* Posts by Austin Pass

9 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Mar 2007

O2 and Be customers suffer network congestion

Austin Pass
Go

In balance...

I live "in the sticks" (Holmfirth) and my line only sync's at 5.8Mb/s down and 1.3Mb/s up. I can download at 640Kb/s at any time of day or night without exception. I'm not a gamer, and as such don't investigate the latency on my connection as a matter of course but sites do load snappily which wouldn't be the case if I were experiencing some of the hiseoudly high ping times other people are reporting (I can currently PING www.google.co.uk at an average of 130ms @ 20:40). I'm personally convinced that Be aren't traffic shaping.

I like their service and the fact that I have a control panel where I can adjust the SNR on my line and turn on/off fastpath endears them to me greatly. In my experience they are a reliable as Zen (my previous ISP) and the price is right, too. Customer service isn't as good as Zen, sure, but I never need them - reliability is rock-solid. In addition, their generous upstream bandwidth means that I can use high definition video conferencing with work. I recommend them to anyone, based on my own experiences.

iSCSI: Game over

Austin Pass
Stop

Eh?

So if the problems with iSCSI are down to the drawbacks imposed by ethernet (latency, retransmission-induced latency) and iSCSI works happily over 10GigE as well (why wouldn't it - it's all ethernet after all) then surely the question should be....

"Why would anyone bother with this new fangled FCoE when iSCSI is already doing this?"

Or am I missing something....

Research: Wind power pricier, emits more CO2 than thought

Austin Pass
Happy

Tee hee.

@ Chris W.

The earth doesn't spin because the wind pushes it. Neither is it flat, the moon made of cheese etc. Very cute.

The Earth has been spinning since accretion formed it. It would take quite a few propellors being wafted around to counteract the spin, especially as their rotating mass is *slightly* insignificant compared to that of the planet itself. Note also that their blades aren't being driven directly by the fabric of space-time itself, rather the gas that is spinning along with the planet.

Look at it this way - the only thing that has *any effect at all* on the Earth's spin is the moon, and if the gravitational pull of an object weighing it at 7.3477×1022 kg which is "only" 300,000ish kilometres away has little effect, then the counter-rotating mass of a few whirlygigs will do sod all.

Ankle-biting hackers storm net's overlords, hijack their domains

Austin Pass

Customised TLD's eh?

At last, I can register trashbat.cock for my good friend Nathan.

Fellow from AMD ridicules Cell as accelerator weakling

Austin Pass
Stop

Unfortunate timing...

As the world's first petaflop supercomputer is unveiled, based around [...drumroll...] AMD Opterons and IBM Cell processors!

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/technology/09petaflops.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

A somewhat apples and oranges comparison, I freely admit, but it does detract from the statement that the Cell architecture is an "accelerator weakling".

Cisco punts massive Nexus 7000 switch

Austin Pass

TFTP, alas only in my dreams.

I've only had the (dis)pleasure of this task with Catalyst 6509's and 3750's, and I can confirm that TFTP wasn't an option for me. My exposure to the full range of routers / switches et al is (in truth) limited.

But seriously guys, when your core switch (say a 6509, 720SUP fabric, couple o' 48 port gigabit SFP fabrics) costs in the region of £50,000, am I truly insane to expect a 21st century web interface, a USB port to replace / upgrade the IOS and more than 32MB to store the compressed IOS? How much would it cost Cisco to bolt that functionality on?

Cisco kit reeks of a protectionist "old boys network" (of which I'm a part!) Providing you understand the underlying principles of what you're trying to achieve, why does it need to be this difficult?

Austin Pass

More costly training.

Oh good, a whole new Cisco OS. I'm convinced their business model is based primarily around emptying the pockets of CCNA's and CCIE's.

Why else would the IOS be one of the most obtuse and awkward means of configuring equipment known to man?

Cisco kit is like a Lamborghini Murcielago with a drivers seat made from razor blades - all performance and zero useability. What other excuse can there be for equipment that *requires* configuration from a command-line in 2008? Accidentally wiped the IOS binary from the "capacious" 32MB of flash memory on your switch? Not a problem, just transfer it using XModem via a 9600bps serial connection - see you in 6 hours.....

Curry may combat Alzheimer's

Austin Pass

12-24 hour "aftermath" memory.

If the indicator of reduced symptoms was simply "What did you eat for dinner last night?" then the results may have been less to do with curcuminoids and more to do with digestive discomfort. ;-)

i.e. Even the most confused of alzheimer sufferers might assume an answer of "curry" if they're backfiring like a G-reg Skoda.

French succumb to Franglais

Austin Pass

Argentine Spanglish

Argentine Spanglish offers a couple of notable linguistic train wrecks:

"Muy fashion!" - in the instance that something is modern / fashionable.

"Muy top!" - in the instance that something is good or otherwise laudable.

Shudder.