asciilifeform goes, always , from where cheapest , to the penny
asciilifeform: oh hey loox like i have my notes mixed up -- bmore is from where went to argentina. to BingoBoingo went from dulles (greater washingtonistan)
asciilifeform: i suppose they're all manning lafond's shop
asciilifeform: interesting. one might naively imagine that bmore port would consist of these -- but it didn't.
asciilifeform: if i knew how to do this in antarctica -- would do it there. would prefer the company of the penguins to ameri-muppets, verily.
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: i manage to so that to conjure up with what to power asciilifeform's little orchestra, which includes e.g. the expedition and its payload.
asciilifeform: mostly sad white d00dz , in their 20s, there was no slot at patent office for'em, evidently
asciilifeform: fwiw the inspector monkeys in usa , such that i saw in washingtonistan, were harmless, sat and played tetrisen on pnojes
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: i won't dispute that it's quite unpleasant. but will remind, i sit there year-round
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: hey , i work as full-time canary in that coal mine...
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: dun matter how many day ordeal, cost will still be 2+x of otherwise.
asciilifeform: so far all i got is 2 experimental data points re expeditions, ben's and mine.
asciilifeform: other potential headache is that they'll happily offer to carry e.g. +100kg aaand it'll end up 'cargo' and get ben_vulpes'd.
asciilifeform: i'ma have to call'em (and specifically that city's, vs the 'national' one)
asciilifeform: for all i know, is exactly what is in fl and la also.
asciilifeform: lobbes: there was 'office' in the bmore airport from which i went. but it was the kind where no one to haggle with, 'here is machine, wouldja like to buy new ticket for 3x what you paid month ago?' 'here we measure the trunks' etc
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: btw occurs to me , you have a 'copa' counter in BingoBoingostan somewhere. consider inquiring what costs round trip ~from~ BingoBoingostan. it isn't impossible that it'd be cheaper for BingoBoingo to ~pick up~ crates.
asciilifeform: the folx i told in meatspace about this, no one believed. 'yer fucking with me'
asciilifeform: ( in usa bouncers would come and beat such fella black and blue and throw out of gate. but orcs. )
asciilifeform: 'copa' is... interesting co. for instance, return flight got stuck in panama for extra 20min on acct of some fuckwit who couldn't fit his ~box of cakes~ into overhead compartment.
asciilifeform: re mircea_popescu's quarter tonne -- per last yr's specs , they were formally willing to move up to 150kg -- from anywhere other than usa.
asciilifeform: btw if e.g. rk plant gets eaten, lose considerably moar than ~1k, there's a great bit of hand-craft involved in making these.
asciilifeform: btw it dun matter of what the box is made, or that it resembles suitcase (other than possibly for orc customs). the dimensions thing is applied by monkey on the usa end.
asciilifeform: i'ma defo ask, and play the 'phone tag', like last time. but expect similar result.
asciilifeform: otherwise risk ending up sucking own elbow
asciilifeform: not bought yet, can't buy until all irons pass test
asciilifeform: when i bought ticket, the annoying fucks wouldn't even take prepay of the surcharge when selling ticket, proclaimed 'you pay it at airport'
asciilifeform: in the usa end, where one goes an' gets the ticket punched.
asciilifeform: several folx got sent away with 'nope' in the queue.
asciilifeform: if it were just a q of 'hey i'ma bring a 3rd and see if they eat it' would happily bring 3rd. but there was in fact a d00d with a scale there, and calculator, adding up box0...boxN and if >100kg then 'nope'
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: ben ended up with customs pawing ~all~ of his boxes on acct of the excess.
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: rright, and ended up ~doubling his cost.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i intend to pack the crates 'to the waterline' , just like last go.
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: indeed it was. there was a grunt with a scale, weighed and tape-measured each trunk.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: 'take decade to fill rack' is less of a problem than seems -- if could fully tenant e.g. 32 rk's or equiv, already pays for entire dc bill.
asciilifeform: ben_vulpes , if recall, somehow botched , so that even his 1us ended up weighed and taxed like silver bricks.
asciilifeform: BingoBoingostani customs is a circus one could almost write book about. they for instance didn't give a rat's arse re the 1us. but demanded to know why 6x 'high tech!111 omfg'-looking rk's in the carry-on. ( rk pilot plant was assembled on-site, in hotel... )
asciilifeform: anyffing bigger, gets 'cargo' treatment, and full customs orchestra.
asciilifeform: ( i.e. ~with~ the surcharge , is what one gets from this vendor )
asciilifeform: well i was 5kg short of the max load, so 3rd box would've had to be <5, even supposing they'd take another 300 and eat it
asciilifeform: funnily enuff i did. ( in fact was uncertain until last moment that the actual 2 crates would fly, the co's www is retarded)
asciilifeform: last time i rtfm'd , 'copa' (the 1 usable co.) permitted over-mass XOR over-dimension .
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: it's a calculable function. 4 'heavy' (32cpu opterons) added up to just 5kg short of the max permitted 'overweight'. anything lighter (e.g. rk plant) poses no pain from mass pov. but the suitcases i (specifically) bought for expeditions, are in fact of max permitted phys. dimensions. (w/ 2 u in ea. + paddings and fixators.)
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: the ones for mircea_popescu , are looking to cost 1-1.5 k ($) ea. (still hunting for the exact machines we use, the old seller seems to have vanished) . rk plant will cost ~1k , not counting drives (and switch, which, grrr, not found yet!) for a plant of 16 subunits. the remaining 1u is to be apu1 (4x) , not drawn yet so i daren't say exactly what costs, expect also in vicinity of 1k (sans disk).
asciilifeform: material ? depends what's in the 1u in question, neh
asciilifeform: ^ 560.5 $ per 1u . keep in mind that asciilifeform for 'belt and suspenders' made a lengthier than strictly necessary expedition . ( in fact used all but 1 of the padding days, walking with BingoBoingo to hunt for missing small parts, tuning boxen , etc )
asciilifeform: 1u chassis actually fits 16 rk with comfortable air flow. and their ps. but no GB switch seems to exist, of requisite size, that'd fit inside, even if stripped of own chassis.
asciilifeform: largest normal-looking suitcase comfortably houses 2u of irons .
asciilifeform: well, half the density, i.e. double the transport cost.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: speaking of 'starting to bump against an objective limit', it's starting to look like ethernet switch bulk is the limiting reactant for 'how many rk/similar can pack into box'
asciilifeform: i actually had tlp pegged in my head as a dour, aged, 'feminism'-flavoured chix
asciilifeform: in iirc '09 when asciilifeform 1st encountered tlp , thought 'insufferable, but occasionally emits interesting point by sheer accident'
asciilifeform read maybe 10%, max, of tlp corpus, for this reason. it's just barely digestible to asciilifeform's enzymes.
asciilifeform: dun seem to display the keyword on any of my browser tho
asciilifeform: 'masturbated to the same exact theme' in #2 has a 'b' but no terminator
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: 4th link in note 1 is borked
asciilifeform: for thrd-completeness, also painfully missing are back/fwd linkages a la phf, but these need working date/era handling before i even dare to touch the q
