't really understand the issue.

derobert

@FaheemMitha No, the second request gave me the rest. So it just stopped on V00813... probably because it didn't like that one

Presumably then the right approach is to request them all, parse the response you get, and request more if it stopped in the middle.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Oh. did it not return anything for V00813 then?

Ramesh

6:11 PM

@slm yup. Waiting for the 100th uv. Probably there should be some gold badge for 100 uvs as well :)

Faheem Mitha

@derobert That sounds smart.

derobert

@FaheemMitha I think it gave a >ENA|J00586|J00586.1 Mus musculus domesticus immunoglobulin lambda chain J1 region gene, partial cds. [29-AUG-2014] which wasn't in the request list, or at least I don't see it...

Faheem Mitha

@terdon I have a fixed set. I think I pasted it to you earlier actually. Well, two fixed sets. One for mouse, the other for human.

terdon

Do you start with a list of accessions and need sequences? What kind of accessions? Where did they come from? Are those the ones from the French immunology institute? How did they become EBI accessions? Can they be different accessions as well? Do you have the sequences? I am guessing you do since you used them, if so, why is this needed? Does your software need the sequences and you don't want to include them?

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Ah, yes, this is an equivalent one, but why did it stop there?

terdon

6:12 PM

@FaheemMitha You may have but I've been running like crazy these past few days. You've given me a couple of example sets, not the whole thing.\

Faheem Mitha

One sec, let me check the notes i made.

slm

@Ramesh sorry I hadn't already uv'd it

Faheem Mitha

@terdon If you are too busy, don't worry about it. You'll just exhaust yourself.

derobert

@FaheemMitha Server bug, I'd guess. Not much to do about that other than work around it.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Hmm. Ok.

terdon

6:14 PM

@FaheemMitha Busy and tetchy. Sorry about that.

Ramesh

@terdon Wow just like my professor asks me questions :)

derobert

@slm There, 100 now. Did you get a badge?

terdon

@Ramesh :)

Faheem Mitha

@derobert yes, i made a note earlier -

# NOTE: wget -c http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/V00813&display=fasta -O V00813.fasta

# does not work. See http://www.metalife.com/Genbank/J00586_197753

I think that sums it up. What happens is this sequence has two freaking accession numbers. Freaking biologists.

Ramesh

@derobert No.

Faheem Mitha

6:15 PM

ebl can't find it with one, so it uses the other.

The method in that note is using a direct wget, which just returns the web page. dbfetch is a bit smarter apparently, but it still breaks the script, it seems. I should have noticed this earlier, instead of bothering all of you. I think it is worth writing to EBL, in case there is someone there who has a clue.

derobert

@FaheemMitha also, about that wget line. It's somewhat dangerous as if there is an issue (say connection reset during transfer), your output file is corrupted. You probably want to download to a temporary file using just -O tempfile instead of that -O - >> file trick.

Then of course you only do a cat tempfile >> file if the wget is OK.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Ok. and redirect afterwards?

@derobert Parsing it first, you mean?

derobert

@FaheemMitha Yeah. Or at minimum at least checking wget's exit code. Should be non-zero, I'd hope, in case of a connection reset during transfer (etc.)

Faheem Mitha

@derobert to summarize, your suggestion is - download, check if it didn't get something, then ask for that remaining stuff?

derobert

Yep.

Faheem Mitha

6:18 PM

@derobert that sounds like a plan.

derobert

Make sure not to go into an infinite re-request loop though. That'd not be nice.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert So, add a timeout after a few retries?

Sounds like a job for unix.sx. :-)

derobert

@FaheemMitha well, or just abort if you're not making progress.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Sorry, I meant abort. Not sure why I wrote timeout.

Well, World War 3 seems to be winding down...

afk for a few min.

Ramesh

Well if there is world war III, and If you were stuck on a desert island with only 5 command-line utilities, which would you choose?

I agree with mattdm here.
http://serverfault.com/questions/225946/what-are-your-best-senior-level-linux-interview-questions/226007#comment202990_226007

derobert

6:25 PM

@Ramesh Does perl count?

Oh, and busybox.

Ramesh

What kernel options might you need to tune?

So, does configuring things in /etc/sysctl.conf file be related to kernel options?

Tyler Maginnis

eww

Faheem Mitha

@derobert so, what is your diagnosis wrt that command line? how about this hypothesis: it did a redirect for the V00813 -> J00586 thing, and then doesn't know how to get back to what it was doing?

If so, it seems wget handles redirects transparently, with no output. Maybe with a -v?

No apparently not.

@Ramesh how about emacs?

and mercurial?

@terdon Well, let's try to answer these. So, the accession numbers come from that list of RSS sequences I pasted to you earlier - they are in the comment string for those sequences. I dug it out myself; those Italian people were not very helpful. After searching at random on the net, i discovered that french place had them, so went with that. Apparently they are EBI accession numbers. No idea about that.

@terdon "Can they be different accessions as well?" If you mean, can the same sequences be located via different accesion numbers, no idea. I've downloaded and used the sequences earlier, yes. Why do I need to be able to download them again? because I don't know if I am allowed to distribute the data with my project. In any case, it is nice to know that you can download stuff if necessary.

derobert

6:45 PM

@FaheemMitha No, there wasn't a redirect, because it was all part of one request. I'm guessing the server did that internally, but got confused...

Hence, server bug.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert If it is world war 3, everyone will die.

@derobert Ok. I'll send a polite email to EBI. Maybe someone there will give a damn, but I'm not holding my breath.

derobert

@FaheemMitha Well, just because everyone else didn't know about eval or $SIG{__DIE__} ain't my problem... ;-)

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Let me guess, more game stuff?

derobert

@FaheemMitha No, those are Perl things. Since you replied to my 'does perl count?' question.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert yes, that was my mistake. I meant to reply to @Ramesh

Once upon a time, the ubuntu web site was called no-name-yet.com. does anyone remember that?

arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/…

Does Ubuntu really have 90% pf the Linux market, and how would they know? Are they just making these numbers up?

derobert

6:50 PM

@FaheemMitha Desktop market, maybe. Doubt it for servers.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Yes, the article doesn't specify. Hmm, I see Shuttleworth is coming to the end of the alphabet. 20 releases, 26 letters. Nothing lasts forever.

derobert

Even for desktop market I'm surprised. I'm sure they're the largest, but 90% is a lot.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Yes, maybe Canonicals marketing team just made that up. I think there are a lot of people still using RH. Before Ubuntu came along, they were dominant.

Particularly in the US.

derobert

@FaheemMitha He'll just need to pick a new alphabet. Quite a few left to go through. Maybe there will soon be a Ubuntu release starting with Α (not A, though they look the same).

Faheem Mitha

And nobody knows how many people are using Debian, for example.

@derobert Unlikely.

You could get some kind of idea by collecting IDs that hit Debian mirrors worldwide, but Debian doesn't do that of course. And if a server admin released that kind of info publicly, he'd probably be crucified.

derobert

7:20 PM

@FaheemMitha IDs? You mean IPs? I don't think apt-get sends an ID.

Not to mention, all the big installs probably have local package caches to save on bandwidth.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Yes, IPs. I was speaking loosely.

@derobert Not individual users, though.

Big installs don't count. They don't correspond to users. Well, not supercomputers or server install farms anyway.

derobert

7:35 PM

@FaheemMitha No, there are big desktop installs, too.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert There are?

derobert

E.g., all the desktops at some large organization.

debian.org/users has a bunch

Anyway, lunch time.

Faheem Mitha

7:49 PM

@derobert Oh

Yes, I've seen that list. I even tried to add a past employer to it once.

Faheem Mitha

8:11 PM

lwn.net/Articles/616078

from LWNs quotes of the week.

Ramesh

8:39 PM

can we close this one against the canonical question we have?

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh go for it

done

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha Thanks. I also vtc.

Faheem Mitha

those could possibly be merged.

@Ramesh btw, if you do yoga, you want to go to classes. doing it alone doesn't work in the long term, at least in my experience.

Ramesh

8:55 PM

@FaheemMitha who told I am doing it alone? :)

I go to the yoga class. It is a hot yoga class where they set the temperature at 105

casey

no thanks. Anything above 75 F is a place I don't want to be

Ramesh

@casey, first I was also scared when they told 105. But it's kind of nice to sweat out.

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh Sorry, I just assumed.

casey

yea but at 105 you'll accomplish that just sitting on a couch :)

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh Ugh. Fashionable, but a bad idea, imo. I think you could injure yourself. And even if you don't it's really uncomfortable. Try to find a yoga class run by non-crazy people.

Even at 60F you get really warmed up if you are actually doing anything.

Ramesh

9:02 PM

@FaheemMitha 105 is hardly anything compared to the temp I grew up with.

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh Seriously?

casey

thats why I still eat lead paint, must be fine since I grew up around it...

Faheem Mitha

@casey :-)

@Ramesh Do you mind me asking where that was? Presumably not the surface of the sun.

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha It's trichy. Southern part of India.

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh I know it's hot there, but I didn't think it was that hot.

Ramesh

9:05 PM

105 was little over exaggerated. But yeah, I used to play outside when the temp was constantly touching 40 degree celcius.

Faheem Mitha

Dry heat, though, I assume.

Ramesh

Nah, we had humidity.

do anyone have experience with preventing static shocks?

Faheem Mitha

@derobert wrt that wget call, if the call only returns some of the ids, do you think it makes more sense to just ask for a single id the next time?

@Ramesh What context?

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha Normally I get it during winter times when I touch doors or sometimes when I shake hands with someone.

Faheem Mitha

I think you either touch something grounded frequently/repeatedly, or use a wrist strap/ i'm assuming you mean in connection with computer hardware work.

@Ramesh Oh, apparently you didn't.

what kind of footwear do you have?

Ramesh

9:15 PM

@FaheemMitha Normal sport shoes.

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh Hmm, not sure. rubber soles?

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha I tried changing shoes couple of times. But still get it.

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh Dunno. Never experienced it myself. Is it a problem for you?

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha not a problem. But some minor annoyance.

Faheem Mitha

@Ramesh ok. Don't have any other concrete suggestions to offer. Other than, try not to give your advisor shocks. I'm speaking literally here, of course.

youtube.com/watch?v=aJzYF8FXmRE <- GOOD STUFF

derobert

10:30 PM

@FaheemMitha Well, it worked when I asked it for the remaining IDs, so...

@Ramesh Yes. Install a humidifier.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert so just ask for all the remaining ones?

@derobert he can't carry it around with hm.

derobert

@FaheemMitha Worked when I tried it. Its hard to be sure the best approach, as we're trying to work around an unknown bug in a web service.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert True. I wrote to ebl. they have a contact form.

derobert

@Ramesh as for things you can carry around with you, the most sure is a 1-10 MOhm resistor. Discharge through that, and you'll never be shocked.

Faheem Mitha

Off to sleep, possibly. Take care, guys.

derobert

10:35 PM

@Ramesh the other is a piece of metal you can get a good grip on. A house key works well. Hold it firmly, and discharge it to something. You'll get a zap possibly at the end of the key (so discharge to something it won't damage), but you shouldn't be zapped because the charge is going through a larger area of you.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Good suggestions.

derobert

I seem to vaguely recall that the MOhm resistor idea was something that Feynman suggested somewhere. Though even if that's true, doubt he came up with it.

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