BlueLightning

mayfly said:

Isn't always being powered on the purpose of servers?

In a large data center, following a major power outage, it is often more complicated.  You cannot power on 2,000+ servers running many applications at the same time.  The power-on current spike would be destructive (hopefully, it would trip breakers).  Certain services MUST be running before others will respond normally.  Some applications are more critical to plant or staff operations.  Usually, with a large number of servers that are not periodically power cycled, a number will fail during startup due to hardware issues.  Many of these installations have a combination of Windows, various flavors of Unix, several types of minicomputers, a few mainframes, and maybe a supercomputer or two.  Usually, there are network connections to regional data centers and smaller remote data centers.  If it is a shared facilities data center, multiple companies have equipment in each room of the data center, and each one cannot start everything at the same time.  

I've seen instances where it has taken days for everything to be repaired after a big failure.  Heck, I've seen it take days to rebuild a Windows server and configure software following failure of multiple disks in a RAID array.  I'm thinking of a time and attendance server for a Midwestern aviation manufacturing branch office.  Hundreds of folks had to log time on paper for several days.  

In the first case mentioned (large data center), following a direct lightning strike to a power line, the power distribution equipment failed (it was managing a triple redundant uninterruptible backup power supply).  The power distribution equipment was made by a subsidiary of the company whose equipment lost power due to the lightning strike.  

Back before the internet, it was common to pay a vendor/store a 40-50% markup to buy appliances, and more than that for jewelry.  The manufactures accepted this markup, since they did not have the overhead of maintaining an end-user sales force and brick and mortar stores.  I'd be interested to know what the markup is for a copy of Windows or other software at a store like Best Buy (or for that matter, on Amazon, eBay, or one of the China based internet retailers).  

An automobile still decreases in value by thousands when you drive it off the dealer's lot.  (Except for units in short supply.)  This is in part to compensate for the cost to the dealership for salaries, rent, materials, interest.  There is also a holdback amount that the auto manufacturer pays back to the dealership after the car is sold.  So getting the car at list price, or even dealer cost is not that great a deal in normal times.  Dealer cost does not take into consideration the holdback paid to the dealership (and any other deals not normally revealed to mere mortals).  Normally, a dealership makes more money selling a used car than a new car, and expects to make a good amount on service and repairs.  

At one time, I worked for a business owner who thought he should be able to copy software and resell it, regardless of the copyright.  He reasoned that the cost to the software provider per incremental unit was essentially the cost of the floppy disks used for distribution at the time.  He could not be convinced that the software developers should have an incremental profit per unit.  

Semi fabs need not only large amounts of water and electricity, but also absence of earth tremors.  Therefore, fabs should be far away from hydrocarbon fracking locations.  Some fracking areas have hundreds of small earthquakes in a matter of days, which can ruin chips in process at the time of the quakes.  

Unless operated in air conditioned spaces, most laptops, desktops and cell phones would be out of the recommended operating temperature ranges if exposed to 110-120 ℉.  For some, that temperature range may be out of the storage range (powered off).  

With all of the high temperatures lately, suspect air conditioning manufactures will be replacing a LOT of compressors under warranty.  Semi fabs have to maintain narrow temperature ranges.  Suspect some of the AC units were not designed to maintain proper indoor temperatures when outdoor temperatures exceed 110-120 ℉.  Worked within a jet aircraft engine parts manufacturing facility for 16+ years.  After power failures, the AC had to run for a LONG time to condition machinery to the proper temperature to meet exact manufacturing tolerances.  As I recall, it could take 12 hours to condition the equipment.  Expect computer chip manufacturing would require even more exact controls on temperature.  

On the plus side, looks like demand for pc chips is on the decline for now.  Also, probably lots of units available used from all the high tech. layoffs (more than 10,000 at Microsoft alone, plus lots at Dell, Meta...)  
https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/20/tech-industry-layoffs-2023/  

China is imposing export restrictions on some materials needed for more advanced chip manufacturing (notably gallium and germanium), in retaliation for our export restrictions on advanced chips to China.  

Part of the issue may be the daughter is autistic (according to early part of story)  Some autistic children are very adept at one or more activities.  Bill Gates is said to have a very minor type of autism (Asperger's Syndrome).  Some of the high functioning autistic folks are called savants.  Common areas of savant skills include music, arts, calendar calculating, medicine, statistics...  More rarely, they may be very good at multiple things.  Some easily pick-up multiple languages with good mastery.  
https://www.ssmhealth.com/treffert-center/conditions-treatments/savant-syndrome#:~:text=Savant%20syndrome%20is%20a%20rare,childhood%2C%20or%20even%20in%20adults.  

patdiddy said:

Steve Jobs was a true genius. The only problem with the iMac’s early debut was that nobody had really dealt with Ethernet or WiFi at the time, in fact, the internet was just really starting to become a thing. 

Had it debuted with the iPod, Steve Jobs might have had the best way to get digital music, and saved apple completely.

Ethernet and the internet go back a long time before there was a GUI interface.  I still remember when the internet was not supposed to be used for commercial/profit purposes.  It was initially used mostly by universities and the military industrial complex, mostly on minicomputers and mainframes.  in 1969, the first four nodes on the Internet were a SDS Sigma 7 (UCLA), a SDS 940 (Stanford), an IBM 360/75 (Santa Barbara) and a DEC PDP-10 (Univ. of Utah) .  Ethernet was developed at Xerox in 1973-1974.  A NeXT computer was the first web server (at CERN in 1990).  OS/X and MacOS are derived from the NeXTStep Operating System, as are most of the other current Apple OS's.  

http://www.usna1959.com/m59/classWeb1stFour.php#:~:text=The%20sketch%20of%20ARPANET%27s%20first,and%20the%20University%20of%20Utah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDS_Sigma_series  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-10  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY3Y8gb3jYA  

The advantage of using external floppy drives and CD/RAMs is more easy replacement.  In a business setting, it is much easier to plug in a replacement unit and have the defective unit replaced or repaired for use for the next failed drive.