Recent Posts

2101

Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 02, 2013, 06:09 PM »

Um... I hate to be harsh, but... a 1970 Dodge Challenger would do 0-60 in 7.0. So for something that is classified as a motorcycle ... That is slow.

2102

Living Room / Re: Couple Visited by Feds After Google Search for Backpacks and Pressure Cookers

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 02, 2013, 11:21 AM »

And this is the classic downside of idiotic policies like "If you see something say something". All you end up with is a bunch of tattle-tails that suddenly realize that their own dark agendas can now be safely (for them) pushed off on an overzealous branch of enforcement ... That will then happily and brainlessly destroy any unwanted competition for them.

This is why witch-hunts are considered to be bad.

2103

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 01, 2013, 02:01 PM »

Question: did you ever consider laptop style drives? They  already have shock protection, don't vibrate much, or take up much space. Decent capacities and lower power requirements too. Speed shouldn't be an issue for most storage - and you can always use bigger and faster  drives where/if needed.

-40hz (August 01, 2013, 01:49 PM)

I mentioned that bit earlier. The 2.5" 'laptop style' drives are what all the servers are going to now anyhow and the 2.5" nearline SAS drives are screamingly fast (and not badly priced). You can pack a ton of them into a tower; the new Dell PE320's hold up to 16 drives.

2104

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 01, 2013, 01:37 PM »

Remember the golden rule: The correct answer should involve the least administrative effort.

-Stoic Joker (August 01, 2013, 11:58 AM)

Yes true. But this is his home server in it's own room. No real space constraints. And it's just him. Not 200 twits sneaking a look at their FB accounts while pretending to be working. He can do a shutdown and perform maintenance anytime he damn well pleases - no need to even send out that memo nobody ever bothers to read...

-40hz (August 01, 2013, 12:12 PM)

Yes, but home has its issues as well. One tends to be more relaxed about their movements and behavior. So delicate exposed stuff is not ideal. Someone sprays air freshener into the room from the doorway and the heavy wet mist settles..? An innocent casual gesture snag a cable or two. Or just the simple act of moving/cleaning the assembly spotlights a fatigue point...leaving a pile of drives on the floor. My kids are gone, so while for the most part my environment is perfectly safe. I do have grandchildren that could visit. We also have friends with children. Should I mention pets???

Point being: Never tempt fate...shit happens just fine on its own.

2105

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 01, 2013, 12:01 PM »

Or off the plank...either is fine.

-Stoic Joker (August 01, 2013, 11:43 AM)

OFF THE PLANK! OFF THE PLANK! MY VOTE IS FOR OFF THE PLANK!!!!!!!

-Renegade (August 01, 2013, 11:48 AM)

Vote has been seconded...

2106

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 01, 2013, 11:58 AM »

While it does sound cool from a Dexter's Closet/mad scientist viewpoint. I'd doesn't really strike me as practical (i.e. How hard is it to move?). Just because the produced heat isn't confined...doesn't alter the fact that it is produced. Which is precisely why my office at home is constantly hot as hell.

The air will still need to be circulated.

The dust will indeed collect due to that extra circulation.

Things will start to get "fuzzy"..

When it comes time to move stuff for cleaning ... How sure of the structure will/can you really be?? HDD's are heavy and don't bounce for shit.

90% of the noise in the server room comes from all those tiny assed high speed fans. So for noise control just use a tower case, they have larger slower moving fans. Bulk of the drives can be the 7200 rpm Nearline SAS variety that aren't really noisy at all. This will make the mess much easier to control.

Remember the golden rule: The correct answer should involve the least administrative effort. If I don't keep the server's looking good...the wife will clean them for me ... Probably with soap...

So I make sure my cleaning task is as easy as possible.

2107

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 01, 2013, 11:43 AM »

^^ Woohoo for Snowden! I'm still crossing my fingers for him. Buddy has balls the size of the moon!

-Renegade (August 01, 2013, 10:37 AM)

+100 - I'd like to see all of Washington DC humiliated so badly they're collectively forced to step down ... Or off the plank...either is fine.

2108

Living Room / Re: Peer Review and the Scientific Process

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 01, 2013, 11:32 AM »

Would be an interesting scenario if vitamins ended up getting a health warning like with cigarettes.

-tomos (August 01, 2013, 05:57 AM)

Okay...Then I'd be pissing myself laughing.

2109

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 31, 2013, 10:18 PM »

I'm not sure I'd want to deal with virtualizing anything on a NAS. But outside of that overkill probably should be kept to a minimum. I got the impression 40 was leaning towards two different boxes...each purposefully built to its specific task.

-Stoic Joker (July 31, 2013, 06:07 PM)

It really depends on the NAS and the software.  A lot of them are OSes in and of themselves.

-wraith808 (July 31, 2013, 08:40 PM)

Yes, for the storage aspect. But a NAS is just a big storage bucket that isn't going to have (a real rip tearing processor or a boat load of RAM) the resources to handle virtualization properly. They tend to be minimalistic and dutifully plod along much like a good mule. For virtualization you need cores lots of them...there is really no such thing as too many.

Which is why I was agreeing with 40 on the 2 server option, it'll keep the price down on the storage side because speed isn't a huge concern, and performance up on the virtualization side as you need a moderate amount of really fast stuff to keep it running properly.

We're currently reviewing a new potential client that hat a budget consciously built server that is tearing itself apart trying to keep 3 OSs running on storage class hardware. Their Exchange server (part of SBS11) is keeping the processor at 88-100% 24/7 ... But they're trying to run it on only 2 cores with 6GB of RAM (Yikes!). I gave our Exchange server 8 cores and 16GB of RAM and it's happy as a lark (However the accountants are not allowed in my server room.. ).

2110

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 31, 2013, 06:07 PM »

I'm not sure I'd want to deal with virtualizing anything on a NAS. But outside of that overkill probably should be kept to a minimum. I got the impression 40 was leaning towards two different boxes...each purposefully built to its specific task.

2111

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 31, 2013, 05:21 PM »

Forget about 3.5" drives ... The 2.5" are easier to pack in the case and cheaper to run.

2112

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 31, 2013, 05:17 PM »

Stoic...that sounds awesome, maybe I'll do something like that also.

-superboyac (July 31, 2013, 04:35 PM)

If you do keep a few things in mind:

• When this thing spins up it is loud as hell (8 Uber fans). We had to build it its own little room with a portable A/C unit ($280 at Lowes).
• Retail on this thing is north of $10,000 - But OMFG is it fast - Tehehe - I'm currently virtualizing Exchange 2007, SharePoint 2013, and 8 other servers on it ... And it ain't even blinked yet.
• The DL380p is a rack unit. Yes you can run it just fine sitting on a table...but it needs serious ventilation, and/or dedicated A/C unit.
• Lenovo also makes a nice Server with the same capacity (and similar price), that I'm running against this one to see who does best.
• Some sort of Hyper-V aware backup preferably featuring deduplication will be needed - Currently I'm up for suggestions on this point.

2113

Living Room / Re: What the future may hold for all of Amercia will soon be seen in Oakland, CA

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 31, 2013, 04:58 PM »

They call California the land of fruits and nuts for a reason ... Ya know?

2114

Living Room / Re: PLease help superboyac build a server (2013 edition).

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 30, 2013, 09:31 PM »

We just spun up an HP DL380p awhile back. As configured I've got 16 2.5" drives on two different RAID controllers in a 2U rack unit. Damn thing is insanely fast ... Full install from 1st POST to desktop took ~10min.

Did I mention the dual 8 core Xeons and 64GB of RAM?

eek! battery dieing...

2115

Living Room / Re: TSA Accepts Money For Hands-Off Screening

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 30, 2013, 12:12 PM »

TSA...the folks that solved that age old conundrum: Where can I go to get my genitalia groped and fondled by a complete stranger -  ideally, one who will do it for free?
 

-40hz (July 30, 2013, 09:26 AM)

Perhaps...but it still costs extra for a private room.

2116

Living Room / Re: TSA Accepts Money For Hands-Off Screening

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 30, 2013, 06:55 AM »

I remember them talking about launching this program on the news a year or so ago...so I too suspect its face value to be true.

I also agree with all 5 of IainB's bullet points ... "Security Iheatre" indeed.

2117

Living Room / Re: TSA Accepts Money For Hands-Off Screening

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 29, 2013, 09:09 PM »

You don't do fetish(es)?   

-Shades (July 29, 2013, 08:57 PM)

Not outside of my own species. 

2118

Living Room / Re: TSA Accepts Money For Hands-Off Screening

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 29, 2013, 07:17 PM »

What if I like being fondled...can I get an $85 discount?

2119

Living Room / Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 29, 2013, 06:04 PM »

This is only an issue because some people really are that dumb.

2120

Living Room / Re: U.S. Agency Trashes Computers For Malware That Wasn't There...

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 28, 2013, 09:13 AM »

Good to see that we can all avoid toilet humour!

-Renegade (July 27, 2013, 08:58 PM)

We wee-ly are trying.

2121

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 27, 2013, 12:40 PM »

I have been trying out Windows Server 2012 for several days now. The changes in workflow and the limitations these changes impose...they are definitely irritating to say the least.

However, there are some changes that do make sense (to me and how I like to do things). Until now, this Server edition of Windows tips the scale into a positive experience. Not by much, but still positive.

-Shades (July 25, 2013, 09:31 PM)

We just spun up a new rack system a few months back which is based on 2 physical servers running Server 2012 datacenter edition. The physical servers run is a separate domain from the 20+ virtual servers that provide company services.

Having spent a good deal of time jumping back and forth between server 03, 08, and 12 .. I gotta say I'm really liking 12. The new server manager finally makes sense by showing a quick at-a-glance view of what is going on. SM in 08 was to me really just a poorly designed uninformative nuisance that got in the way. The 08 SM's incessant whining about there being an error from 6 freaking months ago made its output utterly useless to me. I could either completely clear the logs (Bad...) or deal with the fact that any new information would have to come from somewhere else.

However... Finally... FINALLY in the 12 SM there is a newly beloved option to kindly piss-off about any freaking antiquated errors regarding already resolved (or non) issues that have happened prior to (well...) now. Brilliant...absolutely freaking brilliant option that actually allows the thing to inform me of what is happening now...

The new integrated NIC teaming feature is so idiotically quick & easy to use that it almost makes me giggle.

Natively partition resize/move anything on the fly ... Is so fast and easy its just got to be wrong.


All the old 03 servers are now gone, and the new VM are a 50/50 mixture of 08 R2 and 12. Most of the 08's are only (for upgrade practice) transitional, and will soon be updated to 12.

Personally, I'm totally loving the new 12 servers.

2122

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 27, 2013, 12:16 PM »

I saw that a while ago- that's the reason that they don't classify him a 'whistleblower' 

-wraith808 (July 27, 2013, 09:46 AM)

Exactly ... Whistleblowers are only supposed to report on all those other bad people..

2123

Living Room / Re: U.S. Agency Trashes Computers For Malware That Wasn't There...

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 27, 2013, 08:53 AM »

I near peed myself when I read that. Throwing out the mice? Wow. The depths of idiocy in government just knows no bounds.

-Renegade (July 26, 2013, 09:14 PM)

Hay now, they were just trying to prevent history from repeating itself ... Rodents carried plague throughout the land back in the dark ages...and devil be damned if they were going to let that shit happen again..!

2124

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 26, 2013, 11:54 AM »

...And ^that^ was today's watersports report!

2125

Living Room / Re: Framing people through computers - image filtering problems

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 26, 2013, 11:29 AM »

the problem isn't really the pictures themselves...it's the intent behind them. A single image or even a small group of images in Temporary Internet Files - especially without a damning content page/demonstrate-able pattern of activity - isn't really enough to be worth prosecution. Unless of course the prosecution is in on the frame-up...in which case it wouldn't really matter if the machine actually was clean ... Something would "get found".

Kinda like the good old days when a shady copy would stroll up to the car, lean in the window, say something to distract you while dropping a bag of weed, and then looking down with mock surprise saying what's that?? (you is busted)