Spin up and seek time are irrelevant for video. Unless your filesystem is completely braindead it will almost always be a very long sequential read/write.
Besides, it's not going RAM -> RAM, it's going RAM -> northbridge -> southbridge -> PCI bus -> NIC -> switch -> NIC -> PCI bus -> soutbridge -> northbridge -> RAM, and being broken up into little packets by TCP/IP and reassembled and so on. Every one of those steps introduces latency, which potentially interupts the video stream.
Additionally, a 100Mbit network can only transfer 12MBps (more like 8-10MBps in the real world), and a single 120GXP Deskstar can sustain 4 times that. A 4 drive RAID-0 IDE array should easily be able to outperform the 1000Mbit network proposed here.
Re:This is probably the problem.
on
RAMdisk RAID?
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· Score: 1
Well, my experience is limited to customer service and repair of high end professional video servers, and what you're suggesting is overkill.
I agree that there is nothing faster than what you describe, but when it comes down to it there's no reason a single user editing station would need more than about 70Mbps, which a 4 drive IDE RAID-0 should be able to sustain.
I'd still recomend SCSI, but 10k or even 7200RPM drives should be able to handle the load easily, and be fairly affordable. In my experience a RAID-0 array of 7200RPM drives can handle about 24Mbps per drive (simultaneous record and playback of 12Mbps per drive is how I test them).
Waste of time
on
RAMdisk RAID?
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· Score: 5, Informative
I do customer service repair and testing for high end video servers, particularly the RAIDs attached to them. Based on my experience, what you're proposing seems like a waste of time and money. I think your friend would be much better served with a more traditional RAID setup. For single-user editing station a 4 drive IDE RAID-0 should be able to handle the load, and a similar SCSI array should be more than capable. I recommend SCSI.
In typical storage situations you have 2 issues you need to consider: bandwidth and space. With video you add a 3rd issue which can easily eclipse the other 2 in importance: latency. Latency can cause hiccups in your data stream which would be unnoticable in any other application, but become painfully obvious with video, and any networked sollution is going to add latency. The more network is involved, the more latency will be added, which is why I would absolutely advise against a distributed solution. For that reason even if your network has the same theoretical bandwidth as your RAID, it will be slower, and that will kill the video stream.
Anyway, your friends needs should be taken care of with an older (cheaper) SCSI RAID controller and some older SCSI drives, say 9-18GB 7200RPM. In a RAID-0 configuration they should be able to handle simultaneous record and playback of 12Mbps per drive, with a 3 hour capacity at that maximum bandwidth. For example: my test fixture has space for 5 drives, so it can handle 3 hours worth of 60Mbps video, which is decent for HD and ludicrous for SD. You should be able to pull together something like that for less than what you're planning to spend on RAM and Gig-E network gear, and will be more reliable (minimized data loss in case of power outage) and a hell of a lot cheaper to operate (unless your friend lives in the magical land of free electricity).
Bear in mind that what I've described is the test I use to verify the fitness of our drives, and we use it because we've found that it is more strenuous than any commercially available SCSI test setup. Most new drives are able to handle it, but used drives can be a different story even though they might be perfectly good for any other application. With used drives you may have to drop your expectations to 10 or even 8Mbps per drive, so plan accordingly.
That said, you also want to take a close look at your encoding/decoding hardware, as that can be a source of problems. Don't just look at the hardware specs, either, as all to often the driver capabilities fall far short of what the hardware can theoretically do.
So, out of curiosity, how long after the Windows release of those games did you have to wait?
UT2003 shipped with Linux support (the install script is on disc 3).
Quake 3 Arena I understand came out for Linux about a month after it came out for Windows, but I actually saw the Linux version on the shelf first, and that's the one I bought. id developes for cross-platform and they support several other *nices as well (all the Quakes can be played on QNX, for example), so porting isn't really an issue for them and the release dates are always pretty close. Doom3 is available for preorder on Tux Games right now, with an expected ship date of March 31.
I don't remember how the timing on Tribes 2, but I think it was pretty close. I remember there being Linux servers when it first came out, but I think the client came out some time later. I honestly don't remember since I was still just experimenting with Linux at the time so I bought it for Windows, and it didn't hold my interest long enough for me to seriously look into getting it running on Linux since I've switched.
Tux Games also has several other FPS titles available, such as Soldier of Fortune 2 and Allied Assault (I can't comment on the release timing of either of those, though, as I don't play them). Basically what I'm saying is if you're an FPS gamer, which I mainly am, there's very little reason to keep a Windows install around.
They'z not that expensive anymore.
It's not the expense, it's justifying the expense to the wife that's the problem. And frankly, I just don't like Windows, so it's difficult to justify the expense to myself as well. The only game I can think of that I wish ran on Linux is Morrowind, and the WineX guys are working on that (which is fine, fortunately frame rates don't effect playability much in Morrowind).
Naturally, the smart customer will seek 3(treble damages, plus their own expenses and damages costs), since Microsoft obviously intentionally lied to them about their liability.
I'm much more impressed with Timeline the more I think about it, the strategy is brilliant. By going directly after MS customers instead of after MS they amplify the potential damage done to MS by ten times at least. Now that's payback!
An agreement between two parties cannot bind a third party. As an employee of your company, you cannot bind your company to a contract, unless you are a lawfully vested agent of that company. In short, any EULA you may agree to can only bind you.
Bullshit.
The company is liable for any software that is installed on their machines. Whether they knew about it or approved it is irrelevant. That has already been held up in court on multiple occasions.
And BTW, any time you are installing software on a company machine or for the purpose of doing company work you are acting as an agent of the company. There is no need for any formal or official declaration that you are a "legally vested agent", it's implied when you are employed by them.
But somehow microsoft has implemented this feature in Windows 2000, so that removing a hundred byte file can actually take that long!
If you think that's slow, try transfering a file to floppy in Windows XP. Say what you will about Microsoft programmers, but I think it took some real skill to make that slower than it already was.
This is possibly the most ignorant comment in this whole discussion.
If you're talking about your own comment, then you are correct.
Copyright trumps the First Amendment every time.
The Constitution trumps every law made which is not explicitly spelled out in it. The First Amendment is in the Constitution. The copyright clause that is allegedly being violated is not.
That's the reason why the framers of the Constitution were careful to add copyright to the main body of the Constitution and not to the less authoritative Amendments.
Copyright is not a part of the Constitution. The Constitution merely grants Congress the right to create copyright laws if it sees fit. Again, the First Amendment wins.
If the goal is to disseminate this music to people who want to hear it, $20 a pop seems like a lot to me.
It's not much at all, really. People regularly pay more than that for import CDs of bands they like. I regularly pay $30 or more for Anime DVDs, even though I refuse to pay more than $15 for a DVD of a movie that has played in regular US theaters. People are willing to pay more for things that are hard to find. That's basic economics, and I have no problem with the Smithsonian taking advantage of it if it means that this music is going to be available which otherwise wouldn't be.
With your idea, someone is still having to process your order (and it makes it more difficult because now you're having to scan through catalogues to ensure you get the *right* version of a song (i.e. The Smith's "What Difference Does it Make" or Face to Face's cover of the same). Unless, of course, you're talking about downloadable music, which isn't what we're really discussing. Someone will still have to be there to verify your custom CD, then package it, then ship it out.
No, it's called "automation", and you might want to look into it some time.
The order is processed by the computer that takes it, and any scanning through catalogues to get the right version is done by the customer placing the order through the web interface. The relevant information gets sent to the machine that burns the disk, labels it, prints, staples, and folds the liner notes and stuffs it all into whatever packaging they decide to use, prints the shipping label, and then spits it out into a bin, which is then loaded onto a USPS truck, where it is finally touched by human hands.
You've got an entry level employee that swings by a few times a day to make sure it has enough blank CDRs, paper, staples, etc, and he probably tends several other machines. You've got a couple IT guys making sure the database and servers run smoothly.
As for the cost of building the infrastructure, I used to work for a company that designed and built custom industrial automation. I'd estimate that such a machine could be built for under $50k (doesn't include database developement, just the machine that produces the physical CD). That's engineering, fab, build, and testing of one unit. Obviously, subsequent ones would be cheaper since the design would already be done. There are no significant design challenges here, as most of the functionality is already available in COTS products, it's just a matter of integration.
You have vastly overestimated the costs of putting such a system into production. There's the issue of where to store all these.iso images, but storage is an issue the industry already has to deal with, and moving to digital storage would actually save them money.
In my defense: although we had known each other as friends for a few years, we had only been seeing each other romantically for about a week. It seemed to me that it was a bit early in the relationship to expect that sort of thing.
I fully acknowledge that I was a clueless idiot. It was only my second real relationship, and I've learned a lot since then.
A lot of old airfields aren't paved, they're just a lonf relatively flat open space. Some of the ones that were paved are even worse than the unpaved ones, and it takes a lot of money to repair them.
There are several abandoned an little-used airstrips in my area. Since none of them are FAA approved for night landings, they are an excellent place to take a girl to "look at the stars".
The funny thing about that is the last time I did that I actually intended to look at the stars. I was completely unprepared for what the girl had in mind!
The Clampers aren't a fraternity, they're a club, sort of like the Elks or the Order of the Moose.
Drinking and horsing around are what they're best known for, and what they do most often, but another thing that they do and are known for is restoring historical sites, like buildings in abandoned Gold Rush towns and such.
DSL and cable are not the only ways to get a broadband connection. ISDN is available just about anywhere, and if it's a community deal you could look into getting a T1 (or fraction, E1 if you're in Europe), which shouldn't be too bad if the cost is shared by several people.
If the telco won't serve your community, then it falls on your community to do it yourselves.
So if the GPL hasn't been tested in court (and I don't know if it has, anyone that knows otherwise, care to post?), maybe that's because of one of the extra challenges. Copyright cases go to court everyday
It hasn't been tested in court, and Mr Moglem has previously written about that, and why he thinks it doesn't matter. Basically, the GPL is so strong that no one has been stupid enough to try it.
The strength of the GPL lies in the fact that it gives the user more rights than they would otherwise have instead of trying to take away rights that the user would otherwise have. It's called "consideration", and basically it means "give and take". The more you give, the more you have a right to take. That's sort of a basic tennet of contract law, and it makes licenses that only try to take weaker, which is why they get tested in court.
No, you can give it up, and there are specific professions that are exempt from that requirement (medical and construction for example, but I'm sure there are others). Also, overtime doesn't apply to salaried employees, only those paid hourly.
An example; the law also requires that you be paid overtime if you work over 8 hours in a day, but if you would rather work a 4x10 week instead of 5x8 you can sign an Alternative Work Week Agreement (I don't recall the name of it, but that's close) with your employer so they don't have to pay you overtime for those extra 2 hours per day.
There are also various circumstances, such as internships, where you can agree to work for free, or for drastically below minimum wage, or otherwise avoid many of the "requirements" of the law.
If you have the ability to shape traffic based on application, then surely you have the ability to log those packets. If they can be traced back to the user, then I say log them and send the user a bill at the end of the month for the bandwidth they're eating.
As someone has already stated, the blocking/counter-blocking cycle can go on forever, so the only real way to solve the problem is through social engineering. For that, there's nothing quite as effective as hitting them where it hurts: right in the wallet!
I don't know if that's a viable solution in your particular situation or not, but that's certainly the angle I would be persuing in your situation. It may simply be enough to add such a clause in your AUP and make sure everyone is advised of it, but in most situations it's helpful to make an example or two (per year, if you're at a school).
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You're mad
A standard 100B-T network can theoretically sustain 12MBps, more like 8-10Mbps in the real world. A single 120GXP Deskstar can sustain 4 times that.
Granted, this guy's talking about using 1000B, but that's still only 80-100MBps, which should be easily matched by a local 4 drive ATA RAID-0 array.
PC133 1GB DIMMs are currently about US$200 [tigerdirect.com] and are on their way down.
You need to shop around. I can get 1 GB PC133 Samsung for $141, or Micron for $169, and that includes shipping.
Spin up and seek time are irrelevant for video. Unless your filesystem is completely braindead it will almost always be a very long sequential read/write.
Besides, it's not going RAM -> RAM, it's going RAM -> northbridge -> southbridge -> PCI bus -> NIC -> switch -> NIC -> PCI bus -> soutbridge -> northbridge -> RAM, and being broken up into little packets by TCP/IP and reassembled and so on. Every one of those steps introduces latency, which potentially interupts the video stream.
Additionally, a 100Mbit network can only transfer 12MBps (more like 8-10MBps in the real world), and a single 120GXP Deskstar can sustain 4 times that. A 4 drive RAID-0 IDE array should easily be able to outperform the 1000Mbit network proposed here.
Well, my experience is limited to customer service and repair of high end professional video servers, and what you're suggesting is overkill.
I agree that there is nothing faster than what you describe, but when it comes down to it there's no reason a single user editing station would need more than about 70Mbps, which a 4 drive IDE RAID-0 should be able to sustain.
I'd still recomend SCSI, but 10k or even 7200RPM drives should be able to handle the load easily, and be fairly affordable. In my experience a RAID-0 array of 7200RPM drives can handle about 24Mbps per drive (simultaneous record and playback of 12Mbps per drive is how I test them).
I do customer service repair and testing for high end video servers, particularly the RAIDs attached to them. Based on my experience, what you're proposing seems like a waste of time and money. I think your friend would be much better served with a more traditional RAID setup. For single-user editing station a 4 drive IDE RAID-0 should be able to handle the load, and a similar SCSI array should be more than capable. I recommend SCSI.
In typical storage situations you have 2 issues you need to consider: bandwidth and space. With video you add a 3rd issue which can easily eclipse the other 2 in importance: latency. Latency can cause hiccups in your data stream which would be unnoticable in any other application, but become painfully obvious with video, and any networked sollution is going to add latency. The more network is involved, the more latency will be added, which is why I would absolutely advise against a distributed solution. For that reason even if your network has the same theoretical bandwidth as your RAID, it will be slower, and that will kill the video stream.
Anyway, your friends needs should be taken care of with an older (cheaper) SCSI RAID controller and some older SCSI drives, say 9-18GB 7200RPM. In a RAID-0 configuration they should be able to handle simultaneous record and playback of 12Mbps per drive, with a 3 hour capacity at that maximum bandwidth. For example: my test fixture has space for 5 drives, so it can handle 3 hours worth of 60Mbps video, which is decent for HD and ludicrous for SD. You should be able to pull together something like that for less than what you're planning to spend on RAM and Gig-E network gear, and will be more reliable (minimized data loss in case of power outage) and a hell of a lot cheaper to operate (unless your friend lives in the magical land of free electricity).
Bear in mind that what I've described is the test I use to verify the fitness of our drives, and we use it because we've found that it is more strenuous than any commercially available SCSI test setup. Most new drives are able to handle it, but used drives can be a different story even though they might be perfectly good for any other application. With used drives you may have to drop your expectations to 10 or even 8Mbps per drive, so plan accordingly.
That said, you also want to take a close look at your encoding/decoding hardware, as that can be a source of problems. Don't just look at the hardware specs, either, as all to often the driver capabilities fall far short of what the hardware can theoretically do.
So, out of curiosity, how long after the Windows release of those games did you have to wait?
UT2003 shipped with Linux support (the install script is on disc 3).
Quake 3 Arena I understand came out for Linux about a month after it came out for Windows, but I actually saw the Linux version on the shelf first, and that's the one I bought. id developes for cross-platform and they support several other *nices as well (all the Quakes can be played on QNX, for example), so porting isn't really an issue for them and the release dates are always pretty close. Doom3 is available for preorder on Tux Games right now, with an expected ship date of March 31.
I don't remember how the timing on Tribes 2, but I think it was pretty close. I remember there being Linux servers when it first came out, but I think the client came out some time later. I honestly don't remember since I was still just experimenting with Linux at the time so I bought it for Windows, and it didn't hold my interest long enough for me to seriously look into getting it running on Linux since I've switched.
Tux Games also has several other FPS titles available, such as Soldier of Fortune 2 and Allied Assault (I can't comment on the release timing of either of those, though, as I don't play them). Basically what I'm saying is if you're an FPS gamer, which I mainly am, there's very little reason to keep a Windows install around.
They'z not that expensive anymore.
It's not the expense, it's justifying the expense to the wife that's the problem. And frankly, I just don't like Windows, so it's difficult to justify the expense to myself as well. The only game I can think of that I wish ran on Linux is Morrowind, and the WineX guys are working on that (which is fine, fortunately frame rates don't effect playability much in Morrowind).
Obviously your gaming's not done in Linux. So why cause yourself the pain?
All my gaming is done in Linux. UT, UT2003, all the id titles, Tribes 2, all have native Linux support.
Naturally, the smart customer will seek 3(treble damages, plus their own expenses and damages costs), since Microsoft obviously intentionally lied to them about their liability.
I'm much more impressed with Timeline the more I think about it, the strategy is brilliant. By going directly after MS customers instead of after MS they amplify the potential damage done to MS by ten times at least. Now that's payback!
An agreement between two parties cannot bind a third party. As an employee of your company, you cannot bind your company to a contract, unless you are a lawfully vested agent of that company. In short, any EULA you may agree to can only bind you.
Bullshit.
The company is liable for any software that is installed on their machines. Whether they knew about it or approved it is irrelevant. That has already been held up in court on multiple occasions.
And BTW, any time you are installing software on a company machine or for the purpose of doing company work you are acting as an agent of the company. There is no need for any formal or official declaration that you are a "legally vested agent", it's implied when you are employed by them.
But somehow microsoft has implemented this feature in Windows 2000, so that removing a hundred byte file can actually take that long!
If you think that's slow, try transfering a file to floppy in Windows XP. Say what you will about Microsoft programmers, but I think it took some real skill to make that slower than it already was.
This is possibly the most ignorant comment in this whole discussion.
If you're talking about your own comment, then you are correct.
Copyright trumps the First Amendment every time.
The Constitution trumps every law made which is not explicitly spelled out in it. The First Amendment is in the Constitution. The copyright clause that is allegedly being violated is not.
That's the reason why the framers of the Constitution were careful to add copyright to the main body of the Constitution and not to the less authoritative Amendments.
Copyright is not a part of the Constitution. The Constitution merely grants Congress the right to create copyright laws if it sees fit. Again, the First Amendment wins.
If the goal is to disseminate this music to people who want to hear it, $20 a pop seems like a lot to me.
It's not much at all, really. People regularly pay more than that for import CDs of bands they like. I regularly pay $30 or more for Anime DVDs, even though I refuse to pay more than $15 for a DVD of a movie that has played in regular US theaters. People are willing to pay more for things that are hard to find. That's basic economics, and I have no problem with the Smithsonian taking advantage of it if it means that this music is going to be available which otherwise wouldn't be.
With your idea, someone is still having to process your order (and it makes it more difficult because now you're having to scan through catalogues to ensure you get the *right* version of a song (i.e. The Smith's "What Difference Does it Make" or Face to Face's cover of the same). Unless, of course, you're talking about downloadable music, which isn't what we're really discussing. Someone will still have to be there to verify your custom CD, then package it, then ship it out.
.iso images, but storage is an issue the industry already has to deal with, and moving to digital storage would actually save them money.
No, it's called "automation", and you might want to look into it some time.
The order is processed by the computer that takes it, and any scanning through catalogues to get the right version is done by the customer placing the order through the web interface. The relevant information gets sent to the machine that burns the disk, labels it, prints, staples, and folds the liner notes and stuffs it all into whatever packaging they decide to use, prints the shipping label, and then spits it out into a bin, which is then loaded onto a USPS truck, where it is finally touched by human hands.
You've got an entry level employee that swings by a few times a day to make sure it has enough blank CDRs, paper, staples, etc, and he probably tends several other machines. You've got a couple IT guys making sure the database and servers run smoothly.
As for the cost of building the infrastructure, I used to work for a company that designed and built custom industrial automation. I'd estimate that such a machine could be built for under $50k (doesn't include database developement, just the machine that produces the physical CD). That's engineering, fab, build, and testing of one unit. Obviously, subsequent ones would be cheaper since the design would already be done. There are no significant design challenges here, as most of the functionality is already available in COTS products, it's just a matter of integration.
You have vastly overestimated the costs of putting such a system into production. There's the issue of where to store all these
In my defense: although we had known each other as friends for a few years, we had only been seeing each other romantically for about a week. It seemed to me that it was a bit early in the relationship to expect that sort of thing.
I fully acknowledge that I was a clueless idiot. It was only my second real relationship, and I've learned a lot since then.
A lot of old airfields aren't paved, they're just a lonf relatively flat open space. Some of the ones that were paved are even worse than the unpaved ones, and it takes a lot of money to repair them.
There are several abandoned an little-used airstrips in my area. Since none of them are FAA approved for night landings, they are an excellent place to take a girl to "look at the stars".
The funny thing about that is the last time I did that I actually intended to look at the stars. I was completely unprepared for what the girl had in mind!
The Clampers aren't a fraternity, they're a club, sort of like the Elks or the Order of the Moose.
Drinking and horsing around are what they're best known for, and what they do most often, but another thing that they do and are known for is restoring historical sites, like buildings in abandoned Gold Rush towns and such.
DSL and cable are not the only ways to get a broadband connection. ISDN is available just about anywhere, and if it's a community deal you could look into getting a T1 (or fraction, E1 if you're in Europe), which shouldn't be too bad if the cost is shared by several people.
If the telco won't serve your community, then it falls on your community to do it yourselves.
So if the GPL hasn't been tested in court (and I don't know if it has, anyone that knows otherwise, care to post?), maybe that's because of one of the extra challenges. Copyright cases go to court everyday
It hasn't been tested in court, and Mr Moglem has previously written about that, and why he thinks it doesn't matter. Basically, the GPL is so strong that no one has been stupid enough to try it.
The strength of the GPL lies in the fact that it gives the user more rights than they would otherwise have instead of trying to take away rights that the user would otherwise have. It's called "consideration", and basically it means "give and take". The more you give, the more you have a right to take. That's sort of a basic tennet of contract law, and it makes licenses that only try to take weaker, which is why they get tested in court.
No, you can give it up, and there are specific professions that are exempt from that requirement (medical and construction for example, but I'm sure there are others). Also, overtime doesn't apply to salaried employees, only those paid hourly.
An example; the law also requires that you be paid overtime if you work over 8 hours in a day, but if you would rather work a 4x10 week instead of 5x8 you can sign an Alternative Work Week Agreement (I don't recall the name of it, but that's close) with your employer so they don't have to pay you overtime for those extra 2 hours per day.
There are also various circumstances, such as internships, where you can agree to work for free, or for drastically below minimum wage, or otherwise avoid many of the "requirements" of the law.
If you have the ability to shape traffic based on application, then surely you have the ability to log those packets. If they can be traced back to the user, then I say log them and send the user a bill at the end of the month for the bandwidth they're eating.
As someone has already stated, the blocking/counter-blocking cycle can go on forever, so the only real way to solve the problem is through social engineering. For that, there's nothing quite as effective as hitting them where it hurts: right in the wallet!
I don't know if that's a viable solution in your particular situation or not, but that's certainly the angle I would be persuing in your situation. It may simply be enough to add such a clause in your AUP and make sure everyone is advised of it, but in most situations it's helpful to make an example or two (per year, if you're at a school).
The down side, at least at Fry's, is that 90% of the shelf stock is returns and about half of those are missing manuals, power supplies, cables, etc.
It really sucks to have to make 2 2-hour round trip runs to Fry's just because some idiot didn't check if the return had a driver CD in it.
Every time I've used it (about once a year) I've had to download it. I don't think it's an MS thing, just a DOS utility.
What do you feel is the greteast challenge in enforcing the GPL vs. other more conventional copyrights?
If there were any challenges in enforcing the GPL it would have been tested in court by now.
Did you even bother to read my one line post before replying to it?