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Comment Re:Unless the plant is surrounded in a glass dome. (Score 4, Interesting) 128

That doesn't sound remotely true. Most of the important equipment (HVAC, Power, Connectivity) is made of iron and steel and sits behind concrete walls (or underground in the case of fiber), separated either by large distances or placed at opposite ends of the same buildings. So unless you have full building access to walk around and stick explosives inside conduits, raceways, fuel tanks, and generator housings (which you won't if it's a Tier 4 datacenter), there's no way lobbing a few grenades from the parking lot will do anything but force a controlled shutdown of some systems for emergency repairs.
Fun fact, even a datacenter in the middle of a desert can cool every piece of equipment inside via a process known as evaporative cooling; using a heat exchanger connected to an underground water tank or adequate commercial supply, the differential in humidity inside causes heat to be evaporated in the desert sun.

Comment Re:Air bags (Score 1) 144

This was the first thing that came to mind. Then again, American car companies have been specifically catering to overweight customers for some time now; American cars typically have wider seats to accommodate larger posteriors, and the popularity of SUV and Pickup Truck frames in the American markets cannot be overstated. Sure, both have replaced the Minivan in recent years, but the larger frames, higher ground clearance, and wide-open entryways are not a coincidence.

Comment Re:There goes HIPAA (Score 2) 99

You're forgetting something - people with nasty ailments which can be terminal or directly linked to higher rates of suicide need a strong support group to improve their chances of survival, aside from receiving regular treatments and/or pain control from their physician. In these cases, the insurance companies already know these people are afflicted - but it's simply possible that a local support group does not exist, and smaller online communities can be easily fragmented or shutdown on a whim by the owners. At least with Facebook, people are connecting with each other on a platform that is unlikely to go away any time soon.
Say what you want about advertisers and the government, but this post is coming from a country with national healthcare and neither "Joe Government" nor "Your Friendly Neighborhood Claims Adjuster" are trying to be my friends. You need to be a lot more worried about the day when Facebook becomes the official platform for Electronic Medical Records (EMR) to be used by physicians sharing real patient data behind the scenes.

Comment Re:Demographics (Score 1) 261

This, so much of this. As one of those *ahem* enthusiastic younger drivers, I absolutely loved test driving the WRX and FR-S, but just could not get over the fact that I would look like a yobbo everywhere I went. I knew it was a lost cause when the sales guy got offended at the suggestion of removing the rear spoiler of the WRX. Wound up with a Jetta GLI instead - you know, that rarely seen mash-up between a stock Jetta, ranked 67th on this site for tickets issued, and the GTI hatchback, ranked 12th. Insurance came back at standard Jetta rates, which was fantastic.

Comment Re:Clueless (Score 2) 59

Interesting slide deck from PJM - what's more interesting is the reference to a piece of damaged equipment for which the manufacturer quoted a two-year timeline for replacement (during normal business operations!), but a suitable spare had been found elsewhere and put in place within 6 months.
From what I have read on the topic, this is the largest concern - spare parts simply do not exist, and if enough small pieces are damaged at once, they may never be replaced in a reasonable amount of time. Entire communities and cities at greatly diminished power/no power for months and years at a time, and every country on the globe competing with each other for decades to bring everything back.
Who knows, I'm not an expert. Can you tell us how prevalent these "transformers with grounded center taps connected to long transmission lines" are, and what the damage might look like?

Comment Re:Keep It Ready (Score 1) 208

Or their management is from the cult of MBA and fears actually owning anything, or they just saw an ad for the cloud and got sparkly eyes and said "ooooooooh, shiny!".

I don't know of many small-to-medium sized businesses who migrate to the cloud because it's shiny. They all do it because they either read somewhere or were told by someone (most likely a salesperson) that it would save them money. Contrast that with the sysadmin constantly reminding them of the need for more hardware, more licenses, more overtime, etc.
Anyone who tells you an IaaS migration is about something other than cost is probably trying to sell you IaaS. Fear of running your own infrastructure is just another way of saying that you don't know how to model your costs accurately, which I can guarantee 99.9% of MBA's do not.

Comment Re:Keep It Ready (Score 4, Insightful) 208

Actually, no, there's only one reason any company moves to the cloud - because they think it will save them money. In-house disaster recovery is expensive. Employees are expensive. Refreshing hardware, licenses, and support agreements cost a lot of capital. The allure of trading all of that away for a fixed monthly cost is too strong to resist for most decision-makers.
I don't want to sound overly bleak here, but anyone asking the Slashdot crowd for ideas on how to generate revenue for their employer using commodity hardware is probably so far removed the actual business that their days are numbered. Your Infrastructure was outsourced to an IaaS provider because they don't want to pay for the iron. Next, it's PaaS - your hypervisors, databases, and operating systems, and you with it.
If you want some real advice, use it as a DR site (as GP stated) and make sure the business understands the risks associated with shutting it down, ensuring your ass is covered by having the CFO and/or CIO issue a statement to that effect (they will pin it on you when the cloud goes down regardless, because if you really read those IaaS contracts, the provider cannot be held liable). Then, walk away from it. Divorce yourself from the infrastructure discussions as much as you can, get involved with bigger and better initiatives so that once the salesmen show up with their PaaS offering, you're too well engrained in the big picture that they can't live without you.

Comment Re:Keep It Ready (Score 3, Insightful) 208

Pretty much the only sensible answer in this discussion so far - and based upon the number of people (trolls? shills?) saying that the gear should be used for mining crypto-currency, I could probably make a small fortune as a security consultant looking for abusive sysadmins wasting company assets for dubious gains.
Let's not forget, your employer is moving to the cloud either because they do not see value in what you provide, or they want you focusing on more strategic initiatives. You should probably spend some time cooking up something amazing in the old environment or, worst case scenario, using it as an opportunity to brush up on your skills and certifications.

Comment Re:FIRE! (Score 1) 457

It's funny because the police in Calgary, Alberta will put up giant pink signs on the highway which say "Police Ahead" whenever they setup a speed trap consisting of more than one cruiser. It doesn't actually matter, drivers still speed and the traps are always full of people being pulled over. So being warned ahead of time doesn't seem to have an impact.
Secondly, they've started buying all colours, makes, and models of domestic vehicles. Waze doesn't help you if you can't see the police doing traffic.
In short, they will never give up this revenue stream to solve actual crimes because it's so damn convenient and there is no shortage of drivers willing to pay a voluntary tax.

Comment Internet of Things (Score 4, Insightful) 192

This buzzword annoys me even more than Cloud. Cloud has more or less become common vernacular for describing Internet-connected servers which you may or may not own, but the term Internet of Things seems to imply that a) there were no "things" on the Internet before now and b) the "old Internet" simply isn't hip enough to run more devices, and you should be clambering all over a vendor to be a part of it. Ugh.

Comment Re:How do you claim the prize? (Score 1) 291

They sort of explain it in the article - the theory is that being the assassin, the act itself has been pre-meditated and you have chosen the date of the murder. You then make a donation to the deadpool, including a hashed version of your date. Once the act is done, you send an email (ideally anonymous) to the site operator with that date inside. The operator performs a hash check on it, and if it matches the data included with your donation, you are most likely the killer.
Or, you're just really good at guessing when people are going to die.

Comment Zero Tolerance (Score 4, Interesting) 453

I work in a fairly large technical sales environment, and we exercise a zero tolerance rule for our younger team members when we are out with clients - if you touch your mobile device for any reason beyond presenting content or sharing contacts relevant to the meeting, you will be reprimanded. Don't leave the device on the table, and don't even think about taking notes on your phone - anything that distracts you and forces you to break eye contact with your customer is a bad thing and makes you look like you're only half-interested in the people in the room.
We will occasionally experience some belligerence after they have been reprimanded, but we always remind them that the best, most seasoned sales team members only need four things to close a multi-million dollar sale - pen, paper, whiteboard, and business cards.

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