u/galandepeluche

this is one of those situations where the number wasn't surprising in hindsight but it still felt like a punch when we put it on paper.

tape was the "inexpensive" choice that we've had around for quite some time now, and individually, the costs seem relatively insignificant. hardware maintenance agreements. the replacement of the LTO drives on a periodic basis. licensing costs for the backup management software layer. offsite vaulting costs that increased silently every year. the manpower involved, not as part of a specific job, but rather split between two positions.

add it up across a year and it wasn't what i'd call small. add it up across five years and compare it to what equivalent cold cloud storage actually costs now and the math stopped making sense.

the part that got me was the migration cost sitting at the end of the road regardless. at some point the current LTO generation goes end-of-life. you migrate to the next one, which means new hardware, new software, staff time, and a verify-everything cycle. that cost doesn't go away by keeping the tape infrastructure, it just defers.

we operated with tape ark for the migration piece when we eventually made the call, partly because doing it in-house was going to cost more in staff time than just outsourcing the whole thing. the economics of that decision were cleaner than i expected.

not saying cloud is the answer for everyone. but if your org has never actually calculated total tape TCO including the deferred migration cost, the number might shift how you're thinking about it.

has anyone else done this calculation recently? specifically asking about the numbers for different org sizes.

Feels a little weird writing this, but I think I’ve finally accepted that LA just didn’t work out for me the way I hoped it would

I moved out here a few years ago thinking I’d eventually get my footing career-wise, but between the cost of living, inconsistent work I see that I see that I don’t have life at all. Like in the beginning I had a good job, relationships and even got a mortgage, but nothing seem to work out for me

I have a family back in Nebraska, and they already told me I can come help with their small business while I get back on my feet. Plus I can actually afford to breathe there

The problem now is the house

It’s not some trendy LA property by any stretch and just a small one-story place, older but decent enough. I still have a mortgage on it, though, and I really don’t want to spend the next year flying back and forth to California dealing with showings, repairs, paperwork, and buyers ghosting at the last second

I started looking into cash buyers and saw Eazy House Sale because the idea of just selling it as-is and being done with it sounds pretty appealing. At this point, peace of mind is worth a lot to me

Has anybody here sold a house quickly in LA without going through the whole traditional process?

Just trying to figure out what makes the most sense before I pack up and head back to Nebraska for good

that kind of track that makes you want to get on a train, stare out a window, and end up somewhere unfamiliar

looking for songs that carry that restless moving feeling

what comes to mind for you

To start with, I run a small Italian restaurant where we have a few tables, and during the luncg time people tend to take more take away food,

One of the most underrated costs in the food business has to be packaging. I used to focus almost entirely on the product itself like ingredients, presentation, consistency, and figured packaging was just something functional that held everything together, and not the key component in our business

Then I saw an article about how packaging influences perception way more than people realize, even for luxury brands. They showed on big brands how it works on consumer behaviour, which made me realised that they also got me on the hook

Well, it got me thinking that maybe I’d been overlooking something pretty obvious. I decided to experiment a little and ordered a few eco-friendly packaging samples with custom designs from one local supplier, mostly to see how it goes and to test the thory on practice

What surprised me was how customers reacted. I never expected that people would start posting their drinks and desserts on social media, tagging us in stories because they liked the way everything looked.

This month we added small dried flowers to hot drinks cups along with short quotes on the sleeves, and customers genuinely seemed into it. A few even came back the next day asking what little detail we’d add next

Funny how the smallest touches end up leaving the biggest impression