[attrition] State of the Attrition Address (redux)

[lyger]

http://attrition.org/news/content/10-05-23.001.html

Sun May 23 18:58:06 CDT 2010
Attrition Staff

As you may have *not* have noticed, Attrition has had a little bit of 
downtime lately. For the most part, this has been limited to business 
hours, Monday through Friday, from opening to closing bells on the world 
financial markets. It all began long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

The last time this happened, there was a slight issue with noise coming 
from the box. The problem had been dealt with swiftly each time; as the 
box made sounds signalling its impending doom, it was kicked. Notice that 
the previous "kicked" was not in quotation marks; it was literally 
*kicked* with a human foot to make the noise stop. This solution actually 
worked... for about a month. Much as the way that Cancer Omega kicks 
liberals, the noises soon stopped, but the whining soon started again. It 
was then decided that a new box would be deployed, and what we have been 
using since then has simply been called "New Forced".

Four and a half years later...

In early March, "New Forced" unexpectedly went silent. Our NOC noticed 
that the box had shut itself down, and called us on our Bat-Phone early 
one Sunday morning. During the conversation, it was mentioned that the box 
was giving off, well, a *smell* that would usually indicate Southern-fried 
hardware. As the box was booted back up, the smell persisted, but it held 
up... for about 30 seconds. Then it was down again. One more reboot 
attempt succeeded, and it remained up, but we knew that a box like "New 
Forced" could only take so much d2d virtual leg-humping, so...

[...]