Greenpeace, EFF and 10th amendment center protest at NSA data center on surveillance practices

Fox13 Salt Lake City reports on Greenpeace, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Tenth Amendment Center protesting the NSA Data Center in Utah.

VIDEO: Blimp flies over NSA’s Utah Data Center to protest ‘illegal mass surveillance program’

POSTED 8:59 AM, JUNE 27, 2014, BY ASHTON EDWARDS AND BEN WINSLOW, UPDATED AT 08:40AM, JUNE 28, 2014

BLUFFDALE, Utah — A group of activists from a coalition of environmental, privacy and anti-spying organizations flew a blimp over the NSA’s massive Utah Data Center in protest over allegations of domestic spying.

“It’s not often that you can get — literally — over the NSA,” Parker Higgins, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told FOX 13 on Friday.

 

Taking A Break from Blogging, Back June 30, 2014

My computer screen died and it is in for repair.  I could switch over to another computer to write or I could take a break.  Had a meeting with me, myself, and I and we all agreed taking a break is a good idea.

I’ll hopefully be back blogging on Monday June 30, 2014.  My computer should be returned by June 28, 2014 and I may have to re image the system.

Thanks for following this blog.

-Dave Ohara

Is the Cloud disrupting the Data Center Ecosystem? Can you see the changes

This past two months I have done the whirlwind of being in the same cities as Data Center World, Uptime Symposium, 7x24 Exchange, Data Center Dynamics and Gigaom Structure.  If you go back 5 years ago only one of these conferences was about the Cloud - Gigaom Structure.  Werner Vogel has been presenting since 2006. Back in 2008 Microsoft presented its Container Data Center solution at Gigaom Structure.

Microsoft Presentation on Containers at GigaOM's Structure 08 - a PUE of 1.3!

THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2008 AT 2:47AM

PCWorld reports on a Container presentation by Microsoft's Daniel Costello, Director of data center research at GigaOm's Structure 08.

"The idea of modular, portable data centers is key to the industry's future," said Daniel Costello, Microsoft director of data center research, in a presentation at GigaOM's Structure 08 conference in San Francisco. "That's why I'm here to talk about data centers, not just for Microsoft but for our customers as well."

No data center conference can present without discussing the cloud.

Part of the Cloud for so many follows Netflix’s belief in having no data centers.

“Netflix is shutting down its last data center this year,” said Cockcroft. The company’s services are now all hosted in the public cloud, but not just in AWS. Netflix is also using Google Compute Engine.

How do you add data center content on design, build, and operate when a common word of advice for Cloud users is “friends don’t let friends build data centers"

The Cloud is a disruptive force for the data center media and conference industry.  Publications who used to discuss only data centers now intermix cloud technologies.

I have opinions on who will survive and who will not.  The Green Data Center conference tried to make it.  Seems like they would have better luck if they had launched the Cloud Data Center conference.

Gigaom Structure 2014 was a record attendance of 1200 and sold out with standing room only.  7x24 Exchange 2014 Spring hit their numbers.  Most others don’t share their attendance.

Is the Use of Mobile Technology like a Cult? Ever Notice how People looking at their Smartphones can look like moments of Prayer

CNET has a post on Bono saying Apple is like a religious cult.

As Adweek reports, Bono puts Apple's behavior down to it being "like a religious cult."

It might strike some as odd that a man who wanders around the world offering a fair degree of righteousness, bordering on sanctimoniousness, compares someone else to a religious cult.

Still, it's a criticism that's been tossed at Apple before. The notion that it looks upon itself as a belief system, rather than a corporate one, is not so hard to embrace.

In 2011, British neuroscientists declared that the brain of an Apple fanperson isn't dissimilar to that of a religious devotee.

In 2012, anthropologist Kirsten Bell described an Apple event as "littered with sacred symbols, especially the iconic Apple sign itself."

Instead of focusing on Apple, the use of smartphones looks like more of a religion.

The definitions of religion could be used to describe the use of technology.

: an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods

: an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group

Just like no one understands god, most people have no idea how their smartphone works and the back-end Cloud infrastructure.  It just works.  God-like. :-)

Sometimes it looks like people are in moments of worship, engaged with their smartphones.

Check this image out someone created of Steve Jobs.

Celebrating Mom's 80th Bday with 50 family and friends

My mom turned 80 and we decided to do something memorable.  What did we do?  We had 50 family and friends join in celebrating at a SF Giants game in a private suite.  Here is my mom.  Well her back.

We have great pictures from my Mom’s neighbor, Tina Case Photography.  Below is the AT&T park and the scoreboard with a Bday message.

Here is mom with a couple of grand kids.

And friends.

Here is the whole group who rode the bus.