Eet Not Crang: All cynicism all the time....or just Torrey's weblog. Whatever works for you.

I'm not a very political person. At least not in terms of classic politics like you find all over the DC area. However, one thing recently popped into my head and I'm having problems letting it go.

By now everyone knows that oil is a lot more expensive then it used to be. Why? Supply and demand. We have a set amount, more people are using it, costs goes up. Classic change in the demand curve. Everyone is running around saying, "We need more domestic sources of oil. Let's dig in ... " some set amount of places like ANWR or off the coast.

Unless I missed something the oil companies that sell to the US market are huge multi-national conglomerates. They sell to everyone far and wide based on, you guessed it, supply and demand. There are no national oil companies that sell only to the US.

Here's my question: What does getting some additional amount of oil in the US do to help people in the US? What's to stop Chevron, or Exxon, or whomever drills up the US, causing environmental havoc of some sorts, and selling it someplace outside the US? What am I missing here?

The OpenSolaris FCoE target is now available. The initiator is next and coming sooooooon. Congrats to the team.

I know, I say this a lot, but really was this necessary?

Seriously - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Sometimes it takes awhile for some of our internal Sun processes to get results. It's taken some time but now the world at large can use some of the excellent internal storage testing and analysis tools our pre-sales, internal test teams, and ProfServices groups have been using for years. Many have heard about them but now everyone can check them out.

That's right. After much work Henk Vandenbergh and others have released the benchmark tools they've developed in house for use by everyone that wants to download them. Swat 3.00 and Vdbench 4.07 are now just a click away. Note that you can't call Service for bugs or issues so please contact the developers directly per the docs. Also, these versions still have a time bomb where they'll stop working but the next version will remove that. Swat 3.00 will expire on September 3, 2009 and Vdbench 4.07 will expire on April 25, 2009

Have at it folks!

For a long time customers have been asking for mpxio to work with the midrange line of storage arrays from Hitachi. Well, now you can have it with just a couple things

• This only works today with the AMS1000/500/200 WMS100
• You must be running microcode 0773/D or later
• Solaris 10 05/08 with patches 138308-02 for Sparc or 138309-02 for x86/x64 is required

You should set your array as follows

AMS/WMS series setting

• Host Group Options
• Platform: Solaris
• Alternate Path: MPxIO
• Failover: None or Sun Cluster
• Host Connection Mode 1: Standard Mode
• Host Connection Mode 2:
• SPC-2 Mode
• Reset Propagation Mode

Also make sure that if you were one of the folks that have been running in a, lets call it, "interesting config" in the past that you undue your previous work.

Back in May I mentioned I got a fancy Tempurpedic mattress set. Well, its gone back to the store. Why am I mentioning this? Well, as with the last bit, I thought people just might be interested in my take on it if they want to avoid problems. First, the smell was pretty bad for awhile. Not, "I'm going to throw up" bad but a distinct chemical aroma you might find unpleasant. Took about three weeks for it to go away. Second, anything you put between you and the mattress take away from the feel. Mattress pad? Don't even think about it. Three, its too squishy. Once you're in a position you're staying there. Try not to move around a lot because, well, you're going to be working at it. Fourth, it gets hot. The foam heats up pretty quickly and doesn't dispense heat the way a "normal" mattress does.

I'm sure lots of people love these things but it was not for me so....out it went. Make sure you shop at a place that lets you bring it back. Even for a fee its worth it then eating a few grand or sleeping badly for a few years.

I must be in a music mood lately. (At least the last two posts....) However, this is even better then The Darkness.
One of my fave bands from the mid 90s is doing a mini reunion tour. Shudder To Think You might remember them from this video that saw all sorts of MTV time back when MTV played videos. (I'd embed it but I can't and this version is much better then the crappy YouTube version.)

Remember that band? I can't belive this is five years old.

(21:51:26) Ed: There's going to be a Yaz date in DC
(21:51:39) Ed: tickets go on sale on Thursday
(21:51:45) Ed: Sunday July 20th
(21:51:54) Ed: do I want to see the show twice?
(21:53:08) Torrey: That's the most idiotic question you've asked me
(21:53:09) Torrey: Ever
(21:53:26) Ed: the answer is yes then

If you're the person that told Scarlett she can sing......

....you fail.

I just got a new mattress set. First replacement in about nine years so it was about time. Looked far and wide and settled on a Tempurpedic set with pillows and the works. Its extremely comfortable though a bit more then the average set.

You're thinking, "Why are you telling me this Torrey? What's the point?" Well, for those out there thinking of the same thing you should be warned that they smell for the first few days. To me its not a bad smell so much as a distinct aroma. It kind of smells like some plastic monster died in my bedroom and its permeating the surrounding air.

... about who the people of West VA vote for?

Seriously - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

I'm going to provide a picture. Please leave a caption in the comments section of this blog. Best comment wins a prize. Only one rule: No naughty words or explicit remarks. However, innuendo is encouraged!

Here's our first contestant

 

Remember: Caption the photo by leaving a comment! 

I live near Washington D.C. in the 703. Its January 8th and its about 70 degrees outside. Did someone move the state while I was partying on New Year's Eve? Did I miss a memo or something?

I've mentioned it in the past but I contribute some time to the blastwave folks doing Solaris packages of a few opensource packages. Its been a busy month but I've got new versions of

• gnutls
• libgcrypt
• pidgin
• pidgin-otr
• opencdk
• libgpg-error
• silctoolkit

out for those interested. It took me a while to get pidgin done because of some fun dependencies and, being a new package, took some extra time.