Backing up sparse files ... VM's and TrueCrypt ... etc

[bene-Gk2boCrsRs1AfugRpC6u6w at public.gmane.org (Ben Eisenbraun)]

Hey Tom,

> Fan mail. Cool. :-)

In need of validation?  I don't recall cc'ing the list... :-)

I have a mailbox called 'tech' where I save the technical mails I find most
interesting.  They are mostly culled from the BBLISA and BLU discussion
lists with a few other minor sources.

I didn't want anyone to feel left out of the kudos, so I did a little
digging and came up with a list of my most frequently saved posters:

 $ for email in `egrep '^From:.*<' tech | awk -F\< '{print $NF}' | sed -e 's/>//g' | sort -u` ; do printf "%-30s " "$email:" ; egrep -c "From:.*$email" tech ; done | egrep -v 'bene@' | sort -k +2 -nr | head 
dsr-mzpnVDyJpH4k7aNtvndDlA at public.gmane.org:           16
jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org:            15
blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org:                    15
kristian.hermansen-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org:  12
sgw-Js/TV5QiDUWsTnJN9+BGXg at public.gmane.org:                8
gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org:                   8
me-5yx05kfkO/aqeI1yJSURBw at public.gmane.org:             7
tmetro-blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org:             6
mattboston-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org:          6
bblisa3-Z8efaSeK1ezqlBn2x/YWAg at public.gmane.org:         6

(There's probably a cleaner way to do that, but that one works.)

I think both of those vl.com addresses are Tom's, so it's official!  Tom
Metro wins Most Emails Saved in Ben's Miscellaneous Tech Mailbox.  Prize to
be determined later.  :P

To be totally fair though, I'd probably have to do a frequency analysis
that compares the total number of posts to the list versus the number of
posts that I saved.  Kristian, for example, hasn't posted in quite a long
time and is still right up there among the leaders.

Another thing I found interesting was the total number of posters:

 $ egrep '^From:.*<' tech | awk -F\< '{print $NF}' | sed -e 's/>//g' | egrep -v 'bene@' | sort -u | wc -l
111

Which I think points to the variety of interests and different areas of
expertise of the list participants.

It was interesting to go through my tech mailbox.  I save that stuff
because it is interesting at the time, and I figure it would be useful
later, but I almost never dig through it when I'm confronted with a
problem.  Some of the posts are funny or insightful and others are examples
of technical virtuousity in a particular subject area (i.e. Jarod going off
on MythTV).

It also caused me to think a bit about the online communities I've spent
time in over the years.  I ended up looking through the Google archives of
ne.internet.services and realized I've been reading random posts on
technical subjects by Rich Braun for at least a decade.  :-)

I am officially rambling, so it's time for bed.

-ben

--
the artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without 
work.                                                      <emile zola>