I had scanned your article a while back looking for the technical guts of
DBFS but lost interest in it for some reason.
In any
case, an inode also provides a degree of locality,
sort of like a stake in the ground. Files described by the inode are
likely to huddle physically near that inode on the disk, and therefore
quick to access if the disk head (a relatively slow moving object) is
already hovering around that spot. Perhaps the "query result" is even
within the same block or track that has been already read by accessing
the inode, so that no further physical disk activity is needed.
Replacing this with a non-locality based system may not result in
similar performance, especially if a logical to physical hash is used
to compute an actual physical location, and the location is far away
from where the index is stored. It also opens the door to poor
worst-case performance. In short, I would need to see comparative
benchmarks of best-case and worst case before I believe this would be
as you claim, both in single case "queries" and for a heavily loaded
server having to handle a real-world load of multiple queries,
inserts, deletes and updates at the same time, on different parts of
the disk.
With the meta-data, I can ask the index... and get back an instant
result.
This sounds simplistic, as if the disk hardware and its natural
latency were somehow absent from the picture. If it is instant, as
you say, then there is also a fair chance that the same query would
return instantly for a non-DBFS. Namely, because the block the
information is in, is already cached...
Without the index, I have to churn through every email file on
disk.
The filename solution avoids most of the churnings. As do a finite
number of indices. But, at some point the DBFS will also have to
churn through the disk for a randomly chosen string in the body of the
email message. Or, you could technically index everything, but I
doubt you'll do that, based on the fact that these are large chunks of
mostly random data coming in, and you'll be spending all of your time
updating the index with each email that comes in and wondering why
your new server is so slow. Under these two (at minimum) competing
processes, physically, the disk head will be flying to-and-fro from
the location of the index to the location of the data and back, and
it's easy for me to think that this could be implemented improperly,
and that the index itself would become fragmented, or inconsistent in
a forced shutdown... in short, it could get very complicated,
unreliable, unrecoverable, and yes, even slow.
Parsing using a non-bloated language built on a minimum of
non-bloated libraries is still going to be faster than the disk speed,
especially since these are roughly linear time searches. (Obviously,
I'm not talking about a Windoze design here, where the purpose is to
see how much RAM can be consumed inside of buzzword-du-jour subsystems
so as to get you to replace your computer that much sooner.)
The scheme of using the filename does alleviate the situation
somewhat...
You have a gift for understatement.
...but it still is not tremendously fast (lots of I/O here),
Once again you seem to ignore that this information will typically
be in the cache. Your DBFS will have a cache, and any other
filesystem will also have its cache. You will want to use cache space
for your index, right? Thus, there won't be "lots" of difference,
except maybe in the reverse if you have lots of indices that no one
actually uses.
...you still need to parse each filename...
Parsing a line of text isn't going to bring the heavens down.
Especially when it is already in-cache and you can split the work up
among several processors.
I don't mean to say that every recently manufactured all-in-one deal is crap, just that the opinion that all-in-one's suck is still around for a reason
One more reason: the OCR software that comes with these printers is slower than copying the data by hand, and less accurate than a roomful of monkeys jumping up and down on typewriters.
First, let me say that this argument may have already been carried out quite eloquently and in greater depth in other threads. You may want to
check them out. Maybe your view is already represented. Not that I want to duplicate many of
the answers already given, but...
Adding an index to the data (what a DBFS really is) would speed up the
search, not slow it down
How does a DBFS index materially differ in any way from the existing indexing system of filesystem i-nodes (index nodes anyone?:) directories, caches and buffers, in a way that would matter to this application?
When I refer to 2GB of mail, I mean 2GB per user
Sorry, somehow I misread that. But, my line of reasoning still applies. It's not the size of your attachments but the wisdom of your indexing method:)
What happens if a user decides to rename the file?
It may be useless to argue about the details of specific implementations, but is this a critically useful feature for an email user? And why would you want to have your front end permit renaming files? That would seem to be a strange feature to have for an email client, let alone an email server, especially since the email has already been delivered. And why do you see the use of naming conventions as hanging on a loose thread? Metadata seems to work pretty well for websites, and the naming conventions get pretty arcane there.
Most searches are an attempt to find some obscure piece of information
that's been lying dormant for years
I reject this. I think the most frequent search is to scroll
up and down the page with the most recent emails of that day to look
for a recently received email, and then to click on it and read it. That most frequent of searches is
right under your nose -- perhaps that's why you didn't consider it. In wider searches, searching for data that's being automatically categorized for you is
by far easier and faster than "look under every rock to search
everything for me." If I know it was from last year, why should I
wait for Clippy to search through all of this year's stuff? We don't have to work like Deus-Ex-Change on this one. Especially when you know where they're headed with it, and that they're indifferent (by design) to the impact of their relentless bloating.
Whether or not a DBFS is the right tool for the job depends more on how well tested it is, and less on the other incidentals. If it permits a bunch of extra, marginally useful indices but the performance doesn't change much, and instead it adds another layer of library bloat and new unknown bugs to place the 99.9% uptime requirement at risk, then why should anyone use it? Maybe a better question would be -- what does it do best, and is this really a case of it?
Some final questions to ponder: who is watching out that all of the new science being created isn't simply a renaming of old science principles? Is there any incentive to recognize the contributions that have come before, or is it more profitable to convince people that it is "new" somehow? If the old science isn't being taken into account, then, is the new science really science or just namespace cruft?
you're going to be heavily limited by the disk speed and processor
time
Adding a database layer makes it even worse, typically increasing the chance the box will start swapping, while helping to drain the CPUs, and eat most of the memory you could have used for an index cache.
Not good when you want to show a list of emails and the user attempts
to sort by something, or search for that email from three years ago.
A poorly written SELECT statement can also be a very effective way
of slowing a large email database to a crawl.
I'd like to introduce you to (my little friend...) the concept of
creating subdirectories as a way of organizing data.:)
Each user could have their own subdirectory. There is no need to
store everything in a single directory though -- the subdirectories
could be further subdivided based on month or even day. The filenames
themselves could be chosen so that commonly searched fields are
available without needing to search the contents of the files. You
don't have to search through the whole 2G of emails (just because
Deus-Ex-change does that doesn't mean that you have do it that
way).
Since 99% of searches are looking for something that happened the
same day or a previous week, I don't think it would get bogged down
that easily (but I'm willing to listen if you can find an exception).
(And this is without commenting on some of the bloat monstrously hypocritical idiots have
tried to add to some of the common Unix utilities, but of course there
are non-bloated versions around that run much faster. No forced obsolescence for me, thank
you.)
Store the batteries in a cool place (50-80F if possible) and they will last much longer and need fewer recharge cycles. There is no need to stick them in a refrigerator, but even that would be better than leaving it out in the sun... as long as moisture doesn't get 'em. Maybe next to the vent of an air conditioner.
Someday there will be battery chemistries where heat won't be a problem (demonstrated this year at a tech expo in Japan I think), but for the moment all common batteries perform better in moderately cool weather.
You can also play other tricks such as removing devices not used frequently that drain the battery and therefore cause it to heat up. For instance, if you can play all of your music or videos from the HD instead of CD or DVD you will save from having the DVD drive constantly drawing power. You can save even more if you can stream content from a network, as your HD may be able to spin down during a long movie.
Actually, I think this process was first tried in some other state (Utah?), and only now reported in Colorado. But, Colorado's got the biggest reserves. It seems to involve turning a chunk of land into a temporary refinery, and, as you say, heating it so as to extract the product, in situ. They are claiming low extraction costs, but without more details I cannot confirm whether this reflects reality. Let's just say I'm a little bit suspicious due to the amount of material that must be heated, and the length of time it must be kept hot to extract anything.
Of course, that does not solve the other issues
Well, at least with this one we won't be trying to invade ourselves any time soon.:) Then again, if we did need to have a war against it, what would be the title? I guess "War on Boxes of Rocks" sort of has a ring to it.
Dictator: Hi, I was wondering if you would tell me who was the clever
person who stole the parts to the enigma machine from under my nose in
my thoroughly monitored factory?
Company: I can't reveal that -- there is no knowing what you will do
to that person.
Dictator: If you don't tell me, I will award a greater percentage of
business contracts to some other company! You will be a minor player
in our huge economy. *folds arms*
Company: Well, if you put it that way, then making a deal with you is
the only ethical choice for me to make. Also, is there any torturing
I can help arrange for you in exchange for the marketshare and jobs
that would otherwise go to another company? To show how cooperative
we are, we are willing to help you torture twice as many people as our
competitors, and twice as painfully too. Also, if you invade another
country this year or hit our competitors with missiles (but not us),
we will give even steeper discounts. If not, perhaps we could
interest you in our selection of stretchers, iron maidens, and sonic
lasers?
Melting of the current Greenland ice sheet would result in a sea-level rise of about 6.5 meters
That's about 21 feet, the effects of which you can guess by looking at the nice map included with this publication that outlines the affected areas of the South in red.
Can anyone think of a solution that would cover all of that coastline shown on the map? That's a lot of coastline. Better not to pick a fight with nature in the first place, I would say.
it would be feasible for me to access more pay content without putting
a hole in my budget
That's until you start getting nickel-and-dimed by a bunch of sites
that you don't remember ever visiting (similar to slamming on the
telco network). Like popups and popunders, some of the paying sites
will load themselves, claim that you were the one who initiated the
purchase (when it was really just a client-side script) and help
themselves to your funds.
So you'll have this really long bill to audit with millions of
little payments that you don't have time to figure out if any or most
of them are accurate or just added there to siphon some extra cash out
of you, many of them hoping they fall below your consciousness radar,
where you strain your memory but you can't prove you didn't make them
and so you don't do anything about them.
Then, let's say you want to dispute some of the charges. You may
spend 2 hours on the phone just trying to get $10 back, going one
little charge at a time.
This seems like a scheme where it'll be easier for you to give away
money than to hold a disparate group of strangers to a fair deal.
That will only help the hucksterism to grow. So what if they can only
grab a few cents here and there? Multiply this amongst millions of
customers and pretty soon you're talking real money. Real money means
real lobbying, so I hope this never reaches the status of an
"industry" (complete with legislating privileges) or we will be
hobbling on this bad foot for a long time.
if DRM is done well, it might not be as bad as everyone thinks
It is possible for them to put you in music heaven to temporarily get you to go along with a sweet deal that involves strong DRM, cheap songs and a EULA that lends you back some freedoms, but then after enough people have bought into it they can just change the terms of the EULA to something really draconian at any time without even telling you that they have done it. That leaves you, the consumer, with very little leverage.
If you don't believe me that they can be so bold about it, check this article on the unfairness of EULAs to consumers. A quote from one such EULA:
[The vendor] reserves the right, at any time... to update, revise, supplement, and otherwise modify this Agreement and to impose new or additional rules, policies, terms, or conditions on your use of the Service... continued use of the [vendor's store] will be deemed to constitute your acceptance of any and all such Additional Terms...
Still no cure for cancer from nanotechnology is kind of saying "still no intelligent machines" about computers in the 1960s. And, yeah, we still have no intelligent machines in any relevant sense 40 years later
Given what it seems they would actually be used for, it's probably better that way.
Maybe I (for one) am just a little dismayed today, but even this development seems more suited to creating a better truncheon than anything else.
Talking about 'stage 2' or 'stage 3' gets dissmissed as tinfoil hat nonsense...
Yep, and sometimes the decision makers backpedal, so it's risky to try to predict too far ahead when they, in effect, have the ability to change the outcome and prove the "zealots" wrong. But that's OK with me. I don't mind my reputation that much, as I just claim to be doing my best with the information I am allowed to access, the part they're not busy shredding or trying to hide from me:)
have you read The Digital Imprimatur?
No... hmmm, looks like a general, critical overview of what's up with the internet, aimed at the novice audience, hosted in switzerland... I'll read it, if only to see if he has better terminology to describe the prevalent conspiracy theories:) Worse comes to worse, it'll probably make a nice reference link for a future wikibook or article of some sort.
You have it backwards. Old stuff always works on the new
computers.
While I agree that the GP was over-optimistic about the immediate public reaction, it might be worth
clarifying that your description applies only at the initial stage of the TC
rollout. The initial stage could be accurately termed the
"Embrace" stage, because, in effect, legacy music, video, and document
standards have to be re-embraced by the new system so as to convince
people to move to the new platform. Once enough people have moved,
however, then the "Extend" stage can take hold. That one is akin to
having a large number of people using MS Word documents, which then
force the rest to buy Office in order to read the embedded
presentation or other specialized content that got thrown in somehow.
It is like a "tyranny of the majority" type of situation, where the
standard is chosen by virtue of being the most popular, not because
it's the best choice.
At that point, now reasonably in control of the defacto standard,
the vendor can change even the formerly common parts of the standard
to whatever yields the greatest advantage to them, which historically
has been used to eliminate the top 5 competition. What was once
compatible can now be made incompatible, even if it inconveniences
some small percentage of their own marketshare, in order to leave a
competitor's clients in the lurch somehow. That is what some people
have called the "Exterminate" stage. (But, that doesn't yet imply
getting rid of old media standards, for that, the Exterminate stage
has to almost reach its end.)
There is a well known Wall Street maxim of "do not compete with
yourself" that most industries like to be perceived as following.
That's why you always hear of job cuts after mergers. The
twitchy investors want to be reassured that the company is doing
everything possible to take advantage of the opportunity to reduce
internal competition and duplication. For someone who wishes to
become the sole conduit for the distribution of all digital
media, it is understandable that, once all other competing
distributors and media formats have been pummeled down into
single-digit marketshare, the only real competitor left will be
oneself. How does a company continue to report impressive
growth figures if there are no more competitors to steal large chunks
of marketshare from? When there is no one left to exterminate,
that is when the old media will begin to stop working on new
computers. (Technically speaking, TC is rife with capabilities to
accomplish that. One sneaky way would be to flash the BIOS to a
version where the user no longer has any influence over the TPM, and
only a TNC connection (by proxy) does. The user may notice no
difference in terms of playing MP3s yet, but let's say one day the
computer breaks and the files can't be recovered (because they are
encrypted), so, by default, the music files are lost. Most users
don't see the connection between BIOS flash and the loss of their
files, they appear as two unrelated events...)
As the media distributor consolidates marketshare, pressure will
grow to limit free content, the same way that content producers are
currently screaming for it. They already have the gall to smear P2P
itself as a "tool of pirates" behind a very thin and shameless veil.
Think what they'll be able to do when the interests of the distributor
and the interests of the content producers overlap or (by merger)
coincide. Already the line between media distributor and hardware
producer is becoming fuzzy, and soon it looks like the content
industries as well will be folded into huge hardware/software/content
conglomerates.
For now, an OS monopoly trying to become a media distributor but
with limited marketshare there actually benefits from having lots of
promotional (even pirated) materials to invite as many people as
possible to accept the computer as their media center, but once
they've become a distribution monopoly as well, and the PC market is
mature, every free file r
Except, as in the example of the municipal water utility... Pretty much exactly a EULA, for very similar reasons
Not similar except for the superficialities you mention. If lead levels in your water start exceeding federally regulated levels, there is no such "as is" clause that can be applied by the municipality. At that point lawyers swoop in from two fronts (and possibly more...), not only from the consumer side. So, the municipality has an incentive to listen to their customers. With the TCG hairball, you're lucky if your member of congress even understands whether a computer game can be "turned off." They will believe in their "experts" before they will listen to you.
So, if your preference is to use Euro-based stuff, you're "locked out" by long-time standards
Strawman. The standards haven't changed for decades, and a lot of equipment can be purchased with 220V switches (check the back of your own power supply), and if not there are standard converters that don't need to be repurchased every 6 freaking months. This is a far cry from the signed video transmission standards they are wanting us to buy into next, by artificially presenting it as a high definition "enabler" type of deal, when it's really just a way of keeping you from recording your video output.
I shouldn't have to send the whole thing to a landfill just because the hardware configuration has changed
Which we sure used to have to do a lot more often...
What planet are you living on? The quality of motherboards, hard drives, power supplies and other parts has gone way down over the years by almost anyone's account. In combination with the XP registration model, it is more likely to happen than with any systems that came before it. Trustee Computing will make it even worse with every piece, part and program having to be signed to work in concert in "trusted" mode.
The choice we're up against is which model of governance do we allow over ourselves? One with incentives to preserve consumer choice, or one that has no incentive structure built in to limit it from legally steamrolling over our remaining digital rights?
Not everyone does that (rain collection anyone?), but if we buy
something advertised as water, we expect it to be free of deadly
contaminants. Each drop should not come with its own EULA inside it
excusing itself for any contaminants that should be inside, claiming
that it is provided "as is" and not suitable for any purpose, but
requiring you must accept each drop individually before you can drink
it.
Produce your own electricity?
I expect my home power to come in from the grid at 120V and 60Hz,
not some encrypted phase or frequency that causes all of my previously
purchased equipment not to work or forces me to repurchase all of it
to special vendor-locked-in junk every 6 months just to stay in
someone's licensing good graces.
Make the hardware you're using to read this comment right now?
Regardless of how much or how little of it is self-built, I expect
the parts to fit together according to sane and consistent industry
standards, not some bizarre lock-in scheme that prevents the parts
artificially from doing what they were sold as. (e.g. like the way toast fits inside toasters.) If computer parts are sold to
me, then I should be their owner and the person who controls them, not
some wierdo EULA writer somewhere who decides tomorrow they should do
something else. If a small part of the system doesn't work, I
shouldn't have to send the whole thing to a landfill just because the
hardware configuration has changed.
Spend a few million to produce a really good film so you can watch it
once?
No, but if I'm going to pay the $9, I expect the seats not to have
robotic arms come out to force my eyes open during the previews, or to
restrain me if I want to get up and leave and go to a competing movie
theater, or an independent movie that seeks to express speech freely.
In short, what I'm saying is that all of the B&M examples you
gave, although they could have been examples of abusive centralized
control, actually serve as examples of how consumer choice was
nevertheless preserved by feedback-accepting governance systems, and how the same will NOT be the case
under autocratic governance-by-EULA as enforced by a TCG compliant system.
Thats the HUMANs who are doing that, not the TCI software standards
Too much power in the hands of any one human is a situation ripe for abuse.
You wouldn't hand a loaded gun to a small child, would you? It's a bad idea because the child doesn't even understand the implications of the power of the device. (Most C-levels are no better informed of what they're getting themselves into with TC, as they will happily admit if you ask them right now...) Even worse is to hand a nuke to someone who has already shown a lack of civilized restraint in the use of power. It's just not a wise idea. We can get along just fine without this technology.
TC as drafted is too powerful and too centralizing in nature in its fully deployed form to leave its control in the hands of a few conniving jokers, and they will ultimately use it to lock people in to the choices that run in their favor, and to lock people out of the choices that don't run in their favor. Left out in the cold from all of this will be consumers' natural choices. We (the consumers) don't need it, we didn't ask for it, it's against our interests, so -- I argue -- we shouldn't pay for it.
Try to sell it to someone on ebay. Let's say that, to save time
and shipping charges for both of you, you make a digital copy instead,
and agree to send it in that form to the buyer and destroy the disk
afterward. Can you do that with your legally owned property? No.
You can be sued for that.
Case 2:
A CD you bought comes with copy protection. It doesn't play on your
portable CD player. So, to get it to work with your equipment, you
are forced to break the copy protection and make a copy of the music
so it will play on your CD equipment. You have just violated the
DMCA. Go to jail, do not pass GO.
Case 3:
You want to take a number of songs on several CDs and move your
favorites to one CD for convenience. Sorry, the RIAA says you can't do that.
Case 4:
A song comes out in a new format. You decide to copy it to that
new format yourself from the old format that you already own, instead
of buying the song from the manufacturer in the new format. Once
again you have "stolen."
Case 5:
You live in a different region from a DVD you legally purchased in your visit to another country. How do you legally get it to work on the equipment you legally purchased? You can't.
Conclusion
You can't do any of those fair and reasonable things
legally, so that property wasn't really yours was it? It comes with
limitations of normal ownership rights. All of those things you could
have been able to do to your own recording of birds chirping or
something. So, clearly, it is not full ownership, there is a
difference.
You are presenting a very logical suggestion to a very emotional situation. People don't take kindly to suggestions of surrendering their homes
Of course not, but what do you want me to do, tell people it's a great place to rebuild, when all the evidence says otherwise?
You're not going to get much down relying on wind/solar power.
In Denmark, they already produce about 20% of their national energy needs from wind power, so it may not be as impossible as you've been led to believe.
Lets [sic] spend the money on ways that create greenhouse gasses
May I ask why you want to create more greenhouse gases? What, are you trying to trigger an ice age by speeding up the warming process?
Try telling the residents of NO that you want to move their city just to prevent fossil fuels from being used...
Well, that's not exactly what I said. It sounds like you misunderstood somewhere. I know no one will want to move NO, but it seems like the lesser evil if it is going to be under 30ft of water every time a storm passes by. Even moving every single resident onto a cruise ship anchored nearby will cost less than what it sounds you are suggesting.
Strictly speaking, what you have shown is not a recursion, it is an iterative algorithm, a loop.
Also, this method of counting back in time does not clarify whether there were any missing links between the generations which were left unspecified. It does not state whether the ages of each person are exact or rough approximations. Nowhere does it tell you that adding up the generations this way will lead to an accurate or useful figure, or that this is the canonical method of producing the age of the Earth. People have traditionally drawn a lot of assumptions about this stuff, but they are no more than that -- assumptions. Since you can't ask anyone who was there, there is no way to confirm it.
It's not about crippling or scarcities or societal ties, it's about business.
OK, let's assume for a moment that culture, as legally enshrined in
copyrights, trademarks and patents, is not valuable in and of itself
but should be the sole province of business interests, and creating
artificial scarcity can be a valid and ethical business model.
Then, how can it be good business practice to remove the
negotiation component from buying and selling? Price negotiation
helps to set fair and accurate prices through supply and demand, and
if this is artificially removed (as it can be using DRM+EULA) then the
quality of culture will no longer be a function of the quality of
content, but of the craftiness of the people writing the EULAs,
because that is what will truly determine profits. There will be no
incentive to provide quality content and so quality will drop to the
very minimum. There being no quality content to be had, people will
conclude that someone has pissed in the well and stop buying content
altogether, and look elsewhere. That will not be good for business
(unless there is a monopoly situation to force purchases).
Whenever a EULA is included with every new product you buy,
legalism creeps into another area of your life. It used to be that
when considering whether to buy a book, you wouldn't have to read a
EULA first to see what you would actually get, you could depend on the
fact that if you didn't like the book, you could just sell it to
someone else. You can't do that with a DRM book anymore. The EULA
typically won't let you (and that's just the beginning of what EULAs
can do to consumer rights). Whereas you used to be able to reduce the
scarcity of a lousy book by reselling it, that sort of two-way market
communication is being cut off. The seller's EULA decides whether the
consumer can do anything to impact post-sale profits of a book. So,
consumers will either be reading long EULAs (not likely), or they will
skip over it and accept any terms (likely), so that there will be
almost no one enforcing the consumer's side of the bargain. As a
result, makers of lousy books will profit just as much as makers of
books that consumed substantial resources to produce. The only
communication between buyer and seller that will matter then will be
the initial marketing that fools people into buy a EULA-controlled
book in the first place. Thus, less work will go into producing the
content, and more into producing the marketing. People will think of
"books" in a totally different and negative light, and some may stop reading altogether.
You may think that this is good for business, but I think it can
only benefit the short term while at the same time ensuring failure in
the long run. If people have no stake in culture, they will not even
desire to own it, and without quality or transferability, they will
have no stake in it, no ownership of it at all. What's more, we will
be trying to criminalize even more of our formerly normal and
desirable economic behavior.
In the Netherlands, the height of the dykes has been determined based on the requirement to withstand a superstorm
Since a similar commitment of sufficiently eye-poppingly expensive public works projects will likely not be made for New Orleans, rebuilding it will not be a permanent solution, as it will just get flooded again with the next storm. It will be cheaper in the long run to move the entire city brick-by-brick to higher ground. Ultimately the ocean will claim the bowl one way or the other, so rather than try to adopt the full Netherlands' solution there, we might as well spend the money on renewable energy projects that don't create any more greenhouse gases. (I'm not sure if it is too late anyway to stop the chain reaction of glacier melting, methane discharges and albedo changes that will cause sea levels to rise and surface salinity to decrease, but how else can the increase in storm severity be explained? If you need more solid data on historical storm severity, see my journal.)
Now, if New Orleans is to be moved brick-by-brick somewhere else, where should it be moved to? Most people probably think Baton Rouge, but if you want to save the city permanently, may I suggest one of the drier counties in the Texas Panhandle?:)
Slashdot Mirror
I had scanned your article a while back looking for the technical guts of DBFS but lost interest in it for some reason.
In any case, an inode also provides a degree of locality, sort of like a stake in the ground. Files described by the inode are likely to huddle physically near that inode on the disk, and therefore quick to access if the disk head (a relatively slow moving object) is already hovering around that spot. Perhaps the "query result" is even within the same block or track that has been already read by accessing the inode, so that no further physical disk activity is needed. Replacing this with a non-locality based system may not result in similar performance, especially if a logical to physical hash is used to compute an actual physical location, and the location is far away from where the index is stored. It also opens the door to poor worst-case performance. In short, I would need to see comparative benchmarks of best-case and worst case before I believe this would be as you claim, both in single case "queries" and for a heavily loaded server having to handle a real-world load of multiple queries, inserts, deletes and updates at the same time, on different parts of the disk.
This sounds simplistic, as if the disk hardware and its natural latency were somehow absent from the picture. If it is instant, as you say, then there is also a fair chance that the same query would return instantly for a non-DBFS. Namely, because the block the information is in, is already cached...
The filename solution avoids most of the churnings. As do a finite number of indices. But, at some point the DBFS will also have to churn through the disk for a randomly chosen string in the body of the email message. Or, you could technically index everything, but I doubt you'll do that, based on the fact that these are large chunks of mostly random data coming in, and you'll be spending all of your time updating the index with each email that comes in and wondering why your new server is so slow. Under these two (at minimum) competing processes, physically, the disk head will be flying to-and-fro from the location of the index to the location of the data and back, and it's easy for me to think that this could be implemented improperly, and that the index itself would become fragmented, or inconsistent in a forced shutdown... in short, it could get very complicated, unreliable, unrecoverable, and yes, even slow.
Parsing using a non-bloated language built on a minimum of non-bloated libraries is still going to be faster than the disk speed, especially since these are roughly linear time searches. (Obviously, I'm not talking about a Windoze design here, where the purpose is to see how much RAM can be consumed inside of buzzword-du-jour subsystems so as to get you to replace your computer that much sooner.)
You have a gift for understatement.
Once again you seem to ignore that this information will typically be in the cache. Your DBFS will have a cache, and any other filesystem will also have its cache. You will want to use cache space for your index, right? Thus, there won't be "lots" of difference, except maybe in the reverse if you have lots of indices that no one actually uses.
Parsing a line of text isn't going to bring the heavens down. Especially when it is already in-cache and you can split the work up among several processors.
One more reason: the OCR software that comes with these printers is slower than copying the data by hand, and less accurate than a roomful of monkeys jumping up and down on typewriters.
First, let me say that this argument may have already been carried out quite eloquently and in greater depth in other threads. You may want to check them out. Maybe your view is already represented. Not that I want to duplicate many of the answers already given, but...
How does a DBFS index materially differ in any way from the existing indexing system of filesystem i-nodes (index nodes anyone? :) directories, caches and buffers, in a way that would matter to this application?
Sorry, somehow I misread that. But, my line of reasoning still applies. It's not the size of your attachments but the wisdom of your indexing method :)
It may be useless to argue about the details of specific implementations, but is this a critically useful feature for an email user? And why would you want to have your front end permit renaming files? That would seem to be a strange feature to have for an email client, let alone an email server, especially since the email has already been delivered. And why do you see the use of naming conventions as hanging on a loose thread? Metadata seems to work pretty well for websites, and the naming conventions get pretty arcane there.
I reject this. I think the most frequent search is to scroll up and down the page with the most recent emails of that day to look for a recently received email, and then to click on it and read it. That most frequent of searches is right under your nose -- perhaps that's why you didn't consider it. In wider searches, searching for data that's being automatically categorized for you is by far easier and faster than "look under every rock to search everything for me." If I know it was from last year, why should I wait for Clippy to search through all of this year's stuff? We don't have to work like Deus-Ex-Change on this one. Especially when you know where they're headed with it, and that they're indifferent (by design) to the impact of their relentless bloating.
Whether or not a DBFS is the right tool for the job depends more on how well tested it is, and less on the other incidentals. If it permits a bunch of extra, marginally useful indices but the performance doesn't change much, and instead it adds another layer of library bloat and new unknown bugs to place the 99.9% uptime requirement at risk, then why should anyone use it? Maybe a better question would be -- what does it do best, and is this really a case of it?
Some final questions to ponder: who is watching out that all of the new science being created isn't simply a renaming of old science principles? Is there any incentive to recognize the contributions that have come before, or is it more profitable to convince people that it is "new" somehow? If the old science isn't being taken into account, then, is the new science really science or just namespace cruft?
Adding a database layer makes it even worse, typically increasing the chance the box will start swapping, while helping to drain the CPUs, and eat most of the memory you could have used for an index cache.
A poorly written SELECT statement can also be a very effective way of slowing a large email database to a crawl.
I'd like to introduce you to (my little friend...) the concept of creating subdirectories as a way of organizing data. :)
Each user could have their own subdirectory. There is no need to store everything in a single directory though -- the subdirectories could be further subdivided based on month or even day. The filenames themselves could be chosen so that commonly searched fields are available without needing to search the contents of the files. You don't have to search through the whole 2G of emails (just because Deus-Ex-change does that doesn't mean that you have do it that way).
Since 99% of searches are looking for something that happened the same day or a previous week, I don't think it would get bogged down that easily (but I'm willing to listen if you can find an exception).
(And this is without commenting on some of the bloat monstrously hypocritical idiots have tried to add to some of the common Unix utilities, but of course there are non-bloated versions around that run much faster. No forced obsolescence for me, thank you.)
Store the batteries in a cool place (50-80F if possible) and they will last much longer and need fewer recharge cycles. There is no need to stick them in a refrigerator, but even that would be better than leaving it out in the sun... as long as moisture doesn't get 'em. Maybe next to the vent of an air conditioner.
Someday there will be battery chemistries where heat won't be a problem (demonstrated this year at a tech expo in Japan I think), but for the moment all common batteries perform better in moderately cool weather.
You can also play other tricks such as removing devices not used frequently that drain the battery and therefore cause it to heat up. For instance, if you can play all of your music or videos from the HD instead of CD or DVD you will save from having the DVD drive constantly drawing power. You can save even more if you can stream content from a network, as your HD may be able to spin down during a long movie.
Actually, I think this process was first tried in some other state (Utah?), and only now reported in Colorado. But, Colorado's got the biggest reserves. It seems to involve turning a chunk of land into a temporary refinery, and, as you say, heating it so as to extract the product, in situ. They are claiming low extraction costs, but without more details I cannot confirm whether this reflects reality. Let's just say I'm a little bit suspicious due to the amount of material that must be heated, and the length of time it must be kept hot to extract anything.
Of course, that does not solve the other issues
Well, at least with this one we won't be trying to invade ourselves any time soon. :) Then again, if we did need to have a war against it, what would be the title? I guess "War on Boxes of Rocks" sort of has a ring to it.
Dictator: Hi, I was wondering if you would tell me who was the clever person who stole the parts to the enigma machine from under my nose in my thoroughly monitored factory?
Company: I can't reveal that -- there is no knowing what you will do to that person.
Dictator: If you don't tell me, I will award a greater percentage of business contracts to some other company! You will be a minor player in our huge economy. *folds arms*
Company: Well, if you put it that way, then making a deal with you is the only ethical choice for me to make. Also, is there any torturing I can help arrange for you in exchange for the marketshare and jobs that would otherwise go to another company? To show how cooperative we are, we are willing to help you torture twice as many people as our competitors, and twice as painfully too. Also, if you invade another country this year or hit our competitors with missiles (but not us), we will give even steeper discounts. If not, perhaps we could interest you in our selection of stretchers, iron maidens, and sonic lasers?
From the government publication http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/
That's about 21 feet, the effects of which you can guess by looking at the nice map included with this publication that outlines the affected areas of the South in red.
Can anyone think of a solution that would cover all of that coastline shown on the map? That's a lot of coastline. Better not to pick a fight with nature in the first place, I would say.
That's until you start getting nickel-and-dimed by a bunch of sites that you don't remember ever visiting (similar to slamming on the telco network). Like popups and popunders, some of the paying sites will load themselves, claim that you were the one who initiated the purchase (when it was really just a client-side script) and help themselves to your funds.
So you'll have this really long bill to audit with millions of little payments that you don't have time to figure out if any or most of them are accurate or just added there to siphon some extra cash out of you, many of them hoping they fall below your consciousness radar, where you strain your memory but you can't prove you didn't make them and so you don't do anything about them.
Then, let's say you want to dispute some of the charges. You may spend 2 hours on the phone just trying to get $10 back, going one little charge at a time.
This seems like a scheme where it'll be easier for you to give away money than to hold a disparate group of strangers to a fair deal. That will only help the hucksterism to grow. So what if they can only grab a few cents here and there? Multiply this amongst millions of customers and pretty soon you're talking real money. Real money means real lobbying, so I hope this never reaches the status of an "industry" (complete with legislating privileges) or we will be hobbling on this bad foot for a long time.
It is possible for them to put you in music heaven to temporarily get you to go along with a sweet deal that involves strong DRM, cheap songs and a EULA that lends you back some freedoms, but then after enough people have bought into it they can just change the terms of the EULA to something really draconian at any time without even telling you that they have done it. That leaves you, the consumer, with very little leverage.
If you don't believe me that they can be so bold about it, check this article on the unfairness of EULAs to consumers. A quote from one such EULA:
Still no cure for cancer from nanotechnology is kind of saying "still no intelligent machines" about computers in the 1960s. And, yeah, we still have no intelligent machines in any relevant sense 40 years later
Given what it seems they would actually be used for, it's probably better that way.
Maybe I (for one) am just a little dismayed today, but even this development seems more suited to creating a better truncheon than anything else.
Yep, and sometimes the decision makers backpedal, so it's risky to try to predict too far ahead when they, in effect, have the ability to change the outcome and prove the "zealots" wrong. But that's OK with me. I don't mind my reputation that much, as I just claim to be doing my best with the information I am allowed to access, the part they're not busy shredding or trying to hide from me :)
have you read The Digital Imprimatur?
No... hmmm, looks like a general, critical overview of what's up with the internet, aimed at the novice audience, hosted in switzerland... I'll read it, if only to see if he has better terminology to describe the prevalent conspiracy theories :) Worse comes to worse, it'll probably make a nice reference link for a future wikibook or article of some sort.
You have it backwards. Old stuff always works on the new computers.
While I agree that the GP was over-optimistic about the immediate public reaction, it might be worth clarifying that your description applies only at the initial stage of the TC rollout. The initial stage could be accurately termed the "Embrace" stage, because, in effect, legacy music, video, and document standards have to be re-embraced by the new system so as to convince people to move to the new platform. Once enough people have moved, however, then the "Extend" stage can take hold. That one is akin to having a large number of people using MS Word documents, which then force the rest to buy Office in order to read the embedded presentation or other specialized content that got thrown in somehow. It is like a "tyranny of the majority" type of situation, where the standard is chosen by virtue of being the most popular, not because it's the best choice.
At that point, now reasonably in control of the defacto standard, the vendor can change even the formerly common parts of the standard to whatever yields the greatest advantage to them, which historically has been used to eliminate the top 5 competition. What was once compatible can now be made incompatible, even if it inconveniences some small percentage of their own marketshare, in order to leave a competitor's clients in the lurch somehow. That is what some people have called the "Exterminate" stage. (But, that doesn't yet imply getting rid of old media standards, for that, the Exterminate stage has to almost reach its end.)
There is a well known Wall Street maxim of "do not compete with yourself" that most industries like to be perceived as following. That's why you always hear of job cuts after mergers. The twitchy investors want to be reassured that the company is doing everything possible to take advantage of the opportunity to reduce internal competition and duplication. For someone who wishes to become the sole conduit for the distribution of all digital media, it is understandable that, once all other competing distributors and media formats have been pummeled down into single-digit marketshare, the only real competitor left will be oneself. How does a company continue to report impressive growth figures if there are no more competitors to steal large chunks of marketshare from? When there is no one left to exterminate, that is when the old media will begin to stop working on new computers. (Technically speaking, TC is rife with capabilities to accomplish that. One sneaky way would be to flash the BIOS to a version where the user no longer has any influence over the TPM, and only a TNC connection (by proxy) does. The user may notice no difference in terms of playing MP3s yet, but let's say one day the computer breaks and the files can't be recovered (because they are encrypted), so, by default, the music files are lost. Most users don't see the connection between BIOS flash and the loss of their files, they appear as two unrelated events...)
As the media distributor consolidates marketshare, pressure will grow to limit free content, the same way that content producers are currently screaming for it. They already have the gall to smear P2P itself as a "tool of pirates" behind a very thin and shameless veil. Think what they'll be able to do when the interests of the distributor and the interests of the content producers overlap or (by merger) coincide. Already the line between media distributor and hardware producer is becoming fuzzy, and soon it looks like the content industries as well will be folded into huge hardware/software/content conglomerates.
For now, an OS monopoly trying to become a media distributor but with limited marketshare there actually benefits from having lots of promotional (even pirated) materials to invite as many people as possible to accept the computer as their media center, but once they've become a distribution monopoly as well, and the PC market is mature, every free file r
Maybe the numbers were edited with Photoshop to frame somebody else?
Not similar except for the superficialities you mention. If lead levels in your water start exceeding federally regulated levels, there is no such "as is" clause that can be applied by the municipality. At that point lawyers swoop in from two fronts (and possibly more...), not only from the consumer side. So, the municipality has an incentive to listen to their customers. With the TCG hairball, you're lucky if your member of congress even understands whether a computer game can be "turned off." They will believe in their "experts" before they will listen to you.
So, if your preference is to use Euro-based stuff, you're "locked out" by long-time standards
Strawman. The standards haven't changed for decades, and a lot of equipment can be purchased with 220V switches (check the back of your own power supply), and if not there are standard converters that don't need to be repurchased every 6 freaking months. This is a far cry from the signed video transmission standards they are wanting us to buy into next, by artificially presenting it as a high definition "enabler" type of deal, when it's really just a way of keeping you from recording your video output.
Which we sure used to have to do a lot more often...What planet are you living on? The quality of motherboards, hard drives, power supplies and other parts has gone way down over the years by almost anyone's account. In combination with the XP registration model, it is more likely to happen than with any systems that came before it. Trustee Computing will make it even worse with every piece, part and program having to be signed to work in concert in "trusted" mode.
The choice we're up against is which model of governance do we allow over ourselves? One with incentives to preserve consumer choice, or one that has no incentive structure built in to limit it from legally steamrolling over our remaining digital rights?
Not everyone does that (rain collection anyone?), but if we buy something advertised as water, we expect it to be free of deadly contaminants. Each drop should not come with its own EULA inside it excusing itself for any contaminants that should be inside, claiming that it is provided "as is" and not suitable for any purpose, but requiring you must accept each drop individually before you can drink it.
Produce your own electricity?
I expect my home power to come in from the grid at 120V and 60Hz, not some encrypted phase or frequency that causes all of my previously purchased equipment not to work or forces me to repurchase all of it to special vendor-locked-in junk every 6 months just to stay in someone's licensing good graces.
Make the hardware you're using to read this comment right now?
Regardless of how much or how little of it is self-built, I expect the parts to fit together according to sane and consistent industry standards, not some bizarre lock-in scheme that prevents the parts artificially from doing what they were sold as. (e.g. like the way toast fits inside toasters.) If computer parts are sold to me, then I should be their owner and the person who controls them, not some wierdo EULA writer somewhere who decides tomorrow they should do something else. If a small part of the system doesn't work, I shouldn't have to send the whole thing to a landfill just because the hardware configuration has changed.
Spend a few million to produce a really good film so you can watch it once?
No, but if I'm going to pay the $9, I expect the seats not to have robotic arms come out to force my eyes open during the previews, or to restrain me if I want to get up and leave and go to a competing movie theater, or an independent movie that seeks to express speech freely.
In short, what I'm saying is that all of the B&M examples you gave, although they could have been examples of abusive centralized control, actually serve as examples of how consumer choice was nevertheless preserved by feedback-accepting governance systems, and how the same will NOT be the case under autocratic governance-by-EULA as enforced by a TCG compliant system.
Thats the HUMANs who are doing that, not the TCI software standards
Too much power in the hands of any one human is a situation ripe for abuse.
You wouldn't hand a loaded gun to a small child, would you? It's a bad idea because the child doesn't even understand the implications of the power of the device. (Most C-levels are no better informed of what they're getting themselves into with TC, as they will happily admit if you ask them right now...) Even worse is to hand a nuke to someone who has already shown a lack of civilized restraint in the use of power. It's just not a wise idea. We can get along just fine without this technology.
TC as drafted is too powerful and too centralizing in nature in its fully deployed form to leave its control in the hands of a few conniving jokers, and they will ultimately use it to lock people in to the choices that run in their favor, and to lock people out of the choices that don't run in their favor. Left out in the cold from all of this will be consumers' natural choices. We (the consumers) don't need it, we didn't ask for it, it's against our interests, so -- I argue -- we shouldn't pay for it.
Case 1:
Try to sell it to someone on ebay. Let's say that, to save time and shipping charges for both of you, you make a digital copy instead, and agree to send it in that form to the buyer and destroy the disk afterward. Can you do that with your legally owned property? No. You can be sued for that.
Case 2:
A CD you bought comes with copy protection. It doesn't play on your portable CD player. So, to get it to work with your equipment, you are forced to break the copy protection and make a copy of the music so it will play on your CD equipment. You have just violated the DMCA. Go to jail, do not pass GO.
Case 3:
You want to take a number of songs on several CDs and move your favorites to one CD for convenience. Sorry, the RIAA says you can't do that.
Case 4:
A song comes out in a new format. You decide to copy it to that new format yourself from the old format that you already own, instead of buying the song from the manufacturer in the new format. Once again you have "stolen."
Case 5:
You live in a different region from a DVD you legally purchased in your visit to another country. How do you legally get it to work on the equipment you legally purchased? You can't.
Conclusion
You can't do any of those fair and reasonable things legally, so that property wasn't really yours was it? It comes with limitations of normal ownership rights. All of those things you could have been able to do to your own recording of birds chirping or something. So, clearly, it is not full ownership, there is a difference.
Of course not, but what do you want me to do, tell people it's a great place to rebuild, when all the evidence says otherwise?
You're not going to get much down relying on wind/solar power.
In Denmark, they already produce about 20% of their national energy needs from wind power, so it may not be as impossible as you've been led to believe.
May I ask why you want to create more greenhouse gases? What, are you trying to trigger an ice age by speeding up the warming process?
Try telling the residents of NO that you want to move their city just to prevent fossil fuels from being used...
Well, that's not exactly what I said. It sounds like you misunderstood somewhere. I know no one will want to move NO, but it seems like the lesser evil if it is going to be under 30ft of water every time a storm passes by. Even moving every single resident onto a cruise ship anchored nearby will cost less than what it sounds you are suggesting.
Strictly speaking, what you have shown is not a recursion, it is an iterative algorithm, a loop.
Also, this method of counting back in time does not clarify whether there were any missing links between the generations which were left unspecified. It does not state whether the ages of each person are exact or rough approximations. Nowhere does it tell you that adding up the generations this way will lead to an accurate or useful figure, or that this is the canonical method of producing the age of the Earth. People have traditionally drawn a lot of assumptions about this stuff, but they are no more than that -- assumptions. Since you can't ask anyone who was there, there is no way to confirm it.
OK, let's assume for a moment that culture, as legally enshrined in copyrights, trademarks and patents, is not valuable in and of itself but should be the sole province of business interests, and creating artificial scarcity can be a valid and ethical business model.
Then, how can it be good business practice to remove the negotiation component from buying and selling? Price negotiation helps to set fair and accurate prices through supply and demand, and if this is artificially removed (as it can be using DRM+EULA) then the quality of culture will no longer be a function of the quality of content, but of the craftiness of the people writing the EULAs, because that is what will truly determine profits. There will be no incentive to provide quality content and so quality will drop to the very minimum. There being no quality content to be had, people will conclude that someone has pissed in the well and stop buying content altogether, and look elsewhere. That will not be good for business (unless there is a monopoly situation to force purchases).
Whenever a EULA is included with every new product you buy, legalism creeps into another area of your life. It used to be that when considering whether to buy a book, you wouldn't have to read a EULA first to see what you would actually get, you could depend on the fact that if you didn't like the book, you could just sell it to someone else. You can't do that with a DRM book anymore. The EULA typically won't let you (and that's just the beginning of what EULAs can do to consumer rights). Whereas you used to be able to reduce the scarcity of a lousy book by reselling it, that sort of two-way market communication is being cut off. The seller's EULA decides whether the consumer can do anything to impact post-sale profits of a book. So, consumers will either be reading long EULAs (not likely), or they will skip over it and accept any terms (likely), so that there will be almost no one enforcing the consumer's side of the bargain. As a result, makers of lousy books will profit just as much as makers of books that consumed substantial resources to produce. The only communication between buyer and seller that will matter then will be the initial marketing that fools people into buy a EULA-controlled book in the first place. Thus, less work will go into producing the content, and more into producing the marketing. People will think of "books" in a totally different and negative light, and some may stop reading altogether.
You may think that this is good for business, but I think it can only benefit the short term while at the same time ensuring failure in the long run. If people have no stake in culture, they will not even desire to own it, and without quality or transferability, they will have no stake in it, no ownership of it at all. What's more, we will be trying to criminalize even more of our formerly normal and desirable economic behavior.
Since a similar commitment of sufficiently eye-poppingly expensive public works projects will likely not be made for New Orleans, rebuilding it will not be a permanent solution, as it will just get flooded again with the next storm. It will be cheaper in the long run to move the entire city brick-by-brick to higher ground. Ultimately the ocean will claim the bowl one way or the other, so rather than try to adopt the full Netherlands' solution there, we might as well spend the money on renewable energy projects that don't create any more greenhouse gases. (I'm not sure if it is too late anyway to stop the chain reaction of glacier melting, methane discharges and albedo changes that will cause sea levels to rise and surface salinity to decrease, but how else can the increase in storm severity be explained? If you need more solid data on historical storm severity, see my journal.)
Now, if New Orleans is to be moved brick-by-brick somewhere else, where should it be moved to? Most people probably think Baton Rouge, but if you want to save the city permanently, may I suggest one of the drier counties in the Texas Panhandle? :)