XP is licensed for two separate CPUs, cores do not count. XP runs fine on my 2x dual core main PC (4 cores total), but would not run on my 3x single core (3 cores total) server.
Compared to previous versions of Windows (especially those that ran on 9x codebase), XP was much better. Compared to Windows 2000, it ran games better.
Vista compared to XP is worse, or at least it was worse just after the release. Windows 7 is about the same as XP, just a new UI, but it is not that much better for people to buy it (and probably upgrade their PCs), because XP is stable and does everything they want. The computer is fast enough for hat they use it for, so no need for an upgrade until it breaks down.
More importantly, prefixes won't need to change very often. The only times I've ever had to renumber were when I was either changing ISPs or when I wanted a different size IP block.
Or if you have two connections (from the same or different ISPs) and try to load balance them or even just use one when the other one fails. And changing the IPs (well, at least on IPv4) breaks all established connections, local or not.
Yea, I once used NAT to load balance between two connections (DSL and (legit) Wi-Fi) so that I could upload/download torrents faster. The router, when it detected a new outgoing connection just routed it to one of the connections and it worked. I could use uTorrents and achieved almost the sum of the speeds of both connections.
With IPv6 and no NAT, that would not have been possible, unless the ISP would agree to load balance it (and give the same IPs on both connections) and that is less likely than a hard drive with the contents of the torrent suddenly materializing on my table every time I download the.torrent file.
Hmm that would mean the physical paper cash in my wallet is worthless, because I can only pay my taxes by personal check, so no one will ever use cash.
Interesting. Where I live, I can pay any taxes using cash (well, except the tax that my employer takes from my salary to pay (social security and income) since I never see that money). But for anything else, the money has to end up in a specified bank account. I can wire transfer the money to it, or go to a bank and pay cash.
The problem is that with very volatile value, bitcoin is useless as value storage.
If I sell something for bitcoins I have to immediately trade the bitcons for EUR (or the value might drop). So, I might as well just sell the item for EUR.
Yea, that was my reason for trying (when bitcoins were worth ~10EUR). I bought a quite good new video card (6870) that, if mining was not profitable, could be used to replace the 2900XT in my main PC for gaming. Or I will be able to build a HTPC using it. I stopped mining after a bit more than a month when the value dropped so much that it was not worth the electricity. Now I have something like 13 bitcoins and a new video card.
I believe the "backing" of bitcoin (in the way you are using it) is the network of miners that validate each transaction.
But this is only because Bitcoin needs it. Cash does not need it (as counterfeiting it is quite difficult), bank transfers do not need distributed computing (and you pay the bank when you make a transfer).
The total supply of "bitcoins" isn't such a big deal because they are divisible to.00000001 coins. Also I'm not sure I accept the argument that inflation=good, deflation=bad.
Well, if you make 0.00000001 coins equal to 1 US cent, my bitcoins will be worth more than a million USD. Now way I'm spending them now, since in the future they will be worth so much more.
The best currency would be the one that is stable or has a very small inflation.
I'm quite surprised that your starter turns over with the battery at -34C.
What I am supposed to do when it's -34 outside? Try to push start the car? I seriously doubt that it will start then. If the battery is in good condition and a proper size (mine is 88Ah and IIRC 800A) the car should start.
The average car on the road in the US is about 10 years old.
Here people usually buy 10 year old cars when they want to replace their car. With newer cars te price goes up too fast compared to quality etc (diminishing returns).Last year I chose to have my car restored (mainly patching up the 28 years of rust, the engine runs fine with regular maintenance (valve, carburetor, LPG vaporizer adjustment), but the body was quite rusted, especially the underside) over buying a newer car, because I like it (and it has a simple electrical system - no computers, so I can fix most of the electrical problems myself) and it was in the family since my dad bought it in 1996 and I was a kid. My dad is driving a 1996 car now (with very complex electronics).
Let it be known that the 2kW online sinewave UPS had an excellent price
I paid ~319EUR for my APC Smart-UPS 2200 with new 4x 12V/18Ah batteries that lasted 4 or 5 years. Then I bought some cheap batteries that failed after a year, now I have CSB EVX batteries that are designed for longer life and higher temperatures (in summer my room gets very hot, up to 40C, and the UPS spins its fan only when charging/discharging batteries).
It outputs a clean sine wave, a couple of AC motors (fans to cool my room) run on it without any problem. As far as I can see, the UPS uses two huge transformers that, when the USP is on battery, make the image in my CRT monitor shake. The UPS is about 60cm away from the monitor (under the desk).
But they're too heavy and bulky to bother with trying to ship on an Ebay sale
Yea, my UPS weighs ~25kg without batteries. The batteries add another ~27kg.
Lots of commercial buildings here have 3-phase, 480V power.
So, a single phase voltage of 277V (?), weird. I guess some weird configuration is used to make it more compatible with the 110V voltage. Here in 3 phase configuration, the voltage between phases is 400V. Big AC motors and big heating units use 3 phases. For motors it's obvious, for heaters, I guess it allows to distribute the load over all phases and reduces the need for thick cables (especially if the heater is delta connected and gets the 400V).
I'm still shocked that you can't (generally) get high-current single-phase 240V where you're at, while my mind boggles at the possibility of having residential 3-phase.
Well, maybe I could get a big single phase feed, but it would be smarter to just use 3 phase if i want a lot of power. I have not tried to get 100A single phase, so I cannot say for certainty that you cannot do that.
Are Lithuanian girls hot?
As everywhere - some are hot and some are not.
How is your immigration policy?
I don't really know, but there are foreigners living here, so I guess it's possible:)
Are German cars affordable there?
Well, used cars are affordable and almost nobody buys new cars. German cars are quite popular though. Even my car is German (Mercedes W123 made in 1982).
What's the national stance on piracy and copyright?
Officially - its illegal. Actually - nobody cares about individuals (BSA sometimes ruins some company's day). LANVA (our anti-piracy organization) has been fighting linkomanija (our version of the pirate bay) with no luck. Last case was against some people downloading Windows 7 - the court said that screenshots of uTorrent "peers" tab are invalid as evidence because uTorrent has not been certified as a tool for evidence gathering (like the police radars and so on).
Do skilled people in Lithuania generally have English skills as good as your own, or will I want to learn the language first?);)
Young people usually can speak English (with varying skill - for example while I can read/write/understand English quite well, if you want to talk with me, be prepared for pauses). Older people usually can speak Russian (Russian was mandatory in school when the Soviets were here and English is usually mandatory in school* after they left). * that is, one foreign language is mandatory, but the school can choose which. Most of them go with English tough. The foreign language is usually taught since starting with second orr third grade and continues to the 12th (final) grade.
It's funny that this UPS could run half of a standard 4kW feed there.
I have a 2kW (well, 2.2kW) UPS too. It is usually enough for about 20 minutes after power goes out. The UPS is only line-interactive (even then I could only afford it used, but it works quite well, despite being 13 years old). Computer power supplies do fail from time to time, but eact time a power supply failed I replaced it with a higher quality one. Hard drives, on the other and, are pretty reliable for me, IIRC only one hard drive failed in the last 9 years (and even it was kinda half-failure, the drive developed lots of bad sectors but can still spin) even though they have been spinning 24/7 for a few years (newest drive is 3 years old). Though it seems that I stopped buying hard drives right before the quality of Seagate drives went down.
Also, wen you use split-phase power you probably can't get 3 phase power (which would allow for even lower currents if the power hungry device used delta wiring). But then you can get 200A. If I wanted 200A the power company would most likely tell me to get 3 phase too (which makes sense - I either have lots of devices, so I can balance them on the phases or I have one big device, which would be 3 phase anyway).
I'm of course completely ignorant of the credit market conditions in Lithuania.
To get a bank to lend you money you basically have to prove that you earn enough to not need the loan. As I am still a student and do not have a full-time job, the bank will never lend me money.
When I manage to buy what I want, I am planning to use it for 5-10 years. Well, assuming it does not completely fail before that (and I cannot find replacement parts). Or my ISP does not offer 10gbps connection (current connection - 300mbps up/down) and the server becomes too slow for it.
Yes, Pentium 3 Xeon. Hot, but I guess not as hot as Pentium 4 (netburst), which is in another server (2x Xeon (nocona) 3GHz). Though both servers are quite well designed and manage to cool themselves quite well.
Cost is presently about $300 for a mobo/cpu/RAM.
Well, a rackmount case would add some more, but I am looking for server grade hardware - if it becomes a single point of failure then it should be as reliable as possible (at least have redundant PSUs and fans). Oh, and rack mountable. Also, I would most likely need new hard drives, most of my hard drives are IDE or parallel SCSI and they are not very big (biggest is 750GB), but there are a lot of them (about 12) and they won't fit in one case.
Current affordable used servers usually want SCSI drives which are too expensive (because they are usually at least 10kRPM). That's why I am waiting for a lower price of a used server with SATA connectors (and at least 6 drive slots). I could then use WD RE or Seagate Constellation ES drives.
5-month payback
Which to me means 5 months without any server at all, then buy a new server with the money I saved.
Tried it (when bitcoins were worth about 10EUR each), but the exchange rate soon dropped and now it is not profitable (that is, not even worth the electricity) to mine them. I have a couple of file servers (and torrent servers), a PC used as a router and so on, the functions are a bit distributed so no single computer is critical. The hardware is quite old (oldest server is 3x 700MHz), that's why I need a lot of computers, I could put all of the functions on a single new server (with > 5 hard drives) using virtual machines (and have these old computers as cold spares), but such a server costs a lot and I do not have that much money up front. So I have to wait until I can get a server tat meets my requirements used (and much cheaper).
Why do you run your teapot and microwave all night long?
I don't, but I have to reserve the power so that I don't have to go outside to unplug the car if I want to heat some food using the microwave and make some tea then plug it back in when I'm done.
OH, and we have 3 cars that are in use almost every day, so all 3 would need to be charged at the same time.
Lights, well, each room has 40-180W of lights (some incandescent, some CFL), but they are not all at once - we have more rooms than people.
Power tools, well, the lawn mower is 1.5kW (but we are using a gasoline powered one - no cord to get wrapped around things). Other stuff is usually less than 1kW and two people (who would be using those tools) cannot use them all at once.
3 phase power can be had easily here (well, we have it in the summer house), since all wiring from (and to) the last transformer (which steps down from ~10kV to 230V for a few multi-flat houses or more individual houses) is 3phase. There is no need for split phase power (all equipment is 230V) so you either get two wires (one phase and one neutral) or 4 wires connected.
One more thing - I use about 1300kWh/month, around here this is considered "holy shit that's a lot, do you have electrical heating or stove?", since "normal" people (who do not have several PCs running 24/7) only use somewhere around 300 (individual house) or even lower (flat).
Lithuania and it's a bigger than normal feed, IIRC standard is about 4kW. Yes, it is a single breaker (after all, it's a single phase supply), when it trips the whole house has no power. The breaker is three phase, but only one phase is connected.
Electricity is quite expensive, that's probably why not a lot of people are using big feeds, since heating is usually natural gas, wood/coal/etc or bought from the heating company (this is also how most multi flat buildings get heating), cooking is usually using natural gas (electricity only where you can't get a gas line, but then you would get three phase power and feed big enough). There are not that many other high powered devices that are active at once.
And, FYI, gasoline (and esp. diesel) cars don't exactly run so great in -34C either.
Well, if the carburetor is tuned and valves are adjusted properly then it runs OK, until the engine warms up (while I scrape ice from the windows), then it runs pretty much the same as in warmer weather.
Example: the NiMH pack in the Prius, which averages 10-15 years of life.
And the gas tank in my car is 29 years old and still has pretty much the same capacity as it had when it was new. I also doubt that the batteries just fail after 10-15 years, they most likely shrink in capacity slowly over time, so the range slowly decreases.
What is so important that it can't wait til you arrive at your destination?
If it is important, just stop and then text/call. But the people who text while driving are probably part of the group who will overtake a car just to arrive at a red light (that they saw before overtaking) one second sooner.
Unless your house was wired by Thomas Edison, I seriously doubt that.
I do not live in the US and heat my house with natural gas (much cheaper than electricity). So, I only have single phase 230V 32A power.
You're referring *specifically* to non-climate-controlled laptop cells wired in series with no charge balancing.
Not only to laptop cells. UPS batteries (lead-acid) shrink in capacity (and increase internal resistance) quite fast, especially at higher temperatures. Car starting batteries (again lead-acid) do the same, with the bonus of degrading fast at low (-10C) temperatures. Cellphone batteries (NiCd, NiMH, Li-Ion, Li-Pol) also shrink in capacity over time.
And NiFe batteries most likely won't be used in electric cars because they are as heavy as lead-acid batteries.
Also, batteries in cars will have to be operational at wide temperature ranges. Where I live, outside temperature can be anywhere from -35C (all time low -42.9) to +35C (all time high +37.5), the car with the battery will be outside and I might even want to drive it when it's -34C (and use the heater of course). Climate controlling the batteries will reduce the range of the car in the temperature extremes.
If your car can go 800 miles per day (a whole day's drive), what need to you have for frequent fast-charge stations?
Sure, not now, but in a few years when the car does only 500 miles (or whatever).
10 hours charge time requires 20kW (~83A)
The main circuit breaker for my house is ~32A, which means that I can use about 7.3kW. 1.2kW is used by my computers, add the lights, TV, microwave, electric teapot and not that much is left for charging the car. I could get three phase power and more current but that would be expensive.
In short, though, it's really hard to say how expensive those 800-mile packs of 20 years from now will be -- only that no matter what their initial price, it will drop over time.
There is also a problem with the battery life. Over time the capacity gets smaller, so you need to replace the batteries after a few years when the capacity is not enough. A gas tank does not shrink, it can develop a hole, but the hole can easily be patched and the tank is as good as new. Even for a 30 year old car. Now, how far will a 30 year old electrical car go if it was originally advertised to be able to go 1000km?
The point is, electrical cars suck now, they may stop sucking in the future (like gasoline powered cars did).
I find it humorous that people want to label their computer or cell phone as a device that they should have 100% complete control over, and yet how many consumer products do we buy today that we have that level of control?
I dislike artificially created restrictions. I'm OK with the natural ones.
Tried swapping out your engine in your car lately?
The old one still works. It was modified to run on LPG in addition to petrol (I can switch between them with a switch under the dashboard) though.
Your HDTV has a USB service port that's locked out to you?
I don't have one yet, but when I will buy it (I hope I can find a CRT HD TV though), I will buy the service manual too, as I do not plan on replacing the TV if I can fix it.
Magnetic stripe on your ATM card you can't re-program?
I can reprogram it. I mean there are card programmers that I can buy. In addition, reprogramming it would be useless to me - after all, I want to be able to access my account.
I have a tape deck in my car. I now also want to be able to listen to MiniDiscs in addition to cassette tapes. I can do it one of the following ways: 1. Buy a MD changer compatible with the tape deck - expensive, difficult to find and it won't play Hi-MD discs. 2. Buy a cassette adapter - lower sound quality and additional wear on the tape mechanism. 3. Buy a FM modulator - low sound quality. 4. Use the changer port to control my MD recorder - the protocol is proprietary and closed 5. Modify the tape deck so it switches between tuner and the aux input using relays and some logic chips - current plan.
At least I have the schematics for the tape deck, otherwise modifying it would be much more difficult. If the protocol was open, I could interface the tape deck with my MD recorder easier, but I cannot without buying a compatible MD changer and reverse-engineering the protocol (hoping that no encryption was used).
While I usually don't care about FOSS, I ave to disagree with you here. It's all about artificial limitations.
Examples: 1. The tape deck in my car cannot run Linux because the microcontrollers used are not compatible with it, it has little RAM and no way to program the microcontrollers without desoldering them first. This is OK, I do not expect the manufacturer to spend more money just to make the device capable of running Linux. It bugs me that I cannot get the programs that run on the microcontrollers or at least the protocol specifications for controlling CD/MD changers - I would like to make an aux input for it, but now I will have to modify the tape deck (add some relays and logic chips). 2. The iPhone is perfectly capable of running an unauthorized program that is written for it. It is also capable of loading a different OS (as long as that OS can support the hardware), but Apple added some checks to make it so that all software has to be authorized by them and the only "different" OS the phone can run is a newer version of the same OS. This is an artificial limitation - Apple actually put in additional work to create it, as opposed to the tape deck manufacturer, who would have to put in additional work to removethe limitation. 3. My printer (HP PSC 2500CM) uses pretty simple ink cartridges (the ink cartridge is separate from the print head) that can be operated mechanically (it's basically a reservoir and a mechanical pump), but the manufacturer added a chip that supposedly tracks how much ink is left in the cartridge (it's just a memory chip) and is also used to implement cartridge "expiry" dates, so as to make refills or the use of other cartridges more difficult. It is an artificial limitation too. Fortunately they got it wrong and the cartridges can be refilled and used past their expiry date.
In my opinion, artificial limitations are bad, whether it is some signature check for software or a chip that tries to prevent me from refilling the cartridge, it restricts what I can do with the device for no other reason than the greed of the manufacturer.
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XP is licensed for two separate CPUs, cores do not count. XP runs fine on my 2x dual core main PC (4 cores total), but would not run on my 3x single core (3 cores total) server.
Compared to previous versions of Windows (especially those that ran on 9x codebase), XP was much better. Compared to Windows 2000, it ran games better.
Vista compared to XP is worse, or at least it was worse just after the release. Windows 7 is about the same as XP, just a new UI, but it is not that much better for people to buy it (and probably upgrade their PCs), because XP is stable and does everything they want. The computer is fast enough for hat they use it for, so no need for an upgrade until it breaks down.
NATv6 to v4 seems like an obvious, relatively simple to implement solution
But how do you do it? there are more IPs in v6, so how do you map them to v4?
More importantly, prefixes won't need to change very often. The only times I've ever had to renumber were when I was either changing ISPs or when I wanted a different size IP block.
Or if you have two connections (from the same or different ISPs) and try to load balance them or even just use one when the other one fails. And changing the IPs (well, at least on IPv4) breaks all established connections, local or not.
Yea, I once used NAT to load balance between two connections (DSL and (legit) Wi-Fi) so that I could upload/download torrents faster. The router, when it detected a new outgoing connection just routed it to one of the connections and it worked. I could use uTorrents and achieved almost the sum of the speeds of both connections.
With IPv6 and no NAT, that would not have been possible, unless the ISP would agree to load balance it (and give the same IPs on both connections) and that is less likely than a hard drive with the contents of the torrent suddenly materializing on my table every time I download the .torrent file.
Hmm that would mean the physical paper cash in my wallet is worthless, because I can only pay my taxes by personal check, so no one will ever use cash.
Interesting. Where I live, I can pay any taxes using cash (well, except the tax that my employer takes from my salary to pay (social security and income) since I never see that money). But for anything else, the money has to end up in a specified bank account. I can wire transfer the money to it, or go to a bank and pay cash.
I have never seen a check from up close.
The problem is that with very volatile value, bitcoin is useless as value storage.
If I sell something for bitcoins I have to immediately trade the bitcons for EUR (or the value might drop). So, I might as well just sell the item for EUR.
Yea, that was my reason for trying (when bitcoins were worth ~10EUR). I bought a quite good new video card (6870) that, if mining was not profitable, could be used to replace the 2900XT in my main PC for gaming. Or I will be able to build a HTPC using it. I stopped mining after a bit more than a month when the value dropped so much that it was not worth the electricity. Now I have something like 13 bitcoins and a new video card.
I believe the "backing" of bitcoin (in the way you are using it) is the network of miners that validate each transaction.
But this is only because Bitcoin needs it. Cash does not need it (as counterfeiting it is quite difficult), bank transfers do not need distributed computing (and you pay the bank when you make a transfer).
The total supply of "bitcoins" isn't such a big deal because they are divisible to .00000001 coins.
Also I'm not sure I accept the argument that inflation=good, deflation=bad.
Well, if you make 0.00000001 coins equal to 1 US cent, my bitcoins will be worth more than a million USD. Now way I'm spending them now, since in the future they will be worth so much more.
The best currency would be the one that is stable or has a very small inflation.
I'm quite surprised that your starter turns over with the battery at -34C.
What I am supposed to do when it's -34 outside? Try to push start the car? I seriously doubt that it will start then. If the battery is in good condition and a proper size (mine is 88Ah and IIRC 800A) the car should start.
The average car on the road in the US is about 10 years old.
Here people usually buy 10 year old cars when they want to replace their car. With newer cars te price goes up too fast compared to quality etc (diminishing returns).Last year I chose to have my car restored (mainly patching up the 28 years of rust, the engine runs fine with regular maintenance (valve, carburetor, LPG vaporizer adjustment), but the body was quite rusted, especially the underside) over buying a newer car, because I like it (and it has a simple electrical system - no computers, so I can fix most of the electrical problems myself) and it was in the family since my dad bought it in 1996 and I was a kid. My dad is driving a 1996 car now (with very complex electronics).
Let it be known that the 2kW online sinewave UPS had an excellent price
I paid ~319EUR for my APC Smart-UPS 2200 with new 4x 12V/18Ah batteries that lasted 4 or 5 years. Then I bought some cheap batteries that failed after a year, now I have CSB EVX batteries that are designed for longer life and higher temperatures (in summer my room gets very hot, up to 40C, and the UPS spins its fan only when charging/discharging batteries).
It outputs a clean sine wave, a couple of AC motors (fans to cool my room) run on it without any problem. As far as I can see, the UPS uses two huge transformers that, when the USP is on battery, make the image in my CRT monitor shake. The UPS is about 60cm away from the monitor (under the desk).
But they're too heavy and bulky to bother with trying to ship on an Ebay sale
Yea, my UPS weighs ~25kg without batteries. The batteries add another ~27kg.
Lots of commercial buildings here have 3-phase, 480V power.
So, a single phase voltage of 277V (?), weird. I guess some weird configuration is used to make it more compatible with the 110V voltage.
Here in 3 phase configuration, the voltage between phases is 400V.
Big AC motors and big heating units use 3 phases. For motors it's obvious, for heaters, I guess it allows to distribute the load over all phases and reduces the need for thick cables (especially if the heater is delta connected and gets the 400V).
I'm still shocked that you can't (generally) get high-current single-phase 240V where you're at, while my mind boggles at the possibility of having residential 3-phase.
Well, maybe I could get a big single phase feed, but it would be smarter to just use 3 phase if i want a lot of power. I have not tried to get 100A single phase, so I cannot say for certainty that you cannot do that.
Are Lithuanian girls hot?
As everywhere - some are hot and some are not.
How is your immigration policy?
I don't really know, but there are foreigners living here, so I guess it's possible :)
Are German cars affordable there?
Well, used cars are affordable and almost nobody buys new cars. German cars are quite popular though. Even my car is German (Mercedes W123 made in 1982).
What's the national stance on piracy and copyright?
Officially - its illegal. Actually - nobody cares about individuals (BSA sometimes ruins some company's day). LANVA (our anti-piracy organization) has been fighting linkomanija (our version of the pirate bay) with no luck. Last case was against some people downloading Windows 7 - the court said that screenshots of uTorrent "peers" tab are invalid as evidence because uTorrent has not been certified as a tool for evidence gathering (like the police radars and so on).
Do skilled people in Lithuania generally have English skills as good as your own, or will I want to learn the language first?) ;)
Young people usually can speak English (with varying skill - for example while I can read/write/understand English quite well, if you want to talk with me, be prepared for pauses). Older people usually can speak Russian (Russian was mandatory in school when the Soviets were here and English is usually mandatory in school* after they left).
* that is, one foreign language is mandatory, but the school can choose which. Most of them go with English tough. The foreign language is usually taught since starting with second orr third grade and continues to the 12th (final) grade.
It's funny that this UPS could run half of a standard 4kW feed there.
I have a 2kW (well, 2.2kW) UPS too. It is usually enough for about 20 minutes after power goes out. The UPS is only line-interactive (even then I could only afford it used, but it works quite well, despite being 13 years old). Computer power supplies do fail from time to time, but eact time a power supply failed I replaced it with a higher quality one. Hard drives, on the other and, are pretty reliable for me, IIRC only one hard drive failed in the last 9 years (and even it was kinda half-failure, the drive developed lots of bad sectors but can still spin) even though they have been spinning 24/7 for a few years (newest drive is 3 years old). Though it seems that I stopped buying hard drives right before the quality of Seagate drives went down.
Also, wen you use split-phase power you probably can't get 3 phase power (which would allow for even lower currents if the power hungry device used delta wiring). But then you can get 200A. If I wanted 200A the power company would most likely tell me to get 3 phase too (which makes sense - I either have lots of devices, so I can balance them on the phases or I have one big device, which would be 3 phase anyway).
I'm of course completely ignorant of the credit market conditions in Lithuania.
To get a bank to lend you money you basically have to prove that you earn enough to not need the loan. As I am still a student and do not have a full-time job, the bank will never lend me money.
When I manage to buy what I want, I am planning to use it for 5-10 years. Well, assuming it does not completely fail before that (and I cannot find replacement parts). Or my ISP does not offer 10gbps connection (current connection - 300mbps up/down) and the server becomes too slow for it.
Is that 3x700 a Pentium-III machine?
Yes, Pentium 3 Xeon. Hot, but I guess not as hot as Pentium 4 (netburst), which is in another server (2x Xeon (nocona) 3GHz). Though both servers are quite well designed and manage to cool themselves quite well.
Cost is presently about $300 for a mobo/cpu/RAM.
Well, a rackmount case would add some more, but I am looking for server grade hardware - if it becomes a single point of failure then it should be as reliable as possible (at least have redundant PSUs and fans). Oh, and rack mountable. Also, I would most likely need new hard drives, most of my hard drives are IDE or parallel SCSI and they are not very big (biggest is 750GB), but there are a lot of them (about 12) and they won't fit in one case.
Current affordable used servers usually want SCSI drives which are too expensive (because they are usually at least 10kRPM). That's why I am waiting for a lower price of a used server with SATA connectors (and at least 6 drive slots). I could then use WD RE or Seagate Constellation ES drives.
5-month payback
Which to me means 5 months without any server at all, then buy a new server with the money I saved.
Mining bitcoins are we? ;)
Tried it (when bitcoins were worth about 10EUR each), but the exchange rate soon dropped and now it is not profitable (that is, not even worth the electricity) to mine them. I have a couple of file servers (and torrent servers), a PC used as a router and so on, the functions are a bit distributed so no single computer is critical. The hardware is quite old (oldest server is 3x 700MHz), that's why I need a lot of computers, I could put all of the functions on a single new server (with > 5 hard drives) using virtual machines (and have these old computers as cold spares), but such a server costs a lot and I do not have that much money up front. So I have to wait until I can get a server tat meets my requirements used (and much cheaper).
Why do you run your teapot and microwave all night long?
I don't, but I have to reserve the power so that I don't have to go outside to unplug the car if I want to heat some food using the microwave and make some tea then plug it back in when I'm done.
OH, and we have 3 cars that are in use almost every day, so all 3 would need to be charged at the same time.
How do you dry your clothes?
Hang them outside (or in the bathroom) and wait.
Lights, well, each room has 40-180W of lights (some incandescent, some CFL), but they are not all at once - we have more rooms than people.
Power tools, well, the lawn mower is 1.5kW (but we are using a gasoline powered one - no cord to get wrapped around things). Other stuff is usually less than 1kW and two people (who would be using those tools) cannot use them all at once.
3 phase power can be had easily here (well, we have it in the summer house), since all wiring from (and to) the last transformer (which steps down from ~10kV to 230V for a few multi-flat houses or more individual houses) is 3phase. There is no need for split phase power (all equipment is 230V) so you either get two wires (one phase and one neutral) or 4 wires connected.
One more thing - I use about 1300kWh/month, around here this is considered "holy shit that's a lot, do you have electrical heating or stove?", since "normal" people (who do not have several PCs running 24/7) only use somewhere around 300 (individual house) or even lower (flat).
Lithuania and it's a bigger than normal feed, IIRC standard is about 4kW. Yes, it is a single breaker (after all, it's a single phase supply), when it trips the whole house has no power. The breaker is three phase, but only one phase is connected.
Electricity is quite expensive, that's probably why not a lot of people are using big feeds, since heating is usually natural gas, wood/coal/etc or bought from the heating company (this is also how most multi flat buildings get heating), cooking is usually using natural gas (electricity only where you can't get a gas line, but then you would get three phase power and feed big enough). There are not that many other high powered devices that are active at once.
And, FYI, gasoline (and esp. diesel) cars don't exactly run so great in -34C either.
Well, if the carburetor is tuned and valves are adjusted properly then it runs OK, until the engine warms up (while I scrape ice from the windows), then it runs pretty much the same as in warmer weather.
Example: the NiMH pack in the Prius, which averages 10-15 years of life.
And the gas tank in my car is 29 years old and still has pretty much the same capacity as it had when it was new. I also doubt that the batteries just fail after 10-15 years, they most likely shrink in capacity slowly over time, so the range slowly decreases.
What is so important that it can't wait til you arrive at your destination?
If it is important, just stop and then text/call. But the people who text while driving are probably part of the group who will overtake a car just to arrive at a red light (that they saw before overtaking) one second sooner.
Texting isn't that far off. And in other studies, is just as bad.
Wouldn't it be even worse because when you are talking you are still looking at the road, while when texting you are looking at the phone?
Unless your house was wired by Thomas Edison, I seriously doubt that.
I do not live in the US and heat my house with natural gas (much cheaper than electricity). So, I only have single phase 230V 32A power.
You're referring *specifically* to non-climate-controlled laptop cells wired in series with no charge balancing.
Not only to laptop cells. UPS batteries (lead-acid) shrink in capacity (and increase internal resistance) quite fast, especially at higher temperatures. Car starting batteries (again lead-acid) do the same, with the bonus of degrading fast at low (-10C) temperatures. Cellphone batteries (NiCd, NiMH, Li-Ion, Li-Pol) also shrink in capacity over time.
And NiFe batteries most likely won't be used in electric cars because they are as heavy as lead-acid batteries.
Also, batteries in cars will have to be operational at wide temperature ranges. Where I live, outside temperature can be anywhere from -35C (all time low -42.9) to +35C (all time high +37.5), the car with the battery will be outside and I might even want to drive it when it's -34C (and use the heater of course). Climate controlling the batteries will reduce the range of the car in the temperature extremes.
If your car can go 800 miles per day (a whole day's drive), what need to you have for frequent fast-charge stations?
Sure, not now, but in a few years when the car does only 500 miles (or whatever).
10 hours charge time requires 20kW (~83A)
The main circuit breaker for my house is ~32A, which means that I can use about 7.3kW. 1.2kW is used by my computers, add the lights, TV, microwave, electric teapot and not that much is left for charging the car. I could get three phase power and more current but that would be expensive.
In short, though, it's really hard to say how expensive those 800-mile packs of 20 years from now will be -- only that no matter what their initial price, it will drop over time.
There is also a problem with the battery life. Over time the capacity gets smaller, so you need to replace the batteries after a few years when the capacity is not enough. A gas tank does not shrink, it can develop a hole, but the hole can easily be patched and the tank is as good as new. Even for a 30 year old car. Now, how far will a 30 year old electrical car go if it was originally advertised to be able to go 1000km?
The point is, electrical cars suck now, they may stop sucking in the future (like gasoline powered cars did).
I find it humorous that people want to label their computer or cell phone as a device that they should have 100% complete control over, and yet how many consumer products do we buy today that we have that level of control?
I dislike artificially created restrictions. I'm OK with the natural ones.
Tried swapping out your engine in your car lately?
The old one still works. It was modified to run on LPG in addition to petrol (I can switch between them with a switch under the dashboard) though.
Your HDTV has a USB service port that's locked out to you?
I don't have one yet, but when I will buy it (I hope I can find a CRT HD TV though), I will buy the service manual too, as I do not plan on replacing the TV if I can fix it.
Magnetic stripe on your ATM card you can't re-program?
I can reprogram it. I mean there are card programmers that I can buy. In addition, reprogramming it would be useless to me - after all, I want to be able to access my account.
I have a tape deck in my car. I now also want to be able to listen to MiniDiscs in addition to cassette tapes. I can do it one of the following ways:
1. Buy a MD changer compatible with the tape deck - expensive, difficult to find and it won't play Hi-MD discs.
2. Buy a cassette adapter - lower sound quality and additional wear on the tape mechanism.
3. Buy a FM modulator - low sound quality.
4. Use the changer port to control my MD recorder - the protocol is proprietary and closed
5. Modify the tape deck so it switches between tuner and the aux input using relays and some logic chips - current plan.
At least I have the schematics for the tape deck, otherwise modifying it would be much more difficult. If the protocol was open, I could interface the tape deck with my MD recorder easier, but I cannot without buying a compatible MD changer and reverse-engineering the protocol (hoping that no encryption was used).
While I usually don't care about FOSS, I ave to disagree with you here. It's all about artificial limitations.
Examples:
1. The tape deck in my car cannot run Linux because the microcontrollers used are not compatible with it, it has little RAM and no way to program the microcontrollers without desoldering them first. This is OK, I do not expect the manufacturer to spend more money just to make the device capable of running Linux. It bugs me that I cannot get the programs that run on the microcontrollers or at least the protocol specifications for controlling CD/MD changers - I would like to make an aux input for it, but now I will have to modify the tape deck (add some relays and logic chips).
2. The iPhone is perfectly capable of running an unauthorized program that is written for it. It is also capable of loading a different OS (as long as that OS can support the hardware), but Apple added some checks to make it so that all software has to be authorized by them and the only "different" OS the phone can run is a newer version of the same OS. This is an artificial limitation - Apple actually put in additional work to create it, as opposed to the tape deck manufacturer, who would have to put in additional work to removethe limitation.
3. My printer (HP PSC 2500CM) uses pretty simple ink cartridges (the ink cartridge is separate from the print head) that can be operated mechanically (it's basically a reservoir and a mechanical pump), but the manufacturer added a chip that supposedly tracks how much ink is left in the cartridge (it's just a memory chip) and is also used to implement cartridge "expiry" dates, so as to make refills or the use of other cartridges more difficult. It is an artificial limitation too. Fortunately they got it wrong and the cartridges can be refilled and used past their expiry date.
In my opinion, artificial limitations are bad, whether it is some signature check for software or a chip that tries to prevent me from refilling the cartridge, it restricts what I can do with the device for no other reason than the greed of the manufacturer.