If you would like to learn more about the two dangerous legislations, please read “A technical examination of SOPA and PROTECT IP“. For more information about the blackout and the dangers that SOPA and PIPA, please visit AmericanCensorship.org.

So, instead of remembering a long URL or sending people to Google or Bing, all you need to remember is a simple URL: wwdt.me/stats. Yep, it’s now that simple to remember! :)

You can still access the page using the current URL, as I will be setting it up so that it automatically redirects you to the new URL.

Now, go and pass it on!

Gone are the heavy black surrounds, ribbons and left-margin post dates and say hello to a very simple design with muted shades. Like the previous design, the content blocks are fixed-width and sticks with the dark text on a light background. There are some other design elements that need to be worked on, including the use of other fonts and maybe a bit more nipping and tucking of block paddings and margins.

Hope you like it!

How would 20 ARM-based server nodes be able to fit into a 3U chassis? It has been done before, even with nodes that pull more than 15-20W each. Both Sun Microsystems and Compaq had a 3U blade server chassis that supported 20 blades (with one UltraSPARC IIe/IIi or one Pentium M processor, 1-2GB of RAM and one 2.5″ hard drive bay) and an Ethernet switch or pass-through module. One can use the same blade setup, use smaller and more efficient power supplies and cooling (as the need for power and cooling with be a lot less than 20W per blade), update the switch to support Gigabit downstream ports and 10Gbps Ethernet uplink ports, and reduce the chassis depth. I would even bet that one could find a way to fit 20 nodes in 2U of space without sacrificing any functionality or availability.

Well, HP has taken that idea and ratcheted it up to a very impressive scale. Project Moonshot crams 72 server nodes into a 2U half-width tray housing eighteen Calxeda EnergyCards and four external 10Gb/s XAUI ports. Four of those trays can slot into a 4U SL6500 chassis, for a total of 288 nodes (72 nodes per 1U). Each EnergyCard contains four EnergyCore processors with up to 4GB per processor and 4 SATA ports, all while drawing 25 watts. In turn, each EnergyCore processor comes in both two and four Cortex-A9 core configurations and has a high-throughput fabric switch built-in. The fabric switch provides multiplexed access to five 10Gb/s XAUI ports and six 1Gb/s SGMII ports, all of which is wrapped around by three 10GbE MAC ports. Each EnergyCore also provides five SATA ports, several PCIe controllers and an SD/eMMC controller (say, for booting an operating system).

While such an impressive setup may not immediately fit into common enterprise workloads, don’t be surprised to see these things popping up at places where companies need an enormous amount of light/moderate duty workloads that can be scaled out across thousands of threads; and, where the cost of power and cooling are at a premium. Both Ubuntu and Fedora can be used, though Windows Server 8 might be an option if Microsoft deems it to be worth the time and money.

That emptiness was for another creative, niche lens: a fisheye lens of some kind. The first fisheye lens that I have always considered for my D300 body is the Nikon AF DX Fisheye-NIKKOR 10.5mm f/2.8G ED. The lens has received some really good reviews and provides a 180-degree angle of view. The problem with the lens is that the price range is between $710-750 and it isn’t very useful if/when I move to a full-frame body.

The other fisheye lens that I have strongly considered is the Lensbaby Fisheye Optic that I could use with my Lensbaby Composer. The optic has a focal length of 12mm and provides a fully circular image when used on a full-frame body or a traditional fisheye image on a cropped-sensor body. It may not have the same level of optic quality as the Nikon fisheye lens, but the creative options would more than make up for any optical limitations. I would also be limited to manually focusing the lens, which isn’t a real pain due to the depth-of-field when stopped down. The optic-only route would only cost about $150; though, one can get it bundled with the Lensbaby Scout for $100 more at about $250.

I also looked at the Sigma fisheye lenses available, but the options were either designed specifically for full-frame or cropped-sensor bodies, but not really for both. There is still the issue with cost and having to be really, really cautious in handling the lenses due to the exposed front element.

So, I decided to go down the Lensbaby option and picked up the Lensbaby Scout with Fisheye Optic kit. Why would I spend the extra $100 for the Scout when I already have the Composer? Very, very simple… the Scout does not have the tilting feature that the Composer has and keeps the Optic centered. It also allows me to dedicate my Composer for another optic kit: the Sweet 35 Optic (but that’s for a future post).

Using the Scout and the Fisheye Optic is very simple to use, though mounting the Scout on to my D300 isn’t quite as smooth as mounting the Composer (a bit more resistance). Unlike the other Lensbaby optics (excluding the Sweet 35 Optic), swapping out the aperture disks requires unscrewing the front element piece. Other than that difference, I treat it like any other manual focus lens. If you have a Nikon body that allows for non-CPU lens data to be entered, you will want to key it in. I also had to tweak the exposure compensation depending on the lighting conditions.

Is it a perfect alternative to the Nikon or Sigma fisheye lenses? Not exactly, as some would prefer having an auto-focus lens over a pure manual-focus lens. Also, the Lensbaby Fisheye Optic still has many of the qualities of a Lensbaby optic, which may not be optimal for creating panoramas or 100% accurate architectural compositions. I may still pick up an appropriate fisheye lens for those tasks at some point in the future.

I am now working on adding in show descriptions for shows, filling the void between 2000 and 2004. This process will probably take a couple of weeks to complete. Thankfully, it isn’t quite as tedious as entering in the list of Not My Job guests. Please note that I am basing the show descriptions on what is listed in the show archives on NPR.org, so the level of detail may vary dramatically.

Once that has been completed, I will work on filling in the data for shows prior to 2000. It’s just easier to do it in chunks, particularly when the really early show information pages aren’t as easy to parse.