23 Jun
2013
23 Jun
'13
7:16 p.m.
... 8/L ... ???
-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Im
Auftrag von cctalk-request at classiccmp.org
Gesendet: Sonntag, 23. Juni 2013 19:00
An: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Betreff: cctalk Digest, Vol 118, Issue 73
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Pile on X11 - Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines
- Re: What versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes?
(Liam Proven)
2. Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What
versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes? (Liam Proven)
3. Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What
versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes? (Liam Proven)
4. Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What
versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes? (Liam Proven)
5. RE: Circuit Cellar site... (Andrew Lynch)
6. Re: Which PDP-8 is this? (ebay: 261232211533) (Vincent Slyngstad)
7. wireless monitoring - need suggestions please (Tom Uban)
8. Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What
versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes? (Tothwolf)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 14:07:01 +0100
From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Pile on X11 - Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines
- Re: What versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes?
Message-ID:
<CAMTenCHoPEiMG32+CbxDUu_0Seuxa+mCBuJJmCfzBo7Z2rSeBg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
On 22 June 2013 04:04, Toby Thain <toby at telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
numbers
No, it isn't unheard of, rather it is actually quite a common practice due
to bonehead server administrators running software such as 'mod_security'
along with rules that only allow browsers with "popular" useragents to
access sites (on the false premise that the other useragents are faked
and/or are "hackers" trying to break into their website, and that
"blocking"
[1] You do realise that you are over-trimming (*again*) and replying
to 2 different people in a single message here, don't you?
In this one, you're answering me, via an answer to someone else who
quoted my text.
[2] You're trying to do something which FB is specifically trying to
block -- IOW you're not using a browser, you're trying to scrape
images directly via a script -- and you're complaining that FB's
efforts to prevent /exactly the sort of thing that you're doing/ are
successful?
[Mocking laughter] Yeah, right.
All this proves is that you're a weirdo who likes to do things the
hard way. As was evinced earlier in your reply. No news there.
A fair point. (Also, in saying so, I hope that I am showing that I am
not being biased or taking an ad-hominem approach.)
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 14:20:22 +0100
From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What
versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes?
Message-ID:
<CAMTenCFpmAhzsvY=STu4dg-RwCxGCVXm9f-CdaLztRborL88Og at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
On 23 June 2013 02:40, Alexander Schreiber <als at thangorodrim.de> wrote:
Look it up yourself. I've already done so (many years ago -- Wikipedia
doesn't write itself) and I certainly don't feel the need to look it up
for you. Hint: AT&T, Comcast, COX, Time Warner, and :gasp: AOL have all
done this at various times and various other ISPs (transparent proxies)
and some webhosts (load balancing, caching) /still/ do.
Let me get this straight...you don't understand how the percentages are
calculated?
You must not get around the web very much, then.
[5 Aug 2012]
: "Our host operates a security perimeter that performs this and other
filtering, the rules simply aren't under our control. The Comodo browser,
based on the Chromium codebase, also sports a u-a that the security
perimeter does not allow through."
:
: "I apologize again for the inconvenience and hope you'll be able to stay
with us."
I still don't know why he mentioned Comodo, since that wasn't what I was
using or asking about. I had reported to them that Firefox (nightly
builds) and Lynx (all versions) were not working with their site.
http://yousefourabi.com/blog/2007/10/blocking-bots-with-mod-security/
: "There are two approaches: 1) Block everything but a pre-approved white
list, 2) Allow everything except a pre-denied black list."
The first approach may not be a workable solution, and as stupid as it
might it, that doesn't stop people from _trying_ anyway.
On 21/06/13 9:59 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
It works quite well for me. I merely report what others are saying.
On 21 June 2013 05:09, Toby Thain<toby at telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
I haven't suffered by this inefficiency myself, but I'll take your
word for it.
On 20/06/13 10:22 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
/Modern/ X.11 as used on modern Linux? Yes. It's
indirectly-composited via OpenGL and a plethora of layers. ...
Absolutely. But trying to be all things to all men leads to bloat.
You're not seriously trying to tell us that X11 - which was designed
to run, and ran, on machines older than some people subscribed to
this list - is "bloated"? (Say, don't you spend more time using Windows than
Linux?)
Me? Good gracious, no. My main PC doesn't even have a working copy of
Windows on it and neither did the previous one. My notebooks do, mainly for
BIOS flashing but occasionally for reproducing clients'
issues.
These days, I pretty much only use Windows if someone is paying me to.
So basically they've decided to do what NEXTSTEP (1989) and OS X (GPU
acceleration since 10.2: 2001) did.
A fair summary, yes.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 14:15:05 +0100
From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What
versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes?
Message-ID:
<CAMTenCHMTGcsqpssTZR-9SF7+p7HteS7Ljg5WqsQR3bnPi1Jhg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
On 22 June 2013 18:29, Tothwolf <tothwolf at concentric.net> wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jun 2013, Liam Proven wrote:
Are we?
I thought I was talking about networkable X.11, which by and large
doesn't really apply to servers. I don't know what you feel that we're
talking about.
On 21 June 2013 15:21, Tothwolf <tothwolf at concentric.net> wrote:
We are talking about usage share. Most servers do not show up in browser and http
server estimates
Who's talking about servers? We all know Linux is really strong in
servers. No argument there. Just as you cannot accurately measure the
number of servers out there that make use Linux, you similarly cannot
/accurately/ measure the number of workstations which make use of Linux.
Definte "accurately", with your idea of acceptable error bars, and
compare those to the accuracy of figures for Macs and Windows.
*I* find the figures acceptable, myself.
Those that tamper with the headers more often than not
either strip the
useragent or replace it with their own useragent.
[[Citation needed]]
More to the point, some kind of evidence that this is a significant
factor. TBH it sounds like special pleading to me: "we don't know how
many desktop Linux users are, we can't know, but probably there are
more than reported and logged because lots of them are _hiding_."
Either way,
such things would affect /all/ users on all platforms, no?
Yes, however given Microsoft's market share, it is going to skew the for operating systems such as Linux more than it would
for Microsoft
Windows.
You'll have to walk me through that reasoning. I do not understand or
see what you mean at all.
That isn't even taking into account that many
Linux users end up
configuring their browsers to report false user agent strings
Very very rare, IME.
in order to force the numerous broken websites
out
there to still work with browsers other than Firefox and Internet
Explorer
under MS Windows.
That way something the hardcore did in the 1990s. It's unheard-of now.
I see a broken site a few times a /decade./ them makes their website more secure). Assuming that
this is a rare 1990s
practice and that no-one really does this anymore would be rather foolish.
In fact, I ran into this issue with Consumer Reports website last year and
took the time to try to educate them. Their reply? "We outsource our web
administration and they can't fix it."
Again, [[citation needed]]. I've been a desktop Linux user full-time
for a decade now, and part-time for about 6-7y before that. I have
encountered this problem so very, *very* seldom it is not a factor and
has not been this century.
Moreover, these browser-based usage share meters all
share another common
fault -- they only make one report per IP address per sample window, which
is usually 24 hours (although some only take one sample per IP every 7
days). This means if you have a NAT router (who doesn't?) and have say a
Mac, and Windows PC, and a Linux workstation, only the first used in that
sample window is going to be recorded, and there is no real way of knowing
which website you visit is doing the sampling. If you also have a
smartphone
connected to your NAT via WiFi, then that
smartphone's useragent is going
to
be the one recorded for your IP during the sample
window. This affects
usage
numbers for the "less common" operating
systems more than the "more
popular"
operating systems, because operating systems such as
Microsoft Windows
have
a larger market share.
That one is interesting, I'll give you. I've not heard that before and
you do have a possible point there, although once again, I'd like to
see some actual evidence that it was occurring.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 14:18:50 +0100
From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What
versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes?
Message-ID:
<CAMTenCFdCMDXKKrV9-6whaTK7H_VbbRHFiR_T-tW3vnAE9tw3A at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
On 23 June 2013 00:19, Mouse <mouse at rodents-montreal.org> wrote:
>> [...]
the numerous broken websites out there to still work with
>> browsers other than Firefox and Internet Explorer under MS Windows.
> That way something the hardcore did in the
1990s. It's unheard-of
> now. I see a broken site a few times a /decade./
Tell that to Facebook, which still refuses to serve up any kind of
content to me when I try to script-fetch an image someone links me to
or some such, instead returning a redirect to a "you're using an
unsupported browser, use one of this half-dozen" (all, of course, are
thoroughly bloated monstrosities). I haven't bothered trying providing
a lying User-Agent: header, largely because it would be fairly
inconvenient for me to capture a sample header to base my forgery on.
I think Facebook hardly counts as "unheard-of". I ran into
this issue with Consumer Reports website last year and
took the time to try to educate them. Their reply? "We outsource
our web administration and they can't fix it."
"You need to fire them and hire _competent_ web admins." (Yes, I
realize that's preaching to the choir. :/)
This means if you have a NAT router (who
doesn't?)
I don't. Well, I do have NAT set up, but I don't have anything in the
NATted range except for a SIP phone. and have say a
Mac, and Windows PC, and a Linux workstation, only the
first used in that sample window is going to be recorded, [...] This
affects usage numbers for the "less common" operating systems more
than the "more popular" operating systems, because operating systems
such as Microsoft Windows have a larger market share.
Actually, if you think of it as measuring "number of uses" rather than
"number of installed hosts", it's measuring exactly what it should be
measuring. (Measuring it imprecisely, because of the "first hit within
the sample window" effect, but that's what it's measuring.) Well, I _did_ try to use a MacBook as a laptop at work
once. I gave it
back in disgust after two months because I couldn't get _work_ done with
the darn thing. Returned to my Thinkpad running Linux and work got done
again ;-)
So long as you have something that works for you, good.
I must say, though, that most of the old-time Linux users that I know
-- the determined hardcore who were using it in the 1990s, who've been
on it for a decade or more -- have almost *all* switched to Mac OS X
now.
But Android solves a different problem: a mobile
phone/tablet OS, not
a workstation OS.
Sure.
But this shows that the approach of getting rid of X.11 is not limited
to a single niche.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 09:49:44 -0400
From: "Andrew Lynch" <LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM>
To: <n8vem at googlegroups.com>
Cc: cctalk at classiccmp.org, 'Oscar Vermeulen' <o.vermeulen at altis.ch>
Subject: RE: Circuit Cellar site...
Message-ID: <002801ce7018$850de750$8f29b5f0$(a)YAHOO.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Woo Hoo! Check out the new article on the N8VEM on Circuit Cellar!
http://circuitcellar.com/featured/diy-single-board-computers/
Oscar has put together the N8VEM articles and has done all the work for the
publication.
Congratulations Oscar! This is wonderful!
Thank you very much! Have a nice day!
Andrew Lynch
From: Oscar Vermeulen [mailto:o.vermeulen at altis.ch]
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2013 4:05 PM
To: Andrew Lynch
Subject: Circuit Cellar site...
Andrew,
Wow! The N8VEM article is on their web site!
Cheers,
Oscar.
--
Oscar Vermeulen <o.vermeulen at altis.ch>
Altis Investment Management AG
Poststrasse 18, 6300 Zug, Switzerland
T: +41-415601311
www.altis.ch
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------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 08:05:40 -0700
From: Vincent Slyngstad <vrs at msn.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Which PDP-8 is this? (ebay: 261232211533)
Message-ID: <BLU0-SMTP146A4AF31C109CE00B58429B2890 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=response
From: Jos Dreesen: Saturday, June 22, 2013 11:19 PM
On 06/22/2013 11:38 PM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote:
years
I did hear of the existence of at least one
other. Basically, I had
speculated that
I had the only one, and someone said "No you don't.". I forget who said
that,
though.
Not that it is important, but I also have a BM8L .
I send you paper copies of the documentation, but that was already some before. ( ~2004)
Cool, and thanks! My memory is so odd for these sorts of things. (I've
thought
of cool things
to do CAD drawings for, only to find them already finished years prior, and
I'd
forgotten doing
them.) Your posting reminds me that I was waiting for the BM8L drawings at
one
point, so I
have no doubt you are correct. Perhaps I had munged it in my memory with
the
BM812i
drawings.
I could use a pic of the innards, for when I actually
get around to doing
something with it !
I'll probably have to pull it out when I move that rack. I'll try to
remember
to snap a photo
then, if I don't get to it before.
Further rare PDP8 items in my home : a fully maxed up
8A. (128K memory,
RL01
drive, and FPP-8A )
Nice. I have the memory for mine, but I don't think I have an FPP-8A
(unless it
is like those
CAD drawings).
Furthermore some omnibus boards for hardware
acceleration of an OCR
application.
I wonder about the Omnibus boards used in CNC, medical, other applications.
As
far as
I can tell there's no-one collecting and documenting those.
Vince
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 10:43:40 -0500
From: Tom Uban <uban at ubanproductions.com>
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: wireless monitoring - need suggestions please
Message-ID: <51C717AC.9040503 at ubanproductions.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I'm wanting to add some wireless monitoring of temperatures and power
on various devices throughout my brewery and I suspect someone on this
list is up to date on the technology which would work well and be a
good low cost starting point. I am mostly looking for guidance on the
best board to use for interconnect. I will take care of the programming
and any hardware modifications and/or additions. Is zigbee what I want?
I have fermenters, chillers, condensing units coolers, etc throughout
the building, so minimally one or so A/D inputs and possibly a couple
of digital inputs on the board should suit my needs. In the long run I
want to check on status from my smartphone as well as have the system
alert me if there is an alarm condition. If the "base station" is either
connected to our local network or plugs into a PC/mac, that should be
workable.
Thanks in advance...
--tom
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 10:52:11 -0500 (CDT)
From: Tothwolf <tothwolf at concentric.net>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What
versions of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes?
Message-ID:
<alpine.DEB.2.00.1306230950340.30736 at brioche.invalid.domain>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII; format=flowed
On Sun, 23 Jun 2013, Liam Proven wrote:
On 22 June 2013 18:29, Tothwolf <tothwolf at
concentric.net> wrote:
It certainly seems like you were, until you just now claimed claimed
otherwise...
: In-Reply-To: <201306211137.HAA10837 at Chip.Rodents-Montreal.ORG>
: Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 14:44:00 +0100
: Message-ID:
<CAMTenCGtZVXaRstyrQ6_uRT7+vtdUSY1Nd-deXeNHg2PeE57sA at mail.gmail.com>
: Subject: Re: Devs should be testing on slow machines - Re: What versions
of Linux (or UNIX) are good on old 486 boxes?
: From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
:
[SNIP]
: There are evidence-backed estimates.
:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/80379/how-many-ubuntu-users-are-there-worldwi
de
: 12-20 million.
: Various other measures estimate around 0.8% to 1.25% of the market:
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_uptake#Measuring_desktop_adoption
[SNIP]
: Mac usage is /way/ higher.
: http://www.numberof.net/number%C2%A0of%C2%A0mac%C2%A0users/
:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/11/apple-there-are-now-66-million-mac-users-40
-run-lion-22-million-copies-of-lion-shipped/
[SNIP]
On Fri, 21 Jun 2013, Liam Proven wrote:
Are we?
I thought I was talking about networkable X.11, which by and large
doesn't really apply to servers. I don't know what you feel that we're
talking about. On 21 June 2013 15:21, Tothwolf <tothwolf at
concentric.net> wrote:
We are talking about usage share. Most servers do not show up in browser and http
server estimates
Who's talking about servers? We all know Linux is really strong in
servers. No argument there. Just as you
cannot accurately measure the
number of servers out there that make use Linux, you similarly cannot
/accurately/ measure the number of workstations which make use of Linux.
Definte "accurately", with your idea of acceptable error bars, and
compare those to the accuracy of figures for Macs and Windows.
*I* find the figures acceptable, myself.
Those that tamper with the headers more often
than not either strip the
useragent or replace it with their own useragent.
[[Citation needed]] More to the point, some kind of evidence that this is
a significant
factor. TBH it sounds like special pleading to me: "we don't know how
many desktop Linux users are, we can't know, but probably there are
more than reported and logged because lots of them are _hiding_."
Straw Man.
[[Insert giant ASCII middle finger]]
>> Either way, such things would affect /all/
users on all platforms, no?
>
> Yes, however given Microsoft's market share, it is going to skew the
numbers
for operating
systems such as Linux more than it would for Microsoft
Windows.
You'll have to walk me through that reasoning. I do not understand or
see what you mean at all. >>> That isn't even taking into account
that many Linux users end up
>>> configuring their browsers to report false user agent strings
>>
>> Very very rare, IME.
>>
>>> in order to force the numerous broken websites out
>>> there to still work with browsers other than Firefox and Internet
>>> Explorer
>>> under MS Windows.
>>
>> That way something the hardcore did in the 1990s. It's unheard-of now.
>> I see a broken site a few times a /decade./
>
> No, it isn't unheard of, rather it is actually quite a common practice
due
> to bonehead server administrators running software
such as 'mod_security'
> along with rules that only allow browsers with "popular" useragents to
> access sites (on the false premise that the other useragents are faked
> and/or are "hackers" trying to break into their website, and that
"blocking"
> them makes their website more secure). Assuming
that this is a rare 1990s
> practice and that no-one really does this anymore would be rather
foolish.
> In fact, I ran into this issue with Consumer
Reports website last year
and
took the time
to try to educate them. Their reply? "We outsource our web
administration and they can't fix it."
Again, [[citation needed]]. I've been a desktop Linux user full-time
for a decade now, and part-time for about 6-7y before that. I have
encountered this problem so very, *very* seldom it is not a factor and
has not been this century. > Moreover, these browser-based usage share meters
all share another common
> fault -- they only make one report per IP address per sample window,
which
> is usually 24 hours (although some only take one
sample per IP every 7
> days). This means if you have a NAT router (who doesn't?) and have say a
> Mac, and Windows PC, and a Linux workstation, only the first used in that
> sample window is going to be recorded, and there is no real way of
knowing
> which website you visit is doing the sampling. If
you also have a
smartphone
> connected to your NAT via WiFi, then that
smartphone's useragent is going
to
> be the one recorded for your IP during the sample
window. This affects
usage
> numbers for the "less common" operating
systems more than the "more
popular"
> operating systems, because operating systems such as
Microsoft Windows
have
> a larger market share.
>
> That one is interesting, I'll give you. I've not heard that before and
> you do have a possible point there, although once again, I'd like to
> see some actual evidence that it was occurring.
http://www.google.com/ ...
End of cctalk Digest, Vol 118, Issue 73
***************************************