"Some hardware engineering but that SPARC stuff really isn't competitive."
Really?
How much do you know about "that SPARC stuff?" It's true that x86 has finally surpassed a lot of the things that Sparc led the way in, but there are still ways that traditional Sparc scales better.
Now moving to the next generation of Sun's gear, we have hardware virtualisation and CoolThreads. Under a hundred grand will buy you a system with four 8-core CPUs, and each core can process eight simultaneous threads. That is OLTP nirvana! Too much power? Chop it up into a handful of smaller servers, each running their own OS. Any one of them can in turn be split into zones--soft OS partitions.
I keep hearing about how Sparc is obsolete, and yet the new generation of Sparc processors and supporting hardware is pushing the state of the art that Intel and AMD aren't even planning in yet.
I'm assuming this is evaluating for co-location purposes. Here are some things I'd ask.
1) How quickly can I get a new server deployed into it? How do I do it? 2) Can I get a tour? Now? (Note that this not only lets you see the data centre, but also will give you an idea of security. Look for procedures on getting in, notice if they ask you to sign a release form, etc.) 3) How close to capacity are you? (The answer should include space, floor weight, power, cooling, and network. If it doesn't, why not?) 4) What are your racking/networking/cabling standards? (They should have some, at least where you connect to them, but they shouldn't be onerous). 5) How many people manage the data centre? You don't want to be one car accident away from loss of access or service. 6) How about power management? Is the centre on a UPS, redundant UPSes, or nothing? Can you get charts of the power going to the servers? Can you get DC for telecom servers, or only AC? Is it on a generator for long-term outages? (Note that you may not need this--in which case you shouldn't pay for it. Alternatively, if you need it, make sure it's there!) 7) Is it manned 24/7? (Ditto!)
If you can, ask them to pull a tile so you can see under the raised floor. Underfloor cabling (and suspended ceiling cabling for that matter) should be neat, tied, and labelled. Dead cables should be pulled, not left to rot. There has to be sufficient clearance for unrestricted airflow. Cages are better than lying on the floor.
Most of what makes a good data centre comes down to organization. If it's a rats nest, then even if there's one guy who knows "everything," it will be less reliable, less consistent, and less predictable. Procedures should be written down, printed, filed in labeled binders, and regularly updated. (Note: Online copies should be canonical, but also needs to be accessible offline when shit --> fan.)
Fire suppressant mechanisms (wet vs. dry, live pipes, etc.) need to be considered, as does emergency lighting. If the operators need to start digging around for a flashlight to read what they should be doing, then things aren't happening the way they should.
Be picky. If they're leasing space to you, then their data centre design and maintenance is their BUSINESS, and they had better get it right! Look for a neat, well-organized, well-documented, well-panned data centre. Also make sure that it fits your needs.
Yep, IE still has the lion's share of the market. That's not news. IE6 is dwindling finally, that's not news. Firefox, Opera, and the others are gaining--that's not news anymore.
All version of IE combined have less than a 65% share of the market. While it's big, it's no longer a monopoly. The others are big enough that IE can't bully the market into adopting its nonstandard 'extensions' anymore, nor can it avoid adhering to the standards set.
There are meaningful alternatives. THAT is what the browser wars were all about, and in that sense, we've won. YAY!!! Seriously, yay! This is a clear and decisive victory for consumers, and firefox doesn't have to beat IE's actual percentage to accomplish it.
We're starting to roll out ZFS in our (large!) enterprise. We've played with it in the lab, and in our internal support systems (e.g. documentation and authentication systems) enough to be comfortable with it.
However, you nailed the biggest weakness with it in five words:
"Sun support had no explanation."
We are a BIG Sun shop, and this has been our general experience with Sun in the last two years or so. Sun is bleeding competence faster than they can fire it. For every good person they lay off (because tech staff are expensive--especially tech support staff), two more will quit in disgust.
I'm a big Sun fan - have been since SunOS 4 was the new kid on the block. I also think that ZFS is the third-best thing since sliced bread (if they added volume shrinking and online relayout, it'd be #1). Solaris 10, for all of its warts, is still the best Unix on the market right now. However, I don't see Sun surviving much longer--enterprises with a lost of investment and loyalty are starting to turn away in frustration.
The CRTC's approach was fairly typical of them - stay as uninvolved as possible. This might be a good solution, or it might not.
However, you're missing a point. If I sign up and pay for (say) 15Mb/sec service, and I'm trying to get a file from a server (or servers) that can feed it that fast to my ISP, then I should be able to get it that fast to my cable modem, dammit! Restrict my upload and download speeds at the rates advertised, impose capacity limits, these are fine. However, it is NOT up to the ISP to decide what I do within my limits.
You're right about RMS. However, he has a clear view that anything capitalistic or corporate is inherently against user freedom, and will fight against EVERYTHING involving commercial use of open source software. I appreciate his consistency and sense of ethics, but I don't agree with his zealotry and blindness.
"What they need is classrooms, programs, and professors who adequately engage the students in a manner that speaks to the students. Sorry, but the 'tried and true' method of straight lecture and 'You need to know this because I say you need to know this' no longer apply in this day and age."
I disagree almost entirely, at least in the early years.
Various learning methods have been tried over the last four or five decades, all with the intent of engaging the student. Ultimately, education and discipline suffer. A perfect example is New Math. Morris Kline nailed the problem with some of these ideas nearly 40 years ago. He said that New Math "...ignored completely the fact that mathematics is a cumulative development and that it is practically impossible to learn the newer creations if one does not know the older ones".
At the end of the day, the basics have to be there: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic. That means basic logic, basic grammar, basic literacy, and basic comprehension, both numerically and linguistically. History and science are essential, but they can't be understood without language and math skills. Arts and music need to be there too, in a good school system, and they need to be connected to the other subjects. Finally, constructive discipline needs to be instilled. I don't CARE if you don't want to know what 6x9 is, you need to be able to work with basic numbers instinctively to progress, so you WILL learn it.
Ultimately, there's only one way to write certain things in the deep recesses of our brain, and that's by rote. Sorry, but it's true. If you have to count on your fingers or repeat "i before e except after c" every time you come across a minor problem, you'll be flailing to keep up. Learn it. Know it. Breathe it.
From about grade 6 onwards, kids with a proper backing in the basics can start to learn more complex material, which means more complex learning methods. Is a kid taking enough notes to justify a computer in class? Maybe so then. Things like "new methods" are mostly excuses for trying to drag the weaker kids forward, because they didn't get proper training when they were younger--all it does is compromise the stronger ones. This is a time when kids need to use the basics they already (theoretically) have, and build on them for more knowledge.
High school is an interesting time--kids are sassy, rebelious, and gaining in power. Ultimately, the mask of teaching isn't much different but at the same time the kids should be ACTIVELY ENGAGED in their learning (I don't think you'd argue this point--it sounds like we agree here). The funny thing is that it's always been that way, or at least since the end of WWII. High school was the beginnings of debate, arguing with teachers, taking on roles of a peer. Good teachers will allow it if you have your shit together. Clever, feisty, capable students who talk back intelligently are most teachers' joy and delight - and very rare.
University (or college) is a whole different ball game. You're there of your own accord. The prof owes you nothing other than to present the material coherently and help you if you have questions. Being engaged is entirely, 100%, YOUR responsibility, since you chose to go there.
First of all, there's the decline of paper-and-pen(cil) as a form of getting 'stuff' down. Secondly, there's the decline of actual cursive writing.
The loss of cursive seems more a sign of the social age, rather than of the technology age. We could easily lose cursive entirely, without a single computer in existence. The world could simply shift to printing, and seems to be going in that direction.
On the other hand, there are still valuable places for using a pen, and will be for some time yet. There's no better way to jot down notes in a meeting, or when brainstorming with someone else. Computers just aren't there yet.
"Digital personal property (DPP) is an attempt to make consumers treat digital media like physical objects."
When we see things like this, we need to sit down and have a hard look at the intent here. The fundamental nature of digital media is that copying is essentially a zero-cost event. The entire point of "DPP" is to break the nature of digital media.
Why? Why are we breaking the natural advantage of this new format? This isn't much different than pouring ink all over the pages of a book, so that they can't be read. Ultimately, we have to realise that we're doing it to make digital media fit the mold of traditional media.
Yes, I know you're thinking "but that's exactly what it SAYS! Make consumers treat digital media like physical objects." No revelation here--just repeating the blindingly obvious.
My point, though, is that the digital media breaks the economic model. We need to fix the model, not break the media. DRM is backwards. DPP is backwards. They're making the media fit the model (by kneecapping it), not making the model fit the media.
Reality is that digital media are here. A model that doesn't change to adapt to reality is one that HAS to die eventually.
If you don't want to play by my rules, I'm leaving, and taking my marbles with me!
That's it in a nutshell. They own the marbles (aka content). They figure that it's friendlier on the consumer to be able to watch under restricted guidelines than not at all.
In reality, the consumer doesn't care much about "high-value HD content," pre-releases, etc. Most TV viewing is on stupid series, and more often than not, reality shows. Far more people will plunk down and watch the latest rampant overpopulating family weekly than will make a point of watching a first-run movie on broadcast TV.
A year or so ago, Sun had enough FREE CASH ON HAND to take the company private. They chose not to do so. Instead, they talked at length about finding partners, synergy, etc. In other words, Jonathan Schwartz put out a big FOR SALE sign on the front lawn, and waited for people to come calling. When that didn't happen, they dropped their price (1:4 reverse split, which can't help but devalue a company) and cut staff some more.
There's nothing predatory about Oracle buying a company that was begging to be bought.
Mostly I agree. I've wanted bug fixes on occasion, but they're usually bugs in a plug-in, rather than the browser (acrobat and flash are notorious for this!)
Tabs were a huge leap forward. Firefox's crash-recovery was a big one as well. I've got a handful of add-ons which make the browser just work better, and aside from that, it's there. I don't need any more than what it provides. At only one recent point have I thought, "Hey--they need to add this feature.," and as it turns out, the code was already in beta. (The feature--bookmark tags--is now in FF3.5)
I would like it faster. I would like it to crash less. Do I need new features? Nah. But someone might. Just don't make it slower, bigger, or crashier and I don't care.
1) I'm old and crusty, and resistant to change.:-) 2) Why SHOULD I have to change my behaviour because of these criminals?
It's like spam. I work for an ISP, and we spend millions of dollars on anti-spam measures. We block it, they get harder to block and generate more. It's an arms race. We'd be better off if the ISPs all turned off all spam filtering for a month, and pointed everyone to the ROKSO list.
Avoiding the calls (or the spam) is avoiding the problem. Dealing with it is harder, but could ultimately be successful.
Those assholes with the robocallers are now going to phoning Canada with their scams, because it's out of jurisdiction. We saw it with the do not call list, and now...
Hell. I might just stop answering my phone entirely.
Really, the BSA has never been more than a minor annoyance in the background. Noisy and irritating, but hardly threatening for most people.
The RIAA (and MPAA) are proving that they're willing to punish people for ten times their annual livelihood, even when not guilty. That is enough to make them a danger to everyone, and thus much more reviled.
(OK, that might be an overstatement--there _should_ be exactly two answers, though)
You can follow one of two conventions when naming workstations: Functional or whimsical.
Functional names are self-evident - room number, system type, city, division, role, etc. The fine details amount to figuring out what information is important to you, and squishing it into an RFC1178-acceptable name.
Whimsical names are the other convention. Pick a theme with enough namespace for growth, and go with it. One company I worked for used cartoon characters. Another one used astronomical entities. A friend has his machines all named after single malt scotch whiskies.
The key is to make the namespace large enough for long-term unrestrained growth. A mid-sized company may want to make sure that they have three digits for workstation ID numbers (for functional names), or a ridiculously large pool of names to choose from. Hitting a self-created namespace wall is ugly and embarassing.
Thermite? HELL YEAH!!! I can't argue with that one.:-)
I can't see how sanding the layer off would be faster than DBAN though, given that you've got typically six or eight surfaces inside a drive that you need to access. That's a lot of dismantling before you can do the sanding. Also, probably pretty low on the 'healthy methods' scale.
So the study found contamination at levels of 0.006 - 1240 mcg. The first question I'd ask is if this is the same threshold they used in the previous study. (I would certainly hope/assume so, but it always pays to ask.) It also seems to me that a few millionths of the coke on the heavily contaminated bills could rub off onto their neighbors, so even if there was no increase in coke usage, constant movement through the system could redistribute it.
Alas, it's been many years since my membership to the ACS lapsed, so I won't have access to the original proceedings.
Slashdot Mirror
"Some hardware engineering but that SPARC stuff really isn't competitive."
Really?
How much do you know about "that SPARC stuff?" It's true that x86 has finally surpassed a lot of the things that Sparc led the way in, but there are still ways that traditional Sparc scales better.
Now moving to the next generation of Sun's gear, we have hardware virtualisation and CoolThreads. Under a hundred grand will buy you a system with four 8-core CPUs, and each core can process eight simultaneous threads. That is OLTP nirvana! Too much power? Chop it up into a handful of smaller servers, each running their own OS. Any one of them can in turn be split into zones--soft OS partitions.
I keep hearing about how Sparc is obsolete, and yet the new generation of Sparc processors and supporting hardware is pushing the state of the art that Intel and AMD aren't even planning in yet.
I'm assuming this is evaluating for co-location purposes. Here are some things I'd ask.
1) How quickly can I get a new server deployed into it? How do I do it?
2) Can I get a tour? Now? (Note that this not only lets you see the data centre, but also will give you an idea of security. Look for procedures on getting in, notice if they ask you to sign a release form, etc.)
3) How close to capacity are you? (The answer should include space, floor weight, power, cooling, and network. If it doesn't, why not?)
4) What are your racking/networking/cabling standards? (They should have some, at least where you connect to them, but they shouldn't be onerous).
5) How many people manage the data centre? You don't want to be one car accident away from loss of access or service.
6) How about power management? Is the centre on a UPS, redundant UPSes, or nothing? Can you get charts of the power going to the servers? Can you get DC for telecom servers, or only AC? Is it on a generator for long-term outages? (Note that you may not need this--in which case you shouldn't pay for it. Alternatively, if you need it, make sure it's there!)
7) Is it manned 24/7? (Ditto!)
If you can, ask them to pull a tile so you can see under the raised floor. Underfloor cabling (and suspended ceiling cabling for that matter) should be neat, tied, and labelled. Dead cables should be pulled, not left to rot. There has to be sufficient clearance for unrestricted airflow. Cages are better than lying on the floor.
Most of what makes a good data centre comes down to organization. If it's a rats nest, then even if there's one guy who knows "everything," it will be less reliable, less consistent, and less predictable. Procedures should be written down, printed, filed in labeled binders, and regularly updated. (Note: Online copies should be canonical, but also needs to be accessible offline when shit --> fan.)
Fire suppressant mechanisms (wet vs. dry, live pipes, etc.) need to be considered, as does emergency lighting. If the operators need to start digging around for a flashlight to read what they should be doing, then things aren't happening the way they should.
Be picky. If they're leasing space to you, then their data centre design and maintenance is their BUSINESS, and they had better get it right! Look for a neat, well-organized, well-documented, well-panned data centre. Also make sure that it fits your needs.
Yep, IE still has the lion's share of the market. That's not news. IE6 is dwindling finally, that's not news. Firefox, Opera, and the others are gaining--that's not news anymore.
All version of IE combined have less than a 65% share of the market. While it's big, it's no longer a monopoly. The others are big enough that IE can't bully the market into adopting its nonstandard 'extensions' anymore, nor can it avoid adhering to the standards set.
There are meaningful alternatives. THAT is what the browser wars were all about, and in that sense, we've won. YAY!!! Seriously, yay! This is a clear and decisive victory for consumers, and firefox doesn't have to beat IE's actual percentage to accomplish it.
Or to summarize: Woot!
We're starting to roll out ZFS in our (large!) enterprise. We've played with it in the lab, and in our internal support systems (e.g. documentation and authentication systems) enough to be comfortable with it.
However, you nailed the biggest weakness with it in five words:
"Sun support had no explanation."
We are a BIG Sun shop, and this has been our general experience with Sun in the last two years or so. Sun is bleeding competence faster than they can fire it. For every good person they lay off (because tech staff are expensive--especially tech support staff), two more will quit in disgust.
I'm a big Sun fan - have been since SunOS 4 was the new kid on the block. I also think that ZFS is the third-best thing since sliced bread (if they added volume shrinking and online relayout, it'd be #1). Solaris 10, for all of its warts, is still the best Unix on the market right now. However, I don't see Sun surviving much longer--enterprises with a lost of investment and loyalty are starting to turn away in frustration.
I can make sure my dad's account gets permanently deleted before FB makes this (a) mandatory and (b) automatic.
"One air safety expert suggested that these devices might be 'the last unrestricted fire hazard' people can bring on airplanes."
Really now? More of a hazard than lighters and matches?
The CRTC's approach was fairly typical of them - stay as uninvolved as possible. This might be a good solution, or it might not.
However, you're missing a point. If I sign up and pay for (say) 15Mb/sec service, and I'm trying to get a file from a server (or servers) that can feed it that fast to my ISP, then I should be able to get it that fast to my cable modem, dammit! Restrict my upload and download speeds at the rates advertised, impose capacity limits, these are fine. However, it is NOT up to the ISP to decide what I do within my limits.
Jump on? JUMP ON???
The BSA has been pumping this bullshit for decades--longer than the RIAA has been complaining.
You're right about RMS. However, he has a clear view that anything capitalistic or corporate is inherently against user freedom, and will fight against EVERYTHING involving commercial use of open source software. I appreciate his consistency and sense of ethics, but I don't agree with his zealotry and blindness.
"Not More Time, Better Use Of Time"
I agree entirely.
"What they need is classrooms, programs, and professors who adequately engage the students in a manner that speaks to the students. Sorry, but the 'tried and true' method of straight lecture and 'You need to know this because I say you need to know this' no longer apply in this day and age."
I disagree almost entirely, at least in the early years.
Various learning methods have been tried over the last four or five decades, all with the intent of engaging the student. Ultimately, education and discipline suffer. A perfect example is New Math. Morris Kline nailed the problem with some of these ideas nearly 40 years ago. He said that New Math "...ignored completely the fact that mathematics is a cumulative development and that it is practically impossible to learn the newer creations if one does not know the older ones".
At the end of the day, the basics have to be there: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic. That means basic logic, basic grammar, basic literacy, and basic comprehension, both numerically and linguistically. History and science are essential, but they can't be understood without language and math skills. Arts and music need to be there too, in a good school system, and they need to be connected to the other subjects. Finally, constructive discipline needs to be instilled. I don't CARE if you don't want to know what 6x9 is, you need to be able to work with basic numbers instinctively to progress, so you WILL learn it.
Ultimately, there's only one way to write certain things in the deep recesses of our brain, and that's by rote. Sorry, but it's true. If you have to count on your fingers or repeat "i before e except after c" every time you come across a minor problem, you'll be flailing to keep up. Learn it. Know it. Breathe it.
From about grade 6 onwards, kids with a proper backing in the basics can start to learn more complex material, which means more complex learning methods. Is a kid taking enough notes to justify a computer in class? Maybe so then. Things like "new methods" are mostly excuses for trying to drag the weaker kids forward, because they didn't get proper training when they were younger--all it does is compromise the stronger ones. This is a time when kids need to use the basics they already (theoretically) have, and build on them for more knowledge.
High school is an interesting time--kids are sassy, rebelious, and gaining in power. Ultimately, the mask of teaching isn't much different but at the same time the kids should be ACTIVELY ENGAGED in their learning (I don't think you'd argue this point--it sounds like we agree here). The funny thing is that it's always been that way, or at least since the end of WWII. High school was the beginnings of debate, arguing with teachers, taking on roles of a peer. Good teachers will allow it if you have your shit together. Clever, feisty, capable students who talk back intelligently are most teachers' joy and delight - and very rare.
University (or college) is a whole different ball game. You're there of your own accord. The prof owes you nothing other than to present the material coherently and help you if you have questions. Being engaged is entirely, 100%, YOUR responsibility, since you chose to go there.
First of all, there's the decline of paper-and-pen(cil) as a form of getting 'stuff' down. Secondly, there's the decline of actual cursive writing.
The loss of cursive seems more a sign of the social age, rather than of the technology age. We could easily lose cursive entirely, without a single computer in existence. The world could simply shift to printing, and seems to be going in that direction.
On the other hand, there are still valuable places for using a pen, and will be for some time yet. There's no better way to jot down notes in a meeting, or when brainstorming with someone else. Computers just aren't there yet.
Can someone from the US explain to me how this material gets into the schools and (as it appears) the curriculum?
My recollection is that the materials teachers present is board-reviewed and carefully developed. This seems to be an injection without any review.
...why?
"Digital personal property (DPP) is an attempt to make consumers treat digital media like physical objects."
When we see things like this, we need to sit down and have a hard look at the intent here. The fundamental nature of digital media is that copying is essentially a zero-cost event. The entire point of "DPP" is to break the nature of digital media.
Why? Why are we breaking the natural advantage of this new format? This isn't much different than pouring ink all over the pages of a book, so that they can't be read. Ultimately, we have to realise that we're doing it to make digital media fit the mold of traditional media.
Yes, I know you're thinking "but that's exactly what it SAYS! Make consumers treat digital media like physical objects." No revelation here--just repeating the blindingly obvious.
My point, though, is that the digital media breaks the economic model. We need to fix the model, not break the media. DRM is backwards. DPP is backwards. They're making the media fit the model (by kneecapping it), not making the model fit the media.
Reality is that digital media are here. A model that doesn't change to adapt to reality is one that HAS to die eventually.
Hey! Let's not forget their GOOD cars - like the Matador, and...um...
Actually, never mind.
(I grew up with a '73 Matador as the family car - dad hated it as long as we owned it.)
If you don't want to play by my rules, I'm leaving, and taking my marbles with me!
That's it in a nutshell. They own the marbles (aka content). They figure that it's friendlier on the consumer to be able to watch under restricted guidelines than not at all.
In reality, the consumer doesn't care much about "high-value HD content," pre-releases, etc. Most TV viewing is on stupid series, and more often than not, reality shows. Far more people will plunk down and watch the latest rampant overpopulating family weekly than will make a point of watching a first-run movie on broadcast TV.
Of course, this is the fault of pirates. Somehow.
A year or so ago, Sun had enough FREE CASH ON HAND to take the company private. They chose not to do so. Instead, they talked at length about finding partners, synergy, etc. In other words, Jonathan Schwartz put out a big FOR SALE sign on the front lawn, and waited for people to come calling. When that didn't happen, they dropped their price (1:4 reverse split, which can't help but devalue a company) and cut staff some more.
There's nothing predatory about Oracle buying a company that was begging to be bought.
Exactly right.
I'll listen to streaming music for free.
I'll download music I've bought.
Mostly I agree. I've wanted bug fixes on occasion, but they're usually bugs in a plug-in, rather than the browser (acrobat and flash are notorious for this!)
Tabs were a huge leap forward. Firefox's crash-recovery was a big one as well. I've got a handful of add-ons which make the browser just work better, and aside from that, it's there. I don't need any more than what it provides. At only one recent point have I thought, "Hey--they need to add this feature.," and as it turns out, the code was already in beta. (The feature--bookmark tags--is now in FF3.5)
I would like it faster. I would like it to crash less. Do I need new features? Nah. But someone might. Just don't make it slower, bigger, or crashier and I don't care.
But you're missing two important points:
1) I'm old and crusty, and resistant to change. :-)
2) Why SHOULD I have to change my behaviour because of these criminals?
It's like spam. I work for an ISP, and we spend millions of dollars on anti-spam measures. We block it, they get harder to block and generate more. It's an arms race. We'd be better off if the ISPs all turned off all spam filtering for a month, and pointed everyone to the ROKSO list.
Avoiding the calls (or the spam) is avoiding the problem. Dealing with it is harder, but could ultimately be successful.
Well, thanks folks.
Those assholes with the robocallers are now going to phoning Canada with their scams, because it's out of jurisdiction. We saw it with the do not call list, and now...
Hell. I might just stop answering my phone entirely.
So when you talk about simple, old-fashioned cell phones, what exactly do you mean by "dial a number?"
Really, the BSA has never been more than a minor annoyance in the background. Noisy and irritating, but hardly threatening for most people.
The RIAA (and MPAA) are proving that they're willing to punish people for ten times their annual livelihood, even when not guilty. That is enough to make them a danger to everyone, and thus much more reviled.
(OK, that might be an overstatement--there _should_ be exactly two answers, though)
You can follow one of two conventions when naming workstations: Functional or whimsical.
Functional names are self-evident - room number, system type, city, division, role, etc. The fine details amount to figuring out what information is important to you, and squishing it into an RFC1178-acceptable name.
Whimsical names are the other convention. Pick a theme with enough namespace for growth, and go with it. One company I worked for used cartoon characters. Another one used astronomical entities. A friend has his machines all named after single malt scotch whiskies.
The key is to make the namespace large enough for long-term unrestrained growth. A mid-sized company may want to make sure that they have three digits for workstation ID numbers (for functional names), or a ridiculously large pool of names to choose from. Hitting a self-created namespace wall is ugly and embarassing.
Thermite? HELL YEAH!!! I can't argue with that one. :-)
I can't see how sanding the layer off would be faster than DBAN though, given that you've got typically six or eight surfaces inside a drive that you need to access. That's a lot of dismantling before you can do the sanding. Also, probably pretty low on the 'healthy methods' scale.
But fun, definitely. Both would be fun.
So the study found contamination at levels of 0.006 - 1240 mcg. The first question I'd ask is if this is the same threshold they used in the previous study. (I would certainly hope/assume so, but it always pays to ask.) It also seems to me that a few millionths of the coke on the heavily contaminated bills could rub off onto their neighbors, so even if there was no increase in coke usage, constant movement through the system could redistribute it.
Alas, it's been many years since my membership to the ACS lapsed, so I won't have access to the original proceedings.