TL;DR: I'm happy and proud to support Steem and Steemit.com as a witness. My kickass dedicated witness server is burning a hole in my pocket. To support independent witnesses like me, please support me with your resteems, upvotes and witness votes :)
Stuff I've Done
I've been keeping my witness up to date and running. Luck(?) plus a speedy server mean I have only missed five blocks in three months.
I just shared some updates to a steem price feed script at https://steemit.com/witness-category/@nonlinearone/witness-price-feed-script-updates
I'm planning on sharing the very alpha code for 'Barracuda' as open source soon (please let me know in the comments if you're interested in seeing this code) https://steemit.com/curation/@nonlinearone/ann-barracuda-a-decentralized-curation-app-for-your-android-alpha-release-codename-cybernetic-fish
I've been "curating" - upvoting a lot of people who I follow plus people they resteem with the help of Barracuda. This has also helped me keep up to date on what people are up to on Steemit.com - which is nice because I've been busy with a lot of things and haven't had as much time to troll the site lately.
Mostly, I've been spending too much money on a server for the past three months.
Witness Resources and Finances
Here are excerpts from my previous three statements showing that I've paid $173.40 * 3 = $520.20
Statement #XXX (paid)
Statement Date: December 1, 2016
Due by: December 14, 2016
Service Dates: 12/01/16 - 01/01/17
Dedicated Server - Single Intel Xeon CPU - US Central Zone
289.00
40% Discount ... Dedicated Server - Single Intel Xeon CPU - US Central Zone
-115.60
Statement #XXX (paid)
Statement Date: November 1, 2016
Due by: November 14, 2016
Service Dates: 11/01/16 - 12/01/16
Dedicated Server - Single Intel Xeon CPU ...
...
289.00
40% Discount ... Dedicated Server - Single Intel Xeon CPU
-115.60
Statement #XXX (paid)
Statement Date: October 1, 2016
Due by: October 14, 2016
Service Dates: 10/01/16 - 11/01/16
Dedicated Server - Single Intel Xeon CPU....
289.00
40% Discount ... Dedicated Server - Single Intel Xeon CPU
-115.60
I was able to work out a discount (40% off) by my understanding is that this discount will expire next month.
Please note that at witness ranking #59 I am only witnessing about nine blocks per day and thus not earning nearly enough to cover the cost of this server. Add to that the fact that I've powered almost everything up and I am currently paying for this server "out of pocket." Please consider supporting my witness server with your upvotes and witness votes. Without more support, to be practical, I'll need to downgrade, relocate to a lower quality web host, or both. I'm on track to (possibly) spend more than I've ever earned (even from my posts) within a few months at this rate. See the image above (I love the smell of burning money in the morning!) :)
Why am I not ranked higher?
59 on the witness ain't too shabby, but it doesn't pay the bills. My theory is that I don't kiss enough Whale butt (or I'm too lazy). So, if you want to support witnesses who don't kiss too much Whale butt - vote for @nonlinearone golrangit!
Server Specs
This server might seem like overkill, but on the flip side - it had absolutely no trouble during the recent hardfork when I noticed a lot of people who were (presumably) running lower performance (and lower cost) were having issues with performance. We certainly want rock solid hardware, great internet connections, and an abundance of performance, no?
Processor: Intel Xeon E5-1650 v3 Hexa-Core
RAM: 32GB DDR4 SDRAM
HD1: 2 x SSD Software RAID 1 (+250GB Crucial SSD (MLC))
HD2: SATA Backup Drive (+1 TB SATA (7,200 rpm))
DDOSProtection: Standard DDoS Attack Protection (up to 2gbps)
Network
Bandwidth: 5 TB Outbound Bandwidth
N+1 Network Equipment, Tier-1 Bandwidth Providers, Diverse Fiber Paths ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network ).
Peering connections with Amazon, Equinix, Google, Motorola Mobility, Microsoft, Netflix, and Yahoo ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering )
Like my stuff? Please vote for me as a witness (witness thread)
Just head to
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Scroll to the bottom, cut and paste nonlinearone into that box and hit the vote button.
Thank You!
Thank you for the support so far everyone - I'm #59 on the witness list and have faithfully witnessed many blocks already :)