You can blame the average American taxpayer for that. They complain when the government spends money and they insist that the government do everything on the cheap. Then they act all surprised when the government winds up with useless equipment and departments that can't get any work done because they don't have any resources. The government asks for more money, but the taxpayers always respond with "well, you haven't accomplished anything with the meager funds we've given you, why should we give you more?" They simply will not listen to reason.
It doesn't help that you've got the conservatives making all sorts of noises about "big government" being evil and flooding the airwaves will misinformation about the government in general.
That's not what I meant. I mean that if there was, tomorrow, a tax proposed that would go towards fixing some specific problem, very few people would support it.
You've basically just confirmed my point. You train for things that you're never used for and never will be used for. You pass messages of low importance, and you weren't even used during a somewhat recent low-priority incident.
If your entire argument rests on the fact that I capitalized an abbreviation that's often used to reference things other than "amateur" then you're a fucking cunt.
If there was enough time to set up some kind of HAM net for police use then there was enough time to set up a system that makes use of personal cell phones. If people didn't have personal cell phones then it still would have been easier and faster to get a telecom company to ship out crates of cell phones for use and distribute them to officers.
It's not just a matter of "OK, let's set up a net. All HAM operators, check in!" You have to get the radio traffic to the individual police officers somehow. How do you intend to do that in less time than it would take for another solution to accomplish the same thing?
I understand that HAMs can help with emergency communications *in theory*. I was actually very interested in learning HAM radio for some time. However, from what I've read on the internet damn near all emergency communications of any importance are already handled by professionals. There are systems in place for shipping out mobile cell cites, generators, phones and their associated batteries and chargers, etc. Those phones are also automatically prioritized on the cell networks so saturation isn't an issue. Every story I've heard about HAMs running emergency communications in the last decade has to do with either: A) A training scenario. HAMs participating in local emergency response *simulations*. They might pass useful traffic in this scenario, but it's only for training purposes. B) HAMs passing useless information around their nets during a real emergency. With all important traffic being taken care of by other professional solutions already in place. When an emergency worker needs to get a message to someone else in a hurry they just whip out their cell phone, their radio, or head to their own radio truck and pass it. They don't go to the HAMs. HAMs are only given the busywork messages to send, if they're given any work at all.
I literally cannot find a story about HAMs actually doing anything during a disaster in the last decade or so. Every article says "HAMs worked quickly to set up stations!" or "HAMs made themselves, and their radios, available!" or "HAMs stood at the ready!" Basically just a lot of variations of "HAMs turned on their radios and did nothing."
If you have evidence to the contrary then please tell me because I'd love to hear it.
It's not an acronym, but it is often used as an abbreviation for "amateur radio". For example, saying "ham operator" wouldn't make much sense. What is an "amateur operator"? Whereas "HAM operator" implies "amateur radio operator". The word "radio" is not contained with the word "ham" so capitalizing it to "HAM" can make some sense.
Webster would probably shit his pants, but you get the idea.
You're correct. I will admit that HAM radio will probably be useful should the apocalypse occur in the near future. However, seeing as how this has literally nothing to do with the conversation, it's a moot point. Mass rebellion isn't a natural disaster nor does it fall within the perview of emergency communications.
Everyone loves to talk a big game. "This country is worth dying for!" "We'll make America strong!" "We love our country!" are all common phrases that you'll hear at campaign rallies, but how many people are actually willing to step up? As it turns out, very few.
Hell, most people aren't even willing to see a 1% increase in their taxes in order to fix this nation's problems. Do you really think that anyone is going to risk their job or their life to do the same?
This isn't terribly shocking. If the last several years have told us anything it's that the American people don't really care if the government abuses its authority. Remember the Nixon scandal? That guy tried to wiretap a *single office* and the only reason that he wasn't impeached is because he resigned before congress could file the impeachment paperwork. Yet, when the government started wiretapping citizens years ago due to "national security" reasons, there was no such uproar. Sure, there were a few people that wanted the president impeached, but there was no real support for it. It's no surprise that the recent news of the wiretapping being larger than we thought has fallen on deaf ears.
Every single issue over the last couple decades has been met with more and more apathetic responses. The problem is going to get far worse before it gets better.
Nonsense. HAM radio operators are less relevant today than they have ever been. HAMs provided useful emergency communications two decades ago, but no longer. Nowadays, cellular providers truck out COWs (Cellular On Wheels. i.e. mobile cell sites) within hours of a disaster, or even preemptively if a disaster is expected. After a disaster, you'll see people talking on Nextels, not relaying messages through HAM operators. Sure, the red cross will accept volunteer radio operators, but only because policy dictates that they do so. They'll be told to set up useless radio stations and relay worthless information until they get bored and leave, or they're told that they're no longer needed.
If you want the truth about HAM radio involvement in emergency communications then you need to talk to HAMs that have actually attempted to participate in such activities within the last decade. Organizations like ARRL are going to talk up how important HAM radio is because that's the point of the organization. They'll tell you that some number of HAM radio operators participated during some disaster, but they won't tell you that the only traffic sent over those nets consisted of nothing more than periodic radio checks. They won't tell you that all HAM radio stations were set up in tactically unimportant locations. Half the time they're in areas which don't need a radio operator and the other half of the time they're set up next to a fully-functional radio truck which doesn't need any kind of HAM support.
In the situation submitted by the OP, HAM radio wouldn't have helped anyway. HAMs can only practically set up fixed locations, which are already served by landlines or personal cell service. A mobile solution would involve putting a HAM radio operator into every single squad car, which would be impractical for obvious reasons.
It might not be a ponzi scheme, but it does carry an absurd amount of risk. The fact that people are getting wildly rich from "investing" in bitcoins proves that they are unfit for their original purpose as a currency. Currencies have to be stable in order to be useful. The massive swings we've been seeing mean that bitcoins aren't even close to stable.
If he were to even attempt to withdraw any of it in the form of USD then there would be a monumental crash. The bitcoins wouldn't even be worth the effort to open up the wallet file.
Then what in the fuck is the point of the system anyway? I don't really need to know if I'm about to be exploded by a nuclear bomb. There ain't shit I can do about it.
Either the system isn't used, in which case turning it off isn't a problem. Or the system is used, in which case turning it off is necessary because some people don't want to hear it.
>Actually Damascus steel is superior to most modern steel for a subset of specific applications. It takes one hell of an edge. Excessively hard steels tend to chip, and soft steels don't hold the edge; Damascus is some kind of black magic that easily takes a sharp edge and holds it for unusually long. Now, as structural steel? Hell no.
No, you are simply wrong. We can make many kinds of steel. We can make hard steel, soft steel, or steels that are anywhere in-between. Heat treating techniques and chemical manipulation are the key to sword making and we understand them quite well now. Can you go down to your local store and pick up some steel that's suitable to make a sword? Probably not. However, if you wanted to make one, you could find a supplier who will sell you steel better than Damascus. It'd be expensive, because there's not a lot of demand for such steels, but you could obtain it nonetheless.
There are also people who can fashion the sword far better than any ancient blacksmith. Even the best ancient blacksmith couldn't hope to compete with a mediocre one today simply because of all the modern technology that exists today. Ancient blacksmiths didn't have access to precisely-maintained oil quench baths, induction heaters, modern furnaces, or power tools. Modern blacksmiths understand the science behind what they're doing and, if they didn't, they could consult with a metallurgist who knows even more.
>I'm not a wine snob, but I know there are certain things that sometimes you *can't* replicate.
You're clearly also not a chemist either.
>After decades of analysis, we still can't build a violin as good as a Stradivarius.
No, what we can't do is build a violin that self-proclaimed audiophiles say is as good as a Stradivarius during NON-BLIND TESTS in UNCONTROLLED ENVIRONMENTS. If you administer proper double-blind tests then you'll find that there's no difference.
>We still can't fully replicate Damascus Steel
Talk to a metallurgist. Modern steel actually performs better. I'm not sure how much effort has been given to duplication, but why try to duplicate something when you already have a better replacement?
And there's also never any double-blind testing, which is really important. The examiner can easily give away details to the test subject without a strictly controlled environment.
You're also probably not as good at picking out anything as you think you are. If you've never done any kind of double-blind testing to find out then your assumptions are likely nothing more than conformation bias. Same thing with "experienced sommeliers"
Example: You drink a wine and say that you taste X. The next person at the table hears this and therefore tastes X. It also probably works in reverse. That's not to say that you couldn't tell the difference between two wines that are drastically different, but subtle differences are likely imperceptible.
What happened was that the system malfunctioned which led to hot and humid air being circulated throughout the system. This normally would not cause condensation. However, all of the equipment was previously cold (because the system was working normally before it failed). The hot and humid air came into contact with cold components (various components in the power supply and computer casing). This caused condensation (because the hot and humid air contacted the cold components, cooled down, and had to ditch some of its water due to thermodynamics). The condensation on components of the power supply was then blown into various PCB components when the maintenance staff increased the airflow in the datacenter in an attempt to bring the temperature down. The condensation hitting the PCB caused what you would expect when dumping water onto electronics: stuff shorted out and failed.
You're correct insofar as that humidity was not properly controlled, but this was hardly a case of idiots at the controls or at the drawing board. This was an unanticipated failure mode that was experienced because of a faulty control sequence being generated.
This is not a technical problem, it's a political one. I know this doesn't actually answer your question, but this needs to be said.
In your own post, you told us the answer to the problem: leave equipment disconnected unless absolutely necessary. What you want is a solution to bypass best practices without doing things completely the wrong way. You're really asking for a lock that will keep a door half-open without letting it open completely. (What's to stop the vendor from applying a crappy update during a time-limited session? What happens if the update process gets cut off half-way though? Now your equipment is completely bricked and they can blame you for tampering with their connection! At the very least, it will create a shit storm for your legal department; at the most, it will leave your company footing the bill to fix the system.)
I also think that you haven't considered that this solution probably won't work anyway. You have another department ACTIVELY SUBVERTING YOU! Do you think that the process folks are suddenly going to back off when you start killing their network connections? Maybe you could play dumb for awhile, but once someone figures out what you're doing (or convinces a higher-up to force you to 'fix the problem') it's going to blow up in your face. If you think that you have political problems now then just wait until your trickery comes to light. In any case, they're going to demand that you give them "time limited" sessions that run for 24 hours or even longer. Also, they might just use their political clout to force you to remove any restrictions that you put in place anyway.
The ideal solution (which you're already tried) is to educate the process department on the best practices and encourage them to implement them. However, if that's not going to work then you need to resort to plan B. Inform them of the risks in no uncertain terms (this also seems to be something that you've done). Do this often. Send them memos, send them emails, etc. and save their responses. If they send you an email telling you that they're not going to secure their network, then save that email. (You work in IT, so I don't have to tell you to keep multiple copies of this email in many different places.) This way, when shit hits the fan, you can point to all the warnings you gave and thus save your ass in the ensuing investigation.
"How many such casualties are you prepared to accept? How many such casualties will a flight crew be prepared to accept?"
Everyone on the plane. Why? Because if that plane falls into the hands of the terrorists then it can be used as a weapon to kill even more people. It's better for a fully-loaded plane full of people to die than for a fully-loaded plane full of people *and* more people to die.
Hell, most pilots would even be willing to crash the plane into an empty piece of land if the terrorists manage to start breaching the cockpit door. Again, that outcome, although tragic, is far better than allowing even more people to die.
This is a very widely understood phenomenon. In countries where terrorism is actually a problem, terrorists bomb the checkpoints because of the lines. Security thus staggers the checkpoints and streamlines procedures in order to prevent any kind of lines from forming. This means that terrorists can't kill more than a few people regardless of the size of any bomb they might be carrying.
Here in the USA, these procedures are not used and checkpoints are not bombed because, as all sane people know, terrorism is not a problem in this country.
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You can blame the average American taxpayer for that. They complain when the government spends money and they insist that the government do everything on the cheap. Then they act all surprised when the government winds up with useless equipment and departments that can't get any work done because they don't have any resources. The government asks for more money, but the taxpayers always respond with "well, you haven't accomplished anything with the meager funds we've given you, why should we give you more?" They simply will not listen to reason.
It doesn't help that you've got the conservatives making all sorts of noises about "big government" being evil and flooding the airwaves will misinformation about the government in general.
That's not what I meant. I mean that if there was, tomorrow, a tax proposed that would go towards fixing some specific problem, very few people would support it.
That's just my point. "Our unwavering support" isn't worth a damn thing because "our support" was never existent in the first place.
You've basically just confirmed my point. You train for things that you're never used for and never will be used for. You pass messages of low importance, and you weren't even used during a somewhat recent low-priority incident.
If your entire argument rests on the fact that I capitalized an abbreviation that's often used to reference things other than "amateur" then you're a fucking cunt.
If there was enough time to set up some kind of HAM net for police use then there was enough time to set up a system that makes use of personal cell phones. If people didn't have personal cell phones then it still would have been easier and faster to get a telecom company to ship out crates of cell phones for use and distribute them to officers.
It's not just a matter of "OK, let's set up a net. All HAM operators, check in!" You have to get the radio traffic to the individual police officers somehow. How do you intend to do that in less time than it would take for another solution to accomplish the same thing?
I understand that HAMs can help with emergency communications *in theory*. I was actually very interested in learning HAM radio for some time. However, from what I've read on the internet damn near all emergency communications of any importance are already handled by professionals. There are systems in place for shipping out mobile cell cites, generators, phones and their associated batteries and chargers, etc. Those phones are also automatically prioritized on the cell networks so saturation isn't an issue. Every story I've heard about HAMs running emergency communications in the last decade has to do with either:
A) A training scenario. HAMs participating in local emergency response *simulations*. They might pass useful traffic in this scenario, but it's only for training purposes.
B) HAMs passing useless information around their nets during a real emergency. With all important traffic being taken care of by other professional solutions already in place. When an emergency worker needs to get a message to someone else in a hurry they just whip out their cell phone, their radio, or head to their own radio truck and pass it. They don't go to the HAMs. HAMs are only given the busywork messages to send, if they're given any work at all.
I literally cannot find a story about HAMs actually doing anything during a disaster in the last decade or so. Every article says "HAMs worked quickly to set up stations!" or "HAMs made themselves, and their radios, available!" or "HAMs stood at the ready!" Basically just a lot of variations of "HAMs turned on their radios and did nothing."
If you have evidence to the contrary then please tell me because I'd love to hear it.
It's not an acronym, but it is often used as an abbreviation for "amateur radio". For example, saying "ham operator" wouldn't make much sense. What is an "amateur operator"? Whereas "HAM operator" implies "amateur radio operator". The word "radio" is not contained with the word "ham" so capitalizing it to "HAM" can make some sense.
Webster would probably shit his pants, but you get the idea.
You're correct. I will admit that HAM radio will probably be useful should the apocalypse occur in the near future. However, seeing as how this has literally nothing to do with the conversation, it's a moot point. Mass rebellion isn't a natural disaster nor does it fall within the perview of emergency communications.
Everyone loves to talk a big game. "This country is worth dying for!" "We'll make America strong!" "We love our country!" are all common phrases that you'll hear at campaign rallies, but how many people are actually willing to step up? As it turns out, very few.
Hell, most people aren't even willing to see a 1% increase in their taxes in order to fix this nation's problems. Do you really think that anyone is going to risk their job or their life to do the same?
This isn't terribly shocking. If the last several years have told us anything it's that the American people don't really care if the government abuses its authority. Remember the Nixon scandal? That guy tried to wiretap a *single office* and the only reason that he wasn't impeached is because he resigned before congress could file the impeachment paperwork. Yet, when the government started wiretapping citizens years ago due to "national security" reasons, there was no such uproar. Sure, there were a few people that wanted the president impeached, but there was no real support for it. It's no surprise that the recent news of the wiretapping being larger than we thought has fallen on deaf ears.
Every single issue over the last couple decades has been met with more and more apathetic responses. The problem is going to get far worse before it gets better.
Nonsense. HAM radio operators are less relevant today than they have ever been. HAMs provided useful emergency communications two decades ago, but no longer. Nowadays, cellular providers truck out COWs (Cellular On Wheels. i.e. mobile cell sites) within hours of a disaster, or even preemptively if a disaster is expected. After a disaster, you'll see people talking on Nextels, not relaying messages through HAM operators. Sure, the red cross will accept volunteer radio operators, but only because policy dictates that they do so. They'll be told to set up useless radio stations and relay worthless information until they get bored and leave, or they're told that they're no longer needed.
If you want the truth about HAM radio involvement in emergency communications then you need to talk to HAMs that have actually attempted to participate in such activities within the last decade. Organizations like ARRL are going to talk up how important HAM radio is because that's the point of the organization. They'll tell you that some number of HAM radio operators participated during some disaster, but they won't tell you that the only traffic sent over those nets consisted of nothing more than periodic radio checks. They won't tell you that all HAM radio stations were set up in tactically unimportant locations. Half the time they're in areas which don't need a radio operator and the other half of the time they're set up next to a fully-functional radio truck which doesn't need any kind of HAM support.
In the situation submitted by the OP, HAM radio wouldn't have helped anyway. HAMs can only practically set up fixed locations, which are already served by landlines or personal cell service. A mobile solution would involve putting a HAM radio operator into every single squad car, which would be impractical for obvious reasons.
It might not be a ponzi scheme, but it does carry an absurd amount of risk. The fact that people are getting wildly rich from "investing" in bitcoins proves that they are unfit for their original purpose as a currency. Currencies have to be stable in order to be useful. The massive swings we've been seeing mean that bitcoins aren't even close to stable.
If he were to even attempt to withdraw any of it in the form of USD then there would be a monumental crash. The bitcoins wouldn't even be worth the effort to open up the wallet file.
Then what in the fuck is the point of the system anyway? I don't really need to know if I'm about to be exploded by a nuclear bomb. There ain't shit I can do about it.
Either the system isn't used, in which case turning it off isn't a problem. Or the system is used, in which case turning it off is necessary because some people don't want to hear it.
>Actually Damascus steel is superior to most modern steel for a subset of specific applications. It takes one hell of an edge. Excessively hard steels tend to chip, and soft steels don't hold the edge; Damascus is some kind of black magic that easily takes a sharp edge and holds it for unusually long. Now, as structural steel? Hell no.
No, you are simply wrong. We can make many kinds of steel. We can make hard steel, soft steel, or steels that are anywhere in-between. Heat treating techniques and chemical manipulation are the key to sword making and we understand them quite well now. Can you go down to your local store and pick up some steel that's suitable to make a sword? Probably not. However, if you wanted to make one, you could find a supplier who will sell you steel better than Damascus. It'd be expensive, because there's not a lot of demand for such steels, but you could obtain it nonetheless.
There are also people who can fashion the sword far better than any ancient blacksmith. Even the best ancient blacksmith couldn't hope to compete with a mediocre one today simply because of all the modern technology that exists today. Ancient blacksmiths didn't have access to precisely-maintained oil quench baths, induction heaters, modern furnaces, or power tools. Modern blacksmiths understand the science behind what they're doing and, if they didn't, they could consult with a metallurgist who knows even more.
>I'm not a wine snob, but I know there are certain things that sometimes you *can't* replicate.
You're clearly also not a chemist either.
>After decades of analysis, we still can't build a violin as good as a Stradivarius.
No, what we can't do is build a violin that self-proclaimed audiophiles say is as good as a Stradivarius during NON-BLIND TESTS in UNCONTROLLED ENVIRONMENTS. If you administer proper double-blind tests then you'll find that there's no difference.
>We still can't fully replicate Damascus Steel
Talk to a metallurgist. Modern steel actually performs better. I'm not sure how much effort has been given to duplication, but why try to duplicate something when you already have a better replacement?
Any kind of physical key (which is anything not stored inside your head) negates the entire purpose of what we're talking about here.
And there's also never any double-blind testing, which is really important. The examiner can easily give away details to the test subject without a strictly controlled environment.
You're also probably not as good at picking out anything as you think you are. If you've never done any kind of double-blind testing to find out then your assumptions are likely nothing more than conformation bias. Same thing with "experienced sommeliers"
Example: You drink a wine and say that you taste X. The next person at the table hears this and therefore tastes X. It also probably works in reverse. That's not to say that you couldn't tell the difference between two wines that are drastically different, but subtle differences are likely imperceptible.
No, you are (mostly) wrong.
What happened was that the system malfunctioned which led to hot and humid air being circulated throughout the system. This normally would not cause condensation. However, all of the equipment was previously cold (because the system was working normally before it failed). The hot and humid air came into contact with cold components (various components in the power supply and computer casing). This caused condensation (because the hot and humid air contacted the cold components, cooled down, and had to ditch some of its water due to thermodynamics). The condensation on components of the power supply was then blown into various PCB components when the maintenance staff increased the airflow in the datacenter in an attempt to bring the temperature down. The condensation hitting the PCB caused what you would expect when dumping water onto electronics: stuff shorted out and failed.
You're correct insofar as that humidity was not properly controlled, but this was hardly a case of idiots at the controls or at the drawing board. This was an unanticipated failure mode that was experienced because of a faulty control sequence being generated.
This is not a technical problem, it's a political one. I know this doesn't actually answer your question, but this needs to be said.
In your own post, you told us the answer to the problem: leave equipment disconnected unless absolutely necessary. What you want is a solution to bypass best practices without doing things completely the wrong way. You're really asking for a lock that will keep a door half-open without letting it open completely. (What's to stop the vendor from applying a crappy update during a time-limited session? What happens if the update process gets cut off half-way though? Now your equipment is completely bricked and they can blame you for tampering with their connection! At the very least, it will create a shit storm for your legal department; at the most, it will leave your company footing the bill to fix the system.)
I also think that you haven't considered that this solution probably won't work anyway. You have another department ACTIVELY SUBVERTING YOU! Do you think that the process folks are suddenly going to back off when you start killing their network connections? Maybe you could play dumb for awhile, but once someone figures out what you're doing (or convinces a higher-up to force you to 'fix the problem') it's going to blow up in your face. If you think that you have political problems now then just wait until your trickery comes to light. In any case, they're going to demand that you give them "time limited" sessions that run for 24 hours or even longer. Also, they might just use their political clout to force you to remove any restrictions that you put in place anyway.
The ideal solution (which you're already tried) is to educate the process department on the best practices and encourage them to implement them. However, if that's not going to work then you need to resort to plan B. Inform them of the risks in no uncertain terms (this also seems to be something that you've done). Do this often. Send them memos, send them emails, etc. and save their responses. If they send you an email telling you that they're not going to secure their network, then save that email. (You work in IT, so I don't have to tell you to keep multiple copies of this email in many different places.) This way, when shit hits the fan, you can point to all the warnings you gave and thus save your ass in the ensuing investigation.
"How many such casualties are you prepared to accept? How many such casualties will a flight crew be prepared to accept?"
Everyone on the plane. Why? Because if that plane falls into the hands of the terrorists then it can be used as a weapon to kill even more people. It's better for a fully-loaded plane full of people to die than for a fully-loaded plane full of people *and* more people to die.
Hell, most pilots would even be willing to crash the plane into an empty piece of land if the terrorists manage to start breaching the cockpit door. Again, that outcome, although tragic, is far better than allowing even more people to die.
This is a very widely understood phenomenon. In countries where terrorism is actually a problem, terrorists bomb the checkpoints because of the lines. Security thus staggers the checkpoints and streamlines procedures in order to prevent any kind of lines from forming. This means that terrorists can't kill more than a few people regardless of the size of any bomb they might be carrying.
Here in the USA, these procedures are not used and checkpoints are not bombed because, as all sane people know, terrorism is not a problem in this country.
It's the aviation equivalent of no one ever got fired for buying cisco.
Those records are already public! This camera just provides video of the arrest.