It is always possible for them to have built in code that checks the servers, and if it can't reach the servers after 90 days (or whatever), then start decreasing/removing functionality, until finally it doesn't work. Kind of like a deadman switch.

At one of my jobs we were required to test our backups at least once a quarter. 8T database backups that took hours to restore, then hours to import, so several days of work, so that we made sure the backups were tested and accurate. It was a lot of work, but worth the trouble to make sure something like this doesn't happen. And with deduping and versioning, it should be easy to go back to an older version, even only a few minutes old.

I once had to write a module for a pc/104 board on an embedded system running kernel 2.4. It had 8 relays that were write-only, there was no way to query a relay for what it's current position was, so I kept track of it myself and made the cached status available by a proc entry.

It wasn't really that hard and I learned a bit more about how the kernel modules got initialized and executed. I wrote a couple of others also, like for the Sensoray Model 518 (which is discontinued now I think).

I can't remember, but it is likely I came here for the same reason. I wrote a patch for wm back then that added scale and tile options for the background, which was accepted (but rewritten). I have been using it for my vnc sessions for a long time. I get good response time with it. Still one of my favorite window managers, and I really like the color scheme.

Kind of like the tv shows. Nowhere Man lasted only 1 season, years ago, but that was still 22 episodes. There are shows today that get canceled after 3 episodes. Perhaps they should be left out there a little longer to give them a chance to build public interest. I see this in a lot of things, tech, tv, movies, for example.

We are using http://www.groundworkopensource.com/ for our monitoring. It is working pretty well, and we can use existing Nagios scripts with it.

Reminds me of a book by John De Chancie, one of the Castle books. In it, Gene is dumped in a world with InnerVoice (tm), which is a virus which monitors your endocrine system and whatnot for "guilty" feelings (such as raised heart rate, sweating, stuff like that). If you feel guilty, it starts giving you bad cramps and other things until you "adjust" your behavior. Someone said "put a smile on your face", but he didn't at first, until the cramps and other pains came. When he did, it went away.

Yes, Ultimate Wizard. I made quite a few levels for that too.

Yes, these were cool games. I had Pinball Construction Set, Racing Destruction Set, and Lode Runner on my Commodore 64. I made about 150 levels of my own for Lode Runner; I almost filled a disk. I made quite a few pinball games and racing levels too. That was the most fun.