SGI has one mean PR machine. But... Linux is also an area that SGI is trying to prove they can get into. VA doesn't have to do that...
Also... I find it interesting that SGI would be behind the story... it is cutting the legs out from under there Origin line, the *true* SGI render solution.
I think maybe this had more to do with where it was (in NZ) and what was being worked on...
I know linux runs on other chips. The trick is to get the software companies to port to other chips... that is a battle that hardly ever can be won. In some cases Linux, without the apps, is just another whiz-bang-isn't-that-cool sort of OS.
I don't understand why everybody is against this.
New standards need to be made for things to advance. You may not need the power, but things that you enjoy need the power.
Think of the Animation industry. We are either paying big bucks for SGI boxes (for this kind of bandwith) or using NT boxes that don't have quite the pep.
The next step allows us to get that much closer to matching SGI boxes. When the Intel boxes can match the SGI boxes, then the Linux movement in the Animation industry can really take hold.
We looked at NT boxes. We are a Maya only house and we were unsure when the Maya for Linux release would be. We actually thought of buying the hardware, throwing NT on it, rendering with it and then switching to Linux when it was available.
That was a shortly lived idea. None of us wanted to be responible for porting our code to work on the NT's. Even with a perl back bone, it looked like a night mare.
Thankfully, the Linux renderer was announced and it came out, all in good time for us to use it on our current productions.
Big Idea made the same decision not too long ago.
I never bothered to figure out what the cost/performance ratio was between the two platforms. I just knew that Linux was a lot cheaper.
The thing that suprises me is that they only have 16 boxes... and that this is newsworthy. We have 42 (with almost exactly the same config) and plan on ordering more in the near future.
One other difference is that they are using RenderMan and we are using Maya's renderer, which has recently been ported to Linux. For the type of work that we do, Maya is more than enough for us. Also, we hardly have any frame times of an hour... if we do, I yell and scream to get it cut down. The difference is that we are only rendering to 724x486. The use a higher resolution for the big screen, we only have to wory about NTSC for now.
The prices quoted in the article seem to be inflated a bit too. Unless they are quoted in the NZ dollar and that is about a 2-1 with the American. Octanes should be about $20k in the States. Linux boxes similarly configured, from VA, which we use, instead of SGI, are in the $5-6k range.
The performance boost that we have got from adding the Linux boxes is amazing. We went from being able to render on 50 MIPS CPU's 14 hours a day to rendering on an aditional 84 Intel CPU's 24 hours a day. The comparison in render speed is about 1-1, slightly infavor of the MIPS chip.
When it is all said and done, a move like this should be a no brainer to any studio. Rendering needs horsepower and system memory, both of which are cheaper in the Intel world. SysAdmins need Unix for ease of administrating and lack of down time... every studio I know considers the render system to be H.A. (high availablity). When things go down, projects get delayed... and that is a big no no in the production world (think of all the billboards you see with release dates on them... months in advance). Linux is a great choice for this.
The only drawback is that the SGI boxes have the ccNuma interface, which is great for single frame renders.
I know that I have posted many times on/. about rendering and Linux vs. SGI. It is great that there is now a story dedicated to it.
FWIW: Our next two videos are the first to use our Linux render farm. Esther is at least 3/4 rendered on Linux boxes and Penguins will be mostly, if not all, rendered on Linux boxes.
My father has taught Data Structures, which was also used as an intro to C course. We learned it on Linux boxes using vi or pico. That was the only way he wanted it done.
Is this any worse?
A prof has to grade all of the homework. If your code doesn't quite work, you do want partial credit. By keeping the base for the code the same, it is easier to pickup on student mistakes.
Also, by keeping the base the same, it is easier to pick out those that are cheating, wich is something all too common in the lower level CS classes.
Re:The Treatment for ADD is Self Disciplin?
on
Video Games and ADD
·
· Score: 5
I know that there are several people that have ADD and don't know it... there are also people that have been diagnosed with it and don't have it.
With that being said, I do agree... self disciplin can help some with ADD. The problem is that ADD stems from a lack of a certain chemical in the brain... which is interesting... because that means that the drugs that we do take are stimulants...
I know that with the proper mixture of self disciplin and medicine, some people that have ADD never appear to have the problem. On the flip side, I know that I have problems remembering to take my medicine. Sort of a catch 22.
I came from a household where self disciplin and being responsible for what you are doing was important. I feel the same way. I still have problems with it. Is it because I have no self disciplin... I don't think so.
I think that the core of the problem comes from the fact that those with ADD strugle with self disciplin. That is why that alone can't help people. I am supprised that prolonged concentration can help counteract ADD.
I would like to see more conclusive data than brain waves and the like.... does this study help the brain produce more of this chemical? That would make sense. I know that if a person takes more medicine than they are supposed to, the brain will lower its natural creation of the chemicals.
This article continues to mention ADD but it does not distinguish if it is ADD or ADHD (ADD with hyperactivity). Not all people with ADD are hyperactive.
I imagine that video games and other forms of treatment will work differently based on what exactly the child has.
On a side note, on of the items they used to diagnose my ADD was a computer program, much like a video game, that measured response time over a certain amount of time. It was on an Apple IIe if I can remember correctly. The idea was to press a button every time a square appeared inside another square... or something like that.
But... ADD and ADHD (as I am sure that you know this) are different things. ADHD are those childern that are hyperactive and have ADD. I assume that those with ADD do not have this problem.
I know from my own experience, I played video games... but I guess not enough to help my ADD... or... maybe it is better than what it could have been had I not played.
From what it sounds, AltaVista was the bad guy in this situation. They promised big, provided nothing, and when people started to complain they started pointing fingers. One out of three is a bad practice to get into. Two out of three shows lack of thinking or disrespect for customers, but all three of them... I am shocked.
I thought that only in the USA could we get stomped by some faceless giant. Don't we own a trademark on that or something???
Ok troll, I'll bite.
With a true peer 2 peer network, such as the Tivo dialup, the phone line between the Tivo box and the machine on the other end is as secure of peer 2 peer that you can get with out encryption.
Think of calling your mom. The only way somebody could put bad data in is if they had an intrusive tap on the line... that isn't likely.
With a VPN, you can have the encryption that you want between the hosts over the internet. This is how the VPNs work... that way they can be a virtual *private* network.
We all understand how ssh is secure... its name says it all;) The system would operate not over a VPN, but through standard tcp/ip networking, just under the ssh method of encryption. This too is secure. As long as the only port is accepting the connections accepts only ssh connections, your Tivo would be less likely to be vulnerable.
My problem with a firewall. You might want the the machine to call the mother ship or *shocker* the mother ship to call the machine (for software updates and the like). If you used a firewall, you would either have to block some or all services (or what else is the purpose... unless it is a NAT... another word for you and your buzzword bingo). This sort of defeats the security of the system. True, using a firewall to block everything else is not a bad idea... but we are talking about a tivo talking to the service provider.
So tell me again how this new fangled contraption... what do you call it... oh yeah... a "firewall" will help in this model.
A word of advice. Read, think, review, then write.
Maybe companies are being hesitant because they need an Appliance Over TCP/IP standard.
Somebody needs to show a secure way for a machine to be connected in an non-point-to-point environment. The TiVo is point to point, over the DSL, it would not be. Maybe some sort of VPN is needed to emulate a p2p or something secure like a ssh connection.
I know I don't want my tivo or my toaster to be "haxored"by the script kiddies.
I thought that Jini from Sun was supposed to solve some of this. Where is Jini at?
I come from a long standing SGI shop. We have had SGI's since day one... and we have always bought SGI boxes. Because we are in the 3D computer animation industry, this is not a big supprise.
We have a few rouge NT boxes, Intergraph and SGI, in the studio.
After buying all of this hardware and dealing with many companies on hardware support for various other hardware needs (tape backup, raid fileservers, routers, switches...) we know what we need and are willing to pay a premium for uptime (did I mention that we are H.A. We must keep the studio up.)
With this being said, we went looking for a render farm, willing to spend a decent amount of money. We looked at an SGI only solution, but the cost for high end graphics workstations to just render on seemed did not make sense. We thought about an NT solution about as long as it took you to read this sentence.
Linux was our natural choice. I started talking to different companies, all of them having rack mounted x86 boxes. Only a few came with Linux.
Because we are H.A., we needed not only a hardware solution, but a supported hardware/software combo. We were looking at 40+ machines now, a couple hundred in the future... more than what a person really wants to be responsible for.
This brought our choices down to a few companies. Of the companies, VA seemed to be the best deal, price or not. They had the support. They had the know how. They *were* Linux (ok... maybe an over statement).
After talking to VA, the local VA reps and all the people needed in presales meetings, we decided that VA would be everything that we needed. The price/performance/support ratio was in there favor.
When talking to VA, they gave us a list of other large 3D houses that were using VA as a rendering solution and set up phone conferences for us to talk to those that were running the systems currently. Only a company with a good product would act that boldly.
I have had few system problems with my machines. Those that I did have were dealt with on a high priority basis. When the network card drivers and the switches did not play nice, I recieved a phone call from somebody who knew what was going on... not some tech support jockey. We were able to get a working solution in a short period of time.
We had software that was supposed to work on our version of RH (6.2) that VA has slightly modified. Do to some problems, VA was willing to work with the software vendor to diagnos, debug and fix the problem.
After all is said and done, VA is well worth the price, regardless if it is a little higher than building it yourself or buying from an x86 vendor that ships with blank HD's or Win pre-installed.
They allowed us to implement a brand new renderfarm solution into an ongoing project with little downtime and hardship on our part. Now the company is banking on those boxes performing because our load of rendering is constantly increasing with multiple projects going on.
Um... they use more than the mobo... they have VA build the systems, IIRC... look at sample pics of the SGI web servers and the Fullons... They are exactly the same, minus a few exterior decorations.
Not drag and drop, dynamic content/static connect
on
Pipes In GUI's
·
· Score: 2
Where I see this usefull is where I have seen it implimented before. I have used a java gui tool kit that allowed me to create a data pipe from one node to the next. This made the programming for the app simpler. I see a similar idea for a gui.
For the developer:
What each window needs is some default output connectors and input connectors with defined data types. A great example of this is how the nodes in Maya work. The whole system is built of nodes with inputs and outputs. You can link an image file to a light and that light prjects the image. You link and expression that returns an image series, frame by frame, and now you have a slide/movie projector. The examples for the usefullness in development is endless.
For the user:
I can see where people, geeks and non-geeks could love something like this. If I want the output of notepad, perhaps some html I am working on, to be dynamicly displayed in netscape, I should be able to. OR... I could be working on a web page, have the text editor link to the html, the web development software link to some java script, and have GIMP link to the images. Any change in any of the tools, either cached or flushed, would update the look of the page, on the fly.
Why is this good?
It gets us back to the tool kit model, something that UNIX was based on. Build one tool, build it right. When somebody needs that tool functionality, pipe it. Do this with several tools and pipes and you can do anything. I see where too often the developer tries to throw too much functionality into the system (such as xemacs) and bloats it, where individual tools would work wonders.
Also, if the pipes were non-blocking, each tool could live in its own process space. This way if netscape stopped responding, you would not lose the work.
I see the benifits. I also see oponents pointing to similar ideas saying that this is similar enough to get it done. One such example would be the ability to embed something in a word doc. You can then double click on this and through the magic of windows be able to edit this data in the native app. This is close. This is more of a cached pipe approach. My problem with this is that the viewer is driving the changes (word) where in my earlier example, netscape was the results of the changes.
I see the order difference to be important because I don't want the viewing app to control how the content is generated, I just want it to display it.
I don't know... maybe it is too late for me to think straight... but I see this as posibly being the next good direction for a gui to take. What an idea!
I have secretly always wanted an Apple.
I might have to put my dreams for a dual athlon on the back burner for a quad G5.
But as the people at work asked me when I announced this... what would you compute on this?
I am not suprised. Microsoft *is* a software house. They write and sell software. Do they care if we are not running Windows... maybe... that is one less software sale.
I see this a as a way to get more from what they have worked on.
If they can't sell us the OS they might was well as sell us something. If every x86 box had some sort of licensed Microsoft product on it, they would have some real bragging rights... and a hefty bank roll.
I just see several zealots (which I am not attacking...) refusing to buy any thing Microsoft.
I used to have that attitude... but I love my Microsoft hardware. I also like my Win OS'es for game play.
Maybe through all of this, Microsoft can get to be a better software house... and focus more on that and less on the OS. If they could keep strong software sales, regardless of the OS, the OS becomes less important to the company.
Maybe, just maybe, this could allow Microsoft to start to open up some if the Windows code.
Um... people are doing this now.
There are soft bios apps that change on the fly...
and I think that is the idea behind what transmeta and intel's new energy saving chips
I use SystemImager to manage all of my machines.
I build the image on a box and the propogate the changes via a rsh/perl script that tells the clients to update.
For large system updates and configuration, it isn't that bad of way to go.
Unix is able to be uses by non-geeks... in fact.... artists. Think about all of the SGI workstations that are being used by 3D people... hardly a geek in the group.
Slashdot Mirror
That is more than possible...
SGI has one mean PR machine. But... Linux is also an area that SGI is trying to prove they can get into. VA doesn't have to do that...
Also... I find it interesting that SGI would be behind the story... it is cutting the legs out from under there Origin line, the *true* SGI render solution.
I think maybe this had more to do with where it was (in NZ) and what was being worked on...
yeah yeah... troll away...
I know linux runs on other chips. The trick is to get the software companies to port to other chips... that is a battle that hardly ever can be won. In some cases Linux, without the apps, is just another whiz-bang-isn't-that-cool sort of OS.
I don't understand why everybody is against this.
New standards need to be made for things to advance. You may not need the power, but things that you enjoy need the power.
Think of the Animation industry. We are either paying big bucks for SGI boxes (for this kind of bandwith) or using NT boxes that don't have quite the pep.
The next step allows us to get that much closer to matching SGI boxes. When the Intel boxes can match the SGI boxes, then the Linux movement in the Animation industry can really take hold.
Trust me... this isn't a bad thing.
I couldn't agree with you more.
We looked at NT boxes. We are a Maya only house and we were unsure when the Maya for Linux release would be. We actually thought of buying the hardware, throwing NT on it, rendering with it and then switching to Linux when it was available.
That was a shortly lived idea. None of us wanted to be responible for porting our code to work on the NT's. Even with a perl back bone, it looked like a night mare.
Thankfully, the Linux renderer was announced and it came out, all in good time for us to use it on our current productions.
priced per processor...
Not all renderers are. We use Maya's renderer, which they recently opened up the license on, so the price is nill for the renderer.
The only price for us is the boxes. That is Intel/Linux advantage comes in for us.
Big Idea made the same decision not too long ago.
/. about rendering and Linux vs. SGI. It is great that there is now a story dedicated to it.
I never bothered to figure out what the cost/performance ratio was between the two platforms. I just knew that Linux was a lot cheaper.
The thing that suprises me is that they only have 16 boxes... and that this is newsworthy. We have 42 (with almost exactly the same config) and plan on ordering more in the near future.
One other difference is that they are using RenderMan and we are using Maya's renderer, which has recently been ported to Linux. For the type of work that we do, Maya is more than enough for us. Also, we hardly have any frame times of an hour... if we do, I yell and scream to get it cut down. The difference is that we are only rendering to 724x486. The use a higher resolution for the big screen, we only have to wory about NTSC for now.
The prices quoted in the article seem to be inflated a bit too. Unless they are quoted in the NZ dollar and that is about a 2-1 with the American. Octanes should be about $20k in the States. Linux boxes similarly configured, from VA, which we use, instead of SGI, are in the $5-6k range.
The performance boost that we have got from adding the Linux boxes is amazing. We went from being able to render on 50 MIPS CPU's 14 hours a day to rendering on an aditional 84 Intel CPU's 24 hours a day. The comparison in render speed is about 1-1, slightly infavor of the MIPS chip.
When it is all said and done, a move like this should be a no brainer to any studio. Rendering needs horsepower and system memory, both of which are cheaper in the Intel world. SysAdmins need Unix for ease of administrating and lack of down time... every studio I know considers the render system to be H.A. (high availablity). When things go down, projects get delayed... and that is a big no no in the production world (think of all the billboards you see with release dates on them... months in advance). Linux is a great choice for this.
The only drawback is that the SGI boxes have the ccNuma interface, which is great for single frame renders.
I know that I have posted many times on
FWIW: Our next two videos are the first to use our Linux render farm. Esther is at least 3/4 rendered on Linux boxes and Penguins will be mostly, if not all, rendered on Linux boxes.
-Tim Toll
Render Architect
Big Idea Productions
My father has taught Data Structures, which was also used as an intro to C course. We learned it on Linux boxes using vi or pico. That was the only way he wanted it done.
Is this any worse?
A prof has to grade all of the homework. If your code doesn't quite work, you do want partial credit. By keeping the base for the code the same, it is easier to pickup on student mistakes.
Also, by keeping the base the same, it is easier to pick out those that are cheating, wich is something all too common in the lower level CS classes.
I know that there are several people that have ADD and don't know it... there are also people that have been diagnosed with it and don't have it.
With that being said, I do agree... self disciplin can help some with ADD. The problem is that ADD stems from a lack of a certain chemical in the brain... which is interesting... because that means that the drugs that we do take are stimulants...
I know that with the proper mixture of self disciplin and medicine, some people that have ADD never appear to have the problem. On the flip side, I know that I have problems remembering to take my medicine. Sort of a catch 22.
I came from a household where self disciplin and being responsible for what you are doing was important. I feel the same way. I still have problems with it. Is it because I have no self disciplin... I don't think so.
I think that the core of the problem comes from the fact that those with ADD strugle with self disciplin. That is why that alone can't help people. I am supprised that prolonged concentration can help counteract ADD.
I would like to see more conclusive data than brain waves and the like.... does this study help the brain produce more of this chemical? That would make sense. I know that if a person takes more medicine than they are supposed to, the brain will lower its natural creation of the chemicals.
This article continues to mention ADD but it does not distinguish if it is ADD or ADHD (ADD with hyperactivity). Not all people with ADD are hyperactive.
I imagine that video games and other forms of treatment will work differently based on what exactly the child has.
On a side note, on of the items they used to diagnose my ADD was a computer program, much like a video game, that measured response time over a certain amount of time. It was on an Apple IIe if I can remember correctly. The idea was to press a button every time a square appeared inside another square... or something like that.
But... ADD and ADHD (as I am sure that you know this) are different things. ADHD are those childern that are hyperactive and have ADD. I assume that those with ADD do not have this problem.
I know from my own experience, I played video games... but I guess not enough to help my ADD... or... maybe it is better than what it could have been had I not played.
From what it sounds, AltaVista was the bad guy in this situation. They promised big, provided nothing, and when people started to complain they started pointing fingers. One out of three is a bad practice to get into. Two out of three shows lack of thinking or disrespect for customers, but all three of them... I am shocked.
I thought that only in the USA could we get stomped by some faceless giant. Don't we own a trademark on that or something???
I guess you are correct... I would have thought that some layer of security would have been built in.
Also... the single appliance talking to a service provider is a bit different than many talking to eachother... thanks for the tip...
Ok troll, I'll bite. ;) The system would operate not over a VPN, but through standard tcp/ip networking, just under the ssh method of encryption. This too is secure. As long as the only port is accepting the connections accepts only ssh connections, your Tivo would be less likely to be vulnerable.
... what do you call it... oh yeah... a "firewall" will help in this model.
With a true peer 2 peer network, such as the Tivo dialup, the phone line between the Tivo box and the machine on the other end is as secure of peer 2 peer that you can get with out encryption.
Think of calling your mom. The only way somebody could put bad data in is if they had an intrusive tap on the line... that isn't likely.
With a VPN, you can have the encryption that you want between the hosts over the internet. This is how the VPNs work... that way they can be a virtual *private* network.
We all understand how ssh is secure... its name says it all
My problem with a firewall. You might want the the machine to call the mother ship or *shocker* the mother ship to call the machine (for software updates and the like). If you used a firewall, you would either have to block some or all services (or what else is the purpose... unless it is a NAT... another word for you and your buzzword bingo). This sort of defeats the security of the system. True, using a firewall to block everything else is not a bad idea... but we are talking about a tivo talking to the service provider.
So tell me again how this new fangled contraption
A word of advice. Read, think, review, then write.
Maybe companies are being hesitant because they need an Appliance Over TCP/IP standard.
Somebody needs to show a secure way for a machine to be connected in an non-point-to-point environment. The TiVo is point to point, over the DSL, it would not be. Maybe some sort of VPN is needed to emulate a p2p or something secure like a ssh connection.
I know I don't want my tivo or my toaster to be "haxored"by the script kiddies.
I thought that Jini from Sun was supposed to solve some of this. Where is Jini at?
I come from a long standing SGI shop. We have had SGI's since day one... and we have always bought SGI boxes. Because we are in the 3D computer animation industry, this is not a big supprise.
We have a few rouge NT boxes, Intergraph and SGI, in the studio.
After buying all of this hardware and dealing with many companies on hardware support for various other hardware needs (tape backup, raid fileservers, routers, switches...) we know what we need and are willing to pay a premium for uptime (did I mention that we are H.A. We must keep the studio up.)
With this being said, we went looking for a render farm, willing to spend a decent amount of money. We looked at an SGI only solution, but the cost for high end graphics workstations to just render on seemed did not make sense. We thought about an NT solution about as long as it took you to read this sentence.
Linux was our natural choice. I started talking to different companies, all of them having rack mounted x86 boxes. Only a few came with Linux.
Because we are H.A., we needed not only a hardware solution, but a supported hardware/software combo. We were looking at 40+ machines now, a couple hundred in the future... more than what a person really wants to be responsible for.
This brought our choices down to a few companies. Of the companies, VA seemed to be the best deal, price or not. They had the support. They had the know how. They *were* Linux (ok... maybe an over statement).
After talking to VA, the local VA reps and all the people needed in presales meetings, we decided that VA would be everything that we needed. The price/performance/support ratio was in there favor.
When talking to VA, they gave us a list of other large 3D houses that were using VA as a rendering solution and set up phone conferences for us to talk to those that were running the systems currently. Only a company with a good product would act that boldly.
I have had few system problems with my machines. Those that I did have were dealt with on a high priority basis. When the network card drivers and the switches did not play nice, I recieved a phone call from somebody who knew what was going on... not some tech support jockey. We were able to get a working solution in a short period of time.
We had software that was supposed to work on our version of RH (6.2) that VA has slightly modified. Do to some problems, VA was willing to work with the software vendor to diagnos, debug and fix the problem.
After all is said and done, VA is well worth the price, regardless if it is a little higher than building it yourself or buying from an x86 vendor that ships with blank HD's or Win pre-installed.
They allowed us to implement a brand new renderfarm solution into an ongoing project with little downtime and hardship on our part. Now the company is banking on those boxes performing because our load of rendering is constantly increasing with multiple projects going on.
Um... they use more than the mobo... they have VA build the systems, IIRC... look at sample pics of the SGI web servers and the Fullons... They are exactly the same, minus a few exterior decorations.
Where I see this usefull is where I have seen it implimented before. I have used a java gui tool kit that allowed me to create a data pipe from one node to the next. This made the programming for the app simpler. I see a similar idea for a gui.
For the developer:
What each window needs is some default output connectors and input connectors with defined data types. A great example of this is how the nodes in Maya work. The whole system is built of nodes with inputs and outputs. You can link an image file to a light and that light prjects the image. You link and expression that returns an image series, frame by frame, and now you have a slide/movie projector. The examples for the usefullness in development is endless.
For the user:
I can see where people, geeks and non-geeks could love something like this. If I want the output of notepad, perhaps some html I am working on, to be dynamicly displayed in netscape, I should be able to. OR... I could be working on a web page, have the text editor link to the html, the web development software link to some java script, and have GIMP link to the images. Any change in any of the tools, either cached or flushed, would update the look of the page, on the fly.
Why is this good?
It gets us back to the tool kit model, something that UNIX was based on. Build one tool, build it right. When somebody needs that tool functionality, pipe it. Do this with several tools and pipes and you can do anything. I see where too often the developer tries to throw too much functionality into the system (such as xemacs) and bloats it, where individual tools would work wonders.
Also, if the pipes were non-blocking, each tool could live in its own process space. This way if netscape stopped responding, you would not lose the work.
I see the benifits. I also see oponents pointing to similar ideas saying that this is similar enough to get it done. One such example would be the ability to embed something in a word doc. You can then double click on this and through the magic of windows be able to edit this data in the native app. This is close. This is more of a cached pipe approach. My problem with this is that the viewer is driving the changes (word) where in my earlier example, netscape was the results of the changes.
I see the order difference to be important because I don't want the viewing app to control how the content is generated, I just want it to display it.
I don't know... maybe it is too late for me to think straight... but I see this as posibly being the next good direction for a gui to take. What an idea!
I bet that is one EULA agreement you would have a devil of a time getting out of. I think one has and he has a gold fiddle to show for it.
What color do you expect the box to come in?
Charred black?
Red-hot?
Melted-skin pink?
And the tag line for the machine...
Where would you like to go... for eterinity?
Next thing ya know, they will have that little FreeBSD imp as a mascot.
I could have sworn I looked at this yesterday or the day before... but maybe I am pshycic...
I have secretly always wanted an Apple.
:)
I might have to put my dreams for a dual athlon on the back burner for a quad G5.
But as the people at work asked me when I announced this... what would you compute on this?
I smiled and said "Netscape."
And after some thought... I added "ripping mp3s".
See... a machine like this will not be wasted.
I am not suprised. Microsoft *is* a software house. They write and sell software. Do they care if we are not running Windows... maybe... that is one less software sale.
I see this a as a way to get more from what they have worked on.
If they can't sell us the OS they might was well as sell us something. If every x86 box had some sort of licensed Microsoft product on it, they would have some real bragging rights... and a hefty bank roll.
I just see several zealots (which I am not attacking...) refusing to buy any thing Microsoft.
I used to have that attitude... but I love my Microsoft hardware. I also like my Win OS'es for game play.
Maybe through all of this, Microsoft can get to be a better software house... and focus more on that and less on the OS. If they could keep strong software sales, regardless of the OS, the OS becomes less important to the company.
Maybe, just maybe, this could allow Microsoft to start to open up some if the Windows code.
Um... people are doing this now.
There are soft bios apps that change on the fly...
and I think that is the idea behind what transmeta and intel's new energy saving chips
I use SystemImager to manage all of my machines.
I build the image on a box and the propogate the changes via a rsh/perl script that tells the clients to update.
For large system updates and configuration, it isn't that bad of way to go.
I don't know about others on /. but I think that there are other issues that are more important than where the politicians are on tech issues.
The internet is new to most people. Any sort of debate on internet issues will create the typical political FUD slinging. Do we really want this?
I think that we should wait till some of this new technology does not scare John Q. That way we can all make informed votes.
Lets give it 4 more years... then we can start to expect the true 'net canidates.
I dissagree with the later part of that.
Unix is able to be uses by non-geeks... in fact.... artists. Think about all of the SGI workstations that are being used by 3D people... hardly a geek in the group.
They can point and click with the best of them.