Month: December 2004

Disappearing files

Some known facts can use more reminders…

Fedora Core Linux 2, as well as many other Linux and Unix machines, has a script (/etc/cron.daily/tmpwatch) that is regularly executed by cron, which goes around your temporary directories and removes old files. This is a very useful utilty which helps to keep the machine in a clean and tidy state.

The problem that this maintenance piece of software might cause is that some of the fresh files can disappear.

The script itself does not know which files are new and which are old. To determine this, it uses file’s record, particularly last access and last modification times. Whenever you read the file (say open image in the viewer or mp3 in player), its access time is updated by the operating system to current time. Whenever you write to file (say save changes to a text file), its modification time is updated by the OS to the current time.

With files that you manage yourself everything works fine. But there are some programs that modify access and modification times of the file on their own. One example of such a program is unzip. By default, when you extract a file from zip archive, unzip will creat the file on your disk with the same modification time as the file that went into the archive. Meaning that if you will modify a file on the 1st of January 2004, than zip it, than, after some time (say on the 10th of December 2004) unzip it, you will see that its last modification time is 1st of January 2004. Athough the file itself is freshly created from the zip archive, it is given the attributes of the original file. So if you will leave it in the temporary directory, than it will be deleted upon the next run of the tmpwatch.

There are two solutions to this problem. First, do not leave important files in the temporary directory. Use your home directory or some other place which is not monitored by tmpwatch. Second, you can modify file attributes by hand. For that you can use the touch program. Command like touch somefile will set both access and modification times to current time.

BMW Films: The Hire

Finally, I came across the source of those wonderfull “Hire” short films. I’ve had all of episodes, but with a terrible translation into Russian. The translation was such bad in all of them it practically was taking out all the fun.

I am currently downloading all episodes with the English audio track. Now that’s a dream come true. Additionally, there are few more clips, such as “The making of…” and the “Driving techniques”. Now, why didn’t I look for these before?

If you still don’t know what I am talking about, here is a litlte introduction for you. BMW made a number of short films (about 10 minutes each) about these guy, the driver, played by Clive Owen, who is hired to do different jobs that require driving. He does one job using one model of BMW cars in each film. Also, each film is directed by a different director and casts different actors. Excellent cars, amazing driving, and a nice story, all packed into about 10 minutes – these are the BMW’s Hire movies.

Thelma & Louise

I just watched the DVD with “Thelma & Louise“. This is an excellent criminal drama.

While the movie itself is very relaxing and enjoyable to watch, it does stimulate for some thinking on the subject of equality of men and women and “head of family” issues. I do believe in the equality in the relationship. I don’t mean a blind equality. Men, from one to another, are way too different to make them equal, not to mention equality between men and women. But I think that neither of them are better. They are just different. And so they should relate, like equals but each allowed to their own differences. Repressing and framing other half will not go unnoticed and will eventually go out of control. And when it will you better be somewhere else.

Anyway, I got carried away… The film is nicely done, with a good story, acting, sound, camera work and photography. Don’t go see it just because Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, or Brad Pitt play in it – there are parts are rather small and unimportant. But go see this film because both Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis delivered excellent performance.

If you are still not convinced, I’ll tell you that this film was directed by Ridley Scott, the same guy who produced “Matchstick Men“, “Black Hawk Down“, “Hannibal“, “Gladiator“, and few episodes of “Hire” with BMW. Does that ring any bells?

8 out of 10.