What about mixing the plutonium with glass to be the 'filler' against it becoming a critical mass, and also to store the thing in whatever container you like... more glass?.. you can use as much glass as you like so it's safe and it probably will not go anywhere during the life of the plutonium. Keyword: probably. IANANP (I am not a nuclear physicist) but this seemed like a possible 'solution'.
i.e. mix it with enough benign matter (glass sounds good to me) so it becomes just a big blob of not-very-harmful-stuff. --
Delphis
Have you seen how much mess those refil kits cause when you refill the cartridge and 'something' goes wrong?.. ends up gluing up the whole printer. Having been asked to fix such a problem I just cringe when I see someone mention 'refill kits'.
My advice is always to just buy the branded replacment as it works out cheaper in the long run from having to buy new printers. Plus it's important to think of refill costs when buying the printer in the first place. --
Delphis
I heard a while ago as well that places such as Africa actually OBJECTED to receiving 'old' computers as they 'didn't want to become the dumping ground for the rest of the world'.. They even said they would 'only accept a P166 or higher'... sounds a bit of a snooty attitude to me. Free is free.
So maybe you can't give them away.
PS: Not sure where I heard that story, if anyone knows it too and has a link.. that'd be great. --
Delphis
Go write one then.:> Problem is, anyone who uses Linux is more than likely familiar with programming and/or HTML. I know myself that I prefer to write my own HTML and PHP and not have some god-awful program cock it up by what it THINKS I want in the page.
The real problem is 'average' users don't use Linux.. therefore there's no 'market' and no simple HTML editors.
It uses PC100 because its based on an old reference board design.
Ah.. thanks for that info. I just posted a similar question to an earlier post as to why it was using PC100 memory when faster basic SDRAM is available (PC133 etc..)
Because servers are not desktop PCs with the likes of Joe Schmoe as their users are they?
We all know Linux is a better server than a windows machine. The fact is though, if the consumers only have Windows machines to use, the internet AS IT APPEARS TO CONSUMERS becomes increasingly influenced by Microsoft.
It's not hard to figure out.
PS: Noone said anything about Linux being 'oppressed'.
What a pity to lumber the machine with PC100 memory and not PC133 or PC150.. Such a change can make quite a difference as most machines spend all their time shunting stuff back and forth from memory. Especially if this is meant to be a high-end workstation. My cheapo Dell desktop PC has faster memory than that.
Plus I think PC133 is actually cheaper than PC100 these days. For 256MB DIMMS at least, $36 for PC100 and $32 for PC133. Not that it's much of a difference.. just a comment. Memory prices these days are amazing...
I agree about the graphics card too.. I don't know what they're like but I was hoping for some beefed up SGI super-duper graphics card in there.
Let's say that you have a computer, and that I have a hard drive. The hard drive has a computer, but no data. It does, unfortunately, have a compuvirus. When I insert my hard drive, the compuvirus takes over your computer.
What?.. If the drive can be written to, it will be 'taken over' in much the same way as a regular hard disk would be. If you introduce virus killing software then yes, it would kill the virus in BOTH cases.
Exactly. How portable is this thing if you're the only guy in the world with one?
That and that fact that 20GB of storage that isn't part of a RAID array or has various backup procedures surrounding it just scares me.. What happens if your shiny new IOMEGA wotsit (disk or unit) goes and dies, leaving you shafted for recovering your data. Ugh.
PS: Sig quote is 'You ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?' (I always ask that of all my prey):)
Not sure how the Tivo would record two signals at once if its only getting one from your satellite receiver?.. unless the Tivo itself is the satelitte receiver/tuner, in which case does it work with DirecTV and Dish Network?
Ah.. thanks for that information. 23 hours is crazy to get it fixed. It seems the Microsoft marketing machine has done well to cover this little factoid up:>
From yours and the other posts, thankyou. Seems I got the wrong end of the stick. I could have sworn I heard at first that it was a configuration or failure of the router that brought MS's DNS down - not a denial of service attack.
No, I have no love for Microsoft either, that's true.:>
From the article in the first few paragraphs, talking about denial of service attacks:
Microsoft's name server infrastructure was disabled by a similar assault.
No it wasn't. Microsoft just fucked up with the ONE router that had their DNS traffic going through it.
Makes me want to give up reading if it's going to be crap like that.
Other stories I'm sure I heard a while ago was that Hans Reiser was a complete asshole to work with, or so the Linux kernel mailing list had it. Anyone remember anything about that?
I'd hate to have ResierFS installed all over the place and then this prick demands royalties or something 'a la Unisys'.
What's wrong with getting a few wackos with millions of dollars of spare change to fund all this research though?.. IMHO, NASA screwed up by not grabbing this guy Tito's money in the first place and putting it into a project like the ISS that DOES cost a helluver lot of money to do.
It's how stately homes are funded for upkeep, you get visitors and they pay an entrance fee. Same principle, different scale.
There's nothing dubious about these places having tourism. People tend to be interested to see what goes on over the fence. Plus, you're not saying that space should only be for the academics are you?;).. Such an argument is/was used against opening up the internet AFAIR.
As always, with Macs and PCs, the systems can have a similar amount of power but there's always those glaring differences.
Like.. Cost?.. PC hardware is much cheaper than Mac hardware. Probably from the economies of scale and the fact there's no ONE supplier of PC hardware that can keep its prices (artificially?) high. Cost is a big factor I think.
There's power usage too, like someone mentioned, an Athlon is a bit a of a power hog, PowerPC chips aren't. That is a very good reason to cluster PowerPC chips. What I'd like is to be able to buy PowerPC chips and motherboards cheaply and plentifully like their Intel/AMD brethren, and run Linux on it - without paying the 'Mac tax'.
There's operating system choices too.. and far too many to get into detail about. Linux is common between both platforms, and the various quirks of Linux, Mac OS and Windows may or may not be someones bag.
Best bet is to play with whatever system you feel like buying beforehand.
I wouldn't worry too much about raw speed, as whatever you buy.. as soon as you get it out of the packaging.. is already obsolete;>
2U of rackspace can mean a lot in some installations. On that page you gave though it talks about it being 6U tall.. jeez. For one Mac??
If you can get 6 machines in 6U opposed to 1 machine in 6U, guess what most people who are nuts about rackmounting as much kit as possible will choose?:> It's not hard to figure out.
You wish.. it's more like $250 for the 'upgrade' or $500+ if you buy it outright.
If Microsoft weren't so bent on screwing everyone and anyone, there'd be much less piracy of their products, as there would obviously be less incentive.
Seems a pity noone completely mirrored the website so they can tell Michael to just fuck off. Michael appears to be extremely childish according to the account in the article. It would be nice to hear an account from Michael in response to this article but it's quite possible (probable? hope not) that the childish behaviour is true and only abuse of the/. moderation system will happen instead.
Slashdot Mirror
What about mixing the plutonium with glass to be the 'filler' against it becoming a critical mass, and also to store the thing in whatever container you like... more glass? .. you can use as much glass as you like so it's safe and it probably will not go anywhere during the life of the plutonium. Keyword: probably. IANANP (I am not a nuclear physicist) but this seemed like a possible 'solution'.
i.e. mix it with enough benign matter (glass sounds good to me) so it becomes just a big blob of not-very-harmful-stuff.
--
Delphis
Have you seen how much mess those refil kits cause when you refill the cartridge and 'something' goes wrong? .. ends up gluing up the whole printer. Having been asked to fix such a problem I just cringe when I see someone mention 'refill kits'.
My advice is always to just buy the branded replacment as it works out cheaper in the long run from having to buy new printers. Plus it's important to think of refill costs when buying the printer in the first place.
--
Delphis
I heard a while ago as well that places such as Africa actually OBJECTED to receiving 'old' computers as they 'didn't want to become the dumping ground for the rest of the world'.. They even said they would 'only accept a P166 or higher' ... sounds a bit of a snooty attitude to me. Free is free.
.. that'd be great.
So maybe you can't give them away.
PS: Not sure where I heard that story, if anyone knows it too and has a link
--
Delphis
Sounds AMAZINGLY expensive too .. .. much cheaper just to make a few different batches of keycaps. And for the user, just to buy a couple of keyboards.
--
Delphis
I mean, does it keep my in-law from messing with my computer?
Screen saver passwords and bios power-on passwords are your friend.
--
Delphis
Go write one then. :> Problem is, anyone who uses Linux is more than likely familiar with programming and/or HTML. I know myself that I prefer to write my own HTML and PHP and not have some god-awful program cock it up by what it THINKS I want in the page.
.. therefore there's no 'market' and no simple HTML editors.
The real problem is 'average' users don't use Linux
--
Delphis
Wheee! .. break out yer raytracers!
Maybe the itanium (in its current incarnation) will only be useful for raytracing farms etc.
Everyone else of course can happily use their Athlons for a fraction of the price..
--
Delphis
It uses PC100 because its based on an old reference board design.
Ah.. thanks for that info. I just posted a similar question to an earlier post as to why it was using PC100 memory when faster basic SDRAM is available (PC133 etc..)
--
Delphis
Because servers are not desktop PCs with the likes of Joe Schmoe as their users are they?
We all know Linux is a better server than a windows machine. The fact is though, if the consumers only have Windows machines to use, the internet AS IT APPEARS TO CONSUMERS becomes increasingly influenced by Microsoft.
It's not hard to figure out.
PS: Noone said anything about Linux being 'oppressed'.
--
Delphis
What a pity to lumber the machine with PC100 memory and not PC133 or PC150 .. Such a change can make quite a difference as most machines spend all their time shunting stuff back and forth from memory. Especially if this is meant to be a high-end workstation. My cheapo Dell desktop PC has faster memory than that.
.. I don't know what they're like but I was hoping for some beefed up SGI super-duper graphics card in there.
Plus I think PC133 is actually cheaper than PC100 these days. For 256MB DIMMS at least, $36 for PC100 and $32 for PC133. Not that it's much of a difference.. just a comment. Memory prices these days are amazing...
I agree about the graphics card too
--
Delphis
Let's say that you have a computer, and that I have a hard drive. The hard drive has a computer, but no data. It does, unfortunately, have a compuvirus. When I insert my hard drive, the compuvirus takes over your computer.
.. If the drive can be written to, it will be 'taken over' in much the same way as a regular hard disk would be. If you introduce virus killing software then yes, it would kill the virus in BOTH cases.
What?
Don't be silly.
--
Delphis
Exactly. How portable is this thing if you're the only guy in the world with one?
.. What happens if your shiny new IOMEGA wotsit (disk or unit) goes and dies, leaving you shafted for recovering your data. Ugh.
:)
That and that fact that 20GB of storage that isn't part of a RAID array or has various backup procedures surrounding it just scares me
PS: Sig quote is 'You ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?' (I always ask that of all my prey)
--
Delphis
Not sure how the Tivo would record two signals at once if its only getting one from your satellite receiver? .. unless the Tivo itself is the satelitte receiver/tuner, in which case does it work with DirecTV and Dish Network?
--
Delphis
Ah.. thanks for that information. 23 hours is crazy to get it fixed. It seems the Microsoft marketing machine has done well to cover this little factoid up :>
--
Delphis
From yours and the other posts, thankyou. Seems I got the wrong end of the stick. I could have sworn I heard at first that it was a configuration or failure of the router that brought MS's DNS down - not a denial of service attack.
:>
No, I have no love for Microsoft either, that's true.
--
Delphis
From the article in the first few paragraphs, talking about denial of service attacks:
Microsoft's name server infrastructure was disabled by a similar assault.
No it wasn't. Microsoft just fucked up with the ONE router that had their DNS traffic going through it.
Makes me want to give up reading if it's going to be crap like that.
Bah.
--
Delphis
Other stories I'm sure I heard a while ago was that Hans Reiser was a complete asshole to work with, or so the Linux kernel mailing list had it. Anyone remember anything about that?
I'd hate to have ResierFS installed all over the place and then this prick demands royalties or something 'a la Unisys'.
--
Delphis
My computer is handling 22 processes right now. That can be a lot for just one computer..
> ps ax | wc -l
92
22 processes a lot? You what?
--
Delphis
Of course I have to wonder, reading that comment, what sort of computer would be running AT THE SUN. .. can you say HEATSINK REQUIRED?!? :D
Even putting machines closer to the sun than earth is presently seems like a bad idea.
As has been mentioned before though, a supercomputing 'farm' on the dark side of the moon or mars would be kinda cool (literally).
--
Delphis
What's wrong with getting a few wackos with millions of dollars of spare change to fund all this research though? .. IMHO, NASA screwed up by not grabbing this guy Tito's money in the first place and putting it into a project like the ISS that DOES cost a helluver lot of money to do.
;) .. Such an argument is/was used against opening up the internet AFAIR.
It's how stately homes are funded for upkeep, you get visitors and they pay an entrance fee. Same principle, different scale.
There's nothing dubious about these places having tourism. People tend to be interested to see what goes on over the fence. Plus, you're not saying that space should only be for the academics are you?
--
Delphis
As always, with Macs and PCs, the systems can have a similar amount of power but there's always those glaring differences.
.. PC hardware is much cheaper than Mac hardware. Probably from the economies of scale and the fact there's no ONE supplier of PC hardware that can keep its prices (artificially?) high. Cost is a big factor I think.
.. as soon as you get it out of the packaging .. is already obsolete ;>
Like.. Cost?
There's power usage too, like someone mentioned, an Athlon is a bit a of a power hog, PowerPC chips aren't. That is a very good reason to cluster PowerPC chips. What I'd like is to be able to buy PowerPC chips and motherboards cheaply and plentifully like their Intel/AMD brethren, and run Linux on it - without paying the 'Mac tax'.
There's operating system choices too.. and far too many to get into detail about. Linux is common between both platforms, and the various quirks of Linux, Mac OS and Windows may or may not be someones bag.
Best bet is to play with whatever system you feel like buying beforehand.
I wouldn't worry too much about raw speed, as whatever you buy
--
Delphis
2U of rackspace can mean a lot in some installations. On that page you gave though it talks about it being 6U tall.. jeez. For one Mac??
:> It's not hard to figure out.
If you can get 6 machines in 6U opposed to 1 machine in 6U, guess what most people who are nuts about rackmounting as much kit as possible will choose?
--
Delphis
Microsoft offers you Office for $50
.. it's more like $250 for the 'upgrade' or $500+ if you buy it outright.
You wish
If Microsoft weren't so bent on screwing everyone and anyone, there'd be much less piracy of their products, as there would obviously be less incentive.
--
Delphis
So I'm guessing that's like:
Party - bean counters
KGB - marketing (!?)
military - engineers
I'd love to be equipped like the military for some of the meetings I get dragged to.
"You WILL agree with me, my T72 in the parking lot says so."
Sorry.. just come from a meeting and that sounded like a fun idea.
--
Delphis
Seems a pity noone completely mirrored the website so they can tell Michael to just fuck off. Michael appears to be extremely childish according to the account in the article. It would be nice to hear an account from Michael in response to this article but it's quite possible (probable? hope not) that the childish behaviour is true and only abuse of the /. moderation system will happen instead.
--
Delphis