The Comms Room

5:01 PM

Today's News
Virtual Lab: Using HPC Services for Excel 2010 to Accelerate a Pricing Sensitivity Calculation

HPC Server 2008 R2 and Excel 2010 provide a way to combine the productivity of Office with the computational power of high performance computing. In this lab, we will take a look at a simple pricing sensitivity workbook highlighting the benefits of using Excel 2010 with Windows HPC Server.
Natalia Vinokhodova
http://bit.ly/fYIY4r

Murali Suriar

@NiallDonegan: yeah, same at our place.

You running dual stack, or v6 only?

fahadsadah

I don't think anyone runs v6 only today

Murali Suriar

There are a few people doing it; some of the speakers at the 2010 Google v6 conference talked about their experiences.

It's very much in the research/education space at the moment, but with DNS64 and NAT64 it is definitely possible.

Niall Donegan

@MuraliSuriar Dual stack. Too much work we do requires IPv4

@MuraliSuriar I'm working on a personal project at the moment where there's 2 external IPv4 address, internal communication is all IPv6 between numerous Xen instances. With a bog standard Debian squeeze install, the only thing that proved a problem was MySQL. However, I'm using django, so it only took a few minutes to move over to Postgres!

Murali Suriar

Nice!

Niall Donegan

5:15 PM

The people using it don't give a crap what happens internally anyway.

Murali Suriar

I'm half tempted to pick up an SRX-100 or something so that I can start playing with v6 properly. I'd be interested in testing behaviour with multiple prefixes etc, as well as just seeing how easy it is to host stuff on v6 at the moment.

Niall Donegan

@MuraliSuriar Apache, Varnish, ProFTPD, Postfix, Postgres, OpenSSH, Dovecot and memcached have all worked without issue so far.

Sendmail and Exim also work well. Haven't tried QMail (spit) but I presume it needs a patch of some type.

You can also add Bind, NSD and Unbound to the above list.

Sam

5:46 PM

Why is it I have to travel to London, 3 hours away, 4 times over 2 weeks, for 9.30 "Planning" meetings that could all be achieved just as easily over the phone!!

Sorry, silly clients!

Niall Donegan

@Sam They want to make sure you exist?

Sam

Maybe, maybe I can construct some sort of monitor+webcam on wheels I can send in my stead

fahadsadah

@Sam Virtual presence device.

Not a new concept.

Sam

true, getting it to ride the train to London might be though :)

WesleyDavid

Qik on a mobile phone

Kyle Brandt

5:54 PM

@sysadmin1138: I don't fully follow you ...

Are you saying "Close instead of migrate crappy questions" ?

sysadmin1138

@KyleBrandt Pretty much, yes.

Kyle Brandt

Ah okay, might want to slip that in there :-)

sysadmin1138

"So please, when voting to close, if it is a crappy question just close it. Don't take the easy way out and send it somewhere else for them to be mean. "

That better?

Chris S

@MuraliSuriar Some phone provider in the US was doing a test market of IPv6 only. T-Mobile I think, but could be wrong.

They used NAT64 and DNS64 to provide IPv4 connectivity, I think last I saw the results were extremely positive.

sysadmin1138

@ChrisS I'll have to read up on that. I know Comcast has done some work in that regard.

Chris S

6:00 PM

But they were also tightly controlling the apps available on the phones, basically to insure they were IPv6 compatible.

Quick Google, I think this is realted: groups.google.com/group/tmoipv6beta

sysadmin1138

Thanks!

Kyle Brandt

@sysadmin1138: Perfect for the tl;dr people :-)

sysadmin1138

Yay!

Robert Moir

6:19 PM

treated myself to a kinect today

packs

@RobertMoir Finally saw one of those over the weekend. Found it rather fun.

Robert Moir

I can report two things: Firstly, I'm bloody unfit according to the fitness evolved game. And secondly, it really is a neat bit of kit.

I agree, it looks like great fun on the built in sports game thing

whether or not i'll still think its "fun", exactly, once i've been sticking to the fitness routine for a while is another question

packs

We tried out the new Force Unleashed. I was really let down that it wasn't a kinect game. I would only have been able to play 15 minutes at a time, but man would it be fun.

Robert Moir

i think they missed a trick there. If you're star wars fan enough to buy a game then you're probably star wars fan enough to want to make with the lightsaber moves for 'real'

and at 15 minutes gameplay at a time like you say, they wouldn't have people complaining that games were too short ever again

packs

Of they would be responsible for the highest rate of heart failure in gaming since Starcraft hit Korea.

Robert Moir

6:27 PM

this is true

Warner

You're not making this easy, @WesleyNonapeptide. ;)

voretaq7

@Warner Nothing worth doing is easy. Now explain again to the users why "password" is a terrible password :-)

Sam

@warner what's life without challenges :) @WesleyNonapeptide any constructive criticism you have on my introduction or question answers is greatly received, i know i'm not the worlds best speech writer!

Dan

Anyone use Cacti?

voretaq7

@Dan I'm a recovering Cacti user

Dan

6:33 PM

Quick question. In general, what makes a device "unknown"

Sam

@WesleyNonapeptide and I shall answer the culture question as soon as I get home

voretaq7

in my environment it almost always meant "some fool shut off snmpd"

Dan

i'm annoyed at similar devices not working. ie: 2 win 2003 enterprise server, 1 is "up" the other is "unknown", same with 2 Cisco 800 series boxes

WesleyDavid

@Sam no prob, thanks for answering the first Q

I think the SF moderator election should be a remix of the "Like a BOSS" song

"Like a MOD!"

Robert Moir

awww but i wanted it to be more like On A Boat

WesleyDavid

6:35 PM

"Puke on Deborah's desk - Like a MOD"

Warner

It seems I should clarify some positions. I hope to have opportunity to give it the attention deserved later this weekend.

WesleyDavid

@Warner Hey, not to worry. We're all busy.

Chris S

I'm genuinely suprised at how a couple people seem to have let their personal feelings (vendettas) for others spill into the nominations page of the election. It's your right and responsibility to vote as you please and discuss your reasons for voting via appropriate channels. It's another to hijack a candidates introduction for to nit-pick profiles, opinions, and linguistics.

2

packs

@sysadmin1138 Interesting stats on the closes. Thanks for doing that.

sysadmin1138

You're welcome! Some data are hard to get at, and it seems relevant.

YordanGeorgiev

6:49 PM

Jee is this chat written in C# entirely ?

packs

Not intending to make you do more, but what's your feel for the number of migrates over to webmaster?

sysadmin1138

Pretty small. We're getting more than sending. In close-voting I'm seeing some votes that direction on questions that get outright off-topic-closed, but that's a stat I can't get to :P

packs

Are you implying that there is something you can' t do?

Warner

It seems we've gotten better over the past few months with closing as opposed to migrating poor questions.

sysadmin1138

I am not yet God. The application is pending.

@Warner I think you're right.

Chris S

7:04 PM

@Warner Agreed, I think the Meta discussion(s) on that really helped to solidify our response to those types of questions.

Popular Demand

rm -rf /

sysadmin1138

See?

Warner

Indeed, @ChrisS. One of our more successful initiatives on meta by far.

Was that Easter egg ever added?

sysadmin1138

Last I checked it works.

Warner

rm -rf /

wow

awesome

I didn't realize it was added, that's fun.

Ward

7:10 PM

rm -rf /

nice

packs

rm -f /

Evan Anderson

I feel like this might be one of those tricks where you stand on the street looking up to get other people to do the same, but here goes...

rm -rf /

Warner

haha

Evan Anderson

w

Heh heh... cute.

Iain

rm -rf /

packs

7:12 PM

@EvanAnderson I know how you feel. I'm still waiting for something to happen

ps -ef

Chris S

rm -rf /

Evan Anderson

@packs: Recursive delete...

packs

@EvanAnderson I know what the command is supposed to do in actual usage.

Evan Anderson

@packs: You didn't specify a '-r', though, just a '-f'...

packs

shit

Evan Anderson

7:13 PM

Give it another try.

packs

rm -rf /

Chris S

@packs In most modern *nix systems it errors saying you're dumb for trying...

packs

cute

Evan Anderson

You gotta remove all the files! >smile<

sysadmin1138

rm -rf /etc/*

Evan Anderson

7:14 PM

This is great. We've found a way to make many sysadmins all type "rm -rf /" nearly simultaneously. Just make sure the right window has focus!

8

sysadmin1138

heee.

WesleyDavid

@EvanAnderson Now you tell me. Time to go check the backup tapes...

Warner

Suddenly, NO CARRIER

Portions of the Internet go black..

packs

[sudo] password for EvanAnderson:

Warner

ha

WesleyDavid

7:16 PM

Suddenly, we're living in a Mad Max meets Waterworld civilization.

packs

Well, it had to be tried.

Chris S

`rm -rf /`
`rm: "/" may not be removed`
Just did it on a live system... You can `cd /; rm -rf ./` it's not totally idiot proof.

Evan Anderson

@ChrisS: Clearly, then, the answer is just to overwrite the root volume with /dev/zero using dd.

Nuke it from orbit. That's the only way to be sure. >smile<

Chris S

@EvanAnderson That'd work until it crashed... probably hose the file system a good one too.

packs

@EvanAnderson That is usually my answer to most problems that start with, 'So this web server a grad student built 5 years ago is acting funny...'

Evan Anderson

7:25 PM

@ChrisS: I'm tempted to spin up a VM just to try. Provided you did the dd trick in single user mode I think it'd "finish" fine.

@packs: A known-quantity is certainly a nice starting place. I do so love it when circumstance works out to make it practical to level and rebuild. I wish it happened more often, or that development culture would change and eschew the accretion of cruft that occurs in most OS's today.

Warner

Wow, I didn't realize rm was modified like that. What distro, @ChrisS?

Evan Anderson

I've avoided serious work for too long today. Time to shove off.

packs

@EvanAnderson Luckily I am in the position of being able to force a rebuild in most situations. When confronted with the possibility of actually rebuilding, we often learn the system served no useful service in the first place.

Chris S

@Warner FreeBSD 8.2PR is where that was copied from. It's been in FreeBSD for a while now. I know some Linux distros have picked it up too.

voretaq7

@ChrisS I'm... mildly offended by that

Chris S

7:33 PM

@voretaq7 ?

voretaq7

that they would make a special case for "/" in rm

Chris S

@voretaq7 If you're smart enough to use rm -fr / responsibly, you're smart enough to know other ways to accomplish the same thing.

voretaq7

@ChrisS granted, and I suppose it's a good idea as regards preventing a fat-fingered rm -rf / usr/local/whatever

exit

lol i like that egg

it bugs me mostly b/c it won't catch "all" ways to blow away /

Jason Berg

rm -rf /

ls

awesomeness :-)

voretaq7

I wonder if there's a while(1) { fork();} easter egg on StackOverflow ;)

Chris S

7:42 PM

del /S /Q *.*

those are the only two (that I know of)

jscott

@ChrisS If you speak Javascript and don't mind spoilers, you can RTFS: or.sstatic.net/chat/Js/master-chat.js

Where "F" is "fine".

voretaq7

@jscott That takes the fun out of it :(

jscott

@voretaq7 [SPOILERS]

voretaq7

@jscott DAMNIT I haven't seen that episode yet!

::plugs ears, closes eyes and hums REALLY LOUD::

Chris S

@jscott Where do you think I figured out the del line from? I don't see any others.

I see an interesting Cthulu function; but not sure how to trigger it yet.

Murali Suriar

7:55 PM

OK then - just to prove I'm one of the sheeple...

rm -rf /

ls

packs

@ChrisS Based on this room's page source, I don't think it gets loaded.

Chris S

@MuraliSuriar try del /S /Q *.* while you're at it.

Murali Suriar

del /S /Q .

Chris S

what you type in goes to the chat however

Murali Suriar

Nice touch. :)

WesleyDavid

7:57 PM

Wonder what happens with my favorite bash joke

% cat "food in cans"

Chris S

@packs Yeah, looks like another script has to call it. And since it's talking about HTML and Regex I assume it's for the webmaster rooms or possibly SO.

WesleyDavid

Boo.

packs

@ChrisS That was my assumption as well.

Chris S

Not called in webmasters....

might be unimplemented I guess..

Murali Suriar

@ChrisS @NiallDonegan @sysadmin1138 sites.google.com/site/ipv6implementors/2010/videos

A bunch of really interesting talks up there.

Including one from the T-Mobile guy talking about v6 only in mobile networks, among other things.

Chris S

8:01 PM

@MuraliSuriar Nice, I'll have to watch those this weekend.

Murali Suriar

(Sorry, just saw the @ replies from earlier)

Chris S

@MuraliSuriar That the beauty of chat with backlog. Gotta love it.

Murali Suriar

Mmm.

More interestingly, it appears in the 'stackexchange network message count' when you log in to any of the sites.

Which is cool. :)

Still wish there was an IRC interface, but ho hum. :)

well, IRC or XMPP

Chris S

I think there is a Beta interface working somewhere. Seemed like people were really gungho about it, then lost interest.

Iszi

rm -rf /

ls

exit

oh interesting

voretaq7

8:09 PM

:-)

user65712

8:27 PM

cool

wonder if this has an IRC backend

Zoredache

@user65712, I don't think so. Not from some of Jeff's anti-irc comments.

voretaq7

@Zoredache no great loss - IRC is pretty much a wasteland these days ::emo-tear::

sysadmin1138

@user65712 No, nor will it ever from what I've heard.

Zoredache

@voretaq7, freenode, has occasionally has some pretty interesting conversations if you attend one of the scheduled open-source-software IRC meetings.

voretaq7

@Zoredache haven't spent much time of freenode but people say it's got a lower suck quotient

WesleyDavid

8:40 PM

I never noticed much of a difference between major IRC networks Freenode/Undernet/Efnet

I thought they all had pretty much the same suck quotient.

With gems for channels interspersed in the muck.

Murali Suriar

8:51 PM

I've never really participated in IRC networks, I just like it as a communications medium. Used it a lot at university, and to keep in touch with my gaming clan.

I'm a little annoyed they don't have XMPP integration at least.

Chris S

@user65712 Backend is MS SQL and IIS (ASP.NET IIRC, could be wrong); Front end as you see is mostly JS (jQuery).

voretaq7

@MuraliSuriar Part of it is the "you need at least X rep to talk in chat" thing -- connecting to a back-end that doesn't support that could potentially hose the signal-to-noise ratio in chat

sysadmin1138

Quick-poll: what is the more correct tag, [archlinux] or [arch-linux]?

voretaq7

@sysadmin1138 I prefer [arch-linux] because it's easier to read

kenny.r

I also vote [arch-linux] fwiw.

sysadmin1138

9:01 PM

That's the way I'm leaning.

Zoredache

I would be tempted to go with archlinux. Usually the tags with hyphens are used to break up separate terms. In this case the name is 'archlinux'.

sysadmin1138

And that's why I haven't just gone and retagged everything.

kenny.r

The <title> tag on their website says Arch Linux though, two words.

Zoredache

Can't we just get archlinux to rename their project? It is a poor name anyway.

user65712

@ChrisS thanks for the info

Zoredache

9:05 PM

Right but we frequently say [windows-server], or [windows-vista] in both cases it seems like it could be [windows] [server] and [windows] [vista]. Would that make sense for archlinux...

There really aren't that many questions, so I don't really care much either way.

voretaq7

@Zoredache if we stick with the Windows convention they should all be [linux-arch] or [linux-debian], which I kinda like for a bunch of reasons.

it's weird for Linux tho because the distros can be radically different or almost identical depending on what we're talking about

sysadmin1138

@voretaq7 That was a debate we had a while back, maybe even on MSO back in the day. People tag things with their names, so someone on ubuntu will type "ub" into the tag-line, see what the popups are, and pick one.

Zoredache

BTW, I just proposed several synonyms for IIS related tags. It seems we have several [iisversion] and [iis-version]. I would prefer the [iis-version], but the [iisversion] was far more popular, so I went with the crowd.

Chris S

@voretaq7 I tend to agree except separating them makes it sound like Arch is a/the category.

voretaq7

@sysadmin1138 yeah, I vaguely remember reading that debate. either way we wind up adding tags to stuff...

Murali Suriar

9:12 PM

@voretaq7 yeah, fair point. I've used various IRC servers (mainly in a work setting) where +v was only granted once you'd authenticated against $SSO system.

The coolest one was one that further used LDAP to determine whether you had the right to join a particular channel.

Needs a bunch of backend work though.

sysadmin1138

Hm, SuperUser seems to have merged into [arch-linux].

Yep, they even set up a synonym.

voretaq7

@sysadmin1138 makes sense to follow them then

Chris S

@voretaq7 Follow SuperUser? Did relativity just break?

sysadmin1138

I set up a synonym vote, but I'm pretty sure we have zero users who can vote for it. A mod'll have to do it.

voretaq7

@ChrisS hush, I'm trying to go back in time and stop SMTP from being invented!

@ChrisS everyone keeps trying to stop me from doing things that would destroy the space-time continuum whine

Chris S

9:27 PM

@sysadmin1138 that voting requirement really blows. =/

sysadmin1138

Yeeaaaaah.

Murali Suriar

What's the threshold?

sysadmin1138

Five upvotes in the tag.

Murali Suriar

Arg.

voretaq7

@MuraliSuriar it's not a terrible threshold really

sysadmin1138

9:37 PM

Makes it hard to clean up minor tags, at least here on SF.

Murali Suriar

It's not a terrible threshold, but I'd argue that people with high rep should be able to vote on them too.

Particularly in the case of specialist tags, or tags that really belong under a broader topic.

voretaq7

@sysadmin1138 true...

@MuraliSuriar Being able to vote if you have 5 upvotes on either of the tags (merge target or merge subject) might make more sense

Ben

So I think I'm a little late for this party, but here goes ayway....

rm -rf /

ls

Heh awesome

voretaq7

my favorite easter egg of the year so far

Ben

Indeed

sysadmin1138

9:46 PM

There are more of them in there, but I can't read .js

Ben

Now where is @WesleyDavid - damn you for making me have to think :-)

Again :P

voretaq7

@Ben Don't do that. Thinking is bad: It kills brain cells.

Ben

If I forget everything, I'm sooo holding Wesley responsible

WesleyDavid

I'm back. What was my name invoked for?

Ben

Also damn you to @sysadmin1138 for a very comprehensive answer to the Server Fault culture!

WesleyDavid

9:51 PM

@Ben Ah yes, my moderator questions.

Ben

Meh, it's me. I'm just damning everyone in sight at the moment lol

WesleyDavid

I think the moderator candidates, and I speak this without trying to be confrontational at all, seem to forget that being a moderator is more than just button mashing. A moderator will direct the culture of a site regardless of if that's their intent.

2

sysadmin1138

@Ben In my defense, I'm an essayist by nature. Keeping it under 500 words was HARD. There is a reason I blog.

WesleyDavid

For example, Evan Anderson is the highest ranking person here. However, it seems to be a human trait that we ascribe more importance to those in a "official" position of leadership. For example, what Karen Marfia sayswill have a greater affect on what people think of ServerFault than what Evan says even though she's I think the lowest rep'd mod aside from Jeff.

So when I first got here and noticed that Karen was a really nice person, I thought "Wow, a mod who rocks. I like this place"

I don't remember my impression of anyone when I first got here except the two mods that I had some interaction with: Karen and Splattne. I think my experience is not unusual.

So whoever gets mod-ship will by necessity effect the culture of this site. Whoever becomes a mod will effect people's perception of the entire site. A site lives and dies by it's mods. No matter how awesome the contributors are, the mods both direct the culture and give the public its perception of the culture.

So I'm trying to ask more touch-feely questions in the meta thread for the candidates to think hard on that.

Ben

They are good (and relevant) questions, so I say bring 'em on. The more people know about the candidates views, the better informed they will be when they vote (IMO).

packs

9:59 PM

@Ben Unquestioned. I have always preferred a well informed vote that was contrary to my own opinion over one that I agreed with and uninformed.

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