While I agree with the parent (and the existing siblings to this post) that unless it is your job to "put stress on the system" and "test the limits" (officially) then it's unethical to do so (even if you "have the approval of your coworkers/peers", etc.), this is a prime opportunity to point out to businesses the value of periodically taking the proverbial step back and critically evaluating their procedures and policies for inefficient, obsolete, conflicting, or downright counterproductive practices and directives. Human nature being what it is, if a policy or practice doesn't seem to have any value (or, worse yet, it seems to "cost" an employee "more" to follow it than to circumvent it) sooner or later someone will figure out a way to cut that corner for reasons that range from collecting the "brownie points" awarded for being the "guru" who figured out how to "streamline" the process all the way to the guy who legitimately believes (correctly or otherwise) that his job really does depend on getting that extra little thing done. I've seen it. We've all seen it.
Situation: Contractor entrusted with compiling "the numbers" on "that important account" is involved in an accident (yup, you guessed it) the morning of "the big presentation." Oh, but all her work is (by company policy) safe and sound on the server instead of on her (now smashed) laptop. Great! Just one little problem: nobody knows her password, and (also by company policy) access to anyone's server-side account other than the person to whom that account is assigned is strictly verboten! No "emergency plan" exists to cover such a contingency, and the critical hour (minute) fast approaches. Solution: A quick call to IT (from the contractor's manager's phone) went something like this: "Hey, Suzy Q's password needs to be reset; her account's locked out. You want me to just tell her the password is 'password' and she needs to change it the first time she logs in? No problem. Yeah, and I'll see to it the password-reset form gets done and drop it off to you ASAP; I know you gotta cover things on your end. Thanks!"Almost five whole minutes, and the "company policy" that was no doubt pored-over for hour upon hour by some of the finest administrative (and legal) minds in the company's employ was artfully dodged by "just some dude." I think one of us asked the guy if he felt bad about lying to the person in IT, and his response was that he didn't lie; the account was locked-out (after he had tried to guess the password three times...) so the password did need to be reset and as soon as he saw "Suzy Q" he would be sure to tell her what her new password was! Unethical? Yup. Sneaky? Yup. Effective? Yup. The presentation was retrieved, the account was saved, and the world continued to revolve. A simplistic example, sure, but [insert "slippery-slope" analogy here]...
I'm not saying I condone it and I'm not saying I'd do it, I'm just saying you've got to be stupid to think you can throw obstacles in front of motivated people and they won't figure a way to avoid them, and it's wise to occassionally evaluate whether or not we're doing just that.
"...I highly doubt that they could get their population to accept them completely shutting off access to the outside world..."
Hey, it's happened before (Google for "Qing dynasty", "isolationism"), of course, it led to the Opium Wars and China's eventual sub-division...Who knows what might've been if they'd just been a little more like the ancestors in the "trade and diplomacy" departments -- maybe I'd have learned Chinese at four instead of (trying and mostly failing) at forty...
I sense the overwhelming need to feel some dread, but I just can't decide which thing to attribute it to:
That someone presents such (arguably/obviously) a facetious argument in such a convincing tone (even on Slashdot...)
That a few of the suggestions actually sounded pretty good (like the net at the meeting -- I even thought it might be a good idea to just tag the marketing guys as they come into the meeting...)
Or that the parent is currently carrying a +4 Interesting mod.
The second scenario seems a lot more likely...they could have done so in place in a matter of minutes...and left the laptop right where it is, thus making the stolen data much more valuable (since its theft would have not been broadcast to the world).
"It has been broadcast to the world that the data was not accessed, so our carefully-made copy (and the several dozen copies we've since made of that copy, etc.) is now back at peak value!"
They may shut up in dangerous situations, but they don't forget you were the one driving when the dangerous situation arose. . . . . . . And to my wife: Honey, if you read this, of COURSE I don't mean you!
...enables flight controllers on the ground to land the Shuttle completely by remote control, including the ability to lower the landing gear.
That's good, because without the ability to remotely lower the landing gear, the controllers would pretty much just be executing a remote-control CRASH (if frosty foam can blow a hole in it, landing without the gear would almost definitely do more than just leave a "ding" in the fender.)
Trick question. Only one of those is ever known to have happened (and most of the ice was gone within minutes of the Robot Devil getting his own hands back, anyway!)
Just to make the math "easy", let's assume each of those 55,000 miles of interstate highway is "only" two-lanes (yes, that's a gross underestimate given that there's no one-lane interstate space to "average-it-out", so refer to the phrase "at least that's coming...) and that each lane is "only" ten feet wide (which, again, only partially accounts for shoulders, turning lanes, passing lanes, etc. -- again see "at least"...): that works out to 2.9 Billion square feet. Digging through the NYT link at this article, we see that their newest data center squats on a "30-acre plot" -- 30 acres = 43,560 square feet (according to Google; yes, irony's home is still Slashdot...) which means they could build (here it is) AT LEAST 67,000 data centers on that much land.
And they'll need it, too, to process all those Google Maps searches once the thing has to go 3-D for the "flying autonomous cars".
it's a "our marketing and sales departments delegate everything to our engineering and security departments" problem.
Sounds like a DREAMLAND to me! Almost everywhere I've ever worked, Marketing & Sales acted like they were Engineering and/or Security; dreaming up new products/features/services/abilities/laws of physics/superpowers/etc. and making surprise announcements to the CEO and other VIP's :
"Yes SIR! And if you think that's nifty, the "web version" will be out next month!
The Earth only looks fatter and shorter because of those horizontal lines (what is it again? "Latitude goes up and down and Longitude goes all around..." too lazy to look it up but not too lazy to type-out the rhyme; yep, this is Slashdot!) around the middle. Try it with a globe: erase the Longitude lines and leave the Latitude lines... suddenly the Earth is svelte again!!
Oh, really? REALLY?? What about all the small-town "mom-and-pop" datacenters they'll be putting out of business with these "data supercenters", huh?!?! You can bet that once all their local competition is gone those "low, low prices" on queries are gonna skyrocket!! And of course they're chanting that supposedly soothing mantra of "there's plenty of local market share for everyone; specialty and niche datacenters will always have a place...blah, blah, yadda, yadda..." but DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT!!
A "spacesuit" is, by definition, a suit to wear in space. It follows from that, then, that a "cowsuit" would be a suit to wear in a cow.
Simply preposterous.
If, however, you are proposing a spacesuit that looks like a cow then I say you may have something there; the simple addition of large, irregularly-shaped black spots to existing space suits would achieve much of that effect (and by adding a long tail...well, let's just hope we all live to see such a day.)
I, for one, welcome our spacegoing bovine overlords.
Slashdot Mirror
That's bottle-fired...
There was this little incident in Europe's "capital", Brussels, about eight years ago...I still get the giggles when I think about it.
to imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?
Sorry, couldn't resist; I'm usually about a day late for that particular well-worn meme.
While I agree with the parent (and the existing siblings to this post) that unless it is your job to "put stress on the system" and "test the limits" (officially) then it's unethical to do so (even if you "have the approval of your coworkers/peers", etc.), this is a prime opportunity to point out to businesses the value of periodically taking the proverbial step back and critically evaluating their procedures and policies for inefficient, obsolete, conflicting, or downright counterproductive practices and directives. Human nature being what it is, if a policy or practice doesn't seem to have any value (or, worse yet, it seems to "cost" an employee "more" to follow it than to circumvent it) sooner or later someone will figure out a way to cut that corner for reasons that range from collecting the "brownie points" awarded for being the "guru" who figured out how to "streamline" the process all the way to the guy who legitimately believes (correctly or otherwise) that his job really does depend on getting that extra little thing done. I've seen it. We've all seen it.
Situation: Contractor entrusted with compiling "the numbers" on "that important account" is involved in an accident (yup, you guessed it) the morning of "the big presentation." Oh, but all her work is (by company policy) safe and sound on the server instead of on her (now smashed) laptop. Great! Just one little problem: nobody knows her password, and (also by company policy) access to anyone's server-side account other than the person to whom that account is assigned is strictly verboten! No "emergency plan" exists to cover such a contingency, and the critical hour (minute) fast approaches.
Solution: A quick call to IT (from the contractor's manager's phone) went something like this: "Hey, Suzy Q's password needs to be reset; her account's locked out. You want me to just tell her the password is 'password' and she needs to change it the first time she logs in? No problem. Yeah, and I'll see to it the password-reset form gets done and drop it off to you ASAP; I know you gotta cover things on your end. Thanks!" Almost five whole minutes, and the "company policy" that was no doubt pored-over for hour upon hour by some of the finest administrative (and legal) minds in the company's employ was artfully dodged by "just some dude." I think one of us asked the guy if he felt bad about lying to the person in IT, and his response was that he didn't lie; the account was locked-out (after he had tried to guess the password three times...) so the password did need to be reset and as soon as he saw "Suzy Q" he would be sure to tell her what her new password was! Unethical? Yup. Sneaky? Yup. Effective? Yup. The presentation was retrieved, the account was saved, and the world continued to revolve. A simplistic example, sure, but [insert "slippery-slope" analogy here]...
I'm not saying I condone it and I'm not saying I'd do it, I'm just saying you've got to be stupid to think you can throw obstacles in front of motivated people and they won't figure a way to avoid them, and it's wise to occassionally evaluate whether or not we're doing just that.
Hey, it's happened before (Google for "Qing dynasty", "isolationism"), of course, it led to the Opium Wars and China's eventual sub-division...Who knows what might've been if they'd just been a little more like the ancestors in the "trade and diplomacy" departments -- maybe I'd have learned Chinese at four instead of (trying and mostly failing) at forty...
"It has been broadcast to the world that the data was not accessed, so our carefully-made copy (and the several dozen copies we've since made of that copy, etc.) is now back at peak value!"
They may shut up in dangerous situations, but they don't forget you were the one driving when the dangerous situation arose.
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And to my wife: Honey, if you read this, of COURSE I don't mean you !
That seems like a pretty precise number, I wonder if there just might be 1395 or even more?
seriously, though, thanks for the pointer; I'll be (re-re-re-re-re-re-re...-re)patching my XP box tonite!
That's good, because without the ability to remotely lower the landing gear, the controllers would pretty much just be executing a remote-control CRASH (if frosty foam can blow a hole in it, landing without the gear would almost definitely do more than just leave a "ding" in the fender.)
Approx. 130,000 pages containing the word "cool" at microsoft.com (courtesy of ).
Makes the cynic in me think they're trying to refute those clever Mac commercials...
Trick question. Only one of those is ever known to have happened (and most of the ice was gone within minutes of the Robot Devil getting his own hands back, anyway!)
If we're limiting ourselves to common English, and all...
C'mon, the guy's got something like 1.21 JIGAbucks in the bank...
Looked at the back of a dollar bill lately?
Just to make the math "easy", let's assume each of those 55,000 miles of interstate highway is "only" two-lanes (yes, that's a gross underestimate given that there's no one-lane interstate space to "average-it-out", so refer to the phrase "at least that's coming...) and that each lane is "only" ten feet wide (which, again, only partially accounts for shoulders, turning lanes, passing lanes, etc. -- again see "at least"...): that works out to 2.9 Billion square feet. Digging through the NYT link at this article, we see that their newest data center squats on a "30-acre plot" -- 30 acres = 43,560 square feet (according to Google; yes, irony's home is still Slashdot...) which means they could build (here it is) AT LEAST 67,000 data centers on that much land.
And they'll need it, too, to process all those Google Maps searches once the thing has to go 3-D for the "flying autonomous cars".
'cause that'd be four times faster than silicon...
and no, I most certainly did not RTFA; this is Slashdot/em.
Of course, as any Seinfeld fan could tell you, it still won't be a meal...
Sounds like a DREAMLAND to me! Almost everywhere I've ever worked, Marketing & Sales acted like they were Engineering and/or Security; dreaming up new products/features/services/abilities/laws of physics/superpowers/etc. and making surprise announcements to the CEO and other VIP's :
while the developers' jaws all hit the floor...
YEAH!
The Earth only looks fatter and shorter because of those horizontal lines (what is it again? "Latitude goes up and down and Longitude goes all around..." too lazy to look it up but not too lazy to type-out the rhyme; yep, this is Slashdot!) around the middle. Try it with a globe: erase the Longitude lines and leave the Latitude lines... suddenly the Earth is svelte again!!
No, it's shaped like a giant Bob's Big Boy statue.
Irony == I used Google to find the link above.
Oh, really? REALLY?? What about all the small-town "mom-and-pop" datacenters they'll be putting out of business with these "data supercenters", huh?!?! You can bet that once all their local competition is gone those "low, low prices" on queries are gonna skyrocket !! And of course they're chanting that supposedly soothing mantra of "there's plenty of local market share for everyone; specialty and niche datacenters will always have a place...blah, blah, yadda, yadda..." but DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT!!
A "spacesuit" is, by definition, a suit to wear in space. It follows from that, then, that a "cowsuit" would be a suit to wear in a cow.
Simply preposterous.
If, however, you are proposing a spacesuit that looks like a cow then I say you may have something there; the simple addition of large, irregularly-shaped black spots to existing space suits would achieve much of that effect (and by adding a long tail...well, let's just hope we all live to see such a day.)
I, for one, welcome our spacegoing bovine overlords.