> "We're sorry, but a parity error swallowed the deposit of
> your paycheck.  At least we didn't do something really STUPID like turn
> it into a million dollars or something."

No, John.   The way it works is that a parity error crashes the
database.   If your application is well-designed (and mine are), the
user will know that something went wrong, and will know that the data
for your paycheck didn't make it in.   Thus, the parity error does not
result in a loss of a paycheck, but does prevent the issuance of,
e.g., a million dollar paycheck.

Lots of people get paid big money to make sure that when things crash,
the recovery works gracefully.  This is a well-understood problem.
Parity is better than no parity.  Yes, ECC is even better.  I'd rather
have that.  I can't get it, but I can get parity, so I'll settle for
parity.  Life is full of compromises.

			       _MelloN_