s typed to the datatype so for instance in the example above,
readFloat returns a primitive float object.  <code>lsize</code> returns a long.  Unlike a the
similar method <code>get</code> in java lists, the <code>read[X]</code> methods takes a long.  This allows us
to use read methods on storage mechanism capable of addressing more than 2 (signed int)
or 4 (unsigned int) billion addresses.</p>
<p>Another way to create a reader is to do a 'map' type translation from one or more other
readers.  This is provid