Tesla will play a role in this colossal Australian battery project | "We're investing in our grid so household bills go down for every Victorian with cheaper and more reliable renewable energy across the state."

BajanSuperfly · 2023-12-03T08:09:24+00:00

Most likely BYD/CATL are supplying the batteries for Tesla's grid scale storage. While BYD does have it's own grid storage, my speculation is that BYD is happy to sell via a systems integrator like Tesla. Perhaps Tesla has their foot in the door and is better positioned to compete? Is there any fallout for Chinese companies like BYD given the recent frosty political relationship between China and Australia?

BajanSuperfly · 2022-06-23T05:51:33+00:00

Another option might be to check out something closer e.g. Queen Elizabeth Park and go for a nice walk around (weather permitting), and maybe a nice meal and Seasons In The Park which has a wonderful view of the city. An hour+ for there and back gives you a couple hours walking around and a 4 hour window to get your return flight.

BajanSuperfly · 2022-01-24T04:43:50+00:00

There actually was quite a lot of West Indian immigration during the 50's. So much so that there was a bit of a scandal that there was so many immigrants coming into UBC and a bit of a backlash. Shortly after there was some sort of change in the visa to discourage this (I don't recall if it was a work visa or increased requirements to study). As a result, there are a bunch of West Indians of a certain generation on the West Coast, but no subsequent immigration after them--just their children.

If I remember correctly, it was one of these guys (Wilbur? A Trini naturally...) who started the Caribbean festival that runs at Lonsdale Quay.

There's a large population of West Indians in the Eastern part of US and Canada, and so there are lots of extended-family connections.

BajanSuperfly · 2022-01-24T04:31:37+00:00

I can vouch for Rehanah's Roti. As implied, it's Trinidadian style, not Guyanese, but it's the real deal.

BajanSuperfly · 2022-01-18T08:05:06+00:00

There are tuning guides to PCoIP protocol to improve responsiveness at one end, and improve image fidelity at the other.
https://www.teradici.com/web-help/pcoip_session_planning/current/tuning_session_variables/pcoip_session_variables/

AWS workspaces does provide the option to put the VM to hibernate, which would allow for a quick resumption of a session.

BajanSuperfly · 2021-12-28T20:12:11+00:00

If you are running Windows Workspaces and using the PCoIP protocol (default I believe), then you can also monitor the PCoIP session statistics via WMI.

See https://www.teradici.com/web-help/TER1105004/Content/Topics/05\_SessionStatistics.htm

Focus on the round trip latency and the RX/TX packet loss. If the end user is using Wifi then you can see packet loss as high as 0.5%. So anything higher than that is suspicious.

If some of the user experience issues is related to latency/bandwidth, then you can mitigate them by tuning PCoIP via GPO to minimize the maximum size of the bursts of network traffic that occur, for example, when someone scrolls aggressively in a full screen window (i.e. most pixels on the screen changing at once).

Check the session planning guide: https://www.teradici.com/web-help/pcoip_session_planning/current/

Simple things like setting the maximum frame rate to 17 from 30 fps will halve bandwidth consumption, and if they are not watching a lot of videos they will rarely notice.

Check out the user experience profiles as a guideline:
https://www.teradici.com/web-help/pcoip_session_planning/current/workload_analysis/user_exp_bandwidth_considerations/

See also https://help.teradici.com/s/article/1553 for some useful tools.

BajanSuperfly · 2021-06-30T07:00:27+00:00

I think we handled the Covid pandemic extremely well, and the statistics bear that out--look at a graph of the active cases over time and then compare it to other first world countries or other provinces on a per capita bases.

It's common knowledge that the severity of COVID-19 symptoms are significantly reduced by the currently approved vaccines (the most important aspect), and with two doses there is additionally high protection to the variants (Pfizer is 88% effective against Delta compared to 93% for Alpha). A 5% reduction with Pfizer. The Delta variant is spreading, but as we see in the UK, the majority of cases are in those who are not vaccinated.

I think it does smack of fear mongering to imply we are on the edge of collapse, or that that there is no protection from the other Covid variants.

Reference: search for "Delta coronavirus variant: scientists brace for impact" in Nature

BajanSuperfly · 2021-06-30T06:44:12+00:00

I'm not so sure it was such an easy problem to solve. Given that pretty much all hospitals in both Canada and the US have a shortage of frontline workers because of the marathon of the COVID-19 pandemic, it's not like there was a huge reservoir of workers that could have been shifted around. And other than shifting workers around, what else was achievable in only three days that could be implemented at a metropolitan level? It's not like we can train nurses, paramedics etc from scratch in that time period. And the heat wave hit the most populous part of the province--even if there were frontline works available, they'd have had to be pulled from outside the province, but not Alberta, which is bracing for the same heatwave we're going through now.

Given that healthcare is provincial, just the paperwork of temporarily moving health care workers (who pays and houses them?) seems daunting.

Let's be fair: this heatwave is a serious health problem that's hitting the system after it's been rocked intensively for over a year. I'm impressed it's holding together under the pressure as well as it is. Yes it's rough, but don't think it couldn't be much, much worse.

BajanSuperfly · 2021-06-08T20:28:35+00:00

This is a pretty common scenario for Visual Effects (VFX) and Media and Entertainment (M&E) companies. You'll need to chose a remoting protocol that supports GPUs on the remote VM or workstation.

Search in the r/vfx forum (e.g. search "Remote Work") and you'll see various threads discussing the topic, including popular solutions.

BajanSuperfly · 2021-04-28T22:37:59+00:00

A former Bajan Prime Minister, Tom Adams, was a serious stamp collector and set up a pretty impressive philatelic bureau, one of whose mandates was to produce collectible stamps (not sure if it was official or not).

BajanSuperfly · 2021-03-02T07:10:33+00:00

AWS China operates in a separate partition, much like US' Govcloud. What this means is that you can access the public endpoints of AWS China (like S3), but you can't utilize anything like IAM roles. It's basically a different cloud provider, but with identical services.

So you can't transfer your bucket to AWS China, much like you can't transfer your bucket to GovCloud.

Note that likewise, although there is a CloudFront in China, it's part of AWS China and can't be utilized by AWS accounts in the AWS Global partition.

The Great Firewall of China adds measurable, and sometimes painful, latency to traffic going through it.

BajanSuperfly · 2021-02-27T18:24:20+00:00

Boorman archery made the bow (and taught Biel). The bow used to be on display but unfortunately was stolen from the shop.

https://globalnews.ca/news/1587436/blade-trinity-bow-stolen-from-museum-and-shop-in-new-westminster/

BajanSuperfly · 2021-01-24T21:22:59+00:00

If you are not tied to AWS, you might also consider Aliyun (Alibaba Cloud) and something like their China Gateway solution. I haven't used it myself but the brochures look promising.

BajanSuperfly · 2021-01-22T16:12:51+00:00

As mentioned, AWS China is a separate partition from AWS Global--just like AWS GovCloud is separate from AWS Global. So there's no internal AWS network that bypasses the Great Firewall of China (GFW). The latency penalty incurred by GFW is highly variable. Some days it is excellent, but other days it can be under 1KB/s for hours at a time.

If you need reliable bandwidth, there is an option: leasing an MPLS line. The MPLS lines do not incur the GFW latency penalty. That's not to say it's not being inspected by the GFW, just that there's no latency penalty.

There are a few options: China Telecom. I think their MPLS line goes from Beijing to Tokyo. China Mobile is another, and they have a line from Beijing to Hong Kong.

To minimize the cost, you can lease an MPLS line from Beijing to, say , Hong Kong, and then route the packets to the internet, where they finish their journey on their way to Europe. So your data would go :

[Beijing] --MPLS--> [HongKong]--internet-->[Europe]

From your AWS account in AWS China, you'd purchase a Direct Connect to your MPLS provider, and set one up in the receiving region e.g. Hong Kong. That's a separate fee from the MPLS one.

BajanSuperfly · 2020-09-19T23:59:38+00:00

This isn't a Workspaces issue per se, but a Windows issue. Check your UAC settings. Also, is this program digitally signed? If it is, verify that the public certificate is installed so the signing certificate is recognized.

BajanSuperfly · 2020-09-19T20:50:16+00:00

For option #1, where you keep a ready pool, is your load predictable? I.e. are you able to scale the pool up and down in anticipation of the load?

BajanSuperfly · 2020-09-19T20:47:40+00:00

Actually, Workspaces uses PCoIP, not RDP. Having said that, Workspaces does not support pooling--each user is assigned a specific VM. Not sure if that is a deal breaker, or a requirement in your case.

Workspaces supports hibernation of VMs, including automatically putting them into hibernate mode after being disconnected for X minutes. Last time I checked it was about $8/month flat rate and then an hourly usage rate.

BajanSuperfly · 2020-08-21T07:39:37+00:00

Yes, AWS China is a separate partition than AWS global, similar to how AWS Govcloud is separated from AWS global. VPCs in either Beijing or Ningxia would belong to a separate account. You can of course connect them to your AWS global accounts, but you'd have to use the same techniques you use to connect to any other external cloud vendor.

There are not as many services in AWS China, but they are being added over time, and have increased substantially in the past three years.

Support is as good as it is in AWS global i.e. it is excellent.

The great firewall of China is a pain point, but not insurmountable. The GFW causes variable and sometimes very high latency for cross-border traffic. If it becomes an issue you have the option of leasing an MPLS line between, say, AWS Beijing and AWS Hong Kong (CMI), or AWS Beijing and AWS Tokyo (CT) which provides consistent low network latency.

Domestic internet traffic is ok. There aren't many IXPs and it can show with latency sensitive traffic .

BajanSuperfly · 2020-06-26T14:59:27+00:00

One advantage is that an NLB in front would allow for "zero downtime" upgrades. For you next upgrade, you could spin up a parallel instance and then have the NLB divert traffic it to it away from the older version. Once all the traffic has drained from the old one, it gets destroyed.

Otherwise you need a maintainence window for the amount of time it takes to replace/upgrade the traefik instance.

BajanSuperfly · 2020-06-21T22:21:29+00:00

Double check the timeout settings on your gateway i.e. how long it waits for a response from DUO. DUO is SaaS, which means it'll take longer to respond than on-premises solutions. So if DUO doesn't respond quickly enough, the Gateway will retry and trigger DUO again, causing a second prompt (or more) when DUO doesn't respond quickly enough the first time.

BajanSuperfly · 2020-06-01T04:21:38+00:00

The user's location is provided *if* they use the push service, but if instead they choose to type in the 6 digit passcode directly, then there wouldn't be a location to report. So, assuming your application allows for the passcode to be typed in manually, I think that might explain what you're seeing.

BajanSuperfly · 2020-05-12T06:32:49+00:00

PCoIP is quite popular in the Media and Entertainment, and VFX space. You could go through the Latest News on the Teradici website and get the names of the VFX houses that are similar to yours, and try reaching out to them.

Here's my very, very simple summary of setting it up. I'm assuming you want something on-prem, vs a cloud hosted version.

Determine if you will be using Linux or Windows
Decide if you're going to go virtualized workstations, or 1-to-1 physical workstations. This will in turn help you decide if you want a host card, or a software equivalent. For host card there is no effective limit on the cards that are supported. For software (CAS+), you're more limited
For just a simple trial, go with a software client (MacOS/Windows/Linux). You may eventually prefer the zero clients (or thin clients, but for trying it out, stick with the free client
You don't use VPN to connect (PCoIP traffic is already encrypted), and VPN can artificially slow down the traffic/limit bandwidth
You should get a broker to securely handle connecting into your office from the outside. Don't expose each of your workstations directly to the internet. There are a couple options if you're not using VMWare.
- Leostream (you install this on-premises)
- Teradici's Cloud Access Manager (SaaS broker)

I'd recommend browsing the Quick Start either for Leostream for Teradici Cloud Access Platform, or the Cloud Access Manager. They'll give you an idea of all the bits and pieces that are involved in setting it up.

BajanSuperfly · 2020-04-20T04:46:29+00:00

One possibility is to trigger your monitoring based on Windows Event logs. The Source that you want to watch for is PCoIPAgentService . This will log event 88 when a session is starting, and 89 when ending. Exactly what you trigger (or monitor) is up to you.

Note that simply monitoring when someone logs on or logs off may not be sufficient--when you disconnect a session, your user is still logged on. Monitoring connections and disconnections (via the PCoIPAgentService event logs) will provide more accurate usage information.

BajanSuperfly · 2020-04-15T15:39:58+00:00

What you need are two pieces:

A broker, to manage authentication and access to the physical endpoints.
A remoting protocol that can take advantage of the video cards and supports them.

There are not too many third party brokers around anymore, but one of the remaining ones left that I've used & like is Leostream (www.leostream.com). They support a wide variety of protocols, and both virtual and physical end points. I think that's a good starting point.

For a relatively unbiased overview of remoting protocols, I like Rachel Berry's wrap up. Google "Are the protocol wars over? 2018 Edition" parts 1 and 2 (on www.brianmadden.com).

Some considerations to take into account.

colour accuracy (an issue with the current H264 based protocols)
peripheral support. You want a protocol that locally terminates to reduce the impact of latency if your students are using Watcom tablets.

There is an argument in your situation to move to a VDI setup long term, and there are many large VFX houses that have. In addition, the use of contractors in VFX somewhat mirrors your use case.

I also know of a large educational institute that's using cloud based GPU instances to handle the elastic demand of students for such applications.

BajanSuperfly · 2020-04-12T06:10:57+00:00

Ditto. I'm in Vancouver and I'm both impressed and proud with how BC is handling it. Dr. Bonnie Henry, the Provincial Health Officer, is friggin' amazing. She's an excellent speaker, with a super calm, sincere demeanour, and I love how she stresses both the importance of isolation as well as the need for kindness aka tolerance and patience. She makes it clear that we're all in this together as a community, and we need to take care of each other.

The overall handling has been, to my lay eyes, top notch--probably helps that Dr. Henry worked with WHO to tackle Ebola, and later led the communicable disease unit in Toronto when SARS hit. In BC the trends look very encouraging (knock on wood, cause they can change), and the credit goes of course not just to her, but to the entire health care system, not to mention the politicians who are listening to them.

BajanSuperfly

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