Well, not entirely "no point"... (and I didn't even have to bring up zones ;) )

Actually, we generate 3 phase just like everyone else. We just don't run all three to each house. Industrial and commercial users do commonly get 3 phase.

220v is mostly in single or duplex residential settings. Otherwise, it's often 208v (convieniantly available by connecting to two phases of 3 phase power).

Nice way to toss in an insult just to prove what a bright light you aren't.

Were you a brighter bulb, you would realize that PS rating and actual consumption often have little to do with each other. In fact it doesn't draw half of what you think it does and electricity doesn't cost as much as you think where I have the box.

Meanwhile, who said my usage was typical? Certainly not me.

It is used only for administration, serial console for a few devices, crunch some log files, etc. It used to be a backup mail server as well. All well within it's capabilities. It isn't likely to run at high load very often. The run like a tank feature is it's primary reason to be. Since it is the machine used to diagnose problems, it's helpful that it is unlikely to be the machine with a problem.

Sometimes, old used equipment is exactly the right answer, sometimes it's a terrible idea. The production servers are much newer machines.

...more like an awesome way for Google to grab a profitable patent in exchange for the prize money.

Seriously - if you can pop those kind of specifications, you can make a hell of a lot more than a million bucks from the patent alone.

A cheapie SunFire v200/210 will run like a tank, but you'll be crippled by the server's top speed, and they do put out the heat if you push up the load average (and HVAC costs should always be factored in, yo.)

You'll also need to buy a lot of those pizza boxes to make up for the processing power that you can find in a box half its age, let alone the newer iron.

Sometimes you have to run the old stuff (I work in an environment where we have testbed boxes, and SunFires are a part of that, along with ancient RS/6000 gear, PA-RISC HPUX gear, etc. I can tell you right now that the old stuff cranks out a lot more heat (and in many cases eats a lot more rackspace) than the equivalent horsepower found in just a handful of new HP DL-360's.

So is HVAC - go figure.

I picked up a Sunfire v20 for $20. I would have to run it for 8 years non-stop for the electricity cost to add up to the cost of a new more efficient machine of equivalent capability.

As has been pointed out already, the real lesson is not about socialism but about how East Germany's planned economy was so screwed up that the only way to get anything done was to cheat - whether by paying the right people for unofficial services or just by having relatives in the West who were willing to bring over some stuff that could be freely purchased in the West but required several years of patient waiting to obtain in the East.

So yeah, life in East Germany did make people more likely to break the rules but the reason for that is just that East Germany was a deeply dysfunctional state where only cheaters prospered. (Socialism played a role there but presumably it should be possible to have a planned economy without running it in the absurdly stupid way East Germany did.)

Doesn't that put them dangerously close to criminal like the guys that sell zero days to the Russian mob?

I'm thinking yes but it will be ignored because their customers include bad guys within the U.S. government.

links FTW, bitches!

(...then again, it would seem rather trivial to make/create an extension that blocks or modified the canvas tag contents, no?)