If you're really interested in saving money (and not just being fashionable), then you just have to do the math. For example, paying an extra $10,000 for a hybrid option on a 250HP luxury car that gets 30MPG instead of the usual 25MPG is probably never going to pay back.
For those outside of the US, while the terms "Engineer" and "Architect" are not legally protected in the United States, the terms "Professional Engineer" (PE) and "Registered Architect" (RA) most certainly are:
So sure, call yourself an Engineer if you want, but calling yourself a PE or RA in the US without having a license in good standing is grounds for being sued.
Why would anyone pay $9.95 for an Ebook when your average paperback novel costs the same (or less) at a brick + mortar store? I think the issue is that retailers still see Ebooks as an "upgrade" over a standard paperback, and prices them accordingly. While Ebooks certainly do have many advantages over a paperback, I think people realize that since printing and distribution costs of Ebooks are basicaly zero and should be reflected in a lower price.
I was at a wedding over the weekend and one of the people at our table was talking about how their son runs a fairly profitable business in providing capital specifically for the purchasing of domain names. I can't recall if the business model involved a fixed interest rate, or a percentage of income, but it's the sort thing i never thought you could finance. I wonder how long before they start packaging them and selling them as securities on Wall Street:-)
Well, it's clear by that statement that you have no idea of the infrastructure of a Data Center.
Believe it or not, I've designed both, and while I certainly don't claim to be an expert on all the IT equipment, I've got a pretty good idea of the electrical systems that go into them.
My description of the emergency branches was intentionally vague because their full definitions comprise some dozens of pages in NFPA 99. I assumed most people wouldn't care about that level of detail:-)
Anyway, my point was that while a typical data center has 3 types of power available (Normal, Emergency and UPS), a typical hospital usually has at least 5:
Normal Emergency (Life Safety) Emergency (Critical) Emergency (Equipment) Emergency (UPS)
These generally include separate panels, feeders, automatic transfer switches...etc, so I still stand by my claim that hospitals have the more complex electrical system. Also consider that hospitals now contain increasingly critical data center facilities. Of course I will concede that the UPS topology of a large data center is generally far more complex then a hospitals....but again, that's just one part of the puzzle.
"Starting" and closing to the Buss are 2 very different things. If you believe that large generators are starting and closing to the buss at full voltage and balanced frequencies in 3 seconds, I have a bridge that you may be interested in purchasing. To give you some perspective, our 2 generators for our Data Center (2 Megawatts each) start and close to the buss (and are assume the building load) in 15 seconds. We, of course, circulate the heated jacket water to keep the oil, cylinders, etc warm and ready as you described.
I'll take that bridge. The reason your generators take 15 seconds to start is that they comprise a Level 2 system (as defined in NFPA 110), and not the Level 1 system that hospitals require. Level 1 includes a whole bunch of additional requirements (ie...expense) that are simply not required where the outage will not potentially risk human life, ie, datacenters. Now i'm not sure about all the modifications that manufacturers must make to their gen sets to meet these requirements, but I can assure you that that 10 second start (which includes startup, sync and bus connection) is required by code. Also, I've been there at the monthly test that hospitals are required to perform and yep...they really are that quick.
Now again...it's not that your generators are bad...it's just that theirs no reason for a company to spend the extra cash on that sort of system when a longer startup time will do; typically the UPS is sized for 15 minutes of runtime and the HVAC equipment can go down for a few minutes without the room overheating.
There are many components that you're probably unaware of and layers of redundancy that are invisible to those who do not work in the "back of house" Critical Environments. To reiterate, I'm not saying that hospitals aren't complex nor am I saying that they do not have Critical Environments within them. I'm simply saying that you may have a perception of what a Data Center is that is not necessarily consistent with what is actually the case.
Similarly, I'm not claiming that hospitals are more complex overall systems....just that their electrical distribution systems typically are.
Actually, hospitals are way more complex then most datacenters.
Here in the US, hospitals are required by to have not one, but three "branches" of emergency power, all fed from different transfer switches, with separate distribution...in addition to any normal (non-emergency) power. They are:
"Life Safety" - Anything essential for detecting danger and getting people out of the building (fire alarm, exit lights..etc) "Critical" - Anything essential for maintaining life during an outage (portable life support equipment...etc) "Equipment" - Any larger mechanical equipment required for maintaining hospital operations during an outage
Also, to meet inspections, hospital generators are required to start up in a maximum of 10 seconds (though they often take far less time...as little as 3 seconds). Of course this startup speed required additional equipment like engine block heaters, oil heaters....etc to keep the generator as close to it's operating state as possible. And course none of this is even touches on UPS power....which an increasing amount of medical equipment now requires.
I guess my point is that while you might be very proud of your data center setup...keep in mind that Hospitals are about the most complex buildings you can find; they're required to be.
History has shown us that technology evolves through several stages:
Idea --> Refinement --> Maturity.
This holds true for everything from software to toasters. A new idea breeds a (generally poor) initial implimentation, which becomes refined with time and as each refinement brings less and less of an improvement, it reaches maturity.
Paper didn't reach it's level of maturity overnight, clearly it took centuries if not millenia of experimentation over what types of paper worked best, how to make it, inks, size, thickness....developing written languages to:::use::: on it.... It's very easy to look back and see paper as more polished because all of the "rough" years have been lost to history.
Now consider the digital age. It's true, data from the 60's is probably harder to recover then form the 1800's. However one has to keep something in mind: the digital age is quite new and is still going through that polishing stage. Evidence of that polishing is around...realiablity has improved drasticly, and the move has been towards open data storage formats that don't become a mystery the momment a single company goes bankrupt.
And as a previous poster mentioned, consider for a momment how the capacity for infinite reproduction changes things...more eggs, more baskets.
Yes, but you're forgeting something. There's plenty of accounting magic you can use to show a profit year after year even when in reality you're loosing money hand over fist. A publicly traded company:::depends::: on continuting to show a profit; frequently the first indication that a company is in real trouble is when they file for chapter 11.
It's saturday morning and i'm sitting here in a towel making comments about a story on flinging monkey poo. I'd like to think that 30 years from now I'll remember today as the day my life peaked.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that Verizon thinks they're dealing with addicts; the first hits are cheap and then the price goes up.
The trouble is that they're probably right.
-Chris
"...the bulb that won a $10 million government contest...and Philips was the only entrant."
I wonder how they won...
-Chris
...I suppose this is following Apple's similar success with the iPad and lemmings?
-Chris
If you're really interested in saving money (and not just being fashionable), then you just have to do the math. For example, paying an extra $10,000 for a hybrid option on a 250HP luxury car that gets 30MPG instead of the usual 25MPG is probably never going to pay back.
Hate to have to solder one :-)
For those outside of the US, while the terms "Engineer" and "Architect" are not legally protected in the United States, the terms "Professional Engineer" (PE) and "Registered Architect" (RA) most certainly are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_engineer
So sure, call yourself an Engineer if you want, but calling yourself a PE or RA in the US without having a license in good standing is grounds for being sued.
-Chris
With that in mind, some thoughts about backing up Gmail data:
http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_a_Local_Backup_Of_Your_Gmail_Account
-Chris
Why would anyone pay $9.95 for an Ebook when your average paperback novel costs the same (or less) at a brick + mortar store? I think the issue is that retailers still see Ebooks as an "upgrade" over a standard paperback, and prices them accordingly. While Ebooks certainly do have many advantages over a paperback, I think people realize that since printing and distribution costs of Ebooks are basicaly zero and should be reflected in a lower price.
Two thoughts:
1-Suvivorship Bias
and
2-Every Woz Needs a Jobs
-Chris
...a few minutes? What is this, the 1840's?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography
Simple....download and run the WDTLER utility. Problem solved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Limited_Error_Recovery#Western_Digital_Time_Limit_Error_Recovery_Utility_-_WDTLER.EXE
-Chris
...posted two stories after the headline "Haptic Gaming Vest Simulates Punches, Shots, Stabbing". That's just funny. -Chris
I've found the best thing is to doze off during the interview, and when woken...ask for a raise.
Remember, no sleep and no coffee are your friends here...
-Chris
Makes sense, but what about zombie-sized targets?
I was at a wedding over the weekend and one of the people at our table was talking about how their son runs a fairly profitable business in providing capital specifically for the purchasing of domain names. I can't recall if the business model involved a fixed interest rate, or a percentage of income, but it's the sort thing i never thought you could finance. I wonder how long before they start packaging them and selling them as securities on Wall Street :-)
-Chris
Believe it or not, I've designed both, and while I certainly don't claim to be an expert on all the IT equipment, I've got a pretty good idea of the electrical systems that go into them.
My description of the emergency branches was intentionally vague because their full definitions comprise some dozens of pages in NFPA 99. I assumed most people wouldn't care about that level of detail
Anyway, my point was that while a typical data center has 3 types of power available (Normal, Emergency and UPS), a typical hospital usually has at least 5:
Normal
Emergency (Life Safety)
Emergency (Critical)
Emergency (Equipment)
Emergency (UPS)
These generally include separate panels, feeders, automatic transfer switches...etc, so I still stand by my claim that hospitals have the more complex electrical system. Also consider that hospitals now contain increasingly critical data center facilities. Of course I will concede that the UPS topology of a large data center is generally far more complex then a hospitals....but again, that's just one part of the puzzle.
I'll take that bridge. The reason your generators take 15 seconds to start is that they comprise a Level 2 system (as defined in NFPA 110), and not the Level 1 system that hospitals require. Level 1 includes a whole bunch of additional requirements (ie...expense) that are simply not required where the outage will not potentially risk human life, ie, datacenters. Now i'm not sure about all the modifications that manufacturers must make to their gen sets to meet these requirements, but I can assure you that that 10 second start (which includes startup, sync and bus connection) is required by code. Also, I've been there at the monthly test that hospitals are required to perform and yep...they really are that quick.
Now again...it's not that your generators are bad...it's just that theirs no reason for a company to spend the extra cash on that sort of system when a longer startup time will do; typically the UPS is sized for 15 minutes of runtime and the HVAC equipment can go down for a few minutes without the room overheating.
Similarly, I'm not claiming that hospitals are more complex overall systems....just that their electrical distribution systems typically are.
-Chris
Actually, hospitals are way more complex then most datacenters.
Here in the US, hospitals are required by to have not one, but three "branches" of emergency power, all fed from different transfer switches, with separate distribution...in addition to any normal (non-emergency) power. They are:
"Life Safety" - Anything essential for detecting danger and getting people out of the building (fire alarm, exit lights..etc)
"Critical" - Anything essential for maintaining life during an outage (portable life support equipment...etc)
"Equipment" - Any larger mechanical equipment required for maintaining hospital operations during an outage
Also, to meet inspections, hospital generators are required to start up in a maximum of 10 seconds (though they often take far less time...as little as 3 seconds). Of course this startup speed required additional equipment like engine block heaters, oil heaters....etc to keep the generator as close to it's operating state as possible. And course none of this is even touches on UPS power....which an increasing amount of medical equipment now requires.
I guess my point is that while you might be very proud of your data center setup...keep in mind that Hospitals are about the most complex buildings you can find; they're required to be.
-Chris
The Red Socks perhaps?
-Chris
History has shown us that technology evolves through several stages:
:::use::: on it.... It's very easy to look back and see paper as more polished because all of the "rough" years have been lost to history.
Idea --> Refinement --> Maturity.
This holds true for everything from software to toasters. A new idea breeds a (generally poor) initial implimentation, which becomes refined with time and as each refinement brings less and less of an improvement, it reaches maturity.
Paper didn't reach it's level of maturity overnight, clearly it took centuries if not millenia of experimentation over what types of paper worked best, how to make it, inks, size, thickness....developing written languages to
Now consider the digital age. It's true, data from the 60's is probably harder to recover then form the 1800's. However one has to keep something in mind: the digital age is quite new and is still going through that polishing stage. Evidence of that polishing is around...realiablity has improved drasticly, and the move has been towards open data storage formats that don't become a mystery the momment a single company goes bankrupt.
And as a previous poster mentioned, consider for a momment how the capacity for infinite reproduction changes things...more eggs, more baskets.
-Chris
Yeah, but what happens when the autocorrect starts making changes like:
becoming
-Chris
Yes, but you're forgeting something. There's plenty of accounting magic you can use to show a profit year after year even when in reality you're loosing money hand over fist. A publicly traded company :::depends::: on continuting to show a profit; frequently the first indication that a company is in real trouble is when they file for chapter 11.
-Chris
Might I suggest something like this?
http://www.vu.union.edu/~shoemakc/new/dos/Y1984K.
-Chris
It's saturday morning and i'm sitting here in a towel making comments about a story on flinging monkey poo. I'd like to think that 30 years from now I'll remember today as the day my life peaked.
-Chris
Yeah well, when they finally have the monkeys flying helicopters and hanging with Matthew Broderick then i'd be impressed.
-Chris