From f132643b6f7d152f3488221617a1fe71ec7c7557 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Dag-Erling=20Sm=C3=B8rgrav?= Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 18:31:07 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Convert a lone double-quote to &dquot; so it won't confuse the heck out of syntax highlighting editors; remove a redundant copyright notice; answer a frequently asked question about /dev/null. --- en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++--- 1 file changed, 60 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml index a58fa8d8be..42aa7c23f8 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml @@ -10016,9 +10016,9 @@ CCP: Received Terminate Ack (1) state = Req-Sent (6) interpret strings such as set phone "123 456 789" correctly (and realize that the number is actually only - one argument. In order to specify - a " character, you must escape it using a - backslash (\). + one argument. In order to specify a + &dquot; character, you must escape it + using a backslash (\). When the chat interpreter parses each argument, it re-interprets the argument in order to find any special @@ -11826,11 +11826,65 @@ raisechar=^^ "Hang on, shouldn't there be '1 to document it.' in that list somewhere?" And then I was enlightened :-) - - This entry is Copyright (c) 1999 &a.des;. - Please do not reproduce without attribution. + + + + Where does data written to /dev/null + go? + + + It goes into a special data sink in the CPU where it + is converted to heat which is vented through the heatsink + / fan assembly. This is why CPU cooling is increasingly + important; as people get used to faster processors, they + become careless with their data and more and more of it + ends up in /dev/null, overheating + their CPUs. If you delete /dev/null + (which effectively disables the CPU data sink) your CPU + may run cooler but your system will quickly become + constipated with all that excess data and start to behave + erratically. If you have a fast network connection you + can cool down your CPU by reading data out of + /dev/random and sending it off + somewhere; however you run the risk of overheating your + network connection and / or angering + your ISP, as most of the data will end up getting + converted to heat by their equipment, but they generally + have good cooling, so if you don't overdo it you should be + OK. + + Paul Robinson adds: + + There are other methods. As every good sysadmin knows, + it is part of standard practise to send data to the screen + of interesting variety to keep all the pixies that make up + your picture happy. Screen pixies (commonly mis-typed or + re-named as 'pixels') are categorised by the type of hat + they wear (red, green or blue) and will hide or appear + (thereby showing the colour of their hat) whenever they + receive a little piece of food. Video cards turn data into + pixie-food, and then send them to the pixies - the more + expensive the card, the better the food, so the better + behaved the pixies are. They also need constant simulation + - this is why screen savers exist. + + To take your suggestions further, you could just throw + the random data to console, thereby letting the pixies + consume it. This causes no heat to be produced at all, + keeps the pixies happy and gets rid of your data quite + quickly, even if it does make things look a bit messy on + your screen. + + Incidentally, as an ex-admin of a large ISP who + experienced many problems attempting to maintain a stable + temperature in a server room, I would strongly discourage + people sending the data they don't want out to the + network. The fairies who do the packet switching and + routing get annoyed by it as well. + +