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All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

brianschrader.com

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Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#351

Post by jmkb »

jedberg wrote: post #309
hprotagonist wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bikes I've had that have had reserve tanks have also been old enough to raise the disconcerting follow-on question, which is: "is the reserve gas also full of sludgey crap that's settled in the tank and hasn't been disturbed really in a year, and am i about to run that through my poor carbs?"

My friend had a truck with a reserve tank, but it was the same size as the main tank, so he would just flip the switch at every fill up to make sure they both got used.

Had this in a 70s F150. A "Main - Aux" switch on the dash, right above the 8-track player. I used to let the main tank sputter out on fumes and then triumphantly shout "Rerouting auxiliary power to engine!" while sliding the switch. Letting them empty out alternately would have been a lot smarter.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#353

Post by chihuahua »

icansearch wrote: post #312
plank_time wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a bunch of rice, and all that happened was little rice bugs started living in it, so I had to throw it all away. But if there were a rice shortage, I would probably have eaten it.

If you freeze it for 24 hours it will kill them off. Can be a good idea to do that when it comes into the house anyway as they might be in there already. Easy enough to separate them out of the rice after freezing too.

For the same reason (kill bugs), the same thing is recommended when you buy flour. Put it in the freezer for 24+ hours, then take it out and store at room temperature.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#354

Post by rafaelvasco »

This is an old technique. For example, some game developers back in the early days used to put dummy files in the game data space, and code the entire game with less space so that if later more space was needed, it was just a matter of deleting the dummy files. In that context, it kinda forces you to be smarter about your game assets and code.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#355

Post by wongarsu »

whatshisface wrote: post #313
random5634 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is to do exactly what they tell you not too immediately. Masks don't protect against covid - jump on Alibaba and buy some. Don't buy extra toiled paper, there will be no limits on its sale - immediately do a order on amazon prime. Because within a few days there will be price caps on the sale of TP (increased prices would deter hoarding) so everything will sell out right away. I think people have really lea…

To rationalize this phenomenon... They don't warn you about it until they think you'd be worried about it, and they don't think you'd be worried about it until they start thinking about doing it. ;)

They warn you because they don't want you doing it. So if it's a tragedy of the commons (it usually is), the obvious thing to do is to do what they don't want you to.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#356

Post by phaer »

easton wrote: post #336
ABeeSea wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email quotas aren’t just a cost thing. It forces deletion of files/communications that aren’t relevant anymore. The last thing the legal department wants is some executive’s laptop with 10 years of undeleted email to make it’s way to discovery.

Then why not just tell Exchange to delete any emails older than 5 years (or whatever your lawyers tell you to put)?

I knew a place where Exchange was configured to delete all mails after 6 months. Soon after I discovered that people started to form circles in which they would forward older mails from internal mailing lists to each other to retain them longer than that.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#357

Post by cassepipe »

nostrademons wrote: post #276
buffet_overflow wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still know people that pre-emptively buy toilet paper "because hoarders might buy the rest of it" with absolutely no introspection.

It's not really irrational or some behavior that they'd change if they did introspect. I suspect a significant portion of these people are internally like "Yeah, I'm part of the problem now, but the problem is not going to go away if I don't join in on it, I'll just get screwed." In other words, they understand game theory and tragedy of the commons.

Yes but you have to recognize that there is something irrational in the perception of the problem. How do you go from -> a lot of fragile and old people are going to die to -> omg I am going to be starved to death ?

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#358

Post by [deleted] »

victor9000 wrote: post #163
rgj wrote: post #79

In the mid nineties I worked in a research institute. There was a large shared Novell drive which was always on the verge of full. Almost every day we were asked to clean up our files as much as possible. There were no disc quota for some reason. One day I was working with my colleague and when the fileserver was full he went to a project folder and removed a file called balloon.txt which immediately freed up a few p…

Perfect example of the tragedy of the commons. If individuals don't create these balloon files then they won't be able to use the file server when they need it, yet by creating these balloon files the collective action depletes the shared resource of its main function.

[deleted]

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#359

Post by chihuahua »

agumonkey wrote: post #233
manifoldgeo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like they had a tragedy of the commons, too haha

is there a model to solve these ?

I am far from an expert on game theory, but it seems that the cause of the tragedy of the commons is that people can use the shared resource for free. If there was a price to be paid, and the price was dynamically adjusted depending on conditions, then the overuse could be avoided.

Similarly for file storage and "reserving" it by creating huge but useless files. If everyone was charged a fee per gigabyte per day, then people would be less likely to create those placeholder files. You probably have to be careful about how you measure, otherwise you'll get automated processes that delete the placeholder files at 11:59pm and create them at 12:01am.

Re: All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk

#360

Post by tuzakey »

jedberg wrote: post #309
hprotagonist wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bikes I've had that have had reserve tanks have also been old enough to raise the disconcerting follow-on question, which is: "is the reserve gas also full of sludgey crap that's settled in the tank and hasn't been disturbed really in a year, and am i about to run that through my poor carbs?"

My friend had a truck with a reserve tank, but it was the same size as the main tank, so he would just flip the switch at every fill up to make sure they both got used.

This is typically used for agricultural/off-road fuel which is not priced with road taxes and as a result much cheaper. Off road fuel is dyed red in the US. If you get caught running dyed diesel on road you will be fined. Thus the switch on the dash, when you leave the highway to drive on your farm you flip over to dyed fuel to save $$.
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