What if...
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
Since we're a software publisher, I think we'd be screwed ...
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
Since we're a major industry website, I think we'd be screwed.
Sunrise Wallpaper Project | The StartPage Randomizer | The Windows Cheerleader
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
:) Our current plan for this type of disaster involves a fire-proof box, 1 ticket to Hawaii and a pistol with enough bullets to kill everyone except the guy with the ticket. Seriously, though, since our business revolves around computer aided stuff, we'd be looking for jobs.
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
Well now, since this would mean that all the servers would have to fail simultaneously, and the center where our backups are stored under lock-and-key, would have to be destroyed; and every laptop, desktop and other machine that every developer in our company has, would also have to fail; and CD/DVD copies of all code that each group individually maintains would have to "go bad" ... I'm thinking, if this all actually happened, it would have been caused by an EMP shockwave, and that would mean we have far, far greater problems, than the concern of corporate survival. :~
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
If the building burned, we'd recover. If AC lines were all cut to the facility, we would have delays, but we would recover rapidly. If the site was a-bombed we'd all be suffering fallout sickness, but we would recover (those not at ground zero at least). If all technology in the world failed, yeah, we'd be in a world of hurt. What does this mean? we not only have backups, we have laptops, we have generators, we have independant vans of computational capability that could be turned to other means (it would be uncomfortable, but doable). But we are a technology based business, everything I do is based on the latest and greatest of technology from remote controls, position, piloting, navigation, visualization, simulation, etc. If all technology somehow failed, and we had to do pen and paper, I am out of a job. But then I think everyone is at that point, so I am comforted that I would not be alone. :-D On the good side, I can actually draw a landscape with pen and paper, so I am far better off than 99% of the people in my business. I might be having 100x the amount of work as an artist!!
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
digital man wrote:
In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this?
I'd be out of a job as a programmer. On the other hand, I could back into stained glass work, I could get in shape as a farm hand on the neighborhood farms and spend more time outdoors, I could spend more time reading all the books on my bookshelf... hmmmm.. yan....
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
digital man wrote:
In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances...
Since my company sells computers and a few of us write software, I'd say we'd cease to exist.
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." - Ellen Goodman
"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
If EVERYTHING failed, we'd be unable to do business, but that would mean two datacenters in Rackspace (IAD and DFW) would have to go down completely as well. We have insurance and Rackspace provides guarantees, so we'd recover once things came back up, but we would have no sales, being as our product is primarily sold online and all of our engraving orders are picked up electronically by the engraver. If our local office lost its servers and internet connctivity, then the IT team and the owner would take our wireless laptops and a couple of CSRs down the road to the "Riverfront" where there is free wireless for all and set the CSRs up at the food court with our laptops and we'd forward our 800 number to ring on all the cells everybody had. Then we'd go shopping for a new box to be our in-house server (it's data is backed up nightly to our Rackspace backup web server). And, if Rackspace lost both Herndon, Viginia and Dallas, Texas, then there is something so huge happening (like an alien invasion) that we probably don't care about the business so much. Draugnar
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
It's a game every business should play just to get a disaster recovery plan in place. The what if for us is that we're a software company so we'd be out of business pretty quickly without computers. I think I'd take up landscaping as a new career. :)
"The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying." - David Ogilvy
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
Since the locks on our doors are controlled by computers...
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
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Since the locks on our doors are controlled by computers...
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
...Your next career would be as a glazier working for the people your current employer rents their building from?
Otherwise [Microsoft is] toast in the long term no matter how much money they've got. They would be already if the Linux community didn't have it's head so firmly up it's own command line buffer that it looks like taking 15 years to find the desktop. -- Matthew Faithfull
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...Your next career would be as a glazier working for the people your current employer rents their building from?
Otherwise [Microsoft is] toast in the long term no matter how much money they've got. They would be already if the Linux community didn't have it's head so firmly up it's own command line buffer that it looks like taking 15 years to find the desktop. -- Matthew Faithfull
We'd have starved before then. The canteen is controlled by computers too.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
Hmmm... this is a taxi cab company, so there'd be no "fast computer dispatch", and business would halt completely regardless of any expertise held by experienced staff. If the computers in the cabs remain operational, then the drivers could still take cash (maybe credit card, but they'd need manual forms) fares when flagged down. I think everyone would just go home; I know I would... if my car starts.
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We'd have starved before then. The canteen is controlled by computers too.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
Any sane person would've egressed via smashed windows first, hence my original comment. :rolleyes: Besides which unless your firecode was written by an exceptionally stupid class of govt bureaucrat electric locks that fail shut from the inside are illegal.
Otherwise [Microsoft is] toast in the long term no matter how much money they've got. They would be already if the Linux community didn't have it's head so firmly up it's own command line buffer that it looks like taking 15 years to find the desktop. -- Matthew Faithfull
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Since the locks on our doors are controlled by computers...
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
Paul Watson wrote:
Since the locks on our doors are controlled by computers...
...A pair of size nines are on stand-by? :)
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
digital man wrote:
In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this?
We'd be screwed, because writing software is what we do. I don't think our clients would appreciate us just delivering an empty box and saying "if the computer worked, you'd see something really cool just about now."
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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We played 'what if' at the office the other day along the lines of 'what if all of the computers failed. How could we do business?' By this we meant that the whole system was down and non-recoverable, the disaster recovery building was out of operation and, essentially, we were back to pen and paper to do business. Could we cope and survive? The answer was probably not and the reason was that there were not enough people who remembered how to run the business the old-fashioned way. Most of the staff are well under 40 and there are not enough old timers like me that recall the old ways (there were no computers when I started work!) and could run the business, albeit a little more slowly, without electronic help. In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this? Just curious.
I'd like to think that we'd strap on armor and swords and take over the buildings around us. Maybe we can do that anyway (Note to self: discuss takeover option at next team meeting). Most likely we'd fold and we'd take a lot of our clients with us as the software we sell is not stand-alone applications, but needs to communicate with our mainframe to work.
"How come you can't taste your tongue?" - Jon Arbuckle
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digital man wrote:
In that vein, how would your business fare given similar circumstances and is there a more general danger arising from this?
I'd be out of a job as a programmer. On the other hand, I could back into stained glass work, I could get in shape as a farm hand on the neighborhood farms and spend more time outdoors, I could spend more time reading all the books on my bookshelf... hmmmm.. yan....
Marc Clifton wrote:
I could spend more time reading all the books on my bookshelf...
Like "Introduction to WPF"? :D
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
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