So ... if you were handed TWO of the following:

6U worth of server
Dual Xeon E5540
72GB of RAM
6x internal 300GB 15k RPM SAS disks (on a RAID controller with 256MB of cache)
15x external 146GB 15k RPM SAS disks (on a RAID controller with 512MB of cache)
870W redundant power supplies

... what would you do with them? I don't know either, for the record, but I imagine they're going to be loud, hot enough to grill hot dogs, and more powerful than most of our customers' database servers. We've got the "loud" and "hot" parts bottled up -- they're going into an air conditioned server room -- but as for the unknown purpose and power, I haven't quite figured that out yet. I'm guessing there will be a bunch of virtualization going on.

Saw the 6th Harry Potter movie last night. Overall I left the theater on a positive note, but I have mixed feelings about the differences between the book and movie.

I'm not going to sit here and bitch that the book was "so much better" ... no, unlike a lot of movie critics and Harry Potter fans I understand that there is no way to condense the Half Blood Prince into 150 minutes without taking some creative liberties. However, there are a couple of things that would have been great to see.

For example, the movie would have benefited from the huge battle for Hogwarts at the end of the book. Instead, we were given a small tantrum.

But ... as I said, overall positive impression. Wish I saw it in Imax, though ... stupid Transforms exclusivity agreement ...

The other day I wrote a nice post for this website. I clicked the "Post" button but it appears that the post was not uploaded.

Obviously, everything I went to post about the convenience of 3G wireless access and Opera Mini on the BlackBerry can be completely ignored. Yes, it would be cool to post whenever I felt like it, wherever I felt like it ... but Opera Mini doesn't like the "Post" button on this site.

Many thanks to Mike Lee for letting me know the server hosting my site (among others) has been upgraded

You've all read, heard, and seen the news: Michael Jackson is dead. I just watched the coroner's van containing his body pull into the coroner's office.

It's all kind of surreal. When my age was a single-digit number I remember listening to all sorts of Michael Jackson songs -- Thriller, Bad, Beat It, Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', Billie Jean, P.Y.T. ... the list goes on and on.

Needless to say I stopped listening to that particular style of music altogether, but I didn't change the station when a Michael Jackson song came on the radio. I guess it just stuck with me regardless of what I happened to be doing or where I was. Over time, though, the songs weren't played as frequently and I didn't exactly go out of my way to listen. Despite this, Michael Jackson's music and influence was ever-present.

The media attention, the trials, the baby dangling, all that stuff made him the butt of many jokes, but behind all of the social awkwardness was an icon, an influential figure, and an incredibly talented performer. I know you have a white glove somewhere, so put it on, grab your crotch, and yell "OW!" in tribute. Long live the King!