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Comment: Re:20x faster (Score 1) 171

by drsmithy (#43993579) Attached to: SSDs: The New King of the Data Center?

At the moment SSD's are excellent when you need high I/O from a few disks up to say a few TB however if you look at enterprise storage solutions of 10's or even 1000's of TBytes you are still looking at spinning media with large cache front ends (BTW I am talking about $20k up to many millions of dollars storage area networks).
Well, what you're usually looking at is a storage system with multiple types and speeds of disks that automatically moves data through the tiers depending on the frequency and type of access. SSDs will form one of these tiers. If the storage system is any good, it will also let you manually pin or hint specific subsets of your data so that they are always held on the fastest tier (ie: SSDs).
Since the _active_ subset of data even in quite large organisations is generally relatively small, a few hundred GB or a few TB of flash will often give 90%+ of the real-life performance that a pure flash array would.

Comment: Re:Observation: (Score 1) 434

by drsmithy (#43951493) Attached to: Fear of Death Makes People Into Believers (of Science)

I never said constraining free will was negative, I suggested that removing the bad consequences of bad choices negates the purpose of being able to make that choice in the first place.
A somewhat reasonable position to take for people whose bad choices impact only them.
Your implicit argument, however, is that there's no such thing as an innocent victim. This position is untenable.
I hold a person who has the ability to save someone from harm but refuses to do so in the highest contempt. I fail to see why a god should be held to a lower one.

Comment: Re:Search engines (Score 1) 182

by drsmithy (#43854079) Attached to: Google's View On the Whac-a-Mole of Blocking Pirate Sites

How is blocking ad revenue from sites distributing content without the appropriate license "too much censorship"?
How should the determination of "appropriate licensing" be made ?
Based on the country the website is in ?
Based on the country the searcher is in ?
Based on the country the search engine is in ?

Comment: Re:Oh, well... (Score 1) 551

by drsmithy (#43809905) Attached to: Australian Police Move To Make 3D Printed Guns Illegal

But there is nothing to stop you buying the parts from the local hardware store, and I never heard of anyone being prosecuted.

Of course, if the insurance company finds out your house burned down because of your dodgy electrical work, good luck making a claim.
If someone died in the fire, good luck in gaol.

Comment: Re:Why not just 0? (Score 1) 996

by drsmithy (#43730059) Attached to: NTSB Recommends Lower Drunk Driving Threshold Nationwide: 0.05 BAC

Reducing the BAC to 0.05 and implementing random breath testing has been very effective in reducing road deaths. We reduced the BAC limit to 0.05 in the 90's and this is why Australia has 5.7 deaths per 100,000 people (8 per 100,000 vehicles) and the US has 12.7 deaths per 100,000 people (15 per 100,000 vehicles). Because it sure as shit isn't because Australian's can drive.
For reference, Victoria introduced a 0.05 limit in 1966, NSW in 1980 and Qld in 1985. I'm not sure about the other states, but the only one I can imagine holding out until the '90s would have to be the NT.
It's interesting to hear older folks talk about drink driving in their youth, however. My father (now in his late 60s) worked in insurance and used to do a lot of driving in western Queensland. His habit after finishing his rural appointments was to buy a carton of beer and start the 2-3 hour drive home - he reckons most times he'd be 1/2 to 2/3 through it by the time he rolled into the driveway.
Of course, the roads were a lot emptier back then as well, which probably saved a lot of lives.

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. - Voltaire

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