Root Access

DragonLord

00:00

The script runs 0300 hours Zulu (11 pm EDT).

347

Q: What is serial voting and how does it affect me?

I just noticed that I lost a bunch of points from my reputation score on Stack Overflow, and I used the "reputation" tab on my user profile page to try and track down the cause. During my investigation, I noticed there was an unusual event of type "reversal". In the normal place of a question ti...

If the condition persists and you've waited more than 24 hours, please contact Stack Exchange directly (investigation of suspicious voting patterns involves personal information which cannot be disclosed under the Privacy Policy; votes are intended to be anonymous, so the association between votes and users is protected personal information).

Clear question with examples

Thank you

Ok

oldmud0

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

oldmud0

00:17

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

DragonLord

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.

oldmud0

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

oldmud0

00:47

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..

DragonLord

@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).

oldmud0

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, ....

DragonLord

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

oldmud0

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

DragonLord

Probably needs a kernel-mode driver.

oldmud0

00:55

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

DragonLord

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.

oldmud0

01:27

which could be entirely possible in kernel mode right?

DragonLord

Not so sure.

Programming in user mode is much easier, though.

oldmud0

But can get hacky

Can you tamper with the kernel completely from user mode?

DragonLord

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

oldmud0

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

DragonLord

01:42

0

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

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.

DragonLord

02:12

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

@allquixotic: meow

Journeyman Geek

Write it. We need more blog posts ;p

DragonLord

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?

DragonLord

02:28

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.

Journeyman Geek

@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 ;)

DragonLord

02:46

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.

Journeyman Geek

03:03

@DragonLord: Its not a contest

I typically write a blog entry over months

DragonLord

03:19

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?

DragonLord

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

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

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 ...

oldmud0

03:40

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

Journeyman Geek

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

DragonLord

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

oldmud0

Good. I hate macs.

xCare

hi

any mods in?

oldmud0

yeah, journeyman

Anonymous

03:49

@oldmud0 meaning, Mac

xCare

thanks.

@JourneymanGeek you there?

oldmud0

well it's not mac, it's windows

xCare

come to the other room when you get back

oldmud0

DragonLord

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;

xCare

03:56

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

04:09

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

oldmud0

@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

DragonLord

Fixed a sorting bug.

-- MinPosts: Include only users with at least this many posts:
SELECT
  DisplayName,
  Users.Id,
  Reputation,
  count(*) AS PostCount,
  FORMAT(AVG(CAST(Score AS FLOAT)), '#,###,##0.000') AS AverageScore
FROM
  Users
    INNER JOIN Posts ON (Users.Id = Posts.OwnerUserId)
GROUP BY
  DisplayName,
  Users.Id,
  Reputation
HAVING
  count(*) >= ##MinPosts:INT##
ORDER BY
  AVG(CAST(Score AS FLOAT)) DESC,
  PostCount DESC;

Bob

04:40

@oldmud0 It gets locked in after a while, IIRC.

DragonLord

Even better:

-- MinPosts: Include only users with at least this many posts:
-- MinAverageScore: Include only users whose posts average at least this score:
SELECT
  DisplayName,
  Users.Id,
  Reputation,
  count(*) AS PostCount,
  FORMAT(AVG(CAST(Score AS FLOAT)), '#,###,##0.000') AS AverageScore
FROM
  Users
    INNER JOIN Posts ON (Users.Id = Posts.OwnerUserId)
GROUP BY
  DisplayName,
  Users.Id,
  Reputation
HAVING
  count(*) >= ##MinPosts:INT?10##
  AND AVG(CAST(Score AS FLOAT)) >= ##MinAverageScore:FLOAT?0##

Journeyman Geek

@xCare: Its in the rules somewhere

let me dig it out

oldmud0

wait there are rules

Journeyman Geek

215

Q: How does deleting work? What can cause a post to be deleted, and what does that actually mean? What are the criteria for deletion?

What circumstances can cause a question or answer to be deleted, and what does that actually mean? How can a post be deleted? When can't I delete my own post? Can I see a list of my deleted posts? How can I undelete one of my posts? What does deletion mean for a post? How do votes to delete wo...

support faq delete deleted-questions deleted-answers

@xCare: Worth a read

oldmud0

05:00

s3 or onedrive?

I have 1tb on onedrive

But s3 looks more reliable

DragonLord

05:35

Windows XP is EOL, and converting 512e to 4Kn is an ugly kludge. So don't do it!

4

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

I have a 3TB Seagate Backup Plus Desktop USB 3.0 drive, which works fine when in its enclosure, but when I get it off its enclosure and directly plug it as an internal SATA drive, it's just not properly recognized (it works again when used in the enclosure) When used as an internal SATA drive Wi...

windows-7 hard-drive external-hard-drive sata seagate

There is no need or reason to support Windows XP any more!

Bob

06:22

@DragonLord Yes there is.

Backwards compatibility never ends.

Journeyman Geek

Sure there is. My dad dosen't want to upgrade his old XP box ;)

Bob

Current market share of XP is still >12%. And that's just the internet-connected ones!

That's higher than Windows 8.1. Higher than Windows 10. Higher than OS X altogether!

In an ideal world, supporting them won't be necessary.

Personally, I don't want to support them.

But that's a lot of users.

Enough that it wouldn't be a particularly smart business decision to drop them, without a good reason (no, MS dropping support is not a good enough reason for most cases).

Michael Frank

07:01

@Bob Many of the frontline applications we have won't work on Windows 7. Pretty good reason not to upgrade. :P

Journeyman Geek

07:29

SO... it begins

popped in a few local applications, updated my Careers.SE profile...

I do want to see if resume mkIII has more of an impact

Bob

07:43

@JourneymanGeek Needs some epic music to go with :P

Journeyman Geek

Carmina Burana ~ O Fortuna | Carl Orff ~ André Rieu

►

;p

I have NO idea why the conductor is holding a violin.

DavidPostill

André Rieu

André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu (born 1 October 1949) is a Dutch violinist and conductor best known for creating the waltz-playing Johann Strauss Orchestra. Together they have turned classical and waltz music into a worldwide concert touring act, as successful as some of the biggest global pop and rock music acts. For his work, Rieu has been awarded such honours as the Order of the Netherlands Lion by the Netherlands, the Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France, and the Honorary Medal by his native Province of Limburg. == Early life == The name Rieu is of French Huguenot origin. Rieu...

@JourneymanGeek Because he's a violinist and a conductor ;)

Journeyman Geek

08:29

ahh

Bob

@JourneymanGeek I was thinking more this :P

Journeyman Geek

08:44

or for something more modern youtube.com/…

Hennes

11:17

Oh, Andre is Dutch? For some reason I always assumed he was German.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek if you happen to want more RAM for the NUC => amazon.com/dp/B006YG8X9Y?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Hennes

Hmm, not a bad price.

Bob

Ya.

If anyone else wants a RAM upgrade for a laptop ^

Hennes

I am not sure if I should even try to upgrade my laptop (Dell E6500)

One of these days it is going to fails. Esp. since it has the famous problem with an Nvidia GPU on the Dell motherboard.

Journeyman Geek

11:38

@Bob: my nuc is maxed out ;p

@Hennes: upgrade it with stuff you can reuse? ;p

SSDs are good there

Bob

@JourneymanGeek 16 GB? :P

Journeyman Geek

4

Bob

o.O

Journeyman Geek

its a bay trail

Bob

@JourneymanGeek That's not maxed out!

Replace the 4 with the 8? :P

Ohhhh CPU/chipset limits.

Journeyman Geek

11:39

yup

Hennes

SSDs are good but unneeded for a laptop which usually runs only SSH and a browser

Journeyman Geek

and I don't really need that much ram

and well

No upgrades until I get another job

(none's really needed anyway)

MAYBE the one plus, but that decision is getting put off until I actually get an invite

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Not Nexus? :P

Journeyman Geek

Not really out here yet ;p

The late answers queue seems to be tamed to a huge extent. Awesome work anyone who helped clear it out!

HackToHell

@Bob Damn much cheap

I got 4 gigs for more than that

xCare

13:28

@JourneymanGeek thanks for the link, bookmarked and favorited. I was wondering what would happen if I deleted one of my answers or questions.

Journeyman Geek

14:13

@xCare: Probably nothing, assuming you can

too many deletions/closures results in an automatic ban of questions of that class

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Pretty sure it also depends on your overall rep.

MyDaftQuestions

Hi. I have a PC with HDD. I want to use SSD but only see 2.5". Is it really just a question of buying a metal adapter/housing so it fits in my tower?

Bob

Well, at least I hope so :P

@MyDaftQuestions Yea.

Just about all 2.5" drives will fit in a 3.5" bay.

MyDaftQuestions

Thanks @Bob!

Journeyman Geek

@MyDaftQuestions: Are you still using oldschool IDE?

Bob

14:16

Just grab a caddy. Some drives come with one.

MyDaftQuestions

@JourneymanGeek, not IDE, SATA3

Journeyman Geek

else, just grab a caddy, plug in the same connectors you would to a normal hard drive, and bob's your long lost uncle.

Many modern cases actually have convertable bays.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek I am?

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: See? You're lost.

Bob

Heh, I bought a 4x 2.5" to 5.25" adapter for my new desktop SSD.

Two months ago.

It's still waiting for installation.

MyDaftQuestions

14:18

OK. I assume I have install using W7 and then upgrade to W10 again if I get a new hard drive (I will likely change motherboard/CPU etc so can't clone AFAIK)? And can only do this in the first year of W10 being released to take advantage of it being free

Journeyman Geek

@MyDaftQuestions: You could just image over

or use software that might be available for your SSD to migrate

MyDaftQuestions

@Bob , sorry, are you saying the 2.5" may fit in a 3.5" slot without the housing?

@JourneymanGeek, I didn't I think could image it over if I'm changing hardware

Journeyman Geek

@MyDaftQuestions: It'll sit there, but you probably should get a caddy

@MyDaftQuestions: oh, all the hardware?

then, er, yeah, maybe

MyDaftQuestions

@JourneymanGeek, well, let's assume yes. I'm thinking worse case :D

Journeyman Geek

assuming you manage to transfer the win7 licence

MyDaftQuestions

14:19

This is great news, thank you @bob

and thank you @JourneymanGeek

Have great days

Bob

@MyDaftQuestions It will always fit. But a caddy will secure it.

Some people just tape the drive down (not so good for cooling).

My temporary SSD is just floating unsecured in a 5.25" bay :P

Journeyman Geek

I did that with a 2.5 inch spinning rust drive. Just sat it in the bay

or on top of the bay ._.

Bob

@JourneymanGeek I'm running out of bays.

5x 3.5", 4 filled with HDDs.

Journeyman Geek

@Bob: Mine's got 6 of those, and 4 unused cd drive bays

Bob

@JourneymanGeek 3 ODD bays here, one used so far.

Yes, it's messy.

That's my array of external HDDs :P

Yes, I have a lot of storage.

2TB, 2TB, 5TB, 1.5TB. Top three all Seagate, bottom an old WD.

All currently used for backup archives.

The shoddy cable ties are my poor attempt at keeping the cables somewhat contained.

Journeyman Geek

14:31

@Bob: I cannot recommend velcro cable ties enough

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Eh, velcro wouldn't change this situation much.

This is more-or-less a permanent installation.

(And I have some 5000 cable ties of assorted sizes I need to find uses for :P)

HackToHell

Oh look softlayer allows me to add helluva lot of disks and even create RAID groups

Bob

Hm. I really need to clean that corner, actually.

HackToHell

Going for a 6 TB primary SATA with a 1 TB SSD(for data)

Will be backed up to other places, should I be doing RAID ?

Bob

@HackToHell If you do, you certainly should not be going for a 6TB drive.

In fact, you should not be going for a single 6TB drive, period.

HackToHell

14:35

Does make sense, it was pretty cheap, that's why I added it.

Bob

Now imagine the backup & restore times for such a large volume.

HackToHell

What level RAID should I be going with multiple 1 TB volumes ?

Journeyman Geek

hm. What scares you the most?

HackToHell

Yep, considering the fact that network is limited at 100 Mbps, it's a bad idea

Journeyman Geek

Loss of performance? Downtime? Loss of data?

Bob

14:36

@HackToHell If you can afford it? RAID 10.

HackToHell

Downtime really

Bob

That halves your accessible storage, but is probably the most robust of the common RAID levels.

HackToHell

@Bob we get a helluva lot of credits, RAID 10 feels like overkill

This one's going to be doing processing on data that will be backed up at multiple places

Bob

A step down would be RAID 6.

RAID 5 is generally not recommended.

But it really does depend on the size of the array and the number of drives.

And the type of drives. SAS and NL-SAS generally behave better in RAID than SATA does.

HackToHell

There are SAS disks, but they are way more expensive that normal SATA ones

Hell, we can afford them

Bob

14:47

@HackToHell You do need to consider if it's worth getting them.

Also consider how much downtime you can allow for.

Consider how much damage loss of working data will cause.

HackToHell

yeah, ever since I accidentally annihilated one of the servers, have increased backup of data.

Bob

@HackToHell Periodic backups aren't perfect.

HackToHell

All servers are deployable via playbooks

Code -> Git

Bob

Consider a server catches fire.

How much damage does losing all fresh data cause?

Plan for that eventuality.

HackToHell

Legacy Data -> Multiple copies (Azure, AWS)

@Bob That might be a issue, we could spend all night pulling data and loosing it means a day of work is lost

Bob

14:56

@HackToHell Consider how much damage that causes.

Put a figure (money) on it.

Then you mitigate that with RAID.

You aim for the RAID implementation to cost some % of the potential damage (multiplied by the probability of that damage occuring, e.g. 0.01 chance)

Then that is how much you should spend on RAID.

If the chance of failure is 0.0001 (0.01%) per day and the cost of failure is, say, $100, and it takes one full day to bring a new server up to replace the failed one, then your RAID should ideally not cost more than $0.01 * 2 (days lost per failure) per day.

Since you're just number-crunching, and you have frequent (?) backups, cost of failure probably isn't all that high.

HackToHell

yeah, so essentially, it all comes down to time it takes to get it back up and running, last time it took almost a day.

Bob

For companies running a server that needs uptime, e.g. public-facing server or internal support server like a DC, that cost can easily go into the tens, hundreds of thousands per day.

For number-crunching, you might not benefit from RAID at all.

Unless we're talking RAID 0 of course.

HackToHell

It's going to be primarily in memory, read/write will be done to a SSD

Bob

@HackToHell That's not the point.

Assume without RAID that a HDD failure = loss of all work since last backup + another day to bring up a server.

It doesn't matter if the actual failure doesn't happen immediately because you aren't constantly accessing the HDD. Actually, that's even worse because you now potentially lose multiple days.

Anyway, these are just back-of-the-envelope calculations.

You'd end up with a ballpark of how much you should spend on RAID before you start losing more than you'd save, over the long run, taking the gamble that you won't have multiple successive failures.

HackToHell

That makes sense, this is tricky -.-

Bob

15:03

@HackToHell Not that hard.

Estimate likelihood of HDDs failing on a single <backup period>.

Estimate cost of damages incurred if it fails in <backup period> + <setup time>

Multiply the two. You now have a <per backup period> amount, which is the ballpark figure for how much you can spend on RAID before it becomes more effective to just deal with failures as they come.

Customer-facing services are far harder because you also have to consider customer satisfaction, etc.. But from what I can tell of your current task, it's a relatively easy calculation.

Maybe add in <cost of deadline overrun> if you have a lot of failures.

HackToHell

it's a easy task for now, will have to deploy a super critical API later(Q1 next year), so this is a great way to get started

We are just doing a test run with softlayer

If it's good, all future infra will be on it

hm, all this trouble cause I am doing a bare metal server

The current one has RAID5 o0

Wait, it's a bunch of 840 Pros in RAID 10

Bob

@HackToHell Yea, you're gonna want redundancy for that.

But it doesn't have to be RAID.

Could just be multiple (geographically distributed) machines.

HackToHell

yeah going for multiple machines

Bob

Then you need to repeat calculations for chance of failure with and without RAID, and all the damages calculations against RAID cost.

Have fun :P

Journeyman Geek

theverge.com/2015/10/12/9507165/pepsi-p1-android-phone-china o0

HackToHell

15:14

HDFS seems to solve the RAID problem, but then it's only effective when there's a helluva lot of disks

Bob

@JourneymanGeek wat

HackToHell

@Bob Totally :D

Bob

> Java-based file system

!!no

ChatBot John Cavil

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Pretty damn tacky.

I wouldn't want to be seen in public with that!

And I don't normally care too much about the look of my phone.

Oh, wait, the top is a photo of cans, not phones :P

> a 1.7GHz processor

Yay. Completely, utterly, useless info.

Even including core count would be better, as useless as it is.

Journeyman Geek

15:17

lol

Bob

What's a good car analogy?

I need @allquixotic for this :P

It's like... uh...

Giving the engine RPM with no idea about torque, MPG, etc.?

Journeyman Geek

;p

"Its got a an engine with 4 pistons"

Bob

@JourneymanGeek Nah, that'd be core count. Maybe.

Well, not really.

Hmmmm.

Journeyman Geek

;p

Bob

Core count would be more like "it has four wheels. and only one is touching the ground most of the time."

Journeyman Geek

15:23

;p

Its probably badge engineered

Bob

You don't say? :P

allquixotic

oh hey guys <3

Journeyman Geek

;p

allquixotic

I'm here, what's up?

Bob

@allquixotic 'lo

@allquixotic Car analogies, stuff...

HackToHell

15:25

@Bob Apart from it being slow, it's used at a lot of places ;p

allquixotic

today is Columbus Day. As in Christopher Columbus Day. This is a US Federal Govt holiday but many private companies and businesses are open. However, the contract my company signed with my Government customer says that I am supposed to take today as a holiday :D so I am off!

Journeyman Geek

;p

allquixotic

@Bob that's actually a pretty good one

higher Hz and RPMs both produce increased heat, and after a certain RPM/Hz that the engine/chip is optimally designed for (which can be arbitrarily high or low), forcing it higher than that is very inefficient and consumes much more fuel (gas/electricity) per unit of (work or information processing) than normal.

there are quite a few chips out there with less than 2 GHz clock speed that are way faster than the Pentium 4 3.8 GHz though

the A9, for example <3

Bob

@allquixotic True, but also lots that are way slower. See: Cortex-A9

Oh wait I was thinking of the Cortex-A8.

Used in some SoCs by the aptly-named Rockchip.

allquixotic

my invocation of the Apple A9 made you think Cortex-A9 :P

Bob

15:33

Wait, no, Cortex-A9.

allquixotic

Rockchip? So this is the processor people use when they invoke the slang "My computer is a potato"?

Bob

@allquixotic Was already trying to remember which one, because I have a "DGTEC TB07" here.

It has a RK2926.

That's a Cortex-A9.

allquixotic

I think you own more SoCs than any of the regulars in here

considering I sold several of my smartphones, it's almost certain

Bob

@allquixotic ...probably.

@allquixotic Hard to say they're in working condition though :P

allquixotic

family-wide, I can think of 8 that haven't been sold, and that's not counting stuff like full-fat laptop CPUs or the Surface Pro i5, but I do consider the BGA i3 in my NUC to be a SoC

and not counting the RAID processor in my RAID card

Bob

15:37

Between the Cortex-A9 in this tablet and the Cortex-A7 in the Y201, I'm not entirely sure which is slower...

@allquixotic Let's see. Phones: Y201, E1, L520, S2 (charging broken), S4, G4.

Not including old Nokia Symbian phones. And not including family's phones.

HackToHell

> 1 Gbps Dual Public & Private Network Uplinks (Unbonded) [$20.00]

What the hell is unbonded ._..

Bob

Tablets: TB-07, some PendoPad, ASUS Vivotab Smart, Lenovo Miix 2 10".

@HackToHell You can't treat it as a single network.

I just realised/remembered this PendoPad is my first KitKat device.

allquixotic

hmm... is it typical for a SoC to carry the RAM chip on the same package? I don't think so, right?

Bob

And I probably should've tested the speaker with this first...

@allquixotic Not for ARM SoCs, AFAIK.

HackToHell

@Bob Uhh meaning ?

@Bob :O

Bob

15:40

I think you get some limited SRAM on-die with some AVR microcontrollers.

allquixotic

@Bob ah... then except for the networking stuff (WiFi/LTE/CDMA) the NUC i3 does almost exactly the same stuff as the typical SoC would do on the main package

non-volatile storage is nearly always on its own separate package soldered to the mainboard due to its size

HackToHell

Wait I get it

allquixotic

and a lot of smartphones don't put the cellular stuff on the SoC because of complexity/size/heat

Bob

"Battery level: 99%"

LIES

allquixotic

lol

Bob

15:43

It wouldn't turn on until I plugged in a charger...

allquixotic

the PendoPad?

Journeyman Geek

@HackToHell: bonded means the two interfaces act as one.

Bob

@allquixotic Yea. pendo.com.au/pendopad-7-dual-core-black-pndpp44sd7blk

> Rockchip 3026 Dual Core

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: not typical at all until the rpi

Bob

Oh look. Rockchip makes another appearance.

> The RK3026 is an updated ultra-low-end dual-core ARM Cortex-A9-based tablet processor clocked at 1.0 GHz with ARM Mali-400 MP2 GPU. Manufactured at 40 nm, it is pin-compatible with the RK2926.

allquixotic

15:45

eww, ultra-low-end ;p 40 nm ;p

Bob

...soooooooo it's just a dual-core version of the DGTEC one

The PendoPad screen is far better, not that that's saying much.

The DGTEC seems to share a screen manufacturer with the Intex FF phone

Similar DGTEC tablets were going for $30 late last year...

xCare

@JourneymanGeek I think I can, or maybe not. It's all confusing and the info is scattered all over the place. Made a question for it.

Bob

@allquixotic Funnily enough? These cheap tablets are closer to stock than anything else I have o.O

xCare

-1

Q: What are all the penalties to delete or close our own Questions or Answers?

I'd like to know please what are the all the exact penalties if I delete questions or answers I've asked. How about if others delete a question or answer I ask, what penalties do I get? Any penalties if a question I ask is closed? Reason I ask is because I posted a question yesterday and I se...

support reputation vote-to-close delete

Journeyman Geek

ooh, quick downvote

Bob

15:47

Wait this thing has a camera?!

> Battery Volume 2,200mAh

In a tablet...

xCare

yeah, but had to ask, someone really needs to put the info in one place. I'd do it myself but don't think I should.

Bob

Real capacity is probably more like 1000mAh, if that.

I think it lasts some 2-3 hours on battery.

> Camera Front 0.3 MP

ewwww

Bob

16:01

btw, @allquixotic, I might get one or two stutters 2-3 mins after turning the screen off (rare, happened three times over the last week), but then it's fine for hours

allquixotic

mmh...

Bob

Dunno if it's different apps, different manufacturer, different Android versions or even the hardware (808). But I don't seem to get stuttering.

allquixotic

*clings to iPhone*

Bob

-_-

HackToHell

16:14

@JourneymanGeek Essentially easier to manage

allquixotic

@HackToHell you can always bond them in software with something like NIC teaming to get a virtual 2 Gbps

HackToHell

16:41

0o @bob pirateparty.org.au/dataretention

@allquixotic Oh, additional configuration :/

allquixotic

18:16

well great... now I have Dell Workstation 12.0 Pro instead of VMware Workstation :P

Dell buys EMC (and VMware)

DragonLord

18:39

746.52 GB, 746.39 GB. These are the magic numbers that indicate MBR issues with 3 GB drives.

DragonLord

18:57

@allquixotic Biggest M&A transaction ever in the history of computing.

Dell is simply no longer a consumer computer company more than it is an enterprise computing company.

I wouldn't be surprised if Dell spun off its consumer computing and Alienware divisions in a few months.

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