I guess there is a theoretical point where there is enough generation and storage at each point of use that transmission becomes unnecessary. I believe we will approach that, but never achieve it.
Personally I want the option of a grid tie. Let's say I have plenty of solar generation and battery storage - just enough to meet all of my needs, and then I add another electric car - or a swimming pool - It may be worth it to buy excess capacity from someone else instead of installing more solar and more batteries. To do that you need a transmission grid (and a clearinghouse/marketplace for energy trading).
Maintaining a grid also gives us something that should relate very well to IT guys and gals - redundancy. Apple's new campus will generate all the electricity they need on-site and use the grid as a backup.
Redundancy is probably the best reason to build and maintain a grid.
The ability to build a computer, but not understand things like von neumann architecture or how a stack machine works is essentially trade work.
I've seen guys build networks with only a rudimentary understanding of subnetting and routing and no knowledge of the OSI model.
And all of that is OK.
Do you think the guy servicing your car understands the metallurgy behind the castings that make up the block and heads? Probably not.
IT needs a formal apprentice/journeyman type of arrangement for the jobs that simply do not require collegiate level knowledge. An IT union for these jobs probably wouldn't be a bad idea either.
This model works well for many other skilled trades - it could also work well for IT jobs.
Near as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a huge reduction in gun crime as a result of this technology - mostly due to the fact that many gun crimes are committed with stolen guns (that are ditched after a shooting) and the fact that criminals don't hang around after a shooting waiting for the cops.
This technology stinks of Redflex and the red light camera fiasco there...
Companies need to be very careful about what data is being stored in someone else's datacenter.
I'm sure if enough of Walmart's suppliers store enough data in AWS, Amazon could get some tremendous insights into Walmart's supply chain.
In my opinion too many companies have rushed to the cloud and have not completely thought out the repercussions of that choice. If your data is stored in AWS or Azure is it really your data? What if the Government decides to subpoena your data and your company decides to fight the subpoena, but Amazon decides it isn't worth the trouble - and they hand over your data?
The day of reckoning is coming for cloud services and it won't be technical that brings the pain - it will be legal.
We have two locations and we receive amazon deliveries many times per week. At one location the USPS driver brings the mail (including packages) up a flight of stairs to our main office - very nice service. I assume free coffee, air conditioning, and an available guest bathroom also help get our packages in the building.
At our other location (also up a flight of stairs) our USPS driver never comes in the building, and if the package is too large to fit in our giant mailbox, it goes back to the post office for pickup - which results in me calling Amazon and telling them that if I wanted to pickup things I ordered, I would simply buy them from a brick and mortar retailer.
USPS does what they do very cheaply - and their delivery volumes are truly staggering, but their last mile performance does seem inconsistent.
I can definitively say that cerebro-diversity is a thing. Our school focuses on dyslexic and Asperger's kids - their brains are wired differently and as a result, they see the world differently.
I'll bet most of the geniuses found in history also had brains that were wired differently than most of us. That would explain their talents and their quirks.
I don't think you can simply adopt a few odd behaviors in the hopes of attaining genius status.
Instead of implementing these standards at the state level and taking responsibility for the consequences - they want the Federal government to impose these standards and ALL states so they can simply pass the blame on to the Federal government.
These states know if they implement these standards within their borders they will suffer economic consequences - so they want all states to suffer equally at the hands of the Federal government.
Outlaw encryption and only outlaws will have encryption.
A guy I went to college with implemented a split-key encryption type system as his senior project. What's to stop terrorists from rolling their own encryption?
Surely a bunch of guys who can make a remote detonated IED can write some software.
I took both of my BP meters in to the doctor's office and compared their readings with the doctor's readings. That way I know how much deviation to expect when taking measurements.
I've never understood the fascination with talking to your electronic devices. I've used Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa - none seem to work really well.
I suspect the designers of these systems never had to use them in a noisy car or in a house that had children living in it. Trying to get any of these systems to do what you want in these environments is difficult.
Voice activated assistants are just like the 3D TV in my house - an interesting toy that gets used a few times and then is forgotten.
I don't think Obama is a French citizen - why should he impose his opinion on the French people if for no other reason than to influence the outcome of that election?
I've worked in banking and real estate businesses where we had the luxury of being able to DR failover test things like redundant databases, WAN connections, power supplies...etc - knowing that if something failed we had time to put it back together - before the business and customers would notice the outage.
How does one actually fail-over test things in production in a 24/7 business - especially one that spans time zones all across the world?
Are lab simulations simply enough? I've never seen a lab environment that could truly replicate a production environment.
Most of the information revealed during the election season showed how Bernie was unfairly treated by Hillary in cahoots with the DNC.
Bernie should be more angry at Hillary and the DNC than Hillary is about the Russians.
No matter - I don't care who broke into Hillary's mail server or Podesta's emails. Hackers did not force them to write those emails.
Hillary is pissed that we found out how bad she really is.
Finally, did the Russians hack any voting machines or manipulate any vote counts? If not, then all they did was expose how shitty a candidate Hillary was.
Our small school was able to cobble together enough money to afford an APC RM6000 to protect our small data room.
We recently had an intermittent power leg (it was broken at the service pole cut-offs). The wind would blow the cable and cause arcing - and lots of power weirdness on that leg.
Our UPS simply did what it needed to do to keep reliable power going to our IT systems. If we had a generator, we would have failed-over onto that until the power company fixed the service.
Surely an organization the size of BA can afford better and more redundant systems than this.
Time off is expensive. Going anywhere or doing anything typically requires that you spend money. If you don't have the money to spend, you won't be going on many vacations.
If your spouse works and your kids are in school, what good is staying home? Sitting at home just to burn vacation time sucks. If I'm not laying on a beach somewhere, I'd rather be working.
The US dollar is quite strong relative to other currencies. That is a more plausible explanation for the drop in tourism. Do you really think people going on vacation care who occupies the White House?
Slashdot Mirror
They seem quite good at it - for them it is a matter of life and death.
http://www.haaretz.com/1.74329...
Their screening policies are viewed as necessary for survival and political correctness does not factor into their policies and procedures.
Travelers from a country not included in the travel ban can't enter the US and we have no idea why.
Has Slashdot resorted to printing articles simply to take up space?
I guess there is a theoretical point where there is enough generation and storage at each point of use that transmission becomes unnecessary. I believe we will approach that, but never achieve it.
Personally I want the option of a grid tie. Let's say I have plenty of solar generation and battery storage - just enough to meet all of my needs, and then I add another electric car - or a swimming pool - It may be worth it to buy excess capacity from someone else instead of installing more solar and more batteries. To do that you need a transmission grid (and a clearinghouse/marketplace for energy trading).
Maintaining a grid also gives us something that should relate very well to IT guys and gals - redundancy. Apple's new campus will generate all the electricity they need on-site and use the grid as a backup.
Redundancy is probably the best reason to build and maintain a grid.
The ability to build a computer, but not understand things like von neumann architecture or how a stack machine works is essentially trade work.
I've seen guys build networks with only a rudimentary understanding of subnetting and routing and no knowledge of the OSI model.
And all of that is OK.
Do you think the guy servicing your car understands the metallurgy behind the castings that make up the block and heads? Probably not.
IT needs a formal apprentice/journeyman type of arrangement for the jobs that simply do not require collegiate level knowledge. An IT union for these jobs probably wouldn't be a bad idea either.
This model works well for many other skilled trades - it could also work well for IT jobs.
This site has been following ShotSpotter tech for a couple of years now:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.c...
Near as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a huge reduction in gun crime as a result of this technology - mostly due to the fact that many gun crimes are committed with stolen guns (that are ditched after a shooting) and the fact that criminals don't hang around after a shooting waiting for the cops.
This technology stinks of Redflex and the red light camera fiasco there...
Do constitutional protections extend to non-citizens living outside the borders of the US?
The ramifications of this ruling will have an enormous impact potentially making the "long-arm" of US law even longer.
We need to be very careful about extending the US constitution beyond the scope of US citizens and US borders.
Then we could get rid of all the tellers at banks!
Someone should make this.
Companies need to be very careful about what data is being stored in someone else's datacenter.
I'm sure if enough of Walmart's suppliers store enough data in AWS, Amazon could get some tremendous insights into Walmart's supply chain.
In my opinion too many companies have rushed to the cloud and have not completely thought out the repercussions of that choice. If your data is stored in AWS or Azure is it really your data? What if the Government decides to subpoena your data and your company decides to fight the subpoena, but Amazon decides it isn't worth the trouble - and they hand over your data?
The day of reckoning is coming for cloud services and it won't be technical that brings the pain - it will be legal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Google is a tech company - if affordable housing is a problem, why not let most of the staff telecommute from less expensive areas?
We have two locations and we receive amazon deliveries many times per week. At one location the USPS driver brings the mail (including packages) up a flight of stairs to our main office - very nice service. I assume free coffee, air conditioning, and an available guest bathroom also help get our packages in the building.
At our other location (also up a flight of stairs) our USPS driver never comes in the building, and if the package is too large to fit in our giant mailbox, it goes back to the post office for pickup - which results in me calling Amazon and telling them that if I wanted to pickup things I ordered, I would simply buy them from a brick and mortar retailer.
USPS does what they do very cheaply - and their delivery volumes are truly staggering, but their last mile performance does seem inconsistent.
Maybe Amazon should just buy the USPS?
I can definitively say that cerebro-diversity is a thing. Our school focuses on dyslexic and Asperger's kids - their brains are wired differently and as a result, they see the world differently.
I'll bet most of the geniuses found in history also had brains that were wired differently than most of us. That would explain their talents and their quirks.
I don't think you can simply adopt a few odd behaviors in the hopes of attaining genius status.
I'm sure there are millions upon millions of people that are neither racist nor selfish that aren't searching google for much of anything.
How do we measure the good when there is no obvious way to do so?
The program doesn't appear to do what it purports to do:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
This is a case where no government would be better than completely ineffective government.
Instead of implementing these standards at the state level and taking responsibility for the consequences - they want the Federal government to impose these standards and ALL states so they can simply pass the blame on to the Federal government.
These states know if they implement these standards within their borders they will suffer economic consequences - so they want all states to suffer equally at the hands of the Federal government.
Outlaw encryption and only outlaws will have encryption.
A guy I went to college with implemented a split-key encryption type system as his senior project. What's to stop terrorists from rolling their own encryption?
Surely a bunch of guys who can make a remote detonated IED can write some software.
I told my doctor that my blood pressure was higher when I lean forward than if I am reclined back.
He didn't believe me until he took the measurements in his office.
Turns out body position makes a statistical difference in your blood pressure readings:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
I took both of my BP meters in to the doctor's office and compared their readings with the doctor's readings. That way I know how much deviation to expect when taking measurements.
I've never understood the fascination with talking to your electronic devices. I've used Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa - none seem to work really well.
I suspect the designers of these systems never had to use them in a noisy car or in a house that had children living in it. Trying to get any of these systems to do what you want in these environments is difficult.
Voice activated assistants are just like the 3D TV in my house - an interesting toy that gets used a few times and then is forgotten.
I'm sure the Russians are the only ones trying to hack elections.
We've moved from secretly hacking elections to directly stumping for candidates we like:
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
I don't think Obama is a French citizen - why should he impose his opinion on the French people if for no other reason than to influence the outcome of that election?
How many times have you seen that guy or gal staying way later than is necessary - simply to impress someone else?
I've been in that environment and it sucks - it especially sucks when your manager is one of those types.
The ultimate yardstick of productivity is getting shit done on-time with good levels of quality. Nothing else matters.
I've worked in banking and real estate businesses where we had the luxury of being able to DR failover test things like redundant databases, WAN connections, power supplies...etc - knowing that if something failed we had time to put it back together - before the business and customers would notice the outage.
How does one actually fail-over test things in production in a 24/7 business - especially one that spans time zones all across the world?
Are lab simulations simply enough? I've never seen a lab environment that could truly replicate a production environment.
Most of the information revealed during the election season showed how Bernie was unfairly treated by Hillary in cahoots with the DNC.
Bernie should be more angry at Hillary and the DNC than Hillary is about the Russians.
No matter - I don't care who broke into Hillary's mail server or Podesta's emails. Hackers did not force them to write those emails.
Hillary is pissed that we found out how bad she really is.
Finally, did the Russians hack any voting machines or manipulate any vote counts? If not, then all they did was expose how shitty a candidate Hillary was.
Our small school was able to cobble together enough money to afford an APC RM6000 to protect our small data room.
We recently had an intermittent power leg (it was broken at the service pole cut-offs). The wind would blow the cable and cause arcing - and lots of power weirdness on that leg.
Our UPS simply did what it needed to do to keep reliable power going to our IT systems. If we had a generator, we would have failed-over onto that until the power company fixed the service.
Surely an organization the size of BA can afford better and more redundant systems than this.
I suspect BA is passing the buck here.
Time off is expensive. Going anywhere or doing anything typically requires that you spend money. If you don't have the money to spend, you won't be going on many vacations.
If your spouse works and your kids are in school, what good is staying home? Sitting at home just to burn vacation time sucks. If I'm not laying on a beach somewhere, I'd rather be working.
Fry's is pretty awesome in a pinch. I always stop by during my annual CES/Vegas trip.
The US dollar is quite strong relative to other currencies. That is a more plausible explanation for the drop in tourism. Do you really think people going on vacation care who occupies the White House?