Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrwic!ksuvax1!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!sloane
From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: "Morris did it"--the new excuse?
Message-ID: <1429@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: 16 Nov 88 10:54:26 GMT
References: <978@hub.ucsb.edu> <16965@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <1409@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <17088@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services
Lines: 36

In article <17088@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu
 (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) writes:
> Of course, if anyone points out to any of these users what shitty pro-
> grammers they are, and what a waste of CPU cycles their programs really
> are--and yes, a lot of genuine nonsense goes on in the world of research
> --well, hell, that's too bad.  As you said: politics.
>
> [description of program optimization deleted]
> 
> Now the above is an extreme, but it illustrates a very very common at-
> titude among researchers when it comes to computers: "why think?".  I
> have seen it over and over and over again.  CPU cycles are wasted with
> abandon in the name of research.
> 
> So I'm usually unimpressed with people who complain about lost CPU time
> due to downtime.  Not that knowing the truth would ever help when it comes
> to harassed sysadmins dealing with annoyed/annoying users.
> 
> ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720

Actually, the programmers involved are not all that bad. If the programs were
made 10 times as efficient, they would just run them on 10 times as much data,
using the same amount of cpu. We have enough researchers here to use up ALL the
cpu time available, no matter HOW much we have.  The real problem is that the
problems they are trying to solve have no real solutions, just approximations.
Using more cpu would lead to a better approximation.  I think they have a real
complaint when services are interupted unnecessarily.  The real question here
is whether or not the worm was a "necessary" interuption.  You seem to be
saying that it was necessary, in that it might wake up system administrators
to provide better security.  I doubt that the researchers here would accept
that position.
+-------------------+-------------------------------------+------------------+
|  Bob Sloane        \Internet: SLOANE@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU/Anything I said is |
|  Computer Center    \ BITNET: SLOANE@UKANVAX.BITNET   / my opinion, not my |
|  University of Kansas\  AT&T: (913) 864-0444         /  employer's.        |
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