lastlog devours universe

[Andy Ross]

I wrote:
> Apparently tar implements sparse files by simply detecting and
> condensing large blocks of zeros in the input file, which means that
> it has to actually read all 1.2TB of nothingness to do its job.
>
> It's been working for 52 minutes now on my 1.8GHz Athlon64 laptop.  I
> have no idea how much longer I will be waiting.

Just for the record: 1h48m46s to generate a 10240 byte output file.

Andy