Secret Sauce For Minimizing Resources Without Sacrificing Performance For VMs

March 26, 2013 No comments

Once again, I felt like a chemist or a cook in the kitchen when reading the publication “Algorithm Design for Performance Aware VM Consolidation“, written by Alan Roytman, Aman Kansal, Sriram Govindan, Jie Liu, and Suman Nath over at MSR.  The conclusion is that optimally aligning VMs based on predictive workloads and reducing contention amongst VMs on shared infrastructure will generate a…

… proposed system realiz[ing] over 30% savings in energy costs and up to 52% reduction in performance degradation”

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Restaurants with Playscapes in Austin, TX

February 2, 2013 No comments

For all of you parents in Austin… here are some restaurants that have playscapes.   I scraped this data off the web and placed it on a google map.  I originally created it using a google spreadsheet and a map gadget, but 2 things made this a bad idea.  First, it took an extremely long time to render the gadget.  Secondly, gadgets on google docs are set to disappear in a few months.

Solution?  I just learned about Fusion Tables in Google.  Boy,  I wish I learned about these sooner with all of my huge spreadsheets…. (more…)

Homemade Goat Milk Ricotta

January 1, 2013 No comments

Ricotta cheese is a favorite cheese of mine and I always wondered how you make it.  I often eat it by sneaking a spoonful here and there while I’m making lasagna or baked ziti.  Let’s face it I’m addicted to ricotta and can eat a whole container if I had the time.

When I did my sleuthing on the internet, I came across a dozen different recipes.  All of them consistently described that ricotta is as simple as milk, temperature, and acid:  An hour later you have ricotta cheese.  With this info, I’ve come up with a recipe of my own.  The traditional way is to let the acid sit with the milk for 12 to 24 hours at room temperature, then heating it to near boil.  This miraculously develops curds that can then be strained out.

[Day 22] Trip3l – 512 Brewing Company

September 20, 2012 No comments

You gotta love a movie theater that has a selection of beverages like this.  

So, I’m set to watch “Campaign” at the movie theater and decided to true up on my beer log by trying the Trip3l. (more…)

[Day 23] Lucky Ol Sun – Ranger Creek

September 20, 2012 No comments

This is the first morning that I felt very fresh!  Partly, because the evening before is the first time in a while that I didn’t feel exhausted.  Now that Tammy has graduated from AOMA, we have our weeks free when Isabel is dropped off.  This afternoon, I decided to go to Opal Divines for lunch with Tammy.  I had the Lucky Ol’ Sun from Ranger Creek brewery in San Antonio, TX.  It’s described as a golden ale with pilsner malt, candy sugar and Texas honey.  How could I resist.

Beer Advocate has it categorized as a Belgian Strong Ale, but I disagree.  This is a rather light beer in taste.  If I breathed in the bursty carbonation before my sit I got a tasty feel for cotton candy vapors.  The honey came through, but in a sweet mature way.  I could really sense the rock candy swirl that was playing like a washing machine in my mouth.

This complimented my chicken finger lunch extremely well.  An excellent summer companion.

[Day 24] Vanilla Porter Ale – Breckenridge Brewery

September 19, 2012 No comments

It’s 10am and I dropped off Molly at Groomingdales, which I highly recommend if your pets need some love here in Austin.  On my way back home I decided to do a pit stop at Thunderbird Coffee.  But I didn’t come here to drink a cup of joe, but rather to drink a Vanilla Porter Ale from Breckenridge Brewery in CO.

At first the pour into the chilled pint glass didn’t seem to surprise me. (more…)

[Day 25] Shiner Black Lager – Spoetzl Brewery

September 19, 2012 No comments

A bohemian or Schwarzbier lager that is very rich and tasty.  This is leftover from my daughters 3rd birthday party.  I’ll admit, I’ve had this beer before and really looked forward to trying it again.  I drank it straight out of the bottle and not into  a pint glass, so no comments on the color and head of this malty, chocolaty, and roasted beer.  It reminds me of drinking a nicely chilled coffee toddy.  It will suit you well if you drank this on a hot summer day, and being in Texas, that is usually 9 months out of the year.

[Day 26] – Shiner Kosmos – Spoetzl Brewery

September 19, 2012 No comments

Boy am I behind in my updating my beer log.  I should be on Day 23, but I’m playing catch-up in logging my findings.  Sunday, I’m getting ready for my daughters 3rd birthday party and  I bought the Costco Shiner melody of beers.  In it was their Shiner Kosmos, an American Pale Lager.

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Unable to read repository at… for Eclipse. Simple fix perhaps?

September 18, 2012 No comments

Trying to install Pydev for Eclipse somehow got me into a funky state with some corrupt jar files and I kept receiving the error below:

Error
Tue Sep 18 19:27:38 CDT 2012
Unable to read repository at file:/C:/Users/Mark/dev/eclipse/p2/org.eclipse.equinox.p2.repository/cache/content564205554.jar.

I simply went into the “Available Software Sites” preference, highlighted Pydev and Pydev Extensions, then I selected Reload and voilà.  The problem went away.  I guess using somehow the proxy on my internet sharing phone went gefunkt.

 

[Day 27] St. Bernardus Abt 12

September 15, 2012 No comments

The countdown starts.  27 days till lift off to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival.  I figured that a worthy goal is to try a beer that I have never had before each day for the next 27 days.  So hear it goes, day 27, I’m enjoying a St. Bernardus Abt 12. (more…)

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