Dehomag (the German branch of Hollerith - the ancestor of IBM) got its start assisting the Germans with a similar effort - using computing technology (punched cards) to track all kinds of things in the interest of security, efficiency, and thoroughness. They got their start automating the census, and wound up empowering governments with then unheard of levels of efficiency in attaining many of their goals, despite the changing nature of those goals.
Again we are seeing a watershed moment in the efficiency, security and thoroughness of states ability to enforce their policies. Lets hope that this time the population will gain a proportional increase in control over the agenda of the state.
The alternative will be no less than a repetition of history.
I really miss the old shows like Dr. Who that had really alien aliens - crazy blobs, and lethal rocks, and robots without faces. Now every alien has to have a humanoid form and a face so that the actor can "act" and the audience can empathise. When did the universe become so darned human?
RFID tags have been implanted in North American pets now for years, as they dont get lost like tags do. Usually the glass-encased chip is injected in the loose skin of the neck or behind the ear.
Soooo - will our pets be the first ones able to use this technology freely? How about a pilot project that allows pets to have an allowance and buy their own treats?
It seems rather ironic that the Western superpower has been developing weapons that are most effective against, well, a western superpower! You could drop a bunch of these things on the African continent, and the AK47s would still fire, the grenades would still go boom, and the face to face meetings in basements would continue to happen. Drop one on America or an American troop concentration, and the cost would be in the Billions.
Unless, of course, America is planning on taking on the Western World(tm) in the not so far future?
I always imagined that at some point someone would come up with a standard cheap widget that everyone could plug into their POTS jack which would enable a distributed P2P style of VoIP system - Sure, sometimes you might have to wait a few minutes to dial out on your voice line while its in use by the commons, but its a small price to pay if you get to dial anywhere in VoIP or POTS land. These centralized services remind me of Napster - centralized services, legislatable out of existence.
Articles like this are the tip of the iceberg, and the ultra secret viruses are likely to be much worse. Not to mention, like the atomic secrets of the early century, the particulars have already leaked out to other parties. What we are seeing is the subtle harbinger of a much more disturbing kind of arms race. A lot of energy has been spent containing fissionable material, but nobody can contain the building blocks of life.
I used to have a favourite pen, but ultimately, after endless sprees of business travel, I figure the endlessly self replacing black hotel pen is the best deal. Theyre free, and although they are definitely Ad-Ware, they dont spy on your writing or report you to the RIAA yet.
An HP wise person once said that most companies die of indigestion more than starvation. This is, of course, only applicable to companies that have a valid business model, be it lean times or not.
The company I work for looks frighteningly similar to the one featured above. Its corporate DNA is simple, based on integration and professional services and labelled "solutions" - and without its people, it is nothing.
The company I work for tried simmilar stunts, first a 5% pay cut for mortals, 20% for execs. Then it proposed going to a 4 day weeek, and holiday unpaid shutdowns. Then 2 rounds of layoffs. Why? To look good on paper, so the company could get sold. Problem with this is, with so many unhappy key techies - anyone who might be interested in buying the company can just steal the key people and get 80% of the value for 20% of the cost. These managers should bear this in mind.
A correction is required! If one reads the article carefully, it becomes revealed that this is an enterprise storage solution - ie a managed disk farm, and not a drive. It could be a drive if all the disks in the farm were mapped to one Logical drive, but thats not usually whats going on. The mention that it will compete with EMC should also be a hint that the cost will be in the high 6 digits.
I have been designing systems like the one you are attempting for a while now and must admit that making Linux do what you want it to is a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, this will depend on how much work you are willing to put into tweaking it into shape. I often get tempted time and again to cut my costs with PC technology, but in the end... I wuss out and go with midrange (E450 - E4500 ish) sun boxes and Veritas cluster server. Its gawdaful expensive, but when the customer dosent care about $, it goes. If you have time to tweak though... and limited cash.. then PC may be the way, and linux has the reliability. Just remember, a PCI bus and a fast processor alone do not a bandwidth slinging server make, no matter what intel tries to tell you..!
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Dehomag (the German branch of Hollerith - the ancestor of IBM) got its start assisting the Germans with a similar effort - using computing technology (punched cards) to track all kinds of things in the interest of security, efficiency, and thoroughness. They got their start automating the census, and wound up empowering governments with then unheard of levels of efficiency in attaining many of their goals, despite the changing nature of those goals.
Again we are seeing a watershed moment in the efficiency, security and thoroughness of states ability to enforce their policies. Lets hope that this time the population will gain a proportional increase in control over the agenda of the state.
The alternative will be no less than a repetition of history.
Salty road slush will make short work of these in Canada.
I really miss the old shows like Dr. Who that had really alien aliens - crazy blobs, and lethal rocks, and robots without faces. Now every alien has to have a humanoid form and a face so that the actor can "act" and the audience can empathise. When did the universe become so darned human?
RFID tags have been implanted in North American pets now for years, as they dont get lost like tags do. Usually the glass-encased chip is injected in the loose skin of the neck or behind the ear.
Soooo - will our pets be the first ones able to use this technology freely? How about a pilot project that allows pets to have an allowance and buy their own treats?
It seems rather ironic that the Western superpower has been developing weapons that are most effective against, well, a western superpower! You could drop a bunch of these things on the African continent, and the AK47s would still fire, the grenades would still go boom, and the face to face meetings in basements would continue to happen. Drop one on America or an American troop concentration, and the cost would be in the Billions.
Unless, of course, America is planning on taking on the Western World(tm) in the not so far future?
I always imagined that at some point someone would come up with a standard cheap widget that everyone could plug into their POTS jack which would enable a distributed P2P style of VoIP system - Sure, sometimes you might have to wait a few minutes to dial out on your voice line while its in use by the commons, but its a small price to pay if you get to dial anywhere in VoIP or POTS land. These centralized services remind me of Napster - centralized services, legislatable out of existence.
Articles like this are the tip of the iceberg, and the ultra secret viruses are likely to be much worse. Not to mention, like the atomic secrets of the early century, the particulars have already leaked out to other parties. What we are seeing is the subtle harbinger of a much more disturbing kind of arms race. A lot of energy has been spent containing fissionable material, but nobody can contain the building blocks of life.
I used to have a favourite pen, but ultimately, after endless sprees of business travel, I figure the endlessly self replacing black hotel pen is the best deal. Theyre free, and although they are definitely Ad-Ware, they dont spy on your writing or report you to the RIAA yet.
An HP wise person once said that most companies
die of indigestion more than starvation. This is, of course, only applicable to companies that have
a valid business model, be it lean times or not.
The company I work for looks frighteningly similar to the one featured above. Its corporate DNA is simple, based on integration and professional services and labelled "solutions" - and without its people, it is nothing.
The company I work for tried simmilar stunts, first a 5% pay cut for mortals, 20% for execs. Then it proposed going to a 4 day weeek, and holiday unpaid shutdowns. Then 2 rounds of layoffs. Why? To look good on paper, so the company could get sold. Problem with this is,
with so many unhappy key techies - anyone who
might be interested in buying the company can
just steal the key people and get 80% of the value
for 20% of the cost. These managers should bear this in mind.
A correction is required! If one reads the article carefully, it becomes revealed that this is an enterprise storage solution - ie a managed disk farm, and not a drive. It could be a drive if all the disks in the farm were mapped to one Logical drive, but thats not usually whats going on. The mention that it will compete with EMC should also be a hint that the cost will be in the high 6 digits.
Devon
Sr. Systems Engineer
Storage Mgmt.
I have been designing systems like the one you are attempting for a while now and must admit that making Linux do what you want it to is a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, this will depend on how much work you are willing to put into tweaking it into shape. I often get tempted time and again to cut my costs with PC technology, but in the end... I wuss out and go with midrange (E450 - E4500 ish)
sun boxes and Veritas cluster server. Its gawdaful expensive, but when the customer dosent care about $, it goes. If you have time to tweak though... and limited cash.. then PC may be the way, and linux has the reliability. Just remember, a PCI bus and a fast processor alone do not a bandwidth slinging server make, no matter what intel tries to tell you..!