The Advanced Computing and Information Systems Lab where I work recently aquired new hardware to support the storage needs of iDigBio.We operate an open source Ceph cluster to provide object storage for media and datasets. iDigBio was too successful at mobilizing digital media about museum specimens... the original storage cluster is full!

The new hardware is racked and has received the base OS (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS). Ceph makes RAID obsolete, but to get the best utility out of the hardware we needed to flash each LSI controller with "IT" firmware. IT in this context means Initiator Target (also known as passthru). Ceph guides suggest IT/JBOD configuration in the storage controllers to maximize performance and to prevent crappy controller caches from interfering with Ceph's own redundancy.

Our servers from Supermicro include the LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS3008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-3 adapter. Each host also contains 11 storage drives at 12TB each (plus an SSD for the boot drive), 16 cores of Xeon Sky Lake processor, a whopping 256 GB of RAM, and 10 gig ethernet plugged into the University of Florida Campus Research Network (CRN).

Here are pictures of myself and Nicholas Rejack doing the firmware updates:


Photo by Grace Hong


Photo by Grace Hong

The new cluster contains over 900TB raw, getting us close to a Petabyte.

I am now working through SaltStack and systemd configurations, working up to the point where we can actually begin migrating objects from the old cluster to the new cluster.

This is going to barely be a race report. I find myself too busy to write very much or very often.

I rode the Florida Track Club bus to Jacksonville on the day of the race which was a great way to travel so early in the morning and not have to worry about parking. The bus parked inside the event grounds, very close to the registration area and post-race festivities.

I was not in top shape for racing, still fighting with some unhappy muscles / tendons here and there, so I planned to go out conservatively to see how I felt. This strategy worked well, I was able to keep my pace consistent throughout the race, push all the way up the Hart bridge and right over the top and have a very strong final mile.

My final time was 1:01:53 (avg. 6:38 per mile) which was good enough to earn a Top 10% finisher hat.

Some pics:


photo credit: marathon-photos.com

ARK: Survival Evolved is very very soon moving from Early Access to RELEASE! As mentioned in my first ARK screenshots post, ARK is available on Linux via Steam.

I thought I would post a few more screenshots.

The most recent patch (264.36 released on August 9, 2017) seems to have fixed a rendering bug (where water texture did not render properly) that was introduced a few patches ago. Also, I note that ARK seems to load a LOT faster now on Linux. I have not had a chance to see if Caves are still broken / unplayable on Linux due to rendering bugs like this:



The GOOD news is that the game continues to improve. These screenshots are from the free Ragnarok DLC huge expansion map:









The following screenshots are from older patch levels and / or other maps:

The Torch router was a Kickstarter project that was successfully funded and shipped product but the company failed shortly afterwards. Closed. Out of business.

"Torch. A simple router for digital parenting."

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-parenting

I was apparently not a backer but bought the product through their store so I am unable to leave a comment on Kickstarter (backers only). Maybe a backer will find this blog and post a comment on Kickstarter for the rest of the unfortunate customers.



This Torch router apparently depended on having access to the Torch cloud services which have been shutdown.

https://www.pcwrt.com/2017/06/the-tor...-is-better

This all happened before I even had a chance to turn mine on for the first time.

However, thanks to the fine folks at pcWRT, I was able to flash a new ROM onto the Torch and I now have a working router!

I just followed the basic steps in their quick flashing guide:

My Linux development computers are still running Ubuntu 14.04 which includes Python 2.7.

One of the libraries I commonly use to access websites or APIs from Python is "Requests: HTTP for Humans". Requests in turn leverages urllib3.  The following warning began popping up a while ago when making requests to SSL sites:

InsecurePlatformWarning: A true SSLContext object is not available. This prevents urllib3 from configuring SSL appropriately and may cause certain SSL connections to fail. You can upgrade to a newer version of Python to solve this. For more information, see https://urllib3.readthedocs.io/en/latest/advanced-usage.html#ssl-warnings

The solution is actually quite simple (especially if one is developing in a virtual environment), using pip install with the extra bits including the brackets:

$ pip install urllib3[secure]

From:

https://urllib3.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user-guide.html#ssl-py2

 

If you aren't developing in a python virtual environment... start developing in a pyton virtual environment! I suggest virtualenvwrapper over vanilla virtualenv.

https://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

 

ARK: Survival Evolved is a (currently Early Access) game that works natively on Linux and is available thru Steam. It combines aspects of survival, crafting and FPS (First Person Shooter) games with... dinosaurs! It can be addictive and also can be loads of fun. And DINOSAURS!

Here is my desktop hardware, with the graphics card a new purchase at the start of 2017.

Ubuntu 14.04
Intel i3-2105 CPU @ 3.10GHz
ZOTAC NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card
NVIDIA Driver Version: 375.26
monitor native resolution: 1920 x 1080


Rex vs. hatchet. Luckily, the T-Rex was already tamed.


Here are some more screenshots...