WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?
I didn't find GTFTS was very funny, probably because it was overhyped. Of course the Slate piece is typical Slate bullshit.
The Slate piece isn't defensive, just over-enamored with its own superficially clever thesis. (And despite that, though the last paragraph is ridiculous, some of what it has to say might actually be on the mark. Is there any way, beyond the language itself, in which the affectionate angst driving the humor of Go the F to Sleep would seem foreign to many parents of prior generations? I don't know what the answer to that question is, but it's at least interesting.)
The second link is just fucking nuts, though. Absolutely batshit.
2: The verse was weak. The idea could have been funny, but it needed a solid singsongy children's book rhythm, and it didn't have it.
I read a nice response to the Roiphe thing, but all I can remember about it is that someone in the comments thereto linked Gawker's somewhat pithier take.
Oh, duh, that is of course it.
I hereby apologize to her, even though my lapse is unforgivable.
The readings by Samuel L. Jackson and Werner Herzog justify the whole endeavor.
Yeah, I think 4 gets it right. It's also the same joke over and over and over -- kid-book seeming lyrics, with the last line being something about how it's time to go to sleep. Not super clever; not to be too arrogant about this place, but I suspect the Unfogged collective could have done better with the same project.
They're saying what we're all thinking but can't say.
In its repetitive, almost hypnotic imprecations, Go The F**k To Sleep resembles nothing so much as the Soviet Union's propaganda apparat during the Stalin era. Every imperative implies a consequence. Will the KGB come to make sure this child has gone to sleep after the Father leaves? It was just such a mindless obedience to authority, an authority that proposed to always know what was best for it's infantilized citizens, that led to the murder of tens of millions of people in Russia.
[From the Anne Applebaum review]
Yes I weep with outrage when someone complains about how Jews never go to sleep when you want them to.
The sooner the analogy ban is a constitutional amendment, the better.
Surely the review quoted in 13 is an exercise in piss-taking.
I find the book unoriginal and not at all new. Goodnight Goon is better, being an actual parody of something in particular.
A few years ago, with the baby not quite asleep, my wife caught me singing along to Brahm's Lullaby the lyrics I learned in Summer Camp (around 1971--nohting to do with parents today):
Go to sleep, little creep,
Or I'll bash your front teeth in.
Drink your bat's blood
And your goat's milk
Like a good monster should.
The internet confirms that I did not hallucinate this version.
I hope that Natlio made up 13, because it is genius.
First, they came for the analogies . . .
And yeah, I sort of do think there's something interesting to be said about why the book is a big deal but I don't think what Roiphe said is it. Meanwhile, it's a funny idea that made for a non-hilarious extended one-line joke. Feels like any number of SNL skits in an off year.
15: No neb, it is deathly serious business we are discussing here.
It seems like the kind of thing that the Last Psychiatrist will have something involving narcissism to say about.
I'LL GIVE YOU MY ANALOGY WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS.
11: Do I hear the sound of a gauntlet being thrown down?
Is there any way, beyond the language itself, in which the affectionate angst driving the humor of Go the F to Sleep would seem foreign to many parents of prior generations?
This is exactly the right question.
The main complaint about the book up to now was that it was an old joke with the word "fuck" added.
Its like people are suddenly getting upset about the one about the guy who has three daughters who all have dates on the same night.
. . .But generally I preferred the classic nursery rhymes celebrating infanticide ("Rock a bye baby") and child abuse ("He plays knick-knack on my thumb"). Because Pre-Modern parents had to put up with the same shit we did, and without the benefit of disposable diapers, or adequate nutrition.
24: Yeah, I mean, what's Roiphe's take on those creepy laxative/enema-for-kids ads that bOING bOING is always linking to?
The book is funny but goes on a bit too long--some rhymes work, others are a bit clunky. The verse in the Gawker review is a lot worse but the description of Katie Roiphe as "one of the leading sex-opinion-havers of American letters" is great. 13 is also great.
Baby, baby, naughty baby,
Hush, you squalling thing, I say.
Peace this moment, peace, or maybe
Bonaparte will pass this way.
Baby, baby, he's a giant,
Tall and black as Rouen steeple,
And he breakfasts, dines, rely on't,
Every day on naughty people.
Baby, baby, if he hears you
As he gallops past the house,
Limb from limb at once he'll tear you,
Just as pussy tears a mouse.
And he'll beat you, beat you, beat you,
And he'll beat you into pap,
And he'll eat you, eat you, eat you,
Every morsel snap, snap, snap.
25: I always thought "Rock-a-bye, Baby" celebrated sudden infant death.
I mean, can you believe that a nursery rhyme would contain LIES about Napoleon's height??
I have to admit, I laughed and laughed at the book but then felt kind of bad about it, because I have had extended stays with two different families and known a third where the small children were essentially told to go the fuck to sleep and no amount of pleading could get a book read to them. Since I was the teenage houseguest, I sometimes offered to go read or play with them until they went to sleep. One mom said go ahead, and the other one said, 'no way, you'll spoil them.' I watched the 5 kids I saw between these three families grow up with absolutely no self-confidence and get into shit tons of trouble (everything from absurd burglaries to heroin to prostitution). There was a definite sense of self-pity one felt from hanging around these parents, like their children, while loved, were a burden they never really wanted, and this entitled them to many little acts of emotional neglect and resentment that accumulated on their children, creating a disturbing layer that was very visible to a long-term visitor. There was never anything I could remotely call abuse, it just seemed they did not enjoy the company of their children and were doing exactly what they had to and nothing more. I realize that the book is aimed at parents who do not actually feel entitled to these little acts of neglect, and for whom the 'go the fuck to sleep' bits are strictly internal monologue. But it does feel like there are a significant number of people in our society who have children even they don't really enjoy their company at all.
Speak roughly to your little boy
and beat him when he sneezes
he only does it to annoy
because he knows it teases.
I speak severely to my boy
I beat him when he sneezes
for he can thoroughly enjoy
the pepper when he pleases.
32: But it does feel like there are a significant number of people in our society who have children even they don't really enjoy their company at all.
Well, yeah, but I don't think 1,000 parody children's books on either side of the question are going to change that.
I mean, you could tell your kids "go to sleep, or the corporations will come and take away our health care, and our food stamps, and the bus, and your classroom will have 45 kids in it", except that, even if they then went to sleep as requested, all of those things would happen anyway.
And yeah, I sort of do think there's something interesting to be said about why the book is a big deal but I don't think what Roiphe said is it.
We love our children, despite the fact that they often - completely innocently - drive us nuts, and there's a rich vein of humor to be mined in this fact.
As best as I can reckon, I have just made the only interesting observation that exists on the topic of why this book is a big deal. Decades ago, Erma Bombeck and Bill Cosby, among others, were also big deals.
32: There's no reason for you to feel bad about it. Whether or not people find the book funny -- or indeed whether or not people are actually, as parents, strict and unsentimental about bedtime -- will have little or nothing to do with whether or not they're the sort of people who are waging petty wars of emotional attrition against their offspring that lead to heroin abuse and prostitution.
33 reminds me of a letter from Lewis Carroll's father to Lewis Carroll that was transcribed in a Christmas Cracker (being a commonplace selection by John Julius Norwich), but I can't seem to find it (or remember it in enough detail to undertake a real search for it) on the net.
36. This is true. The parents among my friends who maintained the strictest bedtime for their sprog watched him start having wild monkey sex with a girl of his own age when he was 14.
The kids have graduated now, and they're getting married next year, after 8 years together. Lesson about stereotypes and generalisations.
Meanwhile, it's a funny idea that made for a non-hilarious extended one-line joke. Feels like any number of SNL skits in an off year.
This is so exactly right.
Speak gently! -- It is better far
To rule by love, than fear --
Speak gently -- let not harsh words mar
The good we might do here!
Speak gently! -- Love doth whisper low
The vows that true hearts bind;
And gently Friendship's accents flow;
Affection's voice is kind.
Speak gently to the little child!
Its love be sure to gain;
Teach it in accents soft and mild: --
It may not long remain.
Speak gently to the young, for they
Will have enough to bear --
Pass through this life as best they may,
'T is full of anxious care!
Speak gently to the aged one,
Grieve not the care-worn heart;
The sands of life are nearly run,
Let such in peace depart!
Speak gently, kindly, to the poor;
Let no harsh tone be heard;
They have enough they must endure,
Without an unkind word!
Speak gently to the erring -- know,
They may have toiled in vain;
Perchance unkindness made them so;
Oh, win them back again!
Speak gently! -- He who gave his life
To bend man's stubborn will,
When elements were in fierce strife,
Said to them, 'Peace, be still.'
Speak gently! -- 't is a little thing
Dropped in the heart's deep well;
The good, the joy, which it may bring,
Eternity shall tell.
38: Maybe he made his parents pay to watch him start having wild monkey sex with a girl of his own age when he was 14. Which isn't prostitution strictly speaking, but close enough.
But it does feel like there are a significant number of people in our society who have children even they don't really enjoy their company at all.
Frankly, I enjoy their company less than I thought I would, and I still want more kids. I did not expect the number of bad moods that come out of nowhere, and it's not very interesting to be around a total grumpasaurus. But they sure are adorable when they're sleeping.
42: Maybe your third or fourth will be a good one.
44: I just need each one to appreciate the shortcomings of the others.
43: That's not art! Why, a child could do better!
We watched Bill Cosby's Himself with the kids a while back, and I was actually amazed that jokes about hitting your kids were still being made as late as the 80s. Cos could get away with a lot, though, because he's the Cos.
I thought GTFTS was funny for the first few reps but the idea is too thin to sustain a long joke. That it's causing a furor tells me more about what parents can admit to thinking these days than it does about parenting though.
Near as I can tell, any parent who hasn't had a few evenings like that has too many nannies on the payroll.
Frankly, I enjoy their company less than I thought I would, and I still want more kids.
Everyone's tastes differ, but I think the age bracket Hawaii's just about to emerge from is about as irritating as they get -- maximum needs, minimum ability to be reasoned with. They get immensely pleasanter as they get older if you like having reasonable people around.
48: what could the third daughter's name have been, I wonder.
53: Stanley's employer has too many stupid net nannies on the payroll for him to enjoy Go the F* to Link.
They get immensely pleasanter as they get older if you like having reasonable people around.
I'm putting a lot of stock in this.
Just to vent: at gymnastics on Monday, she had seriously six meltdowns. As in, melts into a puddle on the floor. In 45 minutes. She is insanely fragile.
Mitigating factors: she has a huge crush on her gymnastics coach and just keeps getting her heart broken when the other kids interfere with her coach's attention.
But still.
Read the F* Archives is a promising title.
Near as I can tell, any parent who hasn't had a few evenings like that has too many nannies on the payroll.
Or are in the large group of parents described in #32.
heebie, the children whose house I was staying in were quite a bit older than HP, and considering how much *I* enjoyed their company (which was a lot), I feel like a parent who was less resentful would have also enjoyed it more. There are other reasons I thought they were probably somewhat unwanted. Honestly it was this phase of our life that converted both me and my mother to being pro-choice. . .
36: I realize that it's illogical, it's just that it reminded me of those uncomfortable evenings.
Go The F*ck To Sleep seems to me very funny in a one-shot sort of way, but not even funny enough to justify a whole book. Just the cover is enough, like Stabby the Narwhal.
Or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
I liked it and giggled my way through the whole book (choosing to ignore the bits that didn't scan so well). Yes, I'm sure Unfogged could have done it better, but hey, we didn't.
I really didn't take it as being agressive towards the child though - a parent who really felt that way towards their child wouldn't be lying there reading stories and trying to get them off to sleep, they'd just have shut the door and said shut up. I thought it was taking the piss out of all those parents (myself frequently included) who can't bring themselves to leave the kid to cry or whinge themselves to sleep, or get out of bed 20 times, but really, 9 nights out of 10, could really be doing with NOT hanging about for 45 minutes waiting.
Haven't read the links, but is one basically saying that the parents in the book are too child-centred, and the other one that they're too anti-child? When you're getting attacked from both sides you're probably fine.
62: When you're getting attacked from both sides you're probably fine.
Well, not necessarily. It could simply mean that you're so totally wrong that even people who agree on virtually nothing else can agree about your wrongness. But in this case it probably holds.
a parent who really felt that way towards their child wouldn't be lying there reading stories and trying to get them off to sleep, they'd just have shut the door and said shut up.
I do, a bit, think that there's something ill-advised about any parenting style that makes you miserable. Hardline shut-the-door-you-can-go-to-sleep-however-you-want parenting probably doesn't do kids any harm assuming you're generally loving and caring, endless stories and soothing also probably doesn't do a bit of harm assuming general sanity on the part of the parents, but the presumed audience for the book is someone who's doing the endless soothing route and hates it. Not hates the kids, but hates the bedtime process. And if you hate a process that you've got a lot of control over, I do think there's something very ill-advised about not doing something different.
Ill-advised ill-advised. I seem to be mealymouthed here. Okay, parents like that aren't ill-advised, they're history's greatest monsters and their children will be axe murderers every one.
(And any parent is going to have a certain number of bad evenings -- I'm mostly thinking that if the standard routine evening is a nightmare, that's not good.)
Any assholes talking about kids who pray themselves to sleep wishing for a parent who would care are being jerks. The impact of neglect is not that simple and using it to make some sanctimonious point about hating that we're a geneation of cursers or whatever makes me absolutely livid. This has been making me mad all day, because apparently I'm taking it personally.
(But we closed on the house rerfinance, meaning in three days I hope I hope we can buy the new house. And I told myself to stop talking about fostering so much here, but this stupid review made me break that rule.)
Fingers crossed on your behalf for the Piano House.
Maybe they will become il-advised axe murderers. With poor sharpening skills.
If a meme really catches on, that's proof that we should squelch it so that any underlying issues remain repressed.
a parent who really felt that way towards their child wouldn't be lying there reading stories and trying to get them off to sleep, they'd just have shut the door and said shut up
This isn't as easy as it sounds.
For me, the "go the fuck to sleep" phase sets in after the evening books are read, the lights are out, the last-ditch excuses (i'm hungry, i'm thirsty, i have to pee) have been tried and re-tried, and still he won't go the fuck to sleep!
In other words, parents who are genuinely disinterested in spending time with their children, and who can pull off the "shut the door and say shut up" maneuver, probably wouldn't get much out of this book.
"But if those sweet-faced children, so gorgeously drawn by Ricardo Cortés, could talk back would they say: "Put on a fucking dress. Have a fucking drink. Stop hovering over us. Live your own goddamned life.""
i kind of agreed with this.
I am interested in what other people think abou tthe last psychiatrist though, beyond the projection/narcissism thing.
72: Really? The "put on a fucking dress" bit, too? Stealing someone else's line, you think toddlers are Don Draper? "Smile, honey. You're prettier that way."
And yes, that is a misplaced modifier, but I don't care.
I hate to break it to you but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent. Fear stimulates my imagination.
And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.
"72: Really? The "put on a fucking dress" bit, too? Stealing someone else's line, you think toddlers are Don Draper? "Smile, honey. You're prettier that way.""
Christ, not everything has to be about sexism. pretend it said 'put on some fucking oxfords.'
I am interested in what other people think abou tthe last psychiatrist though, beyond the projection/narcissism thing.
Can there be anything to say about The Last Psychiatrist that doesn't involve narcissism?
Christ, not everything has to be about sexism.
That would be nice, but you'd have to willfully misread the sentence for it not to bet. Roiphe is saying the sexless bitch mommy isn't getting pretty for daddy anymore and that's why she is so miserable to her children. It's what the whole article is about.
I think The Last Psychiatrist is strange, but at least it periodically eviscerates Lori Gottlieb. She doesn't seem to notice, though.
Outrage over this kind of thing always makes me wonder about e. g. Edward Gorey. Are the current outraged people aware of the Gashleycrumb Tinies and the Hapless Child? Was there a similar contemporary outrage?
Also, Baby, Mix Me a Drink is funnier than GTFTS.
Ile, I hope you didn't think I was complaining about your comment, which seemed like a reasonable emotional response and probably what the second writer was really going for.
Is there something special about this book that encourages people to whip out their pet theories about what's wrong with today's parents or would any prompt suffice?
86: Naaah, it's just gone high profile enough that even the numbnuts who start these moral panics have noticed its existence and latch on. They're professional handwringers and paid to pretend America is going to hell in ahandbasket because parents may not think nice thoughts. I except the wingnuts will be all over it too.
Any fool clever enough to tie their own shoes knows this is a non issue, but it's sure makes it easy to establish yourself as a great, freethinking contrarian able to see what's wrong with America today, apart from the bits that are actually wrong (endless wars, unemployement, environment wrecked, you know the drill).
86:, no, I know no one was complaining. I think, like you said, I had an emotional twinge which could be easily manipulated by writers like the second, even though they're kinda crazy. I think 71 gets it right---the book is about the people who would spend so long trying, and are laughing inside at their haplessness. It's only the fact that it's such an extended joke that gives me time to remember that there's a whole other group of people who aren't trying.
why the book is a big deal
Two reasons:
1. People often want to buy a present for friends who have just had a child.
2. Books are rectangular and easy to wrap, plus Amazon will deliver them directly.
GTFTS is the perfect solution to a problem of "Get The Fuck A Baby Gift".
I thought it was hilarious. Little Napoleon Adolf, as I think I've mentioned, can't sleep. He's inherited it from both me and his mother, the poor little mite had no chance. These days it isn't really a problem because he just reads until midnight every night (I calculated that by the age of 18, he will have had three years more education than his classmates), but before he learned to read it used to distress him a bit - it is indeed also a bit inconvenient to have a child who stays awake for four hours after bedtime if you have ambitions in the direction of the old sexual intercourse (although frankly hardly insurmountable, Katie Roiphe appears to be making something of a meal of it). So I have a looad of experience in trying to get an unsleepy kid to sleep.
The comedy is in the fact that the parent is getting more and more frustrated with the kid, for something that is indisputably not the kid's fault. That's basically the underlying premis of Laurel & Hardy - Stan keeps on screwing everything up, but in such a way that Ollie can't really blame him. It's an archetype.
yoyo, the very last thing kids want is for you to live your own life.
Everyone has anecdotal evidence in favour of their favoured child-rearing tactic, too. Some friends of mine recently decided to try some 'tough love' on their 1 year old, who doesn't/didn't sleep. After months of endless effort to get him to sleep, they left the wee bugger to get on with it for a week, and now he sleeps like an angel. I'd guess they now count as fully convinced that this method works, but I'd also guess that for other parents it doesn't/hasn't. I don't recall it working on my brother, despite many attempts.
re: 89.2
Yeah. I didn't sleep either. Not as a baby but as an older primary school aged kid. After a couple of years of silently lying awake and miserable until hours after everyone else was asleep my parents went with your solution.
'You can do what you like, read until midnight if you want, but don't disturb us after 9pm.'
91. Me too. But as Daniel says, this really doesn't work until the kid can read unassisted.
I had full on screaming nightmares for years when I was three or four. I don't know how my parents survived.
89, 91: Weren't you really tired all of the time? Or did you just need less sleep?
re: 93
As far as I know I wasn't tired. It has basically persisted into adulthood. I've always been, and continue to be, a night-owl. I get tired now, sometimes, as work means I have to get up a bit earlier than I'd like. But right through my late-teens and twenties I'd rarely be asleep before the early hours of the morning, and even at high school it'd be rare to be asleep before midnight. We don't start school as godawful early as a lot of American places, though. I didn't have to leave the house until 8:15.
I know quite a few people like this, so I assume there's quite a lot of night-owl types around. People who are early to bed/early to rise types like to believe it's somehow virtuous or they exhibit greater discipline, but I have to get up for work the same time as everyone else, and have tried sleeping earlier for 30 years. It doesn't work.
I've been wondering for a while what the Unfoggetariat thinks about Tim Minchin. Well, here's a good excuse to link, since his "Lullaby" is pretty much a (much more violent) riff on the same idea:
link.
94: I read somewhere that there is some evidence for the notion that morning people are mutants.
I read somewhere that there is some evidence for the notion that morning people are mutants.
There is always a point of view from which everybody is a mutant, even if it's the PoV of an Australopithecus. But really, there's not much evidence that as a species we're evolved to be nocturnal or crepuscular. I bet we were all morning people before they invented artificial light.
re: 97
Possibly. I've tried for decades to adjust,* and haven't. Not that I'm a late riser; you don't get much choice if you aren't unemployed or a 'student'.*
* although I haven't gone as far as to ban electric lighting.
** not an actual student, I mean the fantasy student that the right-wing press/Tories/cunts imagine. The one who doesn't have two part time jobs, crippling debt, and a workload double the worst nightmares of some tabloid hack.
Vampires is what we are. We're just in denial.
I've been up for three hours. An early sleeper and early riser seems to be my most comfortable pattern. For a decade I would get home from work at 6, eat, read go to sleep at 8 and rise at 3 or 4. I love those long quiet mornings, but I guess it means I'm not very social in the usual sense.
I mean, if reading or listening to intellectual material is your recreation, whyever would you want to do it in the evening, after a hard day's work, tired with weak concentration? Bed early, wake refreshed and alert, read Proust listen to Bach at 4 AM.
And yeah, you live that lifestyle alone, but I would rather have the Proust, and got tired of people wanting something from you, like your time, calling you selfish. Proust earned my attention and wasn't an hypocritical asshole about it.
"Spend your time chatting with me about my feelings. It's for your own good, and the moral thing to do. Play with meeeee. Love meeeee. It will make you happy."
Fuck off.
Perhaps you could try having a lie-in? You know, just as an experiment, like. I mean, who knows what "Well-Rested Bob"'s comments would be like?
CHRIST BOB WILL YOU STOP PESTERING ME!!!
103: I keep telling myself not to take this personally, but I can't help myself.
That hurt, bob.
There is always a point of view from which everybody is a mutant, even if it's the PoV of an Australopithecus. But really, there's not much evidence that as a species we're evolved to be nocturnal or crepuscular. I bet we were all morning people before they invented artificial light.
I don't mean veldt-y evidence, but rather that it was found that people with a particular sleep disorder tend to have certain mutations--which mutation was later recreated in mice with great effect.
OT, but does involve swearing: Is there any possible reason that I am getting a transfer rate of 14.4 KB/s through a T1 line that doesn't involve somebody having fucked up the server?
re: 108
Someone else using the connection? Many concurrent connections to the server?
I suppose, but the 14.4 made me think someone went to my basement, stole a US Robotics modem from 1994 and installed it at my office.
Like 3G, which as far as I can tell involves an intermittent 300baud connection.
I don't have to move 900 folders averaging 300MB over a 3g connection.
Yeah. I do this sort of thing daily [being the 'bloke who manages all the images in the ancient research library'], anything sort of 100Mb/s is a pain in the arse.
re: 112
Even over a full T1 that's still what, 18 hours?
Actually, I already have 1/3 of them, so it wouldn't be that bad.
But, 14.4 KB/s means I have to find another way.
Is there any possibility someone else is using the T1? 14.4 is what, slightly under 1/10th of T1 speed?
Also, how are you doing the transfer? Some ways are more efficient than others. [Sorry if I'm pointing out the obvious]
108: Not sure if you are talking internal network only, or out on to the Internet. I have noticed some slowness and periods of Google unavailability this AM, but of course there are many possible points of slowness/failure in that chain. However, the Internet Traffic Report for North America does show things a bit off this morning (caveat, does not always show what you think it is showing).
Probably just some jerk somewhere on your network trying to move 900 folders averaging 300MB someplace.
118: That's the problem, his network doesn't like the way he's transferring. Next time don't do it by uploading everything to Megaupload.
117: Order of magnitude off, ~1/100th.
Heh. I was thinking more like rsyncing with on-the-fly compression, versus some slower/crappier method.
re: 121
T1 is 1.5Mb/s, no? Which is 193KB/sec. So, not 100 times faster than 14.4KB/sec.
118: I'm mapped to a drive on the server and just copying in Windows. Or rather, I was. I got bored and am trying more direct ways of transferring the data.
Ah, I just assumed the only reason Moby would mention 14.4 was if it was little b. I see now that he used big B.
re: 124
I'd guess* rsyncing with compression would be quite a bit faster than that.
* from experience, 'know' would be more accurate.
124, 126: If you are using straight Windows mapping and not on Windows 7 to a Windows 2008 back-end (I think those are the minimum versions you need, maybe Vista has it) you will be using SMB 1.0* which is about the worlds chattiest protocol which causes it to get absolutely destroyed by latency (And SMB 2 still is not that great). If it is a local server should not be too bad, but if your ping times to the server are high, you will be being limited by the round-trips rather than bandwidth itself and you get dreadful overall transfer rates.
*AKA The protocol that launched a thousand network acceleration startups.
I'm also not sure that I have a T1 connection. According to the Control Panel, I am hooked to the network at 100Mbps.
129: Where is the server? is then the key question.
The problem with comment 128 is that if Moby is anything like me, he doesn't know what "mapping", "back-end", "SMB", "protocol", "chattiest", "latency", "ping times", or "round-trips" means. Conclusion: Someone else should have been put in charge of this transfer thing from the beginning.
128 didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
130: About four blocks away in the medical school.
which causes it to get absolutely destroyed by latency
I feel strongly that somebody should make a Batman and Robin joke here.
What the f* are you talking about.
re: 129
100Mb/s is your ethernet connection speed. If that then connect via some router elsewhere on the network to the T1, the T1 will still be the bottleneck. And if it's shared, and you are using SMB [as JP Stormcrow says] then you'll get much slower transfer rates.
If the files are within walking distance, there's always the 'walk over there with a whacking great hard drive' option. Although 27TB might be a _bit_ tricky that way. Also, depending what's at the other end you'll be limited by the bandwidth of the disks involved. Which will certainly be less than 100Mb/s.
Come to think of it, what _are_ you using to hold 27TB of data? Because that's non-trivial in itself.
Also, if you are working with 27TB of files, you should really be working with people who know the stuff in 131.
I'm a morning person, but everything's relative. On my own, 90 percent of the time I get up between 6:30 and 7:30, and I have since getting a 9-to-5 job. I'm certainly not a morning person compared to my dad, who got up at 5 a.m. for a long time. My girlfriend, on the other hand, is sluggish at 9 a.m. So compared to him, I'm a normal night person, but compared to her I'm a freakish morning person.
Maybe I'm reading too much into things, though. (Wouldn't be the first time.) The link in 107 talks about people "retiring at 6 or 7 in the evening and waking at 3 or 4 in the morning". I don't have that kind of a sleep schedule, and I'm pretty sure that even my dad doesn't. I work a more or less 9-to-5 job and get up at a more or less normal time for that; the only relaly weird thing about my sleep schedule is that I get up that early on my own on the weekends as well.
300MB times 900 times = 270,000MB = 270GB. Or something. I know that all the files I have sit on an 8TB server.
re: 138
I rarely sleep beyond 9, even at weekends. I just prefer not to go to sleep until 1 or 2am. I still try to get 6 - 8 hours of sleep.
re: 139
Sorry, I misread 300MB as 300GB. 270GB -- walk over there with a 1TB disk.
132.1: So 128 on topic to OP title. (on preview cryptically pwned).
128 made perfect sense to me. It's saying the problem is potentially a lack of efficiency in your file transfer protocol, not necessarily a problem with the server or the connection as such.
Not to make your life difficult, but verifying that each copy succeeds without error is important. Anything done by hand that doesn't log the return code of each copy operation is asking for hard-to-track trouble later, especially if the data's compressed.
141: Yes, but pulling 900 folders from 16,000 folders takes time.
(I would still have no idea what to do about it, though. Furthest thing from an IT guy imaginable.)
It's a bit impractical with a job and a relationship, but my preferred sleeping schedule is two ~4 hour shifts of sleep, one overnight and one in the afternoon. I love the quiet early hours of the morning.
Rsync - it's a protocol for syncing files on two networked computers, which provides a lot of compression and optimisation. Absolutely anything *nix will have it as standard, can't speak to MS.
If you need to do the same thing again, because it's a sync protocol, it will only transfer the delta between the two files, like doing a diff of the source, gzipping and sending the diff, and patching the target.
I use rsync -a -l -p -x to back up my laptop hdd. -a is archive mode, which flips on a lot of other flags for things like recursion into directories. -l preserves symlinks. (-L unwinds them instead.) -p keeps file permissions on filesystems that have them. -x stops recursion at the boundary of the filesystem (useful backing up a linux root partition - the first time I did this I ended up trying to back up /dev/random and /dev/zero) -z compresses files on the run.
Manpage: http://ss64.com/bash/rsync.html
re: 145
How are you pulling them at the moment?
re: 148
Yeah, as mentioned above. I pretty much always use rsync for chucking images around our network, except on those odd instances where the files are on some decrepit Windows server that doesn't support it.
You can do some of the same things with robocopy on Windows boxes.
It's about damn time unfogged had a thread about high-volume remote file transfer solutions. It should be like this all the time. Maybe we could spin off Unfogged Enterprise and it can be just this sort of thread?
149: I cheated and went to the backup copies (i.e. four internal hard drives that I am installing and uninstalling as I go). I was told this was the wrong way, but I don't understand networks.
four internal hard drives that I am installing and uninstalling as I go
?!?!
I'd be amazed if a US campus network had any internal T-1s - they were about the first people in the world to use Gigabit Ethernet.
153: I'm not touching the boot hard drive with the OS.
Frankly, if you've gone to the trouble of fetching four physical HDDs you might as well sneakernet it.
When we've solved this we can decode the Voynich manuscript!
See, Moby, you have data on one computer, and you would like it on another computer. What you need is to run a big long cable from one computer to the other. This is called a "network". You're using an SMB cable, which is yellow, and notorious for just lounging around and flirting with the other cables -- it's "chatty" in tech-speak. You need the black cable, known as an rsync cable. They sell these at your local Home Depot.
156: If I sneakernet, then I have to beg some guy for a terminal and dick around with getting permission to log in from that computer.
re: 157
There are quite a few computational attacks on that going on, ditto the final Zodiac cypher.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028175.400-cracking-the-code-of-machine-translation.html
You need the black cable, known as an rsync cable.
FWIW, I have a black cable running from my computer to the wall.
Is the file in the wall? I think not. You need to run the wire directly from your computer to the other computer.
158: And don't ever buy a token ring cable. If the token ever falls out you're f*cked!
I used to have a big pile of tokens that fell out of token-ring cables, but I had to get rid of them when I had children. They're choking hazards, it seems.
re: 162
The cable has to go into/through the wall [where the fire is].
So I'm going to stick with the regular old school hard drives. As long as I don't tell them I took off the side of my computer, they don't seem to mind.
You are turning the computer off and on, rather than hot-swapping the drives, I hope?
Alex already cleared this up, ttaM. American universities don't use fire-based T1. They use Gigabit Ethernet, which is ice-based. If it's good enough for Superman's Fortress of Solitude, it's good enough to copy Moby's files.
167: Yes, I turn off the machine. It never occurred to me that I could switch a hard drive while the computer is running.
Remember to ask your IT department's network administrator to turn the ethernet switch on or there won't be any ethernet!
re: 169
Only with specifically hot-swappable drives. Your PC definitely won't have them. Lots of servers and external drive arrays do, though, so that if one drive dies you can pull it out and push in a new one without shutting the server or array off.
A correction: it actually uses a lumeniferous fluid which permeates the observable universe, as the Michaelson-Morley experiment so conclusively demonstrated.
If you send too much data too quickly out of one drive it creates a negative pressure, impeding further flow. Try filling it up the empty space with new data simultaneously.
173: I drilled a small hole in the top of the server.
I use a token black dongle but it's chatty and lossy.
If you put a really big weight at one end of the cable, the etheric drift will speed up the transfer.
159: I mean, it doesn't sound like it could be anything but less cumbersome than what you're doing now, but whatevs...
Before you follow the advice in 176, remember to reverse the polarities.
Man up, Moby, and switch the drives without turning the computer off. Everyone knows that the Scots are girl's blouses when it comes to IT.
174: Good thinking. That'll let some of the spirits out.
Have you considered swapping your computer and the server?
But seriously folks, rsync. The manpage mentions a Windowsian equivalent called robocopy but I have no idea if that works.
181: What I'm going to do is try to get the server moved to our little server room instead of the main server room.
178: That's a common layperson misunderstanding. After the Nobel-Prize-winning work of Salam, Glashow, and Weinberg, we now know that ethernet is mediated via neutral currents, which have no polarity.
re: 182
It doesn't do everything rsync does. No on-the-fly compression, and less clever about the incremental aspects. It does do fairly robust copying with the ability to log various things, cop permissions, and so on.
re: 182
BTW, Alex, are you coming for a pint tomorrow?
Yes, if the revolution doesn't break out. Possibly even then.
A revolution without drinking is a revolution not worth having.
By the way, Ron Paul wishes all the gold to be pulled out of Fort Knox to check that it's not been replaced by fake gold. I am not making this up.
160: I disapprove of computer-based attempts to read ancient books potentially full of evil magic. All that happens is that the words vanish from the page into the machine and then the demon is embodied WITHIN ELECTRICITY ITSELF.
Also Willow is hottt.
154: Yes, I suspect neither raw network bandwidth nor latency (round trip for a signal, absent other network malfunctions it is an issue that over very long distances becomes dominated by speed of light considerations*) are your problem even using the basic Windows protocol.
*For instance round-trip halfway around the world would be ~140ms if you had a direct path on the surface. In practice you'll get >200 ms following real network paths (assuming a land connection (or land +mobile) even goes there, if you need to go up to a satellite you're basically fucked on latency (>500 ms). Then there is overhead for going through switches and/or congestion and processing on the end points. On your local networks you'll get a few milliseconds latency. A "chatty" protocol is one which talks back and forth a lot per amount of info sent. Say 20 roundtrips at a few ms each not an issue for most things you do on a computer, but 20 x 200ms = 4 seconds for instance.**
**Sorry for earnest discussion in the face of humor. The childish me does take some "satisfaction" in the fact that at times the sped of light as a limiting factor is something that comes up in my job from time to time. Back when I was learning about,and having my mind boggled by the speed of light** as a kid I would have found that inconceivable.
** Surely a top 5 physical constant. Has a good claim on number 1.
Yes, if the revolution doesn't break out. Possibly even then.
"As soon as this pub closes..."
*For instance round-trip halfway around the world would be ~140ms if you had a direct path on the surface. In practice you'll get >200 ms following real network paths (assuming a land connection (or land +mobile) even goes there, if you need to go up to a satellite you're basically fucked on latency (>500 ms). Then there is overhead for going through switches and/or congestion and processing on the end points. On your local networks you'll get a few milliseconds latency. A "chatty" protocol is one which talks back and forth a lot per amount of info sent. Say 20 roundtrips at a few ms each not an issue for most things you do on a computer, but 20 x 200ms = 4 seconds for instance.**
Hence the recent paper discussion geographical arbitrage points directly between major exchanges where a data center could take advantage of speed-of-light induced latencies.
I counted up and I have 13.5 TB hard drive space in my office. Considering I have no equipment budget, I think I did fairly well.
I have a half a dozen TB sitting on my desk, but that's just working storage for projects that I'm doing. Another 20 or 30TB of drives in the filing cabinet next to me. All of those are non-crucial working data, though. The stuff gets hived off to a permanent high-capacity tape store early in the process, and the deliverable files that get used by academics and end users live on entirely different servers again.
I have not one but two whiteboards. Hot damn. On the other hand, I had to whine and cajole to get double A batteries for my mouse.
re: 197.last
Heh. Yes. People have to go cap in hand to the administrator here for AAs. I seem to be one of the favoured few* who has been shown which drawer they are hidden in.
* maybe we are all favoured, but she just tells us we are one of the few.
I seem to have roughly 1.6TB of storage in my desktop.
I was just ordered to buy a whiteboard.
You guys were being pretty mean to Moby here. The obvious solution is to kink the line coming out of the computer prior to commencing the transfer. Then once the packets start moving, you let them bottle up for a bit. Then release the kink. WHOOSH! Data surges through.
194: Hence the recent paper discussion geographical arbitrage points directly between major exchanges where a data center could take advantage of speed-of-light induced latencies.
Or headlines like this: "KVH and SingTel Connect Tokyo to Singapore at 67ms".
It is interesting that we've come to the point that for some things you might want to do with regards to linking the world you are bumping into such a fundamental constraint*. I guess there's still a lot of mere "technological" room to improve by figuring out how to zip signals at EM speeds through the mantle and core--round-trip between antipodes at less than 100ms.
*Although see also uniting, ruling and/or managing the galaxy(ies) in SciFi scenarios beyond count.
Shorter 205.1--the Singularity will be like people trying to clap in time at an outdoor festival concert.
194: The speed of light sucks. When can we get something better?
We need to move the Overton Window on permissible velocities.
We can call it the Overton Wormhole; it will allow radical ideas to travel forward in time to a point at which they're considered mainstream.
Speed of light sucks, which is why according to Vernor Vinge and dozens of uncritical imitators, space flight is doomed because nobody wants to move too far from Earth and get horrible latency.