Quoting Russell Coker (russell@coker.com.au):

A memory test is not just testing the memory. It's testing the motherboard, the socket, and the connection. You can plug a DIMM into a system twice and have it not work the first time but work the second time.

In my experience, some subtle RAM problems get properly exposed only by 'make -j $BIGNUM' kernel compiles inside a non-terminating while loop, as metest86/Memtest86+ sometimes can't catch them. http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2006-December/002662.html http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2006-December/002668.html http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2007-January/002743.html

If a system with multiple DIMMs reports a memory error and you don't know which DIMM is at fault (AFAIK only servers allow you to determine which DIMM is at fault) then the procedure is to remove DIMMs one at a time until the problem stops. Then you add the DIMM back again to see if the problem happens again.

Exactly. Quoting from the second of the two above-cited mailing list postings: In hindsight, there's something else, easy to do, that I should have done / checked right about then: If you have reason to suspect RAM, but for whatever reason can't get a consistent, reproducible symptom, try shuffling around the position of the sticks in their various sockets. Also, if possible, try individual sticks one at a time (i.e., remove the others from the machine for testing purposes). Sometimes, the problem will manifest clearly with the sticks in some configurations but not others, and apparently I'd accidentally stumbled onto one of _those_ configurations where the RAM wasn't reliable tut still tested clean. Also, remember that you must consider other not-known-good parts as suspects. E.g., at a later point in my testing, when I'd seen fairly compelling evidence of both 512 MB sticks having problems in J0 with no other RAM present, I had to consider the possibility that socket J0 itself on the motherboard was intermittant or bad. -- Cheers, "Two women walk into a bar and discuss the Bechdel Test." Rick Moen -- Matt Watson rick@linuxmafia.com McQ! (4x80)

Quoting Rohan McLeod (rhn@jeack.com.au): [Bechdel test:]

but what I couldn't work out was whether the test concerns 1/ all conversations between the two female characters or 2/ just one

The test very simply is: At any time during the movie / novel / etc., does such a conversation occur at all? The beauty of it is that it's deterministic and makes no ideological claims about what yes or no outcome might automatically mean for work X. It implicitly acknowledges that there might be any number of reasons other than sexism why it works out to 'no'. But in practice it's an interesting metric.

On Fri, 23 Aug 2013, Rohan McLeod <rhn@jeack.com.au> wrote:

Rick Moen wrote:

...

..............snip The test very simply is: At any time during the movie / novel / etc., does such a conversation occur at all?

OK; so just one conversation between two female characters involving a reference to a male; is a sufficient condition to fail the test ?

The Wikipedia page which was cited and the other references to the test that I've seen have not made it a condition that the women in question never talk about male characters. Merely that they sometimes have conversations that don't involve them.

...

The beauty of it is that it's deterministic and makes no ideological claims about what yes or no outcome might automatically mean for work X. It implicitly acknowledges that there might be any number of reasons other than sexism why it works out to 'no'.

But in practice it's an interesting metric.

though no comment on :

"Also the anti-sexist context; seems to miss the more general problem of the cliched nature of story-telling;(so evident in Hollywood's view of the world). That is how to tell a story in a way which will be appealing to an audience, whose real interests are very narrow ? "

I think that in many cases movie producers could add some diversity without most viewers noticing the difference. Such issues are most noticed by people who aren't affected by them, men tend not to notice sexism, white people tend not to notice racism, straight people tend not to notice homophobia, etc. So it's not as if men will start turning off their TVs because women have a conversation about something other than male characters. In fact if the conversation drives the plot they probably wouldn't notice it at all. There's also the fact that the amount of time spent viewing movies and TV shows doesn't differ that much among demographics. So about 50% of the ticket sales for movies will be to women and the portion of sales to various other groups will about match the population demographics. If movie producers were directly aiming to maximise their profits they wouldn't alienate 50% of their market. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On Fri, 23 Aug 2013, Rohan McLeod <rhn@jeack.com.au> wrote:

Russell Coker wrote:

...

.........snip though no comment on :

...

"Also the anti-sexist context; seems to miss the more general problem of the cliched nature of story-telling;(so evident in Hollywood's view of the world). That is how to tell a story in a way which will be appealing to an audience, whose real interests are very narrow ? "

Firstly you need to learn to quote correctly. When you reply you have each line of quoted text prefixed with "> ". So when you quote someone who's quoting someone it will start with "> > ". I've corrected the above lines.

...

I think that in many cases movie producers could add some diversity without most viewers noticing the difference. Such issues are most noticed by people who aren't affected by them, men tend not to notice sexism, white people tend not to notice racism, straight people tend not to notice homophobia, etc.

.....and wealthy people probably don't notice issues which are of concern to poorer people;

Wealth is a different issue. For example the "Fast and the Furious" movies feature many very expensive cars that the vast majority of the population will never be able to afford to drive. Obviously the majority of people who watch such movies expect that the characters will be more wealthy than they are. But they could have had more than two significant female characters in a F&TF movie without compromising the plot.

somehow the absence of particular ideological standpoints would seem a fairly minor component in the cliched conformity which is commercial cinema. Not that I blame directors, who need to borrow millions from investors; who expect a high chance of a good return on their investment; I suppose the miracle is that every so often a new subject matter and /or a new way of telling a story does become successful box-office !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(2010_film) I really doubt that investors micro-manage film production to the degree that could cause the Bechdel test to be failed. Salt was re-written to star Angelina Jolie instead of Tom Cruise. When a change that significant can be made to a movie after casting has been done it seems obvious that changing the roles of some secondary characters wouldn't be difficult. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

Quoting Rohan McLeod (rhn@jeack.com.au):

Rick Moen wrote:

...

..............snip The test very simply is: At any time during the movie / novel / etc., does such a conversation occur at all?

OK; so just one conversation between two female characters involving a reference to a male; is a sufficient condition to fail the test ?

No. I apologise for having somehow not been clear. A work that includes at least one scene that passes the stated criterion ('At any time during the movie / novel / etc., does such a conversation occur at all?') scores a 'yes' outcome. Very simple. E.g,, John Scalzi was wryly amused that several of his 'Old Man's War' science fiction novels pass the Bechdel Test, though IIRC he said that _Zoe's Tale_ passes on a technicality.

though no comment on :

"Also the anti-sexist context; seems to miss the more general problem of the cliched nature of story-telling;(so evident in Hollywood's view of the world). That is how to tell a story in a way which will be appealing to an audience, whose real interests are very narrow ? "

One, I've had a bit of difficulty parsing that paragraph. Two, there is no 'anti-sexist context' as such. The Bechdel Test is simply a revealing metric devoid of polemics. Three, I really had no comment.