Forgive my spelling errors, I just got back from lab, doing like injection after injection in my HSGC, brain is fried, and it's 3:20AM... Grad school is hell.
Since I have kind of an idea what this stuff is, and it's possable impacts that SlashDot'ers would care about, I guess I'll comment.
Ok, yea, "nano-tech" can mean microfabrication projects, but that's not the hot/intersting feild to hardcore scientists. Microfabrication, which MAY be considered nanotechnology to slashdotters, hopeing for faster CPUs, denser RAM chips, etc, is more of an "engineering" problem, not a fundemental science problem.
What your probably going to see is some stuff that is totally fringe that get's funded based on it's potential. What that means is, probably at least 50% of it will never be in a commercial product, and what does have commercial uses will be at least a few years from seeing your hands;-)
BUT, that's good, someone has to do the fringe stuff, the fundemental chemistry and physics, because without them laying the groundwork, the engineers have now referance of what directions to go that will work and what won't work.
A lot of the hot funemental science that's considered nanotechnology is based on the discovery of Buckey-Ball, and fundementally Organic Chemistry. A form of carbon (linked in a ball, not a streight chain like life exists from, or in a crystal like diamond) not known to exist until the last few years. Based on this, chemist have developed some very cool little things made of carbon (some doped with metals), including things like bundles of carbon microtubes. Picture a test tube scaled down to like just a few atoms across if you can.
Cool stuff this is used for? Well, some pretty trick synthysis of stuff not normally done... I could go on and on, but, I suppose SlashDotters want to know what applications might be? Well, STM (as I have mentioned before, a very cool method of positioning single atoms on a surface, best graphics on the web I know are from IBM), can use these carbon nanotube for thier "tips" to get more fine control of positioning, and aquireing data about atoms on a surface (IBM is _probably_ looking at very dense data storage possabilities, on the atomic level, but it only works at near absolute zero). Additionally, if you position something as "big" (I say big from an atomic prespective) as a Bucky Ball on the surface, it's shown to be somewhat stable even near room temperatures! Woo... Big Buckyballs are still darn small by comparison to the size a 0 or 1 takes up on any drive YOU have ever seen!
These types of things (there are many) also have numerous biological benifits for manipulating DNA, probing cells, etc... And, the manipulation of DNA itself (or RNA, or any such thing), can in a sence be considered nanotechnology itself.
So, yes, "technically" nanotechnology means small stuff, and included microfabrication, but, I suspect that a very very large precentage of this money may go to more fundemental work and not making new wafers for chips. At least if NFS has any say at all (which they should, but might not), they will push for fundemental science, because it's considered more benificial in the long run. Once there are potential applications, it's pretty much something that Industry does, not the Government or Educational places, because there is potential profit involved. (as well should be, I don't want my tax money spent giveing corporations more money to develop direct applications that they then in turn will charge me to use!)
Hmm.. Internet server is diffrent than Intranet server. And, in such a case, I think it's also important to go back to some SAMBA studies.
Basically, I think he's right, any reasonable Linux web server can saturate most avaliable bandwidth with _static_ pages.
But, I don't think it's time to settle for that, I think we should go back to look at multithreading and why 4 CPU's gave NT more of a boost, and what that means to what needs to be done in Linux. And, I think that this study also shows that "internet" isn't the problem, so let's look at some faster stuff in the networking world, like SAMBA needs on an "intranet."
"Hey, I think Silicon Graphics Irix is the best Unix flavour around"
My knee jerk reaction here is "My Gosh, IRIX just plain sucks." Now... I guess maybe I am getting a bit more careful about what I want to say.
Uhm, How can I put this. IRIX was my first UNIX, and I have used it regularly for the last six years. At first, I was impressed. Years of seeing the price tags SGI has put on IRIX, it's service contracts (which can be more than the value of the hardware), it's gaping security holes, it's instability compared to something like Solaris,.... countless things that make my stomach turn, has left me sort of pissed off every time I hear "IRIX."
But, yea, truth is, it's an interesting OS, with it's merits, just not something I totally like. My father use to like Hemi-Head Dodge engines, and was a Dodge fan, a definate Underdog, espically after the 70's were in full swing. Countless people are Ford or Chevy fans, and have little "Piss on Dodge" or Ford, or Chevy logos on thier cars and trucks. Yet, a great number of them will gather together to bash foreign cars. And there are groups of younger people now who will bash domestic cars.... Ah, Hmm, this sort of thing goes back much longer than the existance of UNIX, or Windows, or even the Personal Computer, and there are soo many paralles.
If I were a Chevy man, would I refuse to ride in my friends Ford? Would I base my opinon on them because of there car alone? Would I "really" take it all that seriously? No. Come on people, it's the same thing here. Sure, you can bitch about how one OS is better than another, but how many of you REALLY want to cross that line of having an opinion to go over to "being a nut about it."
A computers a tool, and most people just want to get from point A to point B. (Hmm, that "if microsoft made a car" joke is luming in my head now) But, the opinions are like _____, everyone has one, and thier convinced thiers don't stink and everyone elses does.
Personally, I have probably used at least a dozen diffrent OS's more frequently than any Microsoft products. I have opinions on many. I use to like IRIX, but now lost respect for it. I use to like Linux, but am rapidly loosing that too (although, I still think the LSB is going to be it's saving grace, and it's open source nature may be all that saves it in the long run). My OS of choice now days is FreeBSD, because it brings me back to a BSD like OS like IRIX, and it's more secure, and I can actually afford to run it at home. If I had all the money and time in the world, I think I would probably be a "collector" or something, and try lots of diffrent OS's just to try...
What's the end result? Well, it's all a wash. I hate IRIX, yet I still use it because for some things, there is no real choice (some applications are only avaliable for IRIX). I use MS Windows now too... I hadn't even started doing that untill last year, and it's not "as bad" as it's portrayed, just bad, not evil. Microsoft the company, I have no respect for, but, there isn't much I can think of that Microsoft does that SGI hasn't in the past (oh, yea, and now days SGI requires Netscape, _thier version_, for system help! you don't have a choice, and even upgrading it is bearly possable... At least IE was just an icon on the desktop, you still had a choice.).
The perfect OS doesn't exist. Linux is NOT superior in every way, it's hugely lacking in countless ways. Doesn't mean it's worse than Microsoft, or BeOS, or anything. But at times, watching slashdot posts is like watching a dog chase his tail, it's funny, it's pointless, you can get bored of it pretty easily, but for some reason the next time it happens, your still amused for a few minutes. Where has it gotten the community? Heh, better yet, what is the SlashDot community? I personally think it's funny to watch Linux vs. The World at times, but I also think that everyone should be intellegent enought to realize that other OS's exist, and are worth looking at, I just wish there would be some more info about less popular things (Woo, Go FreeBSD, Ra Ra Ra, try it today, install it, it Rocks! I think I'm one of those guys now...:-( ). But, a cool story on something QNX is doing or someones application of it would be nice, a story on Berlin would be nice, a story on the guts of OS X and who is actually planning on using it would be nice, a story on Solaris, the fate of DEC-UNIX, AIX, something other than Microsoft, Linux, BeOS, and the iMac would be nice!
So, yea, I agree, you SHOULD cheer for IRIX, more power to you, I use it myself! But, we all should try to take a step back, keep our eyes and minds open, and see what's out there. If we can, maybe we can find, or build, a better OS, that has more of the good and less of the bad. Take notes on what you do like about each OS, and what you don't... Hmm... Building the "perfect OS" wishlist...
BeOS, to me, is just another commercial OS. I would like to get all excited about it like everyone else, but I just can't. Mr. Hacker still hasn't swayed me.
I said it before, and I'll say it again... UNIX style OS at the core is something I have a great deal of respect for, and a wealth of GNU applications are supported BOTH in open source UNIX and commercial UNIX. When you add to that the huge number of GNU applications that can be easily compiled on a UNIX system using a standard X11R6 structure, there is just SOO MUCH code already out there that I think it's hard for me to say "oh, let's ditch it all, and go to something totally new, and, oh, BTW, it's commercial, and oh, BTW, did we mention that we want all those people who have contributed to GNU to drop everything and port to our OS and windowing system?"
Don't get me wrong, I am not just BeOS bashing. I see what they are trying to do, and I respect that. I just am not excited about it. If you want to know what WOULD excite me, it's replacing standard X with something like Berlin, and replacing the standard macrokernels with something like Hurd, because that keeps it all GPL, will make it possable for software to be more "portable" to Both commercial and free UNIX's, and will allow people to build "optimized" OS's for multimedia, gaming, office apps, servers, cad, etc... AND, the specialized OS's will still be able to probably grab a GNU app that was intended to run on a system optimized for something else, and still run it. Microkernel, making it easier to ditch un-needed overhead, and new windowing system based in GPL code. That's exciting.
I think BeOS is neat, but I think QNX is neat too, and so is MacOS X, and... but, I am not doing cart-wheels over them, because 1) I can't afford the time to mess with them, 2) I can't afford to buy them all to find out I might not like them, 3) It's taking me away from my "roots." I like the fact that thier are more choices, because competition breeds ideas and motive. But I really think it's about time that SlashDot give some press to something other than just Linux vs. every commercial OS in the world. There are TONS of really cool GNU projects out there. The commercial UNIX's are occasionaly mentioned (and I bet there is a higher ratio of IRIX or Solaris users out there reading that BeOS users, but more BeOS stories), the *BSD's are bearly mentioned, and I can't remember the last time I saw a Hurd or Berlin story on SlashDot at all!
Technically, I guess I am more of a "UNIX" + X supporter, and I personally don't like BeOS, Mac OS X, etc... even if they are "UNIXlike Microkernel." I guess I would rather see GNU X evolve, like a licence change to XFree86 + OpenGL + GLX + more 3D support...
I like the "UNIX + X" portability that exists now, with ease in compiling between all the BSD's, Linux, IRIX, Solaris, DEC-UNIX (whatever it's called now), etc... and I don't like seeing applications being ported out, when I would rather see support for existing GNU/GPL or BSD licenced UNIX + X OS's comming in.
Feel free to correct me technically, but it seems like "portability" between the existing "UNIX + X" OS's is very very good, it's just these "consept non-X microkernel" things that are fringe and difficult to port to, and I just don't see the advantages to these new OS's. I see merit to new open source (lower case generic, not "Open Source") OS's if they are UNIX + X, some are more secure, some are slicker, some are.... But, if were going to say it's "UNIX" but ditch X and make everything difficult to port, why not look at Berlin or something that could potentially be the next generation X for ALL UNIX, not just some new thing?
Aside from my potential mistakes in determining the differances here, I would like to hear someone support my view with some hard fact, or convincingly argue that a TOTAL diversion is needed and a small unpopular (even if it is cute and slick) startup OS is the answer?
QNX GPL'ed, or maybe HURD, and a next generation X that runs on all legacy UNIX boxes seems the smart move to me. But those things need to come from an open source community itself through evolution, not a startup indepenant OS, IMHO.
Hmm, very interesting comment. And true. But it made me think about the LSB even more. I know they will probably NOT do this, because they are sort of not the kind of people who will go chasing the $ in the Linux world, but, here's an idea:
LSB Approved branding, and LSB Supporters branding. Where the first mearly states it's compatable, and the second denotes that out of the $20 or so they charge per CD, they donate about $1-5 to the LSB, and $1-5 to support some trustworth open source foundation. And, if the company contributes significantly to GPL, it can get an "exempt" status granted by the open source foundation in order to recieve both brandings. Then it's clear to everyone who "supports" open source, and who doesn't, right on the label.
This would allow people like LSL and CheapBytes to stay in buisness, and keep selling $1 CD's, but it's clear that the $1 CD doesn't support anything. And anyone who cares about growth of open source can pick any distribution with the right "branding." *(note: open source above doesn't nessessarly refer to "Open Source" but to a generic undefiened foundation/association/group.)
Wooo!... Another... What? Based on what? Packages as what? It's at least SysV, right?...
Hmm. Maybe it's just another reason to keep anyone who cares following the LSB, which is starting to make some "visable" progress now (compatibility testing tools...). Frankly, maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if there get to be tons of Linux distributions, as long as thier compatiable on a basic level. It sure doesn't hurt to have lots of diffrent telephone long distance carriers, but if they weren't compatable, you could only call people that use your carrier.
Wait, Linux better be BETTER than the phone companies, that's the point of the LSB. I don't wanna see "you can't get that service unless you use brand X." If the base is the same, who cares who you get it from, I'd be happy with "Jonny Smith's Linux" that I picked up in the "impulse buy rack" at the grocery store, because I would probably end up changing what I didn't like anyway.
Personally, I have started using FreeBSD as of late, I got sick of trying to find the "right" package out of 100 diffrent packages for the same application, or tracking libraries to insure the new verson of X will run, but not break the old version of Y. I have less and less time to do that stuff anymore (approching graduation), maybe some day when I have more time, I'll go back towards Linux installs.
First of all I don't know anything about games, I don't play them. But that doesn't mean you can't run a big game on a thin client.
You run the game on the server you connect to, not the thin client. The client only runs X. And OpenGL might be in XFree86 4.0, so if they wait for that, and used it, it would probably really rock.
My work on thin clients has shown me that there are even some preformance gains IF you configure your thin client right. The thin client's CPU and RAM only runs X, and you want a rocking video card (From my experiance doing molecular modeling and such). But, your bottle neck is bandwidth, not video or ram. All the background calculations to tell the video unit what to render are done on the server, if the server is fast, that will be fast. If the thin client has a good video subsystem, it will render the graphics fast. Since the thin client has it's own CPU, and if the video unit is fast, it has the potential to blow away a "complete system" because one box does video, and one does the application, and your not bogging down any one system by doing both on it.
The problems are, 1) you piss off other users that are on that server. 2) you frequently find the bottleneck is the data transfer rate between the server and the thin client (espically on 10baseT or less) 3) Most thin clients just don't have really rocking video subsystems.
Now, at home, I have a Linux box that I call a "server" in a generic sence, that is basically my workstation. I also have a lesser linux box (good video, good monitor, 32M RAM, MilleniumII vid card), that I run just as a thin client off the server. I have found that some applications (particularly that use a lot of CPU time for the application, AND a lot of CPU time for X) are much faster on the thin client.
Best thing to do, is just build your own. Pick up an P60 through P200, slap in a good video card and 8 to 32M ram, and just hang that puppy of a super fast server, and you'll be much happier, and probably pay less, than buying anyones "Thin Client."
I have never had an interest in crypto, or even used it. I never thought I had anything worth hiding... But that hasn't stoped me from occasionally pondering the theory of it.
Ok, I guess I understand a bit more that "it just takes the right password to decript a message." But basically, key management is the bigest risk I would see, isn't it? Because your "secret key" or whatever is kept somewhere on your computer, and it takes the right key to decript something. So, if your key is say 128 bit, it would take some serious horse power to crack it, BUT, wouldn't it be way easier for someone to crack into your system and steal your key, then just crack the password for the key? To me, stronger and stronger encription seems pointless if this is all it would take to break it.
Also, I guess since I am getting older (and lazier), I wouldn't mind trying some pgp or gpg thing just for the heck of it, but a nice GUI front end, and maybe a Netscape Mail Plugin for it would be nice. Is there such a thing, a full GUI front end for pgp or gpg that is gpl and generates keys, incripts mail for easy sending, key management, and everything? the only thing I found is gpgp and that seems to be only key management. So, is there anyone who has done such a thing, or am I just going to have to spend 15 minutes reading the docs, and not have a good mail plugin, and realize that my less technical friends will never be able to read anything I would send them encripted. I guess it's not a big consern, because like I said, I don't think I have anything to hide, but I guess if it was an easy thing to do, I might just consider playing around with it.
Yea, I got the consept from an NPR interview with Kary Mullis on Talk of the Nation. He went to "this company" his buddy "Paul" runs in California for a visit, and I guess he didn't know there was massive NDA involved for most visitors. Then he talked about it on the radio! Whops...
Interesting to note, the RealAudio clip for that day is no longer avaliable on NPR's archives;-)
I am going to throw my theory into the ring, why not, everyone else has!
Transmeta is NOT developing new computers! I predict that transmeta is developing "high tech appliances" like TV/VCR/Media/Stero/HomeAutomation systems. I guess they will be heavily dependant on a high bandwidth connection (thus they are not in a hurry they will take thier time and get it right, and be ready to OWN the market when broad bandwidth comes to home users).
It fits to me, all the high tech chip designers, OS guys, Media gurus. But, my prediction is the end users won't even see the OS, and the will not be marketed as "computers," but "high tech media appliances" insted.
Re:Drop the Space station, fund this kind of stuff
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NASA and AI Testing
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Our eggs are in one basket, Earth. Can you say "Single Point Failure" ?
Ah, See, that's MY point. We don't even have all "our eggs in one basket." We have all our eggs on probably less than 1/4 of the surface layer of a big blanket that is filling that basket. Pick it up, and some are likely to roll out. Now, rather than looking for another basket, I say we take look at what's under the blanket in our own basket.
I went to a talk about 3 months ago where the guy was talking about increasing bandwidth. Basically, to sum up a two hour talk in a few words, it boils down to "Getting fiber optics to move information faster isn't a challange, it's getting the information into and out of the optic that's the problem." He went on about details of nanofabrication, and new synthetic structures can bump up the transfer rate and frequency regulation of light (*NOT the frequency of the light, but the rate that they can change the frequency*).
All his work was lab based synthisis of nano structures, and not commercial applications. So, his work was significantly beyond what is production ready by about a year (at LEAST). Anyone know of a solid referance for the basics in what communication hardware/structures/circut design is currently being used, and what directions they are moving? If what I saw was true (and the science behind it was solid), he could easily boost the best theoretical hardware by an order of magnitude from existing stuff. I understand the science, chemistry, and fabrication stuff he talked about, and I can see how it would be better, but I don't understand the protocols completely, and the designs that are back between the computers and the electric to light wave meterials he was designing.
Cool, thanks. Got any referances for them? (I only caught part of the show. So this guy has two companies that don't have an actual product out yet? I really don't have a clue, but would like to find out more.)
I believe that mankind knows little about the climate on a geological scale and can not yet conclusively prove we are not in danger of a catastrophic climate change caused by other than man-made circumstances.
I believe a comment by Nobel Prize winning chemist Kary Mullis that if one were to do actuary tables on the most pressing threats to mankind, one would find that a "Extinction Level Event" caused by an asteroid is possible, and our politicians will not significantly address this problem until it's to late because of financial concerns.
I believe that NASA has not focused it's efforts correctly in these matters. I believe NASA has focused on "Star Wars" type programs (both in a Cold War, Ronald Regan sense, and in a George Lucus glamorous space travel sense), when in fact they should focus more on conservation concerns such as meteor impacts.
I believe Space Studies are disproportionately funded to Under Sea studies. Hollywood has glamorized space studies, and under played deep sea exploration. Our children are encouraged to "reach for the stars" by Hollywood, and, I believe we already know more about the stars than we do about our own planet (specifically, what's going on under the seas.
I believe the answers to many of our social and cultural problems can be found through science, and science has been given a bad hand to play by the media and government. Under Sea exploration and studies my solve countless problems in geological understanding, food and fuel resources, and many other significantly neglected problems of man kind. The underwater oil and natural gas fields north of Russia are completely ignored, and could potentially solve many of the worlds economic and fuel needs. I believe underwater agriculture may be a potential solution to world hunger. I believe that Global Warming is a potential problem, and possibly significant. But, I do not believe there is conclusive proof that it is the result of mankind's actions, and therefore I believe our scientific studies of Global Warming should not be singularly focused on "lightening Mankind's Impact on the Environment." I believe that there should also be a focus on developing a way for man to cope with climate change.
When a star that may have died 6000 years ago could cause global climate change and we are so arrogent to believe it's our use of Freon, someone has thier head up there arse. Global protection from astronomical events should be our primary consirn with relation to space/NASA/etc. Otherwise, we should keep looking to understand what is going on in our own planet (and under the sea) and solve the problems at home first.
Speaking of Artificial Intelligence and Remote Control of something... Am I the only one that is somewhat amaized by the new Ad here from Sony for the Robotic Dog? $2500, and has been sold out since the first time I saw the ad?
Wonder what kind of interfaces it has, what the code base is, etc, etc...
Just thought I'd ask, since this might be as close as a story gets to relevent.
Frankly, the US media sucks. Before you jump down my throat, let me explain.
We, here in the USA live it the lungs of a "drama driven tragity" created by the media. If it's got blood, it sells, and they can put it on camera. If it's got a minor involve, they can get a shot of a teenager crying, and it sells. If it's weather related, they can play some hurricane footage, and it sells.
There in lies the question, with TV driven media news, they run into countless problems with modern stories. How do you get a good camera angle on "red flag words in encripted messages" when it's not even a meterial thing? How do you get your news anchor to sound interesting in a 10 second advertizement for the news when he is constantly calling a tech for help to retreve his email, and you want him to talk about processor power relevance of increasing encription key strength? How can you do a story that would take the full 30 minutes of the news to explain the background information alone to 90% of the audiance?
Yes, it is big news, yes it is a serious consern for all Americans, and the whole world, yes it really really in important to seperate the myth for the fact. But which one of the "news professionals" who spent 5 years studying english, makeup, and political topics like welfare, which one of these clowns do you pick to try to investigate the story?
Look at the securety breach at LANL, and the impact. That was easily (at least) one of the biggest events in national securty in the last century. How may people saw anything at all about it on the news? And when? The _couldn't_ cover it, because they didn't know how. It got _some minor_ media coverage at least a month after the story broke. Why? Because, it took that long to get a political figure (some thing to put on camera) to make a public statement about it. That's all they can cover, that's all they know how to do. They cover "statements" from famous faces. They don't cover what moves around from one hard drive to another. That story is real, they have facts, and they STILL can't cover it.
How in your right mind can you believe that they can cover something like this, when it's much harder to even figure out what the hard facts are?
(Steping onto my soap box) The REAL problem is that in the USA, the mass mob mentality has no clue what the diffrance between freedom and democracy is. Democracy was a tool to insure freedom, not other way around. Let run rampant, the people can be thier own supressive dictator. Because the "majority" want's things one way, that does NOT insure freedom for all. This is why anyone who really cares about what seperates the USA from any other country in the world is a member of the Libetarian Party where the _goals_ of the founding fathers are supported, not the mob mentality. Freedom is being lost to a political machine that makes the politcal machines in the past (like the whole gerrymandering thing) look laughable by comparison. No other place in the world has given it's people to rise and fall, stand on thier own two feet, and succeed based soley on thier own strength as much as the USA has. Yet, every day, that chance gets smaller and smaller, as we all surcome to the "mob rule by orderly democracy." Think for one minute... "Concensus is the biggest enemy of Truth" Just because everyone agrees, it doesn't make it _right_. Without our freedom, we are doomed to loose everything the USA was originally founded for.
So, HELL YES, this is big news, this is important, this should be on the front page of the local papers and the lead story at least ONE time... But, what can you expect from a country that is govern by a mob who is educated by Hollywood?
People, notice this is regulated by the FAA, not DOT. Meaning, it's not a "car" it's an "aircraft" and therefore you will need a pilot's licence to "drive" one.
If all the claims are true, there are two wickedly cool things to notice. 1) $60,000 is dang cheap for something like this (if you believe that price is accurate). 2) Preformance seems to be very good.
But, don't forget all the drawbacks. 1) Pilot licences are expensive to get. 2) Sure, maybe this will be something you can fit in a garage and take off vertically, but, accidents will be fatal when you "bump" into another "car" and go plunging 100 feet down to your death. 3) Air Traffic is a nightmear to manage NOW, with professional pilots, amagine every bad driver you ever saw no in the sky! 4) 5 miles per liter? That's about 1 mile per gallon!? How much fuel can it hold!? The thing has to be a flying fuel tank to get very far, and when it crashes... BOOM!
It's wild to see stuff like this, but even if it is true, and all they claim is valid, there are still years and years of legal problems ans safty hazards to deal with.
I still long for the days of FVWM churning along on a 386, and being soo impressed with "wow, look at all the real stuff that can be done with this hardware." Insane as it might sound. I still have a 386SX20, that I keep running Linux and quite happy with it, although, now days I just don't feel like 18 hour kernel compiles and waiting 5 minutes for X. It's reserverd for console only use.
But, at the same time, I am equally impressed with both what I can do at console on a 386, and some of the really fancy new GUI stuff comming to Linux. And, I am sorry to say, and it goes against everything I have always felt, but 64M of RAM in May of 1999 just isn't a "comfort zone."
Seriously, check out PriceWatch, because I was sort of shocked with my last memory order. $82 will get you a nice 128M SDRAM DIMM that will be happy at 100MHz bus speeds. And memory is the truely unsung hero of the computer. All these people talking about how they overclocked thier Celeron to 500MHz or more, and I just tend to sit back and go "Yea, so, you spent all that money, time, and frusturation, and you have 32M RAM??! I would be happy with half that speed and 128M to 256M RAM, because that's where I feel it most."
Yea, it's a bloat. I did a test last night on this very issue. Identical systems, one with 32M of SDRAM, the other with 128M of EDO, and ran RedHat 6.0 w/KDE and Gnome, and WHAM... Light-years of differance. Well worth the $82 I spent on the test, and you can't ever find a way to convince me to go back to less than 100M. (matter of fact, I will be shifting another 64M into that box later this week).
Swap is no match what so ever for even the cheapest slowest RAM. And that is what it basically comes down to. RAM is getting affordable, and to get all the GUI bells and whistles, you need the RAM for it. If you are offended by it, there is still fvwm or wm2, and vi to fill your needs, and I am not saying that as a put-down (because I find them very useful on my 386SX20 w/ 6M)
"XFS has many advanced features, but SGI isn't releasing all of them as open source, Iams added. The open source version--which anyone will be able to see, modify, and distribute--is limited to 64-bit file support and the journaling system."
Not to put a wet blanket on the party, but if it already doesn't include mentioned things like quota support, etc.. and they aren't releasing all of the features, and they don't even have a licence decided on yet...
Looks like it will just be a part of the code that might be incorporated into ext2, and will help some, if there are enough tallented people to actually do it (I sure know I won't be doing it). And, given it will take time for them to decide on the licence, it will take time to deal with the licence, and time to incorporate the code.. It might be a long time before we even see the effects of this _part_ of xfs incorporated into a Open Source OS (and who says Linux will be the first to use it?).
Slashdot Mirror
"Mozilla is an amazing and incredibly successful project."
If your soo sure, how do you explain this
I am all for open source, but when someone like AOL want's to exploite it for thier own profit or dump it, which would you really rather they did?
Forgive my spelling errors, I just got back from lab, doing like injection after injection in my HSGC, brain is fried, and it's 3:20AM... Grad school is hell.
Ok, yea, "nano-tech" can mean microfabrication projects, but that's not the hot/intersting feild to hardcore scientists. Microfabrication, which MAY be considered nanotechnology to slashdotters, hopeing for faster CPUs, denser RAM chips, etc, is more of an "engineering" problem, not a fundemental science problem.
What your probably going to see is some stuff that is totally fringe that get's funded based on it's potential. What that means is, probably at least 50% of it will never be in a commercial product, and what does have commercial uses will be at least a few years from seeing your hands ;-)
BUT, that's good, someone has to do the fringe stuff, the fundemental chemistry and physics, because without them laying the groundwork, the engineers have now referance of what directions to go that will work and what won't work.
A lot of the hot funemental science that's considered nanotechnology is based on the discovery of Buckey-Ball, and fundementally Organic Chemistry. A form of carbon (linked in a ball, not a streight chain like life exists from, or in a crystal like diamond) not known to exist until the last few years. Based on this, chemist have developed some very cool little things made of carbon (some doped with metals), including things like bundles of carbon microtubes. Picture a test tube scaled down to like just a few atoms across if you can.
Cool stuff this is used for? Well, some pretty trick synthysis of stuff not normally done... I could go on and on, but, I suppose SlashDotters want to know what applications might be? Well, STM (as I have mentioned before, a very cool method of positioning single atoms on a surface, best graphics on the web I know are from IBM), can use these carbon nanotube for thier "tips" to get more fine control of positioning, and aquireing data about atoms on a surface (IBM is _probably_ looking at very dense data storage possabilities, on the atomic level, but it only works at near absolute zero). Additionally, if you position something as "big" (I say big from an atomic prespective) as a Bucky Ball on the surface, it's shown to be somewhat stable even near room temperatures! Woo... Big Buckyballs are still darn small by comparison to the size a 0 or 1 takes up on any drive YOU have ever seen!
These types of things (there are many) also have numerous biological benifits for manipulating DNA, probing cells, etc... And, the manipulation of DNA itself (or RNA, or any such thing), can in a sence be considered nanotechnology itself.
So, yes, "technically" nanotechnology means small stuff, and included microfabrication, but, I suspect that a very very large precentage of this money may go to more fundemental work and not making new wafers for chips. At least if NFS has any say at all (which they should, but might not), they will push for fundemental science, because it's considered more benificial in the long run. Once there are potential applications, it's pretty much something that Industry does, not the Government or Educational places, because there is potential profit involved. (as well should be, I don't want my tax money spent giveing corporations more money to develop direct applications that they then in turn will charge me to use!)
Basically, I think he's right, any reasonable Linux web server can saturate most avaliable bandwidth with _static_ pages.
But, I don't think it's time to settle for that, I think we should go back to look at multithreading and why 4 CPU's gave NT more of a boost, and what that means to what needs to be done in Linux. And, I think that this study also shows that "internet" isn't the problem, so let's look at some faster stuff in the networking world, like SAMBA needs on an "intranet."
My knee jerk reaction here is "My Gosh, IRIX just plain sucks." Now... I guess maybe I am getting a bit more careful about what I want to say.
Uhm, How can I put this. IRIX was my first UNIX, and I have used it regularly for the last six years. At first, I was impressed. Years of seeing the price tags SGI has put on IRIX, it's service contracts (which can be more than the value of the hardware), it's gaping security holes, it's instability compared to something like Solaris, .... countless things that make my stomach turn, has left me sort of pissed off every time I hear "IRIX."
But, yea, truth is, it's an interesting OS, with it's merits, just not something I totally like. My father use to like Hemi-Head Dodge engines, and was a Dodge fan, a definate Underdog, espically after the 70's were in full swing. Countless people are Ford or Chevy fans, and have little "Piss on Dodge" or Ford, or Chevy logos on thier cars and trucks. Yet, a great number of them will gather together to bash foreign cars. And there are groups of younger people now who will bash domestic cars.... Ah, Hmm, this sort of thing goes back much longer than the existance of UNIX, or Windows, or even the Personal Computer, and there are soo many paralles.
If I were a Chevy man, would I refuse to ride in my friends Ford? Would I base my opinon on them because of there car alone? Would I "really" take it all that seriously? No. Come on people, it's the same thing here. Sure, you can bitch about how one OS is better than another, but how many of you REALLY want to cross that line of having an opinion to go over to "being a nut about it."
A computers a tool, and most people just want to get from point A to point B. (Hmm, that "if microsoft made a car" joke is luming in my head now) But, the opinions are like _____, everyone has one, and thier convinced thiers don't stink and everyone elses does.
Personally, I have probably used at least a dozen diffrent OS's more frequently than any Microsoft products. I have opinions on many. I use to like IRIX, but now lost respect for it. I use to like Linux, but am rapidly loosing that too (although, I still think the LSB is going to be it's saving grace, and it's open source nature may be all that saves it in the long run). My OS of choice now days is FreeBSD, because it brings me back to a BSD like OS like IRIX, and it's more secure, and I can actually afford to run it at home. If I had all the money and time in the world, I think I would probably be a "collector" or something, and try lots of diffrent OS's just to try...
What's the end result? Well, it's all a wash. I hate IRIX, yet I still use it because for some things, there is no real choice (some applications are only avaliable for IRIX). I use MS Windows now too... I hadn't even started doing that untill last year, and it's not "as bad" as it's portrayed, just bad, not evil. Microsoft the company, I have no respect for, but, there isn't much I can think of that Microsoft does that SGI hasn't in the past (oh, yea, and now days SGI requires Netscape, _thier version_, for system help! you don't have a choice, and even upgrading it is bearly possable... At least IE was just an icon on the desktop, you still had a choice.).
The perfect OS doesn't exist. Linux is NOT superior in every way, it's hugely lacking in countless ways. Doesn't mean it's worse than Microsoft, or BeOS, or anything. But at times, watching slashdot posts is like watching a dog chase his tail, it's funny, it's pointless, you can get bored of it pretty easily, but for some reason the next time it happens, your still amused for a few minutes. Where has it gotten the community? Heh, better yet, what is the SlashDot community? I personally think it's funny to watch Linux vs. The World at times, but I also think that everyone should be intellegent enought to realize that other OS's exist, and are worth looking at, I just wish there would be some more info about less popular things (Woo, Go FreeBSD, Ra Ra Ra, try it today, install it, it Rocks! I think I'm one of those guys now... :-( ). But, a cool story on something QNX is doing or someones application of it would be nice, a story on Berlin would be nice, a story on the guts of OS X and who is actually planning on using it would be nice, a story on Solaris, the fate of DEC-UNIX, AIX, something other than Microsoft, Linux, BeOS, and the iMac would be nice!
So, yea, I agree, you SHOULD cheer for IRIX, more power to you, I use it myself! But, we all should try to take a step back, keep our eyes and minds open, and see what's out there. If we can, maybe we can find, or build, a better OS, that has more of the good and less of the bad. Take notes on what you do like about each OS, and what you don't... Hmm... Building the "perfect OS" wishlist...
I said it before, and I'll say it again... UNIX style OS at the core is something I have a great deal of respect for, and a wealth of GNU applications are supported BOTH in open source UNIX and commercial UNIX. When you add to that the huge number of GNU applications that can be easily compiled on a UNIX system using a standard X11R6 structure, there is just SOO MUCH code already out there that I think it's hard for me to say "oh, let's ditch it all, and go to something totally new, and, oh, BTW, it's commercial, and oh, BTW, did we mention that we want all those people who have contributed to GNU to drop everything and port to our OS and windowing system?"
Don't get me wrong, I am not just BeOS bashing. I see what they are trying to do, and I respect that. I just am not excited about it. If you want to know what WOULD excite me, it's replacing standard X with something like Berlin, and replacing the standard macrokernels with something like Hurd, because that keeps it all GPL, will make it possable for software to be more "portable" to Both commercial and free UNIX's, and will allow people to build "optimized" OS's for multimedia, gaming, office apps, servers, cad, etc... AND, the specialized OS's will still be able to probably grab a GNU app that was intended to run on a system optimized for something else, and still run it. Microkernel, making it easier to ditch un-needed overhead, and new windowing system based in GPL code. That's exciting.
I think BeOS is neat, but I think QNX is neat too, and so is MacOS X, and ... but, I am not doing cart-wheels over them, because 1) I can't afford the time to mess with them, 2) I can't afford to buy them all to find out I might not like them, 3) It's taking me away from my "roots." I like the fact that thier are more choices, because competition breeds ideas and motive. But I really think it's about time that SlashDot give some press to something other than just Linux vs. every commercial OS in the world. There are TONS of really cool GNU projects out there. The commercial UNIX's are occasionaly mentioned (and I bet there is a higher ratio of IRIX or Solaris users out there reading that BeOS users, but more BeOS stories), the *BSD's are bearly mentioned, and I can't remember the last time I saw a Hurd or Berlin story on SlashDot at all!
K, flame away ;-)
Find Motherboards now! stop.
Over and out
I like the "UNIX + X" portability that exists now, with ease in compiling between all the BSD's, Linux, IRIX, Solaris, DEC-UNIX (whatever it's called now), etc... and I don't like seeing applications being ported out, when I would rather see support for existing GNU/GPL or BSD licenced UNIX + X OS's comming in.
Feel free to correct me technically, but it seems like "portability" between the existing "UNIX + X" OS's is very very good, it's just these "consept non-X microkernel" things that are fringe and difficult to port to, and I just don't see the advantages to these new OS's. I see merit to new open source (lower case generic, not "Open Source") OS's if they are UNIX + X, some are more secure, some are slicker, some are.... But, if were going to say it's "UNIX" but ditch X and make everything difficult to port, why not look at Berlin or something that could potentially be the next generation X for ALL UNIX, not just some new thing?
Aside from my potential mistakes in determining the differances here, I would like to hear someone support my view with some hard fact, or convincingly argue that a TOTAL diversion is needed and a small unpopular (even if it is cute and slick) startup OS is the answer?
QNX GPL'ed, or maybe HURD, and a next generation X that runs on all legacy UNIX boxes seems the smart move to me. But those things need to come from an open source community itself through evolution, not a startup indepenant OS, IMHO.
LSB Approved branding, and LSB Supporters branding. Where the first mearly states it's compatable, and the second denotes that out of the $20 or so they charge per CD, they donate about $1-5 to the LSB, and $1-5 to support some trustworth open source foundation. And, if the company contributes significantly to GPL, it can get an "exempt" status granted by the open source foundation in order to recieve both brandings. Then it's clear to everyone who "supports" open source, and who doesn't, right on the label.
This would allow people like LSL and CheapBytes to stay in buisness, and keep selling $1 CD's, but it's clear that the $1 CD doesn't support anything. And anyone who cares about growth of open source can pick any distribution with the right "branding." *(note: open source above doesn't nessessarly refer to "Open Source" but to a generic undefiened foundation/association/group.)
Hmm. Maybe it's just another reason to keep anyone who cares following the LSB, which is starting to make some "visable" progress now (compatibility testing tools...). Frankly, maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if there get to be tons of Linux distributions, as long as thier compatiable on a basic level. It sure doesn't hurt to have lots of diffrent telephone long distance carriers, but if they weren't compatable, you could only call people that use your carrier.
Wait, Linux better be BETTER than the phone companies, that's the point of the LSB. I don't wanna see "you can't get that service unless you use brand X." If the base is the same, who cares who you get it from, I'd be happy with "Jonny Smith's Linux" that I picked up in the "impulse buy rack" at the grocery store, because I would probably end up changing what I didn't like anyway.
Personally, I have started using FreeBSD as of late, I got sick of trying to find the "right" package out of 100 diffrent packages for the same application, or tracking libraries to insure the new verson of X will run, but not break the old version of Y. I have less and less time to do that stuff anymore (approching graduation), maybe some day when I have more time, I'll go back towards Linux installs.
First of all I don't know anything about games, I don't play them. But that doesn't mean you can't run a big game on a thin client.
You run the game on the server you connect to, not the thin client. The client only runs X. And OpenGL might be in XFree86 4.0, so if they wait for that, and used it, it would probably really rock.
My work on thin clients has shown me that there are even some preformance gains IF you configure your thin client right. The thin client's CPU and RAM only runs X, and you want a rocking video card (From my experiance doing molecular modeling and such). But, your bottle neck is bandwidth, not video or ram. All the background calculations to tell the video unit what to render are done on the server, if the server is fast, that will be fast. If the thin client has a good video subsystem, it will render the graphics fast. Since the thin client has it's own CPU, and if the video unit is fast, it has the potential to blow away a "complete system" because one box does video, and one does the application, and your not bogging down any one system by doing both on it.
The problems are, 1) you piss off other users that are on that server. 2) you frequently find the bottleneck is the data transfer rate between the server and the thin client (espically on 10baseT or less) 3) Most thin clients just don't have really rocking video subsystems.
Now, at home, I have a Linux box that I call a "server" in a generic sence, that is basically my workstation. I also have a lesser linux box (good video, good monitor, 32M RAM, MilleniumII vid card), that I run just as a thin client off the server. I have found that some applications (particularly that use a lot of CPU time for the application, AND a lot of CPU time for X) are much faster on the thin client.
Best thing to do, is just build your own. Pick up an P60 through P200, slap in a good video card and 8 to 32M ram, and just hang that puppy of a super fast server, and you'll be much happier, and probably pay less, than buying anyones "Thin Client."
I have never had an interest in crypto, or even used it. I never thought I had anything worth hiding... But that hasn't stoped me from occasionally pondering the theory of it.
Ok, I guess I understand a bit more that "it just takes the right password to decript a message." But basically, key management is the bigest risk I would see, isn't it? Because your "secret key" or whatever is kept somewhere on your computer, and it takes the right key to decript something. So, if your key is say 128 bit, it would take some serious horse power to crack it, BUT, wouldn't it be way easier for someone to crack into your system and steal your key, then just crack the password for the key? To me, stronger and stronger encription seems pointless if this is all it would take to break it.
Also, I guess since I am getting older (and lazier), I wouldn't mind trying some pgp or gpg thing just for the heck of it, but a nice GUI front end, and maybe a Netscape Mail Plugin for it would be nice. Is there such a thing, a full GUI front end for pgp or gpg that is gpl and generates keys, incripts mail for easy sending, key management, and everything? the only thing I found is gpgp and that seems to be only key management. So, is there anyone who has done such a thing, or am I just going to have to spend 15 minutes reading the docs, and not have a good mail plugin, and realize that my less technical friends will never be able to read anything I would send them encripted. I guess it's not a big consern, because like I said, I don't think I have anything to hide, but I guess if it was an easy thing to do, I might just consider playing around with it.
I tried to tell Malda, but he won't listen.
Interesting to note, the RealAudio clip for that day is no longer avaliable on NPR's archives ;-)
Transmeta is NOT developing new computers! I predict that transmeta is developing "high tech appliances" like TV/VCR/Media/Stero/HomeAutomation systems. I guess they will be heavily dependant on a high bandwidth connection (thus they are not in a hurry they will take thier time and get it right, and be ready to OWN the market when broad bandwidth comes to home users).
It fits to me, all the high tech chip designers, OS guys, Media gurus. But, my prediction is the end users won't even see the OS, and the will not be marketed as "computers," but "high tech media appliances" insted.
Ah, See, that's MY point. We don't even have all "our eggs in one basket." We have all our eggs on probably less than 1/4 of the surface layer of a big blanket that is filling that basket. Pick it up, and some are likely to roll out. Now, rather than looking for another basket, I say we take look at what's under the blanket in our own basket.
All his work was lab based synthisis of nano structures, and not commercial applications. So, his work was significantly beyond what is production ready by about a year (at LEAST). Anyone know of a solid referance for the basics in what communication hardware/structures/circut design is currently being used, and what directions they are moving? If what I saw was true (and the science behind it was solid), he could easily boost the best theoretical hardware by an order of magnitude from existing stuff. I understand the science, chemistry, and fabrication stuff he talked about, and I can see how it would be better, but I don't understand the protocols completely, and the designs that are back between the computers and the electric to light wave meterials he was designing.
Cool, thanks. Got any referances for them? (I only caught part of the show. So this guy has two companies that don't have an actual product out yet? I really don't have a clue, but would like to find out more.)
I believe that mankind knows little about the climate on a geological scale and can not yet conclusively prove we are not in danger of a catastrophic climate change caused by other than man-made circumstances.
I believe a comment by Nobel Prize winning chemist Kary Mullis that if one were to do actuary tables on the most pressing threats to mankind, one would find that a "Extinction Level Event" caused by an asteroid is possible, and our politicians will not significantly address this problem until it's to late because of financial concerns.
I believe that NASA has not focused it's efforts correctly in these matters. I believe NASA has focused on "Star Wars" type programs (both in a Cold War, Ronald Regan sense, and in a George Lucus glamorous space travel sense), when in fact they should focus more on conservation concerns such as meteor impacts.
I believe Space Studies are disproportionately funded to Under Sea studies. Hollywood has glamorized space studies, and under played deep sea exploration. Our children are encouraged to "reach for the stars" by Hollywood, and, I believe we already know more about the stars than we do about our own planet (specifically, what's going on under the seas.
I believe the answers to many of our social and cultural problems can be found through science, and science has been given a bad hand to play by the media and government. Under Sea exploration and studies my solve countless problems in geological understanding, food and fuel resources, and many other significantly neglected problems of man kind. The underwater oil and natural gas fields north of Russia are completely ignored, and could potentially solve many of the worlds economic and fuel needs. I believe underwater agriculture may be a potential solution to world hunger. I believe that Global Warming is a potential problem, and possibly significant. But, I do not believe there is conclusive proof that it is the result of mankind's actions, and therefore I believe our scientific studies of Global Warming should not be singularly focused on "lightening Mankind's Impact on the Environment." I believe that there should also be a focus on developing a way for man to cope with climate change.
When a star that may have died 6000 years ago could cause global climate change and we are so arrogent to believe it's our use of Freon, someone has thier head up there arse. Global protection from astronomical events should be our primary consirn with relation to space/NASA/etc. Otherwise, we should keep looking to understand what is going on in our own planet (and under the sea) and solve the problems at home first.
Speaking of Artificial Intelligence and Remote Control of something... Am I the only one that is somewhat amaized by the new Ad here from Sony for the Robotic Dog? $2500, and has been sold out since the first time I saw the ad?
Wonder what kind of interfaces it has, what the code base is, etc, etc...
Just thought I'd ask, since this might be as close as a story gets to relevent.
We, here in the USA live it the lungs of a "drama driven tragity" created by the media. If it's got blood, it sells, and they can put it on camera. If it's got a minor involve, they can get a shot of a teenager crying, and it sells. If it's weather related, they can play some hurricane footage, and it sells.
There in lies the question, with TV driven media news, they run into countless problems with modern stories. How do you get a good camera angle on "red flag words in encripted messages" when it's not even a meterial thing? How do you get your news anchor to sound interesting in a 10 second advertizement for the news when he is constantly calling a tech for help to retreve his email, and you want him to talk about processor power relevance of increasing encription key strength? How can you do a story that would take the full 30 minutes of the news to explain the background information alone to 90% of the audiance?
Yes, it is big news, yes it is a serious consern for all Americans, and the whole world, yes it really really in important to seperate the myth for the fact. But which one of the "news professionals" who spent 5 years studying english, makeup, and political topics like welfare, which one of these clowns do you pick to try to investigate the story?
Look at the securety breach at LANL, and the impact. That was easily (at least) one of the biggest events in national securty in the last century. How may people saw anything at all about it on the news? And when? The _couldn't_ cover it, because they didn't know how. It got _some minor_ media coverage at least a month after the story broke. Why? Because, it took that long to get a political figure (some thing to put on camera) to make a public statement about it. That's all they can cover, that's all they know how to do. They cover "statements" from famous faces. They don't cover what moves around from one hard drive to another. That story is real, they have facts, and they STILL can't cover it.
How in your right mind can you believe that they can cover something like this, when it's much harder to even figure out what the hard facts are?
(Steping onto my soap box) The REAL problem is that in the USA, the mass mob mentality has no clue what the diffrance between freedom and democracy is. Democracy was a tool to insure freedom, not other way around. Let run rampant, the people can be thier own supressive dictator. Because the "majority" want's things one way, that does NOT insure freedom for all. This is why anyone who really cares about what seperates the USA from any other country in the world is a member of the Libetarian Party where the _goals_ of the founding fathers are supported, not the mob mentality. Freedom is being lost to a political machine that makes the politcal machines in the past (like the whole gerrymandering thing) look laughable by comparison. No other place in the world has given it's people to rise and fall, stand on thier own two feet, and succeed based soley on thier own strength as much as the USA has. Yet, every day, that chance gets smaller and smaller, as we all surcome to the "mob rule by orderly democracy." Think for one minute... "Concensus is the biggest enemy of Truth" Just because everyone agrees, it doesn't make it _right_. Without our freedom, we are doomed to loose everything the USA was originally founded for.
So, HELL YES, this is big news, this is important, this should be on the front page of the local papers and the lead story at least ONE time... But, what can you expect from a country that is govern by a mob who is educated by Hollywood?
But, I must say, it also ditracts from the credibility, it's hard to believe as is.
If all the claims are true, there are two wickedly cool things to notice. 1) $60,000 is dang cheap for something like this (if you believe that price is accurate). 2) Preformance seems to be very good.
But, don't forget all the drawbacks. 1) Pilot licences are expensive to get. 2) Sure, maybe this will be something you can fit in a garage and take off vertically, but, accidents will be fatal when you "bump" into another "car" and go plunging 100 feet down to your death. 3) Air Traffic is a nightmear to manage NOW, with professional pilots, amagine every bad driver you ever saw no in the sky! 4) 5 miles per liter? That's about 1 mile per gallon!? How much fuel can it hold!? The thing has to be a flying fuel tank to get very far, and when it crashes... BOOM!
It's wild to see stuff like this, but even if it is true, and all they claim is valid, there are still years and years of legal problems ans safty hazards to deal with.
But, at the same time, I am equally impressed with both what I can do at console on a 386, and some of the really fancy new GUI stuff comming to Linux. And, I am sorry to say, and it goes against everything I have always felt, but 64M of RAM in May of 1999 just isn't a "comfort zone."
Seriously, check out PriceWatch, because I was sort of shocked with my last memory order. $82 will get you a nice 128M SDRAM DIMM that will be happy at 100MHz bus speeds. And memory is the truely unsung hero of the computer. All these people talking about how they overclocked thier Celeron to 500MHz or more, and I just tend to sit back and go "Yea, so, you spent all that money, time, and frusturation, and you have 32M RAM??! I would be happy with half that speed and 128M to 256M RAM, because that's where I feel it most."
Yea, it's a bloat. I did a test last night on this very issue. Identical systems, one with 32M of SDRAM, the other with 128M of EDO, and ran RedHat 6.0 w/KDE and Gnome, and WHAM... Light-years of differance. Well worth the $82 I spent on the test, and you can't ever find a way to convince me to go back to less than 100M. (matter of fact, I will be shifting another 64M into that box later this week).
Swap is no match what so ever for even the cheapest slowest RAM. And that is what it basically comes down to. RAM is getting affordable, and to get all the GUI bells and whistles, you need the RAM for it. If you are offended by it, there is still fvwm or wm2, and vi to fill your needs, and I am not saying that as a put-down (because I find them very useful on my 386SX20 w/ 6M)
Not to put a wet blanket on the party, but if it already doesn't include mentioned things like quota support, etc.. and they aren't releasing all of the features, and they don't even have a licence decided on yet...
Looks like it will just be a part of the code that might be incorporated into ext2, and will help some, if there are enough tallented people to actually do it (I sure know I won't be doing it). And, given it will take time for them to decide on the licence, it will take time to deal with the licence, and time to incorporate the code.. It might be a long time before we even see the effects of this _part_ of xfs incorporated into a Open Source OS (and who says Linux will be the first to use it?).