Recent Entries
The “Break Even” Generation
Dec 27, 2008 Biz, Rant Leave a comment
The United States is in the middle of a recession, with crumbling infrastructure, and the country’s global influence waning. I thought now would be a great time to discuss standard of living in America.
Since the birth of this nation, there has been one overwhelming theme which bolstered the growth of the nation. Throughout the 20th century, if there was one constant in the United States, it was the notion that the next generation would have a better standard of living than the previous.
Unfortunately for today’s youth, the idea of a constant increase in standard of living is no longer a certainty. Salaries are not keeping up with increases in cost of living. During the 20th century, upward mobility in America was driven by the educational system. Children would aspire to be physicians, attorneys, journalists, policemen, and businessman.
A four year degree in the United States today is the equivalent of a high school diploma thirty years ago. Being a doctor today is not what it was a generation ago. There is an oversupply of attorneys, since law school became the default career path for students without clear career aspirations. Perhaps the most reliable vehicle for upward mobility in the 20th century was small business, particularly the idea of a family business.
Over the last twenty years, the family business has become an endangered species. Just think about where you purchased goods 20 years ago. Groceries, gas, clothes, sporting goods, cars, and appliances were all bought from family businesses. Today, the vast majority of goods and services are purchased from multinational corporations.
While Americans watched small businesses die around the country, it seemed like progress. The prices were lower at Wal-Mart, and instead of owning their own business, Americans would work for the multinationals, dabble in real estate, and invest in stock. The financial system was going to be the overwhelming source of wealth in this country, replacing legacy methods of upward mobility. After this year, there is no clear path.
Sure, there are always going to be opportunities for Americans to be successful. There will be new markets, new technologies, and new opportunities, but the odds of success are getting worse.
Today, there is no clear path upwards for the youth of America. Its no longer a certainty that generation X and Y will have a better quality of life than their parents.
Today, people are just hoping to break even.
Building a Home file server
Dec 21, 2008 Linux, Meta, Tech, ubuntu Leave a comment
With my previous file server down for the count, I decided to spend some money to build new home storage system.
Operating System
Linux is the obvious choice. I took a quick peek at Nexenta, but decided that ZFS was probably overkill. The harder question for me was what Linux distribution? I took a look at Openfiler, but decided that I wanted to run a more “general purpose” distribution. Typically, Debian is my distribution of choice for servers. I narrowed it down to Debian or Ubuntu server, which is really a Debian derivative. I ended up going with Ubuntu, because I figured it would have the most bleeding edge enhancements. If stability was paramount, Debian would be the right choice.
Hardware
I wanted to over-engineer the hardware configuration. My last file server had about 850 GB of usable storage, and it filled up quickly with pictures, videos, and legal music. I also used it for backup space. Even though software raid has come along way, I still wanted to use a hardware raid card. I ended up getting a fantastic deal on a 8 port 3ware SATA II raid card with a battery backup unit. Processing power was not really a concern, I just needed to get the cheapest PCI-X compatible motherboard I could find. I ended up setting on Tyan board for $66. For the enclosure, I picked up a cheapo Antec case with 6 drive bays for $50. The most important part of the file server server is obviously the disks. For my storage partition I chose 5 Western Digital 1 TB SATA drives in a big RAID-5 ARRAY.
- Tyan S5161G3NR-RS $66
- Corsair 1GB DDR2 $16
- Pentium D 940 3.2 GHZ $89
- 3ware 9550SX-8LP $150
- Antec Case $50
- 5 1TB drives $500
- 1 80GB drive $35
- Power Supply $100
- Grand total $1006
It really doesn’t need to be that expensive, you could easily bring that total down to $700. Use software RAID, an existing case, a cheaper power supply, and a cheaper CPU.
Configuration
I installed Ubuntu Server on a single 80GB drive, and I have the huge array mounted on /home. With the large RAID 5 partition, I had to use GNU parted instead of Fdisk to partition. Fdisk has a 1.5TB partition limit. I also had to use the GPT partition format, since DOS partitions have 1.5 TB limitation as well. For the file-system, I decided to use EXT4, since its supported with latest edition of Ubuntu server. If you really care about your data, I would suggest using EXT3.
For file access, I’m using NFS4 for my Linux and OSX clients. SSHFS and Samba are enabled as well For alterting, I have 3ware’s management interface from the server. Not only can I login to see what’s going on with the array, but I will receive e-mail alerts if anything bad happens to the disks.
. I’m also using this server as my primary bittorrent client. I found Deluge, which is a modern bittorrent client written in python. My only two requirements were that it had a web interface, and it supported UPNP. Deluge has 3 different client options to chose from: GUI, Command Line, and Web. Running deluge in the background, I can access the web interface from any computer.
Overall, I’m very pleased with my current configuration. Its amazing what $1000 will get you these days..
A friendly reminder to backup
Dec 13, 2008 Tech Leave a comment
Early in the fall, it was an unusually hot September day. I got home from work and went up to my office. I didn’t have the AC on, and so I went to flick the AC on in order to keep my file server cool.
The surge of AC turning on caused the power supply in my file server to explode, sending a huge blast of smoke through the room. All my hard drives, the RAID card, and the motherboard were destroyed.
1TB of data went down with this machine. All my music, pictures, and videos. Fortunately, much of the data was stored on other systems, but let this be a friendly reminder that RAID is not a backup solution. Depending on the health of one system or even one location for your data is not an option.
Wordpress 2.7
Dec 13, 2008 Software:, Tech, www 1 Comment
I recently upgraded my blog to Wordpress 2.7. I’m blow away by the new features, and the general quality of the release.
The Wordpress development team really did a great job.
Blagojevich
Dec 9, 2008 Politics Leave a comment
It looks like Blagojevich will become the latest in a long line of corrupt politicians from Illinois. Its quite ironic, considering he obtained the office by replacing another corrupt Governor.
I find it really amusing that people are already attempting to tie Obama to this scandal. I don’t think most people realize how stupid they look when they try to do character assassination by association, especially in this particular case. Here is my favorite quote from the legal complaint.
“Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he knows
that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them.” “
Its right in the 78 page legal complaint, but people today can’t be bothered with reading boring legal documents.
I’m sure the partisans on the right will paint Blagojevich as Obama’s BFF. Hmm, how did that work out with Resko and William Ayers?
The American people are not as dumb as some people think they are..
