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That's a lot of hard disks. (credit: Backblaze)

For the last few years, we've looked at the hard disk reliability numbers from cloud backup and storage company Backblaze, but we've not looked at the systems it builds to hold its tens of thousands of hard disks. In common with some other cloud companies, Backblaze publishes the specs and designs of its Storage Pods, 4U systems packed with hard disks, and today it announced its sixth generation design, which bumps up the number of disks (from 45 to 60) while driving costs down even further.

The first design, in 2009, packed 45 1.5TB disks into a 4U rackable box for a cost of about 12¢ per gigabyte. In the different iterations that have followed, Backblaze has used a number of different internal designs—sometimes using port multipliers to get all the SATA ports necessary, other times using PCIe cards packed with SATA controllers—but it has stuck with the same 45 disk-per-box formula.

The new system marks the first break from that setup. It uses the same Ivy Bridge Xeon processor and 32GB RAM of the version 5, adding extra controllers and port multipliers to handle another 15 disks for 60 in total. The result is a little long—it overhangs the back of the rack by about four inches—but it's packed full of storage.

Pretty soon, there's going to be a Fallout 4 bobblehead for every month of the year. Then every week... then every day...

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I do a lot of traveling to various gaming conventions for this job, but PAX East is the show I look forward to more than any other on the calendar. The convention straddles the marketing-heavy vibe of a show like E3 and the geeky/wonky vibe of the Game Developers Conference with aplomb. It then mixes in the passion of actual gamers who don't work in the industry and who have paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for a chance to commune with their fellow fans for the weekend.

Indie games have never been a rare sight at PAX East through outfits like the Indie Megabooth, but this year's show floor showed a marked shift away from massive booths for big publishers toward the "little guy." Everywhere you looked was another practically unknown, two-person developer team with a booth barely bigger than a folding table and a pixel-art aesthetic. Simply spending 10 minutes with every game on offer could easily take an entire week, much less a weekend (and that's without the massive queues of show-goers).

Check out the above gallery to get a feel for some of the best costumes, booths, and random sightings at this year's show.

The first justified use of a selfie stick I'm aware of: Bertrand Piccard, high above the Pacific. (credit: Solar Impulse)

Last night, after over 60 hours in the air and months of work on the ground, Solar Impulse completed its crossing of the Pacific. The landing at Moffett Field completed the most challenging part of its round-the-world journey, one interrupted by a long layover in Hawaii that allowed the team to sort out issues with the craft's batteries.

Solar Impulse is attempting to complete the first fuel-free circumnavigation of the Earth. It started the journey last year, with pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg completing legs that took the craft to Japan and then across the Pacific to Hawaii. Progress was slow, however, as the delicate aircraft has some very specific requirements in terms of wind and weather in order to take off and land safely. It also needs to complete the journey within the Northern Hemisphere's summer, or the on-board battery capacity would be insufficient to power it through the longer winter night.

Once in Hawaii, however, the team identified problems with overheating batteries that required a major overhaul. This put the completion of its journey on hold for the year. With the work completed and the longest day of the year about two months away, the team was ready to resume its journey.

(credit: Nogas1974)

The role of genetics in mental illness is a complex topic. On the one hand, evidence of genetic and biological causes for mental illnesses may help to fight the stigma that often accompanies them. On the other hand, certain researchers have suggested that a focus on genetics rather than traumatic life events can run the risk of ignoring the social ills that underlie or enhance many mental illnesses.

Despite some ambiguous feelings, the work has gone on. A genetic study recently published in Nature Genetics describes the results from the work of an eye-popping 190 scientists around the world. It describes an in-depth exploration of three separate traits: depression, neuroticism (the tendency to experience anxiety and fear easily), and subjective well-being (an experience of life satisfaction and/or happiness). They found evidence suggesting that these three traits are influenced by some of the same genes and are linked to the pancreatic, adrenal, and central nervous systems.

Tiny cumulative effects

Psychology researcher Richard Bentall argues that genetic studies are fruitless; so many genes have been identified as playing a role in mental illness that their medical usefulness becomes diluted. And, even when the genetics are simple, it's not always helpful. “Consider Huntington’s Disease, a terrible degenerative neurological condition that is caused by a single dominant gene with a known biological function,” he writes. “Many years after this gene was discovered there is still no sign of a medical therapy for this simplest of all the genetic conditions.”