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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • In the US at least, most equipment (unless you get into high-and datacenter stuff) runs on 120V. We also use 240V power, but a 240V connection is actually two 120V phases 180-degrees out of sync. The main feed coming into your home is 240V, so your breaker panel splits the circuits evenly between the two phases. Running dual-phase power to a server rack is as simple as just running two 120V circuits from the panel.

    My rack only receives a single 120V circuit, but it’s backed up by a dual-conversion UPS and a generator on a transfer switch. That was enough for me. For redundancy, though, dual phases, each with its own UPS, and dual-PSU servers are hard ro beat.



  • Speaking from experience, be careful you don’t become over-zealous in your anti-scraping efforts.

    I often buy parts and equipment from a particular online supplier. I also use custom inventory software to catalog my parts. In the past, I could use cURL to pull from their website, and my software would parse the website and save part specifications to my local database.

    They have since enacted intense anti-scraping measures, to the point that cURL no longer works. I’ve had to resort to having the software launch Firefox to load the web page, then the software extracts the HTML from Firefox.

    I doubt that their goal was to block customers from accessing data for items they purchased, but that’s exactly what they did in my case. I’ve bought thousands of dollars of product from them in the past, but this was enough of a pain in the ass to make me consider switching to a supplier with a decent API or at least a less restrictive website.

    Simple rate limiting may have been a better choice.



  • Outside of obvious ethnic names, which isn’t an issue here, how does the seller even know what a potential buyer looks like?

    I never spoke to the previous owner of my home, and I have no idea what they look like. The opposite is also true. I have a name on various forms, but that’s it. Our only correspondence was through various documents sent between our agents. I didn’t even see the seller at closing; we signed the closing documents at different times.

    It sounds like her real estate agent is on her side, so unless the agent was trying to sabotage the sale, how does this happen?


  • I still enjoy the second-wave stuff from time to time, but you’re absolutely spot-on with what’s been coming out in recent years. I’m really into groups that have kept the original BM music style but embraced modern production. A few that come to mind are Faidra, Spectral Wound, Asarhaddon, and Funeral Winds; fantastic bands that play “true” BM but have good recording quality.

    Like you mentioned, the big change is just how many “crossover” bands there are, and I’m all for it. You didn’t ask for suggestions, but I’m going to offer some of my favorites anyway:

    • Harakiri for the Sky - One of the best post-black bands.
    • Anomalie (shares members with Harakiri for the Sky) - BM plus what I can only call “tribal” elements.
    • Psyclon 9 (at least their older albums) - BM plus industrial/aggrotech.
    • Dawn of Ashes - See above.
    • Anaal Nathrakh - BM + grind + industrial + ?
    • Darkthrone (yes, THAT Darkthrone) - Blackened hard rock? I don’t know what to call their new stuff, but it’s not bad.
    • Gaerea - Radio-friendly BM
    • Kanonenfieber - Blackened melodic death metal? Maybe?
    • Afsky - Folk-inspired BM. Seems like this is a really popular combination.
    • None - DSBM, but with the exception of their filler tracks, more on the BM, less on the DS.
    • Ernte - Fairly traditional BM, but with female vocals.








  • I did some research on this, and it turns out you’re absolutely correct. I was under the impression that ECC was a requirement for a ZFS cache. It does seem like ECC is highly recommended for ZFS, though, due to the large amount of data it Storrs in memory. I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable using non-ECC memory for ZFS, but it is possible.

    Anecdotally, I did have one of my memory modules fail in my TrueNAS server. It detected this, corrected itself, and sent me a warning. I don’t know if this would have worked had I been using non-ECC memory.


  • One thing to keep in mind if you go with an i5 or i7 is that you won’t have the option to use ECC memory. If you’re running TrueNAS, you’ll need ECC memory for the ZFS cache. A Xeon E5 v2 server is old, but still has a more than enough power for your use case, and they’re not particularly expensive.

    If you need something more powerful, you can find some decent Xeon Gold systems on eBay, but they’ll be a bit more pricey. The new Xeon W chips are also an option, but at least for me, they’re prohibitively expensive.



  • I decided to give up on it. Looking through the docs, they recommend that due to “reasons,” it should be restarted at least daily, preferably hourly. I don’t know if they have a memory leak or some other issue, but that was reason enough for me not to use it.

    I installed TubeArchivist, and it suits my needs much better. Not only do I get an archive of my favorite channels, but when a new video is released, it gets automatically downloaded to my NAS and I can play it locally without worrying about buffering on my painfully slow internet connection.



  • This is a really interesting question. I remember a lot of very niche PCI (not PCIe) cards from the old days.

    My current-day boring use-case: Multiple GPUs that have never once been used for gaming. One is an A2000 card that does video transcoding and tone mapping for Jellyfin. The other is an old Quadro card that handles encoding/decoding for my NVR.


  • I had no idea that’s how an asylum claim worked; I think I always assumed it was a very rare process.

    I would be in favor of a system where anyone who wants residency in the USA can apply, and as long as they pass a background check, be immediately granted temporary residency and a work permit; it should be a short process, and it should be free. As long as they can show proof over a period of time (maybe a year or so) that they are gainfully employed and have not committed a crime, give them permanent residency and a path to citizenship. Part of the problem we have with immigration is that it’s so inaccessible and it forces people into an environment where even if they want to contribute to society, they’re not allowed to work. I strongly believe that whether someone jumps the border, claims asylum or overstays a visitors visa, most of them aren’t looking for a handout. They’re looking for what they believe will be a better life than the one they came from.

    Despite the problems we have as a country, I have always been patriotic and unashamed to admit it; I love it here. I also recognize that being an American has nothing to do with your ethnic background, political views, nation of origin, or any other demographic. If someone decides that they want to leave everything they know, move to a new country, contribute to our society, and be a part of our culture, let them! Those are exactly the kind of people that built our country, and those are exactly the kind of people we need today. The crusty old policy-makers who have forgotten that are the source of most of the issues we’re dealing with now.


  • How did they come into the country initially? Is this a case of they came in illegally but were able to apply for residency? I honestly didn’t know that was even a possibility.

    I feel like if someone wants to come into the country, work, pay taxes, and generally be a contributing member of society, why make it so hard? That’s already more than half of the people born here are willing to do, and it’s an overall improvement to the American population. Half of the problems we have with immigration are because it’s so damned hard for the average person who just wants to make a better life for themselves. Unless you’re Native American, we are all descended from immigrants.