I don't see the biggest benefit of reduced power consumption being in the home - have you ever been inside a datacentre? You can barely hear the dude standing next to you because of all the fans and A/C. You can't hear your phone ring. You can't hear PC speaker warning beeps. Now granted, not all of that comes from processor usage, but reducing the power required to run processors would make a massive difference in the cost to run a datacntre.
Not only does the chip consume power, it then requires a fan to move the heat away from the heatsink. The case then usually has more fans to move the heat out of the case. You then need to move the heat to a central cooling system, and then possibly to a cooling tower to be dumped to the atmosphere. For every joule of energy you use on a processor, you need to move 3 or 4 joules of energy around to sustain it. This is likely why, in my experience, power alone accounts for 75% of the cost of a datacentre, once you include the power required to cool the space as well. This could have huge benefits, but true, not really in the home.
I saw this coming the moment the US enacted the "temporary" Patriot Act, and I've reminded people every time they extended it. Once the government has power, they never give it back. I can't find examples to quote (other than the 1st Rule of Acquisition), but I'm sure everyone can think of at least five cases in history where this pattern has been repeated.
The only sane course of action when governments try to enact legislation like this, for any reason, is to block it at every available opportunity. These laws never get repealed, and the "temporary" emergency laws always become permanent.
Fuck 9/11. History already taught me that governments never waste a good opportunity to grab power, that all emergency powers become permanent, and that no government, ever, can be trusted with these powers.
It hasn't been ratified though. There are significant benefits to being an original signatory on any international treaty, and every member country is afraid of being left in the dust if they don't. There are provisions requiring signatories to ratify certain provisions, but it has not been ratified yet, only signed, and there is a big difference.
The TPP might actually be a net financial gain for the United States - unfortunately, at the expense of other countries involved. A number of provisions in it give an unfair advantage to the US, because they have demanded that these provisions be put in.
Michael Geist is doing a very good review of all the problems with the TPP, and has been posting daily about it for about a month now. It's a rather Canadian perspective on it, but a good read nonetheless.
With this news, I can now celebrate 12 years of not being on Facebook!
It's arguably the biggest threat to consumer privacy in our age - a Three Letter Agency's wet dream. I have never, and will never, ever use the steaming pile of user-exploiting, privacy-invading, advertiser-serving shit that Facebook has always been, and will always be. I can happily be a consumer, but I will never be a product if I can help it. I am the lone Facebook holdout amongst everyone I know, and proud of it.
This year's challenge (detailed below) is a real-world problem in nuclear verification, sponsored by and designed in partnership with the Nuclear Threat Initiative (http://www.nti.org/), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to reduce the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
I personally have had nothing but problems with SmartScreen. The thing is so complex that nobody at Microsoft seems to know exactly how it works. I've lost count of the number of mailservers I've set up that are refused by SmartScreen, and despite numerous attempts at resolving the problem with Microsoft Deliverability Support, nothing ever gets through. Every response is a generic "We understand you have questions regarding the deliverability of your email, and therefore its content", despite information provided to the contrary, explaining that this is an IP reputation issue. They simply don't care if your company cannot send mail to their users. They really don't.
The thing is so complex that even Microsoft's Deliverability Support team can't tell you why your mailservers mails get rejected. And worse than that, it blatantly violates RFC2821, specifically:
6.1 Reliable Delivery and Replies by Email
When the receiver-SMTP accepts a piece of mail (by sending a "250 OK"
message in response to DATA), it is accepting responsibility for
delivering or relaying the message. It must take this responsibility
seriously. It MUST NOT lose the message for frivolous reasons, such
as because the host later crashes or because of a predictable
resource shortage.
If there is a delivery failure after acceptance of a message, the
receiver-SMTP MUST formulate and mail a notification message. This
notification MUST be sent using a null ("") reverse path in the
envelope. The recipient of this notification MUST be the address
from the envelope return path (or the Return-Path: line). However,
if this address is null (""), the receiver-SMTP MUST NOT send a
notification.
-snip-
SmartScreen will silently drop emails, even after accepting them for delivery. Their postmaster website then tells you that you are required to be RFC2821 compliant.
SmartScreen is a joke. Its filtering policies are far too agressive, and if it decides to drop your emails, you're SOL. Believe me, I've tried to get through to them. Too many legitimate emails are silently dropped / marked as spam, and too much spam gets through (IMHO). My advice for Microsoft to improve SmartScreen is this - You do not own the email system. Design your mail system to work well with others. Tell postmasters why their mail is not being delivered, and offer effective remedies. As long as their filtering system silently drops emails with no notification of why, and their deliverability support people can't help, their mail system will remain a joke.
I gave up on SmartScreen ages ago. I now route all mail destined for Microsoft domains through Amazon SES. It's far less hassle than getting Microsoft to actually accept the message.
This actually has nothing to do with the Ashley Madison hack, except that Brian Krebs discovered this alleged hack during his investigation, and that the plaintiff used to be Ashley Madison's CTO.
The lawsuit centres around the claim that Mr. Batia hacked into rival company nerve.com and exfiltrated their entire client database back in 2012. It has nothing to do with any claims against Ashley Madison.
This was actually discussed in the dissenting opinion:
[132] In short, the cell phone acts like a key or portal which can allow the user to access the full treasure trove of records and files that the owner has generated or used on any number of devices. It is not just the device itself and the information it has generated, but the gamut of (often intensely) personal data accessible via the device that gives rise to the significant and unique privacy interests in digital devices. The fact that a suspect may be carrying their house key at the time they are arrested does not justify the police using that key to enter the suspect’s home. In the same way, seizing the key to the user’s digital life should not justify a wholesale intrusion into that realm. Indeed, personal digital devices are becoming as ubiquitous as the house key. Increasingly large numbers of people carry such devices with them everywhere they go (be they cell phones, mobile computers, smart watches, smart glasses, or tablets).
Which then went on to mention that cellphones differ from most forms of evidence in that the may continue to generate evidence after initial siezure, can continue to generate data and/or evidence unknown to the owner, and may impact the privacy of third parties as well, unbeknownst to them.
Also - this is not a blanket inclusion of all cellphone searches incident to arrest. The majority opinion emphatically states that:
[79] The law enforcement objectives served by searches incident to arrest will generally be most compelling in the course of the investigation of crimes that involve, for example, violence or threats of violence, or that in some other way put public safety at risk, such as the robbery in this case, or serious property offences that involve readily disposable property, or drug trafficking. Generally speaking, these types of crimes are most likely to justify some limited search of a cell phone incident to arrest, given the law enforcement objectives. Conversely, a search of a cell phone incident to arrest will generally not be justified in relation to minor offences (emphasis mine).
[83] To summarize, police officers will not be justified in searching a cell phone or similar device incidental to every arrest. Rather, such a search will comply with s. 8 where:
(1) The arrest was lawful;
(2) The search is truly incidental to the arrest in that the police have a reason based on a valid law enforcement purpose to conduct the search, and that reason is objectively reasonable. The valid law enforcement purposes in this context are:
(a) Protecting the police, the accused, or the public;
(b) Preserving evidence; or
(c) Discovering evidence, including locating additional suspects, in situations in which the investigation will be stymied or significantly hampered absent the ability to promptly search the cell phone incident to arrest;
(3) The nature and the extent of the search are tailored to the purpose of the search; and
(4)The police take detailed notes of what they have examined on the device and how it was searched.
And places the onus on the Crown to prove it.
I actually find myself agreeing with this judgement - it seems to me, IMHO, to strike a reasonable balance between the right to privacy and common law principles of warrantless search incidental to arrest. What suspects used to carry on paper is now carried in cellphones, and the law allowing police powers to search papers for a specific purpose should apply also to cellphones, but only for the same purposes. I think this ruling accomplishes that goal.
I don't care about my data. The only data I have worth worrying about is a few thousand pictures, all backed up in the cloud.
Where I live (Toronto), we don't have earthquakes, generally. We had a 5.0 in 2010 and a 5.1 in 2013, and those are the only earthquakes of mention in anyone's memory. I don't plan for earthquakes, or tornadoes (we do get those), or floods, or anything specific. I have general emergency plans, which should see me through a week or so after any major emergency. The worst of our disasters here are multi-day power outages. We had one last winter (some know the occurence as the polar vortex). We got hit hard enough that we were without power for three days. It happened also during the Great Blackout of 2003. Beyond that, I've only seen a single tornado, and a pretty bad flood. While I can't speak for everywhere on Earth, I've found that communites tend to band together in disasters. Looting and pillaging is rarely a concern (or maybe I'm just Canadian).
The most important thing to keep around in an emergency (and bear in mind that most "emergencies" last only for a few days to a week) is toiletries, and personal cleaning supplies. We have a supply of soap, toothpaste, and toilet paper in the first aid kit. We keep enough probably for five families. After that, a means of communication is esserntial. Cellphones cannot be relied on in an emergency, although from experience, they do actually work - they worked fine in both the 2003 and 2013 blackouts here - but I just don't trust them, even if only because batteries run dead and I can't guarantee a way to charge it, especially in winter. I have a couple of old rotary phones around and have always kept a landline, just in case these things happen (and as it happens, we're frequently the only household in the neighbourhood with a functional phone in a power failure).
My military survival training taught me there are five basic survival needs, in any situation, those being 1) first aid 2) shelter 3) fire 4) water 5) food, in that order. In an urban environment I would also add communications and sanitation to that list.
Here's what I do:
Food:
Food is a commonly misconcieved need in an emergency. It is dead last on my list of survival necessities, as I know I can survive about three weeks without food, if I keep my activity levels low. That being said however, I do have approximately a weeks' worth of food in the pantry at all times (not for emergencies, but mainly because we like having a large selection of foodstuffs at all times), which obviates the need for a primary emergency food source. I'm also an avid wilderness canoeist, and usually keep about a months' worth of IMP's (Canadian MRE's, but taste better) in storage which gets cycled probably around every 10 years. So I'm good for food.
Water:
Again, this need is commonly placed too high on a survival needs list. You can survive three days without water. We have freshwater streams running through town which could make a suitable source of water in an emergency (though not in winter, and it wouldn't be enough for my whole town). There is always 200 litres in the hot water tank as well. Water is bulky, heavy, and outdoor storage is impossible here as it would freeze. Much more important is a method of purifying what water you can readily find elsewhere. We keep silver nitrate, water purification tablets, large quantities of bleach, and two pump action water filters on hand, just in the camping gear, plus the campstove can be used to boil it.
Shelter:
I go camping a lot, so extra tents are not a concern, nor are tarps, should our house be destroyed or sufficiently damaged. We have enough that we could easily house others if the need was there.
Cooking:
I have two or three campstoves, plus a barbecue, so there's not too much concern there. All my campstoves use readily available fuel sources (mostly kerosene), and can also operate on gasoline or diesel oil with a few minor midification if needed.
All the essentials, including the flashlight and first aid kid, are packed.
I never thought of training a kid in first aid and keeping him in a backpack, just in case. Would be handy for emergency stitching, and crawling though small spaces...
Yes, in this case, "unlimited" means "unlimited by quantity", not "unlimited by any means of delivery". Verizon's TOS clearly state that (emphasis mine):
You agree not to misuse the Service or Device, including but not limited to: (a) reselling or rebilling our Service; (b) using the Service or Device to engage in unlawful activity, or in conduct that adversely affects our customers, employees, business, or any other person(s), or that interferes with our operations, network, reputation, or ability to provide quality service, including, but not limited to, the generation or dissemination of viruses, malware or “denial of service” attacks; (c) using the Service as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections; (d) tampering with or modifying your T-Mobile Device; (e) "spamming" or engaging in other abusive or unsolicited communications, or any other mass, automated voice or data communication for commercial or marketing purposes; (f) reselling T-Mobile Devices for profit, or tampering with, reprogramming or altering T-Mobile Devices for the purpose of reselling the T-Mobile Device; (g) using the Service in connection with server devices or host computer applications, including continuous Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications that are broadcast to multiple servers or recipients, “bots” or similar routines that could disrupt net user groups or email use by others or other applications that denigrate network capacity or functionality;
And in the very next section states that:
WE MAY LIMIT, SUSPEND OR TERMINATE YOUR SERVICE OR AGREEMENT WITHOUT NOTICE FOR ANY REASON, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, if you, any user of your Device, or any user on your account: (a) breaches the Agreement;
They are well within their rights under the agreement that every user signed on to. Now while the classic argument is that nobody reads the TOS, that is not Verizon's fault, nor is it their responsibility to make sure you do, and it is certainly not their responsibility to verbally advise you of every condition of service before you sign. It is a perfectly fair argument that "unlimited" can mean "unlimited, but not to the point where it interferes with other users".
Now, some will argue that they have a responsibility to deliver truly "unlimited" services at the advertised bandwidth. However, I don't think it states anywhere in their user agreement that unlimited services are exempt from throttling. The affected users' bandwidth plans are still unlimited, however, at a slower speed, and even if it is stated somewhere that connections will not be throttled, they have already established under contract, their right to limit service in the event of a breach of the TOS.
The affected users still have unlimited bandwidth. They are being administratively punished for a breach of Verizon's TOS, which is a legitimate activity. They cannot cry foul because they don't like the terms. They agreed to them when they signed up.
Personally, I think Verizon is doing this the right way.
This all depends any a number of factors. I can think of quite a few uses for half a rack.
The first question, asked elsewhere in this thread, is whether or not the cost of power is included. If you are also paying for power, it might well be best to shut them down and leave them idle as a cost saving measure (which is why, I assume, that you are moving to the cloud in the first place).
Now, if the cost of running these machines for a few months is not a concern, here's a few ideas:
1: Do you currently host any office resources (fileservers, authentication, backups, VPNs, etc...) in your office in a wiring closet? This could be a perfect opportunity to showcase how some of these might better be handled in a proper datacentre.
2: Are there any projects still on the drawing board, which have been hitherto delayed due to a lack of resources? You could use this time to develop a proof of concept.
3: Further to #2, this is a perfect opportunity to build a DIY private cloud. Generally, the barrier to entry to these projects is the sticker shock associated with the initial cost. An empty half rack full of unused servers is perfect for this, and could be an excellent proof of concept for management. Done correctly, your private cloud could exist as a backup to your public cloud.
4: If this is a company that does any kind of software development, this is a chance to build a prototype developmnent cluster as well. You could even build a development cluster on top of the aforementioned virtualization cluster.
5: Do you do business with anyone, or do you have any sister companies that are in need of temporary rack space? You could conceivably rent this space out (and even the hardware, too), to a firm that needs some quick and temporary rack space, and possibly even turn a profit, if this is permitted under your agreement with the datacentre.
Essentially, if I had half a rack of unused servers I would use them as a way to prototype a project I've been wanting to do for a while but until now have not had the resources to build. Failing that, I would try to rent it out. But be careful - do not build anything on these servers that you might become dependent on; this might be viewed by management as a challenge to their authority. Make sure that whatever you use it for is temporary.
I suppose I should have been more verbose. Yes, parent said this form of panhandling exists. Reply then mentioned how people use these stories to justify not caring about those in need.
My point is - the very few examples of this do not justify their use as a reason to ignore the plight of the homeless and disenfranchised. Sure, there are many valid reasons for that, however this is not one of them.
I have seen these people in Toronto as well, and I know who some of them are. We have had similar news stories. Five examples (I could likely find a couple more from around here), while indeed non-zero, is still statistically insignificant, and not sufficient reason on its own to alter our views on the homeless IMO.
This is anecdotal evidence, not statistical. Finding five examples (yes, the first and third link are the same person) and extrapolating that to the entire population of panhandlers still counts as "complete imaginary bullshit". A perfect example of confirmation bias.
These are exactly the types of anecdotes people use to rationalize their "abandonment of their fellow man".
Slashdot Mirror
Nevermind, appears not to work.
Sigh, I was hoping links to paywalled articles would go away with the new ownership. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...
Link to non-paywalled article here.
I don't see the biggest benefit of reduced power consumption being in the home - have you ever been inside a datacentre? You can barely hear the dude standing next to you because of all the fans and A/C. You can't hear your phone ring. You can't hear PC speaker warning beeps. Now granted, not all of that comes from processor usage, but reducing the power required to run processors would make a massive difference in the cost to run a datacntre.
Not only does the chip consume power, it then requires a fan to move the heat away from the heatsink. The case then usually has more fans to move the heat out of the case. You then need to move the heat to a central cooling system, and then possibly to a cooling tower to be dumped to the atmosphere. For every joule of energy you use on a processor, you need to move 3 or 4 joules of energy around to sustain it. This is likely why, in my experience, power alone accounts for 75% of the cost of a datacentre, once you include the power required to cool the space as well. This could have huge benefits, but true, not really in the home.
I'm confused - don't Atom and Arm processors and the like already fill this need?
Or is this about significant reductions in power usage, with only minimal reductions in speed?
Gotta say, it would be nice if cutting edge, decently powerful processors no longer required active cooling though...
get a light timer to turn on at 3 AM.
Works great if you sleep alone. Not so much if your s/o is an early riser.
I saw this coming the moment the US enacted the "temporary" Patriot Act, and I've reminded people every time they extended it. Once the government has power, they never give it back. I can't find examples to quote (other than the 1st Rule of Acquisition), but I'm sure everyone can think of at least five cases in history where this pattern has been repeated.
The only sane course of action when governments try to enact legislation like this, for any reason, is to block it at every available opportunity. These laws never get repealed, and the "temporary" emergency laws always become permanent.
Fuck 9/11. History already taught me that governments never waste a good opportunity to grab power, that all emergency powers become permanent, and that no government, ever, can be trusted with these powers.
It hasn't been ratified though. There are significant benefits to being an original signatory on any international treaty, and every member country is afraid of being left in the dust if they don't. There are provisions requiring signatories to ratify certain provisions, but it has not been ratified yet, only signed, and there is a big difference.
The TPP might actually be a net financial gain for the United States - unfortunately, at the expense of other countries involved. A number of provisions in it give an unfair advantage to the US, because they have demanded that these provisions be put in.
Michael Geist is doing a very good review of all the problems with the TPP, and has been posting daily about it for about a month now. It's a rather Canadian perspective on it, but a good read nonetheless.
With this news, I can now celebrate 12 years of not being on Facebook!
It's arguably the biggest threat to consumer privacy in our age - a Three Letter Agency's wet dream. I have never, and will never, ever use the steaming pile of user-exploiting, privacy-invading, advertiser-serving shit that Facebook has always been, and will always be. I can happily be a consumer, but I will never be a product if I can help it. I am the lone Facebook holdout amongst everyone I know, and proud of it.
Here's hoping we've already reached Peak Facebook...
The Nuclear Threat Initiative.
This year's challenge (detailed below) is a real-world problem in nuclear verification, sponsored by and designed in partnership with the Nuclear Threat Initiative (http://www.nti.org/), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to reduce the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
You can find the list of principals and vice principals here.
I would encourage everyone to communicate the sheer lunacy of things like this, and the harm it causes, to the school administration.
I personally have had nothing but problems with SmartScreen. The thing is so complex that nobody at Microsoft seems to know exactly how it works. I've lost count of the number of mailservers I've set up that are refused by SmartScreen, and despite numerous attempts at resolving the problem with Microsoft Deliverability Support, nothing ever gets through. Every response is a generic "We understand you have questions regarding the deliverability of your email, and therefore its content", despite information provided to the contrary, explaining that this is an IP reputation issue. They simply don't care if your company cannot send mail to their users. They really don't.
The thing is so complex that even Microsoft's Deliverability Support team can't tell you why your mailservers mails get rejected. And worse than that, it blatantly violates RFC2821, specifically:
6.1 Reliable Delivery and Replies by Email
When the receiver-SMTP accepts a piece of mail (by sending a "250 OK"
message in response to DATA), it is accepting responsibility for
delivering or relaying the message. It must take this responsibility
seriously. It MUST NOT lose the message for frivolous reasons, such
as because the host later crashes or because of a predictable
resource shortage.
If there is a delivery failure after acceptance of a message, the
receiver-SMTP MUST formulate and mail a notification message. This
notification MUST be sent using a null ("") reverse path in the
envelope. The recipient of this notification MUST be the address
from the envelope return path (or the Return-Path: line). However,
if this address is null (""), the receiver-SMTP MUST NOT send a
notification.
-snip-
SmartScreen will silently drop emails, even after accepting them for delivery. Their postmaster website then tells you that you are required to be RFC2821 compliant.
SmartScreen is a joke. Its filtering policies are far too agressive, and if it decides to drop your emails, you're SOL. Believe me, I've tried to get through to them. Too many legitimate emails are silently dropped / marked as spam, and too much spam gets through (IMHO). My advice for Microsoft to improve SmartScreen is this - You do not own the email system. Design your mail system to work well with others. Tell postmasters why their mail is not being delivered, and offer effective remedies. As long as their filtering system silently drops emails with no notification of why, and their deliverability support people can't help, their mail system will remain a joke.
I gave up on SmartScreen ages ago. I now route all mail destined for Microsoft domains through Amazon SES. It's far less hassle than getting Microsoft to actually accept the message.
1984 wasn't a prediction, or a warning. It was a prophecy.
Switzerland has not implemented a basic income. There is a referendum on it next year.
This actually has nothing to do with the Ashley Madison hack, except that Brian Krebs discovered this alleged hack during his investigation, and that the plaintiff used to be Ashley Madison's CTO.
The lawsuit centres around the claim that Mr. Batia hacked into rival company nerve.com and exfiltrated their entire client database back in 2012. It has nothing to do with any claims against Ashley Madison.
I can sign in to GMail from a Tor exit node in Shanghai, China. (118.193.194.95)
My account activity details clearly show a login from China.
It may be blocked, but this block is clearly not as effective as is being reported. Take it with a grain of salt.
This was actually discussed in the dissenting opinion:
[132]
In short, the cell phone acts like a key or portal which can allow the user to access the full treasure trove of records and files that the owner has generated or used on any number of devices. It is not just the device itself and the information it has generated, but the gamut of (often intensely) personal data accessible via the device that gives rise to the significant and unique privacy interests in digital devices. The fact that a suspect may be carrying their house key at the time they are arrested does not justify the police using that key to enter the suspect’s home. In the same way, seizing the key to the user’s digital life should not justify a wholesale intrusion into that realm. Indeed, personal digital devices are becoming as ubiquitous as the house key. Increasingly large numbers of people carry such devices with them everywhere they go (be they cell phones, mobile computers, smart watches, smart glasses, or tablets).
Which then went on to mention that cellphones differ from most forms of evidence in that the may continue to generate evidence after initial siezure, can continue to generate data and/or evidence unknown to the owner, and may impact the privacy of third parties as well, unbeknownst to them.
Also - this is not a blanket inclusion of all cellphone searches incident to arrest. The majority opinion emphatically states that:
[79]
The law enforcement objectives served by searches incident to arrest will generally be most compelling in the course of the investigation of crimes that involve, for example, violence or threats of violence, or that in some other way put public safety at risk, such as the robbery in this case, or serious property offences that involve readily disposable property, or drug trafficking. Generally speaking, these types of crimes are most likely to justify some limited search of a cell phone incident to arrest, given the law enforcement objectives. Conversely, a search of a cell phone incident to arrest will generally not be justified in relation to minor offences (emphasis mine).
[83]
To summarize, police officers will not be justified in searching a cell phone or similar device incidental to every arrest. Rather, such a search will comply with s. 8 where:
(1) The arrest was lawful;
(2) The search is truly incidental to the arrest in that the police have a reason based on a valid law enforcement purpose to conduct the search, and that reason is objectively reasonable. The valid law enforcement purposes in this context are:
(a) Protecting the police, the accused, or the public;
(b) Preserving evidence; or
(c) Discovering evidence, including locating additional suspects, in situations in which the investigation will be stymied or significantly hampered absent the ability to promptly search the cell phone incident to arrest;
(3) The nature and the extent of the search are tailored to the purpose of the search; and
(4)The police take detailed notes of what they have examined on the device and how it was searched.
And places the onus on the Crown to prove it.
I actually find myself agreeing with this judgement - it seems to me, IMHO, to strike a reasonable balance between the right to privacy and common law principles of warrantless search incidental to arrest. What suspects used to carry on paper is now carried in cellphones, and the law allowing police powers to search papers for a specific purpose should apply also to cellphones, but only for the same purposes. I think this ruling accomplishes that goal.
Where I live (Toronto), we don't have earthquakes, generally. We had a 5.0 in 2010 and a 5.1 in 2013, and those are the only earthquakes of mention in anyone's memory. I don't plan for earthquakes, or tornadoes (we do get those), or floods, or anything specific. I have general emergency plans, which should see me through a week or so after any major emergency. The worst of our disasters here are multi-day power outages. We had one last winter (some know the occurence as the polar vortex). We got hit hard enough that we were without power for three days. It happened also during the Great Blackout of 2003. Beyond that, I've only seen a single tornado, and a pretty bad flood. While I can't speak for everywhere on Earth, I've found that communites tend to band together in disasters. Looting and pillaging is rarely a concern (or maybe I'm just Canadian).
The most important thing to keep around in an emergency (and bear in mind that most "emergencies" last only for a few days to a week) is toiletries, and personal cleaning supplies. We have a supply of soap, toothpaste, and toilet paper in the first aid kit. We keep enough probably for five families. After that, a means of communication is esserntial. Cellphones cannot be relied on in an emergency, although from experience, they do actually work - they worked fine in both the 2003 and 2013 blackouts here - but I just don't trust them, even if only because batteries run dead and I can't guarantee a way to charge it, especially in winter. I have a couple of old rotary phones around and have always kept a landline, just in case these things happen (and as it happens, we're frequently the only household in the neighbourhood with a functional phone in a power failure).
My military survival training taught me there are five basic survival needs, in any situation, those being 1) first aid 2) shelter 3) fire 4) water 5) food, in that order. In an urban environment I would also add communications and sanitation to that list.
Here's what I do:
Food:
Food is a commonly misconcieved need in an emergency. It is dead last on my list of survival necessities, as I know I can survive about three weeks without food, if I keep my activity levels low. That being said however, I do have approximately a weeks' worth of food in the pantry at all times (not for emergencies, but mainly because we like having a large selection of foodstuffs at all times), which obviates the need for a primary emergency food source. I'm also an avid wilderness canoeist, and usually keep about a months' worth of IMP's (Canadian MRE's, but taste better) in storage which gets cycled probably around every 10 years. So I'm good for food.
Water:
Again, this need is commonly placed too high on a survival needs list. You can survive three days without water. We have freshwater streams running through town which could make a suitable source of water in an emergency (though not in winter, and it wouldn't be enough for my whole town). There is always 200 litres in the hot water tank as well. Water is bulky, heavy, and outdoor storage is impossible here as it would freeze. Much more important is a method of purifying what water you can readily find elsewhere. We keep silver nitrate, water purification tablets, large quantities of bleach, and two pump action water filters on hand, just in the camping gear, plus the campstove can be used to boil it.
Shelter:
I go camping a lot, so extra tents are not a concern, nor are tarps, should our house be destroyed or sufficiently damaged. We have enough that we could easily house others if the need was there.
Cooking:
I have two or three campstoves, plus a barbecue, so there's not too much concern there. All my campstoves use readily available fuel sources (mostly kerosene), and can also operate on gasoline or diesel oil with a few minor midification if needed.
All the essentials, including the flashlight and first aid kid, are packed.
I never thought of training a kid in first aid and keeping him in a backpack, just in case. Would be handy for emergency stitching, and crawling though small spaces...
Never let facts get in the way of a good story.
You agree not to misuse the Service or Device, including but not limited to: (a) reselling or rebilling our Service; (b) using the Service or Device to engage in unlawful activity, or in conduct that adversely affects our customers, employees, business, or any other person(s), or that interferes with our operations, network, reputation, or ability to provide quality service, including, but not limited to, the generation or dissemination of viruses, malware or “denial of service” attacks; (c) using the Service as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections; (d) tampering with or modifying your T-Mobile Device; (e) "spamming" or engaging in other abusive or unsolicited communications, or any other mass, automated voice or data communication for commercial or marketing purposes; (f) reselling T-Mobile Devices for profit, or tampering with, reprogramming or altering T-Mobile Devices for the purpose of reselling the T-Mobile Device; (g) using the Service in connection with server devices or host computer applications, including continuous Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications that are broadcast to multiple servers or recipients, “bots” or similar routines that could disrupt net user groups or email use by others or other applications that denigrate network capacity or functionality;
And in the very next section states that:
WE MAY LIMIT, SUSPEND OR TERMINATE YOUR SERVICE OR AGREEMENT WITHOUT NOTICE FOR ANY REASON, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, if you, any user of your Device, or any user on your account: (a) breaches the Agreement;
They are well within their rights under the agreement that every user signed on to. Now while the classic argument is that nobody reads the TOS, that is not Verizon's fault, nor is it their responsibility to make sure you do, and it is certainly not their responsibility to verbally advise you of every condition of service before you sign. It is a perfectly fair argument that "unlimited" can mean "unlimited, but not to the point where it interferes with other users".
Now, some will argue that they have a responsibility to deliver truly "unlimited" services at the advertised bandwidth. However, I don't think it states anywhere in their user agreement that unlimited services are exempt from throttling. The affected users' bandwidth plans are still unlimited, however, at a slower speed, and even if it is stated somewhere that connections will not be throttled, they have already established under contract, their right to limit service in the event of a breach of the TOS.
The affected users still have unlimited bandwidth. They are being administratively punished for a breach of Verizon's TOS, which is a legitimate activity. They cannot cry foul because they don't like the terms. They agreed to them when they signed up.
Personally, I think Verizon is doing this the right way.
This all depends any a number of factors. I can think of quite a few uses for half a rack.
The first question, asked elsewhere in this thread, is whether or not the cost of power is included. If you are also paying for power, it might well be best to shut them down and leave them idle as a cost saving measure (which is why, I assume, that you are moving to the cloud in the first place).
Now, if the cost of running these machines for a few months is not a concern, here's a few ideas:
1: Do you currently host any office resources (fileservers, authentication, backups, VPNs, etc...) in your office in a wiring closet? This could be a perfect opportunity to showcase how some of these might better be handled in a proper datacentre.
2: Are there any projects still on the drawing board, which have been hitherto delayed due to a lack of resources? You could use this time to develop a proof of concept.
3: Further to #2, this is a perfect opportunity to build a DIY private cloud. Generally, the barrier to entry to these projects is the sticker shock associated with the initial cost. An empty half rack full of unused servers is perfect for this, and could be an excellent proof of concept for management. Done correctly, your private cloud could exist as a backup to your public cloud.
4: If this is a company that does any kind of software development, this is a chance to build a prototype developmnent cluster as well. You could even build a development cluster on top of the aforementioned virtualization cluster.
5: Do you do business with anyone, or do you have any sister companies that are in need of temporary rack space? You could conceivably rent this space out (and even the hardware, too), to a firm that needs some quick and temporary rack space, and possibly even turn a profit, if this is permitted under your agreement with the datacentre.
Essentially, if I had half a rack of unused servers I would use them as a way to prototype a project I've been wanting to do for a while but until now have not had the resources to build. Failing that, I would try to rent it out. But be careful - do not build anything on these servers that you might become dependent on; this might be viewed by management as a challenge to their authority. Make sure that whatever you use it for is temporary.
I suppose I should have been more verbose. Yes, parent said this form of panhandling exists. Reply then mentioned how people use these stories to justify not caring about those in need.
My point is - the very few examples of this do not justify their use as a reason to ignore the plight of the homeless and disenfranchised. Sure, there are many valid reasons for that, however this is not one of them.
I have seen these people in Toronto as well, and I know who some of them are. We have had similar news stories. Five examples (I could likely find a couple more from around here), while indeed non-zero, is still statistically insignificant, and not sufficient reason on its own to alter our views on the homeless IMO.
This is anecdotal evidence, not statistical. Finding five examples (yes, the first and third link are the same person) and extrapolating that to the entire population of panhandlers still counts as "complete imaginary bullshit". A perfect example of confirmation bias. These are exactly the types of anecdotes people use to rationalize their "abandonment of their fellow man".
Nope. http://slashdot.org/firehose.p... And KILL BETA!
That is all.