Re: large page patch (fwd) (fwd)

From: Bill Rugolsky Jr. (brugolsky@telemetry-investments.com)
Date: Fri Aug 09 2002 - 12:46:47 EST


On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 09:52:53AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Read up on positivism.

Please don't. Read Karl Popper instead.
 
> "If it can't be measured, it doesn't exist".
 
The positivist Copenhagen interpretation stifled important areas of
physics for half a century. There is a distinction to be made between
an explanatory construct (whereby I mean to imply nothing fancy, no
quarks, just a brick), and the evidence that supports that construct
in the form of observable quantities. It's all there in Popper's work.

> The point being that there are things we can measure, and until anything
> else comes around, those are the things that will have to guide us.

True, as far as it goes. Measurement=good, idle-speculation=bad.
 
But it pays to keep in mind that progress is nonlinear. In 1988, Van
Jabobsen noted (http://www.kohala.com/start/vanj.88jul20.txt):

   (I had one test case that went like
 
       Basic system: 600 KB/s
       add feature A: 520 KB/s
       drop A, add B: 530 KB/s
       add both A & B: 700 KB/s
 
   Obviously, any statement of the form "feature A/B is good/bad"
   is bogus.) But, in spite of the ambiguity, some of the network
   design folklore I've heard seems to be clearly wrong.
 
Such anomalies abound.

Regards,

   Bill Rugolsky
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