X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/89a4a856083787a6f2b526a343b914aa7e957b22..a3f002d839f7ffcfc46e60195f9bc14625155325:/blog/index.html diff --git a/blog/index.html b/blog/index.html index 74072c1fd3..bf8a65153b 100644 --- a/blog/index.html +++ b/blog/index.html @@ -19,6 +19,57 @@ +
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GnuCOBOL, a free platform to learn and use COBOL - nice free software
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29th April 2020
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The curiosity got the better of me when +Slashdot +reported that New Jersey was desperately looking for +COBOL programmers, +and a few days later it was reported that +IBM +tried to locate COBOL programmers.

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I thus decided to have a look at free software alternatives to +learn COBOL, and had the pleasure to find +GnuCOBOL was +already in +Debian. It used to be called Open Cobol, and is a "compiler" +transforming COBOL code to C or C++ before giving it to GCC or Visual +Studio to build binaries.

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I managed to get in touch with upstream, and was impressed with the +quick response, and also was happy to see a new Debian maintainer +taking over when the original one recently asked to be replaced. A +new Debian upload was done as recently as yesterday.

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Using the Debian package, I was able to follow a simple COBOL +introduction and make and run simple COBOL programs. It was fun to +learn a new programming language. If you want to test for yourself, +the GnuCOBOL Wikipedia +page have a few simple examples to get you startet.

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As I do not have much experience with COBOL, I do not know how +standard compliant it is, but it claim to pass most tests from COBOL +test suite, which sound good to me. It is nice to know it is possible +to learn COBOL using software without any usage restrictions, and I am +very happy such nice free software project as this is available. If +you as me is curious about COBOL, check it out.

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As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

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+ + + Tags: debian, english, nice free software. + + +
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Totalovervåkning av innbyggernes bevegelser - nei takk!
16th April 2020
@@ -478,68 +529,6 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
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What would it cost to store all 2018 phone calls in Norway?
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25th November 2019
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Four years ago, I did a back of the envelope calculation on -how -much it would cost to store audio recordings of all the phone calls in -Norway, and came up with NOK 2.1 million / EUR 250 000 for the -year 2013. It is time to repeat the calculation using updated -numbers. The calculation is based on how much data storage is needed -for each minute of audio, how many minutes all the calls in Norway -sums up to, multiplied by the cost of data storage.

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The number of phone call minutes for 2018 was fetched from -the NKOM statistics -site, and for 2018, land line calls are listed as 434 238 000 -minutes, while mobile phone calls are listed with 7 542 006 000 -minutes. The total number of minutes is thus 7 976 244 000. For -simplicity, I decided to ignore any advantages in audio compression the -last four years, and continue to assume 60 Kbytes/min as the last -time.

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Storage prices still varies a lot, but as last time, I decide to -take a reasonable big and cheap hard drive, and double its price to -include the surrounding costs into account. A 10 TB disk cost less -than 4500 NOK / 450 EUR these days, and doubling it give 9000 NOK per -10 TB.

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So, with the parameters in place, lets update the old table -estimating cost for calls in a given year:

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YearCall minutesSizePrice in NOK / EUR
200524 000 000 0001.3 PiB1 170 000 / 117 000
201218 000 000 0001.0 PiB900 000 / 90 000
201317 000 000 000950 TiB855 000 / 85 500
20187 976 244 000445 TiB401 100 / 40 110
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Both the cost of storage and the number of phone call minutes have -dropped since the last time, bringing the cost down to a level where I -guess even small organizations can afford to store the audio recording -from every phone call taken in a year in Norway. Of course, this is -just the cost of buying the storage equipment. Maintenance, need to -be included as well, but the volume of a single year is about a single -rack of hard drives, so it is not much more than I could fit in my own -home. Wonder how much the electricity bill would raise if I had that -kind of storage? I doubt it would be more than a few tens of thousand -NOK per year.

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- - - Tags: english, personvern, surveillance. - - -
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