Something Random

[Handruin]

I'm going to mention something that I know will sound like bragging, but I'm mentioning it in more amazement of where things have gotten with regards to price and technology and actually how lucky I am to get to use some of this stuff. Today my boss asked me to count the total memory we have in all our ESX servers because we're trying to do some planning for future projects, etc.

So I totaled it all up and in raw capacity, we're at 933GB of RAM out of 19 servers in the farm. This is the accumulation of the past couple years of hardware.

I've rack-mounted, installed, cabled, and currently manage a system of the following (except for the clariion...i didn't mount and install, but i do share the management):

1 x HP c7000 chassis
10 x BL460C G1 blades (@ 32 GB each)
5 x BL460c G6 blades (@48 GB each)
(All blades have 2 emulex FC HBAs + 4 NIC)
4 x Dell R710 (@ 96 GB each)
(each have 1 Emulex HBA and 6 NICs)

The HP c7000 chassis has:
4 x Cisco Catalyst Blade Switch 3020 for HP
Two ports aggregated to an uplink switch per Catalyst using only two of the four Catalyst to the corp network (4 Gb worth of connectivity).

The other two Catalyst are used for private networking so that each blade has redundant NICs. The private is used for vmotion and fault tolerant communication.
Multiple vlans are used to allow our VMs access to seven different subnets.

2 x Brocade 4/24 SAN Switch Power Pack for HP c-Class BladeSystem
This gives us redundant paths to each of the clariion service processors with 4-way zoning end to end. ESX manages the multiple paths paths for failover.

1 x EMC clariion CX-960 (16 GB cache) with 8 bays of 15 drives @ 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA II
We get to use 4 of the 8 bays (60 drives). We have a mixture of RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 1+0 for different testing.

Surprisingly as it may sound, we don't backup any of the data on the array for the work we do. The work we do isn't for storing live data, we just need the availability for testing. If we lost the array, we'd have down time, but nothing on there would need to be restored.

 

[LunarMist]

As long as they allow hip flasks...

How do you fill and clean that and also keep it cold? It seems like a hassle.

 

[Stereodude]

This is not how I expected a brand new SACD to look.



The case was perfect still in the cellophane when I got it. But, that's how the disc looked inside. :crap:

 

[MaxBurn]

Get stuff like that all the time through netflix. Must only take a small tap on the side there to shatter. Blurays seem to be even more prone to shattering, brittle or something.

 

[Stereodude]

This one looks like some sort of machine tried to pick it up from the center hole, missed, and crushed the disc just to the side of the center hole.

 

[LunarMist]

what is that, another eBAY special? :batman:

 

[Stereodude]

what is that, another eBAY special? :batman:

No, ebay had nothing to do with it.

 

[LunarMist]

I have returned to my childhood and run with Dr Pepper most of the time these days.

In my childhood the machines dispensed glass bottles of Coke and 7Up, etc. for a dime.

 

[ddrueding]

If I could get Coke in a glass bottle that was made with sugar instead of HFCS, I would pay $5 each.

 

[Pradeep]

How do you fill and clean that and also keep it cold? It seems like a hassle.

It was a joke (1 gallon of spirits/rum to mix with Coke/Pepsi). Clearly it is oversized beyond all proportion to that of the primary feature of most hip flasks, that being one of discretion.

For intensive operations I can swear by Sigg aluminium bottles. Hard to clean thru the narrow opening but keeps it strong, they have tablets that can be used to purify, there is a wide mouth version (ice cubes!) now I believe.

 

[CougTek]

Today my boss asked me to count the total memory we have in all our ESX servers because we're trying to do some planning for future projects, etc.

There is currently a transition from the 2GB DIMM modules to the 4GB DIMM modules. The price premium for the higher capacity modules have almost disappeared. Most of your servers must already use 4GB modules, but for the consumer market, they are just beginning to make sense.

Yesterday, I could buy a 4GB DDR3 1333MHz from Kingston for only 66$. Two 2GB modules would have saved me 4$.

If you're starting to be short of RAM, now is a good time to upgrade.

 

[Stereodude]

If I could get Coke in a glass bottle that was made with sugar instead of HFCS, I would pay $5 each.

Go to Costco then. They sell Mexican Coke there in glass bottles made with real sugar.

 

[LunarMist]

If I could get Coke in a glass bottle that was made with sugar instead of HFCS, I would pay $5 each.

Bleh. Can you really taste the difference?

 

[Stereodude]

I think they taste slightly different, but the I have no doubt the evils of High Fructose Corn Syrup are highly exaggerated.

 

[Bozo]

If I could get Coke in a glass bottle that was made with sugar instead of HFCS, I would pay $5 each.

Wasn't Coke selling soda with real sugar in it recently?

 

[Handruin]

I don't know if Coke was, but Pepsi was doing a throwback line which i think had real sugar in it.

 

[LunarMist]

I thought fructose was a real sugar. Something has changed in the past 35years. :sqnt:

 

[Pradeep]

I thought fructose was a real sugar. Something has changed in the past 35years. :sqnt:

Sucrose = sugar as we know it, crystals of sweet goodness. Comes primarily from sugarcane or sugar beet. "The molecule is a disaccharide derived from glucose and fructose"

In the US external market protection and corn subsidies means that sucrose costs more than elsewhere in the world, and it became fashionable to sweeten products "by milling corn to produce corn starch, then processing that starch to yield corn syrup, which is almost entirely glucose, and then adding enzymes that change most of the glucose into fructose". There's some potential links to diabetes with HCFS.

Bunch of stuff out of wikipedia.

There is a plant in Texas that makes Dr Pepper with real sugar.

 

[LunarMist]

In the old days, sugars were glucose, sucrose, dextrose, fructose, lactose, etc.

 

[Stereodude]

Wasn't Coke selling soda with real sugar in it recently?

Pepsi did a while back. It was called Pepsi Throwback. I bought some.

 

[LunarMist]

Maybe, not the best name. It reminds me of :hurl:.

 

[Stereodude]

It's retro baby!

 

[Striker]

If I could get Coke in a glass bottle that was made with sugar instead of HFCS, I would pay $5 each.

My local Costco sells 12oz glass bottles of Mexican Coke for around $19.
I think it's something like 20 bottles in the case. You might want to take a peek if you're near one.
It's certainly cheaper than $5 a bottle.

 

[LunarMist]

I'll take Diet Coke over any Mexican Coke with sugar. :tounge:

 

[ddrueding]

Yes, because all the crap they put in diet sodas is better for you?

 

[LunarMist]

I'm not supposed to take in too much sugar.

 

[snowhiker]

Coke with sugar

If I could get Coke in a glass bottle that was made with sugar instead of HFCS, I would pay $5 each.

The Costcos here in AZ is selling cases (24 glass bottles) of real sugar coke for $17.50. Made in Mexico. Checked the ingredients and Sugar is listed right after water.

I almost bought it, but I don't drink sodas anymore unless I'm at a restaurant.

 

[Bozo]

Sucrose = sugar as we know it, crystals of sweet goodness. Comes primarily from sugarcane or sugar beet. "The molecule is a disaccharide derived from glucose and fructose"

In the US external market protection and corn subsidies means that sucrose costs more than elsewhere in the world, and it became fashionable to sweeten products "by milling corn to produce corn starch, then processing that starch to yield corn syrup, which is almost entirely glucose, and then adding enzymes that change most of the glucose into fructose". There's some potential links to diabetes with HCFS.

Bunch of stuff out of wikipedia.

There is a plant in Texas that makes Dr Pepper with real sugar.

Back in the early eighties, Coke came out with 'New Coke' One of the changes was that they switched from sugar to corn syrup. After that debacle, they came out with 'Coke Classic'. But it still used corn syrup.
Once Coke started using corn syrup, a lot of other food companies started using it too. Now, almost all do.
If you check, you would see that the rise in diabeties pretty much parallels the switch to corn syrup.
Another interesting point. Corn is an artificial plant. It does not grow wild anywhere on earth. Researchers are not quite sure where it came from. But in the last 100 years it has been extensivly geneically modified.
So, you have an artificial plant producing an artificial sugar. :frowner:

 

[BingBangBop]

I assure you, that corn started on the planet Earth and no where else. Mars is too cold to grow Corn, while Venus is too hot and the other planets and moons have equally difficult problems growing corn. Even if it did start somewhere else, how did it get here. Very few, if any, of the kernels could survive entry through the atmosphere unless aliens brought them.

 

[LunarMist]

So somebody is claiming that corn was never natural? :mrgrn: Of course it has DNA not so unlike other plants. Given the early usage for food, corn probably spread with humans and perhaps was hybridized long ago. Does it really matter other than as a curiosity?

 

[Bozo]

I assure you, that corn started on the planet Earth and no where else. Mars is too cold to grow Corn, while Venus is too hot and the other planets and moons have equally difficult problems growing corn. Even if it did start somewhere else, how did it get here. Very few, if any, of the kernels could survive entry through the atmosphere unless aliens brought them.

If you read 'Origin' here you will see scientist still don't know exactly where corn came from.
But maybe aliens did bring the seeds.

 

[Howell]

Read the section on the right about HFCS.

http://books.google.com/books?id=jI...HZJOwl-&sig=DOzaJtS6Qs0AzqyDYB2gDPSvyOI&hl=en

 

[Howell]

Besides the inherent chemical drawbacks, HFCS is so cheap that sweeteners have been added to products that were not sweetened in the past leading to a total increase in consumption.

 

[Stereodude]

The Costcos here in AZ is selling cases (24 glass bottles) of real sugar coke for $17.50. Made in Mexico. Checked the ingredients and Sugar is listed right after water.

Here it's $18.50

 

[Bozo]

Besides the inherent chemical drawbacks, HFCS is so cheap that sweeteners have been added to products that were not sweetened in the past leading to a total increase in consumption.

I believe I saw the word 'fructose' on a container of salt.

 

[LunarMist]

I am still using a large container of salt that I purchased nearly 20 years ago. :bravo: Perhaps I should have chosen a smaller size.

 

[ddrueding]

I am still using a large container of salt that I purchased nearly 20 years ago. :bravo: Perhaps I should have chosen a smaller size.

Funny story. When I was growing up, we lived about two blocks from the grocery store. When I was very little, I was trusted with a mission. My mother gave me a $20 bill and sent me to the store for some flour. Without any reference to go by, I picked the biggest bag of flour that I could get for $20. It was so heavy for my small size that I had to keep setting it down on the sidewalk and take breaks. The look on my mothers face was priceless.

 

[Stereodude]

Funny story. When I was growing up, we lived about two blocks from the grocery store. When I was very little, I was trusted with a mission. My mother gave me a $20 bill and sent me to the store for some flour. Without any reference to go by, I picked the biggest bag of flour that I could get for $20. It was so heavy for my small size that I had to keep setting it down on the sidewalk and take breaks. The look on my mothers face was priceless.

It's a good thing she didn't give you a larger bill. :bomb:

 

[Handruin]

I believe I saw the word 'fructose' on a container of salt.

That's surprising for a container of salt. I was eating food today and while looking at the package the the light wheat bread (90 calories for two slices) it also has HFCS in it which surprised me. Then I looked at the loaf of rye bread and it also has it. So I looked at a bottle of Ken's steakhouse russian dressing, it also has it. A couple weeks ago while in the lunch cafeteria, the relish packet says it also has HCFS in it. It's like how everything is made in China these days, lots of foods have HFCS in them.

 

[LunarMist]

Funny story. When I was growing up, we lived about two blocks from the grocery store. When I was very little, I was trusted with a mission. My mother gave me a $20 bill and sent me to the store for some flour. Without any reference to go by, I picked the biggest bag of flour that I could get for $20. It was so heavy for my small size that I had to keep setting it down on the sidewalk and take breaks. The look on my mothers face was priceless.

Why is that not a surprise? You were going overboard on purchases even then. :rofl: