March 2016 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

Wget under-reports data transfer rate ("bandwidth") by 5%
by Peter Renzland 23 Mar '16

23 Mar '16

Wget can be used to measure download data rate. For example, wget --output-document=/dev/null http://speedtest.wdc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test500.zip Then observe the progress meter and kill the process. IMHO, wget thinks a MB is 2^20 (== 1MiB), instead of 10^6. This results in a 5% error. (Softlayer seems to have made the same error.) Am I wrong? Have others noticed that? According to wget's definition of "bug", this error does not seem to be a "bug". Or? (It doesn't crash -- just gives a wrong answer, based on a wrong assumption.) -- Peter Renzland(a)gmail.com

4 7

OT: From Nand to Tetris MOOC
by Daniel Wayne Armstrong 23 Mar '16

23 Mar '16

Might be of interest to the list: I just finished reading "Turing's Cathedral" by George Dyson about the early days of digital computers (and a very cool account of the first cellular automaton running in 5K memory!) and - looking for more information about Boolean algebra and logic - came across this free online course that builds a virtual machine from first principles ... https://www.coursera.org/learn/build-a-computer http://nand2tetris.org/ Next session starts March 28. -- (o< .: Per curiositas ad astra .: http://www.circuidipity.com (/)_

5 5

Linux and Stereo Speaker Cables
by Randy Jonasz 21 Mar '16

21 Mar '16

I know this is a stretch but I do listen to my stereo with my Manjaro laptop connected to a DAC connected to my amplifier. Could any electrical engineers offer advice about the difference stereo speaker cables make to sound? Thanks! Randy

11 25

email etiquette.
by Alvin Starr 21 Mar '16

21 Mar '16

Hugh Redelmeier posted a message to the list about my posting replies at the top of messages. We have had a bit of a discussion offline about this but Hugh suggested we take it back to the list and see what the feelings of others are. My position is that posting at the top is most efficient and the easiest for the reader. As for clean up I agree that long email chains can become a pain specially when answers are posted at the bottom. I tend to clean up when the messages get to a couple of screens and replace the removed section with [snip]. Hugh follows the ideas put forward in: <http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html> What do others think? -- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin(a)netvel.net ||

14 18

FDD/USB emulator
by Zbigniew Koziol 21 Mar '16

21 Mar '16

Dears, Did anyone around had anything with these? Since FDD is commonly not used anymore and since there is still around a lot of equipment using it some fine people come with the idea of building a replacement for FDD that would emulate its functioning while the data would be stored on USB pen drive. It is indeed a good idea: I guess that a mass production of the device should be no more than around 20-50 $ while these units are sold for up to 500 US$ (in Poland up to 500 PLN, which is 4 times less). Where that is used? Very often still, in programmable musical instruments and, first of all, in machines used in industry. I am landed now at the National Center for Nuclear Research near Warsaw, Poland. And I was given such a toy, a FDD/USB emulator (EMUF-720F), for installing it in Robofill 200 machine which is used for wire-cutting metal. I am fine with that. After some Internet searching I know already, mostly, how to use it. With one exception: I do not know how to boot the machine from that emulator. Help is to be sincerely appreciated. zb. -- Zbigniew Kozioł http://nanophysics.pl mobile: +48 507 330 216

3 2

WD PiDrive
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 15 Mar '16

15 Mar '16

2.5" drive designed for Raspberry Pi by Western Digital. 3.14 x 10^11 bytes US$31.40 Not available in Canada :-( <http://wdlabs.wd.com/products/wd-pidrive-314gb/>

3 3

ECFS - memory analysis of a process snapshot.
by Russell Reiter 12 Mar '16

12 Mar '16

Here's an interesting video from Defcon 23 regarding ECFS for finer grained ELF tracking of hijacks and other problem code. It can recover full truncated text segments and reconstruct original section headers from core dumps among other things. They've dubbed it process necromancy. I guess this comes from its ability to snapshot a process without killing it and even reanimate a process from a snapshot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCJJnJ84MSE

1 0

Toronto Homebrew Hosting Club on Thursday, 21st April at HackLab
by Myles Braithwaite 09 Mar '16

09 Mar '16

I'm doing another Homebrew Hosting Club on the 21st April at HackLab. All thoses who are interested in self hosting are welcome to attend. Also I setup an announce list you can join @ <https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/homebrewhostingclub>. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Myles Braithwaite <me(a)mylesbraithwaite.com> Date: Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 9:07 AM Subject: Toronto Homebrew Hosting Club on Thursday, 21st April at HackLab To: homebrewhostingclub(a)gtalug.org <https://homebrewhosting.club/> Are you building your own website? Setup and running your own calendar/contacts server? Developing your own publishing web app? Hosting a Gnu-based-social-network? Running your own Wiki? Hosting your own email server? Did you buy a $35 VPS and looking to replace Google Apps with your a self hosted solution? Or some other digital magic-cloud service? If so, we are a meetup of people in the Greater Toronto Area passionate about self hosting, in the same structure as the [Homebrew Computer Club][1] meetings in Silicon Valley (and the [Homebrew Website Club][2]). It will be a gathering of like-minded people to swap ideas, talk shop, and general awesomeness about hosting your own infrastructure. Our second meetup will be on Thursday 21st April 2016 at 7:00 p.m. at the Toronto [HackLab][3] (near the corner of [Queen Street West and Dufferin Street][4]). [1]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebrew_Computer_Club> [2]: <https://indiewebcamp.com/Homebrew_Website_Club> [3]: <https://hacklab.to/> [4]: <http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/3522641496> -- Myles Braithwaite | http://mylesb.ca/e

1 0

Dinner before Meeting on Tuesday (today)
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 08 Mar '16

08 Mar '16

| From: Myles Braithwaite <me(a)mylesbraithwaite.com> | * 6:00 pm - Please discuss on the general mailing list (i.e. | <talk(a)gtalug.org>) where you want to go for dinner. Reference material: <http://wiki.gtalug.org/pre-meeting_dinner> Please help maintain and improve this wiki page. Where do people wish to go? Since nobody has spoken up, and it is getting late, I'll dictate: Milo's Pita 6 Dundas East <http://www.yelp.ca/biz/milos-pita-toronto> Backup, in case of failure: Opa! of Greece 10 Dundas East <http://www.yelp.ca/biz/opa-of-greece-dundas-street-toronto> I've not tried either. Speak up quickly if you disagree.

2 1

What would you use to host VM's
by Dave Cramer 08 Mar '16

08 Mar '16

What open source framework would you use to host a limited number < 50 VM's Ideally has a GUI, but not absolutely necessary. Dave Cramer

3 4