And the dirty little secret is that paper recycling is actually WORSE for the environment than harvesting newgrowth, but nobody wants to believe that in the face of the facts (which I haven't linked to here).
I would love to see them. I know that the local recycling program for paper saves about $60 per ton over standard disposal techniques despite having higher expenses. The reason is that recyclers are buying up the paper for more than the difference in costs (landfill vs. recycling program -- sorting for recycling is not cheap).
I suppose my question would be why are they buying used paper for the purpose of recycling it, when they could simply get regular ol' trees?
Somewhere along the line there is must be a significant energy or manpower expense.
I would place my bets that the studies you did not refer to don't include the full trail -- like shipping of the materials hundreds of kilometers.
I've been known to rent ten or more movies at a time, rip 'em to my harddrive, and return the movies the next day. I'll watch them within a month or two and go in for another batch.
By the time I've made the decision that I want to watch something, movie stores tend to be closed or I'm just too lazy to go get one (books, etc. are closer).
Before I started doing this, I rented one or two movies in a year, and would easily go back to that rate if this convenience was removed.
[i]Anyone using Postgresql for really heavily loaded DB?[/i]
Plenty. Fujitsu Australia Software Technology (FAST) would be happy to sell you a SAN and appropriate server with PostgreSQL fully supported (they've recently hired a number of PostgreSQL developers) for most projects.
Once you hit the TB data point you might want to look at a DB2 or Oracle -- but you can buy a heck of alot of hardware for what an Oracle clustering license runs for.
Give PostgreSQL 2 more years, and I think you will find it is capable of all but the most extreme (Casino!) ORDBMS requirments.
I know you're being funny -- but I think the answer most of us would have is "Hopefully not too long".
If those changes made it into every OS that could use the improvement, then everything networked would find things just that much better without throwing away the old hardware.
Yeah... Grepping through 10GB of compressed, mime encoded mail because they send you their frigging messages as word documents, stored on a laptop harddrive is oh so useful.
(2) A model extension: distributed foreign keys. I think table inheritance isn't general enough. postgres has demonstrated that they're not afraid of going beyond the relational model. Well, I want a foreign key that can point to columns in two or more tables, and have a value from one OR another, yet still have its constraints enforced - why can't I specify e.g. A(X) REFERENCES C(Y) OR D(Z), so that A(X) may be a value from either C(Y) or D(Z), but nothing else?
That is an interesting thought and one that could be implemented today via triggers.
If PostgreSQL ever fixes the inheritance model to allow indexes to span multiple relations, this may become a possibility.
Master-Slave is a prerequisite to synchronous replication, as that is the method used to "catch-up" when you fall behind or there is a communication issue or to add a new slave to an already active cluster.
The second stage of Slony is to implement the above once they're satisfied that master-slave is fully functioning and bug-free.
Re:DROP COLUMN, ALTER COLUMN TYPE and SQL-99 Specs
on
PostgreSQL 8.0 Enters Beta
·
· Score: 5, Informative
You'll like this, actually...
If it can be cast directly (integer to numeric) it will do so implicitly.
So, integer to smallint will do part of the work -- but if it fails (comes across a number that won't fit in the smallint) then it will rollback -- nothing lost but a little time (most PostgreSQL commands are atomic and transactional).
However, you can use an expression to do the conversion if you have something stranger in mind -- it's essentially run as an UPDATE.
Excuse the crappy formatting.
BEGIN;
SAVEPOINT altertab;
ALTER TABLE tab
ALTER COLUMN text_col TYPE bool
EXPRESSION (CASE WHEN text_col = 'SOMETHING'
THEN TRUE
ELSE THEN FALSE
END);
ROLLBACK TO altertab;
ALTER TABLE tab
ALTER COLUMN text_col TYPE bool
EXPRESSION (CASE WHEN text_col IN ('SOMETHING', 'OR', 'ANOTHER')
THEN TRUE
ELSE THEN FALSE
END);
There have been attempts at adding 2 phase commit which would work with Java applications -- these were deemed incomplete, unsafe or needing work.
It is likely work will continue on this feature, though don't expect a replication system to be based on this as there are a number of problems within the spec itself (failure modes that leave the system essentially out of order).
See the pgsql-hackers archives (Google Groups) for details.
Yes, that's most peoples experience -- but recently there have been a few migrators going from Oracle to PostgreSQL who found it difficult to get Pg to run the queries the way they wanted.
Of course, those situations often result in planner or optimizer patches and the next version doing better for everyone:)
PostgreSQL is a touch slower than Oracle in some special cases (single user on multi-cpu machine doing large or very complex queries) since Oracle can split the work up amongst CPUs.
With 50 to 100 users, both have similar performance for many workloads (you need to test your specific workload), but Pg may require a touch more tuning.
Pg is, however, quite a bit more reliable than Oracle as far as corruptions go (keeping in mind this is a.0 release) so long as the hardware is adequate (doesn't lie about writes hitting disk when they're really in cache).
There are ways of purposfully crashing PostgreSQL as an authenticated user (particularly if you have root access and can write functions in C), but in standard operation it's quite reliable.
I cannot speak for DB2, but based on their Docs I think Pg is nearly as feature complete in most areas, and much more complete in many others.
Replication (master & multiple slaves) works great with Slony.
Fail over should not be done by the database, but by the operating system or an external monitoring system (Big Brother). RedHat Enterprise with the standard failover configuration works fine.
You just need to tell Slony that the new node has been elected as master. It's not as clean as it could be (no gui tools, etc.) but it is functional enough for the.org servers (Affilias).
Lots of them used to do $5's and $10's, but they'd constantly run out of $20's. Ever wonder what $100 in $5's is like? A pain in the ass is what it is!
Since stores around here have started taking $50's and $100's again, some of the machines have started spitting those denominations out.
[i]So where are you going to get your modchips from, except from someone selling them? Unless someone starts a modchip charity, you'll have to get your modchips from overseas.[/i]
Same place you pick up your nuclear bomb designs -- off the internet.
Create a set of directions (with a parts list) and sell the components individually.
Same old traps... It's the same reason that most opensource people do not want to look at the code for Windows. The risk of writing something similar a few years later is too great. Much easier just to ignore it exists.
IE employees stay far far away from Mozilla source -- though I imagine the regularly use the browser itself.
Similarly, the BSD license does not allow taking existing code away from a project but does allow reducing its ability to draw from a pool of coders -- and thus may still damage the project (relative to its potential state under the GPL).
You've got it exactly backward. If you cannot look at GPL'd code then how the heck are you supposed to make changes to send back?
BSD licensed code has far more potential; whether or not they achieve it is up for discussion.
In that respect something like PostgreSQL is much safer and more likely to remain free because the copyright is held by so many people that nobody could change the license.
Every once in a while it comes up that PostgreSQL should move to the 3 clause BSD license or the GPL -- the response is nearly always that it would be impossible to track down all of the copyright holders, and it would be; early versions 10+ years ago weren't tracked in CVS.
You're right, they avoid the code like the plague and write everything themselves (then are late for the deadline and charge a little more than they otherwise would have).
I've used BSD code in proprietary projects. Some parts we contributed back some things (new features, fixes, optimizations) and some parts we haven't (though, we're likely to after a few years -- maintenance is a pain).
However, if we couldn't keep those last parts secret for a while, we never would have looked at the sources.
You can say the same about Apple. They've donated quite a bit back to the various BSD groups -- but obviously there are some things they haven't. Did the BSD groups get a net gain out of the deal? Certainly, as they sure didn't lose anything.
That's really freaky. That they have invested more time into writing tools and directions on how to recover a corrupted RPM database than into preventing it from becoming corrupted in the first place isn't very good.
What can you defensivly do to stop someone in math?
Same as what you do in hockey, check them when they're running for more paper.
I see math as a team sport. You have the 2 people who do the calculations, 2 go-fors (pens, paper, research material), and 2 defense men. Anyone outside the crease (safe-zone) is fair game.
You may also attempt distractions, so long as you do not enter their safe-zone.
You missed one.. The cost of living is also around 40% lower in expensive Canadian cities than expensive American cities; so you really do go without much.
Slashdot Mirror
And the dirty little secret is that paper recycling is actually WORSE for the environment than harvesting newgrowth, but nobody wants to believe that in the face of the facts (which I haven't linked to here).
I would love to see them. I know that the local recycling program for paper saves about $60 per ton over standard disposal techniques despite having higher expenses. The reason is that recyclers are buying up the paper for more than the difference in costs (landfill vs. recycling program -- sorting for recycling is not cheap).
I suppose my question would be why are they buying used paper for the purpose of recycling it, when they could simply get regular ol' trees?
Somewhere along the line there is must be a significant energy or manpower expense.
I would place my bets that the studies you did not refer to don't include the full trail -- like shipping of the materials hundreds of kilometers.
I've been known to rent ten or more movies at a time, rip 'em to my harddrive, and return the movies the next day. I'll watch them within a month or two and go in for another batch.
By the time I've made the decision that I want to watch something, movie stores tend to be closed or I'm just too lazy to go get one (books, etc. are closer).
Before I started doing this, I rented one or two movies in a year, and would easily go back to that rate if this convenience was removed.
[i]Anyone using Postgresql for really heavily loaded DB?[/i]
Plenty. Fujitsu Australia Software Technology (FAST) would be happy to sell you a SAN and appropriate server with PostgreSQL fully supported (they've recently hired a number of PostgreSQL developers) for most projects.
Once you hit the TB data point you might want to look at a DB2 or Oracle -- but you can buy a heck of alot of hardware for what an Oracle clustering license runs for.
Give PostgreSQL 2 more years, and I think you will find it is capable of all but the most extreme (Casino!) ORDBMS requirments.
Couldn't they have possibly gotten that probe into an orbit that a shuttle could have matched, and recover the probe that way?
Of course, but then the cost would have been closer to $1B instead of $260M.
I'm sure their second attempt (total cost including $260M attempt still under $600M) will be better.
I know you're being funny -- but I think the answer most of us would have is "Hopefully not too long".
If those changes made it into every OS that could use the improvement, then everything networked would find things just that much better without throwing away the old hardware.
Yeah... Grepping through 10GB of compressed, mime encoded mail because they send you their frigging messages as word documents, stored on a laptop harddrive is oh so useful.
(2) A model extension: distributed foreign keys. I think table inheritance isn't general enough. postgres has demonstrated that they're not afraid of going beyond the relational model. Well, I want a foreign key that can point to columns in two or more tables, and have a value from one OR another, yet still have its constraints enforced - why can't I specify e.g. A(X) REFERENCES C(Y) OR D(Z), so that A(X) may be a value from either C(Y) or D(Z), but nothing else?
That is an interesting thought and one that could be implemented today via triggers.
If PostgreSQL ever fixes the inheritance model to allow indexes to span multiple relations, this may become a possibility.
Master-Slave is a prerequisite to synchronous replication, as that is the method used to "catch-up" when you fall behind or there is a communication issue or to add a new slave to an already active cluster.
The second stage of Slony is to implement the above once they're satisfied that master-slave is fully functioning and bug-free.
You'll like this, actually...
If it can be cast directly (integer to numeric) it will do so implicitly.
So, integer to smallint will do part of the work -- but if it fails (comes across a number that won't fit in the smallint) then it will rollback -- nothing lost but a little time (most PostgreSQL commands are atomic and transactional).
However, you can use an expression to do the conversion if you have something stranger in mind -- it's essentially run as an UPDATE.
Excuse the crappy formatting.
BEGIN;
SAVEPOINT altertab;
ALTER TABLE tab
ALTER COLUMN text_col TYPE bool
EXPRESSION (CASE WHEN text_col = 'SOMETHING'
THEN TRUE
ELSE THEN FALSE
END);
ROLLBACK TO altertab;
ALTER TABLE tab
ALTER COLUMN text_col TYPE bool
EXPRESSION (CASE WHEN text_col IN ('SOMETHING', 'OR', 'ANOTHER')
THEN TRUE
ELSE THEN FALSE
END);
COMMIT;
There have been attempts at adding 2 phase commit which would work with Java applications -- these were deemed incomplete, unsafe or needing work.
It is likely work will continue on this feature, though don't expect a replication system to be based on this as there are a number of problems within the spec itself (failure modes that leave the system essentially out of order).
See the pgsql-hackers archives (Google Groups) for details.
Yes, that's most peoples experience -- but recently there have been a few migrators going from Oracle to PostgreSQL who found it difficult to get Pg to run the queries the way they wanted.
:)
Of course, those situations often result in planner or optimizer patches and the next version doing better for everyone
PostgreSQL is a touch slower than Oracle in some special cases (single user on multi-cpu machine doing large or very complex queries) since Oracle can split the work up amongst CPUs.
.0 release) so long as the hardware is adequate (doesn't lie about writes hitting disk when they're really in cache).
With 50 to 100 users, both have similar performance for many workloads (you need to test your specific workload), but Pg may require a touch more tuning.
Pg is, however, quite a bit more reliable than Oracle as far as corruptions go (keeping in mind this is a
There are ways of purposfully crashing PostgreSQL as an authenticated user (particularly if you have root access and can write functions in C), but in standard operation it's quite reliable.
I cannot speak for DB2, but based on their Docs I think Pg is nearly as feature complete in most areas, and much more complete in many others.
In short, yes and perhaps.
.org servers (Affilias).
Replication (master & multiple slaves) works great with Slony.
Fail over should not be done by the database, but by the operating system or an external monitoring system (Big Brother). RedHat Enterprise with the standard failover configuration works fine.
You just need to tell Slony that the new node has been elected as master. It's not as clean as it could be (no gui tools, etc.) but it is functional enough for the
Lots of them used to do $5's and $10's, but they'd constantly run out of $20's. Ever wonder what $100 in $5's is like? A pain in the ass is what it is!
Since stores around here have started taking $50's and $100's again, some of the machines have started spitting those denominations out.
[i]So where are you going to get your modchips from, except from someone selling them? Unless someone starts a modchip charity, you'll have to get your modchips from overseas.[/i]
Same place you pick up your nuclear bomb designs -- off the internet.
Create a set of directions (with a parts list) and sell the components individually.
My five ball cascade is improving too :)
The ceiling is too low here for me to practice with 5 balls.
When would you not be able to look at GPLed code?
Same old traps... It's the same reason that most opensource people do not want to look at the code for Windows. The risk of writing something similar a few years later is too great. Much easier just to ignore it exists.
IE employees stay far far away from Mozilla source -- though I imagine the regularly use the browser itself.
Here you go...
w ww.google.com/+&hl=en
http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:zhool8dxBV4J:
Similarly, the BSD license does not allow taking existing code away from a project but does allow reducing its ability to draw from a pool of coders -- and thus may still damage the project (relative to its potential state under the GPL).
You've got it exactly backward. If you cannot look at GPL'd code then how the heck are you supposed to make changes to send back?
BSD licensed code has far more potential; whether or not they achieve it is up for discussion.
In that respect something like PostgreSQL is much safer and more likely to remain free because the copyright is held by so many people that nobody could change the license.
Every once in a while it comes up that PostgreSQL should move to the 3 clause BSD license or the GPL -- the response is nearly always that it would be impossible to track down all of the copyright holders, and it would be; early versions 10+ years ago weren't tracked in CVS.
With the GPL, this is avoided
You're right, they avoid the code like the plague and write everything themselves (then are late for the deadline and charge a little more than they otherwise would have).
I've used BSD code in proprietary projects. Some parts we contributed back some things (new features, fixes, optimizations) and some parts we haven't (though, we're likely to after a few years -- maintenance is a pain).
However, if we couldn't keep those last parts secret for a while, we never would have looked at the sources.
You can say the same about Apple. They've donated quite a bit back to the various BSD groups -- but obviously there are some things they haven't. Did the BSD groups get a net gain out of the deal? Certainly, as they sure didn't lose anything.
Corrupted database? Not a bug
That's really freaky. That they have invested more time into writing tools and directions on how to recover a corrupted RPM database than into preventing it from becoming corrupted in the first place isn't very good.
What can you defensivly do to stop someone in math?
Same as what you do in hockey, check them when they're running for more paper.
I see math as a team sport. You have the 2 people who do the calculations, 2 go-fors (pens, paper, research material), and 2 defense men. Anyone outside the crease (safe-zone) is fair game.
You may also attempt distractions, so long as you do not enter their safe-zone.
You missed one.. The cost of living is also around 40% lower in expensive Canadian cities than expensive American cities; so you really do go without much.
The best part is you don't even need to rip the cd -- just throw the whole thing in (case and everything).