Category Archives: Technical

Cold Spell

Posted on by

It was 11 degrees F this morning when I drove my daughter to school. We didn’t make her walk to school. Her generation is so coddled. When I was her age …

But it is quite cold here. Our upstairs HVAC that is in the uninsulated attic stopped working this morning because the drain line froze. The good news is the work is still under warranty and we aren’t heating the attic.

I got the following email yesterday.

Good Afternoon,

Please pass along the following important energy conservation message to all building occupants.

Anticipated cold temperatures on Thursday and Friday will challenge power delivery systems for Duke Energy, the main provider of campus electricity. To help maintain power supply in our region, please limit non-essential campus energy use on Jan. 8 and 9:

  • Turn off and unplug office equipment and appliances that are not vital or not in use
  • Ensure all exterior windows and doors are closed
  • Turn off lights in rooms that are not in use
  • Shut off all space heaters
  • Close lab fume hood sashes that are not in use

These actions will save energy on campus and help maintain reliable power supply during extreme conditions. For more ways to save energy, visit go.ncsu.edu/SaveEnergy

It is somewhat disturbing that our electric grid is this fragile.

Tab colors in iTerm2

Posted on by

I’m old school and still do much work in a terminal. My preferred terminal is iTerm2. I use multiple windows and multiple tabs/window. I tend to have lots of suspended work or session, which I keep in tabs. It is convenient to use separate tabs for each task for many reasons. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to find the correct tab when there is time to return to the task.

I have started using colored tabs as a way to (more) quickly identify tabs. The problem is that tab colors are a menu item (I prefer command line) and most of the default tab colors are ugly.

My solution is Ken Snyder’s tab colors. Thanks, Ken.

Python is not a scripting language

Posted on by

Many refer to Python as a scripting language. I heard it again last week. It came from an accomplished computer science professor and colleague. This comment was borne of ignorance: He has little experience with Python.

While there is no universal definition of a scripting language, calling Python a scripting language is ignorant. Python is the underlying language for a web framework (Django) that powers monster sites like Instagram and Pinterest. Python has major libraries like numpy and NLTK. The features of Python are too numerous to list but certainly they greatly exceed those of a language typically called a scripting language.

EMC’s Project Liberty

Posted on by

We have long noted that NetApp is a software company that wraps hardware around its software. While this is an intentional over simplification, it makes the point that NetApp’s primary value add is ONTAP (their OS/Filesystem).

This wasn’t noted about EMC, partly because it owns VMware and partly due to ignorance. But EMC may be no different from NetApp in this respect. EMC has unbundled their VNX software from their hardware. Read about it here.

Such a move is dramatic. It opens the way for complete commoditization of hardware. It is not clear how this will shake up the industry. Hopefully, it leads to healthy competition resulting in lower prices and greater choices for consumers. Of course that is not EMC’s motivation. It may be reactive because they feel the sun is setting on enterprise SAN (and NAS) and this is the best way for VNX to remain relevant.

The Return of Tape Storage

Posted on by

Sony has increased bit density of tape to 148GB per square inch up from the previous record fo 29.5GB. That is about 6 Blu-ray DVDs per square inch. A single tape cassette can hold 185TB.

Tape storage will still be a niche because access is slow and non-sequential access is death. Read more here.