Interestingly, I had that idea (offensive cyber security) about 5 years ago, but was told by the TLA I approached that implementing such a strategy would do nothing but earn me a long sentence in a federal prison...
As well it should. Security is one thing, chasing criminals is quite another.
Protecting your network does not include attacking others. Packets arriving on your router are in no way like bullets arriving on your front door.
What's needed is a fast, focused, obligitory repsonse from upstreams. Too often complaining about an attack, even when the source is a known single point, results in no action at all from your provider.
If it's been known for centuries, wouldn't you think that the hard to read type faces would have long since been scrapped?
And why are there so many font fanatics still making the tiny subtle changes, then rushing of to show them off to other font fanatics, followed by much gushing, and quibbling, followed by copyright cat fights?
I fail to see why a dam building before Microsoft was formed is justified in charging for power not consumed, when it can sell every kilowatt it can generate.
As far as I know, GC PUD owns Wanapum and Grand Coulee. Or at least the lease on Grand Coulee. So the power likely comes from a combination of the two.
GC Pud owns Grand Coulee? Are you sure? I thought it was still owned by its builders, Bureau of Reclamation, or maybe Bonnieville.
Son, power is wheeled all over the US National grid in the US with nothing more than a telephone call. Paper work follows later. There exists a spot market for power. Its all very fluid.
And with a dam you can change electrical generation in 5 minutes flat. Its the perfect peeking power source because you can get it with a phone call with zero wait time.
Wanapum Dam is not the only supplier of power to Washington State:
Bonneville Dam provides a significant amount of power to the Pacific Northwest and they are a federal agency.
Sigh.....
Wanapum Dam is the only dam owned by Grant County Public Utility District. Grant County PUD is the ONLY power company selling power to Microsoft's Quincy Data Center. It is the ONLY dam germane to this story.
Would you like to throw out any other unrelated facts while you are on a role here?
That it could be sold does not make it less free to run your turbines than to shut them down. (Neglecting wear and tear, which is pretty minimal on hydro plants).
You do realize we are talking about a Hydro plant built in 1959 right? Paid for at public expense decades ago? There is nothing PAID that DAY.
There is always a market for hydro power because its so cheap in the Pacific Nortwest that you can wheel it all the way to LA at a moment's notice to handle the cooling load of their summer heat waves on the spot market.
If so, it wasn't THIS State Power Utility that burned coal.
This data center is powered by the Wanapum Dam, on the Columbia. They have a reliable watershed, and year around production, and no shortage of customers over the national grid.
Its essentially free once you hit the tax payers for the initial construction costs of the dam and generation facilities.
There are always other customers. You flip a switch, close a penstock or two and spool down a couple generators, or you flip another switch and sell your excess over the national grid. You do this without even getting up out of your chair.
But is the multiverse running serialy or in parallel?
And are each of similar size? I keep getting this picture of Marvin the Martian strutting around alone on his single planet around a single sun with nothing else in sight.
Slashdot Mirror
Interestingly, I had that idea (offensive cyber security) about 5 years ago, but was told by the TLA I approached that implementing such a strategy would do nothing but earn me a long sentence in a federal prison...
As well it should.
Security is one thing, chasing criminals is quite another.
Protecting your network does not include attacking others. Packets arriving on your router are in no way like bullets arriving on your front door.
What's needed is a fast, focused, obligitory repsonse from upstreams.
Too often complaining about an attack, even when the source is a known single point, results in no action at all from your provider.
If it's been known for centuries, wouldn't you think that the hard to read type faces would have long since been scrapped?
And why are there so many font fanatics still making the tiny subtle changes, then rushing of to show them off to other font fanatics, followed by much gushing, and quibbling, followed by copyright cat fights?
You're wrong (of course), Microsoft was not given the option of Not wasting energy and Not paying the fine.
They were told that they either had to pay a quarter million dollar penalty OR burn 70k worth of electricity.
Which. Would you have done?
Thank you Captain Obvious.
I fail to see why a dam building before Microsoft was formed is justified in charging for power not consumed, when it can sell every kilowatt it can generate.
Don't think I would call that "waste" when you realize how much fruit comes from that area.
Because it was over three times as much as using the power.
As far as I know, GC PUD owns Wanapum and Grand Coulee. Or at least the lease on Grand Coulee. So the power likely comes from a combination of the two.
GC Pud owns Grand Coulee?
Are you sure? I thought it was still owned by its builders, Bureau of Reclamation, or maybe Bonnieville.
Son, power is wheeled all over the US National grid in the US with nothing more than a telephone call.
Paper work follows later. There exists a spot market for power. Its all very fluid.
And with a dam you can change electrical generation in 5 minutes flat. Its the perfect peeking power source
because you can get it with a phone call with zero wait time.
Wanapum Dam is not the only supplier of power to Washington State:
Bonneville Dam provides a significant amount of power to the Pacific Northwest and they are a federal agency.
Sigh.....
Wanapum Dam is the only dam owned by Grant County Public Utility District.
Grant County PUD is the ONLY power company selling power to Microsoft's Quincy Data Center.
It is the ONLY dam germane to this story.
Would you like to throw out any other unrelated facts while you are on a role here?
Mod parent up.
Cherry picking at its finest.
All of them.
Its Washington State.
Run by democrats. It isn't Alaska. Stuff doesn't have to make sense there.
By the time it looped back, we would have been gone for several hundred million years. Best we could hope for is watching earth being created.
Buzz kill!
Still, done over 10 years or all at once, hardly matters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanapum_Dam
Check your facts.
That it could be sold does not make it less free to run your turbines than to shut them down. (Neglecting wear and tear, which is pretty minimal on hydro plants).
#2 is totally wrong. The Hydro plant was built before Bill Gates was out of diapers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanapum_Dam
Microsoft moved there because Grant County PUD was having problems selling all their power, and it was dirt cheap to build there.
Since then, power demand has gone up, and GCPud has a multitude of customers, anywhere on the national grid.
Company on the hook?
Pay real money that day?
You do realize we are talking about a Hydro plant built in 1959 right? Paid for at public expense decades ago?
There is nothing PAID that DAY.
There is always a market for hydro power because its so cheap in the Pacific Nortwest that you can
wheel it all the way to LA at a moment's notice to handle the cooling load of their summer heat waves
on the spot market.
If so, it wasn't THIS State Power Utility that burned coal.
This data center is powered by the Wanapum Dam, on the Columbia. They have a reliable watershed, and year around production, and no shortage of customers over the national grid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanapum_Dam
They didn't build this dam for microsoft.
It was build a long time ago and built at public expense.
Its Hydro power.
Its essentially free once you hit the tax payers for the initial construction costs of the dam and generation facilities.
There are always other customers.
You flip a switch, close a penstock or two and spool down a couple generators, or you flip another switch and sell your excess over the national grid. You do this without even getting up out of your chair.
Why would there be a fine for underutilization of a scarce resource serving a wide swath of the public power needs in the first place?
The Dam was built and operated with public funds!!
Title there is ONLY because it was Microsoft.
Any other company, and it would go unnoticed.
Why wasn't the Washington state utility board dragged thru the mud on this one instead of a company acting responsibly to reduce energy consumption?
They are running in parallel. With each choice we make we choose which part of the multiverse to experience.
You say this with such conviction that I suspect you have chosen to believe it is so.
But is the multiverse running serialy or in parallel?
And are each of similar size?
I keep getting this picture of Marvin the Martian strutting around alone on his single planet around a single sun with nothing else in sight.