Slashdot Mirror
Geek-Chic Power Houses
nakhla writes "Wired.com is running a lengthy article on wired houses of celebrities. The article describes some of the tech that has gone into the houses of actors, businessmen, and professional athletes, outlining the steps they've gone to in order to obtain techno-nirvana. Included in the article is a profile of JAG's Catherine Bell (my vote for sexiest geek), and her use of a wireless network to connect her to her TiBook, Gateway Laptop, and...get this...Sharp Zaurus Linux PDA. For those of you who are just dying to string fiber around your entire house, this article will have you making a run to your favorite networking hardware store."
I thought it said Geek Chicks.
Who doesn't want to show her their hard drives
and give her some good RAM.
Bite me if it's cliche, but you know you're thinking this.
.smell my feet.
Seriously, I think the doorbell webcam/image pusher is the most interersting aspect, not that she has a Zaurus (more than likely she gets these gadgets as promo items so they are seem by the 'cool crowd')
Actually, one of the cheapest and easiest things I have done with our house is to set up an older Powerbook with a minimal installation of OS X and iTunes. Our entire music collection from CD is now 40GB on the hard drive. The Powerbook is hooked up to the stereo system so it can be piped anywhere throughout the house and the Powerbook is equipped with an Airport card so one can access it from anywhere in the house. Pretty easy and certainly cheaper, yet more sophisticated than many of the other high end stereo systems I've seen. In fact, our next door neighbor (an orthopedic surgeon and her husband who have a VERY expensive home multimedia system with dual 300 CD changers etc...etc...etc...) are absolutely blown away by this simple solution. We have mixes on it for dinner music, work out music, punk, bluegrass, classical and on and on. The other cool thing is that you hook your iPod up to it and you can synch driving music mixes when you plug the iPod into your car stereo system for road trips.
Pretty cool.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
But keep both feets on the ground, because you're not and (probably) will never be rich enough to spend millions on toys.
This is nice and all... but it remains toys. I dont think anyone really need a plasma screen instead of a regular mirror for shaving, but hey, its cool.
We're like mechanics looking at a movie star's custom ferrari.
this article will have you making a run to your favorite networking hardware store
Some suggested stores:
Networking Hardware USA
Networking Hardware Emporium
Hardware Networking Only, Inc.
No We don't have any Computers, Just Networking Shit, Asshole! LLC
Oh what a dream. Reading this article makes it all seem so joyous and wonderful. Especially when you don't have budget limitations and have the monetary freedom to completely scrap something that becomes obsolete in a couple of years and replace it with the latest and greatest thing out there. *Drool*
Speaking from the experience of going through the ups and downs of building a new house this year - trying to determine what technologies to use now and how to leave room for future upgrades/changes with such obstacles as:
1. A realistic budget
2. An uninformed contractor
3. Conflicting opinions from all directions
It is tough to know where to jump in and what is cost effective and useful technology that can be expanded and upgraded without costing an arm and a leg.
Typically a contractor is very informed about housing issues (plumbing, electrical, etc.) and can be a great source of information and recommendations but when it came to the tech infrastructure it was hard to find someone knowledgeable in the small town that I live in.
I pretty much had to do all the research myself and inform him on what I thought would be best. It was all a little odd considering I'm not a builder by any stretch of the imagination.
Ugh, makes my head hurt. We ended up going cat-5 with pre-wiring and space for wireless access points in the attic and conduit in the walls to pull fiber (or something else) later when it becomes feasible. It seemed best for us at the current time, hopefully it will continue to be a good decision a few years down the line.
Are you bovilexic? Moo!
The world has plenty of geek chicks. We just don't normally see them as they are nearly indistinguishable from the geek males.
;-)
;P
Oh this is not a troll.
--
[McP]KAAOS
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Ah yes, just what I was lacking. Hollywood fiber-optic gossip and token rings of the rich and famous.
It's all going according to
Yes, the famous porn star is probably just as "hardcore" a geek as anyone in the Wired article, if not more. I bet none of those profiled builds their own systems, did their own web sites, kicks butt in UTK, has a 150 IQ and has starred in hundreds of high quality porn flicks. Oh yeah, Wired is a "family" magazine.
Every once in a while I'll pick up a wIrEd at an airport or whatever. This is shortly followed by memories of why I canceled my subscription years ago. In the same way that fashion mags set up these unreasonable (and arbitrary) expectations of what it means to be a woman, wired has set up this buy-buy-buy wannabe geek culture. Example:
Sure, you might have DSL and Wi-Fi, an Xbox and a TiVo, maybe a Bang & Olufsen stereo with 5-foot speakers and a six-CD changer, but you're still an amateur in the world of extreme home networking
Extreme home networking? Is that like extreme programming? I had this burrito last night then I hunkered down for an evening of Extreme defecation
The ad:article ratio in wired has to be as high as Cosmo's, not to mention the high number of thinly veiled ads in the fetish section. But, we do get insights like:
Stored as 1s and 0s, music, video, and even television can share the same network.
What insight! What's worse is that these freaks at the forefront of graphic design somehow manage to obscure deep insights like the above with layouts and graphics that make the articles unreadable. I had to hold this one article at an angle because the paper was reflective silver before finally giving up. I guess I'm not an extreme reader! Form over function in all they do.
The preceding was an extreme /. post
Spleen vented. whew.
"Hello? Did I win?"
Yes! What's your name, lucky c-
"You're in my damn living room. You know my name."
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.