World Server Throwing Championship | Hacker News Reader

World Server Throwing Championship

cloudfest.com

228 pointsT-A68 comments

I wonder what the optimum server is. Naively I think a 1U is better since its lighter, maybe a supermicro/odm build since all the fat has been cut away.

But there is the question of balance too. Often on your typical dell the weight is concentrated at the back on one side because of the PSUs.

And what is the best throwing technique? For a 1U full depth server I think Id want to try a frisbee or discus style throw, but that would require a lot of grip strength.

Are there different classes? Perhaps there should be a caber-toss style event for those 13U servers you get with the vertical line cards, and a two person event for yeeting those really big routers.

I mean, a raspberry pi could count right? Fairly sure I could throw one of them pretty far. Or a micro ATX style box?

I'd for sure go for a 4U short depth with those beefy front handles. Grab one or both handles and hurl it around discus-style.

do I have to use my hands? I wonder if I can lie down on my back and sort of kick it away with my feet

Cut the ends off some rails, mount them at a 45 degree angle to the ground, and leg press it into low orbit

Is BYOT Bringing-Your-Own-Trebuchet allowed?

I think equipment needs considering.

Gloves to stop the finger shredding at a minimum.

Cleats on the feet for grip and maybe forearm protection.

Skin tight Lycra everywhere else so that clothing doesn’t get caught, but also to accentuate the figure of the system administrator.

>to accentuate the figure of the system administrator.

https://xkcd.com/705/

What about blade servers. The server is just a card that slides into the larger chassis/frame. So, is the server the whole chassis, but wouldn't that mean you a multiplier for how many are being thrown? Or is it just the card?

Mac mini maybe?

Do some DIN rail or rugged outdoor stuff count? That with a short looped cable... I mean it will be against the spirit but technically

> And what is the best throwing technique?

I envision a hammer throw, though I feel like a server thrown that way could be extremely dangerous.

My sense is a 2U, with those solid handles on the side will allow you to yeet it hammer-throw style. You'll have excellent grip, and the slightly thicker body might cancel out any weird aerodynamics.

Surely a raspberry pi is the best server to throw? Mine has a metal passive cooling case so I think it could be thrown really far.

My thoughts as well, though I suspect it will be a standard as no bring your own option or mention of that mooted.

Guess blade servers are the meta, probably with a shot put (I believe this is the English name) style technique. They should be a bit less awkwardly shaped.

Though with ML the new hotness they should throw those servers, something with 2 Epycs and 4 H100 perhaps...

They can throw those servers right into the back of my truck

Mac mini, surely?

I would go for a 1u with redundant PSUs on each sides and with 4 hard drives in the front (the spinning kind, not those fancy nmve thingy) to counterbalance the PSUs.It should be pretty well balanced without being too heavy or big to handle. Of course the only way to know for sure is to try, any donors ?

maybe that imbalance becomes an advantage? rather than a discus, maybe a hammer toss style throw?

Reminds me of a rumor in the first dotcom boom, where it was said that Larry Ellison would do 'laptop clay pidgeon shooting' from his yacht(s). He allegedly would have entire pallets of laptops carted onto the ships, take it out to open water, have some sort of contraption launch the laptops over sea and guests would shoot at them like you would at clay pidgeons. Seemed to be too outrageous to be true, but at the time (if I recall correctly) there were pictures of the setup on the boat. But this would have been 25 years ago, maybe I'm misremembering. I did a quick google but nothing obvious shows up. Anyway recall this?

This is crazy. Brings back a vivid memory from y2k when I was ten, how I was very sad after looking at a $5000 laptop behind a shop window. I had a reference for $5000 in my head, because we have then just sold our apartment for the same amount, before leaving the country for the West. I was absolutely certain that neither I nor my parents would ever be able to afford it.

I used to take part in a similar event at a lan party in my youth, with dead hard drives instead of servers. They're the perfect discus. Distance was recorded by where the hard drive stopped instead of where it first landed, so underarm bowling became the top strategy. I think the record was well over 200m using one of those round seagate pocket drives.

As a former discus thrower, I love this but also want to say it is beyond unlikely that anyone was throwing anything 200m, unless you mean down a sheer mountain face...

Yeah that's the length of two soccer fields (and then a bit more)

Sorry for the confusion, I meant that because the measure was from where the disk stopped (instead of where it lands), people were bowling the disks along the ground so they 'rolled' on their corners. Think ten-pin bowling instead of discus.

Where you perhaps on a hard surface? I have trouble imagining even a football rolling for 200m on grass, but seems plausible on a road/runway.

Ever played frisbee on grass? You can easily get a frisbee traveling 20-50 meters along the ground just by accident.

Exactly.

Yes, it was a grass surface, but not lush grass - more closely mown and patchy, on hard soil.

Sorry, dude. It's impossible. No one can roll a ball on grass for that distance let alone a hard drive. Most professional athletes can't even kick a ball for more than 100m, let alone "well over 200m"

Here's a video of a similar Dutch event where they threw a bunch of 1U servers.

https://youtu.be/VS-dL81ArkA

No surprise Jack Van Reacher won :)

Are you required to stand still for throwing? Olympic events involving throwing a weighted object tend to include foot rotation as part of the motion.

That’s the WSTA member listed in the site.

> Up to 40 server-throwing athletes will show their raw power

So this is by hand, right, as in humans throwing servers?

As opposed to using slingshots, catapults, trebuchets, etc. like in punkin chunkin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punkin_chunkin), which would also be interesting and might require a different strategy due to blade servers' aerodynamic properties.

Seems like an advertising stunt for an event with tickets starting at €499 + VAT.

Let’s see how much scrutiny my professional development budget gets…

Forget about professional dev. This is definitely coming out of the asset disposal budget.

Yeah. Even competitors are required to buy a ticket (at full price):

    # Apply for a Sever Throwing Slot  <-- Note the typo too ;)

    Please get your CloudFest pass before filling out this form.

To me, it feels like a scam more than anything.

It looks like still free tickets until 1000 are taken?

Could this be the opportunity for Kamila to continue her winning streak? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/kamila-grabska...

I wonder how odd I am about these things. Due to the environment I grew up in, anger is something I struggle to deal with in a healthy manner. It has taken a long time to learn. When I was young I would not think twice about this kind of thing and find it fun. As I get older i do not find that I enjoy it. In fact its a little bit off putting. Watching groups of humans cheer for the destruction of something they are angry at. Something about it hits wrong in my old age.

In my childhood I'd standing at gates of the event, catching those devices with care...

Why would they cheer because they are angry at it? That in itself says something about the way you look at it.

As far as I’m concerned it’s because throwing absurdly heavy -but still recognizable- objects is funny.

Dear god...such a waste of compute resources...

Suggest side events.

Here's mine - "Javelinux" - attempting to spear a distant stuffed penguin toy.

Armed with nothing but linux, catch and subdue a javelina.

OMG I love this. I have so many questions. What are the rules? How much does a server weigh? Are the servers shared between throws? What do they do about damage for the next thrower? Are they using different “standard” configs or weights depending on ability level? Etc…

Is there a version of this for serverless with GCP/AWS?

I mean all that code still runs on servers in a data center. “Serverless” really just means “stateless”. You can just huck the servers they use for your service.

The duathlon version will be interesting: pwn2throw

A sport event with broader appeal would be printer throwing. Especially if it's done out of a window.

So this is the discus event?

Curious to see the shot put equivalent - old UPS units nestled into ones neck before launch?

Meet our new sysadmin, Ryan Crouser.

I love that someone took that printer smashing scene from Office Space and turned it into a sport.

I would pay good money to watch this in real life.

Is it allowed to use the cord? Because then hammer throw-style rotations would be optimal.

So who's gonna petition for this to be an Olympic sport, alongside printer smashing?

Wow, I have a few dead 1Us.. I should rig up a training platform and try it out

If it’s an A100 server rack

Oof, that feels so wrong I have goose bumps.

I mean, I understand that the economics are there for those servers to be thrown away, and maybe all of these that are thrown away are actually broken. But we're talking about a good amount of waste here, in an industry that's not particularly famous for its environmental-friendliness. Making a spectacle/joke of it feels completely out of place. Ugh.

Mac mini is a server?

Raspberry Pi is a server too... For home automation.

Anything is a server long as it is not end-client frontend facing.

Love this marketing

Are rpi allowed?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com