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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site nicmad.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!brown
From: brown@nicmad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.bizarre
Subject: Re: Please help!
Message-ID: <291@nicmad.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Aug-85 18:07:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: nicmad.291
Posted: Mon Aug  5 18:07:25 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Aug-85 02:48:06 EDT
References: <489@utastro.UUCP> <2586@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: brown@nicmad.UUCP (Mr. Video)
Distribution: net
Organization: Nicolet Instrument Corp. Madison WI
Lines: 46

In article <2586@ut-sally.UUCP> crandell@ut-sally.UUCP (Jim Crandell) writes:
>> We have been running Unix 4.2bsd for a *long* time now, with very high
>> load averages every day.  I guess it was inevitable, but strange effects
>> on many working programs have been traced to a common cause:
>> 
>>       /dev/null is full, and is overflowing!
>> 
>> Anybody seen this problem before?  Can anyone help?
>
>Unfortunately, this problem is very common.  The primary cause seems to
>be, oddly enough, the USENET community.  Many posters to certain newsgroups
>including (but not limited to) net.politics, net.religion, net.wobegon,
>net.cooks, net.putrid_rice_eaters, net.pigeon_kickers, net.grammar.nitpickers,
>net.fanatical_holycow_anti-iconoclasm_preservation_league_rumor_mongers
>and probably a handful of others, habitually instruct their would-be
>correspondents to ``direct flames to /dev/null'' or words to that effect.
>Now, any site that has a high rate of news posting typically has a
>correspondingly high rate of influx of flamage, but in many cases, this
>traffic is directed to /dev/null.
>
>The solution apparently is not straightforward, else someone surely would
>have discovered it by now.  Avoidance measures should include identifying
>the offending flame-redirecting news posters and threatening them with
>detoxification if they refuse to mend their ways.  But there still remains
>the difficulty of disposing of that flamage which has already accumulated.
>The majority of such material is extremely vitriolic stuff, laden with
>heavy metals and complex, hyper-stable organic radicals, and it thus is
>not easily eliminated from the system by natural means.  Furthermore, 
>its inordinately high temperature typically renders it fairly inimical
>to removal by manual methods.  (It has been suggested that a daemon is
>unusually well qualified to deal with this particular task.)
>
>In conclusion, let me state simply that (a) yes, it's a problem, and
>(b) no, I don't know what the hell to do about it, either.

We have a hose attached to the back of our VAX (like some dehumidifiers),
that leads to the nearest inlet into the local sewer system.  All /dev/null
stuff is fed into that hose.   
-- 
              |------------|
              | |-------| o|   HRD725U & PV9600
Mr. Video     | |AV-2010| o|   |--------------|
              | |       |  |   | |----| o o o |
              | |-------| O|   |--------------|
              |------------| VHS Hi-Fi (the only way to go)
   {seismo!uwvax!|!decvax|!ihnp4}!nicmad!brown