• 32GB and 165 Watts in a Single Slot: The NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition Up Close
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    32GB and 165 Watts in a Single Slot: The NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition Up Close

    At HPE Discover 2026, the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition is the GPU that gets interesting precisely because it is not a flagship. It packs 32GB of GDDR7 and 10,496 Blackwell cores into a single-slot, passively cooled card that draws just 165 watts, and HPE showed it next to the ProLiant DL380 Gen12…

  • 36 Power Supplies for One Router: The HPE Juniper PTX12012 Up Close
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    36 Power Supplies for One Router: The HPE Juniper PTX12012 Up Close

    At HPE Discover 2026, the HPE Juniper PTX12012 is the router that makes you look at the power and cooling first. It is a 12-slot, 32U core router that scales to 518.4 terabits and 648 ports of 800G, fed by a back wall of up to 36 power supply modules. I found the PTX12012 staged…

  • 204.8T of Switching Capacity Per Tray in the AMD Helios AI Rack
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    204.8T of Switching Capacity Per Tray in the AMD Helios AI Rack

    At HPE Discover 2026, the most interesting thing I found on the networking side was not a GPU. It was the tray feeding them: the HPE Juniper QFX5252, a scale-up switch carrying 204.8 terabits of capacity in a single liquid-cooled module for the AMD Helios AI rack. Walking the floor on June 18 in Las…

  • Before AI Clusters, There Was This 11,000-Pound Supercomputer Beast
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    Before AI Clusters, There Was This 11,000-Pound Supercomputer Beast

    At HPE Discover 2026, one of the most interesting machines on the floor is not a new AI cluster. It is a 50-year-old Cray-1 prototype that helped define what high-performance computing looked like before modern data centers existed. Walking the floor at HPE Discover this week, among the dense AI systems and modern HPC displays,…

  • Chicken Coops: What 28 Years of Raising Chickens Taught Me About Building vs Buying

    Chicken Coops: What 28 Years of Raising Chickens Taught Me About Building vs Buying

    I got my first chicken at the Butler Fair when I was three years old. That’s not a figure of speech; my parents have the photo. Twenty-eight years later I’m running Silkies and ISA Browns at Stella Manor, and I’ve been through just about every coop configuration you can imagine: coops I built from scratch,…

  • First Connealy Total Package Calf on the Ground And She’s Exactly What We Were After

    First Connealy Total Package Calf on the Ground And She’s Exactly What We Were After

    It’s been a busy spring and summer here at Stella Manor, and I’ve been putting off writing this update because, honestly, things haven’t slowed down enough to sit at a keyboard. But this one deserves its own post. We have our first Connealy Total Package calf on the ground, a heifer, and she has the…

  • New Arrival: A Total Package Heifer Hits the Ground at Stella Manor

    New Arrival: A Total Package Heifer Hits the Ground at Stella Manor

    We had a heifer calf born on March 29th out of 117M, one of our first-calf heifers, sired by Connealy Total Package. She came in at 78 pounds, was up quick, and latched onto colostrum without any issues. That’s about all you can ask for from a heifer’s first calving. She’s already looking the part.…

  • Early Mornings and Quiet Water in Naples, Florida

    Early Mornings and Quiet Water in Naples, Florida

    I recently spent a few days in Naples, Florida, and it ended up being one of those trips that felt simple in the best way. The weather was perfect the entire time. Warm, calm, and predictable, which made it easy to settle into a routine. I found myself waking up around 5:30 every morning without…

  • Leavenworth, Washington: Bavarian Charm, Mountain Views, and the Cost of Getting There

    Leavenworth, Washington: Bavarian Charm, Mountain Views, and the Cost of Getting There

    Leavenworth, Washington sits tucked into the Cascade Mountains, a small town that committed fully to a Bavarian identity decades ago and somehow made it work. Timber-framed buildings, alpine storefronts, walkable streets, and a steady hum of tourism define the place. It is not subtle, but it is intentional, and that is part of why it…

  • 239L Welcomes Her First Calf

    239L Welcomes Her First Calf

    This week was an exciting milestone at Deluisio Angus as 239L delivered her first calf. He is already showing a friendly temperament, a trait we place a lot of value on in our herd. Watching him interact in the pasture, it’s clear he carries himself with confidence and curiosity. Pedigree Strength This calf is sired…