snowdeal.org - conflux

conflux

The Standard When Data Checks In
"When it opened in 1928, the former R.R. Donnelley & Sons' Lakeside Press plant on the near South Side of Chicago embodied the splendor and sweat of the old economy."

"Now, the building is on the verge of becoming a bellwether for the new economy."

"Across the country, real estate investors are turning obsolete manufacturing plants and warehouses � as well as derelict office buildings and failed retail centers � into so-called telecom or carrier hotels. Instead of packing the buildings with crates, lathes or die casters, companies this time around jam them with racks of switches, routers and generators. Once brick-and-mortar icons of heavy industry, the structures are being rehabbed to house the backbone of the Internet Economy."

"These structures were built to house heavy machinery, so they usually feature floors that can support more than 125 pounds per square foot; high ceilings that provide clearance and ventilation for telecom-equipment racks; and space for generators to take over in case of power outages. The Lakeside Technology Center, for instance, has more than 80 generators and stores 300,000 gallons of diesel fuel to run them."

"Generally, upgrades require bringing in huge power supplies � the Lakeside Center could use up to 96 million megawatts � as well as state-of-the-art heating and air conditioning systems."

redux [07.05.00]
The New York Times Digital Economy's Demand for Steady Power Strains Utilities
[requires 'free' registration]
"Read-Rite's milling machine is indicative of a long-running, but accelerating problem: the nation's electrical power supply system is not up to the task of meeting the digital economy's needs. While the utility industry has historically prided itself on delivering fairly stable power 99.9 percent of the time, today's computerized economy is demanding even fewer interruptions and a much steadier current.

That is because electricity is more than just energy for computers -- it is the medium they use to do their job. Rapid, minute changes in voltage represent the ones and zeros that make up digital information.

Those patterns are ultimately translated into a human voice during a phone call, a calculation during a banking transaction, a dose of radiation during cancer therapy or a photo of a new baby e-mailed to scattered relatives. Any disruption in the power supply that compromises the processor's ability to manage those voltages can lead to lost data or system crashes."
USA Today Internet saps California's power grid
"As California's tech-savvy businesses and households plug into an increasingly wired economy, the state's power system is sputtering like a frayed electrical cord."

"Computers consume about 13% of the nation's power, according to EPRI Corp., a Palo Alto research and development group that studies the utility industry.

The Internet's borderless community also is taxing U.S. power suppliers because about 80% of online traffic comes through this country.

To handle all the Internet action, businesses are turning entire offices into warehouses for the powerful computer servers and peripheral equipment needed to navigate networks. These so-called ''server farms'' consume 10 to 12 times more power than the traditional office building filled with human workers. "

bookmark: del.icio.us ::digg it ::furl ::reddit ::yahoo ::
7:55 PM 0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

[ rhetoric ]

“"You're not a designer, you're not a writer, and you're not an editor!"

Well, no, blogger, you're not. And therein lies your gift. Because even if it's true the vast majority of blogs would not be missed by more than a handful of people were the earth to open up and swallow them, and even if the best are still no substitute for the sustained attention of literary or journalistic works, it's also true that sustained attention is not what Web logs are about anyway. At their most interesting they embody something that exceeds attention, and transforms it: They are constructed from and pay implicit tribute to a peculiarly contemporary sort of wonder.

...[T]he Web log reflects our own attempts to assimilate the glut of immaterial data loosed upon us by the "discovery" of the networked world. And there are surely lessons for us in the parallel. For just as the cabinet of wonders took centuries to evolve into the more orderly, logically crystalline museum, so it may be a while before the chaos of the Web submits to any very tidy scheme of organization.”

[ outbound ]

conflux

0 Comments:

[ rhetoric ]

[ search ]

[ outbound ]

[ schwag ]

[ et cetera ]