OT: Coronavirus 2, the No Politics Version

[mind_messing]

Not to bang on the data drum any more, but it was concerns around things like this that makes the comparisons work less straightforward than looking up an internet spreadsheet

https://amp.ft.com/content/77eb7a13-cd2 ... ssion=true

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

ORIGINAL: fcooke

Funny water chiller story. The company needed to do some work that required turning off the chillers. They kept postponing the work until they got a really cold day to replace the effect of the chillers. Work happens on a weekend. Come Monday morning the load on the mainframes goes up and then suddenly they start to overheat and crash. Turns out in the desire to get that really cold day to do the work, having the chillers off allowed all of the water in them to freeze, so no circulation come Monday am and therefore the overheated mainframes. Talk about unintended consequences.

The AC off after 6pm thing also led to a lot of 'interesting' discussions between myself and Corporate services when my team was routinely working until midnight to get high profile work done.

The joys of working in NYC.

That's funny. Folks don't realize those chillers have to run all the time or they freeze over. No easy way out for you. Just have to wait for it to thaw I guess.

A few decades ago we had the reverse problem up north. The OPEC oil embargo made oil furnaces very expensive to operate so the companies that deal in propane saw their chance and sold a lot of people on propane heating. Each property had a big propane tank outside, as far from the building as possible.
What no one thought of was that propane needs to "boil" in the tank to make the pressure needed to get the gas to the furnace, and at -45ºF or so, propane no longer boils. So when such a day came, people had no heat, their water pipes froze and burst and all kinds of mayhem ensued. Glad my Dad stuck with oil (the tank was in our basement).

[JohnDillworth]

few decades ago we had the reverse problem up north. The OPEC oil embargo made oil furnaces very expensive to operate so the companies that deal in propane saw their chance and sold a lot of people on propane heating. Each property had a big propane tank outside, as far from the building as possible.
What no one thought of was that propane needs to "boil" in the tank to make the pressure needed to get the gas to the furnace, and at -45ºF or so, propane no longer boils. So when such a day came, people had no heat, their water pipes froze and burst and all kinds of mayhem ensued. Glad my Dad stuck with oil (the tank was in our basement).

Heh, never thought of that. Guess a lot of people didn't . We have a choice but we stick with oil. Cost is about the same but the oil companies are local business and they support the boiler, furnace and water heaters. 24x7x365. Something breaks, they are here in an hour. Love those guys

[fcooke]

data centers are interesting beasts. We had to train people to understand that the fire suppression system would kill you if you didn't get out quick enough. But the number of dumb things I saw over the years was 'entertaining'. Unplugging PBXs, not maintaining battery back-up systems properly. In the end we ended up escorting any contractor who needed to do maintenance in the data center.

[fcooke]

built a new garage last year and heated it from our legacy propane tank (used for the stove and back-up generator). When the propane ran out the whole system basically got an air lock - a complete pain in the bottom. Didn't know about the drawbacks on propane heating. We will be keeping the oil heat for the main house.

[JohnDillworth]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

data centers are interesting beasts. We had to train people to understand that the fire suppression system would kill you if you didn't get out quick enough. But the number of dumb things I saw over the years was 'entertaining'. Unplugging PBXs, not maintaining battery back-up systems properly. In the end we ended up escorting any contractor who needed to do maintenance in the data center.

data centers are interesting beasts. We had to train people to understand that the fire suppression system would kill you if you didn't get out quick enough. But the number of dumb things I saw over the years was 'entertaining'. Unplugging PBXs, not maintaining battery back-up systems properly. In the end we ended up escorting any contractor who needed to do maintenance in the data center.

One of my data centers is completely locked down. There might be 20 people in an agency of 1800 that have access to it. I have no problems there. Going under the floor? You need a building engineer to kill the pre-action and go under the floor. Hepa micro-filtration, sticky matts in all the double door man traps you need to get in and a 24x7 guard. You could eat off the floor. The best part? It is a full sized floor of about 30,000 square feet and had it's own bathrooms. So I only share a bathroom with 18 other people divided between 24x7 shifts. Of the 20 people with access only 2 are female. The ladies room on that floor is known as "The Princess Room"! People are always trying to get on the access list just for the bathroom rights.
My other 2 data centers have NYPD and FDNY equipment in there so some of their folks have access. F%^king thieves, the lot of them.We have a joke about FDNY fireman or anybody that works for them. If you put one of them in a room with 2 anvils and come back in an hour one of the anvils will be broken and the other missing.

[fcooke]

It's funny what I was allowed to do as a trainee in a DC vs the restrictions we had in place closer to my retirement......

Also entertaining was how much cable had been placed under the raised floors on the trading floors....the tiles would literally wobble when you walked on them. The electricians made a fair bit of dough toning out old cables so we wouldn't have to add to the pile of copper.

But I learned a bunch about common sense and problem solving.

[JohnDillworth]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

It's funny what I was allowed to do as a trainee in a DC vs the restrictions we had in place closer to my retirement......

Also entertaining was how much cable had been placed under the raised floors on the trading floors....the tiles would literally wobble when you walked on them. The electricians made a fair bit of dough toning out old cables so we wouldn't have to add to the pile of copper.

But I learned a bunch about common sense and problem solving.

It's funny what I was allowed to do as a trainee in a DC vs the restrictions we had in place closer to my retirement......

Also entertaining was how much cable had been placed under the raised floors on the trading floors....the tiles would literally wobble when you walked on them. The electricians made a fair bit of dough toning out old cables so we wouldn't have to add to the pile of copper.

But I learned a bunch about common sense and problem solving.

My data center is in the old NASDAQ data center. There is a trading floor there too. Building is massively overbuilt and is N+4. It was a nice place to sit out Sandy. I could run a good chunk of downtown Brooklyn with our generator plant. As to all that old copper? Well, mostly fiber now but when you decommission something you are required to remove all of your cable and all of your circuits back to the PDU. Rent is not cheap but Brooklyn wasn't Brooklyn when we signed the lease. I'll be retired when the lease is up so I won't have to move all this crap to a co-location in god knows where

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

ORIGINAL: fcooke

data centers are interesting beasts. We had to train people to understand that the fire suppression system would kill you if you didn't get out quick enough. But the number of dumb things I saw over the years was 'entertaining'. Unplugging PBXs, not maintaining battery back-up systems properly. In the end we ended up escorting any contractor who needed to do maintenance in the data center.

One of my data centers is completely locked down. There might be 20 people in an agency of 1800 that have access to it. I have no problems there. Going under the floor? You need a building engineer to kill the pre-action and go under the floor. Hepa micro-filtration, sticky matts in all the double door man traps you need to get in and a 24x7 guard. You could eat off the floor. The best part? It is a full sized floor of about 30,000 square feet and had it's own bathrooms. So I only share a bathroom with 18 other people divided between 24x7 shifts. Of the 20 people with access only 2 are female. The ladies room on that floor is known as "The Princess Room"! People are always trying to get on the access list just for the bathroom rights.

Wait - whaaat? You crawled under the floor to get access to the women's washroom? Sneaky!

[fcooke]

It is interesting how people approach things sometimes. Our head of Telco was a former bird Col in the services. He was all about command and control. I figured out that I needed him to adopt my ideas because he thought they were his ideas. Worked well enough. But he had his teams over-engineer everything. Four double fibers on 4 different paths to our NJ DC. The DC eventually went down. He was really pleased that the network was in place. What he never figured out was that it didn't matter if you had a platinum grade network if the servers were not up. Not much point in having a 4N network if the DC is only 2N.

He also had some serious sexism issues but that discussion might be considered political so I will leave it be. But after he got canned and called me for help finding a job I was, shall we say, less than helpful.

[fcooke]

No need to go under the floor.....I got off a flight in Spain once and got confused between the ladies and gents restrooms.....really not my best moment [:-]

[CaptBeefheart]

Great stories from you network guys. [;)]

In Korea, we may be a victim of our success. Political and health leaders here have gotten some pretty big heads with all the accolades coming in from the international media. That has led them to go into reputation-protection mode and be overly cautious in the opinion of a fair number of friends of mine (mostly expat businessmen, journalists, diplomats, etc.).

There still is a 14-day quarantine for all people arriving from elsewhere, which means the country you travel to may be wide open, but you still have the 14-day house arrest upon your return. There's no talk at all of changing that. So the theme building is "Korea won the war, but they lost the peace." Here's a good piece going over some of these issues: Korea’s viral travel restrictions stir ire and woe

Cheers,
CB

[sPzAbt653]

Aren't travel restrictions the one thing that for sure prevent the spread?

Be on the lookout for the latest side effect of the virus, the often rumored neurological effects. Here in the US, many states has been affected by mindless mobs roaming the streets smashing things and taking anything they can get their hands on.

[JohnDillworth]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Aren't travel restrictions the one thing that for sure prevent the spread?

Be on the lookout for the latest side effect of the virus, the often rumored neurological effects. Here in the US, many states has been affected by mindless mobs roaming the streets smashing things and taking anything they can get their hands on.

Joined 2 protest marches in NYC this week and saw none of this. Just thousands and thousands of peaceful protestors. Yes, there was looting at night, but this was opportunistic. The vast , vast majority is peaceful protest in the largest numbers I've ever seen. I'm sure you will hear the "few bad apples" coming from many quarters. As Chris Rock says "Some jobs can't have bad apples") but I can only tell you what I experienced with my Red Wing boots on the ground. Peaceful protest. Politics not intended, only sharing my personal observations.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Aren't travel restrictions the one thing that for sure prevent the spread?

Be on the lookout for the latest side effect of the virus, the often rumored neurological effects. Here in the US, many states has been affected by mindless mobs roaming the streets smashing things and taking anything they can get their hands on.

Joined 2 protest marches in NYC this week and saw none of this. Just thousands and thousands of peaceful protestors. Yes, there was looting at night, but this was opportunistic. The vast , vast majority is peaceful protest in the largest numbers I've ever seen. I'm sure you will hear the "few bad apples" coming from many quarters. As Chris Rock says "Some jobs can't have bad apples") but I can only tell you what I experienced with my Red Wing boots on the ground. Peaceful protest. Politics not intended, only sharing my personal observations.

The social psychologists suggest that this behaviour stems from a feeling of entitlement because the group feel they have been held down by society so they are entitled to try and redress the difference by taking stuff, and to express their frustration by causing damage. Trouble is, it's a momentary excitement that they might feel like making a habit of and when they get arrested they end up in a worse condition than they started. Sad, really.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Aren't travel restrictions the one thing that for sure prevent the spread?

Be on the lookout for the latest side effect of the virus, the often rumored neurological effects. Here in the US, many states has been affected by mindless mobs roaming the streets smashing things and taking anything they can get their hands on.

Joined 2 protest marches in NYC this week and saw none of this. Just thousands and thousands of peaceful protestors. Yes, there was looting at night, but this was opportunistic. The vast , vast majority is peaceful protest in the largest numbers I've ever seen. I'm sure you will hear the "few bad apples" coming from many quarters. As Chris Rock says "Some jobs can't have bad apples") but I can only tell you what I experienced with my Red Wing boots on the ground. Peaceful protest. Politics not intended, only sharing my personal observations.

The social psychologists suggest that this behaviour stems from a feeling of entitlement because the group feel they have been held down by society so they are entitled to try and redress the difference by taking stuff, and to express their frustration by causing damage. Trouble is, it's a momentary excitement that they might feel like making a habit of and when they get arrested they end up in a worse condition than they started. Sad, really.

Occam's Razor is that it's not entitlement or anything like it: simply opportunity. Stores are closed all day every day, police are busy elsewhere, a handful of thieves decide to take advantage. Seems pretty obvious, and otherwise completely unrelated to anything else happening.

[JohnDillworth]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth


Joined 2 protest marches in NYC this week and saw none of this. Just thousands and thousands of peaceful protestors. Yes, there was looting at night, but this was opportunistic. The vast , vast majority is peaceful protest in the largest numbers I've ever seen. I'm sure you will hear the "few bad apples" coming from many quarters. As Chris Rock says "Some jobs can't have bad apples") but I can only tell you what I experienced with my Red Wing boots on the ground. Peaceful protest. Politics not intended, only sharing my personal observations.

The social psychologists suggest that this behaviour stems from a feeling of entitlement because the group feel they have been held down by society so they are entitled to try and redress the difference by taking stuff, and to express their frustration by causing damage. Trouble is, it's a momentary excitement that they might feel like making a habit of and when they get arrested they end up in a worse condition than they started. Sad, really.

Occam's Razor is that it's not entitlement or anything like it: simply opportunity. Stores are closed all day every day, police are busy elsewhere, a handful of thieves decide to take advantage. Seems pretty obvious, and otherwise completely unrelated to anything else happening.

Much of brick and mortar retail was close to it's last gasp before Covid, this will help hasten it's end. Lots of people figured out how to get most of what they want delivered and retail won't recover. Nobody is sure what the new normal will be but it will have a lot less stores. I've heard from smart people that the reason you haven't sen too many bankruptcies yet is because store inventory is part of the asset and those liquidation sales help lessen the restructuring impact. You go bankrupt when you can't liquidate your remaining assets and you pretty much loose them. Expect lots of big retail bankruptcies this year. The world has moved on

[fcooke]

I'm good buying most things online. But things like furniture (I want to test the comfort of my bottom on the couch), I still like to see in person. But I agree, traditional retail is going to a bad place. Folks will have to come up with unique 'experiences' to survive in the brick and mortar world.....

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Much of brick and mortar retail was close to it's last gasp before Covid, this will help hasten it's end. Lots of people figured out how to get most of what they want delivered and retail won't recover. Nobody is sure what the new normal will be but it will have a lot less stores. I've heard from smart people that the reason you haven't sen too many bankruptcies yet is because store inventory is part of the asset and those liquidation sales help lessen the restructuring impact. You go bankrupt when you can't liquidate your remaining assets and you pretty much loose them. Expect lots of big retail bankruptcies this year. The world has moved on

I disagree on the conclusion that the world has moved on. Online, direct-to-consumer lowered the barrier to entry into markets, but . You can see the importance of in-person retail in Casper's plans (the successful online mattress company) to open 200 B&M stores (among others) after previously partnering with Target for in-store retail. Link: https://www.retaildive.com/news/mapping ... ds/565597/

Buy online, pick up in-store is also a thing that is going on.

That's not to say that there aren't lots of small B&M businesses that will go belly-up - unless Congress and the President can agree to swoop in with an enhanced small business protection program, like covering their business's expenses so that when allowed to open back up they can just call their employees back in and start operating again. This is technically possible.

Also some larger chains, such as J.C. Penney, that are going to go bankrupt or already have (like JCP). That said, bankruptcy is sometimes just a restructuring rather than The End.

Realistically, the B&M that will stay in business will be the B&M's with meaningful in-person interaction (handmade stuff, like nice furniture, or other things that you just can't get in the same way online), and the stuff that you need a physical location for (restaurants, services like tailoring, printing, etc.). The general purpose stores with replaceable products will go away. And that's fine in a zoomed-out view (obviously, there are person-scaled tragedies in that macro story). Further, that will always be a segment of the population that wants to feel it before they buy it, even if there are generous online return policies - which still serve to either make the equivalent products more expensive or more inconvenient.

I guess if we call traditional retail those that sell replaceable products, then sure - and honestly, if that killed some of the market power of the Walmarts and Targets of the world in favor of smaller scale businesses, I'm really good with that.

[obvert]

This was an amazing read. How many have been dealing with this kind of stuff who aren’t counted anywhere?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... SApp_Other