in reply to Is it impossible?

On the subject of software that lies. I just elected to decompress an NTFS drive. I deselected the "compress this drive" option and clicked "apply". The pop-up progress window tells me "About 39703 days and 4 hrs remaining".

In the time it took to type this response to this point (circa 25 seconds), that figure reduced to "About 39652 days and 0 hrs remaining".

What is your best estimate of how long this process will really take?

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
"I'd rather go naked than blow up my ass"

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Re: A (related) game!
by McDarren (Abbot) on Dec 29, 2009 at 03:00 UTC
    What is your best estimate of how long this process will really take?
    19398 seconds :) 
    #!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $first = 39703 * 86400 + 4 * 3600;
my $second = 39652 * 86400;
my $diff = 25;
my $rate = ($first - $second) / $diff;
my $estimated_duration = int($first / $rate);
my $estimated_finish_time = scalar localtime(time + $estimated_duratio
+n);

print "Estimated duration: $estimated_duration seconds\n";
print "Estimated finish time: $estimated_finish_time (if we start now)
+\n";

    [download]
    $ perl buk.pl 
Estimated duration: 19398 seconds
Estimated finish time: Tue Dec 29 16:22:14 2009 (if we start now)

    [download]
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      Nice try

      See you Tuesday 16:22:14 McDarren you'll have to wait till then your ++ or -- !

      My guess is that it's already finished!

[reply]
        My guess is that it's already finished!

        Actually, it's abandoned :(

        It stopped (apparently shortly after I went to bed) with a dratted pop-up asking me to confirm something or other, still showing > 39000 days to go. I'll try again tonight. This time I'll wait for the pop-up and hit the "Ignore all" button before retiring.

        Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
        "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
        In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
[reply]
        My guess is that it's already finished!
        Well, given that you posted this almost 3 hours after the time that I "predicted" it would finish, I should bloody-well hope so :D

        (If that confuses you, take a look at my localtime) ;)

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