SATA hotswap

Hotswapping SATA drives, be it ODD or HDD, is easy on Linux.

To detect newly attached drive:
echo "0 0 0" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host?/scan"
(its permission is 200, write-only only to root)
The host? reflects SATA channel number.

To safely dismount the drive:
echo 0 > /sys/block/sd?/device/delete
The sd? is hdd's device identifier.

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Thanks to stephane kattorr@sakana.fr

Cheap(skate) Flashdrives

I'm sure we are familiar with flash drives, and they're getting cheaper and cheaper every year. There are several reasons that flash drives become cheaper:
- cheaper materials,
- cheaper manufacturing cost (V/ULSI),
- cheaper labor (pity those guys in China),
- cheaper distribution chain (so many computer stores around),
+ being 'cheapskate'.



In January I purchased Kingston DTIG3/8G. Let's grab fdisk to tell us about its actual user-addressable capacity.


Disk /dev/sdc: 8010 MB, 8010194944 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 973 cylinders, total 15644912 sectors

Recently I purchased the very same model from the same store, 6 months after the earlier purchase, in a way I feel like I've been being ripped off. See what I've got.

Disk /dev/sdb: 7784 MB, 7784628224 bytes
192 heads, 30 sectors/track, 2639 cylinders, total 15204352 sectors

To me 7784 MB is barely 8GB, duh!

Le Tour: Team Sky

Team Sky Pro Cycling has  it overkill this year on TdF. The squad is (un-)heralded to be the best super team (and likely the most expensive squad, in a way). They've got World champ, several national champs (and ex-national champs); and the yellow helmet is just funny :)




Yellow for Wiggins
Bradley Wiggins's always been top GC contender, hasn't thing gone wrong the final yellow jersey should go for him.

Green for Cavendish
Sagan, Goss, Griepel, Petachi: yet we can't deny that Cav is amazingly fast in the last 100m.

Polka-dot for Froome
This one doesn't sound quite right, there's still Movistar, Euskaltel, FDJ, Schleck and Sanchez.
 
White for Boasson Hagen
 Why not?
 

Too bad they lost Siutsov.