Re: IDE freeze for seconds

Helge Hafting (helge.hafting@daldata.no)
Thu, 03 Dec 1998 08:43:55 +0100


Roeland Th. Jans wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 02, 1998 at 03:25:24PM -0000, Simon Kenyon wrote:
> > On 02-Dec-98 Alex Buell wrote:
> > > What is the first thing that ceases when you spin down a planet? That's
> > > right, gravity. Everything not tied down would just fly out into space,
> > > and that includes the atmosphere. Simple.
> >
> > i don't see a smiley, but i have to assume that that was a little joke! right?
>
> well, the problem is that... it's true. so don't use ower management on the
> earth spin...

Where do people get such crazy ideas?
Earth's gravity has nothing to do with spin, but mass. The mass creates
the gravity. The spin creates a centrifugal force that's opposed
to gravity, it weakens the effect of gravity slightly.

Stopping the spin wouldn't mess up gravity at all. There would
be other unpleasant effects like making a day half a year long,
turning one side of the planet into desert and freezing the other.

As for trying to save the environment by spinning down drives,
consider something more efficient. What do you do when
optimizing the kernel? Instrument it and work on whatever part
that waste most time (or other resources).
The same principle applies to energy conservation. *One* trip less with
your car will save more power/carbon dioxide than any
amount of disk drive tweaking, even giving up disk drives for
the rest of your life wouldn't save as much.

Helge Hafting

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