When it was a question of phone, it was mostly Nokias that were inexpensive, worked well, battery held up days. Then we had the SMS craze that gave us better screens and a better keyboard. These were purchased mostly for weight and for look, like a jewelry piece. They lasted years until someone grew tired of it, after the 3rd battery change.
Now, the best correlation would be the computer industry. In the 90s, a computer would last 3 years until a major paradigm shift and a break to a much better CPU/GPU/HDD. Now, the Average Joe doesn't need the latest greatest 3K$ computer, (s)he can take a 1K$ computer and be happy for years with it.
The phone industry gets there slowly too. There are major speed advances, miniaturization, optimizations, and a phone you'd be tempted to change every year doesn't need to be changed anymore at such breakneck speed, however the industry is still improving with users demanding even more, so we're not there yet. My iPhone 4 still works relatively well, although it shows its age by not running the latest apps as fast as a new phone can. It's more than 10x slower than the current 6 in most categories, and apps are getting to use that speed. My battery life is 2 days of normal use, however, it drains quickly if I start to connect to Facebook or Safari, or other heavy-duty modern applications. But I just look at my wife's 4S and it's leaps beyond by 4, and it's merely a year later... We could probably keep it 1-2 more years, or even more, depending on what the modern apps expect of the phone.
I'm giving the iPhone as example. This applies to any given phone that's using 3rd party tools and apps. I noticed the upgrade pace is slowing in users. You need a real shift in order to get a user to switch these days, where it was ridiculous _not_ to shift every year 3-4-5 years ago.
(Note to modders: not on topic, just replying to anon, please don't mod up)
> Sadly, no. 8 (and 7) are still very power stupid. They constantly do stupid shit like run indexers and eager caches that run your battery down fast. Throw win8 on a mac book pro and watch as that 9 (okay, 5 in reality) hours drops down to 2.... and XP, and 98, and 95. Every single system adds up modern tools users expect to have. Now we all expect a global computer search, we expect upgrades to be downloaded automatically, we expect malware to be blocked at its root, we expect automated backups in case something goes wrong, we expect "checkpoints" in case a software causes issues. At the same time, we want responsive beautiful GUI with responsiveness, pre-loading of big tools (Even Libre Office loads at start). We now have a great firewall, have hardware abstraction and environment virtualization, address randomization, 32 bits and 64 bits of everything, we have immediate plug and play for everything, system-level URL handling, multicore and multiprocessor management, SSD trim handling or HDD on-the-fly optimization and frequently requested blocks at startup, and so on. To compare previous systems with new versions isn't worthwhile, rare are the new systems that don't add up their levels of lag due to the inherent complexity.
Now I do tend to my work Windows machine by removing everything in my powers that could slow down or cause undue burden to the machine, so even if I currently run Windows 7, it reacts more like an XP machine, with traditional GUI, and everything I don't need preemptively removed and tweaked to a ridiculous level. My computer works well and I'm glad of it.
@ home, it's all Macs and although they accelerated some things in recent OSes, some others are really slower than they used to be. Apple also got the great advantage of a walled garden, so they know exactly what's in each model. Drivers are premium and system is optimized for efficiency of every machine.
IMHO (TL;DR), the Surface Pro 3 is a great device but with an identity crisis without a real segment of users to cover.
Windows 8 was created precisely for such device, and since other vendors were reluctant to enter market with these specs, Microsoft actually used 8 to its full potential with their own design. It's the only place where 8.x actually makes total sense.
Problems were mainly with previous devices, let's be frank. That entire RT debacle was laughable, most people didn't understand why their Windows tablet wouldn't run their Windows software. As such, market was burned before the 3. But now, if you are on the market for such a beast, you'll have a great experience... which is part of the persisting problem. Why would you actually purchase such device?
- As a tablet? Most tablets are much less expensive, they don't run Windows software but why should they, as most ecosystems are now mature enough to forego Windows. As added bonus, their softwares are optimized precisely for these devices. Where you got a weird "traditional" mouse-and-keyboard Windows software trying to fit in a touch environment, you get a perfectly capable iOS or Android software doing exactly what you wish, with a great experience.
- As a laptop? Then you better get the keyboard, and even without it, the device itself is very expensive due to the digitizer and screen, which most laptop people won't care. It's less capable than equivalently priced laptops. It's more expensive than equivalently capable netbooks and laptops. Then for normal consumer, it might be worthwhile to get something such as a Chromebook.
So you need someone who wants a Windows PC with 8.x optimized applications, who loves using a tablet, such as a presentation device or with a propensity to draw with pens (artists - but not too specialized - GPU is poor), deeper pockets and doesn't mind a haphazard keyboard (even if the optional folding keyboard is well received, it's still a far cry from a standalone keyboard if you wish to use it in a train for example)
Yeah, with scratches it's a valid assumption. However, in my case it was cheap CDs with inks that degraded, so the reflectivity of the data itself was degraded, the drive was ultimately unable to retrieve data on most sectors, or it was able after dozen of reads over the same block of data, until the data got its green flag from the recovery algorithm embedded in Data-CD format specs.
A scratch is localized. CD dye degradation is global. But thanks for the idea.
Bitrot is not usually the issue for most files. Sometimes, but it's rare. What I lost is a mayhem repository of hardware and software and human failure. Thanks for backup, life:)
On Bitrot:
- MP3s and M4As I had that suddenly started to stutter and jump around. You play the music and it starts to skip. Luckily I have backups (read on for why I have multiple backups of everything:) ) so when I find them, I just revert to the backup. - Images having bad sectors like everyone else. Once or twice here or there.
- A few CDs due to CD degradation. That includes one that I really wish I'd still have, as it was a backup of something I lost. However, the CD takes hours to read, and then eventually either balks up or not for the directory. I won't tell you about actually trying to copy the files, especially with normal timeouts in modern OSes or the hardware pieces or whatnot.
Not Bitrot:
- Two RAID Mirror hard drives, as they were both the same company, and purchased at the same time (same batch), in the same condition, they both balked at approximately the same time, not leaving me time to transfer data back.
- An internal hard drive, as I was making backups to CDs (at that time). For some kind of reason I still cannot explain, the software thought my hard drive was both the source and the destination !!!! Computer froze completely after a minute or two, then I tried rebooting to no avail, and my partition block was now containing a 700mb CD image, quarter full with my stuff. I still don't know how that's possible, but hey, it did. Since I was actualy making my first CD at the time and it was my first backup in a year, I lost countless good files, many I gave up upon (especially my 90's favorite music video sources ripped from the original betacam tapes in 4:2:2 by myself).
- A full bulk of HDs on Mac when I tried putting the journal to another internal SSD drive. I have dozens of HDDs, and I thought it'd go faster to use that nifty "journal on another drive" option. It did work well, although it was hell to initialize, as I had to create a partition for each HDD, then convert them to journaled partitions. Worked awesomely, very quick, very efficient. One day after weeks of usage, I had to hard close the computer and its HDD. When they remounted, they all remounted in the wrong order, somehow using the bad partition order. So imagine you have perfectly healthy HDDs but thinking they have to use another HDDs journal. Mayhem! Most drives thought they were other ones, so my music HDD became my photos HDD RAID, my system HDD thought it was the backup HDD, but just what was in the journal. It took me weeks sporting DiskWarrrior and Data Rescue in order to get 99% of my files back (I'm looking at you, DiskWarrior as a 32 bit app not supporting my 9TB photo drive) with a combinaison of the original drive files and the backup drive files. Took months to rebuild the Aperture database from that.
- All my pictures from when I met my wife to our first travels. I had them in a computer, I made a copy for sure. But I cannot find any of that anywhere. Nowhere to be found, no matter where I look. Since that time, many computers happened, so I don't know where it could've been sent. But I'm really sad to have lost these
- Did a paid photoshoot for an unique event. Took 4 32GB cards worth of priceless pictures. Once done with a card, I was sifting through the pictures with my camera and noticed it had issues reading the card. I removed it immediately. When at home, I put the card in my computer, it had all the troubles in the world reading it (but was able to do so), I was (barely) able to import its contents to Aperture (4-5 pictures didn't make the cut, a few dozens had glitches). It would then (dramatically, as it somehow have its last breath after relinquishing its precious data) not read or mount anywhere, not even being recognized as a card by the readers. Childs, use new cards regularly for your gigs:)
Update went well on my iPhone 4 (not S). Still am getting used to some elements. For example, the "ok" to unlock is kind of really unclear, and as such, I have doubts on putting nondescript text as buttons instead of having them shown with a rounded rect button frame.
I had MAJOR slowdowns everytime I was writing some line of text. I mean major MAJOR, like the UI freezing for 10 seconds, then putting all the text I was blindly writing, and then freezing for yet another 10 seconds. Then, Mr. Interwebz found the solution, which is to disable iCloud synchro for documents & settings... and from that point on, no more battery hug, no more slowdowns, and everything is quite responsive.
It's the parent's prerogative to send their children wherever they see fit. It's also the parent's prerogative to prepare their children the best they can for "real life". Some parents are well equipped to actually fully participate in their children's environment, try to make it better, implicate themselves, do activities, vote, give time, money, opportunities and trying to make the school a genuine good place for their children to be.
Not everyone is able to do that. My parents were able to do that. They were able to actually send me to alternative (and public) school, to participate fully in the school's life, always be there for me. It was a hard choice for them, not only needing to drive me an hour every day, then go to work, but also participate many nights and even some days to school life. Even for them, they eventually gave up one such school, and went to another one because it was plainly too demanding. So I wouldn't expect everyone to give the dedication to bring their prized school up to par to their expectations. Some parents are just able to pay up, are not able to speak or talk adequately, or they don't have time to dedicate themselves to such hard work, and we have to respect that. Alas, today in this world where parents are paying premium and expecting their young bastard children (exaggeration intended here) to do well, and screaming to the teacher (instead of screaming at your own children) whenever they don't have straight As is the norm, I expect the school system to remain crooked.
In the end, people are voting with their attendance. If your school system is bad enough to fear for lives just by attending, I'd expect people to try to move away from these places. There's preparing for real life and there's plain madness... and I'm truly sorry for the dedicated teachers giving their lives and soul for these schools; my mom is such a teacher (nearing her last working years now), giving her life to people with learning disabilities (or missed opportunities); her and many fellow teachers are giving what they can, but sometimes, it's not enough to convince parents.
On my side, I actually moved to a place where active outdoor life is adequate, near good quality schools (not the best - but in the >75%), and I plan my children to have a good chance in life, using neighbourhood friends, public school system, dedication, caring and be with my (future) children for anything they might need. That's where I decided to give my money, that's where my vote is going, even if I have to take the train and public transportation 3hr every single work day.
True, but right now it works, so it's very very very far in my priority list. Mostly something I would do on the whim of the moment if I wanted. Now, I don't care. as having a buzz every time I get an e-mail is not exactly a highlight of what I want to get:)
hahahaha, yes, but not for everything. Because the Fruity Device I got doesn't handle spam correctly, it means it gets _all_ the e-mails from my provider. So I wait for them to be filtered out by my computer, and then, I read them. No Push for e-mails.
Nor for the Social company, not particularly granular for the different wall posts, so I prefer to actually check them myself.
In other words, I mostly use Push notifications to get informed of the state of my servers at home, some messaging, and that's mostly it.
I nearly never checked my work e-mails at home, even if I've been a lead in most companies. I started a successful company with other people. Even then, my evenings were my evenings, and my week-ends were my week-ends, not my company's. Some exceptions of course, but they remained exceptions.
I give my all when I am at work, and disconnect myself from work at home. Like every good geek, I check my personal e-mails, and I check my personal phone messages approximately 594,000,000 times per microsecond (slightly exaggerating, but let's just say that number would be higher if I didn't have to drive sometimes;) ), and everyone @ work knows they can call me or phone me if they are stuck. However, I will not jeopardize my mental sanity or my family's sanity for work. Starting a company is enough hard work to feel the strain, starting early AM and ending late PM (if ever), I won't add up a chain up on my nose when I'm away.
Which doesn't mean it doesn't work for you, I mean, I have people whose job it is to be 24/7 (some IT and some managers). Then you have to adapt your rhythm so you are relaxed most of the time, so your brain can work during long marathons, instead of 8 hours sprints. Even then, they all know the meaning of disconnecting, and will resort going to a place where their phone doesn't work if needed, but they will relax.
And if you feel like you work too hard, then don't:) There are other jobs elsewhere that doesn't require constant connection. Just change. It's your life. You do what you want.
At first, I used complex alphanumeric passwords. Then some system asked me for some Case. So I added up some actual Easily Guessable Case. Then some system asked me for some Sp#ci@l characters. So I added them (@g@!n e@sy to f!nd). Then some system decided it didn't like Sp#ci@l characters. So I only added them when needed only Then I tried migrating to Pass Phrases. However, the Sp#ci@l still needs to be there sometimes, and sometimes they don't like that, and sometimes, spaces aren't supported, and sometimes, there's a limit of 15 characters. Then, I found one site that actually asked me for PRECISELY 8 characters, with mixed, number and special. The frag! And I have two places where I need to switch passwords every now and then (3 months and 6 months)
So I freaking gave up. At home, my crap is seriously secure. It's long pass sentences with some mistakes in them, it's easy to remember them, and hard to figure them out. Whenever I can, I use these pass sentences, always different, because my brain actually remembers these passwords, and they are kind of related to the system in question, for example, on a Fruity system, I might write "I SIRIously love cider";)
Everywhere else, the "dick" sites and systems, I have 3-4 passwords, precisely 8 characters in length, with option@1 specials and one ever incrementing character somewhere... Because I need to remember these.
Oh and then, for crappy sites I couldn't care less about, I'm in the top 50 easiest passwords to find. Find them, I couldn't care less.:)
The video game industry was waiting for that one, don't worry.:) Oh there's a shooting. When will people actually link that to violent video games... Oh here it is.
(Note: this is speculation, I never asked Nintendo about these, nor did I had any access to whatever internal documentation on RAM for the Wii - much less for WiiU)
Like I said, the 64M GDDR RAM of Wii is very quick, but optimized to be read and written in big chunks. It's not meant for per-byte random access.
I don't have the specifics at hand, but RAM is read in big chunks (32 bytes, 256 bytes, I really don't remember), and kept in cache from there. As long as you stay in that cache, it's all right.
Also, that RAM is used for GPU, DMA, and everything else external to the CPU. So its bandwidth is split between everything in the console. That means crappy bandwidth, split at controller side. That's GDDR RAM, tied down to the graphical chip, and that one has priority. That's why they added up so many features to transfer data back and forth from RAM. That way, you can do bulk transfers in background while the CPU is happily churning something else. Would it be that fast, there wouldn't be such tools.
On a side note, I'd take OP AC with a grain of salt. However, HDDs do transfer quickly when accessing data sequentially. So I don't say it's impossible to have the same CPU-side bandwidth. You are totally right about latency, that said; HDDs are very slow to seek.
Yet again, reminder this is for Wii, I have no idea how the WiiU works.
OP AC: I used to code for Wii. Haven't coded for WiiU. So I cannot tell, only extrapolating from what you are saying here.
However, what you are giving as info is mostly the same than Wii used to have. I expected they kept full compatibility between the WiiU and the Wii, so they could emulate the system. That probably explains the chips.
Your PS (Paired Single) experience is mostly what I would expect from a newbie assembly programmer. Sorry. Yes, it's very hard to code PSes but once you get the hang of it, it's very efficient.
As far as your memory experience, I would expect the WiiU to use the equivalent from the Wii, meaning they have a very fast internal memory, and a cacheless external memory. It's powerful if you understand how to work its magic, and you need to know how to use caches or other accumulators to transfer data.
Not saying it isn't a pain. It is. Especially if you want to code as a general purpose guy (big company), with compatibility on multiple platforms. Most multiplatform have one kind of memory, so it expects fast and efficient RAM for its whole game. However, if you code solely for the WiiU, and have a background in Wii or in GameCube, you'll feel right at home I'm sure. Read your comments, and it all rang bells.
LordLimecat: It would make sense if the WiiU uses the same system than the Wii. Wii uses 2 kind of RAM, first one is very quick for random access, but you have very little of it. Second one is very quick for sequential write access, but horribly slow for random read access. Depending on tests, you can get magnitude of slowness in that kind of RAM on Wii. Now, I don't have experience in WiiU (and even if I did, I would keep this confidential, to be honest), but I do feel in a familiar place.:)
-full disclosure- Work for EA, all info here was double-checked for availability in the likes of Wikipedia and Google. Opinions are mine.
Funny how on Mac it always was Applications, on Win it was always Programs, on Lin it was always Software, and then you got all the different variations for all the platforms everywhere. Some use Ware, some use Soft(pedia for example).
Then Apple starts using Apps, coins the App Store to go there, gets the most talked about platform, and somehow it now has become "common sense" to use Apps for everything, and the only place to get an App is on the App Store.
Imagination, people... come on! It's a freaking term, coin your own! Soft Store, Get-A-Ware, don't know what. And although I understand Apple in their stance, I find it funny and ridiculous. It reminds me of Microsoft Bookshelf.
You see, that's exactly the kind of things people should never have to hear about a product. If I get a product, whether at $0 or $10,000, it should always be responsible for its own integrated tools.
Let say I buy an integrated specialized medical database using Oracle as backend. First, I shouldn't really have to care it uses Oracle. Is the product working or not? Yes or no. The reason why a specific request would fail "because its an Oracle bug" is moot, the vendor decided to use Oracle, it should vouch by it.
Let say again I buy M$ Outlook. It uses M$ Jet as its backend. Should I really care? Absolutely not! Actually, you learn about that part when you (used to) go over 2GB and the system would balk with a corrupted archive. To have the vendor tell me it's a Jet bug shouldn't be taken seriously, they chose to use it, they live with the limitations, and it now becomes an Outlook bug.
Same for Chrome. I decide to install Chrome on my computer. It uses WebKit. It comes bundled with multiple DLLs and tools, D3DX, Gears, AVFormat and so on. Some are even signed by Google themselves, some files even contain Flash provisions inside them. They should vouch for what they have, and actually consider their bundled tools as part of their software, no matter what.
(extrapolation) I wonder how it would go with my mom, trying to make her understand that she uses a software she installed, but the fact her computer became infected with malware is because of some extraneous tool she unwittingly installed at the same time she installed Chrome, is part of the default package, and is bugged down.:) She'll remove Chrome and never go back to it because it's ITS fault.:)
A company takes care to actually go through code, assembly, source, any means really, figure out a hack that's specific to Chrome... and somehow, they are the ones misunderstanding the code. Somehow that answer doesn't satisfy me:)
Also, the answer would be equivalent to having my code use Sqlite as a dll, I bundle it in my package, I install it, it's mine... but somehow when someone hacks my application through a (very theoretical - example only! move on trolls;) ) sqlite bug, I would have the exit door saying "oh yes, you can hack my app, it's defenseless, but it's not my fault, it's sqlite here! *points*"
Please... Chrome... You bundle it, you vouch by it, you got hacked, you recognized, don't start making excuses please. It's no big deal, it's only a bug, like there are countless in ALL applications throughout the world.
Mmm, well, there is the PCI standard that's supposed to protect you against such things, disallowing ANY kind of credit card number keeping. I guess Sony weren't PCI compliant, and I guess this is why they are being checked by all these groups, because such thing should've never happened, at least for the CC#. I know, I had to go through that test last year, and it's quite secure.
For the account info, that's something else, they screwed up and that's it. Let me guess, their passwords were sent through a SHA-1 or some other crappy password verifier.:)
It actually is up that standard... and Toto, the famed washlet makers are actually producing these in USA too... you simply need to look them up.
I find it funny to see this coming over everywhere on the Intarwebz. At least Kohler knows their way up the social media / blogosphere / viral marketing.
For me, it strangely reminds me of Hypercard... and thus of current Mac OS X Automator. If you want even easier, I'd even go to Quartz Composer. Yet again things pioneered by Apple. I wouldn't create a full 3D game using that scripting system, it's totally different and not meant for the same thing.
People simply don't understand high-level versus low-level; both has merits.
Is this the old geezer versus the new wet diapers yet again? (trying to be as evil on both sides;) )
There are new technologies and we should embrace them. I am not a proponent of VMs, I don't like them in general, but I do see its uses and it's very effective. Like in C++, you got STL, with very similar and nearly interchangeable std::vector, std::list, std::deque and so on (and not talking about boost or 3rd parties here). You need to know when to apply them or else you'll get problems. Well, in the '10s, you have the same ridicule amount of technologies available to sysadmins, and you need to know when to apply it. That's the new Sysadmin job, not only know that you can code one in bash with grep, awk, echo, while read, pipes and rsync, but actually know there is a package all neatly made for you, available at your fingertips with a simple apt-get (or yum).
I keep my computer tidied-up, I love to know what runs where. Even then, I do a "spring cleaning" once every year, reinstalling everything. And incredibly, my computer runs faster and more efficiently. Why? new/etc defaults, new parameters, new software, old clinging software, things that are nearly impossible to update. Same for the files. Seriously, in today's computers, we get hundred of thousands of files, most of which have some arcane use we couldn't care less, but are necessary for some kind of weird reason. I'm a sysadmin, and I don't pretend to want to know all these files.
I read the article, and yes, there are things that are changing, and seriously, I do respect the One person who can understand the Sendmail configuration files... oh I'd even be impressed with the M4.:) And when there is a problem, I want to know why, because I love to learn. But then... there are prerogatives, time constraints, servers need to be up, people need to work, and we have all these magnificient tools that will enable every computer to be segregated in their private little VM world (to return to that main article). So should be simply shrug, laugh and go back to The Ancient Ways? You can keep you "vi" editor, leave me my "vim", please.:)
It scales horribly It takes more work It takes more time down the end... but then, I don't have a %(#)load of users sending me e-mails, calling me (off-site), coming to see me in real life, and I don't have to send a message to all the clients and users saying it's known, and I don't have the company managers telling me they're in a crunch or whatnot.
95% of users coming to my desk in these mere minutes a server is down: - hi - hi. Yes? - how are you? - not too bad, you? - going well. I got a question for you? - yes? - Are you working on whatever server? - yeah, it's down. Restarting it now, there might be further downtime later on if I see a solution, and it might require further downtime. Hopefully not. - oh... ok, thanks - no sweat.
So I'm sorry, I'm really inexperienced I guess, I just work with active servers with users happily churning in them, and are to a point mission critical, for them at least. And FWIW, I'm merely a non-jerk and non-God-complex sysadmin that tries to answer to users with proper English and not shoving their little problems down their %/%/.
And yes, SVN might sometimes cause problems, especially when linked to these buzzwords: SASL, LDAP, NFS, VM and 1TB worth of data.
And I agree with you totally it should not require a reboot, reboots should not happen.
Like in Windows...
But in real life, they do. And sometimes, once it's determined what the cause might be, it's much easier to do a "shutdown -r 0", wait for 30 seconds for the server to stop, wait for 2 minutes for the server to come back up, look at the log, see everything is peachy, and THEN solving whatever went wrong than taking 2 hours of my life with users poking me every 30 seconds because the server is down.
Example that just happened today: a NFS server was having problems with some actions... not all, but some very rare admin actions. We restarted the server because it was hung, with stale NFS mounts galore, and application hung because it was unresponsive. Rebooting the whole system meant all processes at least tried to stop, and then they restarted correctly. After further investigation with whatever was causing problems, we understood one of our new servers needed nolock in clients due to a software glitch. We remounted with additional options, and it kept running along from that point on. Next step is to do the right thing and correct the NFS software bug... and once we'll have the latest software update, we'll allow locks yet again.
Total downtime: 5 minutes. Caveat: for 2 hours, users couldn't do a particuliar Admin command. Now: fine... Eventually: server will be back up and ok.
Quotes from stupid people: You should never reboot a Mac, it's not like Windows. You should never reboot Unix/Lunux, it's not like Windows.
Well, you shouldn't reboot Windows either. You reboot it when it goes sour. Our Windows servers seldom go sour, so we don't reboot them. Same for Mac or *nix.
Problem is when it starts to cause problems. Like our/var/spool partition deciding it has better things to do than exist... or the ever so important NFS or iSCSI mount that decides to Go West, and gives us the ??? ls we all dread... with umounting impossible, so remounting impossible, and all these stale files and stuff. You either tweak these things for hours cleaning up all processes, or you reboot.
In fact, being a good sysadmin, all my servers are MEANT to be rebooted if something goes sour. One SVN project goes sour? check if it's not the repository itself that got problems, or if the system needs to save something to safely exist... and if not, reboot the server. Everything magically restarts itself, does its little sanity check, and a quick look at a remote syslog to make certain everything is all right. 2 minutes lost for everyone, not 3 hours of trying to clean up mess left by some stray process somewhere or trying to kill the rogue 100 compression and rsync jobs that got started eating up all RAM, CPU and network.
Since all our servers are single processes and are either VMs or single machines, it's a breeze to do this. iSCSI will diligently wait before the machine is back up before trying to reconnect. NFS will keep its locked files up, and will reconnect to them. No, seriously, everything simply reconnects!
Of course, the idea is to minimize these occurences, so we learn from it, and we try to repair what could've caused this problem in the first place. And there's a place to do this in a server crash postmortem. But no need to make users wait while we try to figure out wth.
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When it was a question of phone, it was mostly Nokias that were inexpensive, worked well, battery held up days. Then we had the SMS craze that gave us better screens and a better keyboard. These were purchased mostly for weight and for look, like a jewelry piece. They lasted years until someone grew tired of it, after the 3rd battery change.
Now, the best correlation would be the computer industry. In the 90s, a computer would last 3 years until a major paradigm shift and a break to a much better CPU/GPU/HDD. Now, the Average Joe doesn't need the latest greatest 3K$ computer, (s)he can take a 1K$ computer and be happy for years with it.
The phone industry gets there slowly too. There are major speed advances, miniaturization, optimizations, and a phone you'd be tempted to change every year doesn't need to be changed anymore at such breakneck speed, however the industry is still improving with users demanding even more, so we're not there yet. My iPhone 4 still works relatively well, although it shows its age by not running the latest apps as fast as a new phone can. It's more than 10x slower than the current 6 in most categories, and apps are getting to use that speed. My battery life is 2 days of normal use, however, it drains quickly if I start to connect to Facebook or Safari, or other heavy-duty modern applications. But I just look at my wife's 4S and it's leaps beyond by 4, and it's merely a year later ... We could probably keep it 1-2 more years, or even more, depending on what the modern apps expect of the phone.
I'm giving the iPhone as example. This applies to any given phone that's using 3rd party tools and apps. I noticed the upgrade pace is slowing in users. You need a real shift in order to get a user to switch these days, where it was ridiculous _not_ to shift every year 3-4-5 years ago.
(Note to modders: not on topic, just replying to anon, please don't mod up)
> Sadly, no. 8 (and 7) are still very power stupid. They constantly do stupid shit like run indexers and eager caches that run your battery down fast. Throw win8 on a mac book pro and watch as that 9 (okay, 5 in reality) hours drops down to 2. ... and XP, and 98, and 95. Every single system adds up modern tools users expect to have. Now we all expect a global computer search, we expect upgrades to be downloaded automatically, we expect malware to be blocked at its root, we expect automated backups in case something goes wrong, we expect "checkpoints" in case a software causes issues. At the same time, we want responsive beautiful GUI with responsiveness, pre-loading of big tools (Even Libre Office loads at start). We now have a great firewall, have hardware abstraction and environment virtualization, address randomization, 32 bits and 64 bits of everything, we have immediate plug and play for everything, system-level URL handling, multicore and multiprocessor management, SSD trim handling or HDD on-the-fly optimization and frequently requested blocks at startup, and so on. To compare previous systems with new versions isn't worthwhile, rare are the new systems that don't add up their levels of lag due to the inherent complexity.
Now I do tend to my work Windows machine by removing everything in my powers that could slow down or cause undue burden to the machine, so even if I currently run Windows 7, it reacts more like an XP machine, with traditional GUI, and everything I don't need preemptively removed and tweaked to a ridiculous level. My computer works well and I'm glad of it.
@ home, it's all Macs and although they accelerated some things in recent OSes, some others are really slower than they used to be. Apple also got the great advantage of a walled garden, so they know exactly what's in each model. Drivers are premium and system is optimized for efficiency of every machine.
IMHO (TL;DR), the Surface Pro 3 is a great device but with an identity crisis without a real segment of users to cover.
Windows 8 was created precisely for such device, and since other vendors were reluctant to enter market with these specs, Microsoft actually used 8 to its full potential with their own design. It's the only place where 8.x actually makes total sense.
Problems were mainly with previous devices, let's be frank. That entire RT debacle was laughable, most people didn't understand why their Windows tablet wouldn't run their Windows software. As such, market was burned before the 3. But now, if you are on the market for such a beast, you'll have a great experience... which is part of the persisting problem. Why would you actually purchase such device?
- As a tablet? Most tablets are much less expensive, they don't run Windows software but why should they, as most ecosystems are now mature enough to forego Windows. As added bonus, their softwares are optimized precisely for these devices. Where you got a weird "traditional" mouse-and-keyboard Windows software trying to fit in a touch environment, you get a perfectly capable iOS or Android software doing exactly what you wish, with a great experience.
- As a laptop? Then you better get the keyboard, and even without it, the device itself is very expensive due to the digitizer and screen, which most laptop people won't care. It's less capable than equivalently priced laptops. It's more expensive than equivalently capable netbooks and laptops. Then for normal consumer, it might be worthwhile to get something such as a Chromebook.
So you need someone who wants a Windows PC with 8.x optimized applications, who loves using a tablet, such as a presentation device or with a propensity to draw with pens (artists - but not too specialized - GPU is poor), deeper pockets and doesn't mind a haphazard keyboard (even if the optional folding keyboard is well received, it's still a far cry from a standalone keyboard if you wish to use it in a train for example)
Yeah, with scratches it's a valid assumption. However, in my case it was cheap CDs with inks that degraded, so the reflectivity of the data itself was degraded, the drive was ultimately unable to retrieve data on most sectors, or it was able after dozen of reads over the same block of data, until the data got its green flag from the recovery algorithm embedded in Data-CD format specs.
A scratch is localized. CD dye degradation is global. But thanks for the idea.
Bitrot is not usually the issue for most files. Sometimes, but it's rare. What I lost is a mayhem repository of hardware and software and human failure. Thanks for backup, life :)
On Bitrot:
- MP3s and M4As I had that suddenly started to stutter and jump around. You play the music and it starts to skip. Luckily I have backups (read on for why I have multiple backups of everything :) ) so when I find them, I just revert to the backup.
- Images having bad sectors like everyone else. Once or twice here or there.
- A few CDs due to CD degradation. That includes one that I really wish I'd still have, as it was a backup of something I lost. However, the CD takes hours to read, and then eventually either balks up or not for the directory. I won't tell you about actually trying to copy the files, especially with normal timeouts in modern OSes or the hardware pieces or whatnot.
Not Bitrot:
- Two RAID Mirror hard drives, as they were both the same company, and purchased at the same time (same batch), in the same condition, they both balked at approximately the same time, not leaving me time to transfer data back.
- An internal hard drive, as I was making backups to CDs (at that time). For some kind of reason I still cannot explain, the software thought my hard drive was both the source and the destination !!!! Computer froze completely after a minute or two, then I tried rebooting to no avail, and my partition block was now containing a 700mb CD image, quarter full with my stuff. I still don't know how that's possible, but hey, it did. Since I was actualy making my first CD at the time and it was my first backup in a year, I lost countless good files, many I gave up upon (especially my 90's favorite music video sources ripped from the original betacam tapes in 4:2:2 by myself).
- A full bulk of HDs on Mac when I tried putting the journal to another internal SSD drive. I have dozens of HDDs, and I thought it'd go faster to use that nifty "journal on another drive" option. It did work well, although it was hell to initialize, as I had to create a partition for each HDD, then convert them to journaled partitions. Worked awesomely, very quick, very efficient. One day after weeks of usage, I had to hard close the computer and its HDD. When they remounted, they all remounted in the wrong order, somehow using the bad partition order. So imagine you have perfectly healthy HDDs but thinking they have to use another HDDs journal. Mayhem! Most drives thought they were other ones, so my music HDD became my photos HDD RAID, my system HDD thought it was the backup HDD, but just what was in the journal. It took me weeks sporting DiskWarrrior and Data Rescue in order to get 99% of my files back (I'm looking at you, DiskWarrior as a 32 bit app not supporting my 9TB photo drive) with a combinaison of the original drive files and the backup drive files. Took months to rebuild the Aperture database from that.
- All my pictures from when I met my wife to our first travels. I had them in a computer, I made a copy for sure. But I cannot find any of that anywhere. Nowhere to be found, no matter where I look. Since that time, many computers happened, so I don't know where it could've been sent. But I'm really sad to have lost these
- Did a paid photoshoot for an unique event. Took 4 32GB cards worth of priceless pictures. Once done with a card, I was sifting through the pictures with my camera and noticed it had issues reading the card. I removed it immediately. When at home, I put the card in my computer, it had all the troubles in the world reading it (but was able to do so), I was (barely) able to import its contents to Aperture (4-5 pictures didn't make the cut, a few dozens had glitches). It would then (dramatically, as it somehow have its last breath after relinquishing its precious data) not read or mount anywhere, not even being recognized as a card by the readers. Childs, use new cards regularly for your gigs :)
- A RAID array b
Update went well on my iPhone 4 (not S). Still am getting used to some elements. For example, the "ok" to unlock is kind of really unclear, and as such, I have doubts on putting nondescript text as buttons instead of having them shown with a rounded rect button frame.
I had MAJOR slowdowns everytime I was writing some line of text. I mean major MAJOR, like the UI freezing for 10 seconds, then putting all the text I was blindly writing, and then freezing for yet another 10 seconds. Then, Mr. Interwebz found the solution, which is to disable iCloud synchro for documents & settings ... and from that point on, no more battery hug, no more slowdowns, and everything is quite responsive.
So far, like it!
It's the parent's prerogative to send their children wherever they see fit. It's also the parent's prerogative to prepare their children the best they can for "real life". Some parents are well equipped to actually fully participate in their children's environment, try to make it better, implicate themselves, do activities, vote, give time, money, opportunities and trying to make the school a genuine good place for their children to be.
Not everyone is able to do that. My parents were able to do that. They were able to actually send me to alternative (and public) school, to participate fully in the school's life, always be there for me. It was a hard choice for them, not only needing to drive me an hour every day, then go to work, but also participate many nights and even some days to school life. Even for them, they eventually gave up one such school, and went to another one because it was plainly too demanding. So I wouldn't expect everyone to give the dedication to bring their prized school up to par to their expectations. Some parents are just able to pay up, are not able to speak or talk adequately, or they don't have time to dedicate themselves to such hard work, and we have to respect that. Alas, today in this world where parents are paying premium and expecting their young bastard children (exaggeration intended here) to do well, and screaming to the teacher (instead of screaming at your own children) whenever they don't have straight As is the norm, I expect the school system to remain crooked.
In the end, people are voting with their attendance. If your school system is bad enough to fear for lives just by attending, I'd expect people to try to move away from these places. There's preparing for real life and there's plain madness... and I'm truly sorry for the dedicated teachers giving their lives and soul for these schools; my mom is such a teacher (nearing her last working years now), giving her life to people with learning disabilities (or missed opportunities); her and many fellow teachers are giving what they can, but sometimes, it's not enough to convince parents.
On my side, I actually moved to a place where active outdoor life is adequate, near good quality schools (not the best - but in the >75%), and I plan my children to have a good chance in life, using neighbourhood friends, public school system, dedication, caring and be with my (future) children for anything they might need. That's where I decided to give my money, that's where my vote is going, even if I have to take the train and public transportation 3hr every single work day.
True, but right now it works, so it's very very very far in my priority list. Mostly something I would do on the whim of the moment if I wanted. Now, I don't care. as having a buzz every time I get an e-mail is not exactly a highlight of what I want to get :)
hahahaha, yes, but not for everything. Because the Fruity Device I got doesn't handle spam correctly, it means it gets _all_ the e-mails from my provider. So I wait for them to be filtered out by my computer, and then, I read them. No Push for e-mails.
Nor for the Social company, not particularly granular for the different wall posts, so I prefer to actually check them myself.
In other words, I mostly use Push notifications to get informed of the state of my servers at home, some messaging, and that's mostly it.
I nearly never checked my work e-mails at home, even if I've been a lead in most companies. I started a successful company with other people. Even then, my evenings were my evenings, and my week-ends were my week-ends, not my company's. Some exceptions of course, but they remained exceptions.
I give my all when I am at work, and disconnect myself from work at home. Like every good geek, I check my personal e-mails, and I check my personal phone messages approximately 594,000,000 times per microsecond (slightly exaggerating, but let's just say that number would be higher if I didn't have to drive sometimes ;) ), and everyone @ work knows they can call me or phone me if they are stuck. However, I will not jeopardize my mental sanity or my family's sanity for work. Starting a company is enough hard work to feel the strain, starting early AM and ending late PM (if ever), I won't add up a chain up on my nose when I'm away.
Which doesn't mean it doesn't work for you, I mean, I have people whose job it is to be 24/7 (some IT and some managers). Then you have to adapt your rhythm so you are relaxed most of the time, so your brain can work during long marathons, instead of 8 hours sprints. Even then, they all know the meaning of disconnecting, and will resort going to a place where their phone doesn't work if needed, but they will relax.
And if you feel like you work too hard, then don't :) There are other jobs elsewhere that doesn't require constant connection. Just change. It's your life. You do what you want.
At first, I used complex alphanumeric passwords.
Then some system asked me for some Case. So I added up some actual Easily Guessable Case.
Then some system asked me for some Sp#ci@l characters. So I added them (@g@!n e@sy to f!nd).
Then some system decided it didn't like Sp#ci@l characters. So I only added them when needed only
Then I tried migrating to Pass Phrases. However, the Sp#ci@l still needs to be there sometimes, and sometimes they don't like that, and sometimes, spaces aren't supported, and sometimes, there's a limit of 15 characters.
Then, I found one site that actually asked me for PRECISELY 8 characters, with mixed, number and special. The frag!
And I have two places where I need to switch passwords every now and then (3 months and 6 months)
So I freaking gave up. At home, my crap is seriously secure. It's long pass sentences with some mistakes in them, it's easy to remember them, and hard to figure them out. Whenever I can, I use these pass sentences, always different, because my brain actually remembers these passwords, and they are kind of related to the system in question, for example, on a Fruity system, I might write "I SIRIously love cider" ;)
Everywhere else, the "dick" sites and systems, I have 3-4 passwords, precisely 8 characters in length, with option@1 specials and one ever incrementing character somewhere... Because I need to remember these.
Oh and then, for crappy sites I couldn't care less about, I'm in the top 50 easiest passwords to find. Find them, I couldn't care less. :)
The video game industry was waiting for that one, don't worry. :) Oh there's a shooting. When will people actually link that to violent video games ... Oh here it is.
I like what Penny Arcade did there : http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/12/24
I will refrain from giving my opinion on shootings, guns, media and other elements, tend to get passionate. ;)
Assembly. :)
I would guess compilers are interested in creating very good optimizers and use special features when this is mainstream, not a niche market.
(Note: this is speculation, I never asked Nintendo about these, nor did I had any access to whatever internal documentation on RAM for the Wii - much less for WiiU)
Like I said, the 64M GDDR RAM of Wii is very quick, but optimized to be read and written in big chunks. It's not meant for per-byte random access.
I don't have the specifics at hand, but RAM is read in big chunks (32 bytes, 256 bytes, I really don't remember), and kept in cache from there. As long as you stay in that cache, it's all right.
Also, that RAM is used for GPU, DMA, and everything else external to the CPU. So its bandwidth is split between everything in the console. That means crappy bandwidth, split at controller side. That's GDDR RAM, tied down to the graphical chip, and that one has priority. That's why they added up so many features to transfer data back and forth from RAM. That way, you can do bulk transfers in background while the CPU is happily churning something else. Would it be that fast, there wouldn't be such tools.
On a side note, I'd take OP AC with a grain of salt. However, HDDs do transfer quickly when accessing data sequentially. So I don't say it's impossible to have the same CPU-side bandwidth. You are totally right about latency, that said; HDDs are very slow to seek.
Yet again, reminder this is for Wii, I have no idea how the WiiU works.
OP AC:
I used to code for Wii. Haven't coded for WiiU. So I cannot tell, only extrapolating from what you are saying here.
However, what you are giving as info is mostly the same than Wii used to have. I expected they kept full compatibility between the WiiU and the Wii, so they could emulate the system. That probably explains the chips.
Your PS (Paired Single) experience is mostly what I would expect from a newbie assembly programmer. Sorry. Yes, it's very hard to code PSes but once you get the hang of it, it's very efficient.
As far as your memory experience, I would expect the WiiU to use the equivalent from the Wii, meaning they have a very fast internal memory, and a cacheless external memory. It's powerful if you understand how to work its magic, and you need to know how to use caches or other accumulators to transfer data.
Not saying it isn't a pain. It is. Especially if you want to code as a general purpose guy (big company), with compatibility on multiple platforms. Most multiplatform have one kind of memory, so it expects fast and efficient RAM for its whole game. However, if you code solely for the WiiU, and have a background in Wii or in GameCube, you'll feel right at home I'm sure. Read your comments, and it all rang bells.
LordLimecat: :)
It would make sense if the WiiU uses the same system than the Wii. Wii uses 2 kind of RAM, first one is very quick for random access, but you have very little of it. Second one is very quick for sequential write access, but horribly slow for random read access. Depending on tests, you can get magnitude of slowness in that kind of RAM on Wii. Now, I don't have experience in WiiU (and even if I did, I would keep this confidential, to be honest), but I do feel in a familiar place.
-full disclosure- Work for EA, all info here was double-checked for availability in the likes of Wikipedia and Google. Opinions are mine.
Funny how on Mac it always was Applications, on Win it was always Programs, on Lin it was always Software, and then you got all the different variations for all the platforms everywhere. Some use Ware, some use Soft(pedia for example).
Then Apple starts using Apps, coins the App Store to go there, gets the most talked about platform, and somehow it now has become "common sense" to use Apps for everything, and the only place to get an App is on the App Store.
Imagination, people ... come on! It's a freaking term, coin your own! Soft Store, Get-A-Ware, don't know what. And although I understand Apple in their stance, I find it funny and ridiculous. It reminds me of Microsoft Bookshelf.
You see, that's exactly the kind of things people should never have to hear about a product. If I get a product, whether at $0 or $10,000, it should always be responsible for its own integrated tools.
Let say I buy an integrated specialized medical database using Oracle as backend. First, I shouldn't really have to care it uses Oracle. Is the product working or not? Yes or no. The reason why a specific request would fail "because its an Oracle bug" is moot, the vendor decided to use Oracle, it should vouch by it.
Let say again I buy M$ Outlook. It uses M$ Jet as its backend. Should I really care? Absolutely not! Actually, you learn about that part when you (used to) go over 2GB and the system would balk with a corrupted archive. To have the vendor tell me it's a Jet bug shouldn't be taken seriously, they chose to use it, they live with the limitations, and it now becomes an Outlook bug.
Same for Chrome. I decide to install Chrome on my computer. It uses WebKit. It comes bundled with multiple DLLs and tools, D3DX, Gears, AVFormat and so on. Some are even signed by Google themselves, some files even contain Flash provisions inside them. They should vouch for what they have, and actually consider their bundled tools as part of their software, no matter what.
(extrapolation) I wonder how it would go with my mom, trying to make her understand that she uses a software she installed, but the fact her computer became infected with malware is because of some extraneous tool she unwittingly installed at the same time she installed Chrome, is part of the default package, and is bugged down. :) She'll remove Chrome and never go back to it because it's ITS fault. :)
A company takes care to actually go through code, assembly, source, any means really, figure out a hack that's specific to Chrome ... and somehow, they are the ones misunderstanding the code. Somehow that answer doesn't satisfy me :)
Also, the answer would be equivalent to having my code use Sqlite as a dll, I bundle it in my package, I install it, it's mine ... but somehow when someone hacks my application through a (very theoretical - example only! move on trolls ;) ) sqlite bug, I would have the exit door saying "oh yes, you can hack my app, it's defenseless, but it's not my fault, it's sqlite here! *points*"
Please ... Chrome ... You bundle it, you vouch by it, you got hacked, you recognized, don't start making excuses please. It's no big deal, it's only a bug, like there are countless in ALL applications throughout the world.
Mmm, well, there is the PCI standard that's supposed to protect you against such things, disallowing ANY kind of credit card number keeping. I guess Sony weren't PCI compliant, and I guess this is why they are being checked by all these groups, because such thing should've never happened, at least for the CC#. I know, I had to go through that test last year, and it's quite secure.
For the account info, that's something else, they screwed up and that's it. Let me guess, their passwords were sent through a SHA-1 or some other crappy password verifier. :)
It actually is up that standard ... and Toto, the famed washlet makers are actually producing these in USA too ... you simply need to look them up.
I find it funny to see this coming over everywhere on the Intarwebz. At least Kohler knows their way up the social media / blogosphere / viral marketing.
For me, it strangely reminds me of Hypercard ... and thus of current Mac OS X Automator. If you want even easier, I'd even go to Quartz Composer. Yet again things pioneered by Apple. I wouldn't create a full 3D game using that scripting system, it's totally different and not meant for the same thing.
People simply don't understand high-level versus low-level; both has merits.
Is this the old geezer versus the new wet diapers yet again? (trying to be as evil on both sides ;) )
There are new technologies and we should embrace them. I am not a proponent of VMs, I don't like them in general, but I do see its uses and it's very effective. Like in C++, you got STL, with very similar and nearly interchangeable std::vector, std::list, std::deque and so on (and not talking about boost or 3rd parties here). You need to know when to apply them or else you'll get problems. Well, in the '10s, you have the same ridicule amount of technologies available to sysadmins, and you need to know when to apply it. That's the new Sysadmin job, not only know that you can code one in bash with grep, awk, echo, while read, pipes and rsync, but actually know there is a package all neatly made for you, available at your fingertips with a simple apt-get (or yum).
I keep my computer tidied-up, I love to know what runs where. Even then, I do a "spring cleaning" once every year, reinstalling everything. And incredibly, my computer runs faster and more efficiently. Why? new /etc defaults, new parameters, new software, old clinging software, things that are nearly impossible to update. Same for the files. Seriously, in today's computers, we get hundred of thousands of files, most of which have some arcane use we couldn't care less, but are necessary for some kind of weird reason. I'm a sysadmin, and I don't pretend to want to know all these files.
I read the article, and yes, there are things that are changing, and seriously, I do respect the One person who can understand the Sendmail configuration files... oh I'd even be impressed with the M4. :) And when there is a problem, I want to know why, because I love to learn. But then ... there are prerogatives, time constraints, servers need to be up, people need to work, and we have all these magnificient tools that will enable every computer to be segregated in their private little VM world (to return to that main article). So should be simply shrug, laugh and go back to The Ancient Ways? You can keep you "vi" editor, leave me my "vim", please. :)
It scales horribly ... but then, I don't have a %(#)load of users sending me e-mails, calling me (off-site), coming to see me in real life, and I don't have to send a message to all the clients and users saying it's known, and I don't have the company managers telling me they're in a crunch or whatnot.
It takes more work
It takes more time down the end
95% of users coming to my desk in these mere minutes a server is down: ... ok, thanks
- hi
- hi. Yes?
- how are you?
- not too bad, you?
- going well. I got a question for you?
- yes?
- Are you working on whatever server?
- yeah, it's down. Restarting it now, there might be further downtime later on if I see a solution, and it might require further downtime. Hopefully not.
- oh
- no sweat.
So I'm sorry, I'm really inexperienced I guess, I just work with active servers with users happily churning in them, and are to a point mission critical, for them at least. And FWIW, I'm merely a non-jerk and non-God-complex sysadmin that tries to answer to users with proper English and not shoving their little problems down their %/%/.
And yes, SVN might sometimes cause problems, especially when linked to these buzzwords: SASL, LDAP, NFS, VM and 1TB worth of data.
And I agree with you totally it should not require a reboot, reboots should not happen.
Like in Windows ...
But in real life, they do. And sometimes, once it's determined what the cause might be, it's much easier to do a "shutdown -r 0", wait for 30 seconds for the server to stop, wait for 2 minutes for the server to come back up, look at the log, see everything is peachy, and THEN solving whatever went wrong than taking 2 hours of my life with users poking me every 30 seconds because the server is down.
Example that just happened today: a NFS server was having problems with some actions... not all, but some very rare admin actions. We restarted the server because it was hung, with stale NFS mounts galore, and application hung because it was unresponsive. ... and once we'll have the latest software update, we'll allow locks yet again.
Rebooting the whole system meant all processes at least tried to stop, and then they restarted correctly. After further investigation with whatever was causing problems, we understood one of our new servers needed nolock in clients due to a software glitch. We remounted with additional options, and it kept running along from that point on. Next step is to do the right thing and correct the NFS software bug
Total downtime: 5 minutes. Caveat: for 2 hours, users couldn't do a particuliar Admin command. Now: fine ... Eventually: server will be back up and ok.
Quotes from stupid people:
You should never reboot a Mac, it's not like Windows.
You should never reboot Unix/Lunux, it's not like Windows.
Well, you shouldn't reboot Windows either. You reboot it when it goes sour. Our Windows servers seldom go sour, so we don't reboot them. Same for Mac or *nix.
Problem is when it starts to cause problems. Like our /var/spool partition deciding it has better things to do than exist... or the ever so important NFS or iSCSI mount that decides to Go West, and gives us the ??? ls we all dread ... with umounting impossible, so remounting impossible, and all these stale files and stuff. You either tweak these things for hours cleaning up all processes, or you reboot.
In fact, being a good sysadmin, all my servers are MEANT to be rebooted if something goes sour. One SVN project goes sour? check if it's not the repository itself that got problems, or if the system needs to save something to safely exist ... and if not, reboot the server. Everything magically restarts itself, does its little sanity check, and a quick look at a remote syslog to make certain everything is all right. 2 minutes lost for everyone, not 3 hours of trying to clean up mess left by some stray process somewhere or trying to kill the rogue 100 compression and rsync jobs that got started eating up all RAM, CPU and network.
Since all our servers are single processes and are either VMs or single machines, it's a breeze to do this. iSCSI will diligently wait before the machine is back up before trying to reconnect. NFS will keep its locked files up, and will reconnect to them. No, seriously, everything simply reconnects!
Of course, the idea is to minimize these occurences, so we learn from it, and we try to repair what could've caused this problem in the first place. And there's a place to do this in a server crash postmortem. But no need to make users wait while we try to figure out wth.