...that you guys haven't seen this yet? SmarterChild has been around forever; providing advertising and meaningless conversation to thousands of AIM users.
You can IM "SmarterChild" right now, have been able to for months.
It's also the best because it uses FireWire. Christ, I can't even imagine transferring 10GB of MP3s over USB. *shudder*
By the way, iPod also looks great, comes with wicked earbuds powered by a great amplifier, charges from the computer, and also acts as a FireWire hard drive!
Doesn't even require a Mac (though that is the best way to do it). FireWire cards cost $20, baby. There's about six software packages out that all claim to do iPod connectivity for Windows (any Linux claims yet? I'm not sure), two of which actually work well (XPlay holds the gold medal, though).
I really despise people who seek to make themselves look more intelligent by tossing acronyms out into their writing. It's terribly obvious and degrades from the content of the submission. For example:
...much like the GETS system already in place for the PSTN. It's interesting to follow, because it's only an RFC, so you don't have to follow it...
Always, always, always write for your readers! Understand that most readers will have no idea what the terms GETS, PSTN, and RFC mean, and thus will have no idea if the article is relevant to their world. Worse, from the tone of your submission ("it's interesting to follow, because it's only an RFC, so you don't have to follow it..." was an attempt at being insightful (+1!) tells me that you were doing this to seem intelligent, and not just because you were ignorant of your audience.
If you truly wish to seem intelligent, then write so everyone understands you. That in itself is a very difficult, unique, and powerful skill.
Good points, though, it was actually a commercial for a PowerBook G4 Titanium... and, the head of the TV studio was using a G4 Cube.
There were a good number of other Apple product placements in the movie, which is good, because Apple's systems are actually visually appealing, which on the whole I have yet to see from any other computer manufacturer. I still have not figured out why 99% of computer manufacturers think computing should be *ugly.*
Sony comes close to looking good, until you realize the MX model (shown) starts at $2700. The other Sony computers are just the standard "beige-with-color-tints" which are popular with PC manufacturers now -- their half-effort imitation of Apple's first iMac.
I did find it a little strange in Showtime that they looped the PowerBook G4 ad on that TV set about three or four times, though.;)
This will sound like flamebait, but you know, fuck Sirius. XM has better programming, better customer service (for example, I e-mailed the programming folks and got a response...in ONE DAY...from the HEAD of the Programming Dept... have you ever seen that from another company?), better personality.
Let Sirius wallow in their own mistakes on band choice (you know, a little industry research could have solved this), and meander over to http://www.xmradio.com. I have been a loyal subscriber from December, and I have not been let down, not once. Absolutely the best $9.95/month I have ever spent.
Sounds great... I'll see if any of my MacDev folks here at CU want to join in. It sounds like a terrific project.
As for the Slashdot Moderators of the Day, how my previous post POSSIBLY classifies as "Offtopic" is beyond me. How dare you mod me down. You know, I always chalked up the debates about stupid moderation as idle complaints, but now I know what it feels like.
Once I'm up for moderator points again, I promise to be much more mindful.:)
You know -- Apple was the first major computer company to spread the use of 802.11b to the consumer market. Some people will argue that point, because people love to flame Apple, but the fact is that AirPort-ready laptops have been produced for years now, starting a good year or more ahead of mainstream 802.11b-ready Intel/AMD-based laptops.
I know Sputnik is a startup, just taking its first steps, so I understand you still have work to do. But I will tell you, this is right down the alley of most of us Mac users. We've always been the rebellious types, that's why we do what we do. I hope we see this gateway for PowerPC machines soon.
As a side note, I do appreciate that you point out Macintosh clients can connect as easily as any other. It's true. And probably easier (one click in the AirPort menu!) But I hope you soon offer us the ability to spread the project, too.:)
Who trolled this guy? I swear, sometimes the moderators are taking their Fridays and doing some serious mind-altering drugs.
It's a valid point. It's not WHY the RIAA is down, but it's true... you spend less on music, you'll spend more on games, or vice versa. Personally I think I'll spend less on music and games and buy more schwag from ThinkGeek.;)
Ryan
Power vs. Cost vs. Maintenance...
on
Macintosh Clustering
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
There's a few people saying the cost of a Linux cluster of similar computing power would be much less than a cluster of Mac towers. That is completely wrong, and here's why:
1.) Power vs. cost. The G4, with AltiVec-enabled MPI code, can blast data through in 128-bit chunks. Steve Jobs loves to term this the "Velocity Engine", and it is much, much more powerful when doing solid number crunching -- exactly what would be taking place on these clusters. It's not as amazing for day to day operations, but the capability is there to quadruple the data flow of a traditional processor when doing clustered computing. Typical AMD/Intel processors can just not do this.
2.) Maintenance. This is key. I maintain a Linux cluster and have worked with others in the past, and wonderful as they are, they require lots of maintenance. It's pure and simple math. You probably built all 16 or whatever nodes with individual parts made by various companies, and inevitably, each of those elements will have problems. This makes debugging and fixing hardware problems unbelievably painful, especially when you also have to deal with multiple parts vendors. When you use Apple Power Macs, ALL hardware problems can go through ONE support source, and that's Apple. Plus, they are pre-built, tested, and refined in Apple's R&D labs far before they make it to your cluster room. This saves such incredible amounts of time and money, it definitely pays for the extra cost of the computers themselves. I wish I could explain to you the sheer pain of keeping a cluster alive which constantly had one part go bad here and there -- but one part, sixteen computers, each with eight or nine significant custom-attached parts... well, it meant a lot of troubleshooting time, a lot of replacement time, and having to deal with far too many different companies to get the parts and support I needed.
3.) MacOS X. Clustering under previous MacOS versions was, despite the best efforts of AppleSeed, absolutely reprehensible. The operating system was simply not designed to do massive computing projects, and it was not efficient at all. Definitely not worth it despite the work of the pioneers in the field. With OS X, you now have a BSD operating system, one that has done clustered parallel computing for over a decade. MPI, with AltiVec enhancements; gcc with multiprocessor compilation support, you name it, it now runs under OS X and, with the operating system natively supporting the G4, it does it DAMNED fast.
"What the heck do you know," you might ask. Again, I maintain a 16-node Linux cluster for a plasma simulation group at the University of Colorado, and am also the CU campus rep for Apple Computer. I am well-versed in both OS X and Linux, and their scientific computing environments, and have experience in clustering in both environments. I am in the process of establishing a scientific computing initiative at CU, and I am doing it on behalf of Apple because the G4s (and soon, G5s) are simply the best platform for multi-platform scientific and high-intensity computing.
The best saving grace from a sysadmin's point of view, is that I will never have to worry about maintaining the variety of parts in those damned Linux clusters. The operating system is wonderful for scientific computing, yes, but there's simply no cost-effective way to purchase and maintain Linux-based PC hardware that could ever compare to the Mac. From an overall perspective, and this is definitely the most important aspect, those who are using massive parallel clusters of computers need their data crunched fast, and the G4 processor, combined with AltiVec-enhanced code, is simply the fastest way to crunch data, straight and simple.
I hope that clears up the issues for people, because that's how it is. Just the facts, ma'am.
Ryan Bruels
Apple Campus Representative
University of Colorado, Boulder
bruels@mac.com * 303-332-5434
Everyone says the iPod is only Mac-compatible... you need XPlay by MediaFour. Then you can use your iPod on a PC -- under Windows, anyhow. No Linux support yet, but I know some enterprising programmer will release software soon.
MediaFour had a demo of XPlay at MacWorld, running on XP, and I have to admit it was pretty sexy.
Sure, it would be neat to Beowulf a large chunk of these, and stick them in a closet. Unfortunately, there are two major problems with that:
-You'll still have to worry about heat... and if you throw 100 of these in a closet with its corresponding switches and miscellaneous accessories, it will heat up to approximately say, the temperature of the sun. Most standard household closets don't have a dedicated HVAC system.
- Secondly, and most importantly, at $1600 a pop, you could construct a pretty mean rack-mounted cluster, which although taking up a smidgen more room, will give you a helluva lot better than a bunch of PIII/750s.
Nope, this is just another useless invention, though certainly eye-catching. While stashing away this as a tiny server might be neat, you again have to remember the price...I'll build you a really powerful and tiny mini-ATX system which will be easy enough to stash and hide away, for about a grand less.;)
Good try, Mynix, but you'll only get a brief spurt of purchases from impulse buyers and gadget-freaks (in my family, called "the Uncle Robert syndrome", in homage to an old gadget-freak of family yore:).
From deep in the University of Colorado, in the dark recesses of a server room long forgotten by the passing students but still held in the hearts of those who have never stood in front of her...
...a sob is heard...
Farewell to you, irc.colorado.edu! I'll try to come by and pet you before I head into finals.;)
1.) Natalie Portman is still terribly gorgeous. 2.) I would like a couple of Yodas around the house, just to give guests that sneer. 3.) It looks cool, but why is Anakin riding an enormous Klingon disruptor about 3/4 the way through the trailer?
I work for a plasma studies group at the University of Colorado. I had been working for some time on a fantastic web site called Physics 2000, a site which aims to make advanced physics concepts easier to understand for the common-man (end shameless plug... but do check it out, you can even learn about the Bose-Einstein Condensate which won this year's Nobel Prize -- two of the University of Colorado's physicists won it, so we know our shit, lol), but at that point had not done any UNIX work at all for them.
Anyhow, when the resident sys-admin went to take an internship for the summer, the head of the group stepped into my office and said:
"What do you know about Linux?"
"Jack," I replied.
"I see. Want to be a sys-admin?"
"Er... sure!"
So, over the course of the summer, I went from a Linux newbie (I ran a small FTP server from home, that's about it) to being able to quickly debug and repair the Linux systems on our network as needed, in addition to breeze through various installs/configs, basically whatever I was called upon to do. Those skills extended into our Solaris machines, and indeed, by the end of the summer, I really knew my UNIX. Amazing what the Internet and root access on a few machines can teach you! I should take this time to thank some of the fantastic people on #LinuxHelp who always stepped out of the shadows to help me out. You saved my ass numerous times.;)
So, in conclusion, if someone tells you you're too old or too set in your ways to become a good sysadmin, don't listen to them! Just be prepared to work HARD, learn HARD, and don't stop trying until you solve the problems that are presented to you. That's the only way to learn. You will fuck up a few times, but no boss can expect his sysadmins to be perfect.
Slashdot Mirror
...that you guys haven't seen this yet? SmarterChild has been around forever; providing advertising and meaningless conversation to thousands of AIM users.
You can IM "SmarterChild" right now, have been able to for months.
Ryan
It's also the best because it uses FireWire. Christ, I can't even imagine transferring 10GB of MP3s over USB. *shudder*
By the way, iPod also looks great, comes with wicked earbuds powered by a great amplifier, charges from the computer, and also acts as a FireWire hard drive!
Doesn't even require a Mac (though that is the best way to do it). FireWire cards cost $20, baby. There's about six software packages out that all claim to do iPod connectivity for Windows (any Linux claims yet? I'm not sure), two of which actually work well (XPlay holds the gold medal, though).
Jeez, it even holds your VCF cards now! Solid!
http://www.apple.com/ipod/
ROFL... someone mod that up... hahaha
...but in reality, that is some really cool technology. Bravo to NASA scientists... let's see if they can get funding.
You'll want to check out a software package called Sharity -- look it up at VersionTracker.com. It's really a fantastic Samba browsing package.
Ryan
Always, always, always write for your readers! Understand that most readers will have no idea what the terms GETS, PSTN, and RFC mean, and thus will have no idea if the article is relevant to their world. Worse, from the tone of your submission ("it's interesting to follow, because it's only an RFC, so you don't have to follow it..." was an attempt at being insightful (+1!) tells me that you were doing this to seem intelligent, and not just because you were ignorant of your audience.
If you truly wish to seem intelligent, then write so everyone understands you. That in itself is a very difficult, unique, and powerful skill.
Ryan
Sony comes close to looking good, until you realize the MX model (shown) starts at $2700. The other Sony computers are just the standard "beige-with-color-tints" which are popular with PC manufacturers now -- their half-effort imitation of Apple's first iMac.
I did find it a little strange in Showtime that they looped the PowerBook G4 ad on that TV set about three or four times, though. ;)
This will sound like flamebait, but you know, fuck Sirius. XM has better programming, better customer service (for example, I e-mailed the programming folks and got a response...in ONE DAY...from the HEAD of the Programming Dept... have you ever seen that from another company?), better personality.
Let Sirius wallow in their own mistakes on band choice (you know, a little industry research could have solved this), and meander over to http://www.xmradio.com. I have been a loyal subscriber from December, and I have not been let down, not once. Absolutely the best $9.95/month I have ever spent.
Ryan
Sounds great... I'll see if any of my MacDev folks here at CU want to join in. It sounds like a terrific project.
:)
As for the Slashdot Moderators of the Day, how my previous post POSSIBLY classifies as "Offtopic" is beyond me. How dare you mod me down. You know, I always chalked up the debates about stupid moderation as idle complaints, but now I know what it feels like.
Once I'm up for moderator points again, I promise to be much more mindful.
You know -- Apple was the first major computer company to spread the use of 802.11b to the consumer market. Some people will argue that point, because people love to flame Apple, but the fact is that AirPort-ready laptops have been produced for years now, starting a good year or more ahead of mainstream 802.11b-ready Intel/AMD-based laptops.
:)
I know Sputnik is a startup, just taking its first steps, so I understand you still have work to do. But I will tell you, this is right down the alley of most of us Mac users. We've always been the rebellious types, that's why we do what we do. I hope we see this gateway for PowerPC machines soon.
As a side note, I do appreciate that you point out Macintosh clients can connect as easily as any other. It's true. And probably easier (one click in the AirPort menu!) But I hope you soon offer us the ability to spread the project, too.
Keep up the good work.
Ryan
Who trolled this guy? I swear, sometimes the moderators are taking their Fridays and doing some serious mind-altering drugs.
;)
It's a valid point. It's not WHY the RIAA is down, but it's true... you spend less on music, you'll spend more on games, or vice versa. Personally I think I'll spend less on music and games and buy more schwag from ThinkGeek.
Ryan
There's a few people saying the cost of a Linux cluster of similar computing power would be much less than a cluster of Mac towers. That is completely wrong, and here's why:
1.) Power vs. cost. The G4, with AltiVec-enabled MPI code, can blast data through in 128-bit chunks. Steve Jobs loves to term this the "Velocity Engine", and it is much, much more powerful when doing solid number crunching -- exactly what would be taking place on these clusters. It's not as amazing for day to day operations, but the capability is there to quadruple the data flow of a traditional processor when doing clustered computing. Typical AMD/Intel processors can just not do this.
2.) Maintenance. This is key. I maintain a Linux cluster and have worked with others in the past, and wonderful as they are, they require lots of maintenance. It's pure and simple math. You probably built all 16 or whatever nodes with individual parts made by various companies, and inevitably, each of those elements will have problems. This makes debugging and fixing hardware problems unbelievably painful, especially when you also have to deal with multiple parts vendors. When you use Apple Power Macs, ALL hardware problems can go through ONE support source, and that's Apple. Plus, they are pre-built, tested, and refined in Apple's R&D labs far before they make it to your cluster room. This saves such incredible amounts of time and money, it definitely pays for the extra cost of the computers themselves. I wish I could explain to you the sheer pain of keeping a cluster alive which constantly had one part go bad here and there -- but one part, sixteen computers, each with eight or nine significant custom-attached parts... well, it meant a lot of troubleshooting time, a lot of replacement time, and having to deal with far too many different companies to get the parts and support I needed.
3.) MacOS X. Clustering under previous MacOS versions was, despite the best efforts of AppleSeed, absolutely reprehensible. The operating system was simply not designed to do massive computing projects, and it was not efficient at all. Definitely not worth it despite the work of the pioneers in the field. With OS X, you now have a BSD operating system, one that has done clustered parallel computing for over a decade. MPI, with AltiVec enhancements; gcc with multiprocessor compilation support, you name it, it now runs under OS X and, with the operating system natively supporting the G4, it does it DAMNED fast.
"What the heck do you know," you might ask. Again, I maintain a 16-node Linux cluster for a plasma simulation group at the University of Colorado, and am also the CU campus rep for Apple Computer. I am well-versed in both OS X and Linux, and their scientific computing environments, and have experience in clustering in both environments. I am in the process of establishing a scientific computing initiative at CU, and I am doing it on behalf of Apple because the G4s (and soon, G5s) are simply the best platform for multi-platform scientific and high-intensity computing.
The best saving grace from a sysadmin's point of view, is that I will never have to worry about maintaining the variety of parts in those damned Linux clusters. The operating system is wonderful for scientific computing, yes, but there's simply no cost-effective way to purchase and maintain Linux-based PC hardware that could ever compare to the Mac. From an overall perspective, and this is definitely the most important aspect, those who are using massive parallel clusters of computers need their data crunched fast, and the G4 processor, combined with AltiVec-enhanced code, is simply the fastest way to crunch data, straight and simple.
I hope that clears up the issues for people, because that's how it is. Just the facts, ma'am.
Ryan Bruels
Apple Campus Representative
University of Colorado, Boulder
bruels@mac.com * 303-332-5434
Does anyone else think Olaf Christ is the coolest name in the history of surnames?
Sigh. Stupid boring-ass "Ryan Bruels", yeesh. I'm changing my name.
Olaf
Bravo, I agree completely -- but why was this modded "Funny"? :P
Ryan
Provide free food on the campaign trail and folks will vote for anything!
Ryan
Rather like the proverbial blonde with the white-out on the screen...
MediaFour had a demo of XPlay at MacWorld, running on XP, and I have to admit it was pretty sexy.
Wow. tar slut. A person who excessively engages in the archiving of files.
Ryan
tar slut
Sure, it would be neat to Beowulf a large chunk of these, and stick them in a closet. Unfortunately, there are two major problems with that:
-You'll still have to worry about heat ... and if you throw 100 of these in a closet with its corresponding switches and miscellaneous accessories, it will heat up to approximately say, the temperature of the sun. Most standard household closets don't have a dedicated HVAC system.
- Secondly, and most importantly, at $1600 a pop, you could construct a pretty mean rack-mounted cluster, which although taking up a smidgen more room, will give you a helluva lot better than a bunch of PIII/750s.
Nope, this is just another useless invention, though certainly eye-catching. While stashing away this as a tiny server might be neat, you again have to remember the price...I'll build you a really powerful and tiny mini-ATX system which will be easy enough to stash and hide away, for about a grand less. ;)
Good try, Mynix, but you'll only get a brief spurt of purchases from impulse buyers and gadget-freaks (in my family, called "the Uncle Robert syndrome", in homage to an old gadget-freak of family yore :).
Happy holidays to everyone!
Ryan
Is there ever a better answer? I hear CowboyNeal does personal cool-air generation for low hourly rates.
From deep in the University of Colorado, in the dark recesses of a server room long forgotten by the passing students but still held in the hearts of those who have never stood in front of her...
;)
...a sob is heard...
Farewell to you, irc.colorado.edu! I'll try to come by and pet you before I head into finals.
Ryan
Erotik providers are the only on-line industry, which writes black numbers.
Heh, heh. I love the Babelfish. ;)
1.) Natalie Portman is still terribly gorgeous.
2.) I would like a couple of Yodas around the house, just to give guests that sneer.
3.) It looks cool, but why is Anakin riding an enormous Klingon disruptor about 3/4 the way through the trailer?
And those, are my ruminations.
I work for a plasma studies group at the University of Colorado. I had been working for some time on a fantastic web site called Physics 2000, a site which aims to make advanced physics concepts easier to understand for the common-man (end shameless plug... but do check it out, you can even learn about the Bose-Einstein Condensate which won this year's Nobel Prize -- two of the University of Colorado's physicists won it, so we know our shit, lol), but at that point had not done any UNIX work at all for them.
Anyhow, when the resident sys-admin went to take an internship for the summer, the head of the group stepped into my office and said:
"What do you know about Linux?"
"Jack," I replied.
"I see. Want to be a sys-admin?"
"Er... sure!"
So, over the course of the summer, I went from a Linux newbie (I ran a small FTP server from home, that's about it) to being able to quickly debug and repair the Linux systems on our network as needed, in addition to breeze through various installs/configs, basically whatever I was called upon to do. Those skills extended into our Solaris machines, and indeed, by the end of the summer, I really knew my UNIX. Amazing what the Internet and root access on a few machines can teach you! I should take this time to thank some of the fantastic people on #LinuxHelp who always stepped out of the shadows to help me out. You saved my ass numerous times. ;)
So, in conclusion, if someone tells you you're too old or too set in your ways to become a good sysadmin, don't listen to them! Just be prepared to work HARD, learn HARD, and don't stop trying until you solve the problems that are presented to you. That's the only way to learn. You will fuck up a few times, but no boss can expect his sysadmins to be perfect.
Good luck!
Fucking sweet. Where can I get my hands on one? I'll pay anything.