I didn't post the comment in question, but I'm sure they meant nose. Look at the top of the screen where a maximized window's menu bar is located. Notice where your nose is located. Next look at the bottom of the screen where the taskbar is located, and notice where your nose is located. Most likely your head moved a little and therefore your nose moved.
Next look at the top of the screen and then without moving your head, look at the taskbar. You can do it, but try it several times and it will probably start to feel a little weird. Your head is likely to want to move a bit, and holding it still takes effort.
Instead of geostationary, I think you mean low earth orbit (LEO). There is a link to the Wikipedia article on LEO in an adjacent comment. A circular geostationary orbit is at an altitude of 22,236 miles/35,786 kilometers.
Did you read his entire thread? There are 39 tweets that seem to cover the details pretty well, including the chemistry behind his statements. This link makes it easy to read the whole thread. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1236549305189597189.html
It is fairly well known that the class of viruses that the coronavirus belongs to is fairly fragile. I think my question comes down to; does soap actually make any real difference in a case where almost everything destroys the virus? The only viruses that survive are pretty much only those that are embedded in some other substance. That would mean that the discussion on Twitter about soap coming intro direct contact with the virus was pointless.
One source suggested that the reason that soap is better was simply because it caused people to wash their hands for longer.
"...but I don't believe you can directly transfer rules regarding books to websites."
The rules for copyright do apply to websites. Here is what the US Copyright Office says:
"What does copyright protect?
Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section 'What Works Are Protected.'
...
When is my work protected?
Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
The difference is that, while the contents of a book are covered by copyright in the same way that a website, a handwritten letter, or a photograph is, the physical artifact that is the book itself can be loaned, sold, etc. because of first sale doctrine.
Judging from the date on the reddit post, it's a bit late for my comment (two days after the post), but the real issue is not how to duplicate so many DVDs, the issue is how to RIP those DVDs onto some cheap storage for later burning onto DVDs. So high data bandwidth between stacks of DVD players with lots of memory for caching (or however you cache DVD data streams). Fry's had a 4TB external hard drive for $89 this weekend. Maybe have a bunch of SSDs as the intake point for the DVDs, and then offload the ripped copies from the SSDs onto physical drives while you're changing out the DVDs. Would want to use the fastest interfaces available. I've no idea these days what the cool kids are using. (My first hard drive was a 5-1/4" full-height 10 MB MFM. Thought I would never need more storage than that. I think my second HD was 20 MB and used RLL.)
Organizing the DVDs by length would allow optimizing the loading/ripping process to assure minimum time lost waiting for the operator's hands to be free. This kind of planning makes for an interesting project.
It might make an interesting crowd-funded project, if it's reasonably easy to get a research permit. Plan it out, go in with the hardware, come out with the images. Use all the error correction opportunities you've got available.
Do a web search for "bulk dvd ripping" (without quotes) and you'll find lots and lots of discussion and advice, including some about building a dedicated DVD ripping rig. MakeMKV gets good press, in my very quick read of a few posts.
And there's always the option of crowd-funding to raise the exact amount needed to pay off the break-even for Amazon's investment. I can't imagine they'd fight back too hard when looking at a large check vs. a non-performing asset, unless Bezos personally never intended to let the footage go free.
A 16x DVD drive is around 21MB/s output. Any modern hard drive is likely to have 5-12x the sequential write performance as a 16x DVD drive. Shouldn't be any need for SSDs.
> Any modern hard drive is likely to have 5-12x the sequential write performance
The data rate falls to the floor as soon as the access pattern isn't sequential though, which if you are using multiple readers it won't be. While an OS might be bright enough to organise data flowing out of write buffers so it isn't as random as it could be there is a limit to how far they will go with this because they are general purpose OSs and optimising for multiple bulk streams will punish more interactive activity. If you have a tool they bypasses the OS cache and works in large enough blocks you might see better results except if the write activity from each lines up at which point this will make things worse.
Pulling the data off multiple DVD drives onto an SSD, swapping to output to another once near full to continue while its contents are dumped sequentially to cheaper-per-Gb traditional drives, would probably be the way I'd suggest.
In fact, you would get away without swapping between two SSDs: the read activity pulling data from the SSD to a traditional drive is unlikely to have much effect on the write performance for the data coming off the DVDs unless you have a great many readers in one machine. If doing this all relatively manually, to reduce manual steps once a DVD copy is complete add it to a queue to be moved using something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeraCopy so you don't have to worry about manually coordinating the SSD-to-cheaper copy operation to keep it sequential.
Assuming 15 minutes to read each disk (it is a long time since I pulled data off a DVD in bulk so this is guess work based on old memory of it taking a little more than 10 minutes to read a full DVD9 disk, and rounding up to 15 to allow for manual process inefficiencies and some disks being slower to extract due to condition causing rereads, etc) you are looking at wanting 21 or more drives constantly on the go to get the job done in 3 solid 8-hour days (2,000x15/3/8/60 = 20.8). Five laptops each with an internal SSD (128G+) to extract to, five DVD readers on USB3 to extract from, and a 4+Tb spinning disk (also external) to finally write to, might do the job and have the space (2,000x8.5/5=~3.5Tb output per laptop). You'll need a powered USB dock/ for each laptop instead of a passive hub, and you are going to want to add more of everything to allow for the possibility of device failures.
Of course significantly less resource is needed (or you get more contingency time (and/or spare kit to deal with failures) from the same resource) if most of the media is DVD5 and/or not full disks. I've assumed the initial three days is just for obtaining the content - I've not accounted for any other processing (such as indexing and transcoding) or further distribution.
I've done this kind of stuff, and between OS buffering, and making sure the ripping software is writing large blocks (say 4-32MB at a time) its possible to run drives at basically full bandwidth with something less than a dozen streams. There is going to be more inner/outer track bandwidth variation than the perf falloff going from 1 to 6 streams with large blocks (say 4-32M sequences). There are a lot of reasons for this, but a lot has to do with data placement effectively combining multiple streams into data writes to the same sequential track.
More interesting is that even "sequential" read/writes already have seek times built in because HD's aren't spiral track, so head switching, and track to track seek (and the associated rotational/finding the servo track) are inherent in sequential IO perf. So most filessytem placement/schedulers aren't going to place 3 files being written at the same time on opposite sides of a disk, so those head switch times and track times have nearly immeasurable increases because the drive itself is also storing a large part of a track write and moving 3 tracks and a head, is basically the same as just moving a head.
there's an easy fix. suppose Ubuntu or openSUSE Linux: run your install on an SSD of at least 128 gb. set a swapfile of at least 64 gb right on your root partition & make sure it's mounted as swap (put in /etc/fstab or do it manually each boot) now attach & mount your hi capacity storage.
just have your script queue up a few in /tmp before moving to the mounted storage.
pretty easy & now you have multi level buffering caches that Linux knows how to work with efficiently & that can nearly guarantee sequential writes
I particularly miss paid holidays, paid vacation (or PTO), and paid sick days. I tell people that I only take off when the office is closed and they won't allow me to work, because if I don't work, I don't get paid.
About your sentence that begins "The laptop doesn't really have anything THAT illegal..." Being legal or not isn't exactly like being pregnant or not, because pregnant is a state that is related to the physical condition of the person, but legality is related to the geographical location or to the citizenship status of the person. That said, there is an old saying that there is no such thing as a little bit pregnant. If you think that there is anything on your hard drive that is illegal in any place where you are traveling to, or your flight might divert to in an in-flight emergency, the smart thing to do is to scrub it off your hard drive and use a tool to wipe the empty space on your drive to United States Department of Defense standard DoD 5220.22M -- and do all that BEFORE you travel.
If you have something that is perfectly legal where you are, but illegal where you are going, you have not broken the law where you are going if you don't take the illegal thing with you. If you do take it, and you DON'T get away with crossing with it, the very best you can hope for is that you won't be jailed. Instead, you can expect to have your computer seized and destroyed, yourself deported and legally barred from ever returning to that country. Oh, and kiss your airfare goodbye, too. Or, all those unpleasant things could happen to you AFTER you spend a period of time in jail.
Not sure whether something really is illegal in the US, best advice is to ask a US lawyer. Second best is to ask a lawyer in your country who is knowledgeable in US law. Third best might be the US Consulate in your country. You can always ask HN, but in that case you get what you get and most of us are not lawyers.
Good luck in your travels, have a great time at the math program, and try real hard not to wind up in Gitmo.
I have $30,000-ish in student loans for my MIS, and I keep my loans in deferment status by staying enrolled as a half-time student at the local community college. I typically take web-based classes where I can bulldoze through the assignments and be done with classwork until the next semester. I got pretty good at the web-based format because my Masters was completely online.
Student loans in the US can generally be deferred, but as I understand it dismissal in bankruptcy is likely only if the court becomes convinced that you will never be able to repay -- such as if you become 100% disabled, or are simply too old to earn enough to repay the loans. I figure I can stay enrolled until I'm 85 or so....
I try to take classes that I'm actually interested in or have some bearing on my career or looks good on the resume, but if nothing is available (or when something I wanted gets canceled) I can take literally anything so long as it is for credit AND I don't withdraw from the class (but failing the class is okay). I am enrolled in a degree plan for an Associate of Applied Science in Digital Video because of interest, but the school doesn't nag me about what I take, and I don't care. I could have gone for undeclared major, but when I picked a major the school put an estimated date of completion on my record. I had to go back once already and have that extended. It does have to be an accredited school, but community colleges don't make a habit of turning anyone away and they're usually extremely cheap. Textbooks are often available used on Amazon or eBay or Craigslist but be careful of version.
At one point we moved and the classes I wanted didn't make, so I ended up taking Principle of Real Estate 1 and 2. Moving took too much time and I blew off the class work and (for the first time in my life) deliberately chose to fail the classes. As long as my GPA stays reasonable, I can weather a few bad grades. A + F = C, or A + A + F = B, and getting an A is really easy, so I can fail quite a lot before I end up on academic probation.
My free advice, worth every cent you're paying for it, is: Look into whether you can get your and your wife's student loans put on deferment. (AND PAY CASH OR GET SCHOLARSHIPS FOR CLASSES, DON'T TAKE ON MORE STUDENT LOANS!!!) For me, one semester of tuition costs me about the equivalent of one student loan payment. Your savings would be considerably greater than mine. Interest continues to accrue and get rolled into the loan balance and that compounds the interest, but if you can use the money you free up to pay other credit card debt you can dig your way out of that, and then work on the student loans.
I don't know if you can get your loans put in deferment, but do so if you can. WHETHER YOU CAN OR NOT, it is WAY past time to talk to a bankruptcy attorney. You can probably get a fresh start on everything else that way, put your student loans on deferment for a long time, and get a job -- practically any job -- and start paying the student loans off and getting a life. And if your wife doesn't want a bankruptcy on her credit, consider getting a no-contest divorce and take all the credit card debt on yourself, and then get the bankruptcy. Once you're out of the bankruptcy, you can consider re-marrying. But the feasibility of that approach hinges on your state laws. That's why you need a lawyer.
You do NOT need to gamble on making a successful start up out of your year of meager cash, complete lack of marketable ideas, and further sponging off your in-laws. Anyone, not just you, would be far too likely to end up with no cash and p.o.'d in-laws who decide that their daughter might be welcome to live there but not as long as you are there with her.
I made the same stupid mistake you both did, of taking on huge debt without sufficient thought. You and I, at least, had reason to believe that we needed our degrees to make ourselves stand out above other candidates for jobs. I know that once I am in the job, my work and my ideas will keep me in the job and move me upward, but I need to be able to get past the interviews. I failed to pay enough attention to what the costs were going to be, and to the reputational value of the school I chose. I also spent the extra money I borrowed above actual school expenses to supplement my day job's income. Bad, bad, bad idea. I could have gotten more bang for 2/3 the tuition cost with a degree from my State university, and been instantly admitted to the "old boy's" network that informally influences state government hiring. The school on your degree won't get you the job, but it seems to strongly increase your chances of getting an interview, or at least of getting your resume read.
Your wife made an additional mistake in thinking that she needed an MFA to be a writer. I am a professional writer. You just have to write to be a writer, and subscriptions to Writer's Digest and The Writer are sufficient tools to help you learn what you need to know to write good fiction and non-fiction. She also failed to fully research and understand how much the average writer makes. (Hint: she's finding out now.) Only an infinitesimal fraction of a percentage of writers make a good living writing fiction, or even magazine articles. We all want (desperately) to be as successful as JK Rowling or Tom Clancy or anybody who owns a permanent spot on the best-sellers lists. If you want to make a living as a writer, find a good niche. Write newsletters for homeowner associations, or medical practices, or... whatever niche she can find that needs filling.
My niche happens to be documentation of extremely complex legacy computer systems. But I am an extremely technical technical writer, and I paid my dues by writing a whole lot of Step 1, Step 2-type end user documentation, and learning a lot of really ancient technologies. (My current major project is a FoxPro 2.6 for DOS application that is still in daily use across the entire state of Texas. But we're replacing it as fast as we can.) I've made a good living as a professional technical writer for 30 years and the only writing classes I took were Freshman Grammar and Composition, and one class in creative writing. And zero college classes in technical writing.
You had some bad luck: illness and a really sucky economy and job market. Trying to fix your situation by striking it rich as a software or services entrepreneur makes almost as much sense as loading your burro with fifty pounds of beans, a pickaxe, and a sluice pan, and heading off into the nearest Bureau of Land Management property to take advantage of the 1850-something Mining Act and looking for gold. You have no track record as a rainmaker. So get someone to pay you for managing something and building something, do it successfully, and build up that track record. Then get some good ideas and start building your empire. But don't keep believing that if you wish really hard the next time you see a meteor, you'll create the next Google. Managers and entrepreneurs fail when they focus on the dream and ignore the reality, but they can succeed when they keep a firm grip on reality while pursuing their dream.
Next look at the top of the screen and then without moving your head, look at the taskbar. You can do it, but try it several times and it will probably start to feel a little weird. Your head is likely to want to move a bit, and holding it still takes effort.
YMMV.