[HN Gopher] LackRack: IKEA's cheapest table is perfectly sized t...
___________________________________________________________________
LackRack: IKEA's cheapest table is perfectly sized to rackmount
computers (2020)
Author : bluehatbrit
Score : 286 points
Date : 2022-08-19 13:47 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (wiki.eth0.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (wiki.eth0.nl)
| sircastor wrote:
| I naively put an old LaCie 1U server under a Lack table 13 years
| ago, thinking it would be a great media server in my living room.
| I had no idea how loud rackmount fans were. It was obviously
| unusable for watching any kind of media.
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| 2U is a lot quieter than 1U. Those little fans spin louder and
| put out higher frequency noise. Though probably still not quiet
| enough for a media room. I've got a ruckus 10g switch and a 2U
| server in my utility room and you can sleep nearby and can't
| hear anything with the door closed.
|
| What drives me nuts is power supply noise actually. I finally
| bit the bullet and got a Mac mini for my home office.
| bombcar wrote:
| Modern rack servers at least spin down the fans when the system
| isn't heavily loaded, but it's still way too loud for a media
| room.
|
| For those playing at home, buying a 2U or even 4U rack will _on
| average_ be quieter (still sounds like a jet engine just after
| reboot until the SMC comes online).
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > even 4U rack
|
| Supermicro builds some _workstations_ [0] which were quite
| quiet back in Xeon 5xxx days.
|
| [0] https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/x11/systems/workst
| ati... be sure to check for the 'quiet fans', not the 'heavy
| duty' ones!
| justinlloyd wrote:
| Interestingly Supermicro has a line of, in their words,
| super-quiet fans they produced for their workstations. Not
| quite noctua, but better than most. You can take those same
| Sanyo fans in their plastic quick connect green cowlings
| and put them in an 847 rackmount chassis. They are a drop
| in replacement. And if you get the 1250 platinum PSU, those
| fans run far quieter than their silver & gold line. I've
| got a water cooled 847 4U server with a small rack of 847
| 4U 45 drive disc expanders and it is a constant background
| hum, rather than a small jet aircraft taxiing around the
| room when using the stock fans.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Most 4U cases use standard sized fans (in fact a standard PC
| tower is 4U wide) so you can replace them with e.g. Noctua
| fans that are a lot quieter.
| bjoli wrote:
| I did this to a 6-fan 4u case and it went from loud to just
| loud when it needed to be, and boy did it move some air!
| gregmac wrote:
| For all the effort (and money) put into making a media server
| as quiet as possible (which is still not silent), I think
| you're way further ahead to just not put the server in your
| living room. Instead, put it in the
| basement/closet/garage/utility room -- somewhere you won't hear
| it. Then, broadly speaking, you have three options:
|
| A commercial box, like NVidia shield, Chromecast, Roku, Amazon
| Fire stick or AppleTV. This is by far the easiest as you get a
| remote, a "10 foot user interface" and they work with online
| services like Youtube, Netflix, etc. If you care about
| everything being open source software this obviously isn't a
| good option.
|
| You can also DIY your own box on a Raspberry Pi. Be prepared to
| do lots of tinkering, though.
|
| The other option is to get the media server's UI remotely. Long
| HDMI cable, HDMI-over-cat5 or wireless HDMI gets audio/video;
| some of those also do USB, or you can do wireless control if
| it's close enough. Almost as much tinkering as a Raspberry Pi,
| but could be cheaper if it's not far.
|
| Another big benefit of the first two options is it scales to
| multiple clients, if you have more than one TV.
| Bud wrote:
| I put a rack/cabinet in the laundry room, with a QNAP NAS in
| there, Plex server is running on the QNAP, then an Apple TV
| 4K connects to that and feeds the TV.
|
| I like this better than trying to do some sort of long HDMI
| cable setup, because the HDMI ports on most NAS units out
| there get old rapidly, don't support HDR and high bitrates
| reliably, etc. This way, it doesn't matter if the server is
| brand-new and fast enough and all updated for the latest
| video standards. As long as it can push the data out fast
| enough via Ethernet, you're good. Updating an Apple TV every
| 3-5 years is a lot cheaper and easier than getting a new
| server every time. And a good NAS is a lot cheaper than a
| full-out server would be.
| lgbr wrote:
| I can't recommend the long HDMI (or HDMI-over-CAT5, or long
| Thunderbolt) enough. The noise isolation you can achieve by
| doing so is unbeatable. Even moving anything short of a 1U
| server into a neighboring closet means no perceptible noise,
| so you're really buying yourself more flexibility such that
| you can use almost any computer without thinking about noise
| constraints.
|
| Even more than that, I'll bet a lot of people who are
| connecting a media PC to their living room TV also have
| another PC somewhere in the house. With a long HDMI cable,
| you can connect an existing PC to the TV, thus saving the
| entire expense of a new PC. This is particularly interesting
| for gaming, since a good gaming PC is a lot more expensive
| than even some of the longest HDMI cables.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| Until your mom is flipping channels and gets to see what
| you _really_ do in the basement all night...
| muttled wrote:
| To add to the HDMI-over-CAT5 instead of long-run HDMI, I
| wanted to offer an anecdote: we tried doing HDMI with
| extenders at a previous MSP shop. We had random de-syncs.
| We were probably far past the 50ft spec for how long to run
| an HDMI cable and the extenders were unpowered (basically
| female-to-female boxes). HDMI-over-CAT5, however, handled
| the distance flawlessly without powered boosters in the
| middle.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Pictured above is Paul Curry's PS5 example, replete with vinyl
| wood texture.
|
| I don't think "pictured above" means what they think it means as
| the image above is an outline drawing showing no wood texture
| whatsoever.
|
| Has the editorial process really fallen to this level? (Hint: Yes
| it has)
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| Between the outline drawing and the description is a tweet
| containing a vinyl wood texture, but the image failed to be
| embedded.
| romanhn wrote:
| The image above is a tweet showing just that (after the outline
| drawing). Perhaps your browser didn't load it properly?
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| I think you have some kind of adblock service blocking embedded
| twitter posts because when i look at that website there is a
| tweet by Paul Curry of exactly what is described
| klausa wrote:
| There's a tweet embedded there with a photo attached to it;
| perhaps your content blocker is removing it.
| redhal wrote:
| Also works great as a 3D printer enclosure
| https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2864118
| tssva wrote:
| My Biqu B1 is in a lack enclosure.
| bmitc wrote:
| Lack is made out of super cheap particle board. Is it stable
| enough to sit the 3D printer on? I would assume it would add
| some errors to the printing process.
| some_random wrote:
| Not at all in my experience but apparently it's fine for
| everyone else
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I'm not even sure I'd trust it to hold more than a single 1U
| server as depicted in the article, for that matter.
| _jal wrote:
| Adding more kit increases rigidity. A "full rack" would be
| a stack of servers on the floor, with the table keeping
| them stacked.
|
| The least-stable arrangement would be a very heavy 1u
| device at the top.
| [deleted]
| weberer wrote:
| I think you're severely underestimating the strength of
| particle board.
| dinkledunk wrote:
| It works fine and lots of people do it, I have been using
| mine without issue for a few years now. It helps to put a
| concrete slab in it, but it's not necessary. The lack table
| does have a tendency to amplify the noise though.
|
| Here is a guide by Prusa to build one for their printers:
| https://blog.prusa3d.com/mmu2s-printer-enclosure_30215/
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| Unsurprisingly, the same issues arise with precision
| scales/balances as do with printers. Having a big heavy
| base is useful!
|
| I know of a few places that just procured literal blank
| marble gravestones as a "base" for their analytical scales
| at a cost far less than the usual mass-damper bases sold to
| labs.
| buffet_overflow wrote:
| It's perfectly adequate for stability. People have suspended
| printers in midair with elastic cables, or printed upside
| down, and prints have come out fine. The printer frame is
| providing most of the rigidity in this case. Don't get me
| wrong, people that place their printers on spring like things
| tend to get lower quality prints so there is a limit there.
|
| The downside about the IKEA particleboard over hollow
| cardboard core is more about sound and resonance imo. It can
| act as a speaker for printer vibrations and amplify that
| sound in the same room or to the floor below it.
|
| A popular "mod" is to place a concrete paver block on top of
| some isolation pad, typically made of rubber or sorbothane to
| increase the functional mass of the printer and lower the
| resonant frequencies created during printing.
|
| I personally have two of those enclosures stacked, with a
| printer in each one.
| Teever wrote:
| Oh boy is this thread relevant to me.
|
| I just bought a concrete paver and neoprene mat to put on
| top of my lack and I'm printing pieces for my lack
| enclosure on my ender 3 as I type this message.
|
| One thing I'm not sure about is whether or not I should
| attach the printer directly to the concrete paver, and/or
| if I should take the rubber feet off of the printer as
| well.
|
| If so how do I best attach it?
| rustyminnow wrote:
| I have a 3-lack-stack for my printer, but no paver. It
| sways a bit when I print, but I haven't run into any
| major issues without it. I should get one. A foam mat was
| mandatory though; the hollow core lack turns the motor
| noise into a scream!
|
| I'd just try the easy thing first and set the printer on
| the paver without attaching. See if that works before you
| go through the effort of attaching it
| Teever wrote:
| The motor noise can be totally eliminated with an upgrade
| main board from bigtreetech. https://biqu.equipment/searc
| h?filter.p.product_type=3D+Print...
|
| They are drop in replacements for the existing board and
| are very affordable. I highly recommend them.
| [deleted]
| ezconnect wrote:
| I stacked 3 of them with a 3D printer. It can handle all of
| them running at the same time.
| neilv wrote:
| IKEA CORRAS Bedside Table FTW!
|
| Photo of my newest CORRAS rack setup:
| https://www.neilvandyke.org/kubernetes/
|
| Sadly, IKEA no longer makes the CORRAS. I used to have 6 of them,
| foolishly sold some when going minimal.
| durpleDrank wrote:
| Interesting interview with Shane Smith claiming Ikea furniture is
| from North Korean slave labor camps in Siberia.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ0Kk8W1UJA
| [deleted]
| blamazon wrote:
| Is this just a random coincidence? Is there some explainable
| reason why the dimension is perfect? Surely IKEA did not have
| this use in mind when originally designing this?
| BeefWellington wrote:
| I've kind of hoped some manufacturer would clue into this as a
| possible side benefit to their design of furniture. But the
| 0.0000001% of humans who want a rack at home are probably not a
| substantial market, so my guess is this must have been happy
| coincidence.
| themoonisachees wrote:
| It's a round number of inches that happens to be right,
| possibly because "this size is good for a table" is what
| probably went through the engineer who decided what size a
| rackmount should be at the beggining of time
| sschueller wrote:
| I don't think it's inches. This is a Swedish product. The
| tables I have from Ikea measure 55cm from what I recall. The
| legs are 5cm wide.
| okamiueru wrote:
| Numbers game. Lots of tables exist with a lot of dimensions.
| Only the ones that have the perfect dimensions are mentioned.
| joemi wrote:
| Somewhat relatedly, IKEA used to sell a RAST nightstand that made
| for a good cheap modular synth case.
| https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2015/07/06/how-to-make-a-...
| Sadly they stopped selling these a few years ago.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I have like 10 of these tables in my shop. They are incredibly
| robust for as light and cheap as they are.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Sad they stopped selling the lack that had a bottom shelf and was
| on castors. I had a 45 drives server in it for years before
| moving.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| can somebody with more server/home server experience explain to
| me the benefit of going with a rackmount setup vs let's say, just
| building a second PC to use as a home server? I recently bought a
| house and am excited to get into home networking/home server
| work, but don't know anything about rack mount. Is rackmount
| equipment cheaper than regular consumer PC hardware?
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Rackmount stuff is usually more expensive because it's more
| niche or professional grade stuff. If you just need a pc for a
| router it's overkill. If you need space for a pc router, nas
| and dozens of hard drives, multiple switches, A/V distribution
| gear, wifi and wireless hardware, home automation hubs, backup
| power battery, etc. it starts to make more sense to consolidate
| it all in a rack instead of strewn all over shelves and tables.
| derekerdmann wrote:
| > Is rackmount equipment cheaper than regular consumer PC
| hardware?
|
| Never
| jakeinspace wrote:
| You can find incredibly cheap (nearly free) used servers for
| pickup if you're patient. If you have cheap electricity (or
| better yet, provided with your lease), a 2013-era dual Xeon
| server is pretty compelling at $50.
| haunter wrote:
| Wish I can find an Xserve for that much!
| mbreese wrote:
| Apple didn't make that many, so they would be tough to
| find. And they were a really pain to actually use. I
| didn't find them very friendly at all to work with
| physically. Very polished, but had a feel of being over
| engineered.
| ska wrote:
| That part about power is key. Some of the commercial gear
| is thirsty enough you'll notice it right away on your bill.
| jakeinspace wrote:
| Thankfully I live in Quebec. My salary may suck compared
| to the US but at least I get that sweet sweet cheap hydro
| power.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| Separately from what others are saying about used equipment
| being very inexpensive, which is all very true, I have a
| different take on why I do it.
|
| I'm a gamer and upgrade my primary gaming machine on a much
| tighter cycle than a lot of other people, which means I have a
| fair bit of hand-me-down hardware around to pass along.
| Sometimes, instead of just selling/trading/giving my old stuff
| away, I'll stick the consumer-grade stuff inside my 4U rack
| boxes.
|
| Basically, it comes down to customizability and the space to do
| what I want in it.
|
| For example, my NAS server's case has 18 drive bays. With
| modern motherboards supporting NVMe, it's very doable to run
| the OS off NVMe, a couple of caching SSDs and an array that is
| 20TB+ large, and bonded 2.5GBe (maybe upgrading to 10 someday)
| to my VM Host machine. Most out of the box NAS systems don't do
| that.
|
| My other server I use for hosting VMs and cracking hashes (not
| crypto, think password cracking) and has a few older GPUs in it
| to accelerate that task.
|
| Nowadays a lot of consumer-grade CPUs have as many or more
| cores than older second hand server equipment, and often can
| run lower power (not always true). Plus putting it into 4U
| boxes means I can more larger fans so it's quieter than
| traditional aircraft-engine servers.
|
| This is by some people's definition "doing it wrong" because I
| don't have ECC memory, etc., but the reality is I've been
| running it for years now and it's been very stable, with only
| one hardware failure over the course of the decade or so I've
| had this system together.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| > Nowadays a lot of consumer-grade CPUs have as many or more
| cores than older second hand server equipment, and often can
| run lower power (not always true). Plus putting it into 4U
| boxes means I can more larger fans so it's quieter than
| traditional aircraft-engine servers.
|
| So you use consumer CPUs in rackmount hardware? Are you able
| to use any consumer PC components in a rackmount rig? I'd
| love to build a home server and I can see the benefit to
| better ventilation/noise result with rackmount, and I imagine
| rackmount uses the same hard drives, but are other PC parts
| equally usable?
| rr808 wrote:
| The main advantage of rackmount is for big data centers where
| you have a huge number of boxes and they all fit in
| standardized racks. For home use of a few boxes there is no
| advantage other than if you want to buy cheap servers off ebay.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| _Used_ rackmount equipment can be had for cheap when businesses
| decommission them. The depreciation curve is much sharper than
| typical consumer gear when it goes out of support. _New_
| rackmount gear is very expensive.
|
| Many people who have home servers (me included) buy used
| enterprise gear for this reason.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| How would you suggest going about buying used enterprise
| gear? I was thrilled to get a decommissioned optiplex and old
| monitor from an old job, but that's just because I happened
| to be in the office the day the stuff was lying around.
| Otherwise I have no idea how to get that kind of stuff
| metadat wrote:
| Already discussed at length here on HN as well and especially
| r/homelab et. al., algolia search to the rescue:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| http://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/
|
| http://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/
|
| http://www.reddit.com/r/HomeServer/
|
| https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php
|
| Good luck! Rackmount machines are their own world. Done right
| they last longer than desktops with the added benefit of
| typically being quite loud. Stay cool. B-)
| jhot wrote:
| I've been happily self hosting with used workstations from
| local businesses that I have contacts at. When they upgrade
| they offload old workstations for nothing. They usually have
| Xeons and ECC ram and make great, quiet servers. Rack mount can
| be really loud, especially 1u.
|
| For networking gear, it can be nice to have a small rack, but
| very much not necessary.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The only real reason to rack mount at home is organization: If
| you have a firewall, switch, router, a server, a NAS, and a
| backup battery, it's really nice and clean to enclose it all in
| a rack.
|
| However, rack equipment will always cost more than non-rack
| equipment because rack equipment isn't targeted for consumers.
| An APC UPS that fits in a rack is $500, when the equivalent
| standalone one is $150.
|
| Noise is another downside to rack equipment: It's designed to
| run in rooms with massive air conditioners, so the noise floor
| they're trying to stay under is "sports stadium".
| ska wrote:
| > when the equivalent standalone one is $150.
|
| There often aren't actual equivalents available in consumer,
| so it's hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison. Which
| isn't to say a consumer grade piece of kit won't be fine for
| your use, just that you aren't paying $500 vs $150 for "the
| same thing", rather the $500 one has a bunch of feature
| and/or component quality stuff you may not care about ( _and_
| some extra margin, but nothing like 200% you suggest)
| ska wrote:
| > Is rackmount equipment cheaper than regular consumer PC
| hardware?
|
| Not even close for new, but a generation or two old can be had
| very cheaply.
|
| I was was once gifted a 128 node cluster (with the racks, UPS,
| everything) to a lab for the tax write off alone - they even
| provided shipping. The servers were only 3 years old iirc, but
| had depreciated enough on their books I guess and they wanted a
| faster cluster.
| shagie wrote:
| Shipping and write off is _much_ cheaper than disposal.
|
| I recall as college students finding a VAX 780 on the
| "getting rid of it" part of the engineering loading dock and
| we got permission to get rid of it for them. Pushing it down
| the street at 11pm was interesting (getting a weird look from
| a police car going by).
|
| It got gutted for parts (power supplies don't care too much
| about what they power) and converted into a lockable
| bookshelf and 14" diameter wall hangings (and some
| surprisingly strong magnets).
|
| The "yea, we let a bunch of college students take it" was a
| significant savings over getting a truck to haul it off to
| some junkyard even before the days of being very picky about
| electronics recycling.
| kennend3 wrote:
| There has been a number of solid responses but my two cents.
|
| It isnt about the "form factor" - but the cost. Businesses buy
| rackmount servers because it is space-efficient.
|
| Eventually they sell these off very cheap and unlike your
| desktop grade equipment business servers are built to last.
| while that 5 year old business server may be out of date for
| them, they still have plenty of life left and can be had for
| dirt cheap.
|
| i have a multimedia server in my basement with 72GB ram and
| dual Xeon's which i picked up for around the cost of a decent
| desktop motherboard.
|
| So in short. Rackmount equipment purchased brand new is very
| expensive, but buying old "end-of-life" gear is very cheap. The
| depreciation on computer equipment would put a car to shame.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Very cool points. do you have any advice for how one can get
| retired enterprise equipment?
| wongarsu wrote:
| When buying new and presented with the option, the rack mounted
| option will be more expensive (because professional) and louder
| (no space for large fans, they compensate with higher fan
| speeds). Rack mounts are more interesting for network hardware
| (because of lack of options) and second hand. Second hand rack-
| mounted stuff can be very cheap for the performance you get,
| but also energy hungry and loud.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| Most rackmount servers have some sort of remote management
| interface, which makes it a lot easier to work with them on a
| headless basis.
|
| Pitfalls: Server-class hardware can take a very long time to
| POST, as they're intended to run 24x7, and (especially 1U and
| 2U boxes) tend to have extremely loud fans.
|
| If you want a _quiet_ server, your best bet is to build it up
| from a server motherboard and a 4U case, and use quiet fans
| like Noctua.
| themoonisachees wrote:
| Careful with that. Server hardware is designed in a way that
| assumes "cooling is free because i live in a chassis with
| constant high airflow in a temperature controlled room".
|
| Consumer-class hardware is more often built with the
| assumption that it's going to get thrown in an all-glass case
| starved of airflow, so they put heatsinks everywhere and
| expect specific air pathways in a standard atx case.
|
| You're probably fine to go either way really, but the
| hardware is probably going to have a lower lifetime by going
| for slower airflow.
| kennend3 wrote:
| this!
|
| If you are concerned about noise, do not buy a 1U unit. Small
| fans still need to move air. Since they are small the way to
| make up for this is to have a lot of them and make them spin
| very fast. The faster they spin the more noise they make.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I have been really happy with the HEJNE shelf as a rack.
|
| Here are some 2U's here at home:
| https://s3.whalesalad.com/lab/rack.jpg
|
| The shelf: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/hejne-shelf-unit-
| softwood-s7903...
|
| I keep seeing full height Dell racks for sale on FB marketplace
| in the $200 range but haven't encountered the right manic episode
| to actually go for it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's not the rack that's the problem, it's the fans. Most
| industrial gear requires a ton of airflow and the noise is
| something like having a model jet engine sitting in your
| closet. This from someone who actually did go for it and later
| recanted.
| muttled wrote:
| I always think it'd be cool to have a server rack in my
| apartment until I powered up a server in my apartment and it
| far eclipsed the noise produced by the air conditioning from
| anywhere in the living space.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Both of these R720's are barely audible when you are standing
| right next to them. They are in my basement furnace room too,
| so I literally cannot hear them anywhere else in the house.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Is that running things on them full bore? I tried a server
| case with a bunch of 1080's in it for some image processing
| but the noise levels were off the scale even though they
| were fairly large diameter fans. Not R720's though, so
| larger fans. Interesting datapoint!
|
| The worst offenders were the 1U units, such as routers and
| switches, and a bunch of Supermicro 1U servers.
| tlavoie wrote:
| Excellent point. I have a Lack Rack in my office closet, but
| the mounted device (Fortinet 100D) was replaced with a
| fanless firewall instead. The Fortigate is still there, but
| off, and the table still holds my laser printer up.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| A few years ago we obtained a full size rack (with some
| switches/firewall appliances included) for about 50PS
| delivered.
|
| The guys who dropped it off outside our second floor office had
| a good laugh at our expense as we tried work out how to get the
| bastard thing up there via a narrow stairs.
|
| We basically had to take it apart on the footpath, heft all the
| bits upstairs, then engage in the biggest 3D puzzle ever
| without any instructions.
|
| Racks tend to be _cheap_ if they are inconvenient. Offloading
| it to us delivered for 50PS was a lot cheaper than paying for
| it to be recycled.
| bombcar wrote:
| HEJNE is "ok" but really REALLY add the cross bracing, and
| perhaps even add plywood to one side.
|
| I have a HEJNE that is just holding LEGO with cross bracing and
| it is visibly leaning.
|
| I don't expect it to fall down but I'm also not loading
| thousands of pounds into it.
| troebr wrote:
| I was wondering about this, I had a bunch of these screwed in
| together as a cheap kitchen cabinet when I was younger. They
| can be get pretty wobbly even with the braces.
| OedipusRex wrote:
| These are also commonly used for 3D printer enclosures. Get two
| and flip one upside down and stack them, add some walls and a
| door and you've got an enclosure.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| As someone who bought a used 42U cabinet and somehow got it into
| my basement where it will remain forever unless someone cuts it
| into pieces to remove it, I can see the appeal of this.
| tiku wrote:
| Bought a rack for my garage, but I forgot to measure it upright
| and diagonally because the entrance is way smaller, so it had
| to be tilted in.. cleared the ceiling with 2 centimetres haha.
| bombcar wrote:
| The 4-post "telecom" racks are often disassembleable and can
| be made to work, but you probably want to floor-mount them.
| 83 wrote:
| What most people should be using at home is a "knock down" or
| "open frame" rack. The posts can be separated from the top and
| bottom for transport. I use a couple of these in my basement,
| fairly sturdy and I can move them when I need to:
| https://avproducts.mccannsystems.com/avcat/ctl11226/index.cf...
| muttled wrote:
| Another option, if all your equipment can fit in the depth of
| what's basically a switch rack, is to use a wall rack:
| https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Bracket-Equipment-
| Mounti...
|
| Most audio and networking equipment can fit in there, as well
| as some servers. Check on the servers to make sure they fit,
| though.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I had to use a 4-post rack and a chop saw and take ~4 inches
| off the top of the rack and then I had to assemble it in the
| basement vertically since it's so close to the ceiling, it's
| too tall to tilt! Figured that out the hard way.
|
| https://share.icloud.com/photos/0cdcI0nzE1jyUF8mGNwdrnCTQ
| computronus wrote:
| Let's also not forget the Lack's crucial role in forming the
| Standesk 2200, a classic standing desk hack:
|
| https://alphacolin.com/ikea-standing-desk-for-22-dollars/
| tristor wrote:
| I used a LackRack for about 8 years, worked great. All you need a
| is a couple of L-brackets from the home store and 2+ Lack tables.
|
| Ikea Hacks is a site that has a lot of other things like this. A
| lot of the stuff in my office and home lab is from Ikea being
| utilized in a way it wasn't intended.
| nfhshy68 wrote:
| For a few extra bucks, IKEA sells a 4 pack of casters that
| perfectly fit the base of these legs. Only takes a few screws
| and your rack is on wheels.
|
| https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/alex-caster-black-10480607/
|
| https://ikeahackers.net/category/hacks/media-storage/tech-se...
| ErneX wrote:
| I built one with two tables. The legs are now empty so in order
| to drill things to the legs you need to insert a piece of wood
| that fits inside the legs and cut to the height accordingly.
| some_random wrote:
| I feel like everyone else is using a different Lack than I've
| seen at IKEA, they're made of flimsy fiberboard that feels like
| it's going to fall apart at any moment. I tried making a printer
| enclosure and gave up because it felt like it would collapse from
| a strong breeze. If you're going to put in all this work, you
| should probably use better materials from the beginning.
| notatoad wrote:
| they're made from flimsy fiberboard, but if you actually crack
| one open you'll see that all the joints are reinforced with
| wooden blocking, and the flat surfaces are filled with
| corrugated material. they're light, and if you get any water
| past the exterior finishing they disintigrate. but they're
| deceptively strong as long as all the joints are screwed
| together tightly.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| They are stronger than they look. keep in mind that all joints
| in a lack have no cross brace so the leg-surface joint is
| actually pretty strong.
|
| The big thing is that a tight install of the legs and adding
| tension and mounting the hardware helps cross re-enforce them.
| The examples where people use a second lack top as the bottom
| are WAY more reenforced than one would expect, you probably
| could use it as a chair.
| ezconnect wrote:
| I had 3 of them stack on top of each other, all with 3D printer
| and power supply and filaments for more than 2 years. It is
| very strong and sturdy. It didn't shake or sag.
| trollied wrote:
| Needs a (2020).
|
| See also:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25978013
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1067283
| bluehatbrit wrote:
| Thanks I forgot about that, added the (2020) marker now.
| inopinatus wrote:
| The LACK has also been a staple of thrifty musicians for decades.
| As a student in the early 90s supporting myself playing clubs and
| bars, I had a quadraverb, mixer, compressor, and foldback amp
| bolted into a single, reasonably portable unit I could also rest
| a beer (or myself) on.
| q-big wrote:
| In the article linked at the end
|
| > https://spuder.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/lack-rack/
|
| you can read (emphasis by me):
|
| "If you decide to make your own, pay attention to which size lack
| rack you get. IKEA _strangely_ offers 2 slightly different sizes
|
| 22 inch
|
| and
|
| 21 5/8 inch."
|
| In my opinion the explanation for this is clear: 22 is a round
| number in inches and 21 5/8 inch is nearly a round number in
| centimeters (21,625 inch = 54,9275 cm [?] 55 cm).
| zandor wrote:
| This reminds of the many recipes that convert from Fahrenheit
| to Celsius (and vice versa for that matter) and don't round off
| the numbers properly.
|
| I'm not setting my oven to 176 degrees Celsius even if I could.
| bombcar wrote:
| This non-rounded numbers make people think that there's
| something terribly important at being X degrees and not X+1,
| not realizing that the internal temps vary _widely_ even when
| set specific.
|
| I feel recipes have caused more people to avoid cooking than
| anything invented in the last 1000 years, heh.
| strbean wrote:
| With regard to recipes, I sometimes wonder if "round
| numbers" are causing us to miss out on more optimal
| recipes. Maybe that dish really would turn out better
| cooked at 176F, or with 1 and 7/16 cups of flour instead of
| 1.5.
| extrapickles wrote:
| It's easier to use weight instead of volume if you want
| measurements more precise than a 1/4 cup.
|
| Most home ovens struggle to hit the set point to within
| 25F for most of their internal volume. They also have
| large swings in temperature as cheap heating elements do
| not respond quickly.
| bombcar wrote:
| They somewhat do - this is the "skill" in being a chef,
| knowing what ingredients to add/reduce to get the result
| you want.
| sophacles wrote:
| Why the quotes around skill?
| bombcar wrote:
| Grocer's quotes for emphasis.
| notatoad wrote:
| neither your oven's thermostat or your measuring cups are
| precise enough for either of those examples to make any
| difference.
|
| recipes routinely call for "1 large egg". think about the
| amount of variance that can be present in that
| measurement, and assume every other measurement can vary
| by the same amount.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| When it comes to flour, I don't understand why the USA
| insists on measuring it by volume when the rest of the
| world does it by mass. The density of flour can vary
| widely depending on if it's packed at all, and scooping
| it often leads to voids in the bottom of the measuring
| cup that you likely won't see unless you're using a clear
| measuring cup.
|
| When using flour or baking mixes, I convert to grams (1
| cup all-purpose flour = 125 grams) and do it by mass to
| ensure it's the proper amount.
| taftster wrote:
| This is interesting! And makes total sense. I didn't know
| that the rest of the world (smartly) measures flour in
| terms of mass not volume. And your conversion factor is
| really helpful, thank you.
| bombcar wrote:
| Every American kitchen has measuring cups, few have
| scales. And people learn that method and continue to use
| it (most people don't even know about zeroing a scale
| after you add each ingredient).
|
| It may also be that US measuring cups are "more
| convenient" sizes than the equivalent metric ones would
| be.
|
| For flour, they often specify "sifted" which removes some
| of the variability.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Every American kitchen has measuring cups, few have
| scales.
|
| There's no reason Americans can't buy scales.
|
| I got mine for $15 at Costco 10+ years ago. You can still
| get them from Amazon or Walmart for less than that.
|
| > It may also be that US measuring cups are "more
| convenient" sizes than the equivalent metric ones would
| be.
|
| When measuring out flour, I don't use a measuring cup at
| all. I put a bowl on my scale, hit the Tare button to
| zero it out, then add whatever number of grams of flour I
| need to the bowl.
|
| > For flour, they often specify "sifted" which removes
| some of the variability.
|
| That's gotta be awkward to sift into a measuring cup.
| bombcar wrote:
| The problem is recipe book authors want to sell to _all_
| Americans (especially that group that always buys recipe
| books but never actually _uses_ them) and so they aim at
| the widest possible market.
| skykooler wrote:
| And as a result, most Americans never get scales since
| their recipes don't call for them.
| shard wrote:
| The reason is momentum. Switching to measuring flour by
| weight will require households to have both measuring
| cups and scales, require recipes to be rewritten, require
| cooks with an intuition based on volume to relearn the
| intuition based on weight. None of this is
| insurmountable, just like none of the reasons for
| switching from imperial to metric are insurmountable, but
| for people getting things done, it's not enough of an
| issue to worth making the switch, so this kind of switch
| would require an institution or coalition with enough
| clout to make the switch and pull everyone else along.
| For cooking, I don't believe such an institution or
| coalition exists.
| wheels wrote:
| You find temperatures that precise when they're for
| equipment that can hit it: a sous vide steak at 56o C is
| different from a sous vide steak at 58o C. It just makes
| no sense for an oven, which is a pretty blunt instrument.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| I think you're only going to see that benefit if, as
| mentioned you have a super precise oven, or you're
| getting super precise ingredient quality every time.
|
| Otherwise there's too many variables fluctuating every
| time to really attribute much to those tiny variations in
| the recipe.
| taftster wrote:
| Edit: Nope, just didn't scroll far enough. They also list the
| 22" on their site as well. But still, which size is best for
| mounting?
|
| old: _The IKEA website only lists the 21-5 /8" version. Is 22"
| required for computer rack use?_
| toxik wrote:
| LACK is not a sturdy piece of furniture. I broke a leg off of one
| when I snubbed my foot on it; it came apart /at the table/, the
| whole corner section just came off.
| thinkling wrote:
| Clearly it should be reinforced with a few 1U cross braces!
| toxik wrote:
| Not a bad idea, and I suspect it's the MDF material coming
| undone over time due to moisture or something. I really did
| not hit the table hard at all!
| DonHopkins wrote:
| That looks a lot sturdier than Apple's iRack.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2nkoGLhrE
| jerrysievert wrote:
| I bought a couple of used lack's as I was planning on mixing
| eurorack with other equipment. I ended up keeping the lack's, but
| instead putting 16u free-standing racks on the top of each one -
| ended up working perfectly: 1u power supply, with 5 3u enclosures
| for eurorack on each.
|
| ended up working out much better than my plan.
| shagie wrote:
| The less advert laden site:
| https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed to that from
| https://boingboing.net/2020/08/14/lack-rack-ikeas-
| cheapest-t.... Thanks!
| bluehatbrit wrote:
| Apologies, I run an adblocker so didn't see the ads on this
| page. Perhaps @dang could update it to point at that page
| instead?
| stacktrust wrote:
| There has been a construction industry effort to standardize
| "structured wiring" panels for low-voltage (alarms, A/V,
| ethernet, wifi) wiring connections in homes, but it has not quite
| kept up with the rapid expansion of devices for home networking,
| including mixtures of consumer and repurposed enterprise
| equipment.
|
| Tripp Lite has an elegant vertical, low-profile, 3U wall-mounted
| enclosure that fits over existing structured wiring panels, which
| can accommodate both rack-mountable gear and odd-sized items like
| modems and access points. Price is ~$500, comparable to 12U wall-
| mountable racks that ship fully assembled.
|
| SRWF6UMOD specs, https://www.tripplite.com/smartrack-3u-low-
| profile-vertical-...
|
| video review (2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XcYbr0L4WY
|
| It might be possible to build a low-cost DIY clone, with 1/4"
| pegboard for the odd-sized items and a StarTech vertical frame
| for the rack gear. Hammond perforated metal panels (1/8" holes
| for self-tapping screws) could also be repurposed,
| https://www.hammfg.com/electrical/products/accessories/appp
|
| For comparison, there are structured wiring product lines from
| Leviton,
| https://www.leviton.com/en/products/residential/networking/s...
| and Legrand, https://www.legrand.us/solutions/structured-wiring,
| but they don't typically support a mixture of home and rack kit.
| duxup wrote:
| I have those tables as cheap quick tables (that can stack) for
| kids activities. Very nice for a quick surface / desk for the
| little kids.
| daneel_w wrote:
| The melamine pads under the feet of the Lack tables become
| brittle with time and eventually crack under only 30-ish kg of
| weight, causing the table to slant. My own experience.
| bborud wrote:
| I wonder if it would help to fill them with some high density
| expanding foam? (Using some form of resin would probably be
| prohibitively expensive).
| daneel_w wrote:
| Maybe snap/chisel the melamine off and replace with felt pads
| or something.
| [deleted]
| ErneX wrote:
| What I did was get wood sticks cut to the exact size that
| fits inside the legs, then you can drill stuff safely to it.
| paxys wrote:
| If you are really desperate, sure, but please don't trust
| thousands of dollars of hardware on a $10 cardboard table. Ikea
| furniture quality has been going downhill extremely fast.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ikea oscillates in quality. Originally it was super good, then
| they had a cardboard period (1990's) and then when they started
| to be associated with 'painted cardboard' they upped their game
| and started to make quality stuff again (easily distinguished
| from the painted cardboard by the price). The last couple of
| years it has indeed been downhill and very rapidly so. I've
| found that a sharp tap on a part will tell you all you need to
| know, the cardboard will give and flex whereas the solid parts
| will hold up nicely.
|
| The honeycombed structures are quite strong for their weight
| but not strong in absolute terms and you definitely don't want
| a book case made of that stuff.
| zhdc1 wrote:
| Had a LackRack(ish) running in my closet for a year or so.
|
| It's a good and dirty way to free up space on top of your
| server(s) for a monitor and keyboard.
| pdntspa wrote:
| > and you can put your bottle of Club-Mate
|
| Damn it, now you're really making me pine!
|
| Why must this stuff be so hard to get in the US? Last I checked
| there were two different companies handling distribution in the
| US and NEITHER of them seem to stock it anywhere! Except for one
| shop in LA that half the time carries expired bottles!
|
| The caffeine high from Club-Mate is such a pleasantly sublime
| feeling. And you used to be able to order it from the 2600 store.
| I still have the yellow case!
| wheels wrote:
| Amusingly, even thought I live in Berlin and have it readily
| available, I tried to make it myself by making mate
| concentrate, sugar, and a tiny bit of lemon. I got the taste
| just about right, but more mate-y with the really grassy,
| earthy taste of mate. But it had so much caffeine that I
| couldn't think straight and felt jumpy. I came to the
| conclusion that Club Mate doesn't actually contain much mate.
|
| But if you love the stuff and can't get it, it's not hard to
| experiment. Those are basically the only ingredients.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Try other mate-based drinks, variations of yerba mate beverages
| can be found in most US grocery stores (with increasing
| availability over the past several years). I can't stand any of
| the carbonated ones I've tried in the US, but they are out
| there.
| pdntspa wrote:
| Indeed, I like to buy mate in bulk at the latin-american
| markets, you can usually get a pound of it for cheap
|
| I've even had some progress making my own carbonated mate
| drink, but it can be hard to get the flavor right
| corndoge wrote:
| The site I used to buy it from in quantity for US import is
| defunct as of this year :(
|
| Would love to hear from anyone who can get it in the US
| pdntspa wrote:
| I haven't checked the situation in a while but it appears
| there are some online retailers that seem to be new venues
| for distribution
|
| https://club-mate.com/, click 'buy online'
| crispyambulance wrote:
| It seems like a sketchy idea to directly screw in the server to
| the table legs. Much better to install rack sliders that are
| supported from both front and back.
|
| Just don't pull out the server if there's no one holding down the
| table. Or better, keep servers where they belong: in a freaking
| data center, NOT your house ! :-)
| Steve0 wrote:
| Just to add some more context, these were used back in the day at
| chill areas of hacker conferences.
|
| Back then wifi (if available) was not very reliable, and battery
| tech less advanced. People carried network cables and extension
| cords in their backpack.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I prefer the minimalism of a "vertical rack" which, for some
| reason, I tend to never see. If you don't have more than 6U or so
| of equipment, it's really the way to go because of its minimal
| profile and amazing load-bearing ability: it is load-bearing
| parallel to the direction of gravitational pull (vs regular rack
| cabinets where the load is perpendicular to the posts), and then
| that weight is all redirected towards the wall, so even the
| heaviest servers or whatnot that would normally sag unless it
| comes with rear-mountable rails for 4-post racks (which, for some
| reason, very few do) work amazingly well. I've bought a few of
| this StarTech one [0] over the years, but I've also seen people
| weld together a couple of metal struts to accomplish the same.
|
| [0]: https://amzn.to/3QTmVee
| jjeaff wrote:
| I didn't know this was an official thing. Seems like it would
| work great in a lot of cases. But one of the main reasons I
| like racks is the ability to pull a server out on tracks and
| open it up to do maintenance, add hard drives, etc. I suppose
| you still could do that on this vertical setup, but only with
| one server with the top facing away from the wall.
| tzartz wrote:
| Switches and routers sure- I've used it for things like that
| quite a bit- but I'd never put a server (even a 1U) in one.
| Ease of getting in and swapping parts is a huge factor.
| stacktrust wrote:
| Is there a good source for short-depth sliding rack rails, or
| is the DIY route (drawer slides) recommended?
| tzartz wrote:
| I've never had luck with rails that weren't shipped with
| the device, but I know RackSolutions sells some universal
| shallow rails. I've never used them but I've seen them
| around.
| shreddit wrote:
| Isn't it, in theory, bad for airflow? At least active cooled
| hardware would try to push hot air down against the hot air
| trying to raise upwards?
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| Tracking-free link:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001YHYVEY
| bityard wrote:
| Headline says 2020, but I'm fairly certain this has been a thing
| for at least a decade or two.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'd be a bit careful. Rack problems usually involve physical
| damage to kit.
|
| It would suck to have your $20,000 server go kablooey, because
| you saved $120 on the rack.
| GlacierFox wrote:
| I think this is aimed at cheapo home-labbers like myself. I
| doubt enterprises would consider putting a PS20,000 rendering
| machine inside one of these.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Another option might be stereo rack mount equipment. Probably
| cheaper than enterprise, and usually designed to be
| attractive.
| bombcar wrote:
| Stereo (like telecom) racks may not have sufficient
| airflow, especially when "closed" - have to check.
|
| The best racks are the surplus ones left laying around; if
| you know someone who deals with buildings after companies
| have moved out you'll have an endless supply of racks.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Good point. Make friends with people "in the trades."
| jiggywiggy wrote:
| The ads on this site are bonkers, is this the original article?
|
| edit: appeareantly it's a legit site:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boing_Boing. Buzzword seems legit
| compared to this.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Boing Boing used to be one of the coolest sites on the
| internet! I think a lot of people still have it
| bookmarked/RSSed/whatever, so they still keep publishing, but
| it doesn't _feel_ like a work of love anymore (IMHO). It feels
| more like someone said "hey, we've got this site that gets a
| bunch of traffic, it'd be a shame not to monetize it".
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| madduci wrote:
| Watch out: newer Lack Tables from Ikea are less sturdy than their
| older predecessors. IKEA has made them even lighter than before,
| particularly the legs are almost cave inside, so beware that
| server racks might be too heavy for it
| serf wrote:
| wow -- how can that even be?
|
| I have a five or six year old lack I just disassembled due to
| wobbly joints. The entire thing was made of cardboard + a few
| small particle-wood reinforced areas near the joints, and a
| hard thick veneer.
|
| the veneer shell is doing 85% of the workload already. I can
| hardly fathom how a weaker version would even work as a table.
| LukeShu wrote:
| At garage sales sometimes you find older Lacks that have
| solid wood legs.
|
| With the newer hollow-leg ones, I find that if you punch out
| the bottom of the legs, you can snugly fit 1.75" square dowel
| inside. (Though I've heard that the thickness of the material
| varies by color; I can only confirm that 1.75" is the correct
| size for black tables.)
| tasuki wrote:
| Would you say that it... lacks?
| kn0where wrote:
| I think the "newer" LACK is the one you disassembled. Time
| flies, they cost-reduced it quite a number of years ago.
| leg0m4n wrote:
| It's also perfectly sized as housing for Prusa i3 3d printer, and
| people have been doing it a lot: >
| https://www.google.com/search?q=ikea+table+prusa+i3&client=f...
|
| Truly magical piece of furniture.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| Old arcade cabinets with rackmount stiles screwed to the inside.
| Just be aware that fibreboard doesn't compress like plywood or
| real wood, so screws can tear out if not seated properly. You can
| also put foam inside to abate the noise of rackmount fans.
|
| I have since moved on to a custom built arcade cabinet for my
| rackmount workstation and UPS.
| jacooper wrote:
| You know you are in HN when people use S3 to upload photos, and
| not imgur.
| londons_explore wrote:
| S3... Harder to use... Gotta pay egress....
|
| It seems worse all round.
| LaputanMachine wrote:
| On top of that, Imgur automatically deletes EXIF data, which
| would've prevented GGP from leaking their home address.
| whalesalad wrote:
| oh ya rookie move - stripped that and wiped my CF cache
| graftak wrote:
| This touches a semi-related nerve. When you share a photo
| on iOS there's an option to remove exif data--or at least
| the photo's location--but there's no way to always have it
| removed by default. Really annoying and easy to forget.
| /rant
| jheuel wrote:
| I think the default is to remove everything. I like to
| archive nice photos and because of that always have to
| ask family members to resend the image with metadata
| enabled.
| Buraksr wrote:
| I think that you can at least choose for photos you take
| to not have location data at all in camera settings.
|
| I found out because the feature of mapping of where your
| pictures where your pictures were taken did not work for
| me, because I stopped the camera from having location
| data.
| westmeal wrote:
| I am not a machine.
| metadaemon wrote:
| I'm not a cat.
| trombone5000 wrote:
| Who or what is GGP?
| gertrunde wrote:
| Grand grand parent I suspect.
| skimo8 wrote:
| Throw it behind cloudfront. You now get a terabyte of egress
| free.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32521279.
|
| (Nothing wrong with a whimsically off-topic observation like
| this, but boy did the subthread turn lame.)
| Arubis wrote:
| If you've already got a bucket ready to roll for this sort of
| thing, S3 is cheap, straightforward, with a stable interface
| and API, ownership over your assets, and a much lower chance
| your content will end up placed on-page and strongly associated
| with stuff that isn't yours.
| Arubis wrote:
| I truly don't understand downvotes here. Imgur's fine; S3's
| fine; different people have different use cases. How is that
| contentious?
| inopinatus wrote:
| Because some folks can't distinguish between contextual
| value judgements based on their own preferences, and a
| universal absolute.
| uoaei wrote:
| Downvotes are not for disagreement, they are for demoting
| off-topic or otherwise unhelpful conversational threads.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This is incorrect.
| throwaway27727 wrote:
| It becomes a discussion of engineering decisions
| fuckHNtho wrote:
| Filligree wrote:
| Higher chance they'll get hotlinked somewhere and you'll get
| a huge bill, however.
| slg wrote:
| Free beats cheap. Imgur and its comeptitors are also
| straightforward. You don't really need an API for a single
| upload. The ownership and control argument is great in
| theory, but this is now an image on the internet. Anyone can
| link to it which will cost you money. Anyone can download it
| and upload to somewhere else. That means all appearances of
| control are artificial. I don't see much benefit here.
| inopinatus wrote:
| > You don't really need an API for a single upload.
|
| Au contraire, what I "didn't really need" was an entire
| image processing and sharing platform run for someone
| else's benefit. That image sharing platform is itself
| primarily accessed via the use of a grossly overweight
| multiple-API client called a "web browser".
|
| No, what I want is a programmatic interface with multiple
| language bindings and a command line tool, so I don't even
| have to leave the terminal. When I share an image, my
| preferred service for this is a bucket.
| slg wrote:
| >what I "didn't really need" was an entire image
| processing and sharing platform run for someone else's
| benefit.
|
| Do you think AWS is run as a public service? If you
| aren't hosting it on your own hardware, someone else is
| benefiting.
|
| >That image sharing platform is itself only accessible
| via the use of a grossly overweight multiple-API client
| called a "web browser".
|
| The web browser that you are using to post this comment?
|
| It takes two clicks of the mouse to upload something to
| Imgur. Maybe you have built an S3 workflow that is nearly
| as seamless, but it would be tough to beat Imgur for
| simplicity.
|
| I got no problem if anyone prefers to upload images like
| this. People have their own preferences and I can't argue
| with "I prefer to stay in the terminal". However "I like
| this better" is a different statement than "this is
| better" and the comment I replied to was closer to the
| latter.
| inopinatus wrote:
| hard to imagine someone stooping to this level of
| antagonistic misrepresentation because they disagreed
| with someone else's preference for image hosting, but
| there it is.
|
| "two clicks of a mouse" - that's a negative, not a
| positive, attribute. I'd rather not use a mouse, when
| possible. And yes, my S3 "workflow" is a very short shell
| script.
|
| are you actually interested in which user agent I use to
| access HN, or was that just a snide assumption? I mean,
| sure, sometimes it is, but it's ableist arrogance to
| assume everyone's using a fat graphical client. Folks
| really don't always use a web browser, or touch a mouse,
| to interact with websites.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It's
| not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is
| for.
|
| Please especially avoid tit-for-tat spats, which are
| especially boring and tedious.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| slg wrote:
| jacquesm wrote:
| How about you read again what the GP wrote and then
| review your comment?
| slg wrote:
| I don't know, it just seems wild to me that I am the one
| receiving accusations of being antagonistic when other
| people are writing comments like this. You could try
| answering my question rather than giving this opaque
| answer that says nothing. I legitimately don't know what
| upset that person. Was it that I assumed they browse the
| internet the same way as 99.9...% of people?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It's
| not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is
| for.
|
| Please especially avoid tit-for-tat spats, which are
| especially boring and tedious.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| slg wrote:
| I'm not trying to be a jerk and challenge your authority,
| just trying to get better because I legitimately don't
| know where I crossed the line. Can you be more specific
| about what I did wrong here? Because comparing the
| advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to
| image hosting seems perfectly on theme for HN.
| skimo8 wrote:
| Cloudfront makes S3 effectively free for hobby
| applications. That's what I use for my self hosted version
| of Imgur.
| [deleted]
| ajb wrote:
| Racks are made of metal, not least because the server is only
| supported at one end (its a cantilever) which applies a lot of
| force to the support - there is a lot of leverage.
| amelius wrote:
| The problem: extreme noise.
| michaelhoffman wrote:
| Given how many Lack tables I've seen fall apart without any sort
| of load, I would be very reluctant to try this, no matter how
| many people report it works for them. It's IKEA's cheapest table
| for a reason.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| In my experience, even cheap IKEA stuff is pretty solid and
| well worth the cost as long as you treat it with care. Some
| stuff is garbage even if you're careful but I've never
| personally seen something from IKEA that isn't great if handled
| gently.
| brewdad wrote:
| In my experience, you get one move from IKEA furniture. By
| the time you've relocated it twice, whether across the room
| or across the country, it will become unstable and likely to
| fail.
|
| If you are exceptionally careful and always have help moving
| anything of size, you may do better.
| kennend3 wrote:
| My dad was a cabinit maker so i have experienced "proper"
| cabinets as well as Ikea stuff.
|
| You called it. Ikea furniture never seems to support
| disassembly / reassembly.
|
| I've thrown out several sets of Ikea dressers and such
| which lasted ~5 years while the stuff my dad built is still
| in perfect working condition 22 years later.
|
| As far as the Ikea rack idea is concerned, holding any sort
| of weight has always been the major failure with Ikea
| furniture. They sell bookshelves which cant hold books...
| Dressers with 1/4 "cardboard" bottoms which cant support
| the weight of clothing.
|
| you get what you pay for.
| iso1631 wrote:
| My oldest Ikea unit is from 2007, it's moved 5 times since
| then, as solid now as the day I bought it, although that
| one is small enough to not have to dismantle.
|
| I've got an ikea bed dismantled, moved, rebuilt 3 times no
| problem, and a bookcase with the same dismantle/rebuild
| process 4 times. My office desk is also on 4 moves over 10
| years.
| detaro wrote:
| you can't really generalize that IMHO, they make both
| things that are easily damaged and stuff that can easily
| survive many moves.
| bombcar wrote:
| The IVAR system is, in my book, absolute complete junk. I
| couldn't get it to even attempt to work correctly, it wobbled
| when it wasn't collapsing, and to make insult even worse, it
| was _more expensive_ than actual industrial wire shelving.
| layer8 wrote:
| Did you forget to add cross-braces [0]? Ivar has always
| been rock-solid for me.
|
| [0] https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/observatoer-cross-brace-
| galvani...
| bombcar wrote:
| Even with cross bracing it had too much wobble, which
| would pull the short pins out of the cross board, and if
| you bumped a shelf it would hop out and then fall.
| jpalomaki wrote:
| On trick is to add some glue when you are assembling the
| furniture.
| serf wrote:
| the lack I used for my prusa was , over time, covered in
| printed gusset features and additional L-brackets to get
| rid of sway and movement within the table itself.
|
| it looked god-awful but it was sturdy for years and years
| of production-quantity printing. It was only disassembled
| when the print lab got rebuilt.
|
| so, in other words, I support your idea of modifying the
| construction of the lack wholeheartedly. The joint lines
| are one of the only 'strong-ish' elements on the entire
| table, and I think they'd take glue nicely.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| I currently have two stacked Lacks acting as a cheap homemade
| server rack. I have 2x 4U ontop the bottom table (not floating
| as they're doing in the article), with an older colour laser
| printer and 21" monitor, KVM, etc. on the top table. Underneath
| I have 2x1500VA UPSes.
|
| It's been that way for years and I've moved it a few times. I
| think if you've seen them fall apart without any load, they're
| either the much newer ones that have been completely hollowed
| out, or they've been used in a rougher setting than "servers
| sitting statically on them for years."
|
| I know quite a few home lab users who swear by them. One person
| I know even has a full triple stack (which seems unsafe to me
| personally) with his networking gear on top of the servers.
| alx__ wrote:
| They don't hold up well to repeated side impacts or horizontal
| shearing. So kids jumping on it, shin kicks, or moving
| locations. They do well with the vertical forces if they're
| rarely moved.
| sophacles wrote:
| Why? Do the legs shatter? That would be the only reason that
| your concern makes sense - adding 1 or more rigid metal bodies
| that connect to each leg seems like it would stabilize the
| structure.
| ErneX wrote:
| Some years ago the legs used to be fully solid, now most of
| the legs are empty. So what you can do is get some wood
| sticks cut to the same size of the inside of the legs.
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