I know it's been mentioned all over the place already, but after reading about the PostgreSQL 7.4 release, including the more detailed changes that Bruce published, I'm very impressed.
On my TODO list for next year (that's 2004, in case you're not sure) it to play with PostgreSQL a lot more than I have in the past.
I was reading about the new root name server going up in Russia on Daily Daemon News and noticed something I hadn't paid attention to before:
ISC operates one of the 13 root DNS servers as a public service to the Internet. ISC has operated F.root-servers.net for IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) since 1993. F answers more than 272 million DNS queries per day, making it one of the busiest DNS servers in the world. F is a virtual server made up of multiple systems and runs ISC BIND 9 as its DNS server.
Interesting. How long will it be until the number of web searches outnumber the number of DNS lookups handled by the root DNS servers?
According to SearchEngineWatch.com Google handles 250 million queries per day (as of Feb 2003). We know that's only increasing. But I don't know how quickly. Anyone got a good reference for that number?
More importantly, when (or if?) the number of web searches surpasses the number of DNS queries handled by the root servers, what will that say about the need for a good domain name? Maybe movie previews will all end with the phrase "Google keyword: ..." instead of AOL keywords.