Mental Purgatory

Exploring Cassandra, and Other NoSQL Options

Mar 102013

At work we’ve been trying to find an alternative for our data storage system. We track around one billion data points of System Metrics on a daily basis, which has caused a great amount of strain on our database. These data points are incredibly simple, comprising an “instanceId,” a “datetime,” and a “value.” Before I get into our Cassandra explorations, it would probably help to explain our current system. We currently have a SQL storage solution across two storage mediums and three tables. Because most of our reading/writing happens within the last week, we have a 400GB fusion drive which stores the last week of data. As this data gets older (and passes that one week cutoff), we roll it Read More

Search For Economic Recovery

Politics No Responses »

Aug 112011

With the sudden drop in the stock market and the renewed focus on the economic depression, I thought I would post something I wrote elsewhere last year. While my views on economic action have changed slightly, and I would be better able to tie in new points based upon the current economic standing, the post still stands to represent my feelings on the search for a stabilized economy. I figured I would post this just to get something to appear on the site while I ponder the potential to focus my rants here, instead of in my fiance’s ear. Every time you turn on the news, you likely hear some sort of story about the economy. Job numbers, unemployment numbers, Read More

Wonder of Autoblogging

Web Projects No Responses »

Jan 152011

As I’ve tried to expand my sites network beyond just R&B Haven and Mental Purgatory, I’ve discovered the challenge of regularly maintaining a large number of sites. Especially with a full time job, it’s just impossible to make blog posts on every site. As such, something needs to be done to mitigate some of the stress and to keep the sites regularly updated. Autoblogging is the key here. Autoblogging is a technique where the sites will automatically post new blog entries without any work. Of course, doing this with original content is pretty much impossible as computers have yet to turn sentient. However, you can pull posts from other sites and offer snippets with links to the other sites. This Read More

Investing Tips I’ve Learned Part 1: Trust the Funds

Money No Responses »

Jan 132011

Lately I’ve been trying to read more and more about investing strategies and the best things to do with your money. One of my favorite sites to read up on this is bogleheads, where a group of investors inspired by Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, discuss finances. Given their inspiration, the site likely has a slight bias, but its members are incredibly well read and offer a tremendous amount of information. The biggest lesson I’ve learned from there is the importance of investing in funds. When I first started investing, I was eager to prove my brilliance. I bought a portfolio of 6 stocks which I placed my faith in. I then expanded this to 12 as I found Read More

Addressing Typical Fair Tax Counterpoints

Politics 1 Response »

Jan 092011

So some people in favor of the fair tax might be upset because my last post doesn’t address some of the solutions they’ve put in check to handle the problems I bring up. However, I’m still not convinced that those remedies make the fair tax any better of a tax system, so I figured I would put them here. The first point made when discussing the imbalance of a national sales tax is to make the tax only affect luxury goods, or to opt out on the items that are basic necessities. In this way, poor people would be able to pay for the things they need to live, and wouldn’t face the burdens of the taxes as much. However, Read More

Why the Fair Tax (National Sales Tax) Isn’t Fair

Politics No Responses »

Jan 062011

So during a recent rant of mine about government, politics, and economic stimulus, someone brought up the concept of the national sales tax. They said that this form of taxation would be significantly fairer than the income tax because everyone would be taxed at the same levels, and would remove the bloat of the IRS from the government budget. Despite my attempts at convincing them that a national sales tax would not be fair, they refused to accept my arguments (their reasoning being that statistics and percentages are “misleading”). Despite that, I figured I would just leave it here for your personal enjoyment. First, to explain the concept. A national sales tax, or the “fair tax” as it is often Read More

Frugality – Moving Money Overseas

Money 2 Responses »

Jan 032011

As I’m constantly looking for new ways to save money, I figured I would try and store some of the things I’ve learned and am trying here. This first tip stems from some research I did when a friend was deciding to study abroad for a semester. When studying abroad, you face the question of how best to get a large sum of money overseas to whatever country you may be staying in. My friend was going to be studying in Germany and so, planned to wire money through Western Union to a bank account he would create upon his arrival in the country. However, Western Union said that the process would cost 150$ for a 3500$ transfer. While I Read More

The Good in People

Musings No Responses »

Jun 282009

Yesterday, I attended the expansion celebrations at the Queen Afua Wellness Center in Brooklyn, New York. I’ve never heard of Queen Afua, but Erykah Badu was supposed to be there so I went, press badge in hand. Walking around with a small Nikon compact camera and my IRiver for recording, I was the odd man out compared to the other reporters with HD camcorders and digital SLRs. But alas, this post isn’t about me, but something Erykah said. When someone asked her some long convoluted question that seemed more of an attempt to get attention than anything else, Erykah took it in stride and said “First, I am a spiritual being. Second, I’m a human being. Only after that am Read More

The Broken Window

Musings 4 Responses »

Jun 112009

At work my boss suggested/asked/recommended that I read a book called The Pragmatic Programmer. While the book is great and deals with a lot of interesting lessons in computer programming, I decided to write about it here for its applicability in your every day life. One of the concepts that struck me most was this idea of the broken window. The book said that the thing that serves as the catalyst for building degradation is a window breaking and not being fixed. After a window breaks and doesn’t get fixed, the entire buildings would slowly fall apart with property damage and graffiti and the whole nine yards. In one experiment, an abandoned car was left outside an apartment building for Read More

Story Idea, Moved to TryCreativeWriting

Creative Writing, Web Projects No Responses »

Jun 112009

So I just wanted to let everyone know I’ve moved the story idea posts completely to Try Creative Writing. While I love doing them, and love sharing them with everyone else, I felt like they were cluttering up the blog too much and taking away from it’s original purpose. While I will keep you guys updated as I move closer and closer towards the novel, I’m going to keep those posts exclusively on the writing blog. So if you’re interested in how they progress, check them out there! But in the mean time, this blog will return to mostly focusing on odds and ends that I think about, with the occasional post on writing.

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