This is a warning to myself: Don’t go to Einstein Bros. Bagels and order coffee.

It is rare that I go out to Breakfast. Mostly because it is rare that I am actually UP early enough to have any semblance of LUNCH, much less breakfast. Yet this morning I was doing a lot of work and as the parents woke up I got permission to go to Einstein Bros. Bagels (it is their car after all.) Sesame Seed Bagel with their special strawberry whipped creme cheese hit the spot. But the coffee I had was horrible. First off, it was insanely hot. Way too hot. Then, when I could actually taste some of it (and that point almost never came) it tasted horrid. Their “neighborhood blend” tastes horrible. I am not a fan of flavored coffee, so I sat there with nothing to drink as I ate my bagel. Plus, this isn’t the first time this has happened! I have tried their coffee before, with the same result!

Q: What happens when one of the most secure, redundant, and high quality datacenters on the face of the earth has power issues?
A: You can’t access this site

Steadfast Networks is based out of a facility called Equinix in Chicago. You need hand scans and to go through security to get anywhere in the place. This makes sense, when you notice that some of the other customers in the place have a million dollars worth of equipment in a small 8 by 10 metal cage. It is really cool, literally: They keep the temperatures in the high 60s and all the air in the place goes through the air conditioning system every few minutes. They have a huge room full of batteries, 6 backup generators, and more. The idea is that there is always N+1. Always one more of everything than is needed. If the facility only needs 5 generators, there are 6. The building is on two separate Con Edison circuits, so if one fails the other one can take up the load immediately. Well, in theory at least. There are no windows in the place, as that would compromise the structural integrity of the building.

Well, Friday Night was a scorcher in Chicago (and Milwaukee too) so of course the Air Conditioning was cranked up in everyone’s home. So, as usual, a huge power substation just HAS to start on fire. We are talking a two block long vault full of power equipment here bursting info flames. They had to shut the whole thing down so that firefighters could handle the blaze using dry chemicals they brought from O’Hare International Airport. When that happens, of course one of the circuits will go out at Equinix. Well, evidently both went down. So the room full of batteries kicks in and all the generators rev up to give the batteries a break. Well, almost all the generators, two of them short circuited. It is believed that this was because of some sort of problem with the generators overheating, but who knows. They claim that every though two of them were out there was nothing to be worried about. Well, maybe. After twelve minutes the batteries started to cut out, so at least one of the circuits that this server was on was running at 97 volts instead of the normal 117 (one thing about computers, supply them with clean power). Then there was a datacenter-wide blackout. Everything restarted at once. The routers that connected to Steadfast’s routers were going haywire, so internet connectivity was lost. Then the power went out again twenty minutes later, coming back on immediately but doing the same thing again. Steadfast posted a warning on their site, but they never anticipated the site not being available for public viewing. I called a few of my contacts and posted what I knew on WebhostingTalk.com (thus making steadfast the only one keeping ANYONE up to date on what was going on). For a few hours there was horrible connectivity, and all the servers in Steadfast’s cages had to be checked and double checked to ensure that there were no major problems.

All I know is anyone in that datacenter who doesn’t demand a free month of service because of this is nuts.

Anyways, here is a picture from an AT&T datacenter in Ashburn, Virginia (Click for a bigger picture):

It was originally thought to be an Equinix datacenter, but Equinix doesn’t have windows on their buildings. It was posted by the people who run the game World of Warcraft (they are hosted by AT&T). Thanks to this guy for the picture.

Ex-Nazi SS Members were convicted to life in prison in Italy for a massacre of more than 500 villagers in northern Italy that happened 60+ years ago. All of them are 80. Now what the hell does this prove? Now I am not defending what they did, but seriously people? War crimes that happened in that era need to leave us. What happened during that time was Horrible, but it was an inhumane act that happened because that was the idea of the time. Each and every one of us is capable of doing what those people did, if brainwashed correctly. Let these guys live out their days with the knowledge of what they did. They are no threat to the public.

And yes, the headline is misleading. Italy was allied with Germany in WWII, although those on trial were German SS.

Alright. I have my 10th person for this Free Photo iPod Thing. A good friend of mine (graduated a year ago) has agreed to do this offer in exchange for a discount on a piece of hardware I am selling him. That makes the total cost of this free iPod like $100 in advertising across Adsense, Fark Classifieds, and Rate the Offers (which I didn’t pay for, but that is a whole different ball of wax).

Anyways, I don’t want a 60GB MP3 Player. I mean, it would be nice, but it is overkill. I want a 30GB engraved with my name and the URL of this website, in case this one is stolen like my first free iPod was. I figure if it has my name on it, it has little resale value and if it is “lost” it is more likely to be given back to me. Plus I get the education discount now that I am a college student and there is no sales tax (nor shipping) since I am buying it online.

So, now I have to figure out what I am going to do with the $100 I am going to make selling it on eBay. I had a copy of Sure E2c earphones (absolutely amazing), but that is $99. I don’t really NEED a dock (It would be nice, but that is $35). I DO need some sort of a cover, but those are reasonably inexpensive. Bah!

In the wonderful world of Online Gaming, there is always a question I wanted to ask: What prevents 3 people in the same physical location from playing a Texas Holdem poker table and destroying the competition? In any casino this would be cause to be kicked out, but there is really very little preventing someone from doing it from their own home. In the past the ONLY security measures in place are that you cannot have multiple sessions connected from the same program nor ip address. The first one is easy, get 3 computers (or a copy of Microsoft Virtual PC). The second is a bit more difficult (and is what is probably preventing the average person from doing it). To get a different IP address, just pay $20-100 a month and get an account at some webhosting company someplace else and run a virtual private network to the server. Wala, it appears that you are playing from your server. To be perfectly honest, it makes no difference to the poker places if you do this. The more money that transfers over their network the more they can rake in. Obviously it makes no sense to do this in fifty cent tables, so new players who want to start low won’t be impacted very much. Could make quite a bit of money.

The worst that can happen is you get your accounts frozen with a few hundred dollars in them (assuming you are constantly cashing out) and you argue with some lady from India who speaks in broken English for two hours. Then you just move to another one of the 5,000 online poker networks.