Amen to that.

I never worked directly for NASA, but I worked for Orbital Sciences and had to deal with NASA. What a mess. Everything we dealt with was loaded with management and bloat. Hard to get anything done. They have the money and some talent at NASA, but they have so much extra management and process junk that the whole technology basically stagnates. You CAN'T afford to introduce something new with NASA. You'll go broke before you finish (unless the "new" project has incredible congress backing - read LOTS of extra money). So technology largely just stands still unless it is small and relatively cheap and can be piggybacked onto an existing mission. I had always wanted to work for NASA when I was younger, but was so glad that I never worked directly for them. With them was bad enough.

PS. Orbital Sciences is slowly going the same way. NASA controls the purse strings and keeps hammering down new requirements that the private space companies have to follow. If Musk follows the NASA money, they can do no better in the long run. There is at least some hope that OSC is using a non-NASA launch site for the upcoming moon shot. Their only hope to survive is to NOT survive on NASA funding.

Agreed. My first thoughts were ZFS, but with the laptop I figured it was more-than-likely a windows box. Plus I wouldn't use BSD on a laptop either and I don't quite trust ZFS on Linux yet...(but it's getting close). Also agree on the ZIL on SSD. I can keep quite a few VMs (websites) in cache on the SSD and hardly have to worry about the speed of the HDs. Plus backups from the filesystem level. One of those tools I can't believed I've lived without all these years.

That takes longer since the find command scans the entire directory and file structure to find the directories. It also takes longer because of querying the size takes more than just querying the name. I just used rsync to scan some of the directories hourly (accounting data, document directories, etc). Other directories were daily, and others were only monthly (install directories, tools, etc). I had to force the users into a certain file hierarchy, but that's what sys admins are for :)

Holy cow people, your missing the OP point. It's taking 15 minutes to SCAN the 1TB drive.

I've run into the same problem on windows and Linux. Especially for remote rsync updates on Linux on slow wireless connections. It's not the 1TB that kills since I can read 4TB drives with hundreds of movies in seconds. It's the amount of files that kill performance.

My solution on windows is to take some of the directories with 10,000 files and put them into an archive (think clipart directories). Zip, Truecrypt, tar, whatever. This speeds up reading the sub-directories immensely. Obviously, this only works for directories that are not accessed frequently. Also, FAT32 is much faster on 3000+ files in a directory than NTFS is. Most of my truecrypt volumes with LOTS of files are using FAT32 just because of the directory reading speed.

On Linux systems, I just run rsync on SUB-directories. I run the frequently accessed ones more often and the less-accessed directories less often. Simple, No. My rsyncs are all across the wire, so I need the speed. Plus some users are on cell-phone wireless plans, so need to minimize data usage.

Why don't they tell people that the southwest is full of sharp plants???
Why don't they tell people that the southwest if HOT???
Why don't they tell people that "it's a dry heat"???
Because most southwesterners already KNOW, that's why. Few people have problems from valley fever(1 in 1000, or 1 in 5000 depending on source). And all the medical people will test for it first when a patient comes in experiencing a bad "fever". Even the people that have it (or have noticeable symptoms) usually can overcome it themselves without any medical treatment.

Thermite will solve all your problems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite) and provide nearly infinite amusement.

Take a look at:
http://fuerstnet.de/en/drupal-upgrade-easier
if you are comfortable with the command line. I've done several 6 to 7 transitions (patch the 6 up to the latest before the 7 jump). SIGNIFICANTLY less pain than any other way I've found. It basically uses the Linux patch/diff mechanism. Make sure the 7 has the modules you need from 6 before the jump (some were never ported and have to be replaced in 7).

how on earth was this comment "Insightful". Take a look at the financial figures. The market cap on Northrup Grumman is $16B. Raytheon is $19B. Boeing is $50B - which of course also has a commercial side. Microsoft is $262B. Apple is $630B. Amazon is $114B. Most of these companies (and others like Oracle, IBM, Target, Walmart, etc.) are bigger than ALL THE DEFENSE companies. Take a look at the history of these companies. The best ones track the DOW, Nasdaq, SP. The lesser ones don't even keep up.

I know these type of comment are popular "old wives" tales, but insightful. Give me a break.

I hope you haven't kept it plugged in these last 6 years. I had one of those and it idled at about 400 watts. You could feel the heat radiating on the outside of the HUGE plastic case. We kept it for a few years and would only power it on when we needed it, but then decided it was just easier to get a newer machine (a Lexmark coincidentally) that idles at about 30watts. Yes the old HP 4 and 5 series were built like tanks, and the parts are still cheap at places like precisionroller.com, but they are not economical to keep plugged in 24/7.

The PC was introduced before the network. And when the networks started, it was a single floor or group and local access only. It was years before we had connections to other groups, and then even more years to other people in the same company at different locations. And then years more before a general connection to the outside world.

Considering the huge number of classified defense projects that are on isolated PC's (or workstations), I'd say a whole lot gets done without a network connection in 2012.

Nothing to add that wasn't said above. Oh, nastalgia!

No the Republicans tried to kill all 3 methods. Why, because we DON'T WANT THIS. Period. People like me are very happy with our healthcare. Our family pays about $200/month for the 5 of us (major medical) and don't find it a particular burden. We never use it and I would go to a higher deductible if I could find one (can't). Most likely scenario is a kid needs a cast or stitches. This would be cheap out of pocket. Most other things are very unlikely and so major medical is all that is needed. We eat and exercise regularly to keep in good health so we don't need medical care.

Our national debate is NOT screwed up. People like you WON'T listen. Try to railroad something thru that approximately HALF the people in the country DON'T want is not a way to debate an issue or run a government. We've told you NO in no uncertain terms so either work at the state level if you think it is really necessary, or leave the country. 50/50 debates and issues and having one side push through an agenda will only lead to the other ~50% being pissed off. I say this to the Republicans too! This leads to civil war ultimately. It's why Democracies DON'T work and is why we are in a Republic (or a least originally were). It's the classic 51 wolves and 49 sheep deciding what's going to be for dinner (slight mod).

Good start, but you can add several other HUGE budget busters to your list.

Paperwork. Think volumes like medical companies filings for FDA approval of a new drug.

Handholding for way too many people/bureaucrats. Huge teams for PDR, CDR for EVERY SINGLE TANK. Congresscritters out to get a vote/photo-op. All those are of course budgeted at the beginning into the tank production costs.

Rescheduling. Government in their infinite wisdom decides that if task A can be done by X people in Y time, then same task can be done by 1/2X in 2Y time. Somebody slips the schedule and all of a sudden Specialist B must only work 20hr/week on the project. And where can he charge the other 20??? A even if this were to work out in reality (NOT), there are these people called managers who are still taking a piece of the pie who now are basically doubling the management time. And, of course, no time is allocated to rescheduling the project, milestones, subcontractor deliveries, etc.

Ancient tech. Nobody pays for upgrades from DOS to recent OS's since the delta-quals are way too expensive. The porting itself is reasonable, but nobody will trust that the new stuff works exactly like the old stuff unless it goes through extensive retesting. And even then someone will raise a bogus issue and add significantly further to the nightmare. So some sub-systems are ancient. Ni-Cads, DOS, kerosene/LOX, aluminum, 486's, RS422, hydraulic TVCs, ancient analog electronics that are 10X their original cost since the main production line is obsolete and custom runs are made to produce them.

All above also applies to defense work. Virtually the same bureaucracies in place, and these types of things happen ALL THE TIME. $200 hammer or toilet seat is a BARGAIN!

> iPod is a very risky move because it is significantly larger than things that fit in pockets.

Wow. You must have hobbit size shirts and pants. I've been able to fit all the different IPods in my pockets so far. Maybe you should try the Nano! :)