technology, internet oddities & other random stuff
Archive for July, 2007
Major San Francisco websites knocked offline due to a power outage
Jul 25th
One of the big San Francisco colos, 365main.com went tits up earlier and major customers such as Craigslist (free classified ads) and Six Apart (the Typepad and Livejournal blog people) are off line. The power went down to the neighbourhood and the colo’s backup power either didn’t kick in or couldn’t cope with the load. I know our primary colo (InterXion in Dublin) doesn’t sell rack space unless it’s got the generator capacity to manage, and does regular tests to verify it. I get the test reports after the fact. Now I know high availability and redundancy are part of my business so I’m a bit More >
Foo Fighters @ Live Earth
Jul 8th
I’ve just re-watched the Foo Fighters set at Live Earth yesterday, and I’ve got to say…. they rocked! I flicked channels a few times during the day to see what the other bands were like, and to be honest it was a bit limp. Wembley didn’t fill up until late and it lacked atmosphere, but by the time they got 1/2 way through All My Life, their first song, the place was jumping.
Free energy to be demonstrated today
Jul 5th
Steorn claimed last year (to a resounding chorus of “bullshit”) that they had developed a way of creating energy from magnetic fields. Their “Orbo” device is on display from today at the Kinetica Museum in London.
This has to be a con. These guys must be trying to get some fool with a wad of cash to buy them out before the world finds out, but the shear quantity of money being spent is huge. They could have announced the technology in an obscure physics journal, but instead they took out a full page ad in The Economist. Wikipedia has more.
Gripe of the day
Jul 1st
I had to pop over to the UK this week for a few meetings & presentations so I booked my Tuesday flight out on Monday @ aerlingus.com, (who are about the same cost as Ryanair, but actually provide things like assigned seats and don’t cancel flights at the last minute and leave you stranded) but didn’t book the return flight because I didn’t know at the time if I’d be flying home on Thursday from Birmingham or Friday from London.
I’m starting to use my Laser debit card more and more. Virtually everywhere that takes credit cards will take a debit card too. More >
