Posts by AceRimmer 722 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jun 2009
Several use cases spring to mind:
you already posses a number of lambda functions then it will save you the effort of having to rework them into your on premise kit.
you are a consultancy sending a client a snowball and want to apply filtering to ensure they don't fill the machine with anything they don't want on there
you are dealing with legacy equipment which is badly supported and need to lightly process the data before it hits S3
I use a RPI3 running Open Media Vault for storing all my media
Open Media Vault does a great job of abstracting disk and file paths so that if you do need to swap disks, the operation should be painless.
I have 2 2TB disks attached. One acting as a back - backups managed through OMV.
OMV has a simple web interface which handles the bulk of the management tasks.
For actually playing the media I use cheap android TV boxes re-flashed to use openelec (another kodi distribution). They are all set up to use a shared library which is stored in a mySQL database on the OMV server. What this means is that I can watch half a film in the living room then seemlessly resume watching in the bedroom.
I found the RPI3 to be unreliable when playing HD sources.
I'm sure HMRC do run their own datacentre kit
But for any large organisation, a hybrid of physical data centre kit and cloud provisioned services will give the most flexibility and resilience.
HMRC see a peak every year when personal tax submissions are due. Keeping a number of extra servers on standby for 11 months for a 1 month peak would be stupid. Better instead to (automatically) spin up a number of cloud hosted servers for the short busy period. The extra capacity can be (automatically) switched off and forgotten about as soon as they are no longer needed. On premise kit can deal with the load for the rest of the year.
"The issue with public cloud providers – particularly aggressively priced ones like Amazon – is that your data goes to the cheapest place. It is one of the tradeoffs you make when you go to Amazon versus an IBM Softlayer," Enderle said.
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3020235/cloud-computing/and-the-cloud-provider-with-the-best-uptime-in-2015-is.html
Softlayer is more expensive, has less features and is no more reliable than AWS
Personally I find a 15" high resolution letter box format better for work as it means I can comfortably have two applications open side by side with out feeling that they're loosing valuable width.
Even if I'm working on a single word document, the letter box format means I can have 2 full pages on the screen at once
"but to deliberately read his 'accidentally' as 'accidentally on purpose' doesn't prove a thing."
The article strongly implies it was on purpose by through the use of the quote.. i.e. his words, not mine / nudge nudge, wink, wink/ you know what I mean
He tried a goodbye hug during which he “accidentally had a hand a little low”,
And having paid those taxes how much would get spent on medical research instead of say... other pointless war in the middle east?
At least this way all the 3 billion is being spent on medical research and it is being conducted outside of the pharma companies so any drugs/cures produced will at least be affordable
Make sure it's this one:
Ah the good old Thameslink. Used it many times myself
There are advantages of going to Victoria though:
1. Its usually quicker
2. If there are any problems with trains then you are more likely to get an alternative train quicker at Victoria.
The trainline will be restricted to whatever the national ticketing system decides. However, (you probably know this already) unless your ticket restricts you to a specific train or a specific operator then you can travel on any permitted route - which in your case will include taking the train from St Pancras
Or they'll insist on starting the coding on Day 1 and then plead time poverty when it comes to building the solution properly.
Unfortunately in IT is quite often the solution which is implemented first which wins. Once something is up and running even if it is a complete streaming pile of shit, it will be left in place as refactoring always has least precedence.
"I obviously need either a better imagination or the ability to over-react to the slightest thing as lack of online banking for over an hour does not exactly conjure up a nightmare scenario for me."
First working day of the month after a long weekend and a generally expensive festive period, A lot of people would have been nervously checking their bank accounts yesterday to check if they are still solvent.
For people who for one reason or another rely solely on a single card/account then it will be a major issue for them.
@Big John
For mountain rescue its not just about cost
Mountains tend to be away from major population areas and Mountain Rescue teams are generally volunteers with day jobs. If a call comes in, they drop what they're doing, rush off to base then attend the emergency. Trying to find enough people who are physically capable, work locally and have a high degree of flexibility is a major issue.
Calm down dear, I used the "If" conditional, I was not making an assumption
Incidentally the ride sharing concept is already being used by Uber, time will tell how successful that is but a lot of people do appear to be prepared to share a taxi for a reduction in their fare.
Now go and have a proper think about the other points on how automated vehicles can be managed as a group to minimise congestion
Apples and Oranges
NYC cabs (and taxis in general) operate as individual units all vying to maximize their own revenue. Even when the taxis are controlled by a central operator, the taxi firm has to be careful to evenly distribute work to all the drivers - especially as most drivers are not employed by the firm and directly rely on passenger journeys to get paid.
Taxi drivers are also some of the worst and most selfish drivers on the road - eliminating them will probably ease congestion by 10% alone
Automated taxis will have a completely different motivation model - that of maximising revenue for the owning company.
If ride sharing does take off then automated taxis will come in a wider range of sizes and have a higher occupancy rate greatly reducing the number of vehicles on the road. Try counting occupancy rates in morning traffic. The average number won't be much above 1.
Chaining vehicles may also become possible at some point. So 2 or three automated vehicle couple together and act as one. this further will reduce the road footprint of those vehicles and reduce traffic congestion.
"Despite all the progress being made (which is fantastic!), I think there's still a very long way to go until an autonomous car can outsmart a reasonably experienced driver"
All they have to do is to slightly outsmart the average driver then as a whole the population will be slightly safer.
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