I have an old NetServer LPr that I use as a Debian server. It's built like a tank, and has been fairly reliable, save for one issue:
Since I got it (used), it always printed a warning that non-HP DIMMs were detected, and HP's on-site warranty didn't cover problems caused by non-HP memory.
Then two of the DIMMs failed, so I popped the lid.
You guessed it. HP memory.
At least the motherboard was kind enough to turn on a flashing light next to the bad DIMMS. (Seriously)
Damn near everywhere, there is a franchise granted by the city or county to a cable company. This is the one small way that government has the cable companies over a barrel. They've been able to force the operators to cover rural areas that way, and occasionally, when a municipality or county gets really irritated, they won't renew the franchise.
The "gentleman's agreements" you mention, which all of the MSOs will deny to avoid the Sherman act, mean that nobody else will bid for the franchise, so the city/county is hosed, and has to renew. It's really just a game of brinksmanship.
Now, the Viacom overbuild in Milwaukee is a mutation. There have been others. RCN overbuilds wherever they go. SBC (then Pacific Bell) tried it in San Jose because the incumbent MSO had totally ignored upgrades for years. They lost money on it and ended up selling it to the operator they were trying to displace.
I worked in cable for five years. I know whereof I speak.
In a case with about the same footprint (though much more depth) I routinely carry 3 Shuttles and all the associated cabling.
I built the kit for trade shows almost two years ago, but we've used it a lot for conference room demos, as well. The Shuttles are quiet enough to have all three running on the conference room table. Server, network emulator and client, which I just hook up to the projector in the conf. room.
This kit's been to Europe twice and on countless domestic trips as checked baggage, and I've had zero problems with the hardware.
Umm, I have a Blaupunkt SR04 America connected to the Aux-In on my empeg^WRio car.
The only real issue with this is that I have two displays instead of one. Has anyone reverse engineered the interface on one of the trunk-mount Sirius tuners? (The ones that interface with otherwise normal head units?)
9.8Mb/s is the upper limit, but there's no requirement that you actually use that much data. If you actually believe that 1Mb/s MPEG2 is watchable, then you can make 10-hour DVDs, no problem. The player just reads what it needs.
As many folks have said, the 123 top row is a telephone keypad, and the 789 top row is an adding machine keypad.
And while the story about QWERTY being deliberately slow may or may not be apocryphal, the Touch-Tone pad was deliberately reversed to slow people down.
Anyone even vaguely proficient with a 10-key (and if you can touch-type, it doesn't take long to get there) could out run the first DTMF switches. And even today, if you dial at touch-typing speeds, you're likely to drop digits because the key-down time isn't long enough. (Some phones do debouncing that fixes this, but the original Western Electrics sure didn't)
And if you learned 10-key, modern QWERTY keyboards will piss you off, too. On a 10-key, there's a nub or deeper "dish" on the 5 so you can find "home" by touch. Apple tried to do QWERTY "right" at first, and added nubs to d and k (middle finger, like the 5). But everyone else put the nubs on f and j. (index finger)
Apple eventually gave up.
(and while we're on the subject of keyboards, I'm quite happy with my Kinesis Ergo. It's QWERTY, mostly, and much more comfortable in serious usage)
Last time I was in London, they wanted my passport number when I registered, but they didn't want to keep the passport.
Saved my butt, too. My bag was stolen, with my passport in it. Getting the passport number from the hotel desk saved me hours at the Embassy getting a replacement.
(90 minutes start-to-finish to get a replacement passport, still warm from the laminating machine. Proof positive that the US Embassy in London is NOT staffed with American bureaucrats!)
If you were to RTFA, you'd see that TiVo was going to get less than $1/sub out of Comcast.
If they can get the CableCard unit to market soon, then they're in a much better position. They'll have a better product, for about the same monthly cost, with the same level of integration as the DirecTiVo boxes.
And they'll get 10x the revenue per sub.
I'd guess that the Comcast deal had some non-competes that put a serious crimp in the CableCard boxes' chance of seeing daylight.
So maybe this wasn't the wrong decision after all.
You want to get a passively-cooled system, including the power supply, and just make sure there are decent filters on the vents. With no forced airflow, they won't plug up too badly.
Mini-ITX comes to mind, booting from flash.
Now, any system like this is going to be a dog, so what you want to do is run this as a remote terminal. Either an X-Terminal or Remote Desktop depending on your OS of choice.
As for keyboard/mouse, my garage computer has a Cirque keyboard with a touchpad. Cirque makes a drool cover for the keyboard that covers the pad, and it works fine with the extra layer of plastic. An optical mouse is probably OK as well, but I think you'll be cleaning out a touchpad a lot less.
Display is harder. LCDs are very temperature sensitive. CRTs always have warnings about low temperatures, but I've never had a problem with mine. I don't live in a very cold place, though. 25F happens half a dozen times a year.
Actually, I'm kinda more impressed by the ham record.
Here's why: Huygens is about 750 million miles away right now. With 10W at that range, we're talking about 75 million miles/watt. Only about 8dB more than the ham record. And while a 1000' Beverage is a big antenna, it's no VLBA.
On the other hand, the Huygens link has to work the first time.:)
Now, the interferometer measurement *is* impressive. I didn't know about that.
Most of my equipment and experience is in ARES work here in Northern California, where earthquakes are the most likely disaster.
In '89 (Loma Prieta) there was a TON of coordination and communication work, and the landline and cellular systems were swamped beyond use.
The thing that many folks miss about the amateur community is that we are "Professional Communicators".
We train and drill to make the most of a communications medium, and can move much more information, quickly and efficiently, than folks who are trained to do something else, and happen to have a cell phone. In a crisis, this makes a difference.
Do you really think that if BPL were in operation today, it would be shut down in the US because of the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean?
Didn't think so. But that's *exactly* what would need to happen.
BPL will destroy the civilized world's ability to communicate with the disaster areas.
In fact, it's worse to have interference at the "civilized" end, because the transmitter in the disaster area will likely be battery powered and portable, both of which tend to mean weaker signals.
Sure, we can blast our way out, but it doesn't work if you can't hear.
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I have an old NetServer LPr that I use as a Debian server. It's built like a tank, and has been fairly reliable, save for one issue:
Since I got it (used), it always printed a warning that non-HP DIMMs were detected, and HP's on-site warranty didn't cover problems caused by non-HP memory.
Then two of the DIMMs failed, so I popped the lid.
You guessed it. HP memory.
At least the motherboard was kind enough to turn on a flashing light next to the bad DIMMS. (Seriously)
Damn near everywhere, there is a franchise granted by the city or county to a cable company. This is the one small way that government has the cable companies over a barrel. They've been able to force the operators to cover rural areas that way, and occasionally, when a municipality or county gets really irritated, they won't renew the franchise.
The "gentleman's agreements" you mention, which all of the MSOs will deny to avoid the Sherman act, mean that nobody else will bid for the franchise, so the city/county is hosed, and has to renew. It's really just a game of brinksmanship.
Now, the Viacom overbuild in Milwaukee is a mutation. There have been others. RCN overbuilds wherever they go. SBC (then Pacific Bell) tried it in San Jose because the incumbent MSO had totally ignored upgrades for years. They lost money on it and ended up selling it to the operator they were trying to displace.
I worked in cable for five years. I know whereof I speak.
In a case with about the same footprint (though much more depth) I routinely carry 3 Shuttles and all the associated cabling.
I built the kit for trade shows almost two years ago, but we've used it a lot for conference room demos, as well. The Shuttles are quiet enough to have all three running on the conference room table. Server, network emulator and client, which I just hook up to the projector in the conf. room.
This kit's been to Europe twice and on countless domestic trips as checked baggage, and I've had zero problems with the hardware.
Well, this was pre 9/11, but my father was going to Korea to talk to a vendor about a specialized machine, and had a mock-up with him.
The asked him to turn it on.
"Oh, that's just a mock-up. It doesn't work."
"OK, go ahead."
It was San Jose, so maybe they've seen this before, but still...
Umm, I have a Blaupunkt SR04 America connected to the Aux-In on my empeg^WRio car.
The only real issue with this is that I have two displays instead of one. Has anyone reverse engineered the interface on one of the trunk-mount Sirius tuners? (The ones that interface with otherwise normal head units?)
-Z
Wow, did you just use "simplifying" and CORBA in the same sentence?
Or maybe I'm just smarting from working on a system where I had to configure network interfaces through CORBA. I still have nightmares about that one.
That's why they have to have meltdown-proof reactors. The reactor's already in China.
9.8Mb/s is the upper limit, but there's no requirement that you actually use that much data. If you actually believe that 1Mb/s MPEG2 is watchable, then you can make 10-hour DVDs, no problem. The player just reads what it needs.
As many folks have said, the 123 top row is a telephone keypad, and the 789 top row is an adding machine keypad.
And while the story about QWERTY being deliberately slow may or may not be apocryphal, the Touch-Tone pad was deliberately reversed to slow people down.
Anyone even vaguely proficient with a 10-key (and if you can touch-type, it doesn't take long to get there) could out run the first DTMF switches. And even today, if you dial at touch-typing speeds, you're likely to drop digits because the key-down time isn't long enough. (Some phones do debouncing that fixes this, but the original Western Electrics sure didn't)
And if you learned 10-key, modern QWERTY keyboards will piss you off, too. On a 10-key, there's a nub or deeper "dish" on the 5 so you can find "home" by touch. Apple tried to do QWERTY "right" at first, and added nubs to d and k (middle finger, like the 5). But everyone else put the nubs on f and j. (index finger)
Apple eventually gave up.
(and while we're on the subject of keyboards, I'm quite happy with my Kinesis Ergo. It's QWERTY, mostly, and much more comfortable in serious usage)
Last time I was in London, they wanted my passport number when I registered, but they didn't want to keep the passport.
Saved my butt, too. My bag was stolen, with my passport in it. Getting the passport number from the hotel desk saved me hours at the Embassy getting a replacement.
(90 minutes start-to-finish to get a replacement passport, still warm from the laminating machine. Proof positive that the US Embassy in London is NOT staffed with American bureaucrats!)
Postscript has GC?
I did a little hand-coded PS, but that was 20 years ago now.
You didn't look at that poster very carefully, did you.?
Postscript owes a LOT more to Forth than to Lisp.
If you were to RTFA, you'd see that TiVo was going to get less than $1/sub out of Comcast.
If they can get the CableCard unit to market soon, then they're in a much better position. They'll have a better product, for about the same monthly cost, with the same level of integration as the DirecTiVo boxes.
And they'll get 10x the revenue per sub.
I'd guess that the Comcast deal had some non-competes that put a serious crimp in the CableCard boxes' chance of seeing daylight.
So maybe this wasn't the wrong decision after all.
-Z
Microsoft shipped 1.6 million MCE units because every Sony machine with a tuner card went out with MCE.
MOST of these are being used as PC's, and if you aren't playing with a tuner card, you'll never know that it has MCE.
Dad bought one (as a PC). He played with the MCE stuff a little before deciding it was totally useless and went back to the TiVo.
A week?
Hell, any *real* coffee shop has roasted everything in inventory in the last week.
Now, walking into the office with a bag of beans that are still warm from the roaster. *That's* a wonderful thing.
Moving parts are bad.
You want to get a passively-cooled system, including the power supply, and just make sure there are decent filters on the vents. With no forced airflow, they won't plug up too badly.
Mini-ITX comes to mind, booting from flash.
Now, any system like this is going to be a dog, so what you want to do is run this as a remote terminal. Either an X-Terminal or Remote Desktop depending on your OS of choice.
As for keyboard/mouse, my garage computer has a Cirque keyboard with a touchpad. Cirque makes a drool cover for the keyboard that covers the pad, and it works fine with the extra layer of plastic. An optical mouse is probably OK as well, but I think you'll be cleaning out a touchpad a lot less.
Display is harder. LCDs are very temperature sensitive. CRTs always have warnings about low temperatures, but I've never had a problem with mine. I don't live in a very cold place, though. 25F happens half a dozen times a year.
HTH
-Z
power over ethernet standard, 802.11af
:D
Quick, somebody call Tesla!
802.3af is the PoE standard.
802.3ab is 1000Base-TX, etc. In fact, there are already working groups up to 802.3as.
Actually, I'm kinda more impressed by the ham record.
:)
Here's why:
Huygens is about 750 million miles away right now. With 10W at that range, we're talking about 75 million miles/watt. Only about 8dB more than the ham record. And while a 1000' Beverage is a big antenna, it's no VLBA.
On the other hand, the Huygens link has to work the first time.
Now, the interferometer measurement *is* impressive. I didn't know about that.
You're most welcome. It was the best way I could think of to help, and I was fortunate to have the time and access to equipment.
Oh, no question about it.
Most of my equipment and experience is in ARES work here in Northern California, where earthquakes are the most likely disaster.
In '89 (Loma Prieta) there was a TON of coordination and communication work, and the landline and cellular systems were swamped beyond use.
The thing that many folks miss about the amateur community is that we are "Professional Communicators".
We train and drill to make the most of a communications medium, and can move much more information, quickly and efficiently, than folks who are trained to do something else, and happen to have a cell phone. In a crisis, this makes a difference.
In 1985 I worked more than 200 Health and Welfare Querys an hour for most of a day, in and out of Mexico city after their earthquake.
From a station in Suburbia. Palo Alto, to be precise.
-Z
PS: Repeaters are a VHF-and-up thing. Disaster work is usually HF. You know, the frequencies BPL wipes out.
Do you really think that if BPL were in operation today, it would be shut down in the US because of the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean?
Didn't think so. But that's *exactly* what would need to happen.
BPL will destroy the civilized world's ability to communicate with the disaster areas.
In fact, it's worse to have interference at the "civilized" end, because the transmitter in the disaster area will likely be battery powered and portable, both of which tend to mean weaker signals.
Sure, we can blast our way out, but it doesn't work if you can't hear.
73 de N6MOD
Thank you.
That is what set of my bullshit detector on this one.
That, and there's absolutely no mention on AvWeb, which would be all over this if it were legit.
The second answer is easier, they included some data from March that wasn't there as of your cache link.
Why some data was rejected? That I can't answer.
Which is has, apparently since this posting.
I finally got back in to NASA, and MN4 is now a Torino 0 object, with the 2029 event gone entirely.