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IT Cutbacks For 2012 London Olympics
Slatterz writes "The IT backbone for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is to be cut. According to the Games' chief integrator, Michele Hyron of Atos Origin, each section of the computing infrastructure will be made more efficient in order to minimise redundant equipment and hopefully reduce energy consumption. Unlike the Beijing Games, the results will be relayed via the public wireless network which will be available in the Olympic Park — this means cutting out the 2,500 results terminals. The team of workers will deliver more than 1,000 servers, 10,000 PCs and 4,000 printers."
Maybe this time we won't see a giant BSOD on the ceiling of the event.
https://www.speakservers.com/
Now instead of an International sporting competition in London, 3 guys from Yorkshire will come down and play rock, paper, scissors. To save face 1000 rounds of RPS will be played, and for each one a different combination of paper hats with different national flags printed on them will be worn by the 3 guys. The IOC is requesting donations as paper hats and printing costs money, as does travel to and from Yorkshire.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
According to Monty Python (Meaning of Life); Yorkshire is "The Third World", so this only makes sence that they would make cutbacks.
Personally I think it's courageous of the IOC to grant these impoverished and lower class of civilized existence a chance to exist within the glorious umbrella that the IOC bequeaths.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Haven't you heard? The scissors are being dropped from the event.
turd post
Yes, it certainly was.
Alchemist: Be Thou For the People
"The IT backbone for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is to be cut"
Ouch.
It sounds like a wonderful plan, reducing energy consumption. After all, we really need to get a grasp on Co2 emissions with all the global warming and stuff.
But unless humans get their wifi implants before 2012 this will just move the cost of the energy consumption to different parties.
"But unless humans get their wifi implants before 2012 this will just move the cost of the energy consumption to different parties."
Like cellphones?
Now instead of an International sporting competition in London, 3 guys from Yorkshire will come down and play rock, paper, scissors...
Sounds somewhat dangerous to me.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
May I apologise in advance for the state of the London 2012 Olympics? I have absolutely no faith in the Government bringing this in on time, or on budget.
The team of workers will deliver more than 1,000 servers, 10,000 PCs and 4,000 printers.
It always makes my blood boil to see how much money is funneled into sporting events such as the olympics without flinching, while at the same time public research, schools, etc..., people of real value to society, have to cry and beg for resources...
Backup? I don' NEED no steenking backup!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
3 guys from Yorkshire will come down and play rock, paper, scissors.
Ferret racing FTW!!1!
Londoners go on about how London subsidises the rest of the country, but this has actually always translated as "controls the banking system and so rips off your profit and claims it as its own". This has just gone massively pear shaped...so now the Government wants the rest of the country to pay for the Olympics through general taxes.
Don't get me wrong, I am an expat Londoner. But the mismanagement of London, where some of the most deprived areas of the country are next to some of the richest, and people earning £1 million a year try to avoid paying their cleaners even minimum wages, is truly horrible. I'm glad to live in a much more egalitarian part of the country where we don't have the resulting crime and drug problems.
GB cannot really afford the Olympics, which has become completely bloated owing to the ludicrous over promotion of the IOC. We should either tell the IOC to go deflate itself and run a Games that London can afford, or let Beijing have it a second time, thus helping them to pay for all those facilities. I favour the first option...in which case this should only be the start and there should be rigorous pruning of excess. Beginning with replacing Tessa Jowell and Sebastian Coe with Second Life avatars who won't be able to spend lots of public money on entertaining corrupt functionaries.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Exactly!
Probably won't happen - the Olympics is about money, lots of it; also about puffing politicians pride - the sports stars are a means to an end but not the most important people.
. . . well, it doesn't matter. By 2012, the aircrack-ng boys will have WPA cracked.
Youse guys are gonna be *awed* by the number of golds that I win!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It always makes my blood boil to see how much money is funneled into sporting events such as the olympics without flinching, while at the same time public research, schools, etc..., people of real value to society, have to cry and beg for resources...
You see, money is created from nothing. There is an infinite supply of money, it however doesn't grow on trees, someone has to go to the laborious task of typing the numbers into a computer. Or writing them into a book.
Bankers can get as much money as they like, they just pay the politicians a little bit up front and the politicians pay them back... Well, we're well into the trillions now.
Deleted
As off-topic as this is I have to say I agree 100% with you.
Yeah,I too think so that The London Olympics is pure pork barrel.The govt is concentrating only on the politicians jolly life.But people of this society are awaiting still for their resources.......!!!! lara Link Building
Surely they should play Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock?
Get free bitcoins: http://freebitco.in
Trust me...The amount of political tension that is quelled as a result of friendly competition is well worth the cost. It's so sad that last Olympics was so politically charged. China's opening ceremony was a little much though.
Excellent news, hopefully this is another step towards getting the whole thing cancelled. What were New Labour thinking when they decided that demolishing half of East London for this project was a good idea? Ideally any costs arising from the cancellation can be recovered by personal surcharges on the most prominent Olympic collaborators.
That's nearly 1 printer for every 2 people. Here we have a team of 25 sharing a printer, and there's rarely a queue. How many trees are they intending to cut down?
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
URL or it didn't happen.
I would guess it's this.
If you need some print out to support your journalistic work you can't wait for other people, maybe trying to report about the same event as you are.
If you are a few minutes late in your work very often that may mean it is no longer relevant.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
[strong British accent]
- Rock, mate!
- Nah, that would be paper, old chap.
- Oh, be a sport and pass me the scissors, please.
- Does any one of you know where this joke is going?
- Not really, no.
- Nope. Not at all. Ah, it's four 'o clock anyway, shall we get some tea then?
I find it quite ironic that they said "Cut the backbone of the Paralympic games"
Paraservers
No, money is created from something. What bankers do that makes money insubstantial is called leverage. A typical leverage structure in a functional economy is 10:1, where there is 10 times as much money issued on loan as there is in actual existence. Sounds crazy, but it works.
The current economic fiasco is due largely to excessive leverage, just like the crash of 1929. Currently, American banks that have either collapsed or are begging for bail-outs were leveraged over 100:1.
The shit hasn't quite hit the fan in Europe yet. Most major European banks are leveraged far more than 100:1, most notably German banks that exceed 400:1. So when European banks start to go tits up (and they will), keep in mind there is no treasury for the Euro. The only bailout funds are from individual countries, who are no doubt going to care more about themselves than an economic union that failed to protect them. So imagine changing currencies in the middle of the greatest economic crisis in 80 years. Think that's a good thing, or bad?
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
The Venue may be ready, but the transport links are no-where near ready. So they've got a venue but no-one will be able to get there. The Motorway (Freeway) ends 40miles from the Venue. Where the motorway ends there is a steep hill that has two lanes. HGV (Semi Trucks) crawl up at about 30mph. Even now in summer it take 10 - 15 minutes to travel 3 miles.
From about 30 Miles area from the venue is a mixture of narrow twisty single carriageway road with roundabouts (traffic circles) and dual carriageway. They are spending 83Million GBP sorting out the last 3 miles. But nothing is planned for the rest of the single carriageway road. Its total joke
Money can be created, but wealth can not.
If you print twice as many Euros, then the price of milk will double from 2 Euros to 4 Euros. You haven't gained anything. You're still stuck at the same amount of wealth as you had before.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
They should have looked there first then. That always works for me.
Boris (don't look at the hands, look at the eyes) Johnson, has scrapped the western extension to the London Congestion charge. He asked a survey of 28000 what they wanted and apparently between 67 % and 86% of businesses wanted it scrapped. Sounds democratic, but I think that mob rule better fits the bill. Since the extension was introduced, roughly 30,000 fewer vehicles a day have passed through that zone. That's a line of cars over 55 miles (90km) long that haven't been clogging the streets on their way somewhere else. If you take into account the reduction caused by the original zone (70,000 vehicles), and you can add 131 miles (210km) to that figure. 186 miles of traffic NOT entering an area roughly 10 miles in diameter every day. I would have thought that was a good thing, but apparently not. What about the other 250,000 vehicles who still enter the area daily ?
...
Still, as long as he's popular
I worked the distances out using 1 car = 3 metres long. If some of those were trucks, then the line gets longer, and most cars are longer than 3m anyway.
Yes this is relevant to the Olympics. Efficient transportation is kind of essential at large events.
Surely the point is that money can be created, weird artificial financial instruments can use/abuse that money, and certain individuals can make a huge amount of personal wealth in the process. Long term, it kills the economy and screws the working man, obviously, but this short-term-ism is the reason we're in this mess.
You see, money is created from nothing. There is an infinite supply of money, it however doesn't grow on trees, someone has to go to the laborious task of typing the numbers into a computer. Or writing them into a book.
Not really. The money is just a reflection of the size of the economy you have, they are the mediator.
If you print money and the econom grows, it's ok. If the economy slows down and you still print money, you're devaluing the unit of money by inflation.
And if your economy grows and you do NOT print money, you stiffle economic interaction and economy is hurt.
The comment above about the roads is also well made. Central Government sees no need to improve infrastructure that does anything other than let Londoners get to their weekend houses. The main road to the West (A303) has been so neglected that part of it has to be closed completely for three months to fix the damage. This year, the main road from Bristol to Southampton (two major cities) was closed for 3 months over 6 miles for the same reason. The Olympic Committee had better hope that everybody who wants to watch the sailing arrives by sea.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
ORLY? If you have a pile of iron ore and sand, and I have the equivalent weight as a BMW, which of us is more wealthy? We should tell all manufacturing workers not to show up, since they're clearly not achieving anything.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Looks like someone is bidding for top billing in the next round of Slashdot's Disagree Mail.
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
While cutting back is probably a bad idea, because the Olympics are hard enough to pull off even without cutbacks, part of me cheers because the Olympics is SO WASTEFUL and its good to see a little less waste. Billions of dollars to build a bunch of temporary facilities and showpieces that will have to be maintained at vast expense and eventually destroyed or converted to something else. And then it happens again in 4 years.
Though it would suck for everyone else, I sort of think the Olympics should just go around the same few venues and actually MAKE USE of the already built facilities.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
"Schools contribute for the simple reason that people walk into kindergarten going "duh" and they come out with the ability to read, write, and do basic math (or go onto college)"
I knew the schools in the US were behind, but I didn't know it was this bad!
We can hardly get this kind of results from high school graduates, much less kids completing kindergarten!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I'd say that *I'm* more wealthy because I have an investment in natural resources. I can later sell that investment when iron ore becomes scarce & retire on the proceeds. All you have is an expensive toy that will turn to rust in 20-or-so years and be worth only $1000 (if you're lucky; my mom's 1987 BMW is only worth $500).
Wealth can be created, but not through the printing of money (as the great-grandparent claimed). Wealth is created through (a) more efficient processes, like using machines to build a pyramid instead of slaves, or (b) increasing scarcity of a resource, like oil or land. But the idea that you can print twice as many Euros and suddenly be twice as rich, does not work. All you've done is double the amount of paper; you have not created wealth.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Cities are net contributors to the generation of money and services, especially as in much of the world manufacturing activity is concentrated in cities. But in terms of water, food, and energy they are net consumers and in terms of environmental damage they are net contributors. The result is that cities attempt to dominate their surroundings because it's the only way their model is sustainable. If the people who actually grew things, extracted things, and managed hydrology were ever able to control the resources they manage and unite, cities would die out.
Currently civilisations have managed to control resources in such a way that they are produced at minimal cost, while creating very high margins in selling and distribution. Thus we have the picture of trainers produced for a couple of dollars in the 3rd world and sold for a hundred. To a banker, that makes the selling and distribution process a net contributor. But another way of looking at it is exploitation. Your argument about "globally uncompetitive industries" is usually an argument about how the controllers of the money supply manage to relocate resources to places in the world where exploitation is maximal.
London is dirty because people live in million pound houses and try to avoid paying their servant class adequate wages. I've heard a Londoner quite recently claim, in the space of five minutes, that his company was being mean because "£80000 doesn't buy you a decent car nowadays", and then complain that the Inland Revenue refused to accept his argument that his cleaner was self-employed, so he did not have to pay National Insurance (perhaps a few £ a week). That's your problem: meanness and greed. I left in the late 70s (and took a big pay cut) because I didn't want my children living there.
I'm not opposed to genuine entrepreneurialism - where people create real new industries and new opportunities - but London is not the home of any of these. Look at the really big new things. Mobile phones - the US, Finland, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Germany, France. Airbus - the City wanted BAe to sell it off. High speed trains - Japan and France. Nuclear power -anywhere but the UK. Solar power - Germany, US, Japan. Advanced vehicles - Germany, Japan, US. Computing - the West Coast, the East Coast, the Far East. London's problem is that its reliance on banking makes it parasitic, and when the banking system goes tits up it's rason d'etre goes with it. It just becomes a mediocre city that produces very little. It doesn't have a world class University even, and I say this sadly because of my family connections with UCL.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Wow. That seems more interesting than the real thing. You might have an idea here!
Less prone to doping too. Sounds like a real win-win situation to me.
Although I don't agree with the parent post, here are some source about the german bank leverage :
german bank leverage
QUOTE :
The critical question analysts will be seeking answers to this week is how much progress Deutsche Bank has made in cutting its leverage, which at 40 times under US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, means it is the most highly leveraged wholesale bank in Europe. It has set a leverage target of 30 times.
assuming a standard practice of 1:10 in the US, that would place them at 1:400 with a "target" of 1:300.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Dude, don't come with end-of-the-world disaster theories when my wage is already one or two days late due to some "error at the bank" :-(
And my colleagues ask me why I am stressed out...
LOL
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Yeah, all that global warming stuff that we are all still so concerned about, when the latest evidence says it isn't happening. Like NASA having to retract all their numbers and their claim that this October was the warmest on record (it was actually the 70th warmest, or 44th coolest). Or NASA also having to admit that they screwed up on the whole 1998 was the warmest year on record thing, and having to retract that as well. The warmest year would be 1934. Or the fact that last year was an exceptionally cold winter in North America, Brazil had its latest snowfall ever, Tibet had it's worst blizzard on record, and North America appears to be starting another year of unusually cold weather. And ice in the arctic expanded last winter, and the rate of refreezing this winter is happening at a record pace.
It's time to face facts. The warming trend we had had nothing to do with CO2. It correlates very nicely with solar activity, which over the last 70 years was at an exceptional level. Now we have sunspot activity dropping off/becoming non-existent, and solar activity dropping. And our weather from the Northern hemisphere to the Southern hemisphere is suddenly following suit and getting colder. Many scientists are now predicting 30 years of a global cooling trend because of this.
Cutting IT spending for cost I can understand. Cutting it for a mythical theory about C02 that is being disproved right and left is ridiculous. Just go take a look at some graphs of sunspot activity starting with the "Maunder minimum" and look at what how high we have been in comparison to the last 900 years. Solar activity in the last century was at the highest level since astronomers started tracking it. Additionally, take a look at global climate events over the last 1000 years, such as Europe's little ice age, as well as some of the warming periods. See if they don't correlate nicely. This "CO2 caused" global warming stuff has a lot more to do with some environmental special interests trying to shut down human activity than it does with actual science. The data do clearly show a warming trend in the second half of the 20th century, but they never proved any link to C02. But repeat a lie often enough and loud enough...
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
He's referring to a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Dwxv-EMTM&feature=related
The post you're replying to said they were from Yorkshire, not Islington.
How dare you be so modest!! You conceited bastard!!
like using machines to build a pyramid instead of slaves
Machines can build slaves? Cool!
What happends more often then not is a way to ambitios IT Infrastruct goal. Which ends up costing more money and not working well, while a simpler approach works better for what needs to be accomplished, and saves money. Anyone who has install SAS will know what I mean.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Wait a second...
You mean that George Bush was controlling the banks in Germany too!!?!?
I guess this goes deeper than I had thought.
Well, at least the Americans can rest easy. They almost elected a Socialist who advocates an increase in crime via a gun ban, and wants to punish business for being profitable so that he can funnel the money into social programs to reward those who don't want to work.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Wealth can be transferred by the printing of money. Even if it's not wealth creation it does make someone richer.
:).
:).
The ones controlling the printing end up richer than the ones holding money that's worth less and less everyday. That's often good enough wealth "creation" for the Printers.
That's why it is very important to the USA that most countries in the world use US dollars for buying/selling oil, borrowing and lending money and other trade (grain, flour, DRAM, sugar etc).
That way lots of countries end up holding billions or trillions of US dollars just to buy stuff, or as a result of selling stuff.
Then when the US Gov prints US dollars (either by saying "IOU", or printing) they make the USD worth less and thus those countries end up poorer. I think of it as a way of taxing everyone else - best of all you don't even need to chase them for the money
The US citizens holding USD also end up poorer, but I think the normal understanding is the US Gov is supposed to hand some of the printed money to the US citizens.
It's much like Zimbabwe, where Mugabe = US Gov, and Mugabe's friends = US citizens. And the rest of Zimbabwe = the rest of the world.
Of course, maybe "Mugabe" has new friends and is no longer handing out the US citizens a decent share of the "loot".
Possibly unrelated items: Iraq was selling oil in Euro before they got invaded. After that they sold oil in USD. Iran has started an oil bourse that's not in USD...
Go figure
Caveat: I'm not an economics or finance expert... I don't know all that fancy math and stats stuff.
I think you're not getting the full picture or details.
If we start with 10 euros each (20 total in the world), but I control the Euro printing press and I print 20 more euros for myself (40 total in the world), I end up richer than you.
Assuming the world has the same wealth as before, your wealth has been transferred to me.
I'm not stuck with the same amount of wealth as I had before.
The price of milk may double from 2 to 4.
But you go from being able to buy 5 units of milk, to being able to only buy 2.5 units of milk.
Whereas I go from being able to buy 5 units to 7.5 units.
Now, figure out why the petrodollar is so important to the USA, and why Saudi Arabia is regarded as such a great friend of the USA.
Completely false. ING has 36:1 and it's one of the worst.
Sounds crazy, but it works.
Evidently...
Deleted
You can click on the title, the comment number, or on the "Read more" link at the bottom of the comment, and it will take you to the original post - exactly like the "See the context" link in the old metamoderation.
Fnord.
I think political tension will be unavoidably evident in any large public international high-profile event, but I still think we are better off with the games. Countries do get together and compete in a mostly neutral way, and the overwhelming but silent majority of the spectators do bemoan the political taint where it does appear. Yes, there have been political issues, but these have involved a minority of countries. I'd rather have the Olympics than not.
Can you imagine if we didn't even have the Olympics? International relations would be even worse than they are now, and half the people wouldn't even recognize the names of coutries or their accomplishments. You might even get some high-ranking government official who doesn't realize that Africa is a continent, not a country ... (oh, wait ...)
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
germany you say? can't we go ONE generation without this shit starting in germany?
the best games ever
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
No, money is created from something. What bankers do that makes money insubstantial is called leverage. A typical leverage structure in a functional economy is 10:1, where there is 10 times as much money issued on loan as there is in actual existence. Sounds crazy, but it works.
The current economic fiasco is due largely to excessive leverage, just like the crash of 1929. Currently, American banks that have either collapsed or are begging for bail-outs were leveraged over 100:1.
The shit hasn't quite hit the fan in Europe yet. Most major European banks are leveraged far more than 100:1, most notably German banks that exceed 400:1. So when European banks start to go tits up (and they will), keep in mind there is no treasury for the Euro. The only bailout funds are from individual countries, who are no doubt going to care more about themselves than an economic union that failed to protect them. So imagine changing currencies in the middle of the greatest economic crisis in 80 years. Think that's a good thing, or bad?
More like 30:1, in both US and EU cases. And they already have gone tits up -- you really should stop playing WoW for months on end, you know.
Rough translation:
- Nah then. t'rock, mate!
- Nay, a dun reck'n so. Tharr'd be paper, yer muppet.
- Oh, dunt be daft, pass me t'sciss'rs will ye.
- Duz eny a'thee kno were t'joke 's goin'?
- Nay, dunt kno.
- Nope; s'reyt innit. By gum, tis goin' up fer four, let's go t'pub fer ale?
And if these are true Yorkshiremen*:
(in unison)
- Yer turn t'ger rahnd in!
- Yer rahnd!
- Reyt. Yer payin'!
* for those who don't know what I mean, the Yorkshireman's battlecry is something not entirely unlike "'ow much?!" (followed by a swift retreat) ;)
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
Apology accepted.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.