May 2014 - luv-talk - luv.asn.au

Re: [luv-talk] Playing LP's with a laser pickup ?
by David E Payne 29 Aug '14

29 Aug '14

Exact citation thanks toDavid I believe the device described and sold at the URL below is real; I was really just exploring whether 1/ anyone had every had any experience with such and 2/ whether any other varieties existed regards Rohan I don't have any reason to doubt that $15k+ device is/was real. I expect some hackers could make their own LASER pickup for a turntable for less than $500-$1000. (Maybe less than $50, I dunno.) My only doubt is whether an UNMODIFIED LaserDisc player could really play UNMODIFIED LPs. The audio and video on LaserDiscs was analog but span much faster than 33 1/3 RPM. A C.onstant A.ngular V.elocity Disc for PAL would spin at 25 revs per SECOND = 1500 RPM as each track held one video frame. (30RPS = 1800 RPM for an NTSC disc.) So for a start, the sound would have to BE buffered, say by writing to & replaying from a computer file, otherwise the treble section would be ultrasonic & only microscopic creatures could dance to the beat! The Wikipedia LaserDisc article is pretty comprehensive. In referring to LASER Rot however, it doesn't mention that apparently the metal recording surface was exposed at the outside edge, which I read back then made the discs more vulnerable than CDs etc. It also doesn't mention a reason for adopting a smaller form-factor for the Digital A.udio D.is(c or k?) standard which became the Compact Disc. Manufacturers wanted to make a player that would fit in the standard car radio/cartridge/cassette dashboard space. (There was a least one phonograph produced for cars I think.) I would have liked to see the "Soundstream Audio File" system adopted as the DAD standard but there wasn't much chance of a little company beating the winning alliance of Philips & Sony. The article reference 14 in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundstream is not available at http://www.eetimes.com/ but basically AudioFile, VideoFile & DataFile used a photographically reproducible optical track read by an orbiting lens which swept past & tracked along the length of the rectangular card. (Or the card could have tracked past the lens but that's not how I remember it. Wouldn't affect compatibility either way.) Because the medium wasn't spinning, all the arc-shaped tracks were the same length, also the medium could be various lengths & potentially transparent so both sides could be played without flipping. (I read about AudioFile in an article by J. Hansen called "The Record that Doesn't Go Round" in January 1983 "Hi-Fi News & Record Review" magazine presumably still at the State library of Victoria. Maybe in the stacks now. I still had a photocopy not long ago, somewhere. Exact citation thanks to http://arpjournal.com/2140/soundstream-the-introduction-of-commercial-digit… )

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IEEEVIc Lecture: Big Data Infrastructures:Exploiting the Power of Big Data Wed 4 Jun 18:00-20:00 N Melb
by Rodney Brown 31 May '14

31 May '14

(free for students, IEEE, IET members, otherwise $30) https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/big-data-infrastructures-exploiting-the-pow… John Connell Auditorium, Engineers Australia Building 21 Bedford Street North Melbourne, VIC 3051 Australia -37.801951,144.955618 Wednesday, 4 June 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (AEST) *Abstract* A revolution is taking place today in Computer Science around the Big Data theme. Many state that big data computing is perhaps the biggest innovation in computing in the last decade. Big Data is not only referring to large volumes; the number of data sets, diversity and arrival rates are also challenges to data-driven science and engineering. In this talk, Professor Timos Sellis emphasises on novel means of managing, analysing, and extracting useful information from large, diverse, distributed and heterogeneous data sets in order to advance the development of new data analytic tools and algorithms and facilitate scalable, accessible, and sustainable data infrastructures. He also presents his views on how to build such Big Data infrastructures and the interesting research and development problems that arise.

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Phone survey ....
by Daniel Jitnah 30 May '14

30 May '14

I just received a phone call ... marketing/survey .. Voice of person on other side: "Hello Mr X, how are you today .... This is a quick survey and will take only 1 minute ... *"You only need to answer Yes to the questions"* !!!!!! Geeee what kind of survey is that when they tell you what to answer before hand!!!! D.

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Digital Certs
by Colin Fee 30 May '14

30 May '14

A colleague has asked if anyone still uses and purchases personal digital certs, the kind you'd buy from Thawte and the like? He reports "In days gone by there was good old Thawte. Not only valid signature but even Notary status. Sold out to Verisign (not all bad as then we got Ubuntu). I got a Verisign ‘person’ certificate (for around $25/year). I think Verisign is no more also." He asks if there is anywhere reliable to get one from?

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To anyone who may relate to ..."Save Medicare Petition"
by Daniel Jitnah 30 May '14

30 May '14

Petition at http://www.savemedicare.org.au/ Cheers Daniel.

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Re: [luv-talk] 1 Billion Websites Coming Soon
by Rohan McLeod 29 May '14

29 May '14

Brent Wallis wrote: > On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 12:41 AM, Rohan McLeod <rhn(a)jeack.com.au > <mailto:rhn@jeack.com.au>> wrote: > > > But how long before all 2^32 = 4.29 x 10 ^9 IPv4 addresses are > gone ? > > regards Rohan McLeod > > > Interesting question.... > http://beta.slashdot.org/story/201101 > > The APNIC site seems to indicate we in Asutralia have a while yet: > "The APNIC community ensured it will take many years for APNIC's IPv4 > pool to be exhausted > by creating a policy for the special distribution of APNIC's final /8 > worth of addresses (16,777,216 addresses). > The policy aims to ensure that new and emerging networks can continue > to receive > a small amount of IPv4 for many years to come..." > > http://www.apnic.net/community/ipv4-exhaustion/ipv4-exhaustion-details So a 'graceful' expansion to IPv6 's 2^128 = 3.4×10^38 backwardly compatible addresses is possible; there would still be a tendency for large companies say, to hang on to IPv4 addresses for as long as possible; to ensure exposure in both systems. Perhaps the time when IPv6 addresses out number IPv4 will be driven more by sociology and fashion, than plain address shortage ? regards Rohan McLeod

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1 Billion Websites Coming Soon
by Brent Wallis 29 May '14

29 May '14

Hi All, Excuse the cross post but think this is worth a look... Since '95 I have been regularly following the Netcraft Web Server Surveys and thought I should point out that the 'net is about to crack the 1 Billion site mark. In their April Survey: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2014/04/02/april-2014-web-server-survey.h… The first line of the report makes me think that the 1 Billion mark may have already been cracked... "In the *April 2014* survey we received responses from *958,919,789* sites — 39 million more than last month." Granted, a large portion are parked ( the early bleat in the report around IIS seems to indicate MS have been busy with the marketing dollars and parked domains) but in the end...1 Billion is an astounding growth over just shy of 20 years... :-) Its also worthy noting how NGINX has EXCEEDED IIS share in both the Active Sites and Top 1 Million Sites... BW

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Fw: [AUG-Vic] reminder
by David E Payne 25 May '14

25 May '14

--- On Thu, 22/5/14, David jazzcat6581 wrote: > To: "Amiga_Users_Group_Vic(a)yahoogroups.com" <Amiga_Users_Group_Vic(a)yahoogroups.com> > Received: Thursday, 22 May, 2014, 7:46 PM SNIP > > Flashback 2014 - come along and enjoy the retro museum, loads of stuff on > bigscreen projectors, BBQ, nerding and the compos that take place - > entertainment! Stuck at home on the weekend? Forget it - http://www.defame.com.au/flashback > Regards > > Dave. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G3OyeMMDreE SNIP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FWDed by a different Dave Flashback 2014 is on from 7-9th June, in Sydney. There's a much smaller demo/scene event in North Melbourne later in the year. (No wheelchair access though.)

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New trains make old mistake AGAIN! (Alert French President's bodyguards?)
by David E Payne 25 May '14

25 May '14

Mon DOH! http://www.news.net/article/1363113?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_… George Pullman made the same mistake in 1865 when he constructed "The Pioneer" luxury sleeping car. Probably the only thing that saved him from bankruptcy was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. http://www.pullman-museum.org/theCompany/ So other people's money was spent to make railway platforms narrower & tunnels bigger to accommodate the oversized rail-car and the Pullman Palace Car Company was able to operate along that route & eventually grow to monopoly status. http://www.chicagohs.org/history/pullman/pul1.html This is not the only example of corporate welfare in the USA transport industry, eg. some of the railroad companies lobbied to be purchased by governments. On the other hand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak points out that companies using privately funded railroads & now Amtrak were/are expected to compete with other transports using government funded highways & airports. A lot of different calculations are covered in that Wikipedia article & I guess anyone can find ways to support their own belief. In Australia, we might argue there is proportionally more government financial support for motorists, especially motorcyclists, due to more public health-care for the injured. If the Victorian government wants to support local car manufacturing, why don't they, (as John Cain Jr's government did,) replace car registration fees (& GST at purchase?) with increased fuel taxes? The "need" for road building in say, Greater Melbourne, isn't determined by the number of cars but by their weight, size & amount they are driven, all of which are reflected in fuel consumption. While this would be especially fairer for car collectors like Lindsay Fox, it would also be fairer for the rest of us too! And it might encourage those who occasionally need a big vehicle for their caravan or off-road trips etc. to use something smaller for their daily commute & use less or perhaps hire the gas-guzzler only when needed. Dav* - (I'm so pessimistic sometimes I think I'll NEVER manage to read everything on the World Wide Web!)

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Re: [luv-talk] Amazon Glacier backup tools for Linux/Unix
by Rohan McLeod 22 May '14

22 May '14

Toby Corkindale wrote: > .........snip > In case any current or future employers are reading this, I must point > out that I'm talking about my personal archives here, not anything to > do with work. I'm just lazy in my own spare time :) Well the spin doctors would say; 'time and energy efficient '; and' inclined to minimise the errors of human fallibility':-) ! regards Rohan McLeod

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