Meta: Say Hello to Beefy

There's a new server in town. Nerd out on some technical details.

The Key Play is running on new iron. Late Friday night I migrated TKP from the server that powered it since 2014. The old box was a 4 core I7 chip with 16 GB of RAM. The new box is a 16 core Dual Xeon chips with 128 GB of RAM. For non-technical TKPers, that's upgrading from Narduzzi to Fuente.

In addition, I upgraded its LAMP software stack to newer/latest releases. TKP now benefits from 5-plus years of modern code.

Things you should notice, emojis πŸ˜‚ (thank you multi-byte UTF-8 MariaDB). TKP will eventually get zippier too. I need to monitor performance and adjust to take advantage of all the new horsepower, but hopefully the site does not buckle under load as it did during Clemson week. Please report any issues or feedback in the comments below.

A sincere thank you to everyone who visits and is a member of the community for forcing the upgrade. And to The Key Players Club for funding it. The next person to join TKPC will test that it actually works on the new environment. 😱

Section: 

Comments

Nice! Is that your excuse for the downtime? πŸ˜‰

Not sure if you intentionally posted the bytes for πŸ˜‰, or bug. (Hopes for the former.)

Was trying to get an emoji but have no mojo!

πŸ€”

πŸ¦ƒ

Awesome

🌟! πŸ‘€ πŸ”Ό to using emojis in πŸ“‘πŸ€...

Oh no, what have we done?

🎢🎢🎢🎢🎢🎢
Hey I just πŸ’ you
And this is 😱
So here's my πŸ“²
πŸ“ž me maybe
🎢🎢🎢🎢🎢🎢

Let's Go

HOKIES

Pete Morris and Zohn Burden approve.
πŸ‘πŸ¦ƒπŸ”₯

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

Still earning my legs on here, but I'll come back and give you one once I have 20

EDIT: 20 legs achieved, leg given as promised.

I think I get it...

Star! Look triangle to using emojis in satellite house ellipsis.

How'd I do?

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.
Tembra, his arms wide.
Shaka, when the walls fell.

Sokath, his eyes uncovered.

A decade on TKP and it's been time well spent.

Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel.

30 years after starting grad school at Virginia Tech, I finally defended my dissertation and earned my PhD.
Don't give up on your dreams.

secret buzz williams account spotted

πŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒ

GOBBLE GOBBLE FAM!!!

πŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒ

Let's Go

HOKIES

hi beefy

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

So who's going to write the "emoji game summary" every week?

I'm sort of hoping some kind young'n will write the "emoji game translation for baby boomers aka old farts" every week.

"Tajh Boyd over the middle . . . and it's caught for an interception! Michael Cole, lying flat on his back, ARE YOU KIDDING???"

Would be nice to have an "emoji how to" for the same old farts.

30 years after starting grad school at Virginia Tech, I finally defended my dissertation and earned my PhD.
Don't give up on your dreams.

πŸ‘ŒπŸ‘ŒπŸ‘Œ
Fam

Since we are able to use emojis now, I'm almost positive Buzz will join TKP.

Fire Whit.

So how can a fella post emojis from Android? Explain like I'm 5. Thx

Onward and upward

Explain like I'm 55. Thx

fixed it for you (a 5 year old already knows the answer).

30 years after starting grad school at Virginia Tech, I finally defended my dissertation and earned my PhD.
Don't give up on your dreams.

Buy an iPhone

Let's Go

HOKIES

Aren't you being a little generous with respect to Narduzzi?

"Say hello to beefy"

...I look down everyday..

πŸ†

For a sec I thought this thread was about a new OL commit

That feeling when you're waiting hours for Joe to finish migrating TKP to the new BEEFY server

Let's Go

HOKIES

Something something technical jargon Joe kicks ass!

Thanks for making the greatest corner (or front porch if you are like me) of the web even more enjoyable!

πŸ‘ (holy shit it works!)

Sup πŸ…±οΈeefy

The Orange and Maroon you see, that's fighting on to victory.

What the 😬?

This is going to be great for the ACC.

Joe, I am offended for that I7 and 16 GB of Ram. Saying it is like Nardouche is being a little mean. It's still great just not for the purpose of serving us our daily hokie news and rumors. oh and plus hating on week, gotta have those.

Fuck Nardouchy. Beat UNC. 1-0 this week baby.

πŸˆπŸˆπŸ†πŸ™Œ

The taste is so divine
A chemical come alive
Welcome to your vice
Good luck with life
'Cause you can't
You can't
You can't kill me that easily

πŸ’©

Am I doing this right?

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

πŸ™‹πŸ™‹100%

The taste is so divine
A chemical come alive
Welcome to your vice
Good luck with life
'Cause you can't
You can't
You can't kill me that easily

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

I'll see your XKCD and raise you one:

I may need an emoji glossary or else be in the dark forever.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K

This is my first post-beefy post.
πŸ—πŸ—πŸ—πŸ—πŸ—

Emoji emoji emoji! (did it work?)

TKP is growing up πŸ˜ͺ so proud!

You were just waiting until we could use a πŸ¦ƒ instead of a πŸ”, weren't you?

So THAT'S why I couldn't TKP last night. I suppose all is forgiven. ✌

No, I *don't* want to go to the SEC. Why do you ask?

We don't love dem Hoos.

πŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒ

"The Big Ten is always using excuses to cancel games with us. First Wisconsin. Then Wisconsin. After that, Wisconsin. The subsequent cancellation with Wisconsin comes to mind too. Now Penn State. What's next? Wisconsin?" -HorseOnATreadmill

This thread is πŸ†

Please tell me that worked πŸ™

"When I was growing up, Virginia Tech was a school that was kicking ass and taking names, and it's time we get back to that" - James Franklin

What exactly are you trying to say here though?

No, I *don't* want to go to the SEC. Why do you ask?

We don't love dem Hoos.

Oh, you know exactly what I'm saying

πŸ˜‰

"When I was growing up, Virginia Tech was a school that was kicking ass and taking names, and it's time we get back to that" - James Franklin

Alum is saying that this thread is AUBERGINE!

That statement looks better using emojis as shown below:

Alum is saying that this thread is πŸ†

Amazeβš½οΈπŸπŸ‰πŸ€βšΎοΈπŸŽΎ

Let's Go

HOKIES

Aubergine? This is πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ, son!

No, I *don't* want to go to the SEC. Why do you ask?

We don't love dem Hoos.

Let's Go

HOKIES

I'm not a technical expert, but I'm pretty sure this is how Skynet started

"We were at the pinnacle, and we did it for years," Foster says. He pauses, nods, takes a deep breath. "And I did it with the best guy in the business."

πŸ€–πŸ’€

If you don't want to recruit clowns, don't run a clown show.

"I want to punch people from UVA right in the neck." - Colin Cowherd

😈🀘

"We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior" Stephen M.R. Covey

β€œWhen life knocks you down plan to land on your back, because if you can look up, you can get up, if you fall flat on your face it can kill your spirit” David Wilson

Fam!
πŸ”₯πŸ”₯πŸ”₯πŸ”₯πŸ”₯πŸ’―

HOKIE HOKIE HOKIE HI
'14 grad

So are threads only considered lit if they include πŸ”₯?

"Exit light..."

Dont know if its me or the site...i can see most emojis, but some are just black rectangles with an x through them. Then again i know nothing about emojis..dont think ive ever actually used one.

My wife takes the kids and leaves the house while I watch my Hokie games.........nuff said

It's you. If some emojis aren't displaying, that usually means you're not running the latest OS version on whatever device you're using.

"Exit light..."

πŸ˜€πŸ˜€πŸ˜€πŸŽΊπŸŽΊπŸŽΊπŸŽΊπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ¦ƒπŸ—πŸ—πŸ—πŸ—πŸ—πŸ—

Neat

Old sigline: I've been cutting back on the drinking.

New Sigline: lol it's football season.

Now all I gotta do is figure out how to get the emojis using my computer and browser, since 90% of my TKPing happens that way.

No, I *don't* want to go to the SEC. Why do you ask?

We don't love dem Hoos.

Ok, Joe...is the old server sitting in the corner, refusing to boot,steam coming out the vents since you replaced it? Does it keep throwing its power cord on the floor?

Take the shortest route to the ball and arrive in bad humor.

128 GB of RAM.

As someone looking into building a new gaming computer, damn that must have cost a bit.

Outspoken team cake advocate. Hates terrapins. Resident Macho Man Gif Poster. Distant cousin to Dork Magic. Frequently misspells words.

What kills me is how fast the prices go down. I built my rig to be pretty top-end back in college, but it probably would cost me half what it did then (if not less) now.

There's always a lighthouse. There's always a man. There's always a city.

RAM costs are actually going up right now.

Outspoken team cake advocate. Hates terrapins. Resident Macho Man Gif Poster. Distant cousin to Dork Magic. Frequently misspells words.

that's upgrading from Narduzzi to Fuente

That's a great comparison!

Thanks, Joe! We appreciate your hard work to keep us TKP'ing!

Hokie in West Africa...sadly, I can't jump up and down hard enough for it to be felt in Lane

Love that half of the comments so far are what my 10-year-old daughter does every time she gets a hold of my phone (random emojis everywhere!!!! Except y'all have criminally underused the poop emoji). The other half of the comments sound like my dad, who I just remembered reads all the comments on this site, so what I really mean is that you all sound brilliant and should totally send your son some money. Hi dad!

Has TKP thought about donating the old server to ESPN? I hear their streaming servers could use an upgrade.

πŸ”₯

πŸ‘‰πŸ˜ŽπŸ‘‰

Old server: πŸ›΄
New server: 🏍
The Sabre: πŸ’©

"Nope, launch him into the sun and fart on him on the way up"
-gobble gobble chumps

"11-0, bro"
-Hunter Carpenter (probably)

Wait a minute. I thought this was all run off Joe's Geocities page.

πŸ¦ƒ

Enough said.

πŸ‘‰πŸΌπŸ‘ŒπŸΌ

Fire Whit.

😷

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

Joe, one of my posts isn't working. At's a GIPHY embed but instead of showing the giphy it shows the page for the thread I posted in.

Very strange. I think it showed the thread immediately after I posted. I went back to the page and it looks correct. So here is what I saw:

Preview: Correct.
Immediately after posting: Incorrect.
After navigating back to the page: Correct.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

Also let's see if I can reproduce. It shouldn't matter given you are running LAMP and probably not much active browser content but I'm running Safari on Mac.

I can reproduce it.

Compose:

Preview:

Post:

Refresh:

That's odd, but helpful, I'll have to take a look at it down the road. Does the same thing happen in Chrome or Firefox?

FWIW I had this happen once before the upgrade was done. I chalked it up to Firefox being dumb.

Also nice specs on that server. Puts some of the POS servers I have to deal with at work to shame.

Here are screenshots from me reproducing:

Compose:

Preview:

Post:

Refresh:

I can't believe I'm the first person to say
πŸ–• Matt Ryan!!!
with an emoji

This deserves so many πŸ—πŸ—πŸ—πŸ—

"The Big Ten is always using excuses to cancel games with us. First Wisconsin. Then Wisconsin. After that, Wisconsin. The subsequent cancellation with Wisconsin comes to mind too. Now Penn State. What's next? Wisconsin?" -HorseOnATreadmill

I know this has nothing to do with the server but I have to ask why I'm constantly being rerouted to pop up/scam pages whenever I log in to TKP. It's something I've never had any issues with until recently.

Touchdown Tech!!!

What, Joe didn't mentioned that Beefy is on a server farm in Shenzhen, pulling from a CDN based in Donetsk?

That's indicative of a rogue ad which I have no control over. However, no one else has brought it up. Which is odd.

Pitch: TKPC members only see ads from direct TKP sponsors.

Having the same error only on the iPhone. It happens about 7/10 times I login from my iPhone.

What's
Important
Now

Same here. Probably about 30-50% of the time for me though.

I also have this problem, but only on my iPhone. So far, I don't have a problem with it on my tablet. Hopefully it stays that way πŸ™„

Speaking of Narduzzi...

EAT πŸ’© PITT

Beefys got the BUTTS
πŸ₯©πŸ₯“πŸ–πŸ—

Seriously. Unleashing emojis to this community is either brilliant or the end of mankind.

I love a good nap. Sometimes that's all that's getting me out of bed in the morning.

Joe, other than the minor thing I noticed I think this transition was about as perfect as they get. Good job!

πŸ†πŸ₯‡πŸΊπŸΈπŸˆπŸ—

πŸ†

@VTimHokie85

TIL: the url can have emojis too.

Meta: Say Hello to Beefy

What are, things Joe says when entering the bedroom, Alex

"When I was growing up, Virginia Tech was a school that was kicking ass and taking names, and it's time we get back to that" - James Franklin

Every time I see the thread title I crack up.

May go down as one of the best thread titles ever.

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

The next person to join TKPC will test that it actually works on the new environment. 😱

Okay, I signed up. Did it work? What's my prize?

β€œYou got one guy going boom, one guy going whack, and one guy not getting in the endzone.”
― John Madden (describing VT's offense?)

"Exit light..."

I love a good nap. Sometimes that's all that's getting me out of bed in the morning.

I love a good nap. Sometimes that's all that's getting me out of bed in the morning.

Indeed, it worked. The best keychain bottle opener man has ever created will be en route to you this weekend. Also, you have my gratitude. Thank you and welcome!

So many tiny, static gifs around here all of a sudden.

2026 Season Challenge: TBD
Previous Challenges: Star Wars (2019), Marvel (2020), Batman (2021), Wrasslin' (2022)

So many tiny, static gifs around here all of a sudden.

It took me way to long to figure out you meant emojis

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..