/dev/chat

@Ramesh It amazes me when I stumble upon some heavily upvoted A that's little more than a link and it's broken, and ppl allowed it to persist. They should be either a comment or deleted, or move the content into the site.

It's generally been on other SE sites that I've seen this, SF is probably the worst about it.

Ramesh

3:14 AM

@slm at least we should feel proud that our site is better in terms of maintaining the contents.

Ramesh

4:21 AM

@slm, thanks. is this fine?

slm

yeah that looks good.

Webby

@slm need some quick help, if you have some time

I am trying to do basic stuff with crontab and it doesn't work for me somehow

slm

what's up

this?

1

Q: How to restart my server automatically using crontab if they went down?

I have a jar file which I am running like this in my Ubuntu 10.10 and then it starts my exhibitor server in the background - nohup java -jar /pekooz/exhibitor-1.5.1/lib/exhibitor-1.5.1-jar-with-dependencies.jar -c file --fsconfigdir /opt/exhibitor/conf --hostname machineA > exhibitor.out & Now...

I'm looking at it now

Webby

yeah that one

it is pretty simple as it uses basic concept of crontab but don't know what wrong I am doing

thanks for the help

slm

4:39 AM

@Webby patrick's suggestion of doing a while true loop is what I would do.

Webby

I was about to ask Patrick - what does he mean? I got confuse

what he wants me to do?

I can try right now to see what happens

like this?

sh -c 'while true; do java -jar /pekooz/exhibitor-1.5.1/lib/exhibitor-1.5.1-jar-with-dependencies.jar -c file --fsconfigdir /opt/exhibitor/conf --hostname machineA; done'

how do I run this then? In the crontab? or some other place

@slm and also what does sh -c will do?

slm

sh runs it in it's own shell, bourne shell

Webby

In general, you are saying, I should make a new shell script and paste this content -

sh -c 'while true; do java -jar /pekooz/exhibitor-1.5.1/lib/exhibitor-1.5.1-jar-with-dependencies.jar -c file --fsconfigdir /opt/exhibitor/conf --hostname machineA; done'

in that shell script and then run this shell script?

slm

yeah

Webby

run this shell script from crontab you mean to say right?

slm

4:53 AM

no

run exhibitor however you're starting it using sh -c. Forget the crontab bit

Webby

but then how does it make sure that if exhibitor is not running, then only starts the exhibitor. By this, it will keep on executing the java command right everytime, no matter whether the exhibitor is running or not?

And also if machine got rebooted, then this shell script won't work right?

slm

no. As long as exhibitor is running it will block from falling through the loop. When it dies, it will fall through the loop and restart it.

this script would be however you're starting exhibitor

rc.local or as a service

Pandya

5:28 AM

Is any thing in GNU/Linux exist which can't be open-sourced? (I hope nothing)

Faheem Mitha

7:41 AM

@Pandya I don't know what this means.

Braiam

12:29 PM

@terdon done

terdon

1:13 PM

@Braiam Good choice, thanks.

slm

@Anthon - 100 to go. It'll be tomorrow sometime 8-)

already maxed out for the day @ 275

really wishing someone would've closed this Q.

9

Q: How do I print pi (3.14159)?

What command could print pi for me? I want to specify how many digits it prints, I couldn't find anything online. And also this is nothing serious, I just want to be able to print pi.

command math

14 answers? Really we need this on the internet?

do a search

Anthon

@slm yeah I max-ed out on the normal upvotes and don't think I will get another 7 accepts (althought 2-3 OPs seem to linger/not know how to accept).

slm

@Anthon - many users don't understand they can accept A'ers. I do a fair amount of reminding on that just so we have as thorough a selection of Q's w/ accepted A's. 8-)

Braiam

1:28 PM

@slm the problem started when someone linked rosetta

Anthon

That question got 3 leave-opens in a row, (including one from me I have to confess) you are right that it doesn't have much to do with unix&linux

@slm can you see what the original close vote reason was for that Q, I don't recall it as something clear like: doesn't belong here, but I can't get it from the history.

slm

yeah let me check

can't find where it shows me this

mdpc and community both flagged it

community flagged it for having 10+ A'ers

I'd guess that Mark P VtC

terdon

@slm One of which is yours, so you don't get to complain :P

slm

I deleted mine

merged it w/ Michael K.

terdon

1:53 PM

You forgot to delete it, it's still there. Unless caching?

Anthon

@terdon it is still there, no pink background

slm

Duh, I was going to delete it once I left it there for Michael to read my comment, deleted now.

Anthon

2:41 PM

@slm it would be nice if one could put a reminder to oneself in a comment. Something like [note:30m:delete] or [note:1d:vtc if not answered]

I.e. something not displayed to the other users.

Tyler Maginnis

3:16 PM

I just realized...

this forum is entirely misnamed!

Most topics are, indeed, off-topic.

UNIX is the name of an operating system developed by AT&T in the 1980s, source code owned by SCO.

LINUX is the name of the Kernel.

Therefore, if a Q is not about UNIX as copyrighted by SCO or The Kernel, it is off-topic.

Anthon

3:30 PM

@TylerMaginnis either it is misnamed, or the topics are off-topic, not both

slm

hardly misnamed. Linux is a kernel, OS, and platform.

if you start any GNU/Linux crap we'll kill ya

why do ppl get so up tight about "names". Do we put any stake in the meaning of Tyler as your name? It's just a label/alias so that we know who you are.

Tyler Maginnis

that's what it's abou

GNU/Linux

AFAIK

Niglux, thereby rejected by the African American community.

GNU = utils

Linux = Kernel

Names confuse issues.

We're not all using the same dictionary.

And that fact will forever impede discussions on the subject.

I must be that toxic open source community I keep hearin' about on the news.

^afaik^

Anthon

5:31 PM

@slm some of the old answer's accepts are trickling in.

Ramesh

@Anthon cool solution.

Anthon

@Ramesh the tput stuff?

Ramesh

@Anthon yeah.

ha ha.

Anthon

It is not in the man page, not sure where I first picked that up.

Ramesh

First get the file date it was uploaded on the sftp server then check for if it was today's date then download that file else echo "File not found"

It was from this.

Anthon

5:38 PM

And what the question is, is kind of unclear.

Faheem Mitha

This one is actually pretty funny.

stackoverflow.com/a/736097

Ramesh

@Anthon there you go. Your standard comment ;)

Anthon

@Ramesh Cut and paste from my message file :-D

@FaheemMitha That quote is from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, have you not read those books?

Faheem Mitha

@Anthon Oh, I thought it sounded kind of Douglas Adamsy. I've sort of flipped through them. I found them a bit boring, to tell the truth.

Anthon

@FaheemMitha There are a few of those gems in there, like the functioning of Bistormathematics and how to fly.

Faheem Mitha

5:47 PM

@Anthon I liked the Infinite Improbability Drive. Something about a flower pot turning into a whale, or vice versa.

Also, e.g.

"This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."

"on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." Lol.

He also has some good things to say on the subject of towels. I'm pretty pro-towel myself.

Anthon

Just one more accept today .....

Faheem Mitha

@slm No, it's a kernel.

slm

@Anthon - that's better than any day I've ever had WOW!

He's had 11 accepts in 1 day. That's gotta be a record here

Faheem Mitha

@slm Now there's a missed opportunity for a Shakespeare quote.

@slm Who?

slm

anthon

unix.stackexchange.com/users/33055/anthon?tab=reputation

for posterity

Anthon

6:01 PM

@slm thnx, it is my record day including the first day here on which I got a bounty of 300

Have to do some cooking now, otherwise my daughter is going to complain about neglect.

slm

I think the best I ever had was 9 accepts in a day, but you have to hustle to get that many, it's not trivial.

bounties don't count in this activity since they can skew things

Anthon

@slm I did check with the last few upvotes if you or someone else commented to push the OP :-)

slm

@Anthon - I haven't pushed any, been super busy w/ work and little time to do actual A'ering here the last few weeks

only been handling flags and doing obvious work where I can help a q'er

so its worked out well that you're pushing, picking up the slack!

Faheem Mitha

6:23 PM

@slm How's the new job?

slm

good, been super busy. Lots to learn and understand.

Faheem Mitha

@slm Oh.

@Anthon big push for the 20k?

terdon

6:42 PM

Man, poor @anthon: 19,992 and rep cap reached...

Ramesh

wow 5 consecutive 200+ days for @Anthon. That's awesome!

Anthon

@terdon I already had my rep cap at 19900

@FaheemMitha Yeah I am going to try and make it happen today.

terdon

@Anthon I know, I know, but being so close is even worse. I think you nailed it on the skyperious answer though, if the OP accepts, you're all set!

Ramesh

If I upvote, then also you couldn't go to 20k now right?

Anthon

@terdon that OP has an appropriate name for that

Faheem Mitha

6:46 PM

@Anthon Well, congrats in advance.

@Ramesh Rep cap. So it would not be counted.

terdon

@Anthon :) Delusions of grandeur I see.

Anthon

@Ramesh If you look at the screenshot slm made you can see the non-counted upvotes there.

Faheem Mitha

Not sure why everyone is so obsessed by this rep thing.

Ramesh

@FaheemMitha The prestige :)

Faheem Mitha

I guess the same reason people jump up and down at hockey/football/baseball/basketball games.

@Ramesh Prestige? What prestige?

terdon

6:48 PM

It's also fun. Especially for the milestones like 10k or 20k and 20k is the last privilege level unlocked:

unix.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/trusted-user

Ramesh

I wanted to quote from the movie the prestige. But it seems not so appropriate in this scenario. So never mind.

off to lunch. bye

terdon

Wow, now I know why OCR is so crappy:

2

reverseocr.tumblr.com

slm

pretty useless

terdon

Yeah but wow! I have a bona fide human mind, one of the best machines in the universe for identifying patterns from random data and I can't see any there.

Um, the best machine being the human mind, not mine in particular. I'm not that full of myself.

Seth

lol

the thing is, you can't tell if this means the OCR is awesome, or if the OCR is utterly terrible.

terdon

6:59 PM

Yeah, could be taken both ways. I'm leaning towards terrible.

Seth

same here.

I wonder how it compares to tesserect.

terdon

Well, there are two things to take into account: sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity is how many of real hits you find and specificity is how many of your hits are real.

Seth

did I spell that right?

terdon

It looks like this has a hell of a sensitivity but crappy specificity.

@Seth tesseract I think. at least that's how it was called in the book.

Seth

tesseract*

@terdon yes, just looked it up ;P

thanks.

terdon

7:02 PM

A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by American writer Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. It is the first in L'Engle's series of books about the Murry and O'Keefe families. == Publication history == The book was written between 1959 and 1960. L'Engle wrote repeatedly about the writing of the...

So, I've known that word since I was about 12 and I only discover it actually means something in my 30ies. Sigh

Anthon

7:18 PM

@terdon sounds like I should read that, first have to finish the books by Frank Herberts son though.

terdon

I haven't read it since I was a child. I loved it then but fear I may be too old for it now. Certainly worth it though. It's a great children's/young adult book

terdon

7:30 PM

@terdon I can type fast but not that fast. — Anthon 2 mins ago

@Anthon lol

Anthon

@terdon I took a typing course back in '78 and had 205 characters per minute at the test (which consisted of re-typing one sheet of text). Each error on the page was -10 on speed (IIRC I had two erors). And that was on a mechanical typewriter.

terdon

Wow! I don't know what nine is but I'm sure it's not that good.

Anthon

@Terdon Nine is the number between 8 and 10 (also written as 9 )

terdon

@Anthon See? Slow and error prone.

Anthon

7:52 PM

@Terdon And another answer, with the last 5 answers not accepted, I seriously hope that someone will push that button today.

terdon

@Anthon and to add insult to injury:

Ramesh

I do not understand why 200 daily rep cap is present.

What purpose it serves?

Anthon

101

A: What is the reasoning behind the reputation cap?

It stops the site from being gamed A user like Jon Skeet will gain 1000+ points in an hour if this didn't exist for example. Jon objects to the cap himself for other reasons. PS: I am using Jon as an example that we all know It is to level the playing field It allows for others that won't gain...

Ramesh

well, that explains it good.

terdon

@Ramesh It also limits the effects of questions going viral. For example, I dod not deserve and should not receive 1610 reputation points for this crap:

161

A: What is the danger of inserting and browsing an untrusted USB drive?

The worst that can happen is limited only by your attacker's imagination. If you're going to be paranoid, physically connecting pretty much any device to your system means it can be compromised. Doubly so if that device looks like a simple USB stick. What if it's this? Pictured above is the i...

Anthon

8:03 PM

@Terdon 1620 point now not gained.

terdon

Pfft :)

Ramesh

But still it's a valid point for what the question asks, right?

At least the reputation should be kept in buffer and awarded in subsequent days.

Anthon

@Ramesh In that case some people would continue to gain points until the end of time.

If the cap was at 200 and everything above that pushed forward.

Ramesh

@Anthon true. But the other day Briam posted some user gaining 15k reputation for posting just a single answer.

Anthon

@Ramesh I saw that and that is kind of strange because it looked like that person never gained more than 20 upvotes a day. But consistent upvoting 1500 times anyway.

slm

8:09 PM

@Ramesh discourages ppl from hogging all the Q's

Ramesh

But if a person can gain 15k reputation for a single answer (He is not even regular, I guess), it makes 200 daily rep cap laughable. I mean why should any user be deprived of the upvotes he gets?

Anthon

Have a look at Alex Martelli, last answer given in 2010, and look at the daily rep.

Alex Martelli, Sunnyvale, CA

349k 55 667 977

python c++ google-app-engine django mysql sql c

slm

8:21 PM

yeah the rep is heavily skewed to the ppl that get in on the ground floor

@Ramesh the take away is don't assume that high rep === active or extremely intelligent

you have to look at a individuals body of work in their A'ering and other interactions w/ the given site.

terdon

No, extremely intelligent is rep==40.488 :P

Ramesh

@slm, I completely agree.

slm

ha

or that

Ramesh

@terdon not any more :P

terdon

What just happened? I feel stoopid.

slm

8:24 PM

15k rep gives new meaning to the A to the ultimate Q

Ramesh

I just upvoted one of your answers :D

Wow, I did not know this was possible.

slm

To that Alex's credit, he did provide >5k A'ers, perhaps things happened in his life. The upside is that he did the work on an SE site and not some blog that he no longer maintains and is lost.

Anthon

@Ramesh The host specific stuff int he config is awesome. I used something close to that when my internet provider at home had routing problems and I couldn't go directly to my server (located in a data center).

slm

I've used that host stuff too for several years. I like to setup hostname and hostname-o shortcuts so that i can get to hostsnames inside and outside through a VPN or tunnel server

Anthon

@slm are you running CentOS?

terdon

8:32 PM

@terdon iff the OP is so kind to mark it as such. — Anthon 6 mins ago

slm

yeah I have a 5 and 6

terdon

Man, @Anthon is getting a little obsessed. Should we be worried?

:)

Anthon

Thanks Anthon! I want to upvote your answer but am not able to since I am new and do not have enough reps :( — Seemant Shankar 3 mins ago

Aaaaaaahhhh.

slm

lol

wha...wha....

Anthon

At least that OP doesn't have the informed badge (yet)

@terdon Thanks for that comment (cut and paste?)

terdon

8:37 PM

@Anthon Autocomment helper

Ramesh

I was shocked for a minute to see @slm's rep here. Then realized it was SF and not UL.

slm

I started there before finding UL

terdon

@Anthon:

251

Q: AutoReviewComments - Pro-forma comments for SE

No more re-typing the same comments over and over! This script adds a little 'auto' link next to all comments boxes. When you click the link, you see a popup with 6 configurable auto-comments (canned responses), which you can easily click to insert. This script was inspired by answers to thi...

script

Anthon

@terdon I have to look at that. Cut and paste is only so efficient and I tend to retype because I then don't have to move my hands from the keyboard.

Ramesh

spammer

Anthon

8:44 PM

I rejected that as well

@Ramesh Before I noticed that "spammer" was a link, I thought you were commenting on my use of cut-and-paste for a moment %-)

Ramesh

If someone votes up after the rep cap is reached, will the user get notified or he won't get notified at all?

Anthon

@Ramesh No you just see it in the reputation overview. No notification.

The first time I noticed was because I got +5 on an upvote (in the notfication list, which doesn't include the upvotes without any rep gain )

Ramesh

@Anthon ha ha. Sometimes when I provide links in comments to the OP, they will get confused and ask where to look.

slm

@Anthon it doesn't recalculate either. So if you had a -X after you hit the cap, it won't take from a previously overflowed UV, you only get the -X back if you get another UV

apparently I've studied this algorithm a bit 8-)

also if you get +200 and then a minus the +200 day still counts to the badges

Anthon

@slm did not know that, not enough days with rep cap I assume ;-) I noticed that when I deleted a downvoted answer the +2 was added separately in the history.

Ramesh

9:01 PM

anyone watched interstellar yet?

@Anthon made use of your comment

Ramesh

9:18 PM

Wow, I did not know that. It's amazing how much wonderful things are possible.

slm

@Anthon yeah that's one way you can go over the cap.

terdon

@Ramesh Use -Y instead of -X, it will make your life easier

slm

@anthon - you made it 8-)

terdon

@Anthon!! WHohooooo!

@slm Weird, we must have checked at the same time :)

slm

Anthon

9:22 PM

Yes! Hehe

slm

with like the best day ever

Ramesh

Congrats @Anthon.

slm

talk about a push, it's like watching someone kick the crap out of a stage in the tour de france

12 accepts has got to be a record for this site to boot

well done!

Ramesh

@Anthon, I was just thinking of helping you by posting this and asking for explanation. I thought if you explained, and then I could accept the answer but never mind. :)

Anthon

Thanks all of you, I think I will treat myself on some icecream.

terdon

9:24 PM

380? Wow! Kudos, I think my best is around 280.

slm

@Ramesh I thought that earlier but he's on a roll so let it happen naturally

yeah 310's were where I'd fizzle for the day

380 on the back of 12 accepts is truly impressive

Anthon

I never got over 300 before exept for the one time I had a 300 bonus.

Ramesh

@slm yeah. But I don't quiet follow this.

So is he implying that port 22 is closed on the machine?

Anthon

@ramesh I will look at that if you want tomorrow

Ramesh

@Anthon no issues. I will try to explore more on what it means. If not, I would probably post it as a question in the site (assuming one such question doesn't exist already).

slm

9:32 PM

@Ramesh companies will often only allow 80 and 443 traffic to egress out. So you can shift your listening SSH server to 443 outside to get at it

Ramesh

@slm ok. So, he discusses a technique where he uses the https protocol to ssh into the company machine thus by passing company firewall. Am I right in understanding?

slm

it's for getting out

you can then use a SSH tunnel to multiplex any ports you like within the tunnel going out

Anthon

10:43 PM

This entirely gives the wrong impression of how I use my newly acquired powers:

But jimmij and slm reviewed another post to the same question.

Faheem Mitha

Congrats @Anthon

Anthon

Thanks, the last 15 point took an eternity.

Braiam

11:15 PM

spam unix.stackexchange.com/a/166489/41104

Gilles

@Anthon @StéphaneChazelas Don't vote to delete spam, don't downvote spam, don't edit spam. Only flag it as spam. There's a filter that learns from posts deleted as spam. If a spam post ends up deleted from ordinary deletion, it isn't locked so it can be undeleted, and the spam filter doesn't learn from it.

2

Seth

@slm spammer that needs nuking up there --^

slm

11:31 PM

@Seth - ? undelete it and flag it as spam?

Gilles

@slm destroy the poster's account (it helps the spam filter)

slm

ok didn't know what you meant by nuking

rather what Seth meant

destroyed