Challenger Deep got its name from the British survey ship Challenger II, which pinpointed the deep water off the Marianas Islands in 1951. Then in 1960, the US Navy sent the Trieste (a submersible - a mini-submarine designed to go really deep) down into the depths of the Marianas trench to see just how far they would go. They touched bottom at 35,813 feet. That means, while they were parked on the bottom in the bathyscaphe, there were almost seven miles of water over their heads!
The complete write up is here. The Mariana Trench is a fairly large subduction feature; the Challenger Deep being the deepest point.
BTW, 35,813 / 5,280 = 6.7827 miles (which would be somewhat shy of 24).
Hey, this sounds like a helluva way to get a Stella. Become an on-line gaming adict, have your RL go down the tubes, sue everybody you can think of for taking advantage of your poor, sorry, individual responsibility lacking backside. Make lots of money and have fun playing on-line games while doing it!
What a scam. I want a cut from anybody who pulls this off since I thought of it. Hmmm, maybe I should patent it:-)
...despite what some geologist may say. by their own word "geology is not an exact science". and nothing could be more true, it's a collection of hikers looking for a reason to visit the latest 'geological' hot spot... like hawaii, or chile.
...and there's a problem with this? Keep it quiet before too many other people get in on the scam.
If not, it will be the first time.
on
AMD's 64-bit Plot
·
· Score: 2
Every time the processor bus width has gone up (8 -> 16 -> 32), applications have expanded to "fill" the newly available bandwidth. A few data points:
1) I remember PC Magazine predicting that 80286 systems would only be needed as servers. 2) I get by with a 733 MHz system at work but the only system I can't saturate at home is my dual Athlon box by "just" playing a game. The more realistic and "imersive" the game, the more bandwidth it takes. 3) I correspond with several people who do digital video editing and they can swamp their dual CPU systems.
Thanks for the info. Internal details of file systems aren't way up there on my list so I appreciate a concise answer. A couple of things though:
1) Journaling both data and metadata may have been a "selling point" of ext3 but journaling of data is off by default. This isn't a distro decision, that's the way it was described in the write up on the LKML. This could be why Andrew downplayed the impact. It takes some digging to even find out about the journaling options.
2) Unfortunately, most of my experience with a journaling file system has been with reiser. With journaling file systems, my impression is that people ask too much of an operation that is inherently physically limited. Writing the data and writing the meta-data are two separate operations. reiserfs tries to keep small I/O in the journal but ended up with a complicated scheme that fails all too frequently (also, this was more for performance than robustness if I remember correctly). I fear the data=journal option for ext3 has simply demonstrated the same flaw: if you can write the data to the journal, why not write it where it belongs? If the answer is that the journal is simpler and thus faster to write to then you have incurred the complexity of having two separate file systems. You will note that the ext3 error occurred when an optimization was applied to the "data=journal" case that should not have been.
Robust and fast usually are alternatives and are not usually compatible.
BTW, if you use ext3 with the default mount options, you will not run into this problem. Its only if you override the mount default of data=ordered and use the data=journal option that the problem even occurs.
Hell, it took me several minutes of searching to even find out what the option was to even cause the problem. Something tells me this won't affect many people. Maybe someone who knows ext3 internals will enlighten us with why someone would want to use data=journal.
Meaningless....builds on Free Software licenses but adds clauses to "promote fundamental human rights of end-users".
Cute, but utterly pointless. A Gold star for thought, but not for effort.
I agree. Why don't we just put a clause in the GPL that says everyone will be nice people and play well together? I'm sure that will end all of the world's problems.
I find idealists usefull primarily for their entertainment value.
The BSD license used to disallow use of software issued under it from being used by the "Police of South Africa", to make a point against apartheid.
Well, that should have included the 'State of Israel' since that too is an Apartheid country.
Yeah, the Israelis tend to discriminate against those that are trying to kill them. BTW, I actually started to feel somewhat sympathetic toward the Palestinians until they started randomly murdering people. As far as I'm concerned, they are lucky the Israelis haven't nuked them (yet).
I seem to remember it having a clause prohibiting its use by the military or some other '70s era anti-government balderdash. Might still have it for all I know but just who uses serial lines any more? Obsolete program and obsolete politics.
Just live outside of the city limits. In general, building codes are something cities foist upon their inhabitants mainly because the close living arrangements of a city mean that an oops by one person can affect many. Some counties have building codes; some have fairly minimal codes (e.g., most barns in rural areas would not meet building code).
My in-laws live in a quaint little area that was once the bustling city of Rosita, Colorado. The silver ore ran out about a hundred years ago and the town pretty much went away. Its now considered unincorporated Custer County. No building codes although some areas do have CC&Rs. Population of the whole county was about 3,600 in the last census so LOTS of room. Lots of people living off grid or semi-off grid. One of their neighbors even has a below ground concrete house that probably comes pretty close to a hobbit hole adopted for Homo Sapiens. Even at an elevation of 8,800 feet they still manage to meet most of their heating needs with passive solar.
Every once in a while you still run into some "true blue" BIOS that give the error message "No ROM Basic" when they can't find a valid boot device. I really feel old when I'm the only one in the office who understands what the message means and why it showed up.
I've got a "real" (not a clone) IBM PC-AT down in the basement that will boot to ROM basic. 30MB full height hard disk and 1 MB of RAM. What a screamer. The lights dim when the hard drive spins up and it makes more noise than my washing machine.
The joke when I worked for a large aerospace company went something like this:
Generally, when people want to make a baby, one woman gets pregnant and you wait for nine months. Low and behold, after nine month and assuming nothing goes wrong, you have a baby.
Software development managers seem to be of the opinion that if you get nine women pregnant and puts lots of schedules on the walls and yell and scream alot that you can then produce a baby in one month. No matter how many times this approach fails, development managers refuse to give it up.
In their defense, I will say this company learned the "mythical man-month" lesson and stopped adding developers to late software projects. Instead, their approach was to add additional managers so there were more managers posting schedules on the walls and yelling that the project was late. I guess in some ways this approach really did work a little better since it got them around the adage that adding more developers to a late project only makes it later. Unfortunately, the additional managers all usually wanted status reports so the developers wasted more time writing status reports for the additional managers which still ended up making the project later.
Good and fast do not happen together for a very simple reason: development of a software solution to a problem generally just changes the nature of the problem. A good solution requires evolving the solution as an understanding of the "real problem" is gained. This takes time and generally also results in the bane of the developer's existence: changing requirements. So as the project progresses, the development team AND THE CUSTOMER gain a better understanding of the problem which results in a stretched out schedule (there goes fast) and which generally drives up cost (there goes cheap).
A development project can achieve good and cheap by simply starving the project for resources as the requirements evolve. It just takes longer. Likewise, a development team can achieve fast and cheap by simply ignoring any disturbances and kicking out a product that doesn't really solve the problem. Fast and good don't happen.
This analysis is based on 22.5 years of working in software development in several different companies and always seeing the same result. I don't consider this discouraging since my view of the problem is based on the reality of the first paragraph.in my analysis. It also means that there is little or no danger that someone will develop a "silver bullet" that will magically make the problem go away.
...or even the 54-bits (56?) of the CDC computers...
60 bit words actually but don't ask me why. At the time I was doing number crunching and algorithm design so, unfortunately, I didn't get down to the hardware level and find out why they used a 60 bit word.
The other interesting hardware architecture was Data General with their 36 bit words.
Who is afraid they aren't going to make as much money if the copyright ends on Steamboat Willie? (and other assorted classic movies, songs, etc.)
I mean does AOLTW really believe that all of the other networks will all start showing The Wizard of Oz as soon as they don't have to pay royalties for it? or Disney believes that the cartoon network will pull current stuff and run Steamboat Willie over and over instead of their usual content? That's nuts. I mean there is only so much of a market out there for "classic" movies, books, cartoons, etc. To use another example, why is it that we continue to see copyrighted plays created for Broadway when all the works of Shakespeare are in the public domain? Yeah, there are Shakespeare festivals, etc. but somehow I don't see them cutting into the audience for the latest Andrew Lloyd Webber mega-musical.
So the real question is, why are these companies so afraid of their older works entering the public domain?
Let's differentiate between personal data and business data. If we're talking about a business and the data is required for the business to reasonably run, that business had better come up with a decent disaster recovery plan including keeping their data at a secure, off-site location.
Now let's talk personal data. Face it, most of the data we're talking about would be, at worst, an inconvenience if lost. You can get copies of most everything we're talking about from say your bank or the government, etc. if there is a problem and the value of the data is just the amount of inconvenience it would cause to jump through whatever hoops are required to get a copy of it. Likewise, most of this data is of little or no value to anyone else (other than maybe someone trying to pull off identity theft). So you can probably be fairly safe by simply keeping a spare copy of the CD-RW or whatever your backup media of choice is in your desk drawer at work or a locker there, at a friends house, etc.
There are exceptions to what I'm suggesting (e.g., someone who runs a business out of their house) but, for most people, just keep a copy of your backup some place besides where the system is that your backing up. Believe me, your life isn't that interesting that anyone really wants to steal your backup.
This is from Paul Graham's site with regard to the Microsoft patent. Patents tend to be very narrow in scope such that, if some aspects change, the patent may no longer apply. Pick on any typical consumer product such as hair dryers, stereos, you name it. They all have patents and they're all different and they don't "infringe" on each other unless they're virtually identical.
Stage 1.1: Buzzword Oriented Development projects.
This stage occurs when the fad is recognized as the "next big thing" to have on your resume. This is because the PHBs will all assume that they can blindly apply the new methodology to their problem space. The negative lessons learned from this blind application of the new methodology leads directly to stage 2 (i.e., this is where the "...conditions a, b, c, d, and e." come from) but in the meantime people with the right buzzwords on their resume can command top dollar salaries because the PHBs believe the new methodology is THE silver bullet. THERE IS NO SILVER BULLET so each new methodology becomes a fad that is misapplied as if it were. The true believers and the people who want to have all the right buzzwords on their resume contribute to the fad. After the fad has run its course (post stage 3), it may end up contributing some tools that are effective when applied to the appropriate problem space.
And, yes, by this definition, every advance in programming methodology was at one time a fad.
If there are people who still believe the earth is flat, what makes anyone think that any amount of proof will convince the hoax believers that we went to the moon?
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft to offer Linux software?
The complete write up is here. The Mariana Trench is a fairly large subduction feature; the Challenger Deep being the deepest point.
BTW, 35,813 / 5,280 = 6.7827 miles (which would be somewhat shy of 24).
Hey, this sounds like a helluva way to get a Stella. Become an on-line gaming adict, have your RL go down the tubes, sue everybody you can think of for taking advantage of your poor, sorry, individual responsibility lacking backside. Make lots of money and have fun playing on-line games while doing it!
:-)
What a scam. I want a cut from anybody who pulls this off since I thought of it. Hmmm, maybe I should patent it
Every time the processor bus width has gone up (8 -> 16 -> 32), applications have expanded to "fill" the newly available bandwidth. A few data points:
1) I remember PC Magazine predicting that 80286 systems would only be needed as servers.
2) I get by with a 733 MHz system at work but the only system I can't saturate at home is my dual Athlon box by "just" playing a game. The more realistic and "imersive" the game, the more bandwidth it takes.
3) I correspond with several people who do digital video editing and they can swamp their dual CPU systems.
Thanks for the info. Internal details of file systems aren't way up there on my list so I appreciate a concise answer. A couple of things though:
1) Journaling both data and metadata may have been a "selling point" of ext3 but journaling of data is off by default. This isn't a distro decision, that's the way it was described in the write up on the LKML. This could be why Andrew downplayed the impact. It takes some digging to even find out about the journaling options.
2) Unfortunately, most of my experience with a journaling file system has been with reiser. With journaling file systems, my impression is that people ask too much of an operation that is inherently physically limited. Writing the data and writing the meta-data are two separate operations. reiserfs tries to keep small I/O in the journal but ended up with a complicated scheme that fails all too frequently (also, this was more for performance than robustness if I remember correctly). I fear the data=journal option for ext3 has simply demonstrated the same flaw: if you can write the data to the journal, why not write it where it belongs? If the answer is that the journal is simpler and thus faster to write to then you have incurred the complexity of having two separate file systems. You will note that the ext3 error occurred when an optimization was applied to the "data=journal" case that should not have been.
Robust and fast usually are alternatives and are not usually compatible.
BTW, if you use ext3 with the default mount options, you will not run into this problem. Its only if you override the mount default of data=ordered and use the data=journal option that the problem even occurs.
Hell, it took me several minutes of searching to even find out what the option was to even cause the problem. Something tells me this won't affect many people. Maybe someone who knows ext3 internals will enlighten us with why someone would want to use data=journal.
I find idealists usefull primarily for their entertainment value.
Yeah, the Israelis tend to discriminate against those that are trying to kill them. BTW, I actually started to feel somewhat sympathetic toward the Palestinians until they started randomly murdering people. As far as I'm concerned, they are lucky the Israelis haven't nuked them (yet).
Oops, there goes MY karma.
I seem to remember it having a clause prohibiting its use by the military or some other '70s era anti-government balderdash. Might still have it for all I know but just who uses serial lines any more? Obsolete program and obsolete politics.
Just live outside of the city limits. In general, building codes are something cities foist upon their inhabitants mainly because the close living arrangements of a city mean that an oops by one person can affect many. Some counties have building codes; some have fairly minimal codes (e.g., most barns in rural areas would not meet building code).
My in-laws live in a quaint little area that was once the bustling city of Rosita, Colorado. The silver ore ran out about a hundred years ago and the town pretty much went away. Its now considered unincorporated Custer County. No building codes although some areas do have CC&Rs. Population of the whole county was about 3,600 in the last census so LOTS of room. Lots of people living off grid or semi-off grid. One of their neighbors even has a below ground concrete house that probably comes pretty close to a hobbit hole adopted for Homo Sapiens. Even at an elevation of 8,800 feet they still manage to meet most of their heating needs with passive solar.
I wasn't aware of anything that constituted a "hillside" in Florida. I thought it was just a sandpile with a swamp at each end.
Every once in a while you still run into some "true blue" BIOS that give the error message "No ROM Basic" when they can't find a valid boot device. I really feel old when I'm the only one in the office who understands what the message means and why it showed up.
I've got a "real" (not a clone) IBM PC-AT down in the basement that will boot to ROM basic. 30MB full height hard disk and 1 MB of RAM. What a screamer. The lights dim when the hard drive spins up and it makes more noise than my washing machine.
The joke when I worked for a large aerospace company went something like this:
Generally, when people want to make a baby, one woman gets pregnant and you wait for nine months. Low and behold, after nine month and assuming nothing goes wrong, you have a baby.
Software development managers seem to be of the opinion that if you get nine women pregnant and puts lots of schedules on the walls and yell and scream alot that you can then produce a baby in one month. No matter how many times this approach fails, development managers refuse to give it up.
In their defense, I will say this company learned the "mythical man-month" lesson and stopped adding developers to late software projects. Instead, their approach was to add additional managers so there were more managers posting schedules on the walls and yelling that the project was late. I guess in some ways this approach really did work a little better since it got them around the adage that adding more developers to a late project only makes it later. Unfortunately, the additional managers all usually wanted status reports so the developers wasted more time writing status reports for the additional managers which still ended up making the project later.
Good and fast do not happen together for a very simple reason: development of a software solution to a problem generally just changes the nature of the problem. A good solution requires evolving the solution as an understanding of the "real problem" is gained. This takes time and generally also results in the bane of the developer's existence: changing requirements. So as the project progresses, the development team AND THE CUSTOMER gain a better understanding of the problem which results in a stretched out schedule (there goes fast) and which generally drives up cost (there goes cheap).
A development project can achieve good and cheap by simply starving the project for resources as the requirements evolve. It just takes longer. Likewise, a development team can achieve fast and cheap by simply ignoring any disturbances and kicking out a product that doesn't really solve the problem. Fast and good don't happen.
This analysis is based on 22.5 years of working in software development in several different companies and always seeing the same result. I don't consider this discouraging since my view of the problem is based on the reality of the first paragraph.in my analysis. It also means that there is little or no danger that someone will develop a "silver bullet" that will magically make the problem go away.
The other interesting hardware architecture was Data General with their 36 bit words.
I mean does AOLTW really believe that all of the other networks will all start showing The Wizard of Oz as soon as they don't have to pay royalties for it? or Disney believes that the cartoon network will pull current stuff and run Steamboat Willie over and over instead of their usual content? That's nuts. I mean there is only so much of a market out there for "classic" movies, books, cartoons, etc. To use another example, why is it that we continue to see copyrighted plays created for Broadway when all the works of Shakespeare are in the public domain? Yeah, there are Shakespeare festivals, etc. but somehow I don't see them cutting into the audience for the latest Andrew Lloyd Webber mega-musical.
So the real question is, why are these companies so afraid of their older works entering the public domain?
Testing new sig. Aren't you lucky!
Let's differentiate between personal data and business data. If we're talking about a business and the data is required for the business to reasonably run, that business had better come up with a decent disaster recovery plan including keeping their data at a secure, off-site location.
Now let's talk personal data. Face it, most of the data we're talking about would be, at worst, an inconvenience if lost. You can get copies of most everything we're talking about from say your bank or the government, etc. if there is a problem and the value of the data is just the amount of inconvenience it would cause to jump through whatever hoops are required to get a copy of it. Likewise, most of this data is of little or no value to anyone else (other than maybe someone trying to pull off identity theft). So you can probably be fairly safe by simply keeping a spare copy of the CD-RW or whatever your backup media of choice is in your desk drawer at work or a locker there, at a friends house, etc.
There are exceptions to what I'm suggesting (e.g., someone who runs a business out of their house) but, for most people, just keep a copy of your backup some place besides where the system is that your backing up. Believe me, your life isn't that interesting that anyone really wants to steal your backup.
The server seems to be quite healthy and a quick query of current bugs surprisingly doesn't show any "First Bug" posts.
Stage 1.1: Buzzword Oriented Development projects.
This stage occurs when the fad is recognized as the "next big thing" to have on your resume. This is because the PHBs will all assume that they can blindly apply the new methodology to their problem space. The negative lessons learned from this blind application of the new methodology leads directly to stage 2 (i.e., this is where the "...conditions a, b, c, d, and e." come from) but in the meantime people with the right buzzwords on their resume can command top dollar salaries because the PHBs believe the new methodology is THE silver bullet. THERE IS NO SILVER BULLET so each new methodology becomes a fad that is misapplied as if it were. The true believers and the people who want to have all the right buzzwords on their resume contribute to the fad. After the fad has run its course (post stage 3), it may end up contributing some tools that are effective when applied to the appropriate problem space.
And, yes, by this definition, every advance in programming methodology was at one time a fad.
Deal with it.
Don't tell my wife. She seems to think I'm straight.
If there are people who still believe the earth is flat, what makes anyone think that any amount of proof will convince the hoax believers that we went to the moon?
Thanks. I didn't know what the "bloom" would be at that range.