Wednesday, February 23, 2005

On Monday, at 10.14 pm UTC, the Wikimedia server cluster experienced a total power failure, taking down Wikipedia, Wikinews, and all other Wikimedia websites.

The servers are housed in a colocation facility (colo) in Tampa, Florida, USA. They occupy two racks, with each rack receiving electricity from two independent supplies. However, both supplies have circuit-breakers in them, and both opened at the same time, leading to a total power failure. All computers immediately went down. It’s normal for fire safety regulations to prohibit uninterruptible power supplies in colos, with the colo providing its own UPS and generator instead. The circuit breakers were on the computer side of this emergency power system, so none of the computers continued to receive power to survive the breaker trip or shut down safely.

The actual reason why the circuit breakers tripped is currently unknown.

When power was restored, it was discovered that most of the MySQL databases that store the data which makes up Wikipedia et al had been corrupted. The main database and the four slaves had all damaged the data on their hard disk drives beyond the ability of the auto-correction to repair. Only one copy survived safely, on a machine that is used for report generation and maintenance tasks, which remained 31 hours backlogged while catching up after an unusually heavy update load during the previous week.

Volunteer Wikimedia engineers worked through the night rebuilding the databases from the sole good copy onto the other servers. The Wikipedia database is over 180Gb in size, making the copying process last 1.5 – 2 hours for every server it was performed upon.

Regular back-ups of the database of Wikipedia projects are maintained – the encyclopedia in its entirety was not at risk. The last database download was made on February 9; all edits since then could only have been laboriously rebuilt from logs and recovered from the damaged database requiring much more time and effort.

Limited read-only service was established late Tuesday afternoon, with editing becoming possible 24 hours after the power failure. Final repairs continue now, as well as upgrades to prevent similar issues in the future. Server-intensive features, such as categories and ‘watchlists’ that display recent changes to selected articles to registered users, remain disabled to ease the load on the recovering systems.

The process which led to the damage originated with the operating system, disk controllers, or hard drives failing to flush the data correctly.

If the power to a database server is cut mid-write, the database may be corrupted and unreadable, however the operating system, hardware, and software are designed to make this very unlikely. In a previous incident in 2004 power was also lost to a server but the database was undamaged.

To avoid such damage, each database server saves a copy of an edit to be applied to the database on a separate storage system before making the actual update to the database itself. This so-called ‘write-ahead logging’ should ensure that in the event of a system crash, the database can be rebuilt from a ‘last-good’ state by replaying the edits saved in the log.

Earlier this year popular blogging site LiveJournal suffered a similar power failure when another customer at their colocation facility pressed an Emergency Power Off button, intended for use only by firefighters. The company suffered database corruption similar to that seen at Wikimedia.

LiveJournal are now fitting UPS to their servers to ensure that they have time to shut down safely in the event of a power failure. Wikimedia was said to be investigating the possibility of fitting similar equipment at the time of this failure.

Several pundits have suggested that the use of another database, such as the proprietary database Oracle or the free PostgreSQL, would have avoided the database corruption seen at the server cluster. A post-mortem of the incident show the failure was in the operating system, or the hardware, or some combination of the two. LiveJournal, which also uses MySQL, reported similar database corruption after their power cut.

The Wikimedia foundation only allows the use of free software on its systems, and future versions of the Mediawiki software will support the PostgreSQL database.

Users are reminded that during times of system failure or excessive demand, they can still search Wikipedia using Google. The articles may be viewed using Google’s cache.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Japanese multinational company Fujitsu launched a website for a dog pedometer which allows customers to monitor their dog’s health online. The device measures data while attached to the dog’s collar. Customers are also able to add more data to the website manually, then it displays the complete set of data graphically. Fujitsu launched the website today (Tuesday) and plans to start the sales in Japan tomorrow (Wednesday).

The pedometer is called “Wandant”, from Japanese “Wan” equivalent to “woof”, and the “dant” of “pendant”. The latter refers to the pedometer, because it is attached to a dog collar. The users can transfer data to an Android phone using a touch-card to make it available online.

Fujitsu said Wandant would be the first cloud-based dog health-care service.

The data include walking, temperature, and shaking motion statistics. The users can manually enter additional data such as food quantities, weight, custom notes, and photos.

Fujitsu said, “The data are presented graphically on a custom website that makes trends in the dog’s activities easy to understand at a glance. This helps owners get a stronger sense of their dog’s health, while enabling communication with the dog.”

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

With many venues reporting sell-out shows, the 68th year of the Edinburgh Festival attracted visitors from around the globe. Wikinews’ Brian McNeil roamed the city for the four weeks of the event, capturing the colour, spectacle, and comedy, in photos.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

The Christchurch Mail Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, was evacuated Friday after employees refused to continue working due to exposure to heavy amounts of dust suspected to be asbestos. Tuam 2 Ltd, the company set to convert the 27-year-old Christchurch Mail Centre into a new city council building, has been aware of the presence of asbestos in the building since May 2008. Hawkins Construction contacted the New Zealand Department of Labour, voicing concerns of possible exposure to asbestos material. Testing is currently underway at the facility to determine the nature of the exposure.

The Christchurch Mail Centre is operated by New Zealand Post. According to Christchurch Delivery Business Leader Duncan Burman, approximately 50 post workers operate out of the facility, which services about 35,000 addresses in the central Christchurch region.

According to a paper released in June by the Environment Canterbury on the subject of asbestos removal: “Exposure can occur when materials containing asbestos are sanded, sawn, drilled or handled in maintenance or removal tasks.” Exposure to asbestos fibers can lead to the diseases mesothelioma, lung cancer, chest cancer, and asbestosis.

Tony Marryatt, chief executive of the city council, was asked by Councillor Helen Broughton for an explanation of the incident. Councillor Broughton is the only councillor who voted against construction of new city council buildings.

“Councillors made an assumption that the building had been checked by a professional and that’s the question I’m going to ask the CEO now. I’ve asked him for a report on it and I want to see the professional opinion from a building consultant who said that the building was sound and able to be refitted and didn’t have any major problems,” said Broughton in a statement in The Press.

The owners of the Christchurch Mail Centre informed New Zealand Post that testing performed in November confirmed there was no asbestos “in the area”.

Anna Kenny, a spokesperson for the New Zealand trade union Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union said concerns were raised about plumes of dust Friday morning suspected to be asbestos, but that there has been no confirmation of this yet.

According to The Press, Kenny also confirmed that no asbestos was found in a check of the building in November. “Having said that, however, given that the dust is particularly unpleasant and unsafe and of an unknown source, we’ve asked for further air quality checks to be done before people go back in to that environment and we also want the hazard eliminated,” stated Kenny.

Friday, June 4, 2010

In basketball, Kobe Bryant hit a three-pointer late in the fourth quarter to lift the Los Angeles Lakers to a 102–89 victory over the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of the 2010 NBA Finals Thursday night in Los Angeles, California. Bryant scored 30 points in the game to lead all scorers.

Bryant was backed-up by a 23-point, 14-rebound effort from Pau Gosol and 15 points from Ron Artest. For Boston, Paul Pierce had 24 points and Kevin Garnett had 16 points.

“They were the more physical team by far,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said after the game, according to the Associated Press. “They were more aggressive. They attacked us the entire night. I didn’t think we handled it very well.”

While both teams have displayed consistent defensive showing, Boston could not match L.A.’s output.

“You can’t ease into the game, especially in the finals,” Pierce said, according to the Associated Press. “That’s one of the better rebounding teams in the NBA. We’ve just got to do a better job rebounding the ball, eliminating easy opportunities. When I look up and we’ve given up 100 points, I haven’t seen that in a while.”

The first quarter was fairly evenly matched, ending 26–21 in favor of the Lakers. At one point the Lakers were up 16–10, but Boston was able to close to within one point. Late points by Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown built the lead to five in the final minute and the Lakers had the chance to go up by more, but Lamar Odom missed a six-foot jump-shot.

In the second quarter, both team remained close until late in the quarter when the Lakers opened an 12-point lead late in the final minute. With just two tenths of a second on the clock, Boston’s Rajon Rondo hit a three-pointer to bring the score to within nine: 50–41.

At the half, Bryant told ABC Sports that the team done okay in the first half.

“We blew a couple of assignments,” Bryant, who had 12 points in the half, said of the Celtics defense. “We felt like we could have stretched the game a bit more.”

In the third quarter, the Lakers continued to pull away from the Celtics, outpacing them by 11 points. With 28 seconds left in the quarter, Artest hit a three-pointer to put Los Angeles up 84–64. Bryant had 14 points in the quarter.

In the fourth quarter, Los Angeles could not extend their lead and in the first four minutes Boston went on a 10-3 run to close the gap to 13 points. Both team scored two more points before Gosol slammed home what turned out to be the game-winning points with 6:20 left to put the Lakers up 91–76. In the final six minutes, Boston outscored the Lakers 13–11, but it was not enough to bring the game back to single digits.

Both Pierce and Ray Allen fouled-out for the Celtics. Odam fouled-out for Los Angeles.

This series is the 12th between the two franchises, dating back to 1959, with the Celtics leading the series 9–2. The Minneapolis Lakers first appeared in the Basketball Association of America — the precursor to the NBA — defeating the Washington Capitols 4–2. The next year, Minneapolis defeated Syracuse Nationals 4–2 in the first NBA. The Celtics first played in the NBA finals in 1957, defeating the St. Louis Hawks 4–3.

In 1959, the Lakers and Celtics first faced each other in the Finals. The Celtics won the series 4–0. In 1962, the Lakers — now in Los Angeles — met for the second time — this time winning 4–3. It was not until the eighth meeting — in 1985 — did the Lakers win.

Before the start of the game, NBA Commisioner David Stern commented on the historic rivalry.

“When I first became commissioner in the ’80s,” Stern told the Los Angeles Times, “I thought what you did every June is you went from L.A. to Boston and back again, and it was interesting to watch. And now here we are again.”

The best-of-seven series resumes Sunday night at Los Angeles’ Staples Center.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

The U.S. Senate passed a revised bailout bill designed to help the struggling U.S. financial economy, which has measures nearly identical to the bill rejected by the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday.

“Senate Democrats and Republicans believe it is essential that we work quickly on this important legislation to restore confidence to our financial system and strengthen the economy,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The new revisions include raising the FDIC insurance cap to $250,000, a move designed to please progressives. However, the $110 billion in tax breaks, earmarks and what has been called pork barrel spending is not offset by any increases in revenues and has added opposition to the bill from some Representatives in the House.

Earmarks added into the bailout bill included $192 million in tax rebates for the Virgin Islands rum industry, $148 million in tax cuts for the wool industry, $100 million tax cuts to the auto racing industry, and $48 million in Hollywood tax incentives.

Vice President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, Steve Ellis, offered his explanation for the pork and earmarks added in. “People who support some of these provisions will forget about the $700 billion and concerns they may have on that, and say, ‘If you give me a few million in tax breaks for my constituents, I’ll go along'”.

The tactic seems to have worked, however, managing to flip enough votes to pass the bill.

“The inclusion of parity, tax extenders and the FDIC increases has caused me to reconsider my position,” said Representative Jim Ramstad (R Minnesota), who voted against the previous bill on Monday. “All three additions have greatly improved the bill.”

But Representative Marcy Kaptur (D Ohio) was not changing her no vote. “I will not support this legislation because it’s the wrong medicine,” she said.

The Senate took H.R.1424, a bill originating in the House concerning “equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment,” and extended it with the bailout provisions.

H.R.1424 was introduced on March 9, 2007, by Rep. Patrick Kennedy (RI-1) and had the support of First Lady Rosalind Carter. It is noted on the Congressional Website that “On 10/1/2008, the Senate passed H.R.1424 as the vehicle for the economic rescue legislation. In the EAS version of the bill (Engrossed Amendment as Agreed to by the Senate), Division A (pp.1-110) is referred to as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008; Division B (pp. 110-255) is referred to as the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008; and Division C (pp. 255-441) is referred to as the Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008.” It was not treated as an appropriations bill in the House.

There were two votes in the Senate. The first was to amend H.R.1424, which required 3/5 to be accepted, which it was. The second was a vote on the bill. Passage of the Bill required only a 1/2 majority. It was passed with 74 yeas and 25 nays. Senator Kennedy did not vote.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Today, Joachim Löw, manager of the German national football team, dropped Borussia Dortmund midfielder Marco Reus from the UEFA Euro 2016 squad. Marco Reus, who turned 27 years old today, is suffering from a groin injury. He also missed the 2014 FIFA World Cup with an ankle injury.

Löw said their medical staff wasn’t sure Reus could meet the demands of the forthcoming games. He added, “Marco has serious fitness problems; he can only run in a straight line at the moment.” ^{((de))German language: ?Marco hat massive gesundheitliche Probleme, im Moment kann er nur geradeaus laufen.}

Löw also did not include other Bundesliga players Karim Bellarabi, Julian Brandt, and Sebastian Rudy from the provisional squad in the final selection. Thanking the four German internationals for their performance in training, he said, “It’s not a decision against those four players, but rather one in favour of the other 23.” ^{((de))German language: ?Es ist keine Entscheidung gegen vier Spieler, sondern eine Entscheidung für 23 Spieler.}

Germany are due to play their final friendly match before the start of Euro 2016 on June 4 against Hungary. On June 12, Germany will open their account in Euro 2016 when they face Ukraine in Lille, France.