So, I'm reading up on how Microsoft SQL 2000 handles locking, and I come across a graph. It's a graph of cost vs grandularity on which both "locking cost" and "concurrency cost" are mapped. It looks like something out of macro-economics, except that in THIS context it makes absolute sense to me. I now have a painful feeling in my brain that macro might actually have served some use if only I'd paid attention to it.