2026
I Built a 6-GPU AI Cluster from Used Gaming Cards
April 14, 2026I picked up an old bitcoin mining rig off my cousin for cheap. Four GTX 1660 Supers, a 1660 Ti, and an RTX 3060 — all crammed into an ASUS Z270-P board with 64GB of RAM.
Read more →
Meet Mr. Peepers: The AI Agent That Runs My Home Lab
March 26, 2026What if your AI assistant didn't live in the cloud -- but in your Garage? Meet Mr. Peepers. He's an AI agent running entirely on local hardware in my home lab. No OpenAI API key. No monthly bill from Azure. Just a Ryzen 9 7950X3D, an RX 7900 XTX with 24GB of VRAM, and a lot of stubbornness.
Read more →DizyDiz Reborn
March 8, 2026After years of running various CMS platforms and eventually going dark with 502 errors, DizyDiz is back. This time as a clean static site -- no WordPress, no Joomla, no PHP. Just HTML and CSS served by nginx in a Docker container.
The old content has been recovered from the Wayback Machine and given a new home. The infrastructure is self-hosted on Dell PowerEdge servers in a home lab. It's simple, fast, and it actually works.
Sometimes the best version of something is the one that doesn't try to be more than it needs to be.
The Archive (2017)
Welcome Back
March 8, 2017 · Originally on Joomla · 1,376 hitsThat was the entire article. Prophetic, in hindsight -- it took nine more years to actually come back. The hit count was originally reported as 477 but the Wayback Machine's last snapshot from March 2018 shows 1,376 hits. The people kept coming back to check.
Meow
March 8, 2017 · Originally on Joomla · 1,376 hitsThe second and final article published on the Joomla-era DizyDiz. Originally 487 hits, it grew to match "Welcome Back" at 1,376 by the time the Wayback Machine took its last snapshot. Also contained a link to MXGuardDog spam blockers, for reasons lost to time.
The Archive (2011)
Comcast's 250GB Data Cap Limits Your Purchased Right to Bandwidth
March 4, 2011 · Written by Jess · Originally on Joomla 1.5Should Comcast be allowed to sell you a data package that you can get yourself in trouble with a 250GB Data Cap? How fast can you go over that Data Cap and get a Cease and Desist letter?
As Netflix, Video Chatting, Online Game-Play and Telecommuting into your work servers, bandwidth utilization has been higher than ever. Comcast gives you the ability to pay more for faster internet, based on speed tiers. Now Comcast has put a 250GB per month cap and is buckling down on users who have used more than 250GB of data in a month.
Based on my Comcast package I purchased (30Mbps Down/6Mbps Up) I have the ability to break the 250GB Cap 37 times! If I used my internet at max capacity (which I should have the right to since I purchased it), I have the ability to download 9.4TB of data, well above the 250GB limit Comcast is imposing.
Comcast's lowest internet package that is offered is 1.5Mbps down. With that package, you have the potential to download 475GB of data. That means you could go over the 250GB Cap almost 2 times. To stay within the 250GB Data cap, Comcast would have to offer a 0.77Mbps data package, which they don't offer.
Fifteen years later, data caps are still a thing. The buffet analogy still holds up. The crappy pizza is still there.
Building Your Own Custom Workstation
February 23, 2011 · Written by Jess · Originally on Joomla 1.5So you're tired of buying cheap HP's and $300 weekend special priced computers and you're ready to build your own quality unique powerhouse workstation that will last you some time. I'm going to briefly walk you through building your own custom workstation with the exact specs you want and control what you want to pay for.
This kind of project is very easy to do with a little planning and preparation. Pick your Parts the way you want them. Just like Building a Bowl at Gangus Grill. (Love that place)
Big thanks to Evan for providing the $$$ and the want to build a custom machine.
Setting Up LSI MegaRAID SAS (SAS 9240-8i) Cards in FreeNAS
February 22, 2011 · Written by Jess · Originally on Joomla 1.5The LSI MegaRAID (SAS 9240-8i) cards are supported in FreeBSD (FreeNAS is built on FreeBSD), but you have to compile the drivers into the kernel to make them work since FreeNAS does not support the MegaRAID cards by default.
Steps: Download FreeBSD 7.3-RELEASE, create a virtual machine (I used VirtualBox), install with kernel development tools, download the LSI SAS FreeBSD drivers, compile the drivers into the kernel, then copy the compiled kernel from your FreeBSD install to your FreeNAS installation at /boot/kernel/.
Your FreeNAS installation will need to be installed using the "Full" installation option as the embedded version will not have enough space for your new kernel. Make sure you give the FreeNAS OS partition plenty of space (380MB for the FreeNAS OS + 50 MB for the updated kernel folder, 1GB should be plenty).
Norco RPC-4224 ZFS FreeNAS Project
February 22, 2011 · Written by Jess · Originally on Joomla 1.5There is no such thing as "Too Much Space". I found myself running out of space on my whopping 4TB (2.75TB of usable space with Raid 5) Synology Storage. Back in the day, 4TB was a lot of room. I wanted MORE!
The only thing that could have gotten me more storage was by spending a lot on an enterprise SAN. A cheaper alternative is to build your own NAS/SAN. There are many OS's out there -- FreeNAS, OpenFiler, Unraid and others. For me, I chose FreeNAS. It's highly supported, great user forums, and will be able to use all 24 drive bays on my Norco RPC-4224.
I also chose to utilize the ZFS File system. It's like Raid 5 but better. After I lost my OS (during testing), I was easily able to get back all of my data with 1 easy command.
After the build: 48TB of raw storage in a Norco RPC-4224 chassis with 24 drive bays, running ZFS on FreeNAS.
From 4TB on a Synology to 48TB on a 24-bay Norco. Fifteen years later, the homelab runs Dell PowerEdge servers with Docker containers. The spirit of "I wanted MORE" never changed.
Recover ZFS Data Pool on FreeNAS
February 14, 2011 · Written by Jess · Originally on Joomla 1.5What happens when your FreeNAS OS fails and you don't have a backup config file?
I had set up my FreeNAS box with the operating system on an external USB drive so that all of the hard drive space could be used for data. I must have chosen to use one of my old and bad USB Keys. The USB key had some flakey issues -- one day it wouldn't boot and I was without my data. All of my data was on a ZFS Raidz2 system that gave me about 43.5 TBs worth of storage.
The fix: reinstall FreeNAS on a new USB key, SSH in and run zfs import Data (case sensitive), then sync disks through the web UI. The core ZFS system is independent of the FreeNAS management website. All data recovered, no harm done.
Big thanks to Brad for the help along the way. Also: this is why ZFS is still the right answer in 2026.
We're Back!
~Early 2011 · Written by Jess · Originally on Joomla 1.5The very first post on DizyDiz. Listed as "More Articles..." on the front page alongside "You are the Imitators; I am the Originator." -- a tagline that set the tone for the whole site.
The site also had sections for Games, a Forum, Flying (with Cherokee 140 airplane photos and FlightAware links), and a Showcase. Social media links pointed to Twitter, Picasa, and YouTube under the handle @dizydiz.
Lost Sections of the Original Site
The 2011 DizyDiz had more than just a blog. These sections were listed in the navigation but their content didn't survive the Wayback Machine's crawl.
Flying
A section dedicated to aviation with subpages for "Getting Started," FlightAware tracking, Cherokee 140 airplane pictures, and a Showcase. Jess was into flying.
Games
A gaming section. Content unknown -- lost to time. The Joomla template (Mynxx by RocketTheme) suggests it was probably a dark-themed gaming aesthetic.
Forum
A Kunena forum integrated into Joomla, used at least for the FreeNAS build photo walkthrough. Community features on a personal site -- peak 2011 energy.
Resume
A public resume page. Bold move. Content also lost, but the fact that it existed alongside "Meow" is poetic.