I am the systems admin for Tom’s website. We are brothers. I work more out of a brotherly obligation rather than for the money. Tom’s voice needs to be heard and he sweats out mountains of original content for public benefit. Against the small fraction of the content on the web is original, Tom’s website stands out. His research and analysis make huge contributions in energy sectors the general public depend on but where industry expertise like Tom’s is normally unavailable to the public for free.

I am a professional web systems admin with a background in large corporate data management infrastructures. My service is keeping my client’s websites alive in the constantly changing and often hazardous internet ecosystem. It is one thing to design and build a website. It is another thing to maintain it. Tom’s site is not simple to maintain. Not only is the content database huge, the site is subject to attacks. The worst such event — an apparently targeted DOS attack for which we captured the malicious code — was in February 2012. Another bad event occurred in April 2013. Security, file management, and site recovery have been huge challenges for us.
Continue reading ‘4th Anniversary Summary Series Part 2: About Dave’ »

Today is the 4th anniversary of this site. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be presenting a series of commentaries celebrating this anniversary. These commentaries will attempt to draw together the threads of thought now scattered among the more than 400 primary postings and thousands of comments on this site.

Among the subjects the forthcoming commentaries will explore include the future of nuclear power, what the gas plant scandal in Ontario has revealed about energy planning, trends in administrative law as it applies to energy utilities, and some thoughts on green poverty.

The next post will kick off the content of the series. Interested readers will find there a flavour of the life that animates the site. With pride and love, I have the honor to post “About Dave”.