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Try Shadowrun MUSH. It's based on the Shadowrun RPG which is set in the near future and is a combination of high-tech and magic themes. I played there until around 1997 when I realized I was wasting my life on MUSH's. :-)

...are written by the science fiction fan community. Commonly called 'filk music' (the name is a typo of 'folk music'), technology is only one of the many themes used by this genre.

Here are some links to technology themed filksongs:

Steve Savitzky's computer songs. My favorite is The World Inside the Crystal.

There are other technologies besides computers though. Here are some songs about space exploration available as MP3s.

Here is a list of links to science and technology filk songs.

he went to 'Nam

I don't think pictures like this one help his reputation much though.

Thanks for pointing out these sites; I hadn't run across them before. I'll have to grab the URLs for my own links. :)

I know enough Russian to get into trouble and I'm a filksinger, so I've been enjoying reading and translating Russian filksongs posted on the Web, as well as downloading filk mp3s and fanvideos (including some fun LARP ones). I've got a short list of links and translations I call Gateway to Russian Filk. I recommend it especially to Tolkien fans. (I also apologize for the ugly HTML.)

If you know Russian, Kilor's Catalog is a massive Russian filk mp3 link site, leading you to songs by over a hundred different filkers.

Russian fandom is immensely freer than it used to be, and they seem to be making the most of it.

Maureen

Power:
Methane powered fuel cell, which provides for at least a months worth of continuous use.

The Screen:
Light emitting polymer screen is good here. Nice choice. The screen should also have some mechanism for eliminating finger grease automatically.

Form Factor:
A6, there should be no border, so that the screen takes up the entire front. Perhaps with fanned screens like the Psion Protoypes. (can't find a link)

Communications:
An array of Software Defined Radios, allows the device to keep in touch with the outside world. Depending on your current usage, they may be configured for Wireless Ethernet, BlueTooth, 3G+, TV, Radio etc. No need for multiple cards and slots. When a bug or security risk is found in any of the protocols, a simple software patch will fix the problem.

When data is huge, perhaps something like Infiniband over fibre optic would be useful.

Input:
Touch screen will be supported, along with a slide-out or otherwise concealed keyboard for when you actually want to enter some data. Voice recognition would also be nice, but only when your on your own.

CPU
Since were obviously way off into the future here, I would like a micro-distributed memory architecture, with approx 32 CPUs, each with at least 64 MB of memory. The CPU should probably be something like a 64bit ARM, running at whatever clockspeed is fashionable at the time. See this for similar stuff. The interconnects between CPU modules should use something like AMD's HyperTransport

OS
For linux fans, the CPU the architecture would support a micro-Beowulf style mode of operation.

For me, I'll roll my own Actor Model based system, running on a microkernel, like L4 but with better real-time response. Built in cryptography will keep ALL comms secure.

Actually, that is *NOTHING* like Beowulf at all.

Beowulf is about squeezing speed out of multiple machines. Beowulf is not about load balancing. Beowulf is not about high availability.

From the FAQ


1. What's a Beowulf? [1999-05-13]

It's a kind of high-performance massively parallel computer built
primarily out of commodity hardware components, running a free-software
operating system like Linux or FreeBSD, interconnected by a private
high-speed network. It consists of a cluster of PCs or workstations
dedicated to running high-performance computing tasks. The nodes in
the cluster don't sit on people's desks; they are dedicated to running
cluster jobs. It is usually connected to the outside world through
only a single node.

Some Linux clusters are built for reliability instead of speed. These
are not Beowulfs.

1) No, because it runs at 206MHz does not mean it comsumes a lot of power. It draws 0.7W.
2) It is RISC rather than CISC, and having used a 200MHz StrongARM desktop I can tell you it FLIES. Much faster than a P2-266
3) You use gcc to compile on StrongARM because Linux runs on StrongARM (well obviously). ARMLinux has been around for years running on Acorn machines. You can also cross-compile to StrongARM using a x86 box - just ./configure --target=arm-linux when compiling GCC.
4) You can even use them for Beowolf ;-)

Phillip.

If you're dialling(? keying?) a number instead of a letter, the middle finger should produce a 4 as shown
here.
For UK users, please dial 6, for metal freaks, please dial 18.

Many of these fits can take days, and, since they often have to be repeated many times with slight changes to the fitted function or initial parameters, this is a serious concern.

From the Beowulf FAQ:

3. Can I take my software and run it on a Beowulf and have it go faster?
[1999-05-13]

Maybe, if you put some work into it. You need to split it into
parallel tasks that communicate using MPI or PVM or network sockets or
SysV IPC. Then you need to recompile it.

Or, as Greg Lindahl points out, if you just want to run the same
program a few thousand times with different input files, a shell script
will suffice.

I can't believe there are beowulf trolls that don't even know what they're talking about. I take that back, I can. But you should really have a look at the beowulf faq anyway.

you do realize, don't you, that distributed systems aren't the answer for everything, right?
projects like distributed.net and seti@home are perfect for distributed systems b/c the data analysis can be easily split into manageable sets which can be passed off to willing participants.
If you are referring to something more along the lines of a beowulf cluster, then you should take a look at 3. of the beowulf faq.
In order for a cluster of machines to make a difference, that application has to be built for such a thing.

hmm...wait a second, did I just respond to a troll?

-Peter

Bill - aka taniwha
--

Freenet itself simply provides a framework to massively distribute files within a system that (theoretically) makes them fairly easy to access from anywhere and fairly difficult to delete from everywhere. The difference between it and gnutella is that a search mechanism is not central to propogating files. Files propogate simply by being sent across the peer-to-peer network. The filename, or freenet key, or whatever you want to call it is essentially just a capability for the file you want.

Based on this structure, any number of directory services could be built on top of freenet to provide access to, and authenticate capabilities for files within the system. Freenet seems to be a reasonable model to do this, but there is no reason to necessarily tightly couple the search to it.

Come to think about it, there could likely be many ways of searching for files on a system like freenet. There could be a peer-to-peer, gnutella-like search. Perhaps one with the ability for you to prioritize results comming from peers who you trust or have had good experience with in the past (this could get tricky with file propigation in freenet). There might also be a moderated search facility that provided capabilities that had been verified by someone already.

The bottom line with this is that the RIAA or whoever you are afraid might get in the way of good, honest, information sharing might be able to completely bog down a system such as freenet by putting big files on it and requesting them from many disperse locations -- freenet is going to have an incredibly hard time coping with this sort of attack -- but they probably won't be able to interfere too severely with people finding what they are looking for, if it is in fact there.

btw... I posted another note describing differences between freenet gnut and napster a while ago, but did a pretty horrible job with the formatting... there it is if you are more patient that I would likely be. :)

It's a kind of high-performance massively parallel computer built primarily out of commodity hardware components, running a free-software operating system like Linux or FreeBSD, interconnected by a private high-speed network. It consists of a cluster of PCs or workstations dedicated to running high-performance computing tasks. The nodes in the cluster don't sit on people's desks; they are dedicated to running cluster jobs. It is usually connected to the outside world through only a single node.

(Emphasis added.) The Compaq machine runs Tru64 UNIX.

1. What's a Beowulf? [1999-05-13]

It's a kind of high-performance massively parallel computer built primarily out of commodity hardware components, running a free-software operating system like Linux or FreeBSD, interconnected by a private high-speed network.

When I saw the story, I immediately thought of this. It was probably featured on Slashdot a few months back. Still, I thought the 6 processor board I read about had been real, not just proposed. Was there another 6 StrongARM PCI card project?
--

strongarm beowulf, though it sadly seems kinda deadish :(

Already thought of:

I don't know the current status of it, but both Chalice and Simtec were working on it.

Someone with far too much time on his hands decided to see how badly he could break the game on ISCA BBS -- here's the results:

I particularly like the fireman watching people keel over dead in the street....

We build turn-key Beowulf systems for a living. You may want to consult:

Beowulf.org

Beowulf FAQ

Beowulf Underground

Beowulf Quick Start

In addition, you may want to contact us directly about helping you convince your management that turn-key and supportable Linux Beowulf Clusters are available and do useful things. Take a look at our success stories.

Doug Eadline,
deadline@plogic.com
Paralogic, Inc.

Forget about slim chassis; how about no chassis? Take a look at Beowulf on StrongARM boards for $2000. These folks are looking at building 6 StrongARM processors with RAM and the necessary "glue" onto a single PCI card. Since easily obtainable PCs have 3 PCI slots in them, you should be able to set up an 18 node beowulf cluster inside one box (the PC itself acts as the controller). Can you usefully cluster a bunch of these (a cluster of clusters)? I don't know, but it's interesting to think about.

Doug Loss

Kragen