SOPA is downright dirty

Lots of you have at least heard someone say the acronym "SOPA". If you've ever wondered what it is, this bit's for you. If you're not interested in the least about American law or your legal rights being eroded by corporations, don't bother with this post.

Most of you know that I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and that I'm not against large corporations. In America, businesses aspire to become large and successful. And that's perfectly acceptable to me. But, the capitalist free-market system breaks down completely when you give one group preferential treatment over another. And, like most forms of government, it's easiest to influence officials with money. Lots of money.

So, what does this have to do with SOPA? And what is SOPA in the first place. S.O.P.A. is the acronym for the "Stop Online Piracy Act"- A bill that is currently being proposed by the US House of Representatives (Here). In effect, SOPA boils down to a few basic ideas:

• Piracy is running rampant on the Internet
• More piracy means less revenue
• Less revenue means fewer jobs
• Industry needs tools to stop piracy
• Law enforcement needs more swift authority to stop piracy
• Law enforcement needs to be able to seize sites, servers, and domains suspected of piracy

On the surface, you'd think this is something worth supporting. It's a bit of hyperbole to say that piracy supports terrorists or that piracy is taking down the entertainment industry, as their TV and radio advertisements would have you believe, but we get the point. Lots of people are stealing lots of content, and we need a way to stop that.

But as you begin to really think it over, you quickly realize law enforcement agencies already have the authority to seize property used to commit a crime, and property obtained through criminal acts. So, there's no need for new legislation granting them the same tools they already have. But wait! SOPA doesn't want to take down sites whose owners have been convicted. They want to take down sites that are suspected. And this suspicion doesn't have to come from a lengthy investigation, like it would if the police suspected you of a crime. Instead, all a copyright holder would have to do is believe content has been pirated. So, if you post a video to Youtube and it has a clip from a popular NBC show, they will flag it to be removed. Under SOPA, this literally means Youtube.com could be seized from Google! Even though your clip should be protected under fair use. Even worse, this kind of action has already been used to censor videos, text, and pictures by several different groups. All these groups would have to do is file a complaint that your site is pirating material, and down goes your site!

This might seem far fetched, but as I alluded to, most of the provisions requested in SOPA already exist in one bill or another. A perfect example of what can happen is the case of Dajaz1.com. A site that legally posted music for viewers to listen to. It was swept up by the Department of Justice with 350 other sites at a single time. The domain was taken from the owner! This is tantamount to the police taking your car without actual evidence you've done anything wrong! And in the end (a year later), the DoJ determined that Dajaz1.com was, in fact, operating legally and the domain was returned. Meanwhile, the site's owner was out of business for an entire year with literally no legal avenue for recourse. To read a long report about what happened, check out the NYTimes piece here.

I'm not the only one that believes this will become the rule and not the exception if SOPA were allowed to pass. In fact, today (Jan. 18, 2012) is SOPA Blackout day. See the list of sites, action items, protest sites, etc. at http://sopastrike.com/. The list of sites is pretty impressive, and the number of companies putting their money where their mouth is impresses me.

So, to learn the facts about SOPA, I'd urge you to check out the Wikipedia article here, the Google information here, and of course to SOPAStrike site here. You can find Google's search results for SOPA here, which is currently blowing up with information from news sources around the world. I also think you should read some pro-SOPA info including the GovTrack page here, the MPAA letter to the House of Representatives here (PDF File), and finally an article found on the eMediaLaw site here.

We, as Americans need to defend our intelectual property rights, but we need to do it in a way that doesn't come at such a severe cost the the citizens. After all, while a corporation may be recognized as a legal entity with all the rights of a person, they still can't vote. Please use the Wikipedia page here to contact your representatives and tell them what you think of SOPA- for or against.

A personal rant

I usually try not to get too into these kinds of things, because I have many friends and family with many different beliefs and I do my best not to offend them. But every once in a while, a little gem like this study comes along and deserves a little bit of a "DUH!" reaction.

So, The Barna Group, a group that studies the "intersection of faith and culture", published an article titled "Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church". The article comes from a five year project with the goal of creating a more durable faith in today's children. While I can give one great reason I don't go to church, I suppose I could easily come up with six or so that lead me to Atheism. Many of those reasons are actually covered in this survey, which I find humorous itself. Common sense issues that have lead the "flock" to stray from the church that have been issues for 20+ years now. Way to get out ahead of it, guys!

Anyway, here are the six categories and some breakdowns of how the group(s) surveyed answered.

Reason #1 – Churches seem overprotective.

• 23% answered “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” completely or mostly describes their experience with the church.
• 22% answered “church ignoring the problems of the real world”
• 18% said “my church is too concerned that movies, music, and video games are harmful”

I'm pretty sure nobody in the real world is shocked by these clusters of answers, and there really isn't much to say about this. Religion tells us what we should and shouldn't do in all aspects of life, and kids tend to get annoyed by that kind of overbearing protectiveness. I personally find myself in the 22% that says church completely ignores the problems in the real world, but the problems of the world I see are very different than the ones I saw as a child.

Reason #2 – Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.

• 31% responded "church is boring"
• 24% said "faith is not relevant to my career or interests
• 23% noted "the bible is not taught clearly or often enough"
• 20% said "god seems missing from my experience of church"

Shocking revelations in this category, I know. People are bored by listening to a preacher carry on for an hour, telling them what to do instead of an hour of discussing what's going on in the world and what we think about it. Hasn't anybody ever noticed that when you TELL people how to behave, they ignore you completely. But, if you let them think they've come to the answer themselves, they tend to feel more personally connected to it? That was rhetorical...the answer is "no" when it comes to church.

Also, I think the bible should be taught clearly in church or "bible study". I think more people would find that they completely disagree with the vast majority of the things in the bible, not least of which is how to properly keep slaves, how to divide the spoils of war (how to rape your victims' women), how to blindly follow the voices in your head and kill your children, and other such timeless lessons. So, I agree with these kids, but not for the reason the survey would like.

With regard to god being missing from the church experience, that's not really shocking either. Again, it's hard to feel the presence of any higher power at 9am on a Sunday with a priest or preacher re-enacting rituals from the dark ages. Many churches try to dress up what's going on by having christian rock music, energetic sermons, and free donuts and coffee after service, but the truth of the matter is the only thing I miss are the donuts.

Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science.

• 35% claim "Christians are too confident they know all the answers"
• 29% say "churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in"
• 25% believe "Christianity is anti-science"
• 23% have "been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate."

No real surprises here. Though, I think it would shock most catholics to find that the Pope's science advisors (the guys in the cool black and red robes) actually believe in evolution. In fact, they find it very difficult to argue against evolution given all the things we've learned about "junk" DNA (parts of DNA from other species we still have in our own), the germ theory, nuclear science, astronomy, etc. It may also shock people to know that these same scientists, employed by The Vatican, also believe in the "big bang" theory and global warming!

So, it seems the church isn't always anti-science. But its members sure are. In ever increasing numbers, ignorant people go on TV and write editorials and articles in news papers and magazines, trumpeting the evils of modern science. How science is here to steal your childrens' innocence with HPV vaccines, and teach them all kinds of immoral things about sex and sexuality with the "gay agenda" and free condoms everywhere. But I can promise you, if you sit down and read just one single article about any of these topics in any scientific publication (I like Nature, Nat. Geo., the The New England Journal of Medicine), you'll actually find that research is being done to understand and improve life by leaps and bounds. I just find it ironic that the very people science is helping today with blood pressure medication, cancer treatments, and vaccines against once deadly diseases are the same people crying for the abolishment of scientific study.

Reason #4 – Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.

• 17% feel they “have made mistakes and feel judged in church because of them.”
• 40% said the church's “teachings on sexuality and birth control are out of date.”

Well, now you've gone and done it. You've stepped in a hornet's nest with this question, Barna Group. The church's teachings on sexuality, and the opinion they disseminate is so backwards and out of date that almost all psychological associations warn that they can and will lead to self-destructive behavior, not the least of which is suicide. And if you think gay people are the biggest victims here, you're wrong.

While the church speaks out emphatically against gay individuals in every forum it can, it also shames young people into thinking they've done something so morally reprehensible when they've had sex out of marriage, that they need to feel guilty and ashamed. And this doesn't just mean intercourse, either! Nope, you can't masturbate either. Because that's a sin so great, it was actually called out in the bible itself.

What the church fails to recognize in these modern times of understanding, is that sexual impulses are a sign of a healthy and fully functional person of sexual maturity. We as a society tend to put limits on what we consider "normal" sexual behavior, which we are beginning to understand more and more that "normal" is completely meaningless. But the church remains steadfast in its position. You can not have sex, you can not protect yourself from STD's while having sex (unless you're in the worst effected regions of Africa), and you absolutely can not use birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

But there's good news in this answer. 40% of young adults surveyed agree that the church is full of it, and doesn't understand sexuality in a modern world. So, there's hope for the future yet.

Reason #5 – They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.

• 29% said “churches are afraid of the beliefs of other faiths”
• 22% answered “church is like a country club, only for insiders”

Well, be thankful you live in the 21st century. Because not very long ago, President Kennedy had to go on national television to answer allegations that him being president was part of a catholic conspiracy. Yep. Distrust, misunderstanding, and out-right hatred for other religions or beliefs run rampant in nearly all religions. And for good reason! It's right there in almost every holy scripture.

In fact, being "wrong" is so heinous in the church's eyes, that they fully believe a non-believer (or wrong believer) will burn in torment for all eternity. Yeah, that's right. They believe the divine creator of the universe spend the past 14.7 BILLION years plotting to torture you for eternity. But remember, the church teaches you that even though you're going to burn for eternity, god loves us all.

Reason #6 – The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.

• 36% Not being able “to ask my most pressing life questions in church”
• 23% having “significant intellectual doubts about my faith”
• 18% answered their faith "does not help with depression or other emotional problems”

Look, if you're having problems with depression or other emotional problems, you need friends and maybe a psychologist. You don't need a man in a magical robe with a hotline to god. I promise. You need to surround yourself with people that love and support you, even if you don't believe in the same ultimate answer you do.

And it's good to have intellectual doubts about faith. Faith, by definition, is believing in something that there's no proof for! I have intellectual doubs about whether I put on deodorant in the morning or not, so doubting a belief system invented in the dark ages to explain where we came from and give meaning to life? Yeah, go ahead and doubt that!

Finally, I once made the mistake of asking "hard" questions about church and the religion I was brought up with. Over the years, the questions got harder and the answers only got simpler. When you ask a priest or preacher why millions of kids die of hunger and disease every day, or why babies are born with defects, or why god only delivers miracles for a tiny percentage of the population that so desperately need them, they will eventually come to the conclusion that "We don't know what god's ultimate plan is". Well, I'm not satisfied with that answer, and clearly neither are at least a quarter of the people going to church every week.

So, the question becomes this. Does the church double-down, tighten the reigns, and adapt to the changing world? Or does it enforce the existing rules with an iron fist? Does church become a recreational and mostly social activity in the future, or does the church keep fighting the tide of people waking up to the real world around them? I'm not sure, but I don't think the prospects are very good for the church. Every day people realize that the bible is wrong in so many aspects of life, and they begin asking why bother if the very book their religion is based on is wrong. And that makes me happy.

Bonus: If anyone reads this and would like to read more factual evidence for evolution, and many other foolish misconceptions people still have about the real world, check out http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html

Throughput correction

I got my math VERY wrong for the new LSI HBA card, because I thought it was based on an onboard port expander. It is not. The card has two, four-lane 6G SAS connectors, for a total throughput of 48Gbit/sec. Divide that total throughput by the 24 attached drives, and you get a maximum theoretical throughput of 2Gbit/sec (200Mbyte/sec) per attached drive.

Nothing worth it is easy

The hardware in the SAN I've built is turning out to be a mixed bag of good inexpensive parts, and disappointing expensive ones. While this may be contrary to the popular belief that expensive parts work best, experience has shown time and again that the price tag has little to do with performance or stability.

The motherboard's iKVM/BMC had to be completely reset, which the manufacturer couldn't help me with. A quick search of the chip manufacturer's site turned up a tool that would allow me to update the firmware and erase the chip in one process. This turned out to be exactly what I needed to do, and it worked perfectly. I've since notified Tyan of the utility, in the event this happens in the future to another customer.

The hard drives that I initially believed to be DOA actually seem to test out fine with the motherboard's onboard LSI SAS HBA/RAID chipset. In fact, the onboard chipset seems to behave better and more predictably in nearly every way! This is disappointing because the Areca RAID card cost over $1300, and the onboard LSI chipset is essentially a throw-away part. It's so cheap to put on the board that's not worth removing in newer hardware versions!

The HBA/RAID driver story is more of the same. The LSI chipset uses the "mptsas" kernel driver, which has had many contributors offering fixes and enhancements. The Areca card seems to suffer from the opposite in a bad way. Areca themselves have published a newer version that the one included in the 3.0.x Linux kernel, but it has some pretty big flaws that make it a bit wonky. The first and most noticable flaw is the fact that a SAS/SATA device the stops responding causes the driver to freak out. To me, this is totally unacceptable. I'd rather see the device drop from the bus and be considered "offline" than the driver just freezing. A second big blemish is the remaining reference to the "Big Kernel Lock", which has been removable since something like 2.6.28 and is now off by default in many distributions shipping a 3.x kernel.

I've been in contact with Areca support, and the things they've had me try have only further proven that there is a problem with the driver. It has also indicated that there may be a pretty big problem with the card itself as well! For $1300, I'd expect a HBA/RAID card to undergo some serious QA process before shipping. But, more hard drives are causing issues, so at this point I'm pretty sure the batch of disks I purchased is fine and the Areca card is the source of all my issues.

So, I've started the RMA process for the existing RAID card, and ordered a LSI 9211-8i card. This card has 2 SFF-8087 ports for a total of 8 SAS 6G lanes. I've also ordered an HP SAS expander card which will give me 36 total ports and dual 4-lane SAS connectivity for a total theoretical throughput of 12Gbit/sec. This should work out to somewhere around 50Mbyte/sec per drive if all of them are active simultaneously. In reality, that rarely happens in a RAID system so I'm confident this configuration will be what I need. From the reviews I've read, the card seems like it's a great solution and really well liked by benchmarking forums. And it's rated for something like 290,000 IO/s max!

Assembled and running-ish

The new motherboard came, the remainder of the drives were mounted, and the final touches of assembly were completed. As part of the assembly, I tried to update the firmware on the Areca RAID car, the motherboard's BIOS, and the moterboard's built in iKVM/BMC board. Unfortunately, this last component's update process failed in a pretty bad way. Even worse, the recovery process is undocumented and also failed.

While testing the hard disks themselves, I found a dead unit and some pretty bad behavior in the RAID card's behavior. When trying to write data to a dead drive, the RAID card's driver just keeps trying forever. This causes the driver to lock up completely without responding to the process that's performing the write, which causes the writing process to also lock up! I'm investigating an update to the card's driver, or a firmware setting that would modify this behavior. But, the fact that this is the default way the system works is frightening at the least!

So, next week looks like it's going to be benchmarking time. From some of the preliminary tests I've performed while breaking the hardware in, the hard drives look like they'll run pretty fast. The SSDs are, simply put, stupid fast. They write data so fast that benchmarking them against the hard drives doesn't even make sense. ZFS itself looks like it works pretty well, as well. I haven't seen many slowdowns from using it in a test environment, so that should bode very well for the new SAN.