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Spindl3top Introduces Latest "Super" Blackbird
Golgo_13 writes: "Spindl3top released their latest community-generated Blackbird source today, pooling together some of the coolest free software-friendly components. Highlights include the project's ultracool trademark black cube, SMP with dual PIIIs @ 1GHz, SCSI @ 10000RPM, a Matrix-Orbital LCD panel (with lcdproc), a ThermoEngine (or optional Watercooler), and an ultra quiet PS from Enermax. Aside from being an ubergeek dream, it's for a good cause. They are selling them here for less than $2500 and all proceeds are being used toward Spindl3top going nonprofit. Since Spindl3top and the FSF have joined hands (first mentioned here by Lucas) to create the official, noncommercial GNU hardware/free software database, this is a very important cause IMHO."
Serious question:
The link doesn't work, and the description is confusing and vague, as usual.
So someone tell me just *who* Spindl3top is (besides, perhaps, yet another l33t h@x0r group), where we might have heard of them before, and why we should care.
It sounds like they're selling cool computers at low prices because people donated parts, and now they can spend their time doing cool stuff? Oh, and something about the FSF? And a Blackbird? Which, of course, we have all somehow heard about before right now?
A little more information, please.
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Now, one of those should really never be fired at a Blackbird, but I imagine the Bad Guys have something similar.
The actual systems aren't the main point of Spindl3top. The main "product" is going to be a good non-commercial database of hardware that works well with Free software. You can buy systems pre-built with hardware from that list, and the price you pay over cost will effectively be a contribution to the project.
Spindl3top may also work on setting up a Linux certification and some other educational stuff; I think that's further out.
Did you figure in shipping and handling? Each of those things is going to have a shipping charge of $8-12 from random pricewatch vendors. And of course more for big items like the case. (Not to mention that the lowest-priced listings from pricewatch are often suspect.) And, figure at least couple of hours for assembly and testing. I'd say it sounds reasonable to me.
But beyond that, the point of all this is not necessarily to provide the best deal possible. It's to provide a computer guaranteed to work with Linux (aka GNU/Linux) and to provide some financial support for the hardware database project. Look at the FSF's pricelist -- that's certainly more than you'd pay for the same stuff elsewhere. This is the same deal (or more accurately, will be once the non-profit is fully set up).
Join the discussion lists or follow activity at the web site. If you did this, it's completely clear that all of "spiers"'s concerns are eventually going to be addressed. These things aren't easy to start up.
If you have doubts, don't buy anything now; wait a little while until the non-profit is set up completely. As the slashdot story says, the proceeds from these initial for-profit sales will be used to fund the formation of the non-profit.
I don't know about the MiG-31s, but the SR-71s never had anything to fear from the MiG-25s. According to the pilot that flew his MiG-25 to Japan in the late 70s/early 80s, they would try to catch SR-71s from time to time. Their MiGs while rated at a top speed of approximately Mach 2.5, but they would rarely go that fast because their engines would get too hot and seize up. They tried shooting one down with air-to-air missles, too, but the missles weren't fast enough either.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
A chase plane at Edwards accidentally flew into one of the B-70 prototype's exhaust nozzles and blew up. The B-70 flew on for a few seconds and then augered into the desert. This was a setback, but probably wasn't what killed it. The advent of Russian SAMs that could easily reach the B-70s max operating altitude and the bomber's huge radar signature is what killed it. It couldn't adapt to the ground hugging attack strategy very well, either, so the project was killed and the use of the BUFFs continued.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
70's? You're off by a decade. Try early 60s. One of the planes that NASA uses was built in 1965. SR-71 History
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Oh we have plenty of supersonic bombers... and the Blackbird flies 3 times faster than any of them.
Well I was assuming that the extreme high altitude of the Blackbird coupled with its speed would ensure that the missle would run out of fuel before reaching its target. I'm assuming that there is no real flight ceiling on a missle since they are rocket powered (?)
The other followup post mentioned something about 3 high-altitude Migs being theoretically able to bring down a Blackbird. I'll buy that, but the original post was about getting radar lock with a single Swedish Viggen...
after which you can fire your missle and head home
You might as well head home because the missle will never catch up with its target. :^)
After reading the comment and the posted replies at Kuroshin (or however you spell it), I think you are overreacting. They are disorganized and maybe a bit ignorant of how these things work, but a cooperative (which is their goal) is not a charity, and they have merely been stating their intentions to donate profits. I work for a non-profit organization myself. The CEO still drives a brand new jeep, it's not like we're all paupers.
I also wouldn't suggest that anyone "Give them money" but why not buy something? If they have a product for sale and you use a credit card and you never get it, well your credit card company will withhold payment for you. As for all this whining about free advertising, I don't understand why no one complained about all the Transmeta hype here, or the announcements of Nvidia's latest video cards...
Of course, if their webserver worked at all I might be able to form a more concrete opinion.
Oh, by the way, recoup means recover your investment (break even), not profit on your investment.
Magic Bean!
Y'all can co for sleek, utilitarian, black boxes - that's fine.
But _I_ want amorphous, green and fugly for my next case!
Magic Bean!
Hell, I wish I was IT director of a fortune 500 company...
I'd draft a new standard, calling for Magic Beans on every desktop!
Magic Bean!
C-X C-S
Well, the site being Slashdotted, I've only managed to get a very small section of the jpg. However, the top corner of the case looks like the black version of the Yeong Yang YY-0221 case I'm using right now. You should be able to find someone to who imports it.
If it is the same case, it's not suprising to me that they replaced the power supply. The PS that came with mine is loud. I intend to replace it as soon as I have the money.
"Be Happy or Die." -- AoN
Geocities doesn't like links directly to images on its site. So start a new browser session and paste the URL in.
-- Rambar
Try this instead:
Click on the link. You get the "I'm sorry..." page. Then:
Put your cursor on the location bar (which still has the URL of the image) and hit carriage return.
That tries again. But it reports the previous page as being the "I'm sorry" at the same URL, which is on their server. Thus the server thinks you're coming in from a self-link on the same page. B-)
(At least it worked for me when I tried it. I'd debug it but I'd have to flush my chache at this point - Netscape wants to serve me my local copy.)
Nice looking box.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I was able to remove the file from the URL and get a directory listing of many pictures - including the linked to 26 - which then magically worked for me.... If it doesn't for you, try a different number - it's all the same object and nothing overly special to write home about (IMHO)... /.'ed now....
"scratch" cancel that -
Update - I just tried it again to verify my results and it was broken again. So, I downloaded the linked to pic (#26 and posted it on my site) here so let's hope I don't get
Cheers
Wheeeee
http://www.directron.com/yy0221bk.html
I bought mine from them and am happy with it, although I too replaced the power supply with one from PC Power & Cooling.
It is a great case, the drive bays are in a whole different compartment from the motherboard, which makes it very easy to work on without having to totally disassemble. The site above has multiple images, including the internal assembly.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The case, I believe, is a nice extra wide ATX case based off the style of the old black NeXT cubes.
If I remember correctly, Lucas from Spindl3top was originally looking at creating a user-friendly GNUstep Linux distribution to get NeXT fans setup easier (GNUstep had a fairly hard install path at this stage). I didn't follow this but noticed them pop up awhile back with the rather nice hardware collective idea.
The idea is that they basically bulk buy on a small range of parts, thus getting better deals. These parts have all been tested or have a history of working well on Linux. They then put this set of parts together into their pretty black boxes and ship'em out to happy Linux power-users.
So why does this still qualify as "Stuff that matters?"
Peril n.: A sysadmin with a screwdriver.
1) Giving to the cancer society
2) Volunteering time to the local food bank.
3) Helping Spindl3top go nonprofit.
Right-click and open in new window solves that little hiccup.
Maybe they could throw a couple of those bad-boys to addresss the problem of their /.ed web site?
In case anyone didn't notice. The google cache is from January !!! So there's not really a lot about the more recent activities like that PC selling thingy....
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
> They are selling them here for less than $2500 and all proceeds are being used toward Spindl3top going nonprofit. Since Spindl3top and the FSF have joined hands (first mentioned here by Lucas) to create the official, noncommercial GNU hardware/free software database, this is a very important cause IMHO."
0 1/ 2/21/19441/2905, in particular the thread by 'spiers'.
1 /19441/2905&cid=38#38 to an ad (http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2001 /2/21/19441/2905) for his business), it got dumped because it was essentially speculation. I had a very strong suspicion that they were running a profit-making enterprise, but from the goodwill it got from naive story posts in slashdot (not that you could truly expect any kind of integrity or checking of stories from them) it was masquerarding as a charity.
/ 11/14/134531/20):
Be very careful of these people.
There whole operation is based on a massive deceit.
Please read this:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=20
Please also note this:
>Look at the furious back-pedalling at
>
>http://www.spindl3top.org/faq.php
That's very true. When I wrote my article on k5 originally (reposted here http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=comments&sid=2001/2/2
They did confirm that eventually:
me>Why doesn't the site say who is profiting from it?
reply> As of now? Nobody. Lucas has sunk some of his savings into it, which he does hope to recoup.
Which is otherwise known as a business. You invest money in the hope of getting more back.
Although:
Michael Leutenberg:
> I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. The FSF is one of the organizations that will be donated to; once spindletop has money to do donations.
uh huh
whereas:
Lucas:
> Give me a break, what will my crap pocketchange per video card or whatever do for the FSF? Nothing. They get a lot of money from other places, grants or whatever.
hmm.
I did intend to write another article from the firmer basis: this is a business but people are under the false impression it's a charity, but sadly my indolence took over. By making this 'plain', tucked away on the FAQ amidst much obfuscation (the summation of which reads 'We are making money out of people's naivety): ' It is for-profit currently (see below, why);' he attempts to pre-empt any further such article - 'everyone knows; it's in the FAQ!'
Note this:
9.How are the profits being distributed?
We don't make a big deal out of where the money goes (assuming a net profit), what for, etc. because someone is always going to say, "Well, you should have given x more" or whatever. We feel it is an ethical responsibility to give support if there is a net profit.
It would be nice for members to select their most favorite projects, so that a little democracy could be used... but this feature has to be built into the software.
If the entity were to go nonprofit, we don't know if it would be viable to continue this practice since money is taken from the profits at year end and returned to paying members or used to break even.
Utter bullshit.
It is interesting to not that this is different from the initial sales pitch, where this business got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free promotion on the basis of 'Spindletop is in the process of becoming the first (and only [this implies GNU affiliation as a worthy cause]) GNU Cooperative [again this implies a not-for-profit site]', and in particular on this totally fraudulent statement (here http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2000
'Money after expenses is donated to the FSF and Debian.'
He's just frantically trying to cover his ass to pre-empt anyone criticizing his shadowy business (which is basically a black hole as far as money goes, in the absence of any requirement for accountability).
AVOID THESE PEOPLE.
Anyone who behaves like this should be given a wide berth.
Basically, I'm going to donate most of the assets of this for-profit company to the new nonprofit. I'm killing my company. Why? I'm tired of worry about a bottom-line, I'm tired of all of the shit involved with for-profit companies because it prevents me from the intangible goals I set out for in the first place... the goals that don't generate profit.
This is just more FUD. For the record, I'm getting a job like everyone else.
Basically, I'm killing the for-profit company and getting a job. I'm going to donate the assets of the for-profit to the nonprofit. Why? I'm tired of worrying about the bottom line, the profit margins, and all of the other pains in the ass that come with being for-profit. You quickly lose sight of what matters most, and it isn't money. When hardware isn't very profitable and you're losing money (though you're selling stuff), you get a really bad taste in your mouth. It's like, "Why did I do this in the first place? argh."
I do this stuff because it is fun for me, and for no other reason. I didn't want to go entirely under the FSF to construct the hardware database because I still want to do Blackbirds and Stallman didn't want to touch hardware. I love building them and working with the hardware; it's just nice to be able to design geek-like stuff. If others are interested, that's cool. There's no FUD involved, though.
Really, if anyone has any questions, they can call me up via voice and ask me, I don't mind. I do mind people quoting things on K5 out of context and attaching conspiracy theories to them. As I said on there, don't quote from me like it's the Bible, because I make mistakes like everyone else. The only thing Streetlawyer (on K5) had a problem with is that it wasn't charitable. Sure, I'm the same way... skeptical of for-profit stuff. Now it will be and the for-profit will be killed because I've always felt it was the right thing to do... I just didn't know how and didn't want to spend another $3000 on lawyers. Now, with the help of others in the community, we know how and we're going to do it.
I'm getting a job like everyone else and will do this for fun again.... and that is what I'm looking forward to.
If you're interested in being on the board in the new nonprofit or just helping out, we're having a meeting this month here in Cambridge, Mass. to finalize our articles/goals and elect boardmembers... and, as usual, hang out and talk geek -- nothing too formal.
Lucas
Maybe they should use the SMP with dual PIIIs @ 1GHz, SCSI @ 10000RPM to run the site. That way it will be accessible to more than the 4 people trying to see it.
Arathres
stainless steel
A /. cache is something that really needs to be considered for the MAIN page of any site linked.
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Since the site is slashdotted all to hell, if you want some more background infromation here's the link to googles cache of their page. http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.spindletp .com/+&hl=en
The Technonaut