Winston.Milli.ng

I am just a little slow at writing blog posts, but you know, thats alright. As I am sure you can tell from the image above, the cluster has been running in the new configuration for a few months at this point and besides some non-hardware specific issues, it has been a good transition. My server rack is a good bit quieter since being able to shut down the old HP server and probably running on a few less watts as well. While I did lose my cluster age counter being over 950 days in the process, the cluster is still the exact same one I started with as each component has been replaced Ship of Theseus style in the process.

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Nota Bene: This was written well before it got posted, cluster has been re-built, new post to come.

I am on the verge of retiring some of my current infrastructure that has been serving me well for about four years. My current Kubernetes cluster has been operational on this hardware coming up on three years. It is surprising I have lasted this long before the itch to change something caused me to buy something new… But, before I go into anything about the hardware I have purchased and plans that I have for it, I figured I might as well document the state of my compute world today (at least as far as it pertains to my home Kubernetes cluster).

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I recently pre-purchased a Pinebook Pro; An ARM based, 14" laptop being sold by Pine64 (Pine Microsystems, Inc.) for the low price of $199 USD. This is the second such device released in this form factor by Pine64 who originally became known for their single-board computers which compete with the likes of the Raspberry Pi. The first laptop they produced was the Pinebook which came out in 2017 for only $89 USD in its original form and $99 USD in its current, upgraded form. The original Pinebooks were more of a tinkerer’s laptop and never meant to be a daily driver, but the upgraded specs of this incarnation put it squarely in the ring with mainstream chromebooks and the ilk.

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I neglect my personal websites sometimes, but I don’t think that is a problem unique to myself. If this visit is your first time back here in a while, you may have come from WRMilling.com, W4C.BE, or WinstonMilling.dev (all of which now redirect to different portions of this site). Running specific domains for differing purposes and audiences is not a bad thing, but I don’t think my limited online presence necessitates it. Therefore, my previous resume site, blog, and professional landing page are now all one in Winston.Milli.ng.

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I have a few projects coming up that I hope to start blogging about, but to kick the series off I am going to document an older build (~5 years old). I have always wanted a “proper” home theater with a decent projector, nice screen, and immersive sound. That has, of course, taken a back seat to so many other priorities but I at least I have a screen to show for it.

The Design

I went for something I thought was straight forward: a wood frame and cloth screen. What I ended up with was something that was probably over-engineered/overkill for my use case but something I am happy with either way. It started with a couple drawings in my project notebook with an emphasis on preventing any sagging in the screen over time. The screen had to be supported from the sides due to a double-wide window being located behind the screen.

I decided on a 128" screen early on, mostly because the projector I was looking at supported the size and it looked like it would fill the wall well. All in, it probably cost around $250 to build, including all the extra hardware bits I could probably do without.

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