Slashback: Speed, Reprieves, Geometry

Would you imprison beautiful new computers in a rack? Does every mention of a Gnome application leave you twitching to see what related KDE programs are doing with themselves? Have you been gathering quarters to put into the Buy Iridium pot? Read on, pilgrim. But first, some good news about recent legislation!

Legislators cut down crack intake, film at 11. In this article about strange privacy-invading provisions of H.R. 2987, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000; you'll be pleased to note that many of its more odious portions have been erased. From the article: "[P]roponents of the bill -- known as the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act, (HR 2987) -- have steadily dropped some of its most controversial pieces, including a provision that would have made it illegal for news Web sites to link to Webpages about topics like medical marijuana. ... Another provision that was removed would have forced Internet Service Providers to remove users' Web pages without due process on the basis of mere allegations by the government." Hmmm -- laws and sausages.

Letting sleeping white elephants lie, or something. cetan writes "The Chicago Sun Times is reporting that "Motorola's request [to pull the plug on Iridium] follows a determination by Castle Harlan Inc., the New York investment bank that planned to buy Iridium's assets for just $50 million, that the business is too weak to save." Who knows though, maybe the system will get a last-minute breath of life yet..." The pool of possible saviors is pretty small now, eh?

A serious-stuff-only-station. gfxnrrd writes: "I just heard a talk by a researcher from Sony KARC about the GS cube. recently exhibited at SIGGRAPH. The cube contains 16 upgraded PS/2 chipsets; that is, 16 Emotion Engines (with 128 MB of main memory, instead of the measly 64 that the PS/2 has) and 16 Graphics Synthesizers with 32 MB of DRAM each, up from 4 from the PS/2). It can sustain 2024x1028 frames (in 32 bit color, natch) at 60 frames per second. It's connected to the world via a Linux box, which is responsible for both network and controller I/O. On the down side, the processors (at least in this prototype) are connected only via the bus, so no hypercube MP architecture or anything.

I should also mention that the earlier Slashdot article about the GS cube was misleading, in that Sony has no plans to sell this box (for any purpose) any time in the near future. It's not a "graphics workstation" nor can it be unless some radical changes are made (like adding a disk drive, to name only one thing). It's purely a research prototype at this point."

Speaking of cubes, MattTC writes: "These guys have some neat ideas on using the Mac Cube as a rackmountable server." It's also cool to see the G4 Cube without its clothes on.

First-class mail? navindra writes: "The legions of KMail fans may be interested in this progress review by Don Sanders. The last stable release of KMail was way back in September 1999 but development has far from halted." It may not look as slick as Evolution 0.3 does, but it sure looks like a nice clean mail experience!

Comments

Screw Iridium

[gad_zuki!]

Why are slashdotters so anxious to save this thing? It serverly hampers radio astronomy so that Joe and Mary Consumer can feel good about having a cell phone that works anywhere on the globe.

The real tragedy of Iridium

[K8Fan]

The sad part is that, by spending so much money on a stupid idea, inventor money is no longer available for actual good ideas. Iridium was based on how corporate executives see themselves, rather than on the reality of life as a corporate executive:

Ah yes! I'm a Master of the Universe! I have to be contacted anywhere on the planet because I'm so powerful and important! In the middle of the oceans! In Siberia! Everywhere!

...the sad truth being that corporate executives spend virtually all their time in offices, airports, in airplanes or at other people's offices. All of which are serviced just fine by cel phones.

But since Iridium peed in the water, nobody will want to swim. And actual good ideas, like Angel Halo have a much harder time of it.

Legislation in action

[phil reed]

Lots of legislators throw up 'trial balloons', partly to impress the home electorate and partly to see what will fly. Many of the more odious things we here about early on are shot down as part of the normal process of making laws. It's no surprise that the anti-linking provisions were pulled - somebody had a rush of brains to the head and talked the sponsors into dropping it. Sometimes the system does work.


...phil

Re:Legislation in action

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Lots of legislators throw up 'trial balloons', partly to impress the home electorate and partly to see what will fly. Many of the more odious things we here about early on are shot down as part of the normal process of making law

This is why it's important to be vocal early in the process... though lots of people seem to think it's "overreacting", it's part of the system. When an odious proposal is met with silence, it is taken as assent. It's that liberty-and-vigilance thing again.

I can just see it now...

[Chiasmus_]

Some bill with a drug rider passes, someone posts instructions for making methamphetamine to Slashdot (as though we couldn't find them anyway at, for example, Tower Records), and at my next visit, I get a happy 404 File Not Found message.

What a fantastic law!! What I really want to know, and didn't pick up from the article, is this: which senator(s) or representative(s) (is|are) responsible??