

Punked in the Data Center: 'What happens if I cut this cable?' - 1SockChuck
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/03/01/punked-in-the-data-center/

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Tuna-Fish
That was honestly one of the better ads I've ever seen.

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mattwdelong
I was going to comment on how clever this is. I thought it was very funny
until the end when I had to visit their website for an explanation of the
magic trick.

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Estragon
Next time, he's going to pretend to shoot the guy's daughter dead. What fun!

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markkanof
I love the comment at the end. "We have permission to do this, the sales
manager...". As if that makes it okay. Someone who has nothing to do with the
technical operations says its okay to cut a cable in the data center (magic
trick or not).

That would be like setting up a sales call, convincing the sales manager that
he is going to close a big deal and then saying something ridiculous that
completely ruins any chance of a sale. In that situation wouldn't he be really
pissed off?

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ars
He didn't _actually_ cut the cable.

It would be like placing a fake sales call from your friend, then "ruining"
it. Nothing was ruined - it was a joke.

Your victim may or may not find it funny though.

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aohtsab
for some reason I didn't find this funny ... it's oddly reminiscent of
"Punk'd", where Ashton Kutcher places people in awful situations and then
pulls the blanket and laughs at how upset they got.

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MikeTLive
if they are not prepared to handle a wire failing, i dont want to be using
that vendor.

btw, that was the first magic trick i learned as a kid.

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scotty79
What really can happen if someone cuts random wire? I think worker reaction
was bit too nervous. If in fact cabling is redundant there should be no
problem with cutting just one wire.

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ugh
Who cares if a guest of yours smashes a wall in your house? You starting to
scream hysterically would be a bit of an overreaction. After all your house
can (probably) do without.

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scotty79
Replacing a wall would take much more resource than replacing one of thousand
cables and you know exactly which one.

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ugh
“Let me just stand here totally relaxed while someone destroys my property.”
:)

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scotty79
Do you curse and swear if someone for fun shreds blank piece of paper that he
found in your office?

It's all about value of property, effort to replace it and the disruption to
operation. If they have redundancy in cabling all of this would be minor and
shouldn't cause such strong reaction.

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splitrocket
If cutting a cable is a huge problem for their datacenter, they aren't going
anywhere near my datacenter.

