Essentially, regular desktop drives will try for a very long time to correct read errors. RAID controllers will only wait about 8 seconds for a read. If the drive takes longer than that, the controller will treat it as failed and remove it from service. So WD offers a series of drives that will only try to correct errors for a short time and then return an error to the controller if they can't fix it in time.
"I'm jazzed about the Northface program," said IBM research fellow Grady Booch, a member of the school's advisory board. "Northface is producing a far better match for the skill sets IBM needs." "Of course, my name is for sale to the highest bidder, I'll advertise anything. So, I don't know why anyone would listen to me," continued Mr. Booch.
A recruiter representing the school's sponsors, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and Unisys, added, "These companies aren't really looking for people, as such, to work for them. They much prefer pre-fab, pre-integrated, CPU's or 'Carbon Programming Units.' These CPU's represent the ultimate achievement of our modern educational system. They have been super efficiently manufacturededucated to have exactly and only the skills required of them to meet the job descriptions that Fortune 1000 managers request."
Northface spokesman John Smith explained, "Let's say you are a manager at a large company and you need a CPU to work on your PeopleSoft general ledger system. You would send an order to the school with the appropriate boxes checked. In just two to four weeks, we will ship you a carbon programming unit that meets your exact specifications! This unit will know all about PeopleSoft general ledger work. And it won't come with any extraneous skills that would just get in the way. It won't know anything about data structures or algorithms. It won't be burdened with knowledge of Visual Basic or Java or English. In fact, it won't even really know how to survive by itself -- it's up to you, the manager, to be sure to instruct your janitorial staff to clean the unit at night to prevent unwanted organic residue buildup. You should also assign someone to supply the unit with vending machine coffee and fuel, such as candy bars. Then, when your company switches from PeopleSoft to SAP a few months later, you can just dispose of the unit with a simple layoff. No severance is required -- all units are preprogrammed to be grateful just to have the chance to work for someone like yourself! Open the door and the unit will activate its secondary programming. It will seek out the nearest McDonalds and become a burger flipper. No troublesome human resources issues! What could be more thrilling?"
Asked why General Electric wasn't participating in the school, CEO Jeff Immelt expounded, "We were using domestic carbon programming units years ago, but found they were too expensive. A school like Northface costs almost $87 per unit. We've now constructed a factory in Singapore, with future expansion plans in China, that can construct almost unlimited numbers of units for us at a cost slightly less than a dollar each. That's the power of 6smegma in action! That tremendous cost savings is the engine that has fueled the exponential growth of this company's officers' personal investment portfolios. That's where the future lies! No longer will a CEO, COO, or CFO's portfolio be limited to double-digit growth per year. This kind of forward thinking exploitation of the carbon unit race will drive wealth creation for the privileged few to undreamed-of levels."
Slashdot Mirror
http://westerndigital.com/en/library/sata/2579-001 098.pdf
Essentially, regular desktop drives will try for a very long time to correct read errors. RAID controllers will only wait about 8 seconds for a read. If the drive takes longer than that, the controller will treat it as failed and remove it from service. So WD offers a series of drives that will only try to correct errors for a short time and then return an error to the controller if they can't fix it in time.
Hmmm, I think the whole story was just an elaborate setup for that joke.
That would be an act of Dollar, the almighty god of commerce. Worshiped by by corporations and monopolists around the world.
A recruiter representing the school's sponsors, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and Unisys, added, "These companies aren't really looking for people, as such, to work for them. They much prefer pre-fab, pre-integrated, CPU's or 'Carbon Programming Units.' These CPU's represent the ultimate achievement of our modern educational system. They have been super efficiently manufacturededucated to have exactly and only the skills required of them to meet the job descriptions that Fortune 1000 managers request."
Northface spokesman John Smith explained, "Let's say you are a manager at a large company and you need a CPU to work on your PeopleSoft general ledger system. You would send an order to the school with the appropriate boxes checked. In just two to four weeks, we will ship you a carbon programming unit that meets your exact specifications! This unit will know all about PeopleSoft general ledger work. And it won't come with any extraneous skills that would just get in the way. It won't know anything about data structures or algorithms. It won't be burdened with knowledge of Visual Basic or Java or English. In fact, it won't even really know how to survive by itself -- it's up to you, the manager, to be sure to instruct your janitorial staff to clean the unit at night to prevent unwanted organic residue buildup. You should also assign someone to supply the unit with vending machine coffee and fuel, such as candy bars. Then, when your company switches from PeopleSoft to SAP a few months later, you can just dispose of the unit with a simple layoff. No severance is required -- all units are preprogrammed to be grateful just to have the chance to work for someone like yourself! Open the door and the unit will activate its secondary programming. It will seek out the nearest McDonalds and become a burger flipper. No troublesome human resources issues! What could be more thrilling?"
Asked why General Electric wasn't participating in the school, CEO Jeff Immelt expounded, "We were using domestic carbon programming units years ago, but found they were too expensive. A school like Northface costs almost $87 per unit. We've now constructed a factory in Singapore, with future expansion plans in China, that can construct almost unlimited numbers of units for us at a cost slightly less than a dollar each. That's the power of 6smegma in action! That tremendous cost savings is the engine that has fueled the exponential growth of this company's officers' personal investment portfolios. That's where the future lies! No longer will a CEO, COO, or CFO's portfolio be limited to double-digit growth per year. This kind of forward thinking exploitation of the carbon unit race will drive wealth creation for the privileged few to undreamed-of levels."