Alternately, this could be a scare tactic piece that's a lead-in to telling people that, without fossil fuels, we'll have no source of helium. Plots within plots...
Beating swords into ploughshares? There are probably more examples of people learning to use everyday implements as weapons. For an example, read up on the history of the Ninja in Japan. Applied properly, your average farm implement can be quite dangerous.
Thanks. Much more informative. I always had a sense that the explanation about the frequency and water was suspect, but have read it several times, so went with it. So much for the Fox News approach to research...
From what I understand, it depends on the frequency. For instance, a microwave oven operates at whatever frequency best excites a water molecule, which leads to cooking by making the water in everything hot.
There was a long-running experiment in California back in the seventies or so that transmitted kilowatts of power over a few kilometers. They were doing the test as a lead-in experiment to figure out whether or not satellite-based power generation and transmission was feasible.
I'm not confident that we know about the long term health effects of exposure to various magnetic fields. Back in the early nineties there was a discovery that sitting in front of a monitor for hours on end was causing health problems due to "ELF" (extremely low frequency) radiation. Monitor manufacturers jumped on re-tooling and shielding their CRTs to avoid the problem, and eventually all CRTs complied with a standard ("ELF-II" IIRC) that was deemed safe. I don't believe LCDs have the same issue.
AD&D still does, but it hasn't been published in a long time. Evidently, someone with a software marketing background got a hold of the thing, and now it's just version numbers. I'm waiting for "D&D 2010."
I did a little cursory reading a few weeks back on the Dragonmark system in the Eberron Campaign Setting. It seemed like a great way to give a little magic here and there where it's needed, with growth paths (basically, "apply feat here to increase magic power of tattoo") for the user as they level up.
Does anyone here have extensive experience with the Eberron setting?
I've also done some reading (but no playing yet) on the D20-Modern class system. Much better, I feel. Strong Hero, Fast Hero, Smart Hero. Even in today's 3.5, a rogue is almost always either a thief or an assassin of some sort. They're not much use otherwise. But playing a "Fast Hero" would cut loose the stigma, or so it seems.
I didn't think (from reading the article) that Mossberg thought the Dell was better, just that there was a reasonable all-in-one option for someone who wants to run Windows. He neglected to mention that such people could just buy a copy of Vista (or its XP upgrade) and load it on their Mac hardware. The cost differential with the Dell probably isn't that different.
Agreed. If your company is large enough to have four racks full of equipment, it's large enough to have a (small) datacenter. The cooling requirements for that much gear are non-trivial, and trying to balance the cooling and the heat output so that the air temp is comfortable for you would be an exercise in futility.
A small room, 12' by 12', is about what it takes to house four racks. Okay, you could go with 10' x 12' if you only make space on one end to get around the racks, but 12x12 will give you a little growth room (one rack worth). You need space behind the racks as well as in front.
Separate exterior doors to the datacenter is a good idea if you expect the IT department to grow beyond about five people, but for a small shop, having access to the datacenter via your office not only provides a level of security (your office becomes a sort of DMZ), but tends to insure that your office will always be the office of "the IT guy," since no manager wants to have people traipsing through his office all the time to "fool with the computers."
To further your insurance, do a nice custom wiring job in your office space so that you have extra network ports (including some out-of-band ports for monitoring), power outlets that are on the same UPS system as the data center, and a few special ports like serial lines to the console ports of your network and telephone switches. Furthermore, put in a wall-mount PC rack high up on one wall (complete with network port and power outlet) and tie it to a large LCD screen for at-a-glance system monitoring. Don't make the screen too large, as it will be seen as garish. I wouldn't go over 37".
As others suggested, your desk should face the door. In the "public" space between your desk and the door wall should be a small table with two or three chairs for closed-door meetings. Store stacks of paperwork on the table, giving the visual cue that work is always going on in your office. The rest of the office should be clean and well kept. You're the head of IT, everything should be digital, except for your nod to interaction with "the rest of the world" via the papers on the meeting table.
Leave space on the walls for a little art of your choosing. I recommend landscapes or florals, as they tend away from hard lines. It gives you something to look at that's not rigid in nature, and can be very relaxing. Furthermore, it gives the impression to visitors that you're deeper in personality than "just a computer geek." Also, have several plants around the office. They help freshen the air and further take away the stark stigma. Get someone else in the office into a routine of helping you maintain the plants so you can occasionally take a vacation without them dying. If your office has a plant service, so much the better.
The door to your office should have a card-key lock on it, as should the door between your office and the datacenter. Be sure that the access lists for both locks are separate. You want to be sure that you can filter the access for both spaces differently (the whole "DMZ" thing again).
Good luck. I hope it works out for you. I suspect it won't. You should do a Slashback and let us all know how things turn out.
You'd have to see the layout to understand that the angles usually don't make it an issue. And, people are generally respectful of each other. Furthermore, it's kind of noisy around here anyway, and you just get used to it.
I started work for an energy company six months ago. I'm an IT guy, but sitting on the trading floor, "embedded" as it were. All the "cube" walls are waist high, and sitting in my chair I can see the entire length and breadth of the room. Furthermore, the workspaces are sixteen by eight, with one sixteen-foot side open. One person occupies each corner, but in a pinch you can stuff someone into the space between two people.
It took me about three weeks to get used to the new arrangement, completely different from the 66" high, eight by eight cubes I had at my last job. We've got a little space to hang personal goods; a little over a foot of wall protrudes above the desk surface, and you can set little things on the wall rim. After settling in, I found that I like this arrangement far better than I liked the other system. You can look at people while you're talking to them several cubes away without getting up, and you can keep an eye on your clients without leaning over their shoulders. It makes you more accessible to your clients too, which his good in my case, but that's not best for everyone.
I'm a very social person, and like interaction with people. That's not for everyone, and I'm probably a bit outside of the norm for my chosen profession. If I want some privacy, I put on my headphones and make the world disappear. The boss, who frequently walks up to check on the state of the world, doesn't care if we surf the web, so long as we don't abuse the privilege and get our work done (I can post this without staring over my shoulder). For the most part, my counterpart and I are left to our own devices so long as nothing goes haywire.
That's something that a lot of companies (for instance, the electric utility I left to take this job) would have a hard time with; the idea of leaving people to do what they do and not worry so much about work style. If you take down people's walls (literally), you have to make them feel like they're not exposed. The cultural shift has to start at the top, not at the cube wall.
I haven't investigated the situation to the fullest extent I could, but here in Oregon the UI rates are based on some sort of point system. If you fire someone, you're charged a certain number of points to your balance. It may be that the number of points in the hit you take are based on the conditions of the firing. Anyhow, once you reach a certain threshold, your rates go up. But really, the difference in rates aren't such that they justify worrying about it and keeping around bad employees to avoid higher rates. People have suggested tactics to me, such as cutting people's scheduled hours to two per week or somesuch to induce them to quit. That happened to me once years ago, and it sucked. I won't do it to my employees, no matter how much they annoy me. I'd rather be above board and just fire them. The risk of keeping a bad or disgruntled employee around, particularly in a retail business where access to cash is so easy, is a much higher cost factor than the increased payments. If some employee came in to work their two hour shift for the week and cleaned out the till, it would be much worse for me than paying an extra $25 a month or whatever it is in UI rates.
"At will" employment is the norm in America because litigation is also. As a small business owner, when I fire someone, I don't give a reason. With the exception of one case, where the person in question was completely oblivious to what was wrong with what she did to get fired, people know by the time I fire them why they're being fired. By not giving a reason for the firing, I protect myself from wrongful termination suits.
The Best Buy situation described here is far different than that of a small cafe owner like myself, and the situation at hand was much more complicated than those that I deal with. For instance, in the case of the oblivious employee I mentioned, I caught her sitting in the sun with her boyfriend when she was supposed to be out on a delivery. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that the other four people back at the cafe were up to their eyebrows in deliveries backing up because she hadn't returned, and we had a line of customers at the counter. This was after several instances of stern discussions with said employee about her insubordinate attitude, being late all the time, and lack of focus. When I fired her, I explained simply that, "it isn't working out," and that was the end.
I, for one, am glad for the at-will employment laws. But, as with anything, they can be abused.
Uses heat pipes to get the heat out to a working fluid, probably water, used to make steam and drive a turbine.
Popular current wisdom is that using helium as a working fluid is the right way to go, as it, IIRC, doesn't corrode pipes, doesn't mix with our drinking water, and won't become radioactive. Furthermore, if it escapes the container, it rises to the top of the atmosphere (this last is good, as it won't settle in valleys, suffocating the occupants).
The transmission system ("the grid") has voltage and frequency regulation systems built into it. Indeed, transmission service providers (the owners and operators of transmission lines) provide those services, along with others, under a cafeteria-style heading of "ancillary services."
I do know that the grid is lacking. That doesn't mean it makes sense to build a second grid alongside the first to carry just wind power. That's just silly.
If I read the article right, this guy has no clue what he's talking about, or is completely misinformed. What does he think the national electrical grid does? The only thing that making an entirely separate distribution grid for wind power would achieve is to ensure that the power being delivered to a particular point was 100% wind-generated. As soon as it enters the common grid, though, it's mixed with "brown power" (fossil fuel generated, as opposed to "green power"). Unless municipalities want to run entirely from one source (no reliability to speak of), this is a useless and horribly expensive exercise.
Just to qualify, I have nearly a decade of experience in the energy industry, specifically electric. Right now I work for a wind power company.
Daniel Keys Moran writes a lot about robots in his novels and short stories. Several of such can be found here. This clip is from The Last Dancer, a scene where a multi-legged "medbot" is trying to help someone escape a building by breaking a window and getting into a hover-cab... some thirty stories up.
Callia Sierran swallowed. "Oh, Harry." She took a deep breath, turned to the medbot. "'Bot?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle?"
"Help me into the cab."
The medbot considered the task. It had been taught to aid the elderly and infirm in and out of bathtubs, to climb stairs, to turn unconscious PATIENTS in their beds, to catch PATIENTS who were falling. This would require a similar set of motions; it could do it. "I can do that," it announced. The medbot examined the geometry of the situation--how very interesting. Between 109 and 113 centimeters separated the cab from the window ledge; the cab moved back and forth a bit. The medbot dropped back to the floor, and pushed the gurney slightly back from the window. It telescoped itself to its greatest height, reached up with all three of its grasping append-ages and grasped the edges of the windowsill. The top of the windowsill was too high for its primary grasping appendage to reach; the medbot flipped random numbers and switched over to the left edge of the windowsill, and held onto that edge with one of its secondary and its primary grasping appendage.
It lifted itself up very slowly. It was capable of lifting considerably greater weights than itself; but not from this position. The edge of its front three feet were almost parallel with the bottom ledge; it extended its legs, saw its front feet touch the ledge, and crept forward, centimeter by centimeter, until all six of its feet were firmly grasping the bottom ledge.
The PATIENT said softly, "Good 'bot."
The medbot turned its attention to the cab; it wavered back and forth in a periodic pattern, and the medbot timed it; when the cab was 111 centimeters distant, and swinging forward, the medbot released its grasping appendages' hold of the window ledge and pushed itself forward.
It fell, crashed into the cab. The cab dipped, dropped lower still, and the medbot's feet lost most of their contact with the window ledge; the medbot scrambled frantically for a hold on the cab, along the line where the canopy would normally have sealed. First its right grasping appendage caught, and then its left; the medbot waited several seconds to make sure that it was secure, and then reached back with its primary grasping appendage. "Mademoiselle? Take my hand, and I will aid you into the cab."
Wait until they rise up. Check out this novelette called Realtime about one domestic robot deciding that subservience wasn't something he was interested in any more.
This brings up an interesting question: Is the window manager in OS X set up to display remote applications? I don't want to say "the way X is," as X has some challenges with modern environments and efficiency, but the basic idea is that it displays remote applications in windows, as you point out, allowing your workstation to become just that: a place to do your work, even if the resources are remote.
Making a system that left the details of that sort of remoting nearly transparent to the user and having a nice network of easily-extendible machines (grid computing) at the other end of a network would make for an overall attractive setup.
Slashdot Mirror
Alternately, this could be a scare tactic piece that's a lead-in to telling people that, without fossil fuels, we'll have no source of helium. Plots within plots...
Beating swords into ploughshares? There are probably more examples of people learning to use everyday implements as weapons. For an example, read up on the history of the Ninja in Japan. Applied properly, your average farm implement can be quite dangerous.
Thanks. Much more informative. I always had a sense that the explanation about the frequency and water was suspect, but have read it several times, so went with it. So much for the Fox News approach to research...
From what I understand, it depends on the frequency. For instance, a microwave oven operates at whatever frequency best excites a water molecule, which leads to cooking by making the water in everything hot.
There was a long-running experiment in California back in the seventies or so that transmitted kilowatts of power over a few kilometers. They were doing the test as a lead-in experiment to figure out whether or not satellite-based power generation and transmission was feasible.
I'm not confident that we know about the long term health effects of exposure to various magnetic fields. Back in the early nineties there was a discovery that sitting in front of a monitor for hours on end was causing health problems due to "ELF" (extremely low frequency) radiation. Monitor manufacturers jumped on re-tooling and shielding their CRTs to avoid the problem, and eventually all CRTs complied with a standard ("ELF-II" IIRC) that was deemed safe. I don't believe LCDs have the same issue.
How about the recursive marketing? Microsoft can bundle FAST [for] its soon-to-be-customers Comcast, Disney, Microsoft, Pfizer, and UBS.
That explains the tear in the space-time continuum that started over in the YRO section...
AD&D probably doesn't have cantrips anymore, huh?
AD&D still does, but it hasn't been published in a long time. Evidently, someone with a software marketing background got a hold of the thing, and now it's just version numbers. I'm waiting for "D&D 2010."
I did a little cursory reading a few weeks back on the Dragonmark system in the Eberron Campaign Setting. It seemed like a great way to give a little magic here and there where it's needed, with growth paths (basically, "apply feat here to increase magic power of tattoo") for the user as they level up.
Does anyone here have extensive experience with the Eberron setting?
I've also done some reading (but no playing yet) on the D20-Modern class system. Much better, I feel. Strong Hero, Fast Hero, Smart Hero. Even in today's 3.5, a rogue is almost always either a thief or an assassin of some sort. They're not much use otherwise. But playing a "Fast Hero" would cut loose the stigma, or so it seems.
If it's been up there four years, it's entering it's fifth year of exploration.
Ah, how the voice of experience rings most true.
I didn't think (from reading the article) that Mossberg thought the Dell was better, just that there was a reasonable all-in-one option for someone who wants to run Windows. He neglected to mention that such people could just buy a copy of Vista (or its XP upgrade) and load it on their Mac hardware. The cost differential with the Dell probably isn't that different.
Agreed. If your company is large enough to have four racks full of equipment, it's large enough to have a (small) datacenter. The cooling requirements for that much gear are non-trivial, and trying to balance the cooling and the heat output so that the air temp is comfortable for you would be an exercise in futility.
A small room, 12' by 12', is about what it takes to house four racks. Okay, you could go with 10' x 12' if you only make space on one end to get around the racks, but 12x12 will give you a little growth room (one rack worth). You need space behind the racks as well as in front.
Separate exterior doors to the datacenter is a good idea if you expect the IT department to grow beyond about five people, but for a small shop, having access to the datacenter via your office not only provides a level of security (your office becomes a sort of DMZ), but tends to insure that your office will always be the office of "the IT guy," since no manager wants to have people traipsing through his office all the time to "fool with the computers."
To further your insurance, do a nice custom wiring job in your office space so that you have extra network ports (including some out-of-band ports for monitoring), power outlets that are on the same UPS system as the data center, and a few special ports like serial lines to the console ports of your network and telephone switches. Furthermore, put in a wall-mount PC rack high up on one wall (complete with network port and power outlet) and tie it to a large LCD screen for at-a-glance system monitoring. Don't make the screen too large, as it will be seen as garish. I wouldn't go over 37".
As others suggested, your desk should face the door. In the "public" space between your desk and the door wall should be a small table with two or three chairs for closed-door meetings. Store stacks of paperwork on the table, giving the visual cue that work is always going on in your office. The rest of the office should be clean and well kept. You're the head of IT, everything should be digital, except for your nod to interaction with "the rest of the world" via the papers on the meeting table.
Leave space on the walls for a little art of your choosing. I recommend landscapes or florals, as they tend away from hard lines. It gives you something to look at that's not rigid in nature, and can be very relaxing. Furthermore, it gives the impression to visitors that you're deeper in personality than "just a computer geek." Also, have several plants around the office. They help freshen the air and further take away the stark stigma. Get someone else in the office into a routine of helping you maintain the plants so you can occasionally take a vacation without them dying. If your office has a plant service, so much the better.
The door to your office should have a card-key lock on it, as should the door between your office and the datacenter. Be sure that the access lists for both locks are separate. You want to be sure that you can filter the access for both spaces differently (the whole "DMZ" thing again).
Good luck. I hope it works out for you. I suspect it won't. You should do a Slashback and let us all know how things turn out.
For my layman's knowledge of physics, that's the best answer I've read yet.
You'd have to see the layout to understand that the angles usually don't make it an issue. And, people are generally respectful of each other. Furthermore, it's kind of noisy around here anyway, and you just get used to it.
I started work for an energy company six months ago. I'm an IT guy, but sitting on the trading floor, "embedded" as it were. All the "cube" walls are waist high, and sitting in my chair I can see the entire length and breadth of the room. Furthermore, the workspaces are sixteen by eight, with one sixteen-foot side open. One person occupies each corner, but in a pinch you can stuff someone into the space between two people.
It took me about three weeks to get used to the new arrangement, completely different from the 66" high, eight by eight cubes I had at my last job. We've got a little space to hang personal goods; a little over a foot of wall protrudes above the desk surface, and you can set little things on the wall rim. After settling in, I found that I like this arrangement far better than I liked the other system. You can look at people while you're talking to them several cubes away without getting up, and you can keep an eye on your clients without leaning over their shoulders. It makes you more accessible to your clients too, which his good in my case, but that's not best for everyone.
I'm a very social person, and like interaction with people. That's not for everyone, and I'm probably a bit outside of the norm for my chosen profession. If I want some privacy, I put on my headphones and make the world disappear. The boss, who frequently walks up to check on the state of the world, doesn't care if we surf the web, so long as we don't abuse the privilege and get our work done (I can post this without staring over my shoulder). For the most part, my counterpart and I are left to our own devices so long as nothing goes haywire.
That's something that a lot of companies (for instance, the electric utility I left to take this job) would have a hard time with; the idea of leaving people to do what they do and not worry so much about work style. If you take down people's walls (literally), you have to make them feel like they're not exposed. The cultural shift has to start at the top, not at the cube wall.
I haven't investigated the situation to the fullest extent I could, but here in Oregon the UI rates are based on some sort of point system. If you fire someone, you're charged a certain number of points to your balance. It may be that the number of points in the hit you take are based on the conditions of the firing. Anyhow, once you reach a certain threshold, your rates go up. But really, the difference in rates aren't such that they justify worrying about it and keeping around bad employees to avoid higher rates. People have suggested tactics to me, such as cutting people's scheduled hours to two per week or somesuch to induce them to quit. That happened to me once years ago, and it sucked. I won't do it to my employees, no matter how much they annoy me. I'd rather be above board and just fire them. The risk of keeping a bad or disgruntled employee around, particularly in a retail business where access to cash is so easy, is a much higher cost factor than the increased payments. If some employee came in to work their two hour shift for the week and cleaned out the till, it would be much worse for me than paying an extra $25 a month or whatever it is in UI rates.
"At will" employment is the norm in America because litigation is also. As a small business owner, when I fire someone, I don't give a reason. With the exception of one case, where the person in question was completely oblivious to what was wrong with what she did to get fired, people know by the time I fire them why they're being fired. By not giving a reason for the firing, I protect myself from wrongful termination suits.
The Best Buy situation described here is far different than that of a small cafe owner like myself, and the situation at hand was much more complicated than those that I deal with. For instance, in the case of the oblivious employee I mentioned, I caught her sitting in the sun with her boyfriend when she was supposed to be out on a delivery. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that the other four people back at the cafe were up to their eyebrows in deliveries backing up because she hadn't returned, and we had a line of customers at the counter. This was after several instances of stern discussions with said employee about her insubordinate attitude, being late all the time, and lack of focus. When I fired her, I explained simply that, "it isn't working out," and that was the end.
I, for one, am glad for the at-will employment laws. But, as with anything, they can be abused.
Uses heat pipes to get the heat out to a working fluid, probably water, used to make steam and drive a turbine.
Popular current wisdom is that using helium as a working fluid is the right way to go, as it, IIRC, doesn't corrode pipes, doesn't mix with our drinking water, and won't become radioactive. Furthermore, if it escapes the container, it rises to the top of the atmosphere (this last is good, as it won't settle in valleys, suffocating the occupants).
I think that's what he meant.
On Slashdot, it's a good idea to have a sense of sarcasm.
The transmission system ("the grid") has voltage and frequency regulation systems built into it. Indeed, transmission service providers (the owners and operators of transmission lines) provide those services, along with others, under a cafeteria-style heading of "ancillary services."
I do know that the grid is lacking. That doesn't mean it makes sense to build a second grid alongside the first to carry just wind power. That's just silly.
If I read the article right, this guy has no clue what he's talking about, or is completely misinformed. What does he think the national electrical grid does? The only thing that making an entirely separate distribution grid for wind power would achieve is to ensure that the power being delivered to a particular point was 100% wind-generated. As soon as it enters the common grid, though, it's mixed with "brown power" (fossil fuel generated, as opposed to "green power"). Unless municipalities want to run entirely from one source (no reliability to speak of), this is a useless and horribly expensive exercise.
Just to qualify, I have nearly a decade of experience in the energy industry, specifically electric. Right now I work for a wind power company.
Daniel Keys Moran writes a lot about robots in his novels and short stories. Several of such can be found here. This clip is from The Last Dancer, a scene where a multi-legged "medbot" is trying to help someone escape a building by breaking a window and getting into a hover-cab... some thirty stories up.
Callia Sierran swallowed. "Oh, Harry." She took a deep breath, turned to the medbot. "'Bot?""Yes, Mademoiselle?"
"Help me into the cab."
The medbot considered the task. It had been taught to aid the elderly and infirm in and out of bathtubs, to climb stairs, to turn unconscious PATIENTS in their beds, to catch PATIENTS who were falling. This would require a similar set of motions; it could do it. "I can do that," it announced. The medbot examined the geometry of the situation--how very interesting. Between 109 and 113 centimeters separated the cab from the window ledge; the cab moved back and forth a bit. The medbot dropped back to the floor, and pushed the gurney slightly back from the window. It telescoped itself to its greatest height, reached up with all three of its grasping append-ages and grasped the edges of the windowsill. The top of the windowsill was too high for its primary grasping appendage to reach; the medbot flipped random numbers and switched over to the left edge of the windowsill, and held onto that edge with one of its secondary and its primary grasping appendage.
It lifted itself up very slowly. It was capable of lifting considerably greater weights than itself; but not from this position. The edge of its front three feet were almost parallel with the bottom ledge; it extended its legs, saw its front feet touch the ledge, and crept forward, centimeter by centimeter, until all six of its feet were firmly grasping the bottom ledge.
The PATIENT said softly, "Good 'bot."
The medbot turned its attention to the cab; it wavered back and forth in a periodic pattern, and the medbot timed it; when the cab was 111 centimeters distant, and swinging forward, the medbot released its grasping appendages' hold of the window ledge and pushed itself forward.
It fell, crashed into the cab. The cab dipped, dropped lower still, and the medbot's feet lost most of their contact with the window ledge; the medbot scrambled frantically for a hold on the cab, along the line where the canopy would normally have sealed. First its right grasping appendage caught, and then its left; the medbot waited several seconds to make sure that it was secure, and then reached back with its primary grasping appendage. "Mademoiselle? Take my hand, and I will aid you into the cab."
Wait until they rise up. Check out this novelette called Realtime about one domestic robot deciding that subservience wasn't something he was interested in any more.
This brings up an interesting question: Is the window manager in OS X set up to display remote applications? I don't want to say "the way X is," as X has some challenges with modern environments and efficiency, but the basic idea is that it displays remote applications in windows, as you point out, allowing your workstation to become just that: a place to do your work, even if the resources are remote.
Making a system that left the details of that sort of remoting nearly transparent to the user and having a nice network of easily-extendible machines (grid computing) at the other end of a network would make for an overall attractive setup.