The Start of a New Lab
So as I'm working on other things in my life like applying and interviewing for a new job (almost done!), I've needed a distraction from a lot of that, and I've taken the time to build out a new, very small homelab, that will probably extend over time.
I'm doing things a little differently this time. Last time I had a running lab, it was all about having a ton of Docker scripts and a lot of spinning disks to handle all the data that I was generating. This time around, I'm taking a smaller and more green approach - mostly because my power bill can't handle it the old way!
I'm running most of what you'll see (including this website) from a recycled office computer. It's running a Ryzen 5 Pro 2400G, it's this little HP Micro PC, with the thermal paste wiped away and replaced with a graphite pad for its new life as a home server. It's modest, but I'm not looking to replicate what I do at work anymore, just have some control over my data and costs for running some web-accessible services. (My current bleeding-edge experimentation is actually in some of the AI stuff coming out, more on that soon, I hope!)
I don't have a lot of details as I'm still spinning up things, but as they come online, you can see at least some of what I'm working on from this status page - which is hosted on a small Digital Ocean droplet, so completely disconnected from my actual infrastructure.