You could ask any street urchin to buy a ticket for you.
He has some highly sophisticated method, but was caught at the easiest part anyone could do better.
Think it through a bit more... this guy still has to collect with his winning ticket. It wasn't the act of buying the ticket alone that was suspicious, it was that he tried to claim the winnings while being in the employ of the lotto. I think that's a red flag everywhere.
That doesn't sound remotely true. Most of the important equipment (HVAC, Power, Connectivity) is made of iron and steel and sits behind concrete walls (or underground in the case of fiber), separated either by large distances or placed at opposite ends of the same buildings. So unless you have full building access to walk around and stick explosives inside conduits, raceways, fuel tanks, and generator housings (which you won't if it's a Tier 4 datacenter), there's no way lobbing a few grenades from the parking lot will do anything but force a controlled shutdown of some systems for emergency repairs.
Fun fact, even a datacenter in the middle of a desert can cool every piece of equipment inside via a process known as evaporative cooling; using a heat exchanger connected to an underground water tank or adequate commercial supply, the differential in humidity inside causes heat to be evaporated in the desert sun.
This was the first thing that came to mind. Then again, American car companies have been specifically catering to overweight customers for some time now; American cars typically have wider seats to accommodate larger posteriors, and the popularity of SUV and Pickup Truck frames in the American markets cannot be overstated. Sure, both have replaced the Minivan in recent years, but the larger frames, higher ground clearance, and wide-open entryways are not a coincidence.
You're forgetting something - people with nasty ailments which can be terminal or directly linked to higher rates of suicide need a strong support group to improve their chances of survival, aside from receiving regular treatments and/or pain control from their physician. In these cases, the insurance companies already know these people are afflicted - but it's simply possible that a local support group does not exist, and smaller online communities can be easily fragmented or shutdown on a whim by the owners. At least with Facebook, people are connecting with each other on a platform that is unlikely to go away any time soon.
Say what you want about advertisers and the government, but this post is coming from a country with national healthcare and neither "Joe Government" nor "Your Friendly Neighborhood Claims Adjuster" are trying to be my friends. You need to be a lot more worried about the day when Facebook becomes the official platform for Electronic Medical Records (EMR) to be used by physicians sharing real patient data behind the scenes.
This, so much of this. As one of those *ahem* enthusiastic younger drivers, I absolutely loved test driving the WRX and FR-S, but just could not get over the fact that I would look like a yobbo everywhere I went. I knew it was a lost cause when the sales guy got offended at the suggestion of removing the rear spoiler of the WRX. Wound up with a Jetta GLI instead - you know, that rarely seen mash-up between a stock Jetta, ranked 67th on this site for tickets issued, and the GTI hatchback, ranked 12th. Insurance came back at standard Jetta rates, which was fantastic.
Interesting slide deck from PJM - what's more interesting is the reference to a piece of damaged equipment for which the manufacturer quoted a two-year timeline for replacement (during normal business operations!), but a suitable spare had been found elsewhere and put in place within 6 months.
From what I have read on the topic, this is the largest concern - spare parts simply do not exist, and if enough small pieces are damaged at once, they may never be replaced in a reasonable amount of time. Entire communities and cities at greatly diminished power/no power for months and years at a time, and every country on the globe competing with each other for decades to bring everything back.
Who knows, I'm not an expert. Can you tell us how prevalent these "transformers with grounded center taps connected to long transmission lines" are, and what the damage might look like?
Or their management is from the cult of MBA and fears actually owning anything, or they just saw an ad for the cloud and got sparkly eyes and said "ooooooooh, shiny!".
I don't know of many small-to-medium sized businesses who migrate to the cloud because it's shiny. They all do it because they either read somewhere or were told by someone (most likely a salesperson) that it would save them money. Contrast that with the sysadmin constantly reminding them of the need for more hardware, more licenses, more overtime, etc.
Anyone who tells you an IaaS migration is about something other than cost is probably trying to sell you IaaS. Fear of running your own infrastructure is just another way of saying that you don't know how to model your costs accurately, which I can guarantee 99.9% of MBA's do not.
Actually, no, there's only one reason any company moves to the cloud - because they think it will save them money. In-house disaster recovery is expensive. Employees are expensive. Refreshing hardware, licenses, and support agreements cost a lot of capital. The allure of trading all of that away for a fixed monthly cost is too strong to resist for most decision-makers.
I don't want to sound overly bleak here, but anyone asking the Slashdot crowd for ideas on how to generate revenue for their employer using commodity hardware is probably so far removed the actual business that their days are numbered. Your Infrastructure was outsourced to an IaaS provider because they don't want to pay for the iron. Next, it's PaaS - your hypervisors, databases, and operating systems, and you with it.
If you want some real advice, use it as a DR site (as GP stated) and make sure the business understands the risks associated with shutting it down, ensuring your ass is covered by having the CFO and/or CIO issue a statement to that effect (they will pin it on you when the cloud goes down regardless, because if you really read those IaaS contracts, the provider cannot be held liable). Then, walk away from it. Divorce yourself from the infrastructure discussions as much as you can, get involved with bigger and better initiatives so that once the salesmen show up with their PaaS offering, you're too well engrained in the big picture that they can't live without you.
Pretty much the only sensible answer in this discussion so far - and based upon the number of people (trolls? shills?) saying that the gear should be used for mining crypto-currency, I could probably make a small fortune as a security consultant looking for abusive sysadmins wasting company assets for dubious gains.
Let's not forget, your employer is moving to the cloud either because they do not see value in what you provide, or they want you focusing on more strategic initiatives. You should probably spend some time cooking up something amazing in the old environment or, worst case scenario, using it as an opportunity to brush up on your skills and certifications.
It's funny because the police in Calgary, Alberta will put up giant pink signs on the highway which say "Police Ahead" whenever they setup a speed trap consisting of more than one cruiser. It doesn't actually matter, drivers still speed and the traps are always full of people being pulled over. So being warned ahead of time doesn't seem to have an impact.
Secondly, they've started buying all colours, makes, and models of domestic vehicles. Waze doesn't help you if you can't see the police doing traffic.
In short, they will never give up this revenue stream to solve actual crimes because it's so damn convenient and there is no shortage of drivers willing to pay a voluntary tax.
This, and most likely on numerous private cellular APN's from different carriers.
And for God's sake, stop using that stupid Internet-of-things buzzword.
This buzzword annoys me even more than Cloud. Cloud has more or less become common vernacular for describing Internet-connected servers which you may or may not own, but the term Internet of Things seems to imply that a) there were no "things" on the Internet before now and b) the "old Internet" simply isn't hip enough to run more devices, and you should be clambering all over a vendor to be a part of it. Ugh.
They sort of explain it in the article - the theory is that being the assassin, the act itself has been pre-meditated and you have chosen the date of the murder. You then make a donation to the deadpool, including a hashed version of your date. Once the act is done, you send an email (ideally anonymous) to the site operator with that date inside. The operator performs a hash check on it, and if it matches the data included with your donation, you are most likely the killer.
Or, you're just really good at guessing when people are going to die.
I work in a fairly large technical sales environment, and we exercise a zero tolerance rule for our younger team members when we are out with clients - if you touch your mobile device for any reason beyond presenting content or sharing contacts relevant to the meeting, you will be reprimanded. Don't leave the device on the table, and don't even think about taking notes on your phone - anything that distracts you and forces you to break eye contact with your customer is a bad thing and makes you look like you're only half-interested in the people in the room.
We will occasionally experience some belligerence after they have been reprimanded, but we always remind them that the best, most seasoned sales team members only need four things to close a multi-million dollar sale - pen, paper, whiteboard, and business cards.
Love for cars and love of driving is too ingrained in our culture to permit the future you have just described. People don't simply buy the safest vehicle they can afford - they buy something that's fun/sporty/responsive/peppy/powerful/fast/etc. and safe. Safety is almost an implied feature, but it always takes second fiddle to something a driver can enjoy. At most, self-driving will be a switch for the morning commute.
Your assertion that autonomous vehicles will take over fails to take into account one of the major reasons we have such a large automotive industry - people like to drive. They like to buy new cars, repair old cars, and do stupid things in fast cars. At most, a car with auto-pilot would be a convenience feature for the daily commute, but so long as people get an adrenaline rush when they put the pedal to the floor, this will not change.
Wow, move to a real country. Not even kidding. I work for an average employer in Canada and they pay 100% of the monthly costs for my entire family, and that covers extended health, drugs, dental, vision, the works.
Some mobility would be good for your family growing up, anyway.
I'm glad that someone is attempting to quantify this. As someone who works in sales for hosted services, I saw this trend emerge virtually overnight with the Snowden leaks - the complete erosion of trust for any service hosted in the U.S., even if the actual, measurable impact to date any of my customers of being spied upon is exactly nil.
Now if only someone would compare the impact to the NSA's operating budget and draw some lines, things might get better. I've been called an optimist before, however.
This. The sense of entitlement and self-importance is astounding amongst some flyers. I guess it's understandable on some level - some people could just never be told to put their toys away by an authority figure as a child.
Coverage is a little lacking in some areas that I go, but that is sprints fault, hopefully they will build out more.
The mobile market is always fascinating. Ting piggybacks on Sprint's network (ultimately driving down revenue for Sprint) and does not build any of their own infrastructure, yet their customers point the finger right back at Sprint when coverage becomes an issue.
The future is pretty straightforward for companies like Ting - once they have a large enough customer base and start taking a measurable chunk of Sprint's revenue, Sprint will either buy them out or lobby for legislation to shut them down. Sure, Sprint makes some money for each Ting device on the network, but not enough to justify brand new towers, and so long as that is true, Ting cannot exist without Sprint's willful participation.
Looks like only the AC's are biting on this one. Regardless of whether it makes sense on a technical level, this is exactly what the bean counters and VP's are thinking. They don't care if the folks providing support know what FTP is, they have a contract and someone to yell at if it all goes south - and a mountain of provable cost efficiencies. If they're particularly smart, they will keep just enough dedicated talent on-hand to babysit during the transition offshore, chewing up all of their work/life balance for the promise of something better. But don't worry, as one of those dedicated, talented people facing burnout, you, too, will be offered the ability to work from home when the dust settles. You can pat yourself on the back, knowing that you've done a good job for your employer, and that your work-from-home arrangement won't end the same way, right?
Slashdot Mirror
You could ask any street urchin to buy a ticket for you. He has some highly sophisticated method, but was caught at the easiest part anyone could do better.
Think it through a bit more... this guy still has to collect with his winning ticket. It wasn't the act of buying the ticket alone that was suspicious, it was that he tried to claim the winnings while being in the employ of the lotto. I think that's a red flag everywhere.
That doesn't sound remotely true. Most of the important equipment (HVAC, Power, Connectivity) is made of iron and steel and sits behind concrete walls (or underground in the case of fiber), separated either by large distances or placed at opposite ends of the same buildings. So unless you have full building access to walk around and stick explosives inside conduits, raceways, fuel tanks, and generator housings (which you won't if it's a Tier 4 datacenter), there's no way lobbing a few grenades from the parking lot will do anything but force a controlled shutdown of some systems for emergency repairs.
Fun fact, even a datacenter in the middle of a desert can cool every piece of equipment inside via a process known as evaporative cooling; using a heat exchanger connected to an underground water tank or adequate commercial supply, the differential in humidity inside causes heat to be evaporated in the desert sun.
This was the first thing that came to mind. Then again, American car companies have been specifically catering to overweight customers for some time now; American cars typically have wider seats to accommodate larger posteriors, and the popularity of SUV and Pickup Truck frames in the American markets cannot be overstated. Sure, both have replaced the Minivan in recent years, but the larger frames, higher ground clearance, and wide-open entryways are not a coincidence.
You're forgetting something - people with nasty ailments which can be terminal or directly linked to higher rates of suicide need a strong support group to improve their chances of survival, aside from receiving regular treatments and/or pain control from their physician. In these cases, the insurance companies already know these people are afflicted - but it's simply possible that a local support group does not exist, and smaller online communities can be easily fragmented or shutdown on a whim by the owners. At least with Facebook, people are connecting with each other on a platform that is unlikely to go away any time soon.
Say what you want about advertisers and the government, but this post is coming from a country with national healthcare and neither "Joe Government" nor "Your Friendly Neighborhood Claims Adjuster" are trying to be my friends. You need to be a lot more worried about the day when Facebook becomes the official platform for Electronic Medical Records (EMR) to be used by physicians sharing real patient data behind the scenes.
This, so much of this. As one of those *ahem* enthusiastic younger drivers, I absolutely loved test driving the WRX and FR-S, but just could not get over the fact that I would look like a yobbo everywhere I went. I knew it was a lost cause when the sales guy got offended at the suggestion of removing the rear spoiler of the WRX. Wound up with a Jetta GLI instead - you know, that rarely seen mash-up between a stock Jetta, ranked 67th on this site for tickets issued, and the GTI hatchback, ranked 12th. Insurance came back at standard Jetta rates, which was fantastic.
Interesting slide deck from PJM - what's more interesting is the reference to a piece of damaged equipment for which the manufacturer quoted a two-year timeline for replacement (during normal business operations!), but a suitable spare had been found elsewhere and put in place within 6 months.
From what I have read on the topic, this is the largest concern - spare parts simply do not exist, and if enough small pieces are damaged at once, they may never be replaced in a reasonable amount of time. Entire communities and cities at greatly diminished power/no power for months and years at a time, and every country on the globe competing with each other for decades to bring everything back.
Who knows, I'm not an expert. Can you tell us how prevalent these "transformers with grounded center taps connected to long transmission lines" are, and what the damage might look like?
Or their management is from the cult of MBA and fears actually owning anything, or they just saw an ad for the cloud and got sparkly eyes and said "ooooooooh, shiny!".
I don't know of many small-to-medium sized businesses who migrate to the cloud because it's shiny. They all do it because they either read somewhere or were told by someone (most likely a salesperson) that it would save them money. Contrast that with the sysadmin constantly reminding them of the need for more hardware, more licenses, more overtime, etc.
Anyone who tells you an IaaS migration is about something other than cost is probably trying to sell you IaaS. Fear of running your own infrastructure is just another way of saying that you don't know how to model your costs accurately, which I can guarantee 99.9% of MBA's do not.
Actually, no, there's only one reason any company moves to the cloud - because they think it will save them money. In-house disaster recovery is expensive. Employees are expensive. Refreshing hardware, licenses, and support agreements cost a lot of capital. The allure of trading all of that away for a fixed monthly cost is too strong to resist for most decision-makers.
I don't want to sound overly bleak here, but anyone asking the Slashdot crowd for ideas on how to generate revenue for their employer using commodity hardware is probably so far removed the actual business that their days are numbered. Your Infrastructure was outsourced to an IaaS provider because they don't want to pay for the iron. Next, it's PaaS - your hypervisors, databases, and operating systems, and you with it.
If you want some real advice, use it as a DR site (as GP stated) and make sure the business understands the risks associated with shutting it down, ensuring your ass is covered by having the CFO and/or CIO issue a statement to that effect (they will pin it on you when the cloud goes down regardless, because if you really read those IaaS contracts, the provider cannot be held liable). Then, walk away from it. Divorce yourself from the infrastructure discussions as much as you can, get involved with bigger and better initiatives so that once the salesmen show up with their PaaS offering, you're too well engrained in the big picture that they can't live without you.
Pretty much the only sensible answer in this discussion so far - and based upon the number of people (trolls? shills?) saying that the gear should be used for mining crypto-currency, I could probably make a small fortune as a security consultant looking for abusive sysadmins wasting company assets for dubious gains.
Let's not forget, your employer is moving to the cloud either because they do not see value in what you provide, or they want you focusing on more strategic initiatives. You should probably spend some time cooking up something amazing in the old environment or, worst case scenario, using it as an opportunity to brush up on your skills and certifications.
And those who do will be risk of contracting Android malware from your underwear.
It's funny because the police in Calgary, Alberta will put up giant pink signs on the highway which say "Police Ahead" whenever they setup a speed trap consisting of more than one cruiser. It doesn't actually matter, drivers still speed and the traps are always full of people being pulled over. So being warned ahead of time doesn't seem to have an impact.
Secondly, they've started buying all colours, makes, and models of domestic vehicles. Waze doesn't help you if you can't see the police doing traffic.
In short, they will never give up this revenue stream to solve actual crimes because it's so damn convenient and there is no shortage of drivers willing to pay a voluntary tax.
This, and most likely on numerous private cellular APN's from different carriers.
And for God's sake, stop using that stupid Internet-of-things buzzword.
This buzzword annoys me even more than Cloud. Cloud has more or less become common vernacular for describing Internet-connected servers which you may or may not own, but the term Internet of Things seems to imply that a) there were no "things" on the Internet before now and b) the "old Internet" simply isn't hip enough to run more devices, and you should be clambering all over a vendor to be a part of it. Ugh.
They sort of explain it in the article - the theory is that being the assassin, the act itself has been pre-meditated and you have chosen the date of the murder. You then make a donation to the deadpool, including a hashed version of your date. Once the act is done, you send an email (ideally anonymous) to the site operator with that date inside. The operator performs a hash check on it, and if it matches the data included with your donation, you are most likely the killer.
Or, you're just really good at guessing when people are going to die.
The same reason the vast majority of people have problems with money - their spending decisions are largely driven by emotion and lack discipline.
I work in a fairly large technical sales environment, and we exercise a zero tolerance rule for our younger team members when we are out with clients - if you touch your mobile device for any reason beyond presenting content or sharing contacts relevant to the meeting, you will be reprimanded. Don't leave the device on the table, and don't even think about taking notes on your phone - anything that distracts you and forces you to break eye contact with your customer is a bad thing and makes you look like you're only half-interested in the people in the room.
We will occasionally experience some belligerence after they have been reprimanded, but we always remind them that the best, most seasoned sales team members only need four things to close a multi-million dollar sale - pen, paper, whiteboard, and business cards.
Love for cars and love of driving is too ingrained in our culture to permit the future you have just described. People don't simply buy the safest vehicle they can afford - they buy something that's fun/sporty/responsive/peppy/powerful/fast/etc. and safe. Safety is almost an implied feature, but it always takes second fiddle to something a driver can enjoy. At most, self-driving will be a switch for the morning commute.
Your assertion that autonomous vehicles will take over fails to take into account one of the major reasons we have such a large automotive industry - people like to drive. They like to buy new cars, repair old cars, and do stupid things in fast cars. At most, a car with auto-pilot would be a convenience feature for the daily commute, but so long as people get an adrenaline rush when they put the pedal to the floor, this will not change.
Wow, move to a real country. Not even kidding. I work for an average employer in Canada and they pay 100% of the monthly costs for my entire family, and that covers extended health, drugs, dental, vision, the works.
Some mobility would be good for your family growing up, anyway.
I'm glad that someone is attempting to quantify this. As someone who works in sales for hosted services, I saw this trend emerge virtually overnight with the Snowden leaks - the complete erosion of trust for any service hosted in the U.S., even if the actual, measurable impact to date any of my customers of being spied upon is exactly nil.
Now if only someone would compare the impact to the NSA's operating budget and draw some lines, things might get better. I've been called an optimist before, however.
This. The sense of entitlement and self-importance is astounding amongst some flyers. I guess it's understandable on some level - some people could just never be told to put their toys away by an authority figure as a child.
The Dead Hand, I believe.
Coverage is a little lacking in some areas that I go, but that is sprints fault, hopefully they will build out more.
The mobile market is always fascinating. Ting piggybacks on Sprint's network (ultimately driving down revenue for Sprint) and does not build any of their own infrastructure, yet their customers point the finger right back at Sprint when coverage becomes an issue.
The future is pretty straightforward for companies like Ting - once they have a large enough customer base and start taking a measurable chunk of Sprint's revenue, Sprint will either buy them out or lobby for legislation to shut them down. Sure, Sprint makes some money for each Ting device on the network, but not enough to justify brand new towers, and so long as that is true, Ting cannot exist without Sprint's willful participation.
Looks like only the AC's are biting on this one. Regardless of whether it makes sense on a technical level, this is exactly what the bean counters and VP's are thinking. They don't care if the folks providing support know what FTP is, they have a contract and someone to yell at if it all goes south - and a mountain of provable cost efficiencies. If they're particularly smart, they will keep just enough dedicated talent on-hand to babysit during the transition offshore, chewing up all of their work/life balance for the promise of something better.
But don't worry, as one of those dedicated, talented people facing burnout, you, too, will be offered the ability to work from home when the dust settles. You can pat yourself on the back, knowing that you've done a good job for your employer, and that your work-from-home arrangement won't end the same way, right?
They forgot to use "Software Defined Networks" in TFA. That'll hurt their SEO scores.