Can != Should, Is != Ought
Maybe I’m getting too old for my own good. Or maybe studying philosophy is making me older. Here in the US, though, it is Memorial Day, a day where people normally grill burgers and dogs, throw a few back, and forget to ask why. It’s just another day off, and days off are good for—well, for something.
Memorial Day, in the US, stands in memorial for those who fought—and, specifically died—for our freedom. But what is freedom? In my world, there are two types of freedom: freedom from, and freedom to. Two pieces this week made me think through this difference once again, and how we are increasingly confusing the two concepts.
But the big thing that changed this week is a Google home device is no longer a theoretical possibility. It’s here. And on a sunny day at the outdoor amphitheater, just a half mile away from the Googleplex, the audience watched as a video showed the device at work in the home of a typical American family. There was laughter when the dad broadcast his playlist into every room in the home, waking up his sleeping children — and then later remotely turned on the lights to make Continue reading
The image on the right ticks the box for me. There’s no room for a dedicated 1RU horizontal cable manager, but there is room for a zero-RU strain relief bar (as seen below). The result is a relatively neat cabling job. It’s no work of art, but it’s functional.
A strain-relief bar is a cheap metal bar that you can bolt on when you rack-mount your switch. It allows you to velcro your fiber patches to the bar, taking the strain to help prevent breaks and preventing the dreaded cable droop. You should, of course, take care to ensure you don’t block access to any field-replaceable units, cards or ports on your network device.