For Pulse Inspection

This morning is colder.  I’m uncomfortable in my suit, that fit better a few years back when I’d had it made.  We’re supposed to be on the 9:22 but as the 9:08 rolls up I suggest to folks we just hop on board.  A young stewardess with a ticket machine on one hip and a selection of snacks and beverages on another is coming up from the lower section of the two storied car to the meridian area by the door.  “Yokohama is please?”  I say, which makes sense in one limited Japanese way and is probably rude and clumsy as it sounds in English at the same time   “Yes, this is going to Yokohama” 

We hop a seat in what turns out to be the green car section.  They are assigned seats and are more expensive.  It’s hot now and I take my coat off to settle in for the next half hour.  We’ve already left the station by the time the ticket lady returns.  She asks for ours and I suggest we pay with Suica cards, which isn’t going to work. “Cash only.”  My colleague hands over a five thousand yen note. 

The ride goes quick, smoothly.   We are on our way to Yokohama to visit a data center.  We are their potential customer and we are met at the station by the person in charge of the facility. He sprits us over to the site in two cabs that he pays for.  I don’t think I’d ever properly visited a data center though my colleague who has rather mature opinions on such places begins to posit a range of verifying questions. 

The security is rather intense.  No, phones, no cameras, not computing anything inside the actual facility through an airlock chamber.  Once everyone is inside the deputy manager submits his wrist for pulse inspection.  Yes, suggests my friend clarifies, pulse is actually quite distinct and can be a more accurate identifier than fingerprints. 

Inside there are racks of servers, set behind cages in rooms with tall ceilings.  From the ceiling a seemingly endless stream of chords twists down and into their rack hindquarters.  In the basement we are shown that the entire building is resting on a series of eight or so enormous shock absorbers.  The building is independent of the frame shell that is otherwise connected to the ground.  The building could shake up to a meter back and forth and it wouldn’t damage anything. 

Up on the roof we look out over the low-lying buildings.  The director mentions that there is a golf course.  “Do you play golf?  You could take your clients here and play and then come for a visit.”  Pleasant but improbable. Another gent and I mention that we don’t play.  Gazing out I ask where the medieval capital, Kamakura is located, as I’d seen the city name on one of the cabs and new we were close.  He points out where it is, over towards the sea.  That would be more my style. 

Thursday, 11/30/17