Root Access

huh, since when was associating users with votes personal information? it's not like SE is protected under HIPAA

12:17 AM

all I see are a bunch of removed messages. what were you trying to tell me?

Checked the privacy policy, votes by themselves do not constitute personal information because they are anonymized. Not sure about the association between votes and the users that casted them, however.

I think you're trying to argue whether they're confidential, not whether they are personal info

12:47 AM

Hmm.. wondering how many hacks it would take to get some sort of V86 to run natively on a 64-bit machine..

how did the guys at v86-64.sourceforge.net do it?

and the wine devs?

hmm, it's virtualized..

@oldmud0 x86 virtualization isn't exactly easy when done entirely in software. It doesn't meet the Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements in the absence of hardware assistance (which fortunately is available on nearly all x86-64 processors today).

still, one day I would like to just double-click on a 16-bit application and just have it run, without having to start up DOSBox, set up the drives, change to the dir I want, ....

Running 16-bit real-mode applications on an x64 processor in long mode requires a virtual machine.

sure, that's reasonable. but how could you make that as seamless as possible?

Probably needs a kernel-mode driver.

12:55 AM

Yep

and everybody is waiting for that day that one developer decides to make a kernel-mode driver for NTVDM64

/me googles NTVDM64

sourceforge.net/projects/nxvdm

When you click on an executable, Windows tries to execute it. You'd need to intercept the internal error condition that causes the "This app can't run on your PC" error and launch the virtual machine to execute the software. You'd probably need to write kernel-mode code to do this.

Not too familiar with how Windows launches applications, but you'd probably have to intercept the return value or result of CreateProcess(), check the error, and launch the VM after determining that the application is 16-bit real mode.

Else, you'd have to intercept the CreateProcess() call, check the application binary, launch the VM if it's 16-bit, and allow CreateProcess() to proceed otherwise.

Well, it looks like you can hook CreateProcess() in user mode, but it looks awfully like malware activity and may be blocked by antimalware software.

Guess I was wrong with some of the earlier comments.

3 mins ago, by DragonLord

Else, you'd have to intercept the CreateProcess() call, check the application binary, launch the VM if it's 16-bit, and allow CreateProcess() to proceed otherwise.

^ This is probably the answer, and it would be done in user mode.

1:27 AM

which could be entirely possible in kernel mode right?

Not so sure.

Programming in user mode is much easier, though.

But can get hacky

Can you tamper with the kernel completely from user mode?

Hang on. I've got an answer to write.

I hate when kaspersky does the random rootkit scans. It kills my hard drive

And I use my computer every day so I don't have time to defrag

A: Why is my Seagate USB 3.0 drive showing corrupted data when plugged as an internal SATA drive?

1:42 AM

0

The enclosure exposes the drive to the computer as an Advanced Format 4Kn device. This allows the use of MBR in order to retain compatibility with Windows XP systems. When the drive is removed from the enclosure, the change in logical sector format results in an invalid partition table. Externa...

External hard drives >2 TB in capacity do some pretty weird things to maintain compatibility with Windows XP.

2:12 AM

I think I have an idea for the Super User Blog: Hard drive enclosures performing 512e to 4Kn conversion.

@allquixotic: meow

Write it. We need more blog posts ;p

Is @IvoFlipse available?

@JourneymanGeek, are you able to approve blog posts?

allquixotic

@DragonLord can you expand on what you mean by "512e to 4kn conversion"?

I'm interested in those words but for a different reason. I have a hardware RAID array (RAID-10) originally created by an Adaptec 6405E, which only supports 512e. Now I have an 8805, which supports 4kn. The disks themselves are 4kn, but the sector size is still 512 because that's how they were initialized. Any way to convert without reformatting?

2:28 AM

I'm working on it.

The drive is 512e when connected directly to a computer. However, the enclosure makes the drive appear to be 4Kn.

Answer updated.

@DragonLord Not as far as I know

hm

meta.stackexchange.com/a/267752/135565 actually a more detailed, handholdy answer than I'd planned, but no one can say us mods don't make the effort ;)

2:46 AM

Oct 6 at 19:54, by Michael Frank

@xCare Remember, it's not a competition! Nobody that matters realllllly cares about a users rep. Quality over quantity.

Oct 6 at 23:24, by DragonLord

@MichaelFrank This is the philosophy behind every answer I write. I don't post an answer unless I can actually answer the question definitively.

Oct 6 at 23:42, by Michael Frank

@DragonLord Which really sucks when you know the answer, but you don't have the time to write it all down. :P

I fear this is holding me back.

3:03 AM

@DragonLord: Its not a contest

I typically write a blog entry over months

3:19 AM

Took me a while to write this interesting query

Users with 10 or more posts that have the highest average post score

I wish I could get decimal values from the post score average, though.

Anonymous

@Bob who needs kies when you have android debug bridge

Anonymous

@oldmud0 something that does subpixel rendering but not in a subtle way?

A: Precision of aggregate function on 'INTERVAL HOUR TO MINUTE' datatype in SQL

Why can't I get decimal values for the post score average?

facedesk

SELECT
  DisplayName,
  Users.Id,
  Reputation,
  count(*) AS PostCount,
  CAST(avg(Score) AS DECIMAL(7,2)) AS AverageScore
FROM
  Users
    INNER JOIN Posts ON (Users.Id = Posts.OwnerUserId)
GROUP BY
  DisplayName,
  Users.Id,
  Reputation
HAVING
  count(*) >= 10
ORDER BY
  AverageScore DESC,
  PostCount DESC;

Can someone help me with the SQL here?

data.stackexchange.com/superuser/query/edit/374593

An aggregate function like avg() is supposed to return a decimal value even if all of its inputs are integers!

2

An aggregate function such as avg() has to return the general form of an interval, as the average of multiple values can lie in between. This will definitely not change in future releases. Also, the datatypes are identical internally. Just the least significant parts get truncated. The behavior ...

3:40 AM

@PatoSáinz I expected somebody to say Mac... :(

@oldmud0: I don't think anyone on at the moment has a mac ;p

Fixed it. I got the CAST() syntax wrong.

Good. I hate macs.

hi

any mods in?

yeah, journeyman

Anonymous

3:49 AM

@oldmud0 meaning, Mac

thanks.

@JourneymanGeek you there?

well it's not mac, it's windows

come to the other room when you get back

Here's the fixed query:

SELECT
  DisplayName,
  Users.Id,
  Reputation,
  count(*) AS PostCount,
  format(avg(CAST(Score AS FLOAT)), '#,###.000') AS AverageScore
FROM
  Users
    INNER JOIN Posts ON (Users.Id = Posts.OwnerUserId)
GROUP BY
  DisplayName,
  Users.Id,
  Reputation
HAVING
  count(*) >= 10
ORDER BY
  AverageScore DESC,
  PostCount DESC;

3:56 AM

perhaps some of you guys know the answer to this one..

If I delete an answer or question, do changes that affect points like upvotes or downvotes, favoriting, etc.. go away?

XKCD

4:09 AM

"Wait, so in this version is Frankenstein also the doctor's name?" "No, he's just 'The Doctor'."

@xCare most of that stuff gets refunded for the most part. if your question got downvoted to death you get your rep back, but if a mod killed your 1000 vote nice question then you lose most of it