I suspect a lot of what PayPal does (e.g. freezing accounts with "suspicious" transactions and refusing to unfreeze until you provide proof you are who you claim to be and proof of where the money came from/where its going to) has to do with the international rules designed to prevent money laundering.
Additionally, an unscrupulous person could take advantage of the current uproar over Internet privacy by claiming that they would develop a snoop-proof email system, collecting those plentiful community-funded dollars, and running off with it. Wish I'd thought of it myself, actually. The guys at paypal pretty clearly did
No, it's slashdot. Whether that makes it better or worse would make for a reasonable discussion. If you're aware of a place where reasonable discussions happen on the Internet, feel free to clue me in. We'll go there and have one. I would rule out any of the sites thusfar mentioned.
I'm a little surprised at the number of people who seem to be taking this seriously. I guess that explains why I'm not suited to a career in marketing.
The writer believes that "The Cloud" has little/no reliance on networking or storage. That's silly. Infrastructure matters. Pretending it doesn't is perilous. "The Cloud" doesn't change that, it just moves that infrastructure further away from the end user. That doesn't mean it disappears.
The problem is that many aren't quantifiable - too many unknowns - so an airline is incapable of knowing if a backup system is cheaper or not.
I like that observation a lot. It could be carried further. You're talking about actual risks. Real decisions are made based upon perceived risks that sometimes consist of little more than assumptions. Especially once you get out of the IT realm and need something paid for. Since these are IT risks and they need to be communicated to non-IT people, there is a challenge there. It's not easy.
Your comment about software licenses being free for disaster recovery, on the other hand, seemed a bit too off hand. I believe the issues are the databases for crew scheduling and aircraft maintenance. That's the stuff that'll keep you on the ground. To my knowledge, there is no dominant application for aircraft maintenance packages. If that data is stored in an Oracle database, you're going to pay big bucks for DR licenses. On the other hand, if we assume that US airways is using a Jeppesen package for crew scheduling (I'd bet a small amount of money on this), then it relies on a 10 year old version of Informix. Disaster recovery for the database server software would (in my experience) be free. IBM's OK that way.
Because they've calculated the customer apathy and money lost is less than implementing backup procedures. Remember it's all about $.
I'm not crazy about the way that's phrased, but you are essentially correct. Establishing backup data centers, populating them with hardware, purchasing additional software licenses, establishing, testing and maintaining fail over procedures is nontrivial. When you consider the overall health of the airline industry, it's not surprising that the extra tens of millions of dollars were not spent.
It'd be interesting to know how many millions of dollars this will end up costing US Airways. I'll bet accepting the problem saves money over solving it. If you had a car worth $2000, you wouldn't spend $10000 to insure it. That's a rational decision.
You can't fly unless you can prove your aircraft has had all required maintenance done. There are also rules about the number of hours per day crew members are allowed to be in the air. I suspect these records could be printed and used if it were a planned outage but this wasn't.
Why is it that we in IT have people that are so resistant to change instead of being the change advocates we need to be? As users start using the technology we support differently, it's up to us to find a solution, not to force the user to use the technology differently. To think that users will not change how they use technology is naive, at best.
I work for one of those forward looking IT departments that advocates allowing users to use their personal iPads for work. We also allow them to connect their own personal wireless routers to the network. Problem solved!
I see the next logical step as a giant cafeteria-style room where everyone in the company works in one big room. After all, it must be good for collaboration, right?
So long as they hire someone for me to collaborate with who isn't an idiot.
You can tell that the US is a mixed economy because half the country complains about being socialist while the other half complains that corporations control everything.
I don't remember American 3 time tour winner Greg LeMond being accused of doping, but I'm sure he was.'
1989, Giro D'Italia. Lemond was riding poorly until he received injections for a previously undiagnosed iron deficiency. His riding improved tremendously and he won the final time trial. He went on to win his second TdF 2 months later. Many people found the "iron deficiency" unlikely and suspect that there was more in the syringe that iron. Perhaps coincidentally, this was shortly after EPO became available. I'm not saying Lemond did or did not dope, but the accusations persist to this day.
You're arguing that freedom and capitalism are good. I'm not sure why you're doing that.
Things like capitalism and socialism don't exist in a pure, undistilled form. At least not in our lifetime. Arguably never. Even when the US was run by Ronald Reagan, even when Ayn Rand followers were running the Fed., the US was STILL a mixed economy.
If you want freedom and non-government intervention, you might get it if you move to Somalia. That's your only choice these days.
That is because he is an idiot who doesn't understand that giving the government control of anything is counter to the foundations of this country and will only serve to further abuse and erode our freedoms.
Anyone who believes that government intervention is always good and justified is an extremist. Anyone who believes that government control is inherently evil is also an extremist. Most reasonable people like having jails, roads and national defense.
I suspect you haven't rationally evaluated your rhetoric. I don't know it, but I'll bet you like roads as much as the rest of us.
If it upsets you to share the road with cyclists, you are confused. The law is not on your side. From General Statutes of Connecticut Sec. 14-286a
"(a) Every person riding a bicycle, as defined by section 14-286, upon the traveled portion of a highway shall be granted all of the rights and shall be subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of any vehicle..."
The statutes of every state in the US say something similar. I understand that people don't like living within the law sometimes. Especially traffic laws. It annoys me to have to drive on roads with slow drivers. Oh well, I just have to deal with it.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect a lot of what PayPal does (e.g. freezing accounts with "suspicious" transactions and refusing to unfreeze until you provide proof you are who you claim to be and proof of where the money came from/where its going to) has to do with the international rules designed to prevent money laundering.
Additionally, an unscrupulous person could take advantage of the current uproar over Internet privacy by claiming that they would develop a snoop-proof email system, collecting those plentiful community-funded dollars, and running off with it. Wish I'd thought of it myself, actually. The guys at paypal pretty clearly did
No, it's slashdot. Whether that makes it better or worse would make for a reasonable discussion. If you're aware of a place where reasonable discussions happen on the Internet, feel free to clue me in. We'll go there and have one. I would rule out any of the sites thusfar mentioned.
I'm a little surprised at the number of people who seem to be taking this seriously. I guess that explains why I'm not suited to a career in marketing.
The article isn't clear on the comparisons either, but I think you are correct.
The writer believes that "The Cloud" has little/no reliance on networking or storage. That's silly. Infrastructure matters. Pretending it doesn't is perilous. "The Cloud" doesn't change that, it just moves that infrastructure further away from the end user. That doesn't mean it disappears.
Why the fuck are we still using faxes?
Because the computers are down?
The problem is that many aren't quantifiable - too many unknowns - so an airline is incapable of knowing if a backup system is cheaper or not.
I like that observation a lot. It could be carried further. You're talking about actual risks. Real decisions are made based upon perceived risks that sometimes consist of little more than assumptions. Especially once you get out of the IT realm and need something paid for. Since these are IT risks and they need to be communicated to non-IT people, there is a challenge there. It's not easy.
Your comment about software licenses being free for disaster recovery, on the other hand, seemed a bit too off hand. I believe the issues are the databases for crew scheduling and aircraft maintenance. That's the stuff that'll keep you on the ground. To my knowledge, there is no dominant application for aircraft maintenance packages. If that data is stored in an Oracle database, you're going to pay big bucks for DR licenses. On the other hand, if we assume that US airways is using a Jeppesen package for crew scheduling (I'd bet a small amount of money on this), then it relies on a 10 year old version of Informix. Disaster recovery for the database server software would (in my experience) be free. IBM's OK that way.
Because they've calculated the customer apathy and money lost is less than implementing backup procedures. Remember it's all about $.
I'm not crazy about the way that's phrased, but you are essentially correct. Establishing backup data centers, populating them with hardware, purchasing additional software licenses, establishing, testing and maintaining fail over procedures is nontrivial. When you consider the overall health of the airline industry, it's not surprising that the extra tens of millions of dollars were not spent.
It'd be interesting to know how many millions of dollars this will end up costing US Airways. I'll bet accepting the problem saves money over solving it. If you had a car worth $2000, you wouldn't spend $10000 to insure it. That's a rational decision.
You can't fly unless you can prove your aircraft has had all required maintenance done. There are also rules about the number of hours per day crew members are allowed to be in the air. I suspect these records could be printed and used if it were a planned outage but this wasn't.
Why is it that we in IT have people that are so resistant to change instead of being the change advocates we need to be? As users start using the technology we support differently, it's up to us to find a solution, not to force the user to use the technology differently. To think that users will not change how they use technology is naive, at best.
I work for one of those forward looking IT departments that advocates allowing users to use their personal iPads for work. We also allow them to connect their own personal wireless routers to the network. Problem solved!
The aliens?
Here, here!
Sure. It's just data, right?
There are those who believe the cold war was won because Communism just doesn't work well.
I see the next logical step as a giant cafeteria-style room where everyone in the company works in one big room. After all, it must be good for collaboration, right?
So long as they hire someone for me to collaborate with who isn't an idiot.
I know people who talk enough like this that I was only 66% sure it was sarcasm. It's difficlut to distinguish between sarcastic and insane sometimes.
Nicely done!
The U.S. is basically socialist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy
You can tell that the US is a mixed economy because half the country complains about being socialist while the other half complains that corporations control everything.
I don't remember American 3 time tour winner Greg LeMond being accused of doping, but I'm sure he was.'
1989, Giro D'Italia. Lemond was riding poorly until he received injections for a previously undiagnosed iron deficiency. His riding improved tremendously and he won the final time trial. He went on to win his second TdF 2 months later. Many people found the "iron deficiency" unlikely and suspect that there was more in the syringe that iron. Perhaps coincidentally, this was shortly after EPO became available. I'm not saying Lemond did or did not dope, but the accusations persist to this day.
Thank you, for that. I ordered one yesterday and I would have had buyer's remorse if no one on slashdot thought highly of it.
I know this is going to sound like a troll, BUT...
I compiled the Linux version and untarred the data tar file. It worked.
I downloaded the Windows version and created a data directory and put the data files in there. Nope, doesn't work.
You're arguing that freedom and capitalism are good. I'm not sure why you're doing that.
Things like capitalism and socialism don't exist in a pure, undistilled form. At least not in our lifetime. Arguably never. Even when the US was run by Ronald Reagan, even when Ayn Rand followers were running the Fed., the US was STILL a mixed economy.
If you want freedom and non-government intervention, you might get it if you move to Somalia. That's your only choice these days.
That is because he is an idiot who doesn't understand that giving the government control of anything is counter to the foundations of this country and will only serve to further abuse and erode our freedoms.
Anyone who believes that government intervention is always good and justified is an extremist. Anyone who believes that government control is inherently evil is also an extremist. Most reasonable people like having jails, roads and national defense.
I suspect you haven't rationally evaluated your rhetoric. I don't know it, but I'll bet you like roads as much as the rest of us.
Welfare states inevitably collapse.
ALL states inevitably collapse.
If it upsets you to share the road with cyclists, you are confused. The law is not on your side. From General Statutes of Connecticut Sec. 14-286a
"(a) Every person riding a bicycle, as defined by section 14-286, upon the traveled portion
of a highway shall be granted all of the rights and shall be subject to all of the duties
applicable to the driver of any vehicle..."
The statutes of every state in the US say something similar. I understand that people don't like living within the law sometimes. Especially traffic laws. It annoys me to have to drive on roads with slow drivers. Oh well, I just have to deal with it.
After 5 years you look around and say "Wow! Lot's of things have changed!"
After 10 years it's "Everything has changed!"
After 30 years it's "Everything's just like a mainframe. I'm tired. I think I'll take a nap"