Three Layers of the Cloud

We hear about the cloud and cloud computing.  But did you know?…

“The ‘cloud of clouds’ has three distinct layers.  The outer one called ‘software as a service’ (SaaS), includes web-based applications such as Gmail, Google’s e-mail service, and Salesforce.com, which helps firms keep track of their customers….Going one level deeper, there is ‘platform as a service,’ (PaaS), which means an operating system living in the cloud.  Such services allow developers to write applications for the web and mobile devices.  Offered by Google, Salesforce.com and Microsoft, this market is also fairly easy to measure, since there are only a few providers, and their offerings have not really taken off yet….The most interesting layer—the only one that really deserves to be called ‘cloud computing,’ say purists—is infrastructure as a service (IaaS).  IaaS offers basic computing services from number crunching to data storage, which customers can combine to build highly adaptable computer systems.” 

Market leaders are GoGrid, Rackspace and Amazon Web Services.  Amazon is by far the largest, owning about 80 to 90% of the current capacity.  The cloud is estimated by Forrester Research to grow to $56 billion in 2020 from about $1 billion in 2010.           

From Threes, Chapter 8, “Threes in Business and Technology” 

Three Wise Men

Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior, the three Wise Men or Magi, visited the Christ child in Bethlehem bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  The three gifts had a spiritual meaning: gold as a symbol of kingship on earth, frankincense as a symbol of priestship, and myrrh (an embalming oil) as a symbol of death.  Sometimes this is described more generally as gold symbolizing virtue, frankincense symbolizing prayer, and myrrh symbolizing suffering.  All three are ordinary offerings given to a king.  It has been suggested also by scholars that the "gifts" were medicinal rather than precious material for tribute.  The three wise men were probably priests from Persia who traveled a long distance, perhaps 1,000 miles, on their pilgrimage to Bethlehem.      

 

from Threes, Chapter 4, “Threes in Religion and Mythology”

The Big Three in World War II

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—the leaders of the three major Allied powers—were known during World War II as The Big Three. The Big Three and their military advisors planned and executed the strategy that defeated the Axis. 

The Axis powers included Germany, Italy and Japan. World War II began on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France were drawn into the war quickly as Nazi Germany moved its mighty army west through Europe. The United States entered the war two years later after Japan bombed naval forces at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Churchill and Roosevelt conferred frequently on overall strategy.  Stalin directed the Soviet war effort against the Germans who pushed east, but he rarely consulted his allies.  

Nazism was the German political movement initiated in 1920 that culminated in the establishment of the Third Reich and the totalitarian German state led by the dictator Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1945. Probably no regime in the 20th century or any other has been so closely identified with institutionalized terror and evil as that of the Third Reich under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Its rise and fall had worldwide consequences, and its legacy continued to shape the identity of Germans long afterward. Hitler believed he was creating a third German empire, a successor to the Holy Roman Empire and the German empire formed by Chancellor Bismarck in the nineteenth century.  

The main disagreement among The Big Three concerned an Allied invasion of western Europe. Churchill argued for the immediate invasion of Italy. Roosevelt and Churchill discussed plans for a joint British and American invasion of France in the spring of 1944, but they needed time to prepare. President Roosevelt relied heavily on his military advisors, principally Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall, whose strategy for prosecuting the war ultimately prevailed and led to the Allied victory.

From Threes, Chapter 7, “Threes in Government and Politics”

Watch These Three Countries as the Price of Oil Falls

“The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had many causes. None was as basic as the fall in the price of oil, its main export, by two-thirds in real terms between 1980 and 1986.  By the same token, the 14-year rule of Vladimir Putin, heir to what remained, has been bolstered by a threefold rise in the oil price.”

Oil is falling again, and this week’s drop in price was severe.  Some countries that depend on the sale of oil they produce will be squeezed on profits.  “For those governments that have used the windfall revenues from higher prices to run aggressive foreign policies, things could get uncomfortable. The most vulnerable are Venezuela, Iran and Russia.”

From The Economist, page 16, “Many winners, a few bad losers,” October 25, 2014

A Time to be Grateful

Grace fascinates for its many dimensions.  It goes well beyond the spiritual meanings.  You can think of physical grace or gracefulness, which is an ability to move around effortlessly.  You can think of social grace.  In Greek mythology the Charites, known as The Three Graces, were the goddesses of joy, charm and beauty.  They were named Aglaia (Splendor), Euphrosyne (Mirth), and Thalia (Good Cheer).  The Graces presided over banquets, dances, and all other pleasurable social events, and brought joy and goodwill to both gods and mortals.   In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, which connotes gratitude. 

With grace and gratitude derived from the Latin gratus, the meaning of grace can be extended to mean a sense of gratitude or gratefulness.  “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.  It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow,” writes Melodie Beattie.               

from Threes, Chapter 4, “Threes in Religion and Mythology” 

Three Things Distinguish Interstellar

“No one willingly attends a space science fiction movie with a space history curator. The audible eye rolling, heavy sighing and groans of protest when the laws of physics are violated through the magic of CGI can ruin even the most entertaining and fast-paced science fiction movie for others. Even tightly written movies that cause the most skeptical to suspend disbelief for the duration of the film later generate days of recrimination over historical, logical, mechanical and physical flaws. The flaws can range from meaningless ones to grand leaps of faith; all of which can unravel the entire fabric of the story. Interstellar is not one of these movies.  

“Three things distinguish the film from recent space-themed movies: it is grounded in the current concerns of our world; its plot is rich in the technically accurate science and technology of spaceflight and the movie pays homage to the best of the spaceflight cinema genre. All three themes transport the viewer and leave few concerns for what might be missing, rather than what the film got wrong.”  

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/why-interstellar-belongs-pantheon-best-realistic-science-fiction-films-

China Is Number One Again

When the International Monetary Fund released its ranking of the largest economies last month, China returned to top spot for the first time in two centuries.  Measured in purchasing power parity, China moved ahead of the United States, which had been number one since 1820.  India is number three.

 

One hundred years ago the three top economies were United States, Japan and Britain.  Economists think China will continue to grow for a long time, and better wages will continue to lift a large poor segment of its society into the middle class where they can become consumers.

 

Read more in Threes, Chapter 6 “Threes in Economics and Finance”