Carl the Zealot

Greetings all, I am proud to announce that my ultimate home file server is now up and running (besides a defective hard drive, but the replacement is on the way, and when it arrives I will rebuild the array and complete my testing).

Now written here, preserved for posterity, are the complete instructions, hardware and software recommendations, and steps necessary to make your own ultimate file server for under $2300! First, the complete hardware list:

• SUPERMICRO CSE-833T-R760 Beige Steel 3U Rackmount Server Case with 760W Triple-Redundant Power Supply
• Intel BOXDX48BT2 LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX DDR3 Intel Motherboard
• 2GB or 4GB of 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM (I suggest 2GB as when I tried 4GB it was very unstable with this mobo)
• Any Core 2 duo processor (but feel free to go all-out if you really want…)
• 8x 1TB 32MB cache SATAII Hard drives - if you don’t need as much space, feel free to save some money and go cheaper.
• 1x IDE hard drive - use one you have lying around, or get a new one. The smallest I could find was a 40GB drive for $25 on pricewatch.
• SIIG SATAII PCIe Controller - even though it doesn’t say, some internet research proves it does work on linux.
• You probably want a video card for troubleshooting - I would have been lost without one (sadly). They just don’t make quality motherboards with good serial consoles these days.
• You probably want a CPU fan, as the stock CPU fan for intel core 2 duos is QUITE disappointing in my experience.
• You may want a SATA CDRom drive to use just for installation - the IDE is really picky about detecting hard drives and optical drives at the same time on boot.
• You may want a power supply extension cable (24-pin, from pwr supply to mobo)
• You may want some fan extension cables, this case has a ton of fans but the cables are short.

I know for a fact the above-mentioned hardware works, with Debian Lenny, as I am about to describe. With reasonable effort (not counting DOA parts… =| ), I now have my file server up and running. I can’t promise similar results, but let’s just say, it would have saved me a TON of time and money if someone had posted this list for me.

FIrst, you need to assemble everything. Open up the case, plop in the motherboard, screw it in (be sure to put in all the risers, they are necessary to support the expansion cards when you plug them in so the board doesn’t break. Hook up the power supply, motherboard, memory, main OS hard drive, and video card. If you have an optical drive, slap that in there, otherwise be prepared to network boot, USB boot, whatever.

Next, install your OS. Anyone who knows me knows Debian is the only way to go! Do a minimal install, you don’t want an X server lying around or anything. Apt-get install your usual necessities (zsh, screen, vim, sudo, less, etc). Next you will want to apt-get install “mdadm” and “lvm2″, and “nfs-kernel”, and probably “rsync” as well. Once you are sure your hardware is working, shut down, and go ahead and install the extra 8 drives by placing them in the hot-swap bays, then running SATA cables from the backplane to your motherboard. Since it is really tough to find a motherboard with 8 SATAII ports, all 8 of which are usable in Linux, I decided to compromise and just go for one with 6 ports, and buy a PCIe controller card. If you wanted your OS drive to be sata, or have some hot spares somewhere, feel free to buy additional controller cards, but this case only holds 8 hot-swap drives plus 2 5.25in bays.

I got these directions from LVM2 and Software RAID in Linux. Without these directions it would have been quite a bit more time consuming to figure out. The directions are a little old (and not debian specific), however, so best follow these. First, note that mdadm by default will scan all your devices (see: /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf. Assuming all your drives show up and seem functional, go ahead and create partitions on them, then link them all in an array.

# for i in sda sdb sdc sde sdf sdg sdh sdi; do sudo fdisk /dev/$i; done

Each time fdisk runs, do the following. Press “n” to add a new partition, “p” for primary, then press enter twice to accept the defaults (use the whole disk). Then press “t” to change the partition ID to “8e” for “Linux LVM”. Next press “w” to write the new partition table and exit. After you have done this to all 8 disks…

# mdadm --create /dev/md0 --chunk=64 --level=raid6 --raid-devices=8 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sde1 ...etc

At this point it will create the raid and start syncing the disks. You can do this to check the status.

# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md0 : active raid6 sdh1[6] sdg1[5] sdf1[4] sde1[3] sdd1[2] sdc1[1] sdb1[0]
      4883799680 blocks level 6, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [7/7] [UUUUUUU]
      [==>..................]  resync = 10.2% (100386816/976759936) finish=640.8min speed=22789K/sec

unused devices: 

As you can see, it takes some time, but eventually you see this:

# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md0 : active raid6 sdh1[6] sdg1[5] sdf1[4] sde1[3] sdd1[2] sdc1[1] sdb1[0]
      4883799680 blocks level 6, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [7/7] [UUUUUUU]

unused devices: 

Now things are ready for you to set up LVM. Check back soon for the remainder of this thrilling story, and also, PIXTURES!

…but anyone who claims that not to be true of themselves is quite deluded. The most recent subject of non-understanding which brings me to pour out my soul is happiness. Happiness is the drive by which evolution encourages certain very complicated behavior in animals, in a way which genetics alone cannot. Happiness is older than writing, older than language, older than music, older than just about any concept we take for granted today. It may be the second oldest emotion (I would wager it isn’t older than pain/sadness, but I bet it is close).

I have long wondered what it would take to make me happy. I mean, I am happy now, in that I am happy with my job, happy with my car, happy with my material possessions. I am happy to have my friends, and happy to have things which drive me (my current project at work, open source, music, and other things). But I always felt I could be happier. I often felt something was missing from my life. Primarily, I think that is someone to share it all with.

I often hear things from my friends like “You can’t find someone to be happy with if you are unhappy to start”, or, “you have like yourself or nobody will like you”, and other choice gems of wisdom. To me they seemed like quite the catch-22. We in the computer world call this a “circular dependency”. It is a real problem, A cannot be satisfied without B, but B cannot be satisfied without A. What is one to do?

The way to solve this problem, in Computer Science and in life, is by breaking the circular dependency. I always said “so what I am supposed to do, just try to be happy even though I’m not, that’s the only way I can be happy enough to meet someone and be happy?” and they would reply “um, basically, yes.” Well I think I finally understand that now.

Last weekend was an amazing weekend. I went out, I saw a show with friends, I saw a symphony concert with a date, and I met a new friend as well. None of these things were things I hadn’t done several times in the last year. Really, I have no idea what was different, maybe it was just that they were all in such close proximity, and I was just really trying to enjoy them, but I felt great. Last week, I went back to work on Monday feeling great. I didn’t let anything get to me. I worked hard to make progress on my project, and I did. I hung out with friends, went to rehearsal, and did all the stuff I normally did. I consider last week to be one of the happiest weeks of my life.

Now, this weekend, I had a concert. I had to wake up early for a rehearsal on Saturday. Then, I went to a cello lesson right after. The cello lesson didn’t go so great because I was pretty tired. After that I went home, and worked on my file server project, which is nearly done. I found that one of the 8 hard drives I had ordered was DOA, meaning I can’t complete the project until I RMA it. I didn’t care though, I still felt great that I all but had it working.

Today was our concert, at 2pm. I slept great - amazingly. I just took some Claritin to clear up my allergies and made sure everything was working right on my CPAP machine, and I went to bed around 1am, and woke up on my own around 10am, feeling great. Our concert could have gone better - we were playing VERY challenging music and we had a little slipup in the second number which was very disappointing (but, fortunately, was not particularly noticeable to anyone besides us). The soloist for Rhapsody in Blue was wonderful, and it went very well. The second half of the program was also pretty uneventful.

Well, all gussied up in my tux, dragging along my cello, I headed back to my car, put it in the back seat as usual, and sat down in the drivers seat. The car was warm, and I was warm from the tux, so I put down all the windows. It was a beautiful, absolutely perfect 56 degrees outside. I started driving, and I just…felt great. The concert was over, and the rest of my weekend was open, I could just go home and watch some TV or something, whatever I wanted. I started to put on some music to get the concert stuff out of my head, and the CD system settled on my “drivin’ mix” - a bunch of upbeat techno and trance from Overclocked Remix.

This is when I realized everything that I have written up to this point. I realized how great the last week was. I realized how great this weekend was. I realized how happy I was. And so, I opened the windows all the way, put down the moon roof, and turned up the music.

Now I have seen folks like this before. Driving down the road, blaring their music. I always thought how inconsiderate they were being, like they think their music is so good they have to blare it at the world or something. “Hey, everyone, look at me, I have a sweet car and loud music, and I want to turn heads”. Only now do I realize why people really do this (at least, I think my explanation is right). I did it because I was so happy, the wind in my face, the music loud and out there, and it just felt good. I was happy. The only way to keep that happy feeling was to turn up the music and put down the windows and just enjoy it all. Air conditioning blowing in my face was not going to replicate this priceless feeling.

And so I drove all the way home like that, windows down, music up, a big goofy grin on my face, wearing my tux still, driving around in a beautiful 2008 Acura TL, accompanied by the most excellent techo-ized theme songs from Mega Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Street Fighter.

The point of this whole story is, I was supremely happy. I don’t think even a significant other could have made that particular moment much happier. I realize now that finding someone isn’t everything. It remains the most important thing on my “to-do list” for certain, but that in no way prevents me from having the time of my life. Happiness is hard to understand, but that’s what is so great about it. You never know when it will strike.

Well, I decided to head home a little early on Friday, I wasn’t getting much done anyways at work. As the bus tried to turn onto Pine, we saw a police vehicle blocking the way. The driver opened the door and asked what was going on, and the officer explained there was a pretty big wreck up ahead. We got off the bus and I started walking home to see police cars, fire trucks, and indeed a very bad wreck up ahead.

The ambulances, if there were any injuries, had already left, so I figured it had happened at least 10-20 minutes before I got there (around 4:50). I grabbed my camera and snapped a few photos.

View of the full scene.

Closer view - one of my better photographs, IMO.

Another close up.

Obviously, I didn’t want to get in anyone’s way so I took all my photographs from across the street, but it was pretty obvious what happened here. A taxi plowed straight into a white BMW. It seems likely someone was speeding, and someone else wasn’t paying attention. The taxi hit the BMW with enough force to drive it off hte road and onto the sidewalk, where it hit a telephone pole. I wouldn’t make any guesses about fault or what happened beyond that, however, since I didn’t actually see it, nor was I able to ask anyone what happened.

Last weekend I was supposed to go on a drive through rural Washington with some friends. It was to be a 400-mile trek during which we could enjoy our vehicles, form important male-bonding type stuff, and bitch about work. That was the plan, anyways.

It all started out last Sunday morning. The plan was to meet at a gas station about an hour north of Seattle, at 8:30am. I was careful to go the speed limit and leave myself plenty of time to get there. Ominously, I saw two cars pulled over on the way down, which seemed like a lot. I also saw about 4 billion bikers. One pack, some riding 3-wide in a lane, 15 rows, no fewer than 30 bikes at least, passed me on the right. Something was amiss.

I showed up a little early to find Ben and Keith already there. We gassed up and waited for our other friends, Jerry, and Forrest. At about 8:40, we decided to call them. “We’re on our way, we just got held up” was the reply. About 10 minutes later, they arrived, and explained what the delay was. Forrest was pulled over for speeding, getting his first speeding ticket ever. We commiserated briefly, I gave him the name of my lawyer, and we all made the requisite “ominous start” and “better not get another one today” jokes. They gassed up and we proceeded on our way.

We went Ben first in his dark blue BMW, with Keith as a passenger, then me in my black Acura, then Forrest in his red Honda Civic Del Sol (it’s a very nice car, not your run-of-the-mill civic) then Jerry (I forget what he drives, but it was white and fairly unassuming). There were bikers everywhere. We also seemed to be seeing a lot of cops. As we came to the first turn, there was a police car right in front of us, in fact. He made the light and turned left, while we sat at the light and waited for it to turn.

After the light turned, we made our left and proceeded down the road. We had little radios, and Ben and I were talking over hands-free cell phone as well. We weren’t sure of the speed limit, but this close to that many cops we were taking it pretty easy. I warned them that my radar was going nuts, but we were going under the speed limit anyways. Sure enough, the radar warning was right on, there was a cop sitting directly off the road, facing in our direction. As soon as we passed by him, he pulled out and headed right for us. I immediately saw this and exclaimed “oh shit”. I assumed Jerry was about to be accosted, but as Jerry pulled out of his way, he made a beeline for Forrest, and pulled him over. Again. Second time today. And we were CLEARLY under the speed limit, all of us.

Via the implicit, unspoken rules of common sense, we immediately entered radio silence, but Ben, Keith, and myself continued to speculate over the phone. We saw a church and pulled over in the parking lot, and waited for Forrest to catch up. There was this adorable white kitten we found - he was initially on the roof of the church. He jumped around, into trees, back to the roof, exploring, clearly playing and having a fine time. I grabbed my camera and the photo shoot began. After a while he decided to check us out. Forrest called us on the radio and we said where we had pulled over. When he arrived he explained that the cop pulled him over because he didn’t have a front license plate. Ben frowned, noting that he didn’t have one either. The cat literally jumped into Forrest’s car. He climbed in the driver side door, which was ajar, then all over the seats, then out the back window (it is a convertible which had the top down). The kitty started to climb into Ben’s car but he shooed the cat away since he is allergic to cats.

This time, the cop let Forrest off with a warning (what is that? I’ve certainly never heard of this strange “warning” you people sometimes talk about…I just get “Hello, sir, I see you have a pony tail, here is your speeding ticket”). He also explained to Forrest that there is a biker rally to the east today, and the entire area is crawling with cops, especially the back roads. He should expect to be pulled over several more times before the day is over unless he gets that plate on. Realizing that 50% of our caravan was now big shiny cop bait even without speeding, and the cops were CLEARLY biting today, we decided to call it off and try again next weekend.

Carefully ensuring no kitties were in the way, we pulled out of the parking lot and headed to a Denny’s to grab some breakfast, then headed back to Ben’s place for Rock Band. On our way back to the highway, we passed about 10 cops, including an unmarked car sitting by the side of the road training their radar directly at us. On the bright side, I had plenty of opportunity to prove my radar detector works (if you were curious, WA cops seem to use K/Ka band radar in that area, not laser). Drivers, bikers and car operators alike, were “dropping left and right”. I think they made their entire ticket quota for the month that very morning. Fortuitously, none of us were pulled over. Hopefully this means they will all have some vacation next weekend, I guess we’ll just have to try again then. Stay tuned for part two, and adorable kitty pics!

I almost never remember my dreams. I’m not even sure I have them very often. I slept particularly well last night, and I had a dream, and I woke up remembering it. What follows is every detail I can recall, I went to blog it immediately so I wouldn’t forget anything, since this is such a rare occurrence for me.

I dreamt I was playing in an orchestra dress rehearsal. By that, I don’t mean I was dressed up, rather, we were having a rehearsal in a performing venue, probably very close to the actual concert. The few faces I remember were all from my old high school orchestra, included my orchestra director Winifred Crock. I was sitting last chair cello, which I used to sit sophomore year, but instead of having only 3 or 4 cellos, we actually had 4 or 5 stands of cellos, a much larger section. Also like sophomore year, I had no stand partner. We were in a large, dark amphitheater, the stage had a dark, shiny, reflective look, and there was a row of lights on the front, but I don’t recall *any* overhead lighting. Also, the entire audience was just a huge pool of water, one at least 10 feet deep.

We were playing exclusively show tunes, which my high school orchestra rarely did. Lots of John Williams, hard stuff. I suppose there was one exception, I think we played Holst’s Planets also - maybe just Mars. As usual, Mrs. Crock was way stressed out over how difficult the material she had chosen was and our apparent difficulties in playing even now, days before the concert.

We finished our second-to-last song, and somehow I remember that Star Wars was up next. I carefully put my cello down, and slip away to get Mrs. Crock a soda, hoping it would make her feel better. As I leave the amphitheater, I realize it must be inside a mall, and it must be after 9 or 10pm, because the entire mall is dark and deserted. I walk around looking for a soda machine, but I eventually find a poorly lit arts and crafts store which happens to be open.

I don’t see anyone in there at first, I only noticed it because one of the two employees there calls out to me “hey you, over here!” as I walk by. Strangely, there are also other customers in the store. Also strangely, they have some cans of soda. The only diet they have is Pepsi. I could have sworn Mrs. Crock drank diet, but I couldn’t recall if she preferred Pepsi or Coke. I was pretty sure in fact that it was Coke. I got 2 cans of the Pepsi anyways (hey, gotta get one for myself, so if she doesn’t want it it wasn’t a wasted trip).

I go up to the clerks with the cans. As I approach the middle register, one explains “Sorry, this register is sorta like our calander, we don’t use it to ring people up” and the other one explains to her “silly, of course we could use it to ring him up, we just normally don’t” but at this point I have already moved over to another register. Just before they tell me what I owe, I realize my wallet is gone and I have no money at all. I say “hang on, I’ll be right back!” and I scurry off to find my wallet or some money or something. I distinctly recall briefly considering pan handling, but dismiss the idea since there is nobody around in this dark, deserted mall.

I approach the amphitheater. As I approached, I saw that a large group was joining ours, probably just for the star wars. They were all dressed in costume (dancers often do dress rehearsals in costume because it affects them more). As I approached the theater I saw rows of girls dressed in Star Wars type outfits - not the nerdy sort, the sort the background characters wear at the “end of movie celebrations”. I think I heard the celebration music coming from the theater too, and they were dancing to it (think the music from the end of episode 4).

I get inside the amphitheater. but this time, there is no way to get back to my chair without getting wet. I don’t recall how I got out of the theater but going in is a problem. Mrs. Crock is still conducting Star Wars stuff. I slip into the water and swim (mostly underwater, to be more quiet) up to the stage on the left side (where the cellos are). The stage is too high, I can’t get on it from here, especially not without Mrs. Crock noticing. I don’t recall if I had the cans of soda or not at this point, but I assume not. I might have thought about something like “would she still be as mad at me if I had the soda?” I swim over to the right side, and find a sort of ramp I can walk up, then I sneak back to my seat. I don’t recall how I did it, but I assume I would have gone around the back side of the orchestra, rather than walking right behind Mrs. Crock. I don’t know why I feared her anger, she was always a kind and understanding person to us. I think I was just in “full suck-up mode” or something, so anything bad in her eyes was to be avoided.

Well, that’s about all I remember. I think I woke up after that. I wanted to blog about this before I forgot it, because I almost NEVER remember my dreams, and because this particular dream reminded me of many people I miss a lot from high school, not the least of whom being Mrs. Crock.

I could analyze this dream, try to figure out where it came from. There are lots of references to the day’s activities. I cleaned out my wallet, which I hadn’t done in a long time, so that is the “losing my wallet” thing - my wallet lost some weight as I removed a ton of business cards and things. I recently met someone new at DDR last night, so I had mentioned that I started playing cello in 5th grade, which brought up all these memories of those fun times. We also talked about my musical preferences a bit. DDR could represent the dancers, and the show tunes could represent all the music I “don’t dislike, but don’t really seek out, I just listen to it when I come across it”. Though my high school orchestra rarely played show tunes, we always wanted to. My orchestra here in Seattle, on the other had, just recently had an almost full-concert of just show tunes (but not good ones, very little John Williams, mostly stuff from the 1960s). I walk past pan handlers every day practically, in Seattle, so that is not abnormal, but it would have been a strange thought in high school. I’m not really sure where the swimming came from.

That’s all I can really think of, to analyze the dream. Weird stuff, huh?

Hey all,
Been a while since I wrote a post, and part of the reason is my sporty new 2008 Acura TL. I really love it. I have been driving around a bunch and having a great time with it.

My old car, which was going on 8 years old, needed some major work done. Turned out to amount to almost 50% of it’s kelly blue-book value anyways, before I put that much money into a car I was thinking about replacing soon anyways, I decided it was time to take the plunge.

I did a lot of research. At first, I really wanted a BMW. My friend got a tricked out 5-series in the neighborhood of over 70k, and I must admit it is really nice. He tells me “Don’t get me wrong, I love my car… but do I love it more than TWO 35k cars? That’s hard to say”. He makes a pretty valid point here - BMWs are great and all, but are they THAT great? In the end, I decided that for the features I wanted, and the money I could afford to spend, a BMW was not an option, even a used BMW wouldn’t really get me what I wanted. I looked at many alternatives as well - I considered a Honda Accord (my old CR-V was a fine vehicle which literally saved my life on more than one occasion, endearing me significantly to Honda). I also looked at a Hyundai Sonata, a Nissan Altima, a Nissan Maxima, and a Honda Civic. Acura wasn’t even on my list, but it was a coworker’s recommendation which put it on my radar.

He told me that the new TSX is really nice, and I should go test drive one. He sent me specifically to Acura of Lynnwood where he “knew a guy” who wouldn’t “give me the hard sell”. Well, I went there “just for a test drive”, and fell in love. The guy he sent me to didn’t work there anymore, of course, but the sales guy I talked to was pretty good. I know you aren’t supposed to buy a car this way, but in reality, if everyone bought a car purely on statistics and performance per dollar, everyone would be driving a Toyota Camry or a Honda Civic, or the hybrid equivalents. “Holds 4 people, gets 30+ mpg, can go highway speeds” - that’s all you really need. But that’s not all I need. I was tired of driving a “4 banger”. I wanted something powerful, fun, sexy, something which said “this guy is successful and lives comfortably”. Yes, I know it’s pretty vain and stupid to judge a book by the car it drives, but it *does* matter.

He also “warned me” not to let them “talk me into” a TL. He explained that the new TL is coming out soon, and is a total redesign, and will probably be bigger and better for the same cost. He also guessed they would have a few TLs lying around they would be trying to unload. Well I followed his advice and went in to test drive a TSX. He was right that it was new and flashy and very cool. I just wasn’t 100% satisfied with the power. I mean, this is a car I intend to keep for many many years. Hopefully at *least* the 8 years my old car lasted. I asked “do you have anything with more power?” - the sales guy’s eyes must have lit up. What did he take me directly to, but the TL.

Now, due to my friend’s warnings, I was a little wary to begin with. Further evidence that my friend actually knew what he was talking about, the car already had 285 miles on it, more than one would expect on a brand new car, probably all from test drives. Also, they didn’t have a lot of them - my first-choice color wasn’t available (blue), but I saw a black one with light-colored interior which was close enough, after all, it was just a test drive.

I was driving around and having a great time, and the sales guy continued to show me all the nifty gadgets and things. Really, the only feature the redesigned TSX had which the “old” TL was missing was the ability to read MP3s directly off a flash drive. If I wanted to go that route, I would need an actual Ipod. This would have been a nice feature, but with a 6-disc MP3-CD-compatible changer, I was hardly that concerned (that is 4,200 minutes of 168kbit encoded MP3s, for those of you keeping track). The TL had heated seats, a nav system, hands-free bluetooth, voice-command navigation and calling, excellent climate control, and the power I felt the TSX was missing. Compared to the BMW, the only thing I was missing was the heads-up display. I really wanted one of those, I thought it would help me monitor my speed better, and it looks fucking sweet. In reality, it’s just another nifty gadget, hardly worth spending an extra 10k for it. Also, the Acuras are really just the “luxury name” used by Honda, so it is still in homage to the car maker whose SUV saved my life. Going from the TSX to the TL, I didn’t think a difference of 57 horsepower (201 versus 258) would be a big deal, but let me tell you, it was quite obvious.

Nope, that radar detector is not standard equipment - but it was a smart buy, trust me.

So obvious, the cop manning the speed trap noticed as I accelerated up to traffic speed on I-5 during my test drive. Yes, friends, I got a speeding citation during my test drive (which is bullshit, I was just accelerating up to the speed everyone else was going, and having a little fun doing it. The sales guy said cops usually give a warning during a test drive, this cop was obviously an asshole short on his monthly quota). Speeding ticket aside, I loved the car. I played the part of the “disinterested buyer” as best as I could, but I suspect the sales guy knew he had me. I managed to haggle down to dealer invoice or so, then a little lower (hey, I gotta pay a couple hundred bucks to contest this ticket, right?), but then they came at me with the extended warranty and the “zylon” coating to keep it shiny (especially for a black car - trust me!) and so on, so after all was said and done I ended up paying a bit more than I planned to. But you know what? I love my car, and hard sale or not, they took pretty good care of me at the dealership. They helped me with the financing, explained the paperwork for me, traded in my old car, ordered new plates for my new car, etc.

Seeing that now, just a month later, the new TL with even more horsepower, and a full body redesign, is available, some might think I would regret my hasty decision. I don’t. Having a 2009 TL rather than a 2008TL would be nice and all, but I wouldn’t have been able to haggle them down as far, and I am already paying more than I inteded to for my 2008 TL. I “got a deal”, just by settling on a different (not better or worse) body design, and giving up 20 hp and the ability to play MP3s off flash drives. One difference I didn’t know about, in fact, is that the 2009 TL is available in all-wheel drive, which I would have been interested in (hey, it rains here all the time), but that too would have increased the cost (from the website, looks like going from FWD to AWD is a $3,600 difference).

I asked the sales guy if he had been in a test drive where a guy got a speeding ticket before, he thought about it a minute and said, “yeh, I think…about three times”. I asked “did they buy the car?” and he said “ya know, yeh, I think all three did.” I guess that figure is now four. =)

*sniff* isn’t she purdy?

I have absorbed several accounts of the viability of the “space elevator” from Scientific American and various programs on the Discovery Channel, but I have remained as skeptical as I am eager for this advance. I decided to run the numbers myself, completely unassisted, to see how viable it seems to me. After about 20 minutes of “math fun”, I came across the Wikipedia article which basically had it all solved out for me. Check it out: Space Elevator. I highly recommend reading it, and definitely not reading the bullshit I was going to write before I found it =)

There comes a time in every computer engineer’s life when they must analyze their storage solutions and admit that they are, in fact, no longer sufficient for the stuff they wish to store. In fact, this time usually comes about every 18 months for me.

I decided that this would simply not do. My last file server, now over 18 months old, had 600GB of raw storage in a 400GB three-drive linux LVM2 software RAID 5 array. I had added an extra 200GB of “non redundant scratch storage”, but it still wasn’t cutting it. I was also concerned that I had heard from several people that RAID 5 redundancy is not as good as one might like to think. Because the array can only stand a single drive failure without data loss, often times a single drive fails, a replacement is obtained, but then the stress of rebuilding the replaced drive causes one of the others to fail, dooming the entire array.

On a whim, I decided to see what it would take to slap together a fileserver with a little bit better longevity. I decided to get a rackable case, as my “tower of towers” is getting pretty ugly even though it is in a dedicated “machine room”. Some day I’ll actually buy a rack to put it in (but not today). I decided that for performance and reliability, I wanted to build an 8-disk RAID6 array. I figured I’d spec it out with 8 cheap drives, and cheaper hardware, and another with 8 huge drives and slightly nicer hardware. I ended up choosing the bigger and better one (naturally).

In the end, my file server would run me just under $2300. It included:

• 1xChassis Supermicro (CSE-833T-R760) 3U chassis with 8 hot-swap SATA bays and 760W Triple-Redundant power supply
• 8×1TB Seagate ST31000340AS Drives (32MB cache 7200RPM SATAII 3Gbps)
• 2×2GB Corsair DDR2 1066Mhz (PC8500) ram
• 1x Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz
• 1x ASUS P5Q ATX Motherboard LGA 775 (has 8 on-board SATA II ports)

With a RAID6 array, I would have 6TB of usable space - that’s a lot of por…erm…”Anime”. Once the parts had all arrived, I excitedly started slapping it together. In the end, I forgot a video card (whoops, thought I had one, but it didn’t work anymore), so that was another $30. I tried a serial console install first but that didn’t go to well. Next I finally got the bios to boot the Debian netinst CD - SUCCESS! Or…maybe not. During the install, I got this error:
No common CD-ROM drive was detected. I did some research, but I couldn’t figure out a solution. It appeared to be a problem with the debian installer.

I finally came to the real answer. This motherboard uses a Marvell 88SE6121 controller (I believe it is a PATA controller only). The bios was able to read the CD to boot, but then the debian installer couldn’t find it, because the module we need (pata_marvell) isn’t available in the 2.6.18 kernel on the Debian netinst CD (or wasn’t built into it by default). I had to build a custom install CD with an updated kernel in order to get this baby up and running! =(

Details on how exactly I got the CD built will be coming up soon. Also, maybe I’ll post the ISO. For now, I gotta get some shuteye. Chow!

I work for Amazon.com. They are not your “average” software company. And so, I often wondered what it is like to struggle to find work straight out of college, just barely get that job, then work your ass off to get the requisite experience to get a job you don’t hate. This blog paints a pretty sad picture:

http://skepticalmethodologist.wordpress.com/2008/08/02/new-hire-cannon-fodder/

Wow, I haven’t seen something I disagreed with so completely since the windows 95 manual stated “Now windows is easier and more stable than ever!”. If this is how companies that aren’t Amazon operate, than I sure am glad to be where I am. Where this author is most wrong, however, is dragging the Amazons and the Googles and the Microsofts of the world into it. How the fuck does HE know? I don’t see any mention of him working for Microsoft of Google. He takes some article written SPECIFICALLY about YCombinator - a VC startup - and starts making all sorts of ludicrous conclusions about Microsoft and Google:

It probably began with Microsoft, but you can see its effect at Apple (notably Steve Jobs’ notorious temper) and I’m sure it’s at Google too (except it’s far more sinister there.) If you have recently graduated from college with a CS degree, congratulations, your stock options are just behind that Machine Gun nest.

Did Microsoft or Google even start with VC? I thought Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft by stealing from Xerox with their own sweat and blood. And Google started out at Stanford with a PhD thesis. Why is it “more sinister” at Google? Because their employees are even HAPPIER, and better compensated? Because they get free food?

The author of this blog suggests that companies hire all these “young, naive” programmers so they can make mistake after mistake, then suggests they shouldn’t try so hard, shouldn’t work so many hours, and should basically give up, coast through life, and be mediocre. How absurd! You don’t get a job at Microsoft, or Google, or Amazon, by being mediocre. The hiring bar is insanely high. This author either has some sour grapes over some startup they worked for, or they are completely making shit up. And as for the difference between startups and Microsoft or Google or Amazon - you can’t compare those inexperienced know-nothing startups who have only proved they have the strength to weather several months to a REAL software company.

Let me put it this way - Amazon was started in 1996 by a brilliant business man with a vision and a garage with some empty shelves where he hoped products would go someday. Now Amazon is a 20 billion dollar multinational company. It, unlike so many, survived the “dot com bust”. The people who founded the companies this author is referring to were “still in diapers” the year Amazon first made a profit.

Maybe I am just biased for Amazon, but I love working for Amazon. Sure, Amazon pays me “pennies” - over 8,000,000 of them a year, plus an excellent medical plan, plus I got a signing bonus, plus stock units worth an amount I’m not really supposed to discuss (let’s just say it’s more than you think). Add to that the fact that my work is interesting, challenging, and rewarding, and it’s a no-brainer. Add to THAT the fact that I could gain valuable experience here that I can get nowhere else, having worked for Amazon is a “get an interview free” card with just about any software company on the planet, my manager constantly talks about my career advancement and it is clear the company cares deeply about my future, and it’s a slam dunk.

So what hours do I *really* work? Am I just a brainwashed, 80-hour a week code monkey? Not at all. Amazon doesn’t care when you get to work, and Amazon doesn’t care when you leave. Amazon cares what you accomplish. So you know what? I’m not as smart as my peers. At Amazon, you are surrounded by brilliant people. Next to them, I feel inadequate at times - but that encourages me to work hard, and do my best, and it has made me a better engineer. So I work an average of 50-55 hours a week. I do this by choice, because I want that promotion, because some day I want to be able to take it easy, but today is not that day. When I do take it easy, it will be because I am talented and experienced enough to get my work done in 40 hours a week.

On that subject - the author is dead wrong about the ludicrous picture he paints of engineers:

Junior designers see lack of sleep as a ‘badge of honor’, they see long hours as proof of their worth.

That is, quite simply, the dumbest thing I have ever heard. What I see as a badge of honor is the guy that sits next to me, who I notice has a source control submit of *real* code every day, sends out code reviews twice as often as I do, and the guy leaves an hour earlier than I do, and arrives an hour later than I do, every god damned day. That guy is a fucking genius. In less time than me, he does twice as much. THAT is a badge of honor. THAT is an engineer I look up to, and hope to emulate some day.

So you can say what you will about “poor CS graduates” and the “mean startups” that abuse them, but from my perspective, that’s the exception, not the rule. If you want to work for a video game company, welcome to the club - so do 60,000 other CS graduates - and some of them are willing to pull 65 hour weeks if that’s what it takes. If you want to work for a startup that might mean retirement at age 29, well, so do 60,000 other CS graduates, so maybe you have to be willing to work a little harder. But if you are talented enough, you have plenty of “reasonable” options - for example, Amazon is hiring =P

An oft-used cliche, “Wax Philosophical” means to “grow philosophically”. That phrase has made a lot of sense to me recently as I have been thinking about my life goals, my values, and my personal relationships a lot recently. The purpose of this blog is to share my technical and scientific endeavors, and teach people what I’m all about. There are some private posts which would not be appropriate to expose to the world in this, a scientific and career-driven blog. This post, however, I feel is core enough to who I am that I must make it public so people trying to get to know me, my friends and potential dates, can learn about this important viewpoint I have.

It all started Saturday night. A dear friend had called me over for some late night stir-fry. It has been a recent pattern of ours to try something new in the stir-fry genre and I am glad to say it went really well. Stir fry takes about 5 minutes to cook, but about 2 hours to prepare (if you cut everything up without a food processor). This naturally lead to the old “how goes the dating front” question, which naturally lead to more deeper philosophical discussions. In retrospect, I realized I was trying to communicate something very specific about what I believe love and relationships really are.

I did a very poor job at the time of congealing my beliefs into logical consistent ideas, It was only tonight, talking to a dear friend from college, that I managed to create the metaphors and descriptive glue needed to make my ideas ambulatory in the memescape and the blogosphere alike. First, I would like to discuss what is for me the highly scientific concept known as love.

Love is…

I love you, not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.
-Roy Croft

Most people want love to be something “special”. They want it to be magic - some metaphysical bond, love at first sight, god-approved, sanctity of marriage, my one special soul mate, until death do we part. This is a natural consequence of the patterns our brains evolved to create and prefer - but that is a whole other blog post. The reality, for me at least, is that love is explainable completely within the “strange loop pattern framework” of Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach and I am a Strange Loop (both of which I highly recommend).

Love (whether big ‘L’ Love or little ‘l’ love) is about a connection between two people. It is more than just a fondness - it is when your brains’ granular representation of someone becomes so complex, it is like their brain partially exists within your own - and vice versa. You are no longer just individuals, you are part of a “couple”. Your wants and needs merge and become one - you finish each other’s sentences, know each other better than you know yourselves. You feel a closeness which is so powerful it is described again and again using metaphysical terms, like a “psychic link”. But this link need not actually be metaphysical. Also, like so many things in life, it need not be binary, or black and white. There are many descriptions about how people in a “loving relationship” grow deeper in love as time goes on, “deeper than they ever imagined possible”. Of course, it can go the other way too as people “fall out of love”. In an era where 50% divorce rate is a commonly accepted figure, there is ample evidence to support this.

So where does love come from? What makes two people love each other? I think love is the result of a long term beneficial relationship between two people. Love grows over time just like lesser bonds, like friendship, respect, and familial bonds. Unlike these other bonds though, love is about sharing everything - at the very deepest level our brains operate at. Is there a single person out there somewhere who is my soul mate? Are they the only person I could ever love? Highly unlikely. Soul mates are a hologram, an image project by our brains. In reality the “capacity for love” between any two arbitrary people can be represented as some value which, when compared to the general population, would probably form some sort of bell curve.

Could it really be that simple? Could I have talked to 10 potential “soul mates” today alone? There are a lot of dimensions to this “capacity for love” figure. In fact, there are at a minimum three dimensions. There is some “compatibility factor” which is an “external” measurement of two people’s compatibilities. What I mean to imply by the term “external” is that it deals with external things, like race, appearance, education, socio-economic status, and so on. The remaining figures are person A’s internal compatibility with person B, and person B’s internal compatibility with person A. These figures could be affected by things like first impressions, opinions and stereotypes one things about another person, whether or not one “things of another that way”, and other internal factors which, by definition, are difficult to measure. Dating sites, especially ones which tout their mathematical and statistical chops (a la OKCupid), are probably mostly measuring the first number. Like I said, by definition, the second two numbers are internalized and difficult to measure.

This “vector” of values fluctuates wildly, especially the two internal ones. Can’t you remember a time you were hanging out with a coworker, and they said something that made you think “oh… I never thought about this person that way, but…” Things like that alter our perspective of people all the time. The meaningful value to chart or graph, in my opinion, is the “peak capacity for love” over a period of time, probably a couple of weeks to half a year. This peak is representative of the “best potential” for two people to form a loving relationship. Obviously, when two people are already in a relationship, or courting each other, they each “want it to work” to varying degrees. Since most of the “internal” factors are also factors largely in each person’s control, when two people both want it to work out they will subconsciously raise these internal measurements of feelings and attachment.

Regardless of what exactly determines whether a loving relationship will eventually form, we can predict from the model I have outlined that, given optimal conditions (that is to say, if “both people really wanted it”), most people could love most other people. It’s about finding someone “in the right place in their life”, with the right combinations of shared interests and physical attraction to convince someone that they really want it. Then, over time, a loving bond can form.

Relationships are…

Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future –and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people.
-Albert Camus 1913-1960, French Existential Writer

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won’t be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for effective interdependence.
Stephen R. Covey, American Speaker, Trainer, Author of ”The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”

So now that I’ve outlined my beliefs about love, how does that apply to relationships? If love at first sight is an illusion, and love can only form between people in a relationship, what is a “loving relationship”? What is any relationship?Relationships are like trade routes. This is probably going to be the most “controversial” part of my post. This is how I see things, I don’t think it has a bearing on my professional career or anything, but it is a part of who I am.

Relationships are like trade routes. Everyone has their own needs they must import and assets they may export, just like a country. Some people have more “natural resources” than others, and some have more “unmet needs” than others. The metaphor is a surprisingly powerful one. Relationships are the vehicles by which people can get their needs met which they cannot fulfill themselves. A long and fruitful relationship may involve a level of intimacy which includes love as outlined above. And such a relationship is a true asset, an “entity made from mutual trust and gain”. But again, it need not be described in superlative or metaphysical terms.

Note also that international trade, and relationships, need not be exclusive. This model can describe monogamous relationships as well as open relationships, poly-amorous, and polygamous relationships. Some people want exclusive trade routes, and if they can get all their needs met on both sides of the trade that way - then it is a powerful, valuable, mutually beneficial arrangement indeed. Other examples of non-exclusive arrangements are plentiful in our day and age as well. Also note that even a faithful monogamous married couple has “relationships” with friends to serve needs besides sexual ones.

What does this imply about relationships? Well, one consequence my friend pointed out in our discussions is that this point of view could be used to claim any sexual relationship is really a form of “the oldest profession”, wherein a guy (usually) trades some thing of value for the physical “talents” of a girl (usually). I think this is a normal and natural consequence of a model which I hope includes all sorts of relationships, including the “transient relationships” of prostitution. While initially this may seem like an excuse for prostitution, arguing against the stigma it has in our society, I would actually disagree. In my opinion, most prostitutes are taking advantage of a market situation - a customer is going to pay a ton of money for 15 minutes to an hour of time - that’s very different from what members of a healthy relationship “pay” each other. You can’t put a dollar value on the “goods” received in a typical relationship. Support, actualization, love, sex, shelter, food, companionship. There is no grand scale, most members of a relationship are not measuring and weighing each contribution, trying to keep things “equal” - it’s not about that.

So what do I hope people will learn about me from this long-winded exposition? I hope people will know that I am not afraid to love, and I am not afraid to build strong relationships. I don’t demand an exclusive relationship, but I see it as a high possibility eventually. In the time being, I have needs and I will see those needs met. Additionally I have plenty to offer. I am successful, I have a great career and plenty of material possessions. I have food and shelter. I am also a great companion, and I like to think, a fun guy to talk to. I hope some day I will meet someone whose needs are wants so rightly align with my own that we establish a strong, trusting, meaningful relationship, and I hope that that relationship grows into a loving one. That is what I am looking for in a long-term partner.