Weekly Refractions 2602

3 min read

More tech-focused than last week.

Lessons learnt

  • I started running out of my homelab’s disk space, so went shopping for two more NVMEs. Being complete and utter idiot I assumed that I can easily expand my array of disks, because I’d remembered reading blog posts about it. Comes out that indeed OpenZFS added expansion capabilities early last year, but that’s limited only to RAIDZ and not available for dRAID (which I - an eager early adopter - decided to use). The article about expanding dRAID was based on IBM’s implementation, not OpenZFS, unfortunately. Well, that just adds some days to the mission, spinning disk ordered, will need to destroy and re-create my array.
  • I mentioned disk space… Sad reality is, a chaotic person like me very often ends up with duplicates of files. I realized that there is wonderful way of getting rid of them – without days spent on tidying – tools like dupe-krill or rmlint. I used the former during x-mas break, to delay the unavoidable storage purchase. 1. The way it works is it identifies dupes (size first, then hash), and replaces second copies either with reflinks (if supprted by filesystem) or hardlinks. Simple and effective. Happiness.
  • Sharing a server with someone is refreshing. Even if it’s fully trusted person, and shell access is limited to VPN subnet, the mindset shifts. Immediately sets your mind on choosing appropriate file access rights, running services with appropriate privileges, putting more attention to updating the system and reducing downtime. Overall - good for keeping myself more structured and diligent when it comes to various aspects of the setup. If you keep a machine and have a viable use-case - highly recommending letting someone in, as “sharing is caring”, but also generating personal benefits like above!

Distractions and amusements

  • We managed to get into Yayoi Kusama’s exhibition in Fondation Beyeler - and as long as I’m not particularly a fan of Yayoi, it’s good to see that troubled outlier, who struggle with mental and societal issues, can be recognized / acclaimed before their death. Artists like Pirosmani (another artist whose exhibition this place held!), Van Gogh, Nikifor, Martín Ramírez - are the ones who got their fame very late or posthumously. And that does not seem fair.
  • Speaking of death, this week’s turn for dying was Scott Adams’. Brilliantly exposing absurds of corporate workplaces, his creations had been a cause of my multiple binge-crawling sessions on dilbert.com, website buried while the author was still alive. Of course I don’t support any form of racism, which he was alleged of, but I think so-called cancel culture somehow brings devastating outcomes, and authors like Heidegger still are worthy a read, even if personally they might not be material for a friend.

Footnotes

  1. If anybody reads it in distant future: end of 2025 brought us a spike of prices of RAM and storage - my new NVME solid-state disks costed me more than 2 years prior, being same capacity and speed… ↩

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