Actually, I think it was the private race organizers that had the generators.
Yes it was, until they were shamed by the New York Post.
Actually, I think it was the Mayor who wanted the race to go on, they just went ahead with his wishes
Do you just let residents run extension cords out their windows?
Sure, why not? They would also be handy for running elevators, powering the pumps for the plumbing in buildings big enough that higher floors have no water pressure, lighting and heating for the lobby at least...
Why not? Because having 100 residents run 100 extension cords out their windows to the streetside generator is street is unsafe. Even ignoring the overloading "Look mom, we can plug in the refrigerator, this space heater *and* my hair dryer" issues, the generator is not on the same ground plane as the building so there's an additional shock hazard unless you get an electrician to ground the generator to the building ground (and possibly installing a local grounding rod at the generator, depending on local regulations)
But if they wanted to power the elevators, it's not as simple as just buying a long extension cord at Home Depot. The elevators in my building run on 480V 3 Phase power and are on a 150A breaker, so they may need a few hundred feet of 00 or 000 gauge cable just to hook into the electrical panel. I don't know if it's even legal to run unprotected 480V cables on the floor, or to run an energized panel with the covers off if there's no cable inlet to hook up the cables.
And, of course, you need electricians to do all of this work - electricians that could be working on repairing damage that's preventing entire buildings from being energized instead of hooking up temporary power for an elevator that might be used for 24 hours before power comes back up.
Why aren't they subpoena'ing Bloomberg, who set up much-needed generators for a marathon rather than to help the people who needed it?
-- Ethanol-fueled
Actually, I think it was the private race organizers that had the generators.
But even if they turned the generators over to the city, what would the city do with them? Just parking a generator in front of an apartment building does nothing to help the residents. Do you just let residents run extension cords out their windows?
Was there an actual shortage of mid-range generators that could be used safely? (I'm not talking about a 1KW generator that someone may put on his balcony, fueled by carrying cans of gasoline through the livingroom, no city emergency services agency would condone a setup like that). Possibly some multi-megawatt generators could have been used to light entire buildings, as long as electricians could provide adequate connectivity, but there's still a safety issue, temporary power is hard to do right, especially in a disaster when you don't have access to all of the electrical supplies you may need.
well...it says nothing of any substance, and it looks generic enough that it was sent to the entire internal sales team, so there are hundreds if not thousands of people that could have "leaked it". But surely a Cisco VP knows that you can't send something to thousands of people and not expect it to be leaked.
Certainly doesn't seem like it's enough to make a VP get all worked up about.
I don't see anything in the memo that Cisco couldn't have published on their home page.
I have the feeling that people are going to try using this to perform techniques that are above their skill level. They will probably die. Its awesome for racers who are trying to shave time off their laps, and who are in a controlled setting. For most riders, I think this will lead to a slight increase in fatalities.
Worse is that unless the app restricts data collection to known race tracks, some motorcyclists are going to use it on public streets to show the fastest "lap" and greatest lean angle on popular motorcycling routes. And when the motorcyclist exceeds his ability (or exceeds the safe speed limit on the road), he'll not only take out himself, but also an innocent driver or bicyclist on the road.
A similar app for bicycles that has a "king of the mountain" contest for the fastest time on bicycling routes has been blamed for encouraging a reckless bicyclist to mow down a pedestrian:
In a big disaster, fuel contracts mean very little - if the government decides that a hospital or police station (or the mayor's mistress's apartment building) needs the fuel more than you do, they will take it.
...Which is why they had *2* contracts for diesel delivery...
So the police can confiscate twice the fuel?
In a disaster where fuel is scarce enough to be confiscated by police, I don't think that having 2 contracts is really much better than one - if it was that easy to bring fuel into the city that both of your providers can supply it, then fuel wouldn't be scarce. Which, apparently was the case this time since they got their fuel delivery.
Unless, of course, you find fuel at your local airport, where Leaded 100 Octane fuel is still legally sold. Not sure if it's legal to use it in a generator, but in a disaster you're probably more concerned with living than following the law.
Can anyone elaborate on what radio system he was talking about? I contributed to a DR plan several years ago, but my concerns about cell phone reliability were shot down.
Probably a regional UHF business radio network provider like Fisher Wireless. I think Fisher is a regional provider that only covers California and AZ, but I know national coverage is available. I think all of the interconnects between their radio sites run over UHF links, so they are completely independent of the cellular and wired network (but I'm not 100% sure about that).
Talk to any business radio provider and they can hook you up. Prices are reasonable, for around $20 - $50/month you can get unlimited talktime on a regional net (I think you pay more for more regions). You just add a channel onto your existing business radios to talk on the regional network.
However, I wouldn't count on it working in a large disaster - all communications systems have capacity constraints, whether radio, cellular or satellite, and when everyone tries to use the same backup form of communication, it's likely that they will run out of capacity. But for normal communications it works well.
Most small/personal (portable) generators use UNLEADED gasoline (or if you are really smart, you have one hardwired in to your property fed from propane or natural gas) whereas the big commercial ones use diesel, so even if they wanted to "share" it with the masses, it would be mostly useless...
Since small generators tend to not have catalytic converters, they should run just as well on LEADED gasoline (if you can find it).
If I put anything but diesel in my car it'd wreck the engine.
If you put dyed, untaxed diesel in your car, you'd be exposing yourself to high fines. It's usually commercial trucks that get caught by this, but farmers get busted from time to time for using non-road fuel in their personal vehicles.
Generators for data-centers usually run on propane. It's not going to do the locals much good.
I've never seen a propane fueled datacenter class generator. I've seen big natural gas generators, but never propane. They may exist somewhere where the long lifetime of stored propane is a bonus (plus the easy cutover between natural gas and propane). Nearly all of the datacenter generators I've seen are diesel fueled - the generator referenced in the article is diesel fueled.
They likely still have natural gas service without interruption, but their furnaces wont run without electricity. They too could have purchased propane or natural gas generators for their homes for just a couple of hundred dollars.
You're not thinking the problem through if you're suggesting that apartment dwellers should just buy $200 propane powered generators for use in a disaster - where they run them? In the hallway? Where will they store the propane? Having millions of people storing propane tanks in the bedroom closet doesn't sound very safe (and maybe not even legal).
If they are going to use propane to run a generator to run the furnace, they may as well just use the propane for heat and ignore the furnace. Which they may not even have access to if the entire building is served from a single source of heat.
Maybe you're suggesting that the building management should have installed generators (and many large buildings do have generators to run critical equipment), but when building codes dictate where you can house your generator and fuel supply, you may find that it's underwater in a flood.
Gasoline powered generators for emergencies are about the stupidest thing you can buy. It's expensive and runs out REALLY fast when there's any sort or service interruption.
And propane is better? A 5 gallon propane tank will run a 3500W generator at half load for about 10 hours. About the same as 5 gallons of gasoline. Diesel generators tend to run longer, you might get 12 - 16 hours of of a 5 gallon tank of diesel.
Propane is attractive because it stores forever, but gasoline is nice because most people already have 10 - 20 gallons of gasoline in their car (or more if they have more than one car) that can be siphoned out and used to provide power. That's probably not as true in an urban area like NYC where many people don't have a car.
But I wouldn't store significant quantities of gasoline, diesel, or propane in my apartment.
Actually has 2 *weeks* of fuel supply (huge diesel tanks).
So it's probably not in an urban area - fuel codes severely restrict how much fuel you can store, and where you store it. I used to be a tenant in a building that gave up on installing a diesel backup generator since even after exorbitant permit and construction costs, they would have only been able to store about 12 hours of fuel on site. They ended up putting in a natural gas generator instead. Not quite as reliable in a disaster, but unlimited fuel as long as the gas supply is flowing.
It's not about whether they could do it, but how smug he comes across in patting himself on the back for having an excess of fuel while those around do without. Because his internet hosting is by far the most important thing in the world. And shelters would take people who still have a house, yet have no means of heating it.
I was struck by his smugness at having prepaid for fuel, but then a few paragraphs later he pointed out that the carrier that prepaid for a 4 hour generator delivery had their generator confiscated by the police. He was lucky they didn't need to refuel the confiscated generator by confiscating his fuel.
In a big disaster, fuel contracts mean very little - if the government decides that a hospital or police station (or the mayor's mistress's apartment building) needs the fuel more than you do, they will take it.
Actually, most equipment, such as Scantron, etc, does. While it's possible to do it optically, it can be done much faster by using electrical conductivity. That said, when, instead of correctly spotting 100 marks on a multiple choice answer sheet, you only need to do a few points, optical sensors probably make more sense.
All of the Scanners on Scantron's page say they do Optical Mark Recognition and/or Imaging. And they can detect ink or pencil marks.
Do you have an actual reference for equipment that uses electrical conductivity to count marks? As I said, I can certainly believe that early machines did, but not anything built recently. I really don't see how electrical counting could be faster than optical counters -- keeping a good electrical contact with fast moving paper seems a lot harder than bouncing light off the paper.
I found an article confirming that early Scantron machines did use electrical conductivity to count marks:
The earliest scantron-like machines used electrical conductivity, rather than light, to read forms. Graphite is quite conductive, so the machines simply had a mechanism at each markable area location to make contact with the form and detect if an electrical current is detected across the area. These systems were used as early as the 1930s.
But it didn't say when optical scanning came into use.
The fact that there are plenty of people who can easily screw up a paper ballot (aka hanging chads)?
If hanging chads are a serious problem, then don't use a marking method that can result in chads. I like my precinct's solution, each candidate has an arrow with a gap pointing to the name:
--- ---> John Doe --- ---> Joe Schmo --- ---> Jane Doe
To vote for that candidate, you just fill in the gap with a marker.
Ballots are fed into a machine and read instantly. A confirmation beep ensures a good read. Paper ballots are retained for validation and/or recount.
Electronic voting is not immune to screwups, giving the number of screen calibration errors that appear to be occurring.
#2 pencil is conductive. That makes it easy to read it by machine. I suppose you could do the same thing with a camera and a computer though.
Does any modern scanning equipment use electrical conductivity of pencil marks to read forms? I could see maybe back in the 60's when cameras and photo sensors were expensive, but I'd be surprised if anything built in the past 30 years doesn't use optical sensors.
...unless you know your product won't/can't become and isn't worth more than they're paying. 5 million now is not as good as 500 million later; interest rates are low (lol). Possible exceptions are when you just want to get out, or need cash now in order to start a bigger and better venture.
Conversely, unless you know your product will become worth more than they are paying, sell out.
If Netapp or EMC thinks there's money to be made in very high density storage systems, I'm sure they have an engineer or two that can figure out how to squeeze 120 disks into a 4U rack (or they have the money to hire someone who can) - and it'll work with the rest of their software stack.
If he doesn't sell to Facebook, then he'll give up control to a VC firm.
If he really wants to compete in the enterprise storage market, he'll need lots of money, so he'll be giving large parts of his company to some VC (or multiple VCs).
Hardware storage density is only part of the answer, no one buys Netapp or EMC for the raw price per GB or how many disks they can fit into a rack shelf, they buy for the hardware resiliency and software stack that surrounds the disks. So he's got a lot of work ahead of him to prove that it really is a viable solution.
There's probably not a whole lot of overlap between people that need 5PB of storage in a rack, and people that are willing to use an underfunded 19 year old's product to store the data. He's going to need serious funding to make any inroads into the increasingly crowded dense storage space.
If I were him, I'd take whatever money FB is offering and retire.
If you don't earn enough to take a taxi everywhere, then you'll be unlikely to ever afford a self-drive car even when they are legalised across your entire country.
Seriously, it's nice to dream, but you'll probably be retired before you can afford a self-drive car if you're not already earning enough money to. And that's ignoring the problems of insurances, recalls, etc. that are almost bound to hit the self-drive industry at some point after they are "approved".
I can't (reasonably) afford to take a taxi everywhere today - I'd be spending about $1000/month in cab fare to get to work every day, and that ignores longer weekend trips. But I fully expect to be able to buy a self-driving car when they become common.
When self driving cars become common, they won't be significantly more expensive to build than non self-driving cars. By then, cars will already be "fly by wire", so with the addition to a camera pod on the roof, maybe some other sensors (laser rangefinders?) and a software upgrade, the car can be made self-driving. And when those sensors are made in the millions, they'll become more affordable.
The software will need to be paid for somehow, but it's better to sell 5 million cars with a $1000 price premium than sell 100,000 cars with a $20,000 price premium.
If you're that desperate for copper, you'd be better of breaking into the Telco cross connect cabinets that are scattered throughout the city since you'll find hundreds of twisted pairs there, as opposed to a single (?) copper pair leading to the nearest fire station.
The controller has a 6Gbps Serial ATA interface, and a gig of DRAM rides shotgun.This DRAM cache never stores user data but is instead used for context and indirection tables.
That detail is important in light of the DC S3700's power-loss protection, which uses multiple onboard capacitors to ensure that in-flight data is safely written to the flash in the event of a power failure.
Basically, these people need to learn from the Amish, who are already skilled in knowing how to survive without the complicated infrastructure of a high-tech society.
--if there really is going to be a civilization-destroying apocalypse, the Amish are going to be the ones who rebuild civilization, 'cause the rest of us all starved to death by about the fifth winter.
(Yes, the Amish don't live completely independently of the rest of society. But they are a darn sight closer than any of the rest of us.)
Exactly - if civilization collapses, they are going to be better off with human and animal powered tools since they'll quickly run out of fuel, supplies (like oil), and tools to maintain the powered equipment. Even steam powered equipment needs repair and maintenance.
This is a common problem: emergency and safety systems are completely pointless 99% of the time... until you have an emergency, at which point they're indispensable.
San Francisco still has thousands hardwired call boxes for the fire department on every other street corner, it's a fall back in case an earthquake takes out other forms of communication.
If you're suggesting that they install a hand pump for backup
I propose a battery bank to run the pump. Works for cars. Cha cha cha
If lack of power was the problem, yours would be a good solution, but they had power to run the pumps from the generator upstairs. The electrical distribution system and possibly the intake vents for the diesel tank were under water (some of it was salt water). Do batteries magically solve that problem?
Every facility has disasters they weren't designed to ride out, and when your fuel supply is in the basement, a flooded basement is one of them.
They strictly prohibit fuel tanks above ground level in high-rises, and there are physics issues involved in getting fuel from the basement up to the generator
Physics issues like what, the people who install the systems not being able to pull their head out of their ass and install a pump?
What are you talking about? They have pumps, that's how they get the fuel to the generator.
But they are electrically powered (from generator).
But when your fuel tank, pump, and electrical panel are all underwater, it's hard to make the pumps work.It doesn't even have to be fully underwater - when seawater rushes in from outside and cascades over your panel leaving a foot of water on the floor, no electrician is going to touch it until you can pump out the water.
If you're suggesting that they install a hand pump for backup, you're ignoring the physics - it would be extremely hard (if not impossible) for a human to pump 80 gallons/hour of 100psi fuel up to the 20th floor. And even if they could, it's possible that no one was willing to go into the flooded and possibly electrically live basement.
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Actually, I think it was the private race organizers that had the generators.
Yes it was, until they were shamed by the New York Post.
Actually, I think it was the Mayor who wanted the race to go on, they just went ahead with his wishes
Do you just let residents run extension cords out their windows?
Sure, why not? They would also be handy for running elevators, powering the pumps for the plumbing in buildings big enough that higher floors have no water pressure, lighting and heating for the lobby at least...
Why not? Because having 100 residents run 100 extension cords out their windows to the streetside generator is street is unsafe. Even ignoring the overloading "Look mom, we can plug in the refrigerator, this space heater *and* my hair dryer" issues, the generator is not on the same ground plane as the building so there's an additional shock hazard unless you get an electrician to ground the generator to the building ground (and possibly installing a local grounding rod at the generator, depending on local regulations)
But if they wanted to power the elevators, it's not as simple as just buying a long extension cord at Home Depot. The elevators in my building run on 480V 3 Phase power and are on a 150A breaker, so they may need a few hundred feet of 00 or 000 gauge cable just to hook into the electrical panel. I don't know if it's even legal to run unprotected 480V cables on the floor, or to run an energized panel with the covers off if there's no cable inlet to hook up the cables.
And, of course, you need electricians to do all of this work - electricians that could be working on repairing damage that's preventing entire buildings from being energized instead of hooking up temporary power for an elevator that might be used for 24 hours before power comes back up.
Why aren't they subpoena'ing Bloomberg, who set up much-needed generators for a marathon rather than to help the people who needed it?
-- Ethanol-fueled
Actually, I think it was the private race organizers that had the generators.
But even if they turned the generators over to the city, what would the city do with them? Just parking a generator in front of an apartment building does nothing to help the residents. Do you just let residents run extension cords out their windows?
Was there an actual shortage of mid-range generators that could be used safely? (I'm not talking about a 1KW generator that someone may put on his balcony, fueled by carrying cans of gasoline through the livingroom, no city emergency services agency would condone a setup like that). Possibly some multi-megawatt generators could have been used to light entire buildings, as long as electricians could provide adequate connectivity, but there's still a safety issue, temporary power is hard to do right, especially in a disaster when you don't have access to all of the electrical supplies you may need.
If this is the "leaked memo": http://www.bradreese.com/blog/11-1-2012.htm
well...it says nothing of any substance, and it looks generic enough that it was sent to the entire internal sales team, so there are hundreds if not thousands of people that could have "leaked it". But surely a Cisco VP knows that you can't send something to thousands of people and not expect it to be leaked.
Certainly doesn't seem like it's enough to make a VP get all worked up about.
I don't see anything in the memo that Cisco couldn't have published on their home page.
It's a common misconception that Android has more marketshare than iOS.
Android has more marketshare if you count only phones.
If you count the iPhone, iPad and iPod vs Android phones and all other Android-based devices, iOS has more marketshare.
That's not even counting the marketshare of OS X(which iOS evolved from).
In Q32012, Apple shipped 50.4% of tablets in the market.
I have the feeling that people are going to try using this to perform techniques that are above their skill level. They will probably die. Its awesome for racers who are trying to shave time off their laps, and who are in a controlled setting. For most riders, I think this will lead to a slight increase in fatalities.
Worse is that unless the app restricts data collection to known race tracks, some motorcyclists are going to use it on public streets to show the fastest "lap" and greatest lean angle on popular motorcycling routes. And when the motorcyclist exceeds his ability (or exceeds the safe speed limit on the road), he'll not only take out himself, but also an innocent driver or bicyclist on the road.
A similar app for bicycles that has a "king of the mountain" contest for the fastest time on bicycling routes has been blamed for encouraging a reckless bicyclist to mow down a pedestrian:
http://www.bicyclelaw.com/road-rights/a.cfm/road-rights-suing-strava
In a big disaster, fuel contracts mean very little - if the government decides that a hospital or police station (or the mayor's mistress's apartment building) needs the fuel more than you do, they will take it.
...Which is why they had *2* contracts for diesel delivery...
So the police can confiscate twice the fuel?
In a disaster where fuel is scarce enough to be confiscated by police, I don't think that having 2 contracts is really much better than one - if it was that easy to bring fuel into the city that both of your providers can supply it, then fuel wouldn't be scarce. Which, apparently was the case this time since they got their fuel delivery.
True, but good luck as it's pretty much banned everywhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead
Unless, of course, you find fuel at your local airport, where Leaded 100 Octane fuel is still legally sold. Not sure if it's legal to use it in a generator, but in a disaster you're probably more concerned with living than following the law.
Can anyone elaborate on what radio system he was talking about? I contributed to a DR plan several years ago, but my concerns about cell phone reliability were shot down.
Probably a regional UHF business radio network provider like Fisher Wireless. I think Fisher is a regional provider that only covers California and AZ, but I know national coverage is available. I think all of the interconnects between their radio sites run over UHF links, so they are completely independent of the cellular and wired network (but I'm not 100% sure about that).
Talk to any business radio provider and they can hook you up. Prices are reasonable, for around $20 - $50/month you can get unlimited talktime on a regional net (I think you pay more for more regions). You just add a channel onto your existing business radios to talk on the regional network.
However, I wouldn't count on it working in a large disaster - all communications systems have capacity constraints, whether radio, cellular or satellite, and when everyone tries to use the same backup form of communication, it's likely that they will run out of capacity. But for normal communications it works well.
Most small/personal (portable) generators use UNLEADED gasoline (or if you are really smart, you have one hardwired in to your property fed from propane or natural gas) whereas the big commercial ones use diesel, so even if they wanted to "share" it with the masses, it would be mostly useless...
Since small generators tend to not have catalytic converters, they should run just as well on LEADED gasoline (if you can find it).
If I put anything but diesel in my car it'd wreck the engine.
If you put dyed, untaxed diesel in your car, you'd be exposing yourself to high fines. It's usually commercial trucks that get caught by this, but farmers get busted from time to time for using non-road fuel in their personal vehicles.
Generators for data-centers usually run on propane. It's not going to do the locals much good.
I've never seen a propane fueled datacenter class generator. I've seen big natural gas generators, but never propane. They may exist somewhere where the long lifetime of stored propane is a bonus (plus the easy cutover between natural gas and propane). Nearly all of the datacenter generators I've seen are diesel fueled - the generator referenced in the article is diesel fueled.
They likely still have natural gas service without interruption, but their furnaces wont run without electricity. They too could have purchased propane or natural gas generators for their homes for just a couple of hundred dollars.
You're not thinking the problem through if you're suggesting that apartment dwellers should just buy $200 propane powered generators for use in a disaster - where they run them? In the hallway? Where will they store the propane? Having millions of people storing propane tanks in the bedroom closet doesn't sound very safe (and maybe not even legal).
If they are going to use propane to run a generator to run the furnace, they may as well just use the propane for heat and ignore the furnace. Which they may not even have access to if the entire building is served from a single source of heat.
Maybe you're suggesting that the building management should have installed generators (and many large buildings do have generators to run critical equipment), but when building codes dictate where you can house your generator and fuel supply, you may find that it's underwater in a flood.
Gasoline powered generators for emergencies are about the stupidest thing you can buy. It's expensive and runs out REALLY fast when there's any sort or service interruption.
And propane is better? A 5 gallon propane tank will run a 3500W generator at half load for about 10 hours. About the same as 5 gallons of gasoline. Diesel generators tend to run longer, you might get 12 - 16 hours of of a 5 gallon tank of diesel.
Propane is attractive because it stores forever, but gasoline is nice because most people already have 10 - 20 gallons of gasoline in their car (or more if they have more than one car) that can be siphoned out and used to provide power. That's probably not as true in an urban area like NYC where many people don't have a car.
But I wouldn't store significant quantities of gasoline, diesel, or propane in my apartment.
Actually has 2 *weeks* of fuel supply (huge diesel tanks).
So it's probably not in an urban area - fuel codes severely restrict how much fuel you can store, and where you store it. I used to be a tenant in a building that gave up on installing a diesel backup generator since even after exorbitant permit and construction costs, they would have only been able to store about 12 hours of fuel on site. They ended up putting in a natural gas generator instead. Not quite as reliable in a disaster, but unlimited fuel as long as the gas supply is flowing.
It's not about whether they could do it, but how smug he comes across in patting himself on the back for having an excess of fuel while those around do without. Because his internet hosting is by far the most important thing in the world. And shelters would take people who still have a house, yet have no means of heating it.
I was struck by his smugness at having prepaid for fuel, but then a few paragraphs later he pointed out that the carrier that prepaid for a 4 hour generator delivery had their generator confiscated by the police. He was lucky they didn't need to refuel the confiscated generator by confiscating his fuel.
In a big disaster, fuel contracts mean very little - if the government decides that a hospital or police station (or the mayor's mistress's apartment building) needs the fuel more than you do, they will take it.
Actually, most equipment, such as Scantron, etc, does. While it's possible to do it optically, it can be done much faster by using electrical conductivity. That said, when, instead of correctly spotting 100 marks on a multiple choice answer sheet, you only need to do a few points, optical sensors probably make more sense.
All of the Scanners on Scantron's page say they do Optical Mark Recognition and/or Imaging. And they can detect ink or pencil marks.
http://www.scantron.com/scanners/
Do you have an actual reference for equipment that uses electrical conductivity to count marks? As I said, I can certainly believe that early machines did, but not anything built recently. I really don't see how electrical counting could be faster than optical counters -- keeping a good electrical contact with fast moving paper seems a lot harder than bouncing light off the paper.
I found an article confirming that early Scantron machines did use electrical conductivity to count marks:
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/10/why-you-used-to-have-to-use-2-pencils-with-scantron-forms/
The earliest scantron-like machines used electrical conductivity, rather than light, to read forms. Graphite is quite conductive, so the machines simply had a mechanism at each markable area location to make contact with the form and detect if an electrical current is detected across the area. These systems were used as early as the 1930s.
But it didn't say when optical scanning came into use.
That site also has the obligatory XKCD comic:
http://xkcd.com/499/
The fact that there are plenty of people who can easily screw up a paper ballot (aka hanging chads)?
If hanging chads are a serious problem, then don't use a marking method that can result in chads. I like my precinct's solution, each candidate has an arrow with a gap pointing to the name:
--- ---> John Doe
--- ---> Joe Schmo
--- ---> Jane Doe
To vote for that candidate, you just fill in the gap with a marker.
Ballots are fed into a machine and read instantly. A confirmation beep ensures a good read. Paper ballots are retained for validation and/or recount.
Electronic voting is not immune to screwups, giving the number of screen calibration errors that appear to be occurring.
#2 pencil is conductive. That makes it easy to read it by machine. I suppose you could do the same thing with a camera and a computer though.
Does any modern scanning equipment use electrical conductivity of pencil marks to read forms? I could see maybe back in the 60's when cameras and photo sensors were expensive, but I'd be surprised if anything built in the past 30 years doesn't use optical sensors.
...unless you know your product won't/can't become and isn't worth more than they're paying. 5 million now is not as good as 500 million later; interest rates are low (lol). Possible exceptions are when you just want to get out, or need cash now in order to start a bigger and better venture.
Conversely, unless you know your product will become worth more than they are paying, sell out.
If Netapp or EMC thinks there's money to be made in very high density storage systems, I'm sure they have an engineer or two that can figure out how to squeeze 120 disks into a 4U rack (or they have the money to hire someone who can) - and it'll work with the rest of their software stack.
If he doesn't sell to Facebook, then he'll give up control to a VC firm.
If he really wants to compete in the enterprise storage market, he'll need lots of money, so he'll be giving large parts of his company to some VC (or multiple VCs).
Hardware storage density is only part of the answer, no one buys Netapp or EMC for the raw price per GB or how many disks they can fit into a rack shelf, they buy for the hardware resiliency and software stack that surrounds the disks. So he's got a lot of work ahead of him to prove that it really is a viable solution.
There's probably not a whole lot of overlap between people that need 5PB of storage in a rack, and people that are willing to use an underfunded 19 year old's product to store the data. He's going to need serious funding to make any inroads into the increasingly crowded dense storage space.
If I were him, I'd take whatever money FB is offering and retire.
If you don't earn enough to take a taxi everywhere, then you'll be unlikely to ever afford a self-drive car even when they are legalised across your entire country.
Seriously, it's nice to dream, but you'll probably be retired before you can afford a self-drive car if you're not already earning enough money to. And that's ignoring the problems of insurances, recalls, etc. that are almost bound to hit the self-drive industry at some point after they are "approved".
I can't (reasonably) afford to take a taxi everywhere today - I'd be spending about $1000/month in cab fare to get to work every day, and that ignores longer weekend trips. But I fully expect to be able to buy a self-driving car when they become common.
When self driving cars become common, they won't be significantly more expensive to build than non self-driving cars. By then, cars will already be "fly by wire", so with the addition to a camera pod on the roof, maybe some other sensors (laser rangefinders?) and a software upgrade, the car can be made self-driving. And when those sensors are made in the millions, they'll become more affordable.
The software will need to be paid for somehow, but it's better to sell 5 million cars with a $1000 price premium than sell 100,000 cars with a $20,000 price premium.
mmm, copper.
If you're that desperate for copper, you'd be better of breaking into the Telco cross connect cabinets that are scattered throughout the city since you'll find hundreds of twisted pairs there, as opposed to a single (?) copper pair leading to the nearest fire station.
The article says this:
The controller has a 6Gbps Serial ATA interface, and a gig of DRAM rides shotgun.This DRAM cache never stores user data but is instead used for context and indirection tables.
That detail is important in light of the DC S3700's power-loss protection, which uses multiple onboard capacitors to ensure that in-flight data is safely written to the flash in the event of a power failure.
What are context and indirection tables?
Basically, these people need to learn from the Amish, who are already skilled in knowing how to survive without the complicated infrastructure of a high-tech society.
--if there really is going to be a civilization-destroying apocalypse, the Amish are going to be the ones who rebuild civilization, 'cause the rest of us all starved to death by about the fifth winter.
(Yes, the Amish don't live completely independently of the rest of society. But they are a darn sight closer than any of the rest of us.)
Exactly - if civilization collapses, they are going to be better off with human and animal powered tools since they'll quickly run out of fuel, supplies (like oil), and tools to maintain the powered equipment. Even steam powered equipment needs repair and maintenance.
This is a common problem: emergency and safety systems are completely pointless 99% of the time... until you have an emergency, at which point they're indispensable.
San Francisco still has thousands hardwired call boxes for the fire department on every other street corner, it's a fall back in case an earthquake takes out other forms of communication.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-S-F-still-counts-on-street-fire-alarm-boxes-3081293.php
If you're suggesting that they install a hand pump for backup
I propose a battery bank to run the pump. Works for cars. Cha cha cha
If lack of power was the problem, yours would be a good solution, but they had power to run the pumps from the generator upstairs. The electrical distribution system and possibly the intake vents for the diesel tank were under water (some of it was salt water). Do batteries magically solve that problem?
Every facility has disasters they weren't designed to ride out, and when your fuel supply is in the basement, a flooded basement is one of them.
They strictly prohibit fuel tanks above ground level in high-rises, and there are physics issues involved in getting fuel from the basement up to the generator
Physics issues like what, the people who install the systems not being able to pull their head out of their ass and install a pump?
What are you talking about? They have pumps, that's how they get the fuel to the generator.
But they are electrically powered (from generator).
But when your fuel tank, pump, and electrical panel are all underwater, it's hard to make the pumps work.It doesn't even have to be fully underwater - when seawater rushes in from outside and cascades over your panel leaving a foot of water on the floor, no electrician is going to touch it until you can pump out the water.
If you're suggesting that they install a hand pump for backup, you're ignoring the physics - it would be extremely hard (if not impossible) for a human to pump 80 gallons/hour of 100psi fuel up to the 20th floor. And even if they could, it's possible that no one was willing to go into the flooded and possibly electrically live basement.