Book VI. One Terabyte and the Sense of God
Or, how to realize that entropy is you.
v6.1 — The Sweating Disk
To see the disk break into a sweat. When dd shows 99% but hasn't moved in twenty minutes — that is not an error. That is a test of your patience.
Probability: 0.88
v6.2 — Faith in rsync --checksum
To check your faith in backups. A true admin believes not in God, but in rsync --checksum. Though sometimes even that is a form of faith.
Probability: 0.84
v6.3 — ext4 or btrfs
To stress-test the file system. Only at a terabyte of random bytes do you find out who you are — ext4 or btrfs.
Probability: 0.73
v6.4 — Divine DevOps
To feel power over matter. With one command you create chaos, with another you erase it forever. This is divine DevOps.
Probability: 0.91
v6.5 — Dead Monitoring
To check your monitoring. If after a terabyte of random bytes no alert has fired — monitoring is dead. Possibly long dead.
Probability: 0.86
v6.6 — Digital Flame
To warm up the server in winter. CPU at 100 %, the fans howling, and you feel it — here it is, the digital flame.
Probability: 0.77
v6.7 — “let there be bytes”
To prove that you can. No one asked why. You simply looked at the terminal and said: "let there be bytes."
Probability: 0.95
v6.8 — Information From Nothing
To clear the mind. In noise there is no meaning, but there is peace. Look at the hexadecimal characters — and let go of control.
That much information you just summoned out of nothing.
Probability: 0.92
v6.9 — Model of Creation
To recognize yourself as part of the universe. A terabyte of randomness is a model of creation. Everything is possible. Everything is meaningless. And still, it is beautiful.
Probability: ∞