Nice sig.

If you know where you're going, then the GPS is redundant. But assuming you don't know exactly how to get where you're going, then I think it's probably preferable to some (but not all) of the alternatives. Even having a passenger in the car that knows the way can be inferior to a GPS unit (we all have friends that are shoddy navigators).

No, I've also heard about cases where both redundant systems failed at the same time (due to poor maintenance) and where the fire department won't allow the generators to be started. Everything within the datacenter can be redundant, but the datacenter itself still is a single physical location.

Distributed fault-tolerant systems are "better", but they're also harder to build. Likewise redundancy is more expensive than lack of redundancy, and if you have to choose between $300k/year for a redundant location with redundant people vs. a million-dollar outage every few years, well, the redundancy might not make sense.

That's easy: Cancel all Comcast services.

I did that already a few weeks ago when they started hijacking DNS (and yes, I cited both that and the impending digital cable encryption as reasons why I was cancelling). The trouble is, the only thing I could cancel was the Internet service because I live in an apartment that has a bulk agreement with Comcast, and the cable TV is included as part of my rent. I really am a captive Comcast victim; my only further recourse would be to move! And to add insult to injury, while normal "residential" accounts get a free box, apartment bulk accounts don't, which means I'm going to have to pay extra even though I only use one TV. (Not to mention the objection I have to using the extra, redundant piece of equipment in the first place!)

Incidentally, I switched my Internet service to Clear WiMax. It's slightly more expensive than Comcast in the short term because I had to buy the equipment, but they've got a 3Mbps/$30 tier while Comcast's minimum was 6Mbps/$42.95, so I'll save money in the long run. And more importantly, it lets me avoid supporting the fascists at either Comcast or AT&T (the only DSL provider here)! Totally worth it...

I love it when moderation is actually funnier than the comments.

In case it changes, right now it reads

"Cockroaches survive nuclear explosions" = +5 Funny
- "and lawyers" = -1 Redundant

Right, but the key I think is...what is their retention level? Good God, how many questions can anyone have? Do they not remember from one day to the next how to do something? Or do they think their exact same question as one of the other 99 users is going to get a different answer?

How about a FAQ to help reduce the redundant questions.

I think I'd go "Postal" (TM) if I had that many questions coming in from such a small user group day in and day out.

Why is it that I feel the stuff I have setup at home is more robust than some "professional" shops? Is the world more like The Daily WTF than I've been lead to believe?

I'm not saying my system is perfect, but it's redundant in at least two locations.

Laptop<->Server<->Server HD 2<->Dreamhost.

My MySQL databases which just keep stuff like weather and temp (from my 1-Wire system) is dumped nightly and sent to my Gmail account. (It's also not a few TB server...) but seriously. How hard is it to toss in a few extra hard drives and do a rolling backup?

Prediction. Your friend is made redundant due to his slow pickup and non motivation to learn new technology. You... end up running a blog that gets you hired at a new start up. Your prowess at picking up new apps and software thrusts you up into managment. You retire early. Your friend end up working in sanitation where he is quite happy.

Because the new equation editor is vastly superior to the old one, and it was redundant code.

The Fail Infrastructure, that is, our Fearless Leadership, is an awesomely resilient and redundant system. The popular dissent is used as a tool to explain failure, rather than as useful input for promoting the greater good. Just look at the sheer weight of influencing factors and know the system will sink under he weight of profit-taking. I have a newspaper clipping from the early '60s of a certain tomorrowland fantasy they called Bay Area Rapid Transit. I will say no more.

Most of science are a group of theories. If we reject one, evolution, why not the others. Gravity is also just a theory. "Gravity" isn't a law -- that is "stuff falls" doesn't quite cut it. There is a "law of gravity" or more precisely a "law of universal gravitation" which can be expressed mathematically, basically saying, that there's a force between two objects proportional to the products of constants associated with each object (their "gravitational masses"), divided by the square of the distance between their "centers of mass". That's the law. Mostly (not entirely) it's been proven by astronomical observations, also with something called a torsion balance: go Google it.

"Evolution" doesn't have a law because there's just not a nice mathematical expression of it to call a law.

So you god-fearing creationists can reject whatever parts of science you would like. But I bet the countries we are offshoring all of our technical work to don't teach creationism.