Low Power NAS-like Device
Hey, lazyweb.
Recently I've been thinking about turning my desktop PC off to save electricity. Lately I haven't even been using it all that much, instead opting to sit in the living room using my Powerbook. However, my desktop PC currently hosts a public SVN, as well as some private web resources that friends use relatively often. I could move the SVN elsewhere (probably mocha.xfce.org), but the private resources are not feasible to move to an external host. I also use the box as a backup mail server, but I haven't needed it in some time (right now it's more of a backup to a backup).
My main issue is storage. I currently have about a TB of storage in my desktop PC, which acts as a media source for my HTPC in the living room. For various reasons (mostly physical space), moving the storage to the HTPC isn't really workable.
So, my next thought would be to build a NAS. In the process, I'd like to upgrade my storage to SATA, and use RAID5. However, this isn't strictly necessary; I'd be OK just moving my current hard drive setup to a new box and putting off the upgrade until later (which is more likely, as I don't really want to spend the money on 4 new 320 or 400GB hard drives right now).
So, here's what I want. A low-power NAS box that can take a minimum of four hard drives. It would be nice if could be expanded later to support eSATA so I could add external boxes if needed. The software running it needs to be completely open source (Linux preferred, though one of the BSDs would do), or easily replaceable with an open source NAS stack. I need to be able to run a web server on it, and it needs to be able to handle RAID5. Gigabit ethernet is a must, even though my home network doesn't support it (yet).
I also wouldn't mind building this. A low-power, heavily integrated motherboard with a low-power CPU and 4-8 SATA ports would be fine. One or two PCI slots would be good. If the motherboard doesn't have IDE channels, I'd need to get an IDE card for it until my storage gets upgraded. Ideally I'd like to be able to hook up a 512MB or 1GB flash card to it to host the OS so I don't have to waste HD space on that stuff.
Oh, and I don't want to spend any more than $350 or so on this (not counting hard drives). That might be tough.
Any thoughts?
Philly Orchestra Rocks
The Philadelphia Orchestra, arguably one of the best orchestras in the world, has a clue. They sell their recording online, and many of them are available for download. No proprietary formats? Check. No DRM? Check. Lossless? Check. They're using FLAC. Rock.
Bye-bye, Kitty
This past Wednesday, one of our three cats, Blackie, died. She was a diabetic, and had apparently developed stomach and intestinal cancer recently. She hadn't been eating for a few days, and so couldn't have her insulin shots.
I knew she hadn't been in the best of shape over the past few months, but I was really hoping I'd be able to make it home to see her while she was still alive.
She was always the sweetest little cat. We found her back when we lived in NJ. She belonged to one of our neighbors down the street, but they treated her like crap. She spent all her time outside (and thus was coverd in fleas), wasn't well-fed, and hadn't been spayed. At a very young age she had already had a couple litters of kittens. From that, and beeing fed so poorly, she was a very small cat, and never grew that much. Anyway, she always used to come to our backyard, and we would feed and take care of her. Eventually we decided just to take her in and get her properly cleaned up and checked out. We of course took her with us when we moved to MD.
She was one of the friendliest cats I've known, but not in an annoying way: she would constantly want attention, but most of the time would back off if I was busy or just not in the mood. She just wanted to be loved, but respected my space. When she developed diabetes, we didn't expect her to last all that long, but she did. I don't recall exactly, but she would have been at least 15 or 16 years old this year.
I haven't really seen any of the cats that much since I stopped living at home during (at least) the summers, but she'll definitely be missed.
Craigslist Ads Suck
First I'll say this: I love craigslist. The best-of list gives me hours upon hours of amusement, and a good portion of the ads are useful and make me want to actually call the person when I'm looking for what they're selling.
But then there are the retards.
I'm sorta in the market for a new apartment -- well, not really until the spring, but every now and then I glance around to see if there's anything ridiculously amazing that would make me want to break my lease -- and probably a new bicycle. My old (crappy, rusty) bike was stolen about 3 years ago in Ithaca when I foolishly left it unlocked in the open garage of the house where I was living one summer. I've been thinking for a while about biking to work. It's only about 5 miles away, and I can avoid highways.
Anyway, I digress.
Some craigslist ad posters are morons. I'm perusing the SF-area bikes section today, and I come across this brilliant ad:
10 speed street bike call jeff [phone number]
What the fuck? That has to be the most information-free ad I've ever seen.
Well, ok, maybe that one's not the worst. A week or so ago I was looking at apartments, and I don't remember the exact ad, but it was something like this:
Beautiful 1 BR in lovely neighborhood. Call Jane at [phone number] to make an appointment to see the apartment at noon on Saturday, Sept 23.
Huh? How is it "making an appointment" when they're telling you in advance the only time you can come? And what does this tell me? All I know is that it's a 1-bedroom, and, from the ad title, I know the monthly rent and the town it's in. Useless.
Now, I understand that some people don't consider the internet (or perhaps just craigslist in particular) their primary form of advertisement, and would prefer that you talk to them on the phone or in person to get details. But I think that's retarded. If you're going to put up an ad for something in a place where they don't charge per-word, give as much information as is humanly possible. When I'm looking at a housing ad, I expect to see:
The location. If you don't want to give an exact street address due to privacy concerns, that's fine, but I want to be able to figure out the location within a 1-mile radius at worst.
The size of the apartment, in square feet. Bonus points for giving the dimensions of the rooms. I'm looking at 1-bedroom apartments, for crying out loud - there are only 2 rooms!
Is this an apartment in a house, or in a complex? I guess for a craigslist listing, it's likely the former, but I want to be sure.
Some detail about the rooms. Does it have wood floors, or is it carpeted?
What kind of amenities does the place offer? On-site laundry? Is it free? Is there a gym? Pool? Anything else?
Pictures. I want to know what it looks like inside. I generally like newer construction, or at least recently-renovated construction. Your apartment in a 40-year-old house may be, strictly speaking, clean, but if it looks old, I'm not going to want to live there. I'd also like a picture of the bathroom. I'm not a clean freak by any means, but a bathroom that looks dingy is going to turn me off about the place immediately. If the rest of the ad is decently informative, I'm willing to call for more info and maybe visit if there aren't any pictures.
There are other things, probably, but I'm too lazy to think of them. The idea is: more detail is better. Too little detail and I'm not even going to bother to follow up. In a typical browsing session, I'll probably click on 50-75 ads, and it's not feasible for me to visit or even call for information about each one. I'm most likely not going to call unless I can already say from looking at the listing, "sure, I could live there".
Cornell Featured
Cool, Cornell University is Wikipedia's featured article today.
Weekend
Suck: Buying $110 worth of clothes, then going to another store, where they give you a 15% off coupon good at the previous store. Awesome: Going back to the previous store, where they let you return and re-buy the stuff with the discount applied.
Suck: Getting two fingers closed in the power windows of a friend's car. Awesome: Eating lots of Italian cheese and bread.
Suck: Having no plans for the evening. Awesome: Talking on the phone for an hour with a far-away friend.
New Website Design
Not so much a new design, I suppose, though it's a little simpler. Mostly a new color scheme. Let me know if anything looks funny. I didn't put too much effort into testing it.
nvidia drivers
I just noticed that some people are working on reverse-engineering nvidia's graphics chipsets. Sweet. Maybe we can someday get a decent 3D- (and 2D-) accelerated open source video driver.
Maynard Ferguson Passes
Just read that Maynard Ferguson passed away yesterday. I wasn't a huge fan of his playing style, but nonetheless I have to respect his skill. I heard him play live sometime in HS, and I was quite impressed. Shame...
Cognitive Dissonance
While I generally consider myself a liberal (socially at least, even if I'm generally financially conservative), I enjoy reading about the opposition. Unfortunately, I get the impression that the opposing viewpoints will just never find compromise.
Take this article, for example. Summary: "liberals do not appreciate the seriousness of the terrorism threat". And maybe we don't. Sure, 9/11 was a terrible occurrence. But if you consider lives lost to terrorist attacks in the United States over the past 50 years (or whatever), it's pretty insignificant. Somewhat ironically, we might find that the lives lost in our own retaliation for terrorist attacks (e.g., Afghanistan) might rival or even eclipse that number. (I'm not saying that's the case; I've done no research on this topic.)
This article seems to miss the point on several of its arguments, however. I don't view Iran as a terrorist threat. Sure, their government has a nuclear weapons program. But that has very little to do with terrorism, unless, of course, Iran plans to arm terrorist groups, an accusation for which I believe there is no evidence. Iraq also has nothing to do with terrorism. Saying you are against the war in Iraq has nothing to do with your stance on fighting terrorism.
So all that's left is the attempt to make fun of the liberal mindset on preserving due process and civil liberties:
Liberals: Stop the illegal wiretapping and torture! Conservatives: Hah! Stupid bastards, we just prevented a terrorist attack based on what you call illegal wiretapping and torture!
Maybe liberals are just idealists? Maybe some liberals are willing to allow a couple attacks to succeed if the only way to stop them involves an unacceptable erosion of rights? It's hard to draw the line. What if I were a passenger on one of the planes earmarked for destruction? Could I honestly say I'd rather die than to be preemptively saved through means I find reprehensible? I'm not sure I could. Would I, as a potential policy-maker, be willing to make that decision for others? I don't know.
I'm often torn on the point of emotional detachment. On one hand, I feel like policy decisions should be made without regard to anything but the cold hard facts. Is A, B, and C an acceptable consequence of doing D and E, based solely on numbers and an objectively measured effect? In this case, are lost lives worth the preservation of what I consider essential liberties: reasonable expectations of privacy and due process? For me, the answer is a resounding yes.
But on the other hand, there's always a human element. We are emotional creatures. An objective, emotionless response to a problem may seem neat and tidy from a logical perspective, but ignoring how people (including yourself) feel about any particular decision doesn't make sense from a human perspective. People will have an opinion -- often a stong emotionally-driven opinion -- on any decision that has the potential to affect lives. Even if I can say that yes, I'd be willing to sacrifice lives for an ideal, that's too abstract. What if one of those lives turns out to be someone I care about? But does that even matter? Greater good and all that?
I'm not sure where else I'm trying to go with this. Maybe nowhere.