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From: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: Retraction of flame and apology
Message-ID: <147@desint.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Dec-85 23:54:20 EST
Article-I.D.: desint.147
Posted: Wed Dec  4 23:54:20 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 03:16:20 EST
References: <562@brl-sem.ARPA> <4244@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <2036@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Organization: SAH Consulting, Manhattan Beach, CA
Lines: 33

In article <2036@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>	I'm not sure what made me do it, but I realize now that I never
>should have posted my $10,000 flame.

I guess I shouldn't have kept my mouth shut when everybody jumped on Roy.
I think he has a point.  Many people seem to think that, because disks
come in big hunks, it does not make sense to talk about the cost of
small hunks.  Any accountant can tell you this is not so.

Here are two examples.  On my machine, I am so short of disk space that I
have been forced to stage some less-important files off to secondary storage.
The shorter I get on space, the more secondary storage (floppies, in my
case) I have to buy.  That's a very real incremental cost, and I can
certainly see a 250k-byte increment in my costs (though it's small).

On larger machines, there comes a point when the system administrator
decides to add a new disk, at a $3000-$5000 cost.  This is usually the
result of some "straw" breaking a camel's back.  There are 3000 sites
on the net;  it is not too hard to believe two of them are so close to
the bursting that Rich's 250k pushed them over.  There's your $10,000.

But even without these concrete examples, any accountant can tell you
that every *bit* stored on disk has a finite cost.  An analogy is the
way they used to run Disneyland, where you had to buy a whole bunch of
ride tickets in advance in a booklet.  You paid $5.00 or something for
a book, but a given ride cost the coupon equivalent of $.50 or $.75.
It is *not* correct to treat this as if you had made a single $5.00
expenditure followed by going on a bunch of free rides.  Every time
you take a ride, you have spent $.50.
-- 

	Geoff Kuenning
	{hplabs,ihnp4}!trwrb!desint!geoff