Congratulations, you're an idiot, and you're symptomatic of the problem.
In addition to the mathematical calculation, there is the issue of the "Linux sure ain't ready for the desktop" link. Mostly this comprises of dated and rather muddled arguments regarding the usefulness of Linux for the average home user.
The math error is mine. I'm sorry. I posted without having my coffee first.
However, the article is not wrong.
The first point you miss is that to be a good home computer operating system, it has to be a good office operating system. Why? Because people will tend to use at home what they're forced to use at work. Why? So that they can do homework.
If you can't see this simple little piece of logic, then you're sufficiently stupid for a position on the UN Security Council.
As a high school teacher currently managing a transition to Linux in the classroom (via LTSP), I find it very easy to get kids up and running in a Linux environment (or to install Linux for that matter).
Sure! Now, tell me, you're a secretary. The boss tells you to make a slide show presentation. You need to embed a 30-second sample of a commercial that your company plans on airing next month.
Gonna use Open Office? It won't embed video and launch xine. But this is what the boss really wants. He wants seamless integration with his slideshow.
Oops. Linux doesn't provide applications capable of doing what you need. You grind your teeth, fire up Windows, and use Power Point.
This is the real world.
The author starts by stating that Redhat 6.0 wouldn't work with his MONOCHROME VGA monitor. Excuse me? Are we talking about current Linux distros or old ones? Is the author even aware that other distros exist? Has he entered the 21st century yet? Did he even bother trying a text install (and is he competent enough to RTFM when he uses strange hardware configs to install).
Actually, I did RTFM. And I post this more as symptomatic of the problem. The installer works absolutely fine if you install on a color monitor, but the mono was all I had in the server closet. If you start the installer with the color monitor then plug in the mono, everything remains perfectly readable. However, if when the installer starts, it detects a mono monitor, it changes to the gray on gray color scheme which is impossible to read. Someone at Red Hat *didn't bother to test it before releasing it*.
Oh yeah, Red Hat is the most popular distro. To most people, it *is* Linux. And even if it weren't, do you really think that most users, including those currently running Windows 97 and Office 99, are actually going to know the difference between two distros?
His second argument: lack of scroll mouse support in Redhat 7.1. Ok.... I'm sure this is the most critical element in an desktop environment - it's definitely not the lack of BSODs. This argument is so inconsequential it boggles me that he put it in his article.
Ask a user. I administer a public access lab where 20 people sit in front of Linux systems for simple web browsing. The number one complaint is, "put in mice with scroll wheels".
The fact of the matter is that the scroll wheel is a convenience. Since the computer is just a tool, it is, by its nature, something you use specifically for convenience.
Having a GUI without a scroll wheel is about as ridiculous now as a car without automatic spark advance. Maybe *you* don't expect it, Oh Great Sahib, Let Me Worship You. But Joe Sixpack certainly does.
As for the fact that there are no BSoDs in Linux, who gives a shit? The kernel may not be broken, but the applications sure are! I don't know about you, but I use an operating system for a hell of a lot more than just its kernel.
I'd have to agree with his third argument - Linux sound systems are some times difficult to work with - hope to see some advances there.
Actually, arts is great. However, because there's too much of a clusterfuck going on within the community to come to the obvious conclusion that standards are a good thing, we continue to see software being written which defaults to OSS or writing directly to/dev tree.
This underscores the theme of my article, which is that the problems with Linux as a desktop solution are more issues of geek politics than they are of technical prowess.
4th argument: KMail lacks spell checker. Um.. ok, use a different email client. Use a web based one. Edit in a word processor and cut and paste later if you need to.
Or I'll just save myself the time and effort of copying and pasting back and forth, and simply install an operating system where I can get an e-mail client with the *hugely* difficult and unreasonable requirements of
doesn't take 8 minutes to close when I exit it
has a spellchecker which doesn't suck
Forgive me, but my time is valuable. I'm not some unionized schlep with an arts degree. My tools are timesavers, and I will therefore work to make them as efficient as possible.
The author apparently hasn't heard of other desktops like IceWM.
Indeed I have. But you're about as fucking obtuse as anyone I've met in my life. Joe Sixpack has come to expect a certain measure of desktop metaphor from his operating system - and KDE/Gnome provide that. I use Fluxbox a lot of the time, but it's not suitable for the masses, and you know it isn't.
The author complains that RH 7.3 ships with Wine installed by default - and that this makes one open to email virus attachments. THIS is his argument for sticking with Windows? Lets ignore the fact that even if it does infect, the virus is very limited in what it can access by linux kernel design and permissions systems.
Can wipe out/home/$USER.
This isn't an argument for sticking with Windows. In fact, that is, in no measure, what I'm advocating on my website.
What I'm advocating is that users and developers take a long hard look at what sucks and what doesn't suck.
Having WINE installed by default sucks. It makes Linux machines vulnerable to Windows virii. There's no intelligent reason for that.
Mind numbing slowness? Ok... I can only assume he's running lin4win or something.
KDE 3.01 on a PIII-500, mostly working as an e-mail drone. Opening a directory full of 2,800 MP3s takes over 10 minutes. Why? Because KDE seems to feel a need to check the attributes of each and every file, every time I open that directory. (So sorry, by the way, if a fucking Pentium III 500 isn't fast enough to serve as an e-mail and MP3 drone, I'd hate to think of what I'd need to run CATIA.)
How about having it scan all directories and make a database of attributes during quiet time, use that when you open a directory, and scan for changes with each opening?
Crashing apps: an app crashing under X rarely locks X up completely (especially when compared with Windows), and at least there IS an alternative when this happens (3 finger salute or SSH to the box from another one) other than the traditional hit the reset button that happens with Windows 3-4 times a day.
The problem with Linux stability isn't Linux, it's the applications.
When an application crashes and you can't bring control of your screen back, given that you're the average user who doesn't have the second machine (or the knowledge) to telnet in, you have to reboot Linux.
Windows 2000/XP is actually more reliable than Linux applications. Not the Linux kernel, you'll note - it's not even close. But if you're dealing with a standalone Linux machine and something has eaten X, you have no alternative but to reboot. And that's the condition under which Joe Sixpack is working.
FUD? I think so.
Must be nice to bury your head in the sand everytime someone tells you something which you don't like. You spend a lot of time living in denial, don't you?
You know, I really don't know what the logic is of arguing that. The people who are using Linux on their desktops now know Linux well enough to completely disregard that. I suppose you will scare newbies away until someone gives them a knoppix CD to play with,
I use Linux on my desktop. It's great. It's beautiful. But it's *still not ready* for the desktop - as in, it's still not ready to compete with Windows - because it's still more comparable with Windows 3.1 than it is with Windows XP.
Maybe Linux is more than ready for the desktop, it just isn't ready for your narrow view of what a desktop should be. And it is not that I really care that you are not satsified, but bitching to a bunch of volunteers seems a bit insane, because I don't think they really care that your are not satisfied, either.
Maybe my viewpoint is narrow. Or maybe I'm as big a power user as you can get without actually *thinking* in C.
Note that I administer my own domain on a server farm of Linux and OpenBSD machines which live in my bedroom.
Primarily, my main desktop is an e-mail drone. If Evolution actually worked (ie. didn't take 8 minutes to exit on my machine), then it would be fine. But without a spellchecker competitive to prevalent software, Linux/KDE or Linux/Gnome doesn't even make a good e-mail drone. The spellchecker is so 1995. I want an underlining spell checker.
Does that give me a narrow viewpoint, because I expect features which I could take for granted among the apps of more estabished operating systems? Apparently.
Your lack of a realistic viewpoint and your immediate dismissal of my page as FUD is symptomatic of what is wrong with the Linux/OS community, and why I'm starting to believe that Linux will never be able to get its shit together enough to be more of a fringe group like Apple users.
Try using Windows 2000 or XP sometime. Look at it from a user's perspective - you know, the sort of idiot who opens e-mail virii and who makes the *bulk* of the computer-using public. From that perspective, Windows is great. It does everything reasonably well, whether you're a newbie or expert. Linux doesn't do that yet, and therefore isn't as good a desktop solution as Windows.
I'm waiting for the day someone can prove me wrong, but until you get some actual real-world experience with what end-users want from their operating systems, you'll still just be a whiny 14-year-old living in Mommy and Daddy's basement.
Today I managed to learn new mathematics....that the even-ness of a number depends on the base it is expressed in. Hmmmm....perhaps the laws of mathematics change regularly, after all!!
The only natural base is e. Man arbitrarily likes whole numbers, nature like real numbers, and e is everywhere.
Therefore, ln (1024) = 6.931471806... which is not an even number.
I suggest therefore that an even number of processors for the render farm is either
e^6 = 403.4287935 or
e^7 = 1,096.633158.
Of course, Intel is wedded to the whole numbers of processors thing, which utterly thwarts mathematical logic and correctness. Their site also runs on IIS, so what other foolishness can you expect? Heathens.
1,024 Intel 2.8GHz Xeon processors... I'd love to see their electric bill;)
Well, ignoring the power requirements of RAM, bus controllers, network adapters, hard disks which are probably used for boot only...
Intel rates these things for 74.0W thermal dissipation, which is a pretty good measure of the electrical power consumed... since, unless something is badly wrong, your Xeon chip will not dissipate energy as light or sound.
74W x 1,024 = 75,776W continuous.
Assume they're on 24/7. Assume a cost of $0.06 per kWh, including distribution, debt retirement, Ontario's capped electric rates, etc.
There are 30 days in the average month. There are 24 hours in the average day [grin]. Therefore, there are 720 hours per month.
720 hours @ 75,776W = 54,558,720kWh.
Just a little over $3.2 million per month.
I'd imagine it's less than that; their electric rate is probably somewhat less based on their consumption. But consider that the depreciation on that hardware is probably a greater monthly expense than the electricity to power it...
And did you bother to try to explain it to him, or did you just write your dad off as hopelessly computer-illiterate?
Of course I explained it to him. But the fundamental problem goes further than that.
My father has had the same VCR for 14 years. It has clock-setting and on-screen timer programming which can both be accessed as simply as pressing the menu button on the VCR's remote control.
When he sees a menu presented to him, he simply freezes. "Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Francais, Press 3 for Espagnol." Immediately, he doesn't know what to do. He looks at the screen, then at the remote control, then back at the screen. For some reason, he can't understand that all he needs to do is press the button corresponding to the desired choice. When one tries to explain it to him, he gets frustrated and defensive, and he never manages to do it.
On a couple of occasions, I've led him through it, sitting on the sofa, telling him which keys to press. He took notes, then had to refer back to them, because the instructions "Enter current time using the keypad" are apparently too complicated. Most people would take notes along the lines of "Press Menu, follow instructions on screen".
So, while the VCR has a very easy-to-use timer, when he wishes to videotape JAG so that he can watch it later, his tactic is to stick a cassette into the VCR, hit record, and leave it recording until he gets back.
This is truly the lowest common denominator, and if you do tech support at all, you *will* encounter these people. The CD-ROM coffee holder is NOT an urban legend, I have been asked why it's there.
Needless to say, when I try to explain to him that Internet Explorer and Outlook are different things, he's confused. He doesn't seem to understand that different programs can have similar looks and feels, or even seem to know that the frame around a window indicates where the contents of that window ends and the one behind it begins...
...and the man has been through *dozens* of training courses, paid for by his employers, on everything over the years from WordStar to WordPerfect to Word, running on DOS, Windows NT and Windows 2000.
Amazingly, though it must seem foreign and frustrating to the Slashdot crowd given the simplicity of the operations, this is not a stupid man. This is an accomplished man who makes a good chunk of change every year in a management position which requires a *huge* understanding of national and international legislation, physics and mathematics. Yet the VCR confounds him, and his abilities to check his e-mail are based entirely on rote learning.
My dad is in his sixties and never used a computer until about a year ago, and he understands the difference between URLs and email addresses just fine, once it was explained to him.
You're lucky. Even though my father wants to learn how to use a computer, and would have lots of use in being proficient, I think trying to teach him how to use a computer is about as feasible as herding cats.
Okay, you're criticizing open source software because it isn't simple enough for someone who can't recognize the difference between a website address and an email address--AND because it can't do "polynomial regressions?"...if Dad can't figure out that an email address isn't a website, I don't think he's really going to miss the ability to do polynomial regressions.
This is true, but it underscores a basic fact about the nature of the desktop operating system which seems to be missed by a lot of developers.
Realistically, in a practical office environment, you're only going to support one or two desktop types - let's say a big engineering firm, with Windows drones and Solaris running CATIA or some other sophisticated and specialized software.
At the moment, we're still talking about conquering the desktop by replacing Windows. Therefore, Linux / (KDE or Gnome) has to be useful to the broad cross-section of users who will be using it.
Some of these users will be older management/executive types who are afraid of computers or simply don't know anything about them. They're the ones who point and click their way through well-established routines, but who can't figure out why, when someone tells them that there's a website at joe_sixpack@domain.com, Internet Explorer can't open it. They're the ones who make support desk calls when they accidentally drag the taskbar to the other side of the screen.
The others will be more accomplished users. They might or might not know what's under the hood, but their training courses, etc. have taught them how to muddle through something relatively sophisticated like a polynomial regression, and now this is a feature that they demand and require. An accountant would be a good example of this.
For everything you want to say about Windows, it doesn't require a lot of effort for a novice to do the things that they need to do, quickly and conveniently, from one operating system and desktop metaphor. They can do it in one shot using Excel.
They don't need to edit their spreadsheet in OpenOffice, import it to Gnumeric to perform a regression using Gnumeric's better data analysis tools, then export it to OpenOffice's better graphing capabilities.
That's not a practical solution for anyone whose time is money - as is the case with anyone in business.
The user experience has to be simple enough to be productive right away, and yet sophisticated enough that even power-users (ie. any power user who isn't a developer) can get the thing to do more sophisticated tasks.
In other words, it has to support everyone reasonably well. Windows is still the reigning champion of that, unfortunately.
The guy with the Ph.D. sees the computer as a very sophisticated calculator. Instead of Excel, he uses Mathematica. Or a specialized CAD/CAM program.
Your reply to the guy about the polynomial regressions is a *great* explanation of the problem. I'd ask you this by e-mail but your address isn't public. Can I quote you on my website?
You know, as one that has sat through many a Powerpoint presentation, I can say you might have been right the first time. Less typo/spelling error and more Freud, I think.;)
A viable desktop operating system is more than a kernel and associated utilities; it's dependent on applications which *do what the competition does* and which look good and work well.
After all, to Joe Sixpack, the computer is a tool, not a toy.
The threshold which developers have to cross before we, as a community, can say that Linux is ready for the desktop, is one where the developers stop thinking about stuff as being "cool", but start to think of useful features, common interface guidelines for everything, and color schemes which don't make ordinary users wince every time they start a given application.
(Don't argue to me that you can easily adjust the color schemes in the preferences, you *know* most idiot users can't figure out how to do this.)
Features? Examples:
Microsoft Excel 97 does polynomial regressions with about three clicks of the mouse. OpenOffice Calc 1.01 doesn't do more than linear regressions.
Power Point 97 allows you to embed video into presentations. OpenOffice Impress does, too, but good luck getting it to work. (Do we have a standard interface for OLE between applications? What do I have to do to get OO to launch xine and seemlessly play a video file in my presentation?)
Note that I'm comparing a *CURRENT* version of OpenOffice unfavorably with a *6-year-old* Microsoft product. That's not something we want to brag about - "The leading office suite for Linux has most of the features of a 6-year-old version of Microsoft Office!"
I've only been saying this since I started using Linux in 97/8... Think, but can your DAD use it?
Thank you. It's good to hear an increasing chorus of voices who're worried about this, especially as we reach a point where, on the surface, it looks like Linux is a viable alternative to Windows on the desktop. Those ordinary users who make the switch now will be dissatisfied very quickly, and will become staunch Microsoft proponents and purchasers for years to come, even when all the current problems with a Linux desktop have been addressed - public perception changes more slowly than the feature lists of open-source software.
As for Dad, no. He's 63 years old. If I were to install a really locked-down version of Linux on his machine, I'd have to place "Internet Explorer" and "Outlook" icons on his desktop. If I were to change the location of the Send button in Outlook, he'd never figure out how to send an e-mail, let alone swapping him into a whole different program on a whole different operating system.
He called me up and asked me why he couldn't get to a website that someone told him to check out. The URL was all-revealing: blahblah@domain.com. The difference between an e-mail address and a website address is apparently too much for him.
Nah... I'd use transformer oil, and I don't think a Lipton Cup-a-Soup would taste quite the same.
Transformer oil, however, is probably quite suitable for use in a CPU cooling system.
It has a higher breakdown voltage than air and is almost infinitely less conductive than real-world (ie. impure) water. Transformer oils are specifically designed for use as an insulating material in large power distribution transformers. Electric utility transformers at power substations, operating in the range of hundreds of thousands of volts, would arc between windings if the oil leaked out of them and air - with its lower breakdown voltage - seeped in. (Air breaks down at about 3kV per millimeter.) You can feel pretty confident that leaked oil won't short out IC pins on your motherboard. Hell, you could also ditch your power supply fan and fill that full of oil, too - just beware of relays and other mechanical components.
Heat transfer is a big reason for oil, too. In a car engine, much of the heat is generated by friction in the bearings, and motor oil pumped through the bearings takes that heat away. Transformer oil doesn't have to lubricate, nor does it have to carry away huge amounts of impurities or combustion by-products as in a car engine - the biggest requirements are heat carrying capability and high breakdown voltage. Large pole pigs (pole-mounted power transformers) are usually oil-filled and often have pipes coming from the bottom and going to the top - they serve as radiators. Oil flow is not by pump, the reliability would be too low - they're convective, too.
Finally, viscosity. Yes, this might be difficult, but transformer oils are available in a variety of thicknesses. You want a viscosity corresponding to SAE 0, which is the same as water. Even less might be available, though I've personally never seen it.
Density changes with temperature rise will have to be considered, since the lower density of hot liquids causes them to rise in the system (and is also the physics behind lava lamps). The system that guy designed is based on the density changes of water. Transformer oil won't behave the same way; accordingly, you'll have to whip out the old slide-rule and do some math. Calculus is your friend. Fortunately, the data on transformer oil should be readily available, it's an important design criteria.
Voltesso and Diala are good trade names which I've personally used in transformers loaded to hundreds of kilowatts at over 250,000V, at RF frequencies. (FAA obstruction lights on large VLF radio transmitting towers.) They're ALL PCB-free, and while you don't want to drink it, they're no more toxic than motor oil. And it takes a hell of a lot of work to make them catch fire.
In short, transformer oils are available in a variety of viscosities, are specifically engineered for their thermal transfer capabilities, are not electrically conductive, not dangerous, and are suitable for almost all of your electronic cooling needs.
The only problem I forsee is that you're gonna have a hard time buying them in quantities less than 45-gallon drums... though the drum would make a great passive radiator. Seriously, talk to a couple of linesmen with your local power utility, maybe you'll be able to talk your way into a couple of gallons of it.
Sorry to be the voice of dissent here, but I'm hoping that I can piss off enough developers that they start to address some of the usability issues currently plaguing Linux' feasibility for the desktop. Sure, the kernel is *beautiful*, but a desktop operating system is a lot more than that.
KDE and Gnome are both the best contenders for the desktops of the masses. Let's forget Fluxbox and other things. People want taskbars and Start buttons.
But they're fat and slow. Application skins and default color schemes look like they were designed by a Run Lola Run fan from East Berlin. Basic features are lacking. Interoperability and standard user interfaces become afterthoughts as developers only write what *they* like, not what Joe Public wants. Unfortunately, ( developer != Joe_Public ) in terms of interoperability and applications.
One developer flamed my website chronicling Linux current unsuitability for the desktop, yelling at me that "vi is the best word processor out there, why would any user want anything else?" I'm a vi user and lover, but it's not suitable for writing a business letter, anymore than using that old 1982 Epson MX-80 dot-matrix printer is suitable for printing resumes.
We have to change the mindset.
I know developers write code in a volunteer effort, and I don't discount that at all. We're probably pretty united on wanting to break the Windows monopoly, and we have to somehow convince developers to focus on that more than "well, who cares if it doesn't have this feature... but hey, it's skinnable!"
The same MS that didn't apply their *own* patches ?!?
The problem that I have is, even though I don't run any Microsoft software, their incompetence keeps on screwing me around and costing me productivity.
I get hundreds of e-mail virii per day, owning partially to incompetent users, but also partially to incompetent Outlook programmers.
At the height of Code Red, I was getting hundreds of hits per day to my webserver.
That last worm effectively shut down portions of the Internet.
Now, here's the problem. If I'm driving down the road, and a Hyundai's brakes fail and cause it to run a red light and plow into the side of me, it'll piss me off, but it's a quirk, and shit happens.
If, every couple of months, a Hyundai's brakes fail and I get hit, pretty soon, I'll start to get very pissed off, not just with the idiots who drive Hyundais, but also with Hyundai itself.
This has gotten to be utterly ridiculous. We have to find some way of holding Microsoft accountable for their fucking ineptitude.
The transformers will produce heat, but not usualy require heatsinking (unless the supply is overloaded to begin with). The active components will dissapate much more energy for their package size and require something to channel the heat from them (heatsink). The key is layout... most monitors are convection cooled, as well as computers like the slot loading iMac. They don't seem to have a problem with transformers getting too hot, and have tackled the no fan problem.
The point is that the power supplies are designed for fan-forced airflow over all components, including the transformers. They're not designed for convection cooling. When you replace the forced airflow with water cooling, the transformers are no longer cooled as the supply's designers had intended. And I think you can basically ignore the effects of convection in such a tight enclosure as a normal computer power supply.
I think I'd start by measuring the temperature of the transformers normally, then with water cooling of the rest of the supply.
They are very cramped, not leaving much room to apply liberal heatsinks to the components that need them (most everything active, like the switching transistors). The quick fix? Blow air through it and use smaller heatsinks.
Yeah, how about the heat generated in the transformers? It must be non-negligible, even though the transformers don't have overt heat sinks.
Seems to me that ferrite cores aren't hugely thermally conductive, so it might be fairly tough to couple the heat away from the transformers.
I'm glad you indicate your own realization that mercury is a dangerous choice for cooling system, or I'd say you've been drinking all that mercury you say you own.
Drinking it? No. I've probably breathed a little more vapor over the years than would be considered healthy.
Note the origins of the term "mad as a hatter" are from the days when hat-makers would use mercury to help shape the felt; the long-term exposure had interesting effects on rational thought and normal behavior.
Note also that I once put a Chevette engine onto a snowblower.
Interestingly enough, back when fast breeder reactors were still being considered as viable nuclear power sources in the US, there were proposed designs involving mercury cooling. Talk about unpolitical.
But I'm sure it would be an effective cooling system.
I'm not too sure liquid sodium is the best choice to cool your computer, since sodium melts at 208 degrees F (98 C). Besides, when you first boot up the computer, you'd have to have special heaters installed just to melt the sodium and get it moving! But, you know, in the end, I know you were being facetious. Nice job.
I want to run mercury through my cooling system. I've got a couple of pounds of it, and it would certainly absorb heat more readily than water.
But just one drop of mercury inside your computer and it's finished.
I've also got concerns about the overall safety of this. Even without mica insulators or any other outward signs, a heatsink may be running at some potential other than ground. Pure water isn't very conductive, but all the same, your cooling water is likely to be grounded - and should be grounded. Pumping water through a tube attached to a component or heatsink will bring the water to that potential; using a piece of plastic tubing to insulate one metal tube from another is NOT safe.
By the way, even if there's no immediate symptom of a problem with this potential difference across the water, I think anyone who ignored such a situation would quickly find bizarre actions like the galvanic corrosion and eventual failure of metal pipes or tubing in the system.
Digital Fireworks Display, one way or another.
on
Water Cooled Power Supply
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Well I guess a site called Digital Explosion is really the best suited to report this.
Yeah, I have a couple of problems with the way this was carried out. Conceptually, I would love a completely water-cooled computer since I'm tired of the noise. But this is pretty dangerous.
Why remove the existing heat sinks? Rather than removing them from components and risking forgetting a mica insulator or doing other damage, why not simply take advantage of them as an easy surface to which to attach cooling tubes. Most power supplies I've opened, I could solder copper tubing to the heatsinks fairly easily.
The other thing is that the mass of the heatsinks would provide a little thermal inertia to buy you some time in the event of a bubble or other failure.
I've also got concerns about the overall safety of this. Even without mica insulators or any other outward signs, a heatsink may be running at some potential other than ground. Pure water isn't very conductive, but all the same, your cooling water is likely to be grounded - and should be grounded. Pumping water through a tube attached to a component or heatsink will bring the water to that potential; using a piece of plastic tubing to insulate one metal tube from another is NOT safe.
What you need to do is have electrically insulating but thermally conductive means to couple the heat to the tubing. Mica insulators and thermal transfer grease are a good start.
I think I'd solder some copper tubing to some copper sheetmetal, and then I'd coat the flat surface with heat transfer grease, add a sheet of mica and more transfer grease, and then screw it to a heatsink inside the power supply. I'd use off-the-shelf electronics hardware to screw the two pieces together but maintain their electrical isolation: even Radio Shack sells the stuff.
Make sure that the water is grounded, and then run the power supply from a Ground-Fault Interruptor (GFI) receptacle like you'd find in a bathroom. This way, a water leak in the power supply should turn off the power at the outlet and reduce the risk of a bigger problem.
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Congratulations, you're an idiot, and you're symptomatic of the problem.
In addition to the mathematical calculation, there is the issue of the "Linux sure ain't ready for the desktop" link. Mostly this comprises of dated and rather muddled arguments regarding the usefulness of Linux for the average home user.The math error is mine. I'm sorry. I posted without having my coffee first.
However, the article is not wrong.
The first point you miss is that to be a good home computer operating system, it has to be a good office operating system. Why? Because people will tend to use at home what they're forced to use at work. Why? So that they can do homework.
If you can't see this simple little piece of logic, then you're sufficiently stupid for a position on the UN Security Council.
As a high school teacher currently managing a transition to Linux in the classroom (via LTSP), I find it very easy to get kids up and running in a Linux environment (or to install Linux for that matter).Sure! Now, tell me, you're a secretary. The boss tells you to make a slide show presentation. You need to embed a 30-second sample of a commercial that your company plans on airing next month.
Gonna use Open Office? It won't embed video and launch xine. But this is what the boss really wants. He wants seamless integration with his slideshow.
Oops. Linux doesn't provide applications capable of doing what you need. You grind your teeth, fire up Windows, and use Power Point.
This is the real world.
The author starts by stating that Redhat 6.0 wouldn't work with his MONOCHROME VGA monitor. Excuse me? Are we talking about current Linux distros or old ones? Is the author even aware that other distros exist? Has he entered the 21st century yet? Did he even bother trying a text install (and is he competent enough to RTFM when he uses strange hardware configs to install).Actually, I did RTFM. And I post this more as symptomatic of the problem. The installer works absolutely fine if you install on a color monitor, but the mono was all I had in the server closet. If you start the installer with the color monitor then plug in the mono, everything remains perfectly readable. However, if when the installer starts, it detects a mono monitor, it changes to the gray on gray color scheme which is impossible to read. Someone at Red Hat *didn't bother to test it before releasing it*.
Oh yeah, Red Hat is the most popular distro. To most people, it *is* Linux. And even if it weren't, do you really think that most users, including those currently running Windows 97 and Office 99, are actually going to know the difference between two distros?
His second argument: lack of scroll mouse support in Redhat 7.1. Ok.... I'm sure this is the most critical element in an desktop environment - it's definitely not the lack of BSODs. This argument is so inconsequential it boggles me that he put it in his article.Ask a user. I administer a public access lab where 20 people sit in front of Linux systems for simple web browsing. The number one complaint is, "put in mice with scroll wheels".
The fact of the matter is that the scroll wheel is a convenience. Since the computer is just a tool, it is, by its nature, something you use specifically for convenience.
Having a GUI without a scroll wheel is about as ridiculous now as a car without automatic spark advance. Maybe *you* don't expect it, Oh Great Sahib, Let Me Worship You. But Joe Sixpack certainly does.
As for the fact that there are no BSoDs in Linux, who gives a shit? The kernel may not be broken, but the applications sure are! I don't know about you, but I use an operating system for a hell of a lot more than just its kernel.
I'd have to agree with his third argument - Linux sound systems are some times difficult to work with - hope to see some advances there.Actually, arts is great. However, because there's too much of a clusterfuck going on within the community to come to the obvious conclusion that standards are a good thing, we continue to see software being written which defaults to OSS or writing directly to /dev tree.
This underscores the theme of my article, which is that the problems with Linux as a desktop solution are more issues of geek politics than they are of technical prowess.
4th argument: KMail lacks spell checker. Um.. ok, use a different email client. Use a web based one. Edit in a word processor and cut and paste later if you need to.Or I'll just save myself the time and effort of copying and pasting back and forth, and simply install an operating system where I can get an e-mail client with the *hugely* difficult and unreasonable requirements of
Forgive me, but my time is valuable. I'm not some unionized schlep with an arts degree. My tools are timesavers, and I will therefore work to make them as efficient as possible.
The author apparently hasn't heard of other desktops like IceWM.Indeed I have. But you're about as fucking obtuse as anyone I've met in my life. Joe Sixpack has come to expect a certain measure of desktop metaphor from his operating system - and KDE/Gnome provide that. I use Fluxbox a lot of the time, but it's not suitable for the masses, and you know it isn't.
The author complains that RH 7.3 ships with Wine installed by default - and that this makes one open to email virus attachments. THIS is his argument for sticking with Windows? Lets ignore the fact that even if it does infect, the virus is very limited in what it can access by linux kernel design and permissions systems.Can wipe out /home/$USER.
This isn't an argument for sticking with Windows. In fact, that is, in no measure, what I'm advocating on my website.
What I'm advocating is that users and developers take a long hard look at what sucks and what doesn't suck.
Having WINE installed by default sucks. It makes Linux machines vulnerable to Windows virii. There's no intelligent reason for that.
Mind numbing slowness? Ok... I can only assume he's running lin4win or something.KDE 3.01 on a PIII-500, mostly working as an e-mail drone. Opening a directory full of 2,800 MP3s takes over 10 minutes. Why? Because KDE seems to feel a need to check the attributes of each and every file, every time I open that directory. (So sorry, by the way, if a fucking Pentium III 500 isn't fast enough to serve as an e-mail and MP3 drone, I'd hate to think of what I'd need to run CATIA.)
How about having it scan all directories and make a database of attributes during quiet time, use that when you open a directory, and scan for changes with each opening?
Crashing apps: an app crashing under X rarely locks X up completely (especially when compared with Windows), and at least there IS an alternative when this happens (3 finger salute or SSH to the box from another one) other than the traditional hit the reset button that happens with Windows 3-4 times a day.The problem with Linux stability isn't Linux, it's the applications.
When an application crashes and you can't bring control of your screen back, given that you're the average user who doesn't have the second machine (or the knowledge) to telnet in, you have to reboot Linux.
Windows 2000/XP is actually more reliable than Linux applications. Not the Linux kernel, you'll note - it's not even close. But if you're dealing with a standalone Linux machine and something has eaten X, you have no alternative but to reboot. And that's the condition under which Joe Sixpack is working.
FUD? I think so.Must be nice to bury your head in the sand everytime someone tells you something which you don't like. You spend a lot of time living in denial, don't you?
You know, I really don't know what the logic is of arguing that. The people who are using Linux on their desktops now know Linux well enough to completely disregard that. I suppose you will scare newbies away until someone gives them a knoppix CD to play with,
I use Linux on my desktop. It's great. It's beautiful. But it's *still not ready* for the desktop - as in, it's still not ready to compete with Windows - because it's still more comparable with Windows 3.1 than it is with Windows XP.
Maybe Linux is more than ready for the desktop, it just isn't ready for your narrow view of what a desktop should be. And it is not that I really care that you are not satsified, but bitching to a bunch of volunteers seems a bit insane, because I don't think they really care that your are not satisfied, either.Maybe my viewpoint is narrow. Or maybe I'm as big a power user as you can get without actually *thinking* in C.
Note that I administer my own domain on a server farm of Linux and OpenBSD machines which live in my bedroom.
Primarily, my main desktop is an e-mail drone. If Evolution actually worked (ie. didn't take 8 minutes to exit on my machine), then it would be fine. But without a spellchecker competitive to prevalent software, Linux/KDE or Linux/Gnome doesn't even make a good e-mail drone. The spellchecker is so 1995. I want an underlining spell checker.
Does that give me a narrow viewpoint, because I expect features which I could take for granted among the apps of more estabished operating systems? Apparently.
Your lack of a realistic viewpoint and your immediate dismissal of my page as FUD is symptomatic of what is wrong with the Linux/OS community, and why I'm starting to believe that Linux will never be able to get its shit together enough to be more of a fringe group like Apple users.
Try using Windows 2000 or XP sometime. Look at it from a user's perspective - you know, the sort of idiot who opens e-mail virii and who makes the *bulk* of the computer-using public. From that perspective, Windows is great. It does everything reasonably well, whether you're a newbie or expert. Linux doesn't do that yet, and therefore isn't as good a desktop solution as Windows.
I'm waiting for the day someone can prove me wrong, but until you get some actual real-world experience with what end-users want from their operating systems, you'll still just be a whiny 14-year-old living in Mommy and Daddy's basement.
The only natural base is e. Man arbitrarily likes whole numbers, nature like real numbers, and e is everywhere.
Therefore, ln (1024) = 6.931471806... which is not an even number.
I suggest therefore that an even number of processors for the render farm is either
e^6 = 403.4287935 or
e^7 = 1,096.633158.
Of course, Intel is wedded to the whole numbers of processors thing, which utterly thwarts mathematical logic and correctness. Their site also runs on IIS, so what other foolishness can you expect? Heathens.
making it not 3.2million, but only $3200 a month?
...and it just got modded up. Oh boy.
actually 54,558,720Wh (watt-hours, not kilowatt hours), which is 54,558kWh, making it not 3.2million, but only $3200 a month?
Sorry, man, you're right. That's what I get for posting before drinking my morning coffee.
1,024 Intel 2.8GHz Xeon processors... I'd love to see their electric bill
Well, ignoring the power requirements of RAM, bus controllers, network adapters, hard disks which are probably used for boot only...
Intel rates these things for 74.0W thermal dissipation, which is a pretty good measure of the electrical power consumed... since, unless something is badly wrong, your Xeon chip will not dissipate energy as light or sound.
74W x 1,024 = 75,776W continuous.
Assume they're on 24/7. Assume a cost of $0.06 per kWh, including distribution, debt retirement, Ontario's capped electric rates, etc.
There are 30 days in the average month. There are 24 hours in the average day [grin]. Therefore, there are 720 hours per month.
720 hours @ 75,776W = 54,558,720kWh.
Just a little over $3.2 million per month.
I'd imagine it's less than that; their electric rate is probably somewhat less based on their consumption. But consider that the depreciation on that hardware is probably a greater monthly expense than the electricity to power it...
I'm glad Linux is ready for Pixar, because Linux sure ain't ready for the desktop.
Totally - thanks for asking, BTW. But yeah, go ahead and cut-and-paste all ya want.
Thanks! It's done; check it out and tell me how you like it.
www.glowingplate.com/dissent
And did you bother to try to explain it to him, or did you just write your dad off as hopelessly computer-illiterate?
Of course I explained it to him. But the fundamental problem goes further than that.
My father has had the same VCR for 14 years. It has clock-setting and on-screen timer programming which can both be accessed as simply as pressing the menu button on the VCR's remote control.
When he sees a menu presented to him, he simply freezes. "Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Francais, Press 3 for Espagnol." Immediately, he doesn't know what to do. He looks at the screen, then at the remote control, then back at the screen. For some reason, he can't understand that all he needs to do is press the button corresponding to the desired choice. When one tries to explain it to him, he gets frustrated and defensive, and he never manages to do it.
On a couple of occasions, I've led him through it, sitting on the sofa, telling him which keys to press. He took notes, then had to refer back to them, because the instructions "Enter current time using the keypad" are apparently too complicated. Most people would take notes along the lines of "Press Menu, follow instructions on screen".
So, while the VCR has a very easy-to-use timer, when he wishes to videotape JAG so that he can watch it later, his tactic is to stick a cassette into the VCR, hit record, and leave it recording until he gets back.
This is truly the lowest common denominator, and if you do tech support at all, you *will* encounter these people. The CD-ROM coffee holder is NOT an urban legend, I have been asked why it's there.
Needless to say, when I try to explain to him that Internet Explorer and Outlook are different things, he's confused. He doesn't seem to understand that different programs can have similar looks and feels, or even seem to know that the frame around a window indicates where the contents of that window ends and the one behind it begins...
...and the man has been through *dozens* of training courses, paid for by his employers, on everything over the years from WordStar to WordPerfect to Word, running on DOS, Windows NT and Windows 2000.
Amazingly, though it must seem foreign and frustrating to the Slashdot crowd given the simplicity of the operations, this is not a stupid man. This is an accomplished man who makes a good chunk of change every year in a management position which requires a *huge* understanding of national and international legislation, physics and mathematics. Yet the VCR confounds him, and his abilities to check his e-mail are based entirely on rote learning.
My dad is in his sixties and never used a computer until about a year ago, and he understands the difference between URLs and email addresses just fine, once it was explained to him.You're lucky. Even though my father wants to learn how to use a computer, and would have lots of use in being proficient, I think trying to teach him how to use a computer is about as feasible as herding cats.
Okay, you're criticizing open source software because it isn't simple enough for someone who can't recognize the difference between a website address and an email address--AND because it can't do "polynomial regressions?"
This is true, but it underscores a basic fact about the nature of the desktop operating system which seems to be missed by a lot of developers.
Realistically, in a practical office environment, you're only going to support one or two desktop types - let's say a big engineering firm, with Windows drones and Solaris running CATIA or some other sophisticated and specialized software.
At the moment, we're still talking about conquering the desktop by replacing Windows. Therefore, Linux / (KDE or Gnome) has to be useful to the broad cross-section of users who will be using it.
Some of these users will be older management/executive types who are afraid of computers or simply don't know anything about them. They're the ones who point and click their way through well-established routines, but who can't figure out why, when someone tells them that there's a website at joe_sixpack@domain.com, Internet Explorer can't open it. They're the ones who make support desk calls when they accidentally drag the taskbar to the other side of the screen.
The others will be more accomplished users. They might or might not know what's under the hood, but their training courses, etc. have taught them how to muddle through something relatively sophisticated like a polynomial regression, and now this is a feature that they demand and require. An accountant would be a good example of this.
For everything you want to say about Windows, it doesn't require a lot of effort for a novice to do the things that they need to do, quickly and conveniently, from one operating system and desktop metaphor. They can do it in one shot using Excel.
They don't need to edit their spreadsheet in OpenOffice, import it to Gnumeric to perform a regression using Gnumeric's better data analysis tools, then export it to OpenOffice's better graphing capabilities.
That's not a practical solution for anyone whose time is money - as is the case with anyone in business.
The user experience has to be simple enough to be productive right away, and yet sophisticated enough that even power-users (ie. any power user who isn't a developer) can get the thing to do more sophisticated tasks.
In other words, it has to support everyone reasonably well. Windows is still the reigning champion of that, unfortunately.
The guy with the Ph.D. sees the computer as a very sophisticated calculator. Instead of Excel, he uses Mathematica. Or a specialized CAD/CAM program.
Your reply to the guy about the polynomial regressions is a *great* explanation of the problem. I'd ask you this by e-mail but your address isn't public. Can I quote you on my website?
Thanks.
You know, as one that has sat through many a Powerpoint presentation, I can say you might have been right the first time. Less typo/spelling error and more Freud, I think.
Good one, thank you! You gave me a belly laugh.
What do I have to do to get OO to launch xine and seemlessly play a video file in my presentation?
Oops. "seAmlessly". Sorry.
Or have we in geek culture spent too little time away from the average user to recognize this ourselves?
If you look at the desktop experiences of one advanced user who isn't a developer, I think it's safe to say that this is an ongoing problem.
A viable desktop operating system is more than a kernel and associated utilities; it's dependent on applications which *do what the competition does* and which look good and work well.
After all, to Joe Sixpack, the computer is a tool, not a toy.
The threshold which developers have to cross before we, as a community, can say that Linux is ready for the desktop, is one where the developers stop thinking about stuff as being "cool", but start to think of useful features, common interface guidelines for everything, and color schemes which don't make ordinary users wince every time they start a given application.
(Don't argue to me that you can easily adjust the color schemes in the preferences, you *know* most idiot users can't figure out how to do this.)
Features? Examples:
Note that I'm comparing a *CURRENT* version of OpenOffice unfavorably with a *6-year-old* Microsoft product. That's not something we want to brag about - "The leading office suite for Linux has most of the features of a 6-year-old version of Microsoft Office!"
I've only been saying this since I started using Linux in 97/8... Think, but can your DAD use it?Thank you. It's good to hear an increasing chorus of voices who're worried about this, especially as we reach a point where, on the surface, it looks like Linux is a viable alternative to Windows on the desktop. Those ordinary users who make the switch now will be dissatisfied very quickly, and will become staunch Microsoft proponents and purchasers for years to come, even when all the current problems with a Linux desktop have been addressed - public perception changes more slowly than the feature lists of open-source software.
As for Dad, no. He's 63 years old. If I were to install a really locked-down version of Linux on his machine, I'd have to place "Internet Explorer" and "Outlook" icons on his desktop. If I were to change the location of the Send button in Outlook, he'd never figure out how to send an e-mail, let alone swapping him into a whole different program on a whole different operating system.
He called me up and asked me why he couldn't get to a website that someone told him to check out. The URL was all-revealing: blahblah@domain.com. The difference between an e-mail address and a website address is apparently too much for him.
Nah... I'd use transformer oil, and I don't think a Lipton Cup-a-Soup would taste quite the same.
Transformer oil, however, is probably quite suitable for use in a CPU cooling system.
It has a higher breakdown voltage than air and is almost infinitely less conductive than real-world (ie. impure) water. Transformer oils are specifically designed for use as an insulating material in large power distribution transformers. Electric utility transformers at power substations, operating in the range of hundreds of thousands of volts, would arc between windings if the oil leaked out of them and air - with its lower breakdown voltage - seeped in. (Air breaks down at about 3kV per millimeter.) You can feel pretty confident that leaked oil won't short out IC pins on your motherboard. Hell, you could also ditch your power supply fan and fill that full of oil, too - just beware of relays and other mechanical components.
Heat transfer is a big reason for oil, too. In a car engine, much of the heat is generated by friction in the bearings, and motor oil pumped through the bearings takes that heat away. Transformer oil doesn't have to lubricate, nor does it have to carry away huge amounts of impurities or combustion by-products as in a car engine - the biggest requirements are heat carrying capability and high breakdown voltage. Large pole pigs (pole-mounted power transformers) are usually oil-filled and often have pipes coming from the bottom and going to the top - they serve as radiators. Oil flow is not by pump, the reliability would be too low - they're convective, too.
Finally, viscosity. Yes, this might be difficult, but transformer oils are available in a variety of thicknesses. You want a viscosity corresponding to SAE 0, which is the same as water. Even less might be available, though I've personally never seen it.
Density changes with temperature rise will have to be considered, since the lower density of hot liquids causes them to rise in the system (and is also the physics behind lava lamps). The system that guy designed is based on the density changes of water. Transformer oil won't behave the same way; accordingly, you'll have to whip out the old slide-rule and do some math. Calculus is your friend. Fortunately, the data on transformer oil should be readily available, it's an important design criteria.
Voltesso and Diala are good trade names which I've personally used in transformers loaded to hundreds of kilowatts at over 250,000V, at RF frequencies. (FAA obstruction lights on large VLF radio transmitting towers.) They're ALL PCB-free, and while you don't want to drink it, they're no more toxic than motor oil. And it takes a hell of a lot of work to make them catch fire.
In short, transformer oils are available in a variety of viscosities, are specifically engineered for their thermal transfer capabilities, are not electrically conductive, not dangerous, and are suitable for almost all of your electronic cooling needs.
The only problem I forsee is that you're gonna have a hard time buying them in quantities less than 45-gallon drums... though the drum would make a great passive radiator. Seriously, talk to a couple of linesmen with your local power utility, maybe you'll be able to talk your way into a couple of gallons of it.
And once that's done across all the machines in your compile farm, you can get to work tackling the big problems of why Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet.
Sorry to be the voice of dissent here, but I'm hoping that I can piss off enough developers that they start to address some of the usability issues currently plaguing Linux' feasibility for the desktop. Sure, the kernel is *beautiful*, but a desktop operating system is a lot more than that.
KDE and Gnome are both the best contenders for the desktops of the masses. Let's forget Fluxbox and other things. People want taskbars and Start buttons.
But they're fat and slow. Application skins and default color schemes look like they were designed by a Run Lola Run fan from East Berlin. Basic features are lacking. Interoperability and standard user interfaces become afterthoughts as developers only write what *they* like, not what Joe Public wants. Unfortunately, ( developer != Joe_Public ) in terms of interoperability and applications.
One developer flamed my website chronicling Linux current unsuitability for the desktop, yelling at me that "vi is the best word processor out there, why would any user want anything else?" I'm a vi user and lover, but it's not suitable for writing a business letter, anymore than using that old 1982 Epson MX-80 dot-matrix printer is suitable for printing resumes.
We have to change the mindset.
I know developers write code in a volunteer effort, and I don't discount that at all. We're probably pretty united on wanting to break the Windows monopoly, and we have to somehow convince developers to focus on that more than "well, who cares if it doesn't have this feature... but hey, it's skinnable!"
I don't own a Hyundai, but I see no reason to call Hyundai drivers idiots.
Once I bought a Hyundai as a winter beater.
When I got it, it had just over 12,000km on it. I drove it for 13 months and put over 40,000km on it.
And even though I paid $100 for the car, I *still* felt ripped off.
In closing, abstenez-vous s'il vous plaît à avoir des relations sexuelles anormales avec mon petit chat brun.
"In closing, please refrain from having abnormal sexual relations with my small brown (tom) cat."
Au lieu de cela, placez votre pénis dans ma râpe de fromage."Instead, place your penis in my cheese grater."
The same MS that didn't apply their *own* patches ?!?
The problem that I have is, even though I don't run any Microsoft software, their incompetence keeps on screwing me around and costing me productivity.
I get hundreds of e-mail virii per day, owning partially to incompetent users, but also partially to incompetent Outlook programmers.
At the height of Code Red, I was getting hundreds of hits per day to my webserver.
That last worm effectively shut down portions of the Internet.
Now, here's the problem. If I'm driving down the road, and a Hyundai's brakes fail and cause it to run a red light and plow into the side of me, it'll piss me off, but it's a quirk, and shit happens.
If, every couple of months, a Hyundai's brakes fail and I get hit, pretty soon, I'll start to get very pissed off, not just with the idiots who drive Hyundais, but also with Hyundai itself.
This has gotten to be utterly ridiculous. We have to find some way of holding Microsoft accountable for their fucking ineptitude.
Actually... they lined their hats with lead, not mercury. But I'm sure it would have had the same effect.
Not lining - I don't know about that. I'm talking about forming it, using the weight of the mercury and its liquid state to shape fedoras, etc.
The transformers will produce heat, but not usualy require heatsinking (unless the supply is overloaded to begin with). The active components will dissapate much more energy for their package size and require something to channel the heat from them (heatsink). The key is layout... most monitors are convection cooled, as well as computers like the slot loading iMac. They don't seem to have a problem with transformers getting too hot, and have tackled the no fan problem.
The point is that the power supplies are designed for fan-forced airflow over all components, including the transformers. They're not designed for convection cooling. When you replace the forced airflow with water cooling, the transformers are no longer cooled as the supply's designers had intended. And I think you can basically ignore the effects of convection in such a tight enclosure as a normal computer power supply.
I think I'd start by measuring the temperature of the transformers normally, then with water cooling of the rest of the supply.
They are very cramped, not leaving much room to apply liberal heatsinks to the components that need them (most everything active, like the switching transistors). The quick fix? Blow air through it and use smaller heatsinks.
Yeah, how about the heat generated in the transformers? It must be non-negligible, even though the transformers don't have overt heat sinks.
Seems to me that ferrite cores aren't hugely thermally conductive, so it might be fairly tough to couple the heat away from the transformers.
I'm glad you indicate your own realization that mercury is a dangerous choice for cooling system, or I'd say you've been drinking all that mercury you say you own.
Drinking it? No. I've probably breathed a little more vapor over the years than would be considered healthy.
Note the origins of the term "mad as a hatter" are from the days when hat-makers would use mercury to help shape the felt; the long-term exposure had interesting effects on rational thought and normal behavior.
Note also that I once put a Chevette engine onto a snowblower.
Interestingly enough, back when fast breeder reactors were still being considered as viable nuclear power sources in the US, there were proposed designs involving mercury cooling. Talk about unpolitical.But I'm sure it would be an effective cooling system.
I'm not too sure liquid sodium is the best choice to cool your computer, since sodium melts at 208 degrees F (98 C). Besides, when you first boot up the computer, you'd have to have special heaters installed just to melt the sodium and get it moving! But, you know, in the end, I know you were being facetious. Nice job.
I want to run mercury through my cooling system. I've got a couple of pounds of it, and it would certainly absorb heat more readily than water.
But just one drop of mercury inside your computer and it's finished.
Maybe could use gallium with small heaters?
I've also got concerns about the overall safety of this. Even without mica insulators or any other outward signs, a heatsink may be running at some potential other than ground. Pure water isn't very conductive, but all the same, your cooling water is likely to be grounded - and should be grounded. Pumping water through a tube attached to a component or heatsink will bring the water to that potential; using a piece of plastic tubing to insulate one metal tube from another is NOT safe.
By the way, even if there's no immediate symptom of a problem with this potential difference across the water, I think anyone who ignored such a situation would quickly find bizarre actions like the galvanic corrosion and eventual failure of metal pipes or tubing in the system.
Well I guess a site called Digital Explosion is really the best suited to report this.
Yeah, I have a couple of problems with the way this was carried out. Conceptually, I would love a completely water-cooled computer since I'm tired of the noise. But this is pretty dangerous.
Why remove the existing heat sinks? Rather than removing them from components and risking forgetting a mica insulator or doing other damage, why not simply take advantage of them as an easy surface to which to attach cooling tubes. Most power supplies I've opened, I could solder copper tubing to the heatsinks fairly easily.
The other thing is that the mass of the heatsinks would provide a little thermal inertia to buy you some time in the event of a bubble or other failure.
I've also got concerns about the overall safety of this. Even without mica insulators or any other outward signs, a heatsink may be running at some potential other than ground. Pure water isn't very conductive, but all the same, your cooling water is likely to be grounded - and should be grounded. Pumping water through a tube attached to a component or heatsink will bring the water to that potential; using a piece of plastic tubing to insulate one metal tube from another is NOT safe.
What you need to do is have electrically insulating but thermally conductive means to couple the heat to the tubing. Mica insulators and thermal transfer grease are a good start.
I think I'd solder some copper tubing to some copper sheetmetal, and then I'd coat the flat surface with heat transfer grease, add a sheet of mica and more transfer grease, and then screw it to a heatsink inside the power supply. I'd use off-the-shelf electronics hardware to screw the two pieces together but maintain their electrical isolation: even Radio Shack sells the stuff.
Make sure that the water is grounded, and then run the power supply from a Ground-Fault Interruptor (GFI) receptacle like you'd find in a bathroom. This way, a water leak in the power supply should turn off the power at the outlet and reduce the risk of a bigger problem.