"You list "does not look like a native app" as a Safari disadvantage. This is surely an advantage." Not at all. There are things about the Mac GUI I really do like less than Windows. Resizing windows only from the bottom right corner is one of them. Mac apps do work very well on OS/X but since you don't have all of OS/X running on Windows Safari is crippled. It just doesn't work as well on a Windows box as a Windows application. That and it looks totally different. Safari sticks out like a sore thumb. It is worse at integrating than most Java apps. "Opera is way ahead of IE, but is not up there with Safari on iphone." I don't know since I don't have an iphone, do you? I will bet that Safari on the iphone will be very good. I agree that most mobile browsers don't offer the same utility as a full PC browser but I was questioning the need to get people used to Safari. I don't think people are going to steer clear of the iphone because it doesn't run IE as somebody posted. Frankly only the cost will keep people away from it. That I will not do business with Cingular/AT&T. They are anti net neutrality and there behavior towards the people of New Orleans after Katrina was horrible. They and Verizon are not going to get my money anytime soon.
"What are you, stupid? " No I have been around computers for a long time. I started with a C64 and then MS-DOS and then Amiga, then back to MS-DOS, the Windows, and now Windows and Linux.
In forming people of the benefits of an operating system or program is one thing. Having an emotional investment is another. Hell the Amiga ran in 512k. multitasked, had a GUI, sound support, and cost less than a PC of the same power. It failed because of marketing. I hope Linux is around for a while but frankly not forever. Every major change in OS's allows for innovation. I sure don't want Windows to be the end of the road. Yes OS's can evolve but that is limited by backward compatibility. I good example of that are commands like ls, mv, cp, and rm in Linux. They are two letters because they where created in the days of teletypes instead of video terminals. If they where ever replaced the cry would deafen you and I. What is worse is I would be one of the ones crying the loudest. Yes a fresh start is sometimes a very good thing.
"Well , cutting edge for 1990. If thats the best it can do on a supercomputer it doesn't bode well for your average PC!" Super computers don't run GUIs. That is for visualization workstations. "Has it broken any new ground with any new operating paradigms? (Thats a genuine question , I don't know)." Yes I suggest you go learn a lot more about it before posting in blatant ignorance. Plan 9 is a distributed operating system. It uses clusters of servers to act as application servers, storage servers, and IO servers. It is ideal for clustered systems with hundreds or thousands of cores! Guess what Blue Genie is? Supercomputers usually lack a traditional gui. They depend on workstations to handle any visual interface. They are all about speed and nothing else. Your comment about a less than pretty GUI on a supercomputer is about as useful as complaining about the crappy stereo in a formula one car. Is Plan 9 important? Well since it looks as if cores are going to start multiplying at a Moore's law like rate then the answer is most likely yes.
I agree that email should require a court order for the police to search it however just as two people holding a conversation in a public place have no expectations of privacy the same is true of email.
At my office we just got an email from a customer and she included her credit card number in the EMAIL! No we didn't tell her to send it but I hope like heck that she doesn't read this story and think that it is alright to do in the future!
Yea so you can go to jail for just having an Ethernet sniffer! Really people should have the same expectation of privacy in an email as they do with a postcard. None at all. It is clear text.
Marvel and DC both almost went belly up after the great Comic book crash. I had a friend that owned a comic store back then. He got out just before the crash, lucky guy. In case you don't remember people where buying three and four copies of everything. Comics where for investment and not for reading back then. I wonder how many copies of the Death of Superman or Spiderman's wedding where published. When the bottom fell out both Marvel and DC almost went belly up. I hope them well.
Your post it the reason why they will not "admit it". I am guessing that the 360 REV works just fine for 99.9% of the people that own one. Some people may not dust enough or cover the vents or goodness knows what and they are overheating. So to IMPROVE the product they are increasing the heat sinks. When a machine comes in for repairs they are putting on the better heat sinks. If they say that some people are having issues then everybody and their dog will want to send in there 360 to get the new heat sinks even if they have never had a problem. OR some lawyer will pull a class action suit on Microsoft.
I don't love Microsoft but I grew up in Vero Beach, the home of Piper Aircraft. I saw them just about ran out of business because of stupid law suits.
The worst example I saw was when a man landed a 1946 Cub in someone pasture without permission. He was trespassing. The owner of the property called the cops and drove his mini van out into the field to block the guy from leaving. The idiot pilot tried to take off anyway and hit the van and got hurt. He sued Piper and won because his 1946 Cub's seat belts didn't meet current safety standards. The Judge in the case ruled that just because a company meets all federal safety regulations doesn't mean that it isn't libel for injuries. One of the things that they brought up in the trial was that that Piper sent out a recommendation to upgrade the safety belt mountings in older aircraft! Yea so we now live in the world of admit nothing! I know I feel so much safer thanks to protection I get from lawyers.
"I have a vested interest in other people using Linux. The more people using it, the more likely it is that software will be released for it. Likewise with the Wii or PS3." So if Linux declines in popularity move to a new OS. If the Wii doesn't get all the game you want then buy a 360 or PS3 when the price comes down. Heck I have a GC, PS2, Wii, and a Dreamcast. They are all a lot of fun and I got them all cheap. Only the GC is now useless. Your vested interest is only the cost of a console or in the case of Linux 0 since it is free. Even the price of the console is questionable do you like the game you have for it? Did you get your money worth yet? If not then yea some new games would be nice but when do you hit break even. I really like Linux and I do make an effort to inform people of it's benefits but if they choose Windows or a Mac then okay fine. I use Windows to play games all the time. The only reason I don't have a Mac is because of the cost. I don't need a new system right now.
I go to church every Sunday. I often get challenged on why I go to that church. Why should I care what anybody else things about my choice in religion? Why should I care if you use a Mac or Windows or Linux. BTW the Mac is a very good system. Windows XP isn't that bad and frankly it is currently the best choice for gaming and CAD. I think Linux is a much better choice for a server than the Mac and or Windows and for a lot of people can make very good desktop.
Why defend your choice? Why should you have to? You see the parallels with religion we are getting? Those that challenge others all the time like you describe have some deep seeded fear that they are wrong. It is almost like they fear you for not agreeing with them. As for me I will continue to play Mario Party 8, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, program on my Linux system, and go to my church on Sunday. Hope you enjoy your choices in life as much as I do mine.
PVC is fine for short term storage. It does release chlorine over time so for very long time storage it isn't great. Very long term storage is a difficult problem. How to keep something for 100 or even 500 years isn't simple. There are some dry regions of Antarctica that would be ideal for storing some material for a few centuries or so. Very low temps, very little water or humidity, and no people. The trick would be to find some good containers for what you are storing. clay pots seem to work pretty well.
Fanboy seem to be looking for a replacement for religion. I mean okay you like your PS3 or Wii but why do you care if anybody else does? Same for Apple, Windows, or Linux. I think part of it is defending your choice. People like to be right so if you bought a Wii instead of a PS3 you can feel that you are better or smarter than those that bought a PS3. If you bought a PS3 you might feel that people are insulating you be cause they are taking such glee in the lack luster sales of the PS3 so you defend it.
Frankly I find it depressing that people are now identifying themselves with some marketing juggernaut like Sony, Apple, Microsoft, AMD, Intel, and or Nintendo in place of some spiritual or ethical framework. Oh and before anyone makes some comment about killing for religion how many people got shot or hurt trying to get a PS3? "It benefits a man not, too sell his soul for the whole world, but for a gaming console..."
Ummm... Just how many people around the world use Opera on their cell phones but have never seen it on a PC? A lot of people use Treos and most of those don't run IE. The W models do now but a lot of them don't. If that is the reason Apple did it then it was a blunder of and epic level. Safari on the PC is currently inferior to IE and FF! It doesn't look like a native application. It lacks a spell checker. It lacks ad blocking. Love it or hate it it doesn't use Windows font rendering. It didn't import any of my bookmarks. No Linux Version unless you count Konqure.
If you think I hate Safari on Windows you are wrong. It does seem to run javascript heavy sites very fast and I have not had any real compatibility issues with it. It looks like it has a very standards complaint rendering engine as well. It may get people coding for standards instead of IE. Firefox has helped with that a lot but there are still idiots that code only for IE!
So why Safari? My guess is to offer a Windows environment for widget development but also to give Microsoft a poke in the eye for dropping IE for the Mac. Consider this a shot over the bow warning Microsoft that if they snub the Mac enough that Apple will start attacking Microsoft on their home turf. Maybe Apple is working on an Office killer? Microsoft is having enough trouble with OO.org. Imagine if Apple started improving OO? Vista is a disappointment, I don't think the latest and greatest office is setting the world on fire, the Zune isn't making big headway with the iPod crowd, and the new IE while an improvement isn't a FF killer. The last thing Microsoft needs is Apple adding it's talent to OO.org!
I keep hoping that Apple will fix the problems so that we do have a lovely third browser choice for Windows.
Dude in Korea only old people use the phrase "n Soviet Russia, I, for one, welcome the eight core overlords who imagine running beowulf clusters of these running Linux which review YOU!"
You are a prime example of only seeing what you want to see. Read the last line of my post.
I would to see all whaling stop but the Inuit's are the least of the problem. The rest was a hit to the people that idealize other cultures. I am part Native American and when I hear the dream like description of my own people I just want to smack them around.
What was great back then is that the magazines would expose you to things you never would have looked at on your own. I first learned about Object Oriented Programing by reading the SmallTalk issue of Byte. I got interested in this really cool OS called Unix by reading about it in Byte. Yes Blogs can do the same thing now but let's face it 99.999% of all blogs are worth exactly what you pay for them. Slashdot is the closest thing to Byte I have found in a while but it lacks the editorial control that Byte had. Just look at how many misleading head lines you get. That and Byte was just about computers and didn't have any political content. I love the Internet for looking things up but yes I miss Byte.
"or any animal for that matter" No there isn't. Not unless you just import all your food from other places and use a lot of fossil fuels to do it. Whaling I can do without. I don't hunt because I don't consider it a "sport" and I don't have to. There are those that do have to hunt and when done responsibly is probably less harmful to the environment than farming usually is.
But this is part of there culture. It isn't a bunch of red necks out for a deer hunt. Only Native Americans can hunt Whales in the US. Maybe you should bet upset and stop Japan and the other countries that still whale first? After all these are Native Americans you know the group that respects the environment and was oppressed by the white man.
BTW I really think that we could get along just fine without any whaling but this they is the least offensive IMHO.
Well I know that GE and Pratt and Whitney can make mono crystalline metals so I was thinking AL but I am not up on the number if isotopes and how hard it is to purify it. Of course the technical challenges of this are just huge. How do you deal with expansion due to heat when machining the sphere? What about warping of the sphere during machining? This is going to take a long time. They are not going to throw this on a mill and punch in a CNC program.
I am not sure what part of CentOS isn't open source but it does use YUM client side updates management. Not only that but there was an Asterisk CD based on it that was very nice. Maybe I am soured on Fedora because I have a Fedora box that is needs a fresh install done on it because security updates are not available for it anymore. Plus I think CentOS is a great disto that doesn't get the "buzz' it deserves. Another suggestion from a marketing point of view is what about Mac OS/X? Your system is web based so it should run just fine on a Mac server. I get the feeling that Mac is under severed in the accounting market. When you are small, exploiting niches that others are ignoring is a good way to build a base of users.
Frankly the CD install would be my preferred method as a customer and my least preferred if it was my business. It will be a support nightmare. That is one of the problems with Linux what to do if somebody wants to use Teddybear Linux or some other silliness. I would also kill the idea of Fedora for the install CD Fedora changes to often. I think CentOS is a better choice since it is based off Red Hat Enterprise and will have much longer life the Fedora 7.
I would also be tempted to offer it as a hosted service. Find a good Host and put it on-line and charge their credit cards. Just be sure that you can keep it secure and available. If you do it well I really thing you could have a big success but My biggest suggestion is SELL IT! Yes make it open source but sell it like it was an off the self traditional program. The people that will get value from it being open source will know it is Open Source and those that don't care will not be scared off or think it is a hobby project. Oh and change the name it isn't sexy enough. LedgerSMB just doesn't sound as friendly as Peachtree or as high tech as SAGE. How about CashCow;) Good I hate marketing but frankly it is important. All the luck.
Okay how is threading not parallel processing? One of the great difficulties of the Cell is asymmetrical in nature. With a Cell you have to do a lot more resource management than with symmetrical multiprocessor system. I have not worked with the Cell but some of the issues I could see cropping up is that it maybe a little light in none floating point resources. With only one PPC core there may be issues with keeping all the SPEs busy. The 360 is no slouch when it comes to floating point but has a lot more general purpose CPU power than the PS3. The PS3 will kill the 360 in things like transcoding video but the 360 maybe a better mix of capabilities than the PS3.
Well I wonder why SI? is it because it is easy to measure the density of SI? or is it easy to make a sample with only a single isotope of SI? I would think that you would want to use least dense material you could from in a mono crystalline block. If your machining process is accurate to +-X then the bigger the sphere the more accurate it will be based by percentage.
Slashdot Mirror
"You list "does not look like a native app" as a Safari disadvantage. This is surely an advantage."
Not at all. There are things about the Mac GUI I really do like less than Windows. Resizing windows only from the bottom right corner is one of them.
Mac apps do work very well on OS/X but since you don't have all of OS/X running on Windows Safari is crippled.
It just doesn't work as well on a Windows box as a Windows application. That and it looks totally different. Safari sticks out like a sore thumb. It is worse at integrating than most Java apps.
"Opera is way ahead of IE, but is not up there with Safari on iphone." I don't know since I don't have an iphone, do you? I will bet that Safari on the iphone will be very good.
I agree that most mobile browsers don't offer the same utility as a full PC browser but I was questioning the need to get people used to Safari. I don't think people are going to steer clear of the iphone because it doesn't run IE as somebody posted. Frankly only the cost will keep people away from it. That I will not do business with Cingular/AT&T. They are anti net neutrality and there behavior towards the people of New Orleans after Katrina was horrible. They and Verizon are not going to get my money anytime soon.
"What are you, stupid? "
No I have been around computers for a long time.
I started with a C64 and then MS-DOS and then Amiga, then back to MS-DOS, the Windows, and now Windows and Linux.
In forming people of the benefits of an operating system or program is one thing. Having an emotional investment is another.
Hell the Amiga ran in 512k. multitasked, had a GUI, sound support, and cost less than a PC of the same power.
It failed because of marketing. I hope Linux is around for a while but frankly not forever. Every major change in OS's allows for innovation. I sure don't want Windows to be the end of the road. Yes OS's can evolve but that is limited by backward compatibility. I good example of that are commands like ls, mv, cp, and rm in Linux. They are two letters because they where created in the days of teletypes instead of video terminals. If they where ever replaced the cry would deafen you and I. What is worse is I would be one of the ones crying the loudest.
Yes a fresh start is sometimes a very good thing.
"Well , cutting edge for 1990. If thats the best it can do on a supercomputer it doesn't bode well for your average PC!"
Super computers don't run GUIs. That is for visualization workstations.
"Has it broken any new ground with any new operating paradigms? (Thats a genuine question , I don't know)."
Yes I suggest you go learn a lot more about it before posting in blatant ignorance.
Plan 9 is a distributed operating system. It uses clusters of servers to act as application servers, storage servers, and IO servers. It is ideal for clustered systems with hundreds or thousands of cores! Guess what Blue Genie is?
Supercomputers usually lack a traditional gui. They depend on workstations to handle any visual interface. They are all about speed and nothing else. Your comment about a less than pretty GUI on a supercomputer is about as useful as complaining about the crappy stereo in a formula one car.
Is Plan 9 important? Well since it looks as if cores are going to start multiplying at a Moore's law like rate then the answer is most likely yes.
I agree that email should require a court order for the police to search it however just as two people holding a conversation in a public place have no expectations of privacy the same is true of email.
At my office we just got an email from a customer and she included her credit card number in the EMAIL! No we didn't tell her to send it but I hope like heck that she doesn't read this story and think that it is alright to do in the future!
Yea so you can go to jail for just having an Ethernet sniffer!
Really people should have the same expectation of privacy in an email as they do with a postcard. None at all.
It is clear text.
Marvel and DC both almost went belly up after the great Comic book crash.
I had a friend that owned a comic store back then. He got out just before the crash, lucky guy.
In case you don't remember people where buying three and four copies of everything. Comics where for investment and not for reading back then. I wonder how many copies of the Death of Superman or Spiderman's wedding where published. When the bottom fell out both Marvel and DC almost went belly up.
I hope them well.
iWork lacks a spreadsheet and database. Not really in the same category as OO or Office.
Your post it the reason why they will not "admit it".
I am guessing that the 360 REV works just fine for 99.9% of the people that own one. Some people may not dust enough or cover the vents or goodness knows what and they are overheating. So to IMPROVE the product they are increasing the heat sinks. When a machine comes in for repairs they are putting on the better heat sinks.
If they say that some people are having issues then everybody and their dog will want to send in there 360 to get the new heat sinks even if they have never had a problem. OR some lawyer will pull a class action suit on Microsoft.
I don't love Microsoft but I grew up in Vero Beach, the home of Piper Aircraft. I saw them just about ran out of business because of stupid law suits.
The worst example I saw was when a man landed a 1946 Cub in someone pasture without permission. He was trespassing. The owner of the property called the cops and drove his mini van out into the field to block the guy from leaving. The idiot pilot tried to take off anyway and hit the van and got hurt. He sued Piper and won because his 1946 Cub's seat belts didn't meet current safety standards. The Judge in the case ruled that just because a company meets all federal safety regulations doesn't mean that it isn't libel for injuries. One of the things that they brought up in the trial was that that Piper sent out a recommendation to upgrade the safety belt mountings in older aircraft!
Yea so we now live in the world of admit nothing! I know I feel so much safer thanks to protection I get from lawyers.
"I have a vested interest in other people using Linux. The more people using it, the more likely it is that software will be released for it. Likewise with the Wii or PS3."
So if Linux declines in popularity move to a new OS. If the Wii doesn't get all the game you want then buy a 360 or PS3 when the price comes down.
Heck I have a GC, PS2, Wii, and a Dreamcast. They are all a lot of fun and I got them all cheap.
Only the GC is now useless.
Your vested interest is only the cost of a console or in the case of Linux 0 since it is free. Even the price of the console is questionable do you like the game you have for it? Did you get your money worth yet? If not then yea some new games would be nice but when do you hit break even. I really like Linux and I do make an effort to inform people of it's benefits but if they choose Windows or a Mac then okay fine. I use Windows to play games all the time. The only reason I don't have a Mac is because of the cost. I don't need a new system right now.
I go to church every Sunday. I often get challenged on why I go to that church. Why should I care what anybody else things about my choice in religion? Why should I care if you use a Mac or Windows or Linux. BTW the Mac is a very good system. Windows XP isn't that bad and frankly it is currently the best choice for gaming and CAD. I think Linux is a much better choice for a server than the Mac and or Windows and for a lot of people can make very good desktop.
Why defend your choice? Why should you have to? You see the parallels with religion we are getting? Those that challenge others all the time like you describe have some deep seeded fear that they are wrong. It is almost like they fear you for not agreeing with them.
As for me I will continue to play Mario Party 8, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, program on my Linux system, and go to my church on Sunday.
Hope you enjoy your choices in life as much as I do mine.
There is a difference between saying I think x is better because and being an avid fanboy.
PVC is fine for short term storage. It does release chlorine over time so for very long time storage it isn't great.
Very long term storage is a difficult problem. How to keep something for 100 or even 500 years isn't simple.
There are some dry regions of Antarctica that would be ideal for storing some material for a few centuries or so. Very low temps, very little water or humidity, and no people. The trick would be to find some good containers for what you are storing.
clay pots seem to work pretty well.
Well you are kind of right. Concrete isn't water proof. Anybody with a basement knows that.
Fanboy seem to be looking for a replacement for religion. I mean okay you like your PS3 or Wii but why do you care if anybody else does? Same for Apple, Windows, or Linux.
I think part of it is defending your choice. People like to be right so if you bought a Wii instead of a PS3 you can feel that you are better or smarter than those that bought a PS3. If you bought a PS3 you might feel that people are insulating you be cause they are taking such glee in the lack luster sales of the PS3 so you defend it.
Frankly I find it depressing that people are now identifying themselves with some marketing juggernaut like Sony, Apple, Microsoft, AMD, Intel, and or Nintendo in place of some spiritual or ethical framework. Oh and before anyone makes some comment about killing for religion how many people got shot or hurt trying to get a PS3?
"It benefits a man not, too sell his soul for the whole world, but for a gaming console..."
Ummm... Just how many people around the world use Opera on their cell phones but have never seen it on a PC? A lot of people use Treos and most of those don't run IE. The W models do now but a lot of them don't.
If that is the reason Apple did it then it was a blunder of and epic level.
Safari on the PC is currently inferior to IE and FF!
It doesn't look like a native application.
It lacks a spell checker.
It lacks ad blocking.
Love it or hate it it doesn't use Windows font rendering.
It didn't import any of my bookmarks.
No Linux Version unless you count Konqure.
If you think I hate Safari on Windows you are wrong. It does seem to run javascript heavy sites very fast and I have not had any real compatibility issues with it. It looks like it has a very standards complaint rendering engine as well.
It may get people coding for standards instead of IE. Firefox has helped with that a lot but there are still idiots that code only for IE!
So why Safari? My guess is to offer a Windows environment for widget development but also to give Microsoft a poke in the eye for dropping IE for the Mac. Consider this a shot over the bow warning Microsoft that if they snub the Mac enough that Apple will start attacking Microsoft on their home turf. Maybe Apple is working on an Office killer? Microsoft is having enough trouble with OO.org. Imagine if Apple started improving OO?
Vista is a disappointment, I don't think the latest and greatest office is setting the world on fire, the Zune isn't making big headway with the iPod crowd, and the new IE while an improvement isn't a FF killer. The last thing Microsoft needs is Apple adding it's talent to OO.org!
I keep hoping that Apple will fix the problems so that we do have a lovely third browser choice for Windows.
Dude in Korea only old people use the phrase "n Soviet Russia, I, for one, welcome the eight core overlords who imagine running beowulf clusters of these running Linux which review YOU!"
You are a prime example of only seeing what you want to see.
Read the last line of my post.
I would to see all whaling stop but the Inuit's are the least of the problem. The rest was a hit to the people that idealize other cultures. I am part Native American and when I hear the dream like description of my own people I just want to smack them around.
What was great back then is that the magazines would expose you to things you never would have looked at on your own. I first learned about Object Oriented Programing by reading the SmallTalk issue of Byte. I got interested in this really cool OS called Unix by reading about it in Byte. Yes Blogs can do the same thing now but let's face it 99.999% of all blogs are worth exactly what you pay for them.
Slashdot is the closest thing to Byte I have found in a while but it lacks the editorial control that Byte had. Just look at how many misleading head lines you get. That and Byte was just about computers and didn't have any political content.
I love the Internet for looking things up but yes I miss Byte.
"or any animal for that matter"
No there isn't. Not unless you just import all your food from other places and use a lot of fossil fuels to do it.
Whaling I can do without. I don't hunt because I don't consider it a "sport" and I don't have to. There are those that do have to hunt and when done responsibly is probably less harmful to the environment than farming usually is.
But this is part of there culture. It isn't a bunch of red necks out for a deer hunt. Only Native Americans can hunt Whales in the US.
Maybe you should bet upset and stop Japan and the other countries that still whale first?
After all these are Native Americans you know the group that respects the environment and was oppressed by the white man.
BTW I really think that we could get along just fine without any whaling but this they is the least offensive IMHO.
Well I know that GE and Pratt and Whitney can make mono crystalline metals so I was thinking AL but I am not up on the number if isotopes and how hard it is to purify it.
Of course the technical challenges of this are just huge. How do you deal with expansion due to heat when machining the sphere? What about warping of the sphere during machining? This is going to take a long time. They are not going to throw this on a mill and punch in a CNC program.
I am not sure what part of CentOS isn't open source but it does use YUM client side updates management. Not only that but there was an Asterisk CD based on it that was very nice.
Maybe I am soured on Fedora because I have a Fedora box that is needs a fresh install done on it because security updates are not available for it anymore. Plus I think CentOS is a great disto that doesn't get the "buzz' it deserves.
Another suggestion from a marketing point of view is what about Mac OS/X?
Your system is web based so it should run just fine on a Mac server. I get the feeling that Mac is under severed in the accounting market. When you are small, exploiting niches that others are ignoring is a good way to build a base of users.
Frankly the CD install would be my preferred method as a customer and my least preferred if it was my business. It will be a support nightmare. That is one of the problems with Linux what to do if somebody wants to use Teddybear Linux or some other silliness.
;) Good I hate marketing but frankly it is important.
I would also kill the idea of Fedora for the install CD Fedora changes to often. I think CentOS is a better choice since it is based off Red Hat Enterprise and will have much longer life the Fedora 7.
I would also be tempted to offer it as a hosted service. Find a good Host and put it on-line and charge their credit cards. Just be sure that you can keep it secure and available.
If you do it well I really thing you could have a big success but My biggest suggestion is SELL IT!
Yes make it open source but sell it like it was an off the self traditional program. The people that will get value from it being open source will know it is Open Source and those that don't care will not be scared off or think it is a hobby project.
Oh and change the name it isn't sexy enough. LedgerSMB just doesn't sound as friendly as Peachtree or as high tech as SAGE. How about CashCow
All the luck.
Okay how is threading not parallel processing?
One of the great difficulties of the Cell is asymmetrical in nature. With a Cell you have to do a lot more resource management than with symmetrical multiprocessor system. I have not worked with the Cell but some of the issues I could see cropping up is that it maybe a little light in none floating point resources. With only one PPC core there may be issues with keeping all the SPEs busy.
The 360 is no slouch when it comes to floating point but has a lot more general purpose CPU power than the PS3. The PS3 will kill the 360 in things like transcoding video but the 360 maybe a better mix of capabilities than the PS3.
Well I wonder why SI? is it because it is easy to measure the density of SI? or is it easy to make a sample with only a single isotope of SI?
I would think that you would want to use least dense material you could from in a mono crystalline block. If your machining process is accurate to +-X then the bigger the sphere the more accurate it will be based by percentage.