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| 2009/3/29-4/2 [Politics/Domestic/Crime, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:52765 Activity:low |
3/29 Good news, Yoo to be investigated for violating International law:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/world/europe/29spain.html
\- I'm actually happier to see Alberto, Feith, and Addington on
the list ahead of Yoo. |
| 2009/3/29-4/3 [Uncategorized] UID:52766 Activity:kinda low |
3/29 Swensen hater:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-28/the-man-who-gutted-the-ivy-league/full
Swensen: http://www.yale.edu/investments/Yale_Endowment_08.pdf
\_ The invisible hand is taking care of this.
\_ What are you talking about?
\_ Wealth is being taken from the weak hands and properly
redeployed to those who will make better use of it. This
is the way capitalism is supposed to function. |
| 2009/3/29-4/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:52767 Activity:kinda low |
3/29 Yah, that's not fascist or anything:
GM CEO resigns at Obama's behest
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20625.html
\_ You're right, it's not!
\_ No, it's not. Again, you're confusing fascist with national-
ization. Since GM took bailout money from the govt., I don't
see why there's outrage when the govt. demands the CEO step
down. If GM doesn't like it, they're still free to refund the
money given them and fend for themselves.
\_ Actually this is kind of fascist. But I can live with it. -O voter
\_ huh? what is so fascist about this? Wagner step down per
it's share holder's request. What is wrong with that?
\_ In spite of popular usage fascist is not a synonym for
"anything I don't like." Government and industry being in
bed together is pretty fascist, especially since the
government is dictating to GM how they should run their
business. As I said before, I don't really have a problem
with it, since GM obviously is failing with its current
strategy. |
| 2009/3/29-4/3 [Computer/HW/Laptop, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:52768 Activity:high |
3/29 "Leaving computers on overnight = $2.8 billion a year"
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/130078
\_ Not good for hardware to power it up and down all the time. I
always leave all my computers on all the time, except for
laptops which I allow to sleep (but still be powered).
\_ How is this the case for desktops but not laptops? I don't see
how turning something off at the end of the day would cause a
problem. Seems like less wear and tear.
\_ It's more wear and tear to power cycle and lubricants get
cold. Your system will fail more quickly if you turn it
off every night in my experience.
How laptops are different:
1. Their h/w is better designed for low or no power.
2. They are much better about sleep/wakeup than desktops,
in part because of 1.
3. If a laptop dies it's not usually a big deal because
they are not expected up 100% of the time anyway.
\_ Here you go. Welcome to the 21st century.
http://tinyurl.com/dcur84
http://tinyurl.com/6egwdu
\_ From a link found in one of your links:
"[Temperature cycling] is a well-established failure mechanism and a
stress on components," McCredie pointed out. "What it really comes down to
is all these things -- chips soldered on modules, soldered on boards and
connectors -- that expand and contract when they heat and cool.... When
they all contract and expand at different rates, they can fail. That's
ultimately the bad thing with power cycling," he said.
--Brad McCredie, an IBM fellow for the Systems and Technology Group
You can say "Cycling power on a sick system is
going to bring attention to latent component
weaknesses that go unnoticed in operation" which
maximizes "server availability", but that's an odd
way of looking at it. If you don't power down the
system then you won't have the failure and your
availability will be greater. I have gone through
just a few dozen exercises where equipment in an
entire data center was powered down and equipment
always fails at a much higher rate when that
happens. Whether it's just highlighting a latent
sickness is semantics. If you don't power it off,
then it won't fail, even if the power off is not
the root cause.
\_ Well, if you want to cling onto any comment
as a way to rationalize your practices, that's
fine.
\_ why give this guy a pass? Fuck that!
this is our planet too. --ecoterr'rst
The way I synthesize everything is if
you're not power-cycling a lot, you'll very
likely be fine for the useful life of the
product. It's a tradeoff between perceived
higher failure rates, which may go up "negligibly"
with occasional power cycling, versus the cost
to your pocketbook and the environment of running
hardware 24/7 even when it's not being used.
There are multiple comments that suggest that
turning off your equipment at night (or whenever
it won't be used for an extended period of time)
is the better tradeoff, but of course you
conveniently ignore those points.
P.S. A datacenter is a very different use case
than a typical home or work desktop. Although
powering down parts of a datacenter would still
appear to be much more a logistical problem than
a hardware failure problem.
\_ Different use case, but basically same
components. If they fail measurably (not
"negligibly") in that case then they will
fail at your home, too. Most people probably
do not notice because a 1/N failure rate
means you will likely be fine, but when the
number of machines is 1000N it's a noticeable
issue. I always count on a power outage to
result in dead hardware. You can make the
argument that a 5-10% chance of failure (say)
over the lifetime of the system is low, but
I'd rather just keep my system up. The key
point here is not that I am against powering
off equipment, but realize it comes with a
non-negligible risk of failure. Given my
experiences I just keep my equipment powered
on. As far as being environmentally aware,
maybe you should talk to the people in the 55
story buildings who leave the lights on all
night. Go anywhere in SF, LA, or NYC
to see that lots of lights are not on sensors.
Those "spectacular city views" are wasting a
lot of $$$.
\_ well, if you have control of the lights
in the skyscrapers, by all means, turn
them off when not in use. If you don't,
you should make wise choices about the
things you do control. -tom
\_ I gave up on convincing him. Guy just
doesn't want to do it.
\_ I like my h/w to not fail. Maybe you
don't mind if it does. You can
pretend the h/w won't fail, the OS
will always boot fine, and the s/w
will start up fine every time if you
want to but there is evidence to the
contrary. It's not a case of comparing
my $500 machine to the $8/month bill
and saying that I can replace the
machine with the savings over the life
of the machine. Having my machine
fail is *BAD* and causes me grief.
If you turn yours off every day then
more power to you. My experience has
shown that IBM guy (who *you* ignore)
is correct and power cycling systems
results in failures. You know that
server in the corner that no one knows
what it does exactly but is VERY
IMPORTANT and the guy who built the
s/w that runs on it - and only on
that very h/w - left 15 years ago?
DON'T TURN IT OFF OR REBOOT IT.
Now, if you understand why that is a
bad idea extend it to your own system
because the same physics are at work.
Now if a h/w failure is meaningless to
you because you have great backups and
no need for quick recovery and can buy
another machine and so on then go ahead
and power down, but that's analyzing
risk/reward which is not the same as
saying there is no problem with
powering your system down. There is.
\_ You speak as if hardware won't fail
if you don't turn it off. It will;
it's just a matter of time. And if
your plan for handling the failure
of a VERY IMPORTANT system is to
not have it fail in the first place
by not turning it off, you're just
stupid. Although I've seen people
have just such "plans", but then,
newsflash, there are stupid people
out there.
\_ It will fail more rapidly if you
keep turning it on and off every
day, whether that's because
the components are stressed
or just because latent failures
materialize. I know HP said
that the h/w won't, but I
doubt they tested systems
under real world situations
like under a desk with a case
full of dust bunnies. My own
experience has shown that h/w
will fail when powered down
and I dread it whenever
electrical work has to be done
because it means something is
going to die. Sure, sometimes
h/w dies anyway but it's
*guaranteed* something will
die when everything has been
powered off. I have seen this
many times over 12 years now. |