This is just a tiny fraction of boardgames available online. See a whole host of Online Boardgames at Board Game Geek in the following list...and elsewhere on the site:
Bruce Sterling has collection of short stories in the book "A Good Old-fashioned Future". The lead in story, 'Maneki Neko,' describes such a world. Even if this wasn't a good story that ties in well to the primary subject, it would still be a very good collection of 'just over the horizon' sci-fi.....a very difficult thing to do.
From 'Maneki Neko':
"[...] I've been sudying your outfit for a long time now. We computer cops have names for your kind of people. Digital panarchies. Segmented, polycephalous, integrated influence networks. [...]"
Tsuyoshi blinked. "Look, I don't anything about all that. I'm just living my life."
"Well, your network gift economy is undermining the lawful, government-approved, regulated economy!"
"Well," Tsuyoshi said gently, "maybe my economy is better than your economy."
(the above reprinted with absolutely no permissions from the author, publisher, or any one else that matters but the little voice inside my head)
Raid 1/0 with plaid striping (the process of saying Block1=diskA, block2=diskB, block3=diskC, block4=diskA) has got Raid 5 beat down for both writes AND reads for exactly the reason you stated...."more spindles active". Standard RAID 1/0 does say 'fill disk A, then overflow into B, then into C', but that is what plaid striping is for.
If you have the money for the hard drives, since we are still talking a RAID 1 (read: double your hard drives, double your fun) based solution, then there is NO reason not to use 1/0 plaid. Why accept the myth that the hard drive HAS to be the bottle neck for transactions? And there is nothing quite like running an 'ls' and seeing a whole panel of drives light up.
A A A A A : RAID 0/1
B B B B B
and
A B C D E : RAID 1/0
A B C D E
In the first case, I can lose any number of A -OR- any number of B and still be good, but if I lose 1 A and 1 B...toasted data.
In the second case, unless I lose a mirrored pair (Both A's), I don't lose data. I can lose A1, B2, C2, D1, and E2 (or any other non-paired disks) and still operate without data loss.
Now, you wanna get really kicking? Add in plaid striping so your filesystems are build with block1=A, block2=B, block3=C, block4=D, block5=E, block6=A....etc. Now, if you do any reads or writes, you share your load across EVERY spindle in your hard drive set. Suddenly, your Fibre connection to the Raid array may be your bottleneck (PS. From real world experience using multiple 30 disk set (2x14 + 2 hot spare) Clariions for a bruiser of a server.)
And the more drives you run, the less 0/1 makes sense......do you really want to rebuild that 50 disk Raid 0 from your mirrored set of 50 during production hours and cause the kind of load associated with a rebuild, since you only lost 1 disk? Or would you rather rebuild ONE disk from it's DIRECT mirror and then sync in with the rest of the 50 disks in the RAID 0 group?
In real world, nothing beats a RAID 1/0 Plaid stripe monster. And nothing beats running 'ls' and seeing 112 disks light up.
-- My personal bias, YMMV --
Having used both IBM's TSM/ADSM (Tivoli Storage Manager) and Legato's Networker application, I FULLY recommend Legato for this purpose (or any environment with more than 5 servers). Remember, unless stated otherwise, this is IMHO.
PROs:
1) scheduled full backups (TSM uses a full incremental package, only "full" is your first run)
2) Better user interface (layout) (TYPES -- Legato: Unix-X/cli, Win32-gui/cli TSM: Unix-cli, Any-http)
3) Better/more complete client/group/schedule configuration
4) Interwoven, multi-session push to device (not single threaded)
5) Can get site license (maybe w/TSM too?)
6) GREAT spin up time for even moderately tech person ('tier 1' (gen. operational support) in 1week, 'tier 2' (installs/restores/basic troubleshooting) in ~1-3 months, YMMV)
7) Others I'm not thinking of
CONs:
1) BOTH: Complete lack of metrics/reporting characteristics (Legato allows for a '@completionDO' script execution, so think DB....)
2) TSM has a more complete Table of Contents/Index while viewing Volumes in GUI(Legato needs restore initiation to read TOC)
3) LEGATO: Client interface is a "canary in a coal mine". If there are issues causing slowdowns, you often see it first in the interfaces.
4) BOTH: Media management for offsite. TSM has DRM (Disaster Recovery Manager) which apparently makes it easier to deal with, but Legato (I think) has a media management program called AlphaStor(?) that is supposed to be end-all/be-all (nothing like marketing, ehhh?).
5) Others I'm not thinking of
Overall, I have not have as 'happy' a time working with TSM as I have had with Legato. I'm sure that someone who is more comfortable with TSM could/would have counters to some of the TSM apparent shortcomings, and I welcome hearing about them. But having been pitched in the deep end in an environment of Legato and TSM, and mostly learning as I go, Legato is working out better for me.
Lastly, having NOT worked with Veritas NetBackup, but having talked to some who have, the biggest complaint I have heard involved convoluted, non-intuitive user interface and assumed Looooooong spin-up times to reach operational support levels. In this particular case, I was told by someone with 2 backup products under their belt that it would take them at least one month to reach the point of being able to do general operational support.......and 37 different active views/interfaces to the application.
I do not speak for my team, my company, my government, my race, or, sometimes, myself. Please insert 'Large Grain o'Salt'(TM) in mouth at this time.
Still run it. Still build new, harder, better tracks with the track editor. The most 'deadly' track so far I have only managed to actually finish (>8minutes) twice. And the computer player crashes in the first jump...it's wicked.
"It's like saying Marijuana is the same thing as Heroin. It doesn't make marijuana "worse", it implies that heroin is somehow no more or less acceptable."
But isn't that exactly what the War on Drugs and DARE and the rest say... Weed == Heroin == Ecstacy == Crack == evil and addicting and bad for you and nasty nasty nasty. IF Weed == Heroin THEN "Well," says the experimenting 14-year old, "I've smoked pot and I'm just fine and I'm not addicted or anything and it was fine and I had fun. Therefore, 'They' lied to me and 'Their' position is weakened. So, let's try some Heroin...it's probably about the same as Weed right? I mean, 'They' say Weed == Heroin."
Now, some people will say "See, Marijuana is a Gateway drug" from this arguement. And they are right. But for all the wrong reasons. Marijuana is NOT a gateway drug because it "leads to harder drug use." It is a gateway drug because we LIE to children about it and they KNOW it. And if we lie about weed, how do they know we aren't lying about Heroin? How can ANYTHING be taken with the same level of trust once the lies begin to be revealed? "Did they lie about sex? AIDS? Hackers? Terrorists? Santa Claus?......Well, I choose not to believe any of it."
Is it any wonder the logic chain we depend on results in an increase in the worst elements when we make them equivalent to the most minor? In line with the/. main thread, talk about hacking == coding hack tools == posting hack discussions == find hack vulnerabilities == using hack vulnerabilities == hack to own == hack to steal == hack to FUBAR. Is there any difference in this Brave New "War-on-the" World?
I don't know if a commentator actually made these comments in a recent broadcast or not....But the fact is, Gordan Sinclair has been dead for a while, the speech is almost 30 years old (1973), and was in regards to the Vietnam war (see the "draft-dodger" comments). I still agree with the sentiment, but it's better to know your facts.
DG (Data General) doesn't much matter any more anyway. Since EMC bought them out, they have elected to move away from the OS field and focus on hardware. Therfore, no more DG/UX. They are doing bug fixes and the like still, but they have no intention of going past the current 4.20 interation.
Speaking as a DG/UX admin with a MAJOR app at a big telco, I have to say I like the current crop (AV25000) of servers. The AV20k melted down on us during the testing phase(speaking of scale issues) and the 5900's we had just weren't juicy enuff (4x200 PPro vs AV25k's 8x550 P3). We went from 100% utilized boxen to a load == 1 machine set. Quite a difference, really. Of course, the.5TB setup in 2x28 disksets (2x14x2clariions) that are RAID 1/0 + plaid striping, are the real monsters of this server. I tell you, there's nothing like doing an 'cat/etc/passwd" in single user and seeing all disk lights hit "simultaneously". Ooooh baby.
Athalon 500 o/c to 650 from StepThermodynamics. Asus K7M MB, 256M (2x128) Kingston PC100 ECC
There were problems when we mixed and matched 128M of PC133 non-ECC w/ the 256ECC.....it didn't seem to like it. But there have never been any problems with the ECC and the Asus board for me.
Does anyone else here see a connection to the Pinkertons? They are supporting the powers that be (RIAA/MPAA/etc ~= "The Company"), or will be as soon as they are asked to. And who are they against, the masses (Napster clients ~= organized labor). And I'm guessing it is all about selling out to the highest bidder (not that THAT is a bad thing), not even the supposedly "lofty morals" of the original Pinkertons. It's nice to know that the investigative quality remains the same through the ages....get what you need to shut them down by any means neccessary.
BTW, I fully agree with all comments thus posted concerning NetPD (public dicks) and their violation of the Napster liscense agreements. May they rot.
It's linked off the above site, but you should check out Computers Divine:
http://www.computersdivine.com
They may want a touch more than I want to spend for their paint jobs (~$100USD)....but they also set up great custom fan/cooling systems for your system. WARNING: the website just kinda ugly, but the cooling system is great (thinking of sending my box in) and they have some of the cooler paint schemes I have seen yet.
Hell yes. I can live with the extra monsters dubbed in. I can live w/ Jabba (one of the most foul creatures eve) turned into a skinny cutesy reject from "A Bug's Life." But I absolutely can NOT handle Greedo firing and missing at 3 feet and Han "defending" himself after the fact. SCREW THAT!! Han shot first. It is the only way it can be. Now...is TPM a 'shot first' kinda movie or not? I fear the answer.
While the article was a well thought out and interesting look at Open Source/Free Software/et al, I can't help but get the Jonny-come-lately feeling about H2O. "Hi, we'd like to set up shop as your leaders and spiritual guidance counselors, which way to the podium?"
Not that I think the article is without merits. Oh no, it struck the head with the nail on many a point. The lack of future feature insight, our chaotic nature of development (benefits and penalties), the potential traps of "almost-open" licenses......none of which is exactly new news, but is here treated in a competent and clear cut overview.
Actually, of all of the ideas presented by this paper, only one really jumped out and grabbed me by the jugular. The creation of a repository for all once proprietary and now discarded software, which is growing almost as fast as the internet.
"Popular programs such as Sidekick, Xtree, EchoPro and soon, it is predicted, Eudora, are being thrown on the dustbin, forcing satisfied users to buy new software. H20 proposes becoming a standing repository for these programs by becoming the legal owner of the source code and, where possible, helping interested user groups to organize themselves to sustain legacy products."
Again, I think this is a great idea, and one that I feel could even be feasible(Hell, I'd LOVE to see this happening). However, to add this on top of the shaky pyramid of power that H2O is trying to build is overkill. "Not only do we want to influence you, but we want to posess all you used to hold near and dear." Say yes to legacy apps, but I'd have to say no to H2O.
Slashdot Mirror
I have not yet seen anyone point this person to some of the online implementations (commercial and OSS) of popular board games.
= view&listid=6451
Examples:
Settlers of Catan (http://www.s3dconnector.com/)
Ticket To Ride (http://www.ticket2ridegame.com/)
Lost Cities (http://www.flexgames.com/)
Dune (http://homepage.eircom.net/~monalisa/Dune/
Most require Java-enabled brower. Some have a downloadable binary for Wintel (or WINE...YMMV). All of them (that I have played) require mouse only to actually play the game.
This is just a tiny fraction of boardgames available online. See a whole host of Online Boardgames at Board Game Geek in the following list...and elsewhere on the site:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist.php3?action
Bruce Sterling has collection of short stories in the book "A Good Old-fashioned Future". The lead in story, 'Maneki Neko,' describes such a world. Even if this wasn't a good story that ties in well to the primary subject, it would still be a very good collection of 'just over the horizon' sci-fi.....a very difficult thing to do.
From 'Maneki Neko':
"[...] I've been sudying your outfit for a long time now. We computer cops have names for your kind of people. Digital panarchies. Segmented, polycephalous, integrated influence networks. [...]"
Tsuyoshi blinked. "Look, I don't anything about all that. I'm just living my life."
"Well, your network gift economy is undermining the lawful, government-approved, regulated economy!"
"Well," Tsuyoshi said gently, "maybe my economy is better than your economy."
(the above reprinted with absolutely no permissions from the author, publisher, or any one else that matters but the little voice inside my head)
Raid 1/0 with plaid striping (the process of saying Block1=diskA, block2=diskB, block3=diskC, block4=diskA) has got Raid 5 beat down for both writes AND reads for exactly the reason you stated...."more spindles active". Standard RAID 1/0 does say 'fill disk A, then overflow into B, then into C', but that is what plaid striping is for.
If you have the money for the hard drives, since we are still talking a RAID 1 (read: double your hard drives, double your fun) based solution, then there is NO reason not to use 1/0 plaid. Why accept the myth that the hard drive HAS to be the bottle neck for transactions? And there is nothing quite like running an 'ls' and seeing a whole panel of drives light up.
Actually, that's easy. Here are 2 layouts
A A A A A : RAID 0/1
B B B B B
and
A B C D E : RAID 1/0
A B C D E
In the first case, I can lose any number of A -OR- any number of B and still be good, but if I lose 1 A and 1 B...toasted data.
In the second case, unless I lose a mirrored pair (Both A's), I don't lose data. I can lose A1, B2, C2, D1, and E2 (or any other non-paired disks) and still operate without data loss.
Now, you wanna get really kicking? Add in plaid striping so your filesystems are build with block1=A, block2=B, block3=C, block4=D, block5=E, block6=A....etc. Now, if you do any reads or writes, you share your load across EVERY spindle in your hard drive set. Suddenly, your Fibre connection to the Raid array may be your bottleneck (PS. From real world experience using multiple 30 disk set (2x14 + 2 hot spare) Clariions for a bruiser of a server.)
And the more drives you run, the less 0/1 makes sense......do you really want to rebuild that 50 disk Raid 0 from your mirrored set of 50 during production hours and cause the kind of load associated with a rebuild, since you only lost 1 disk? Or would you rather rebuild ONE disk from it's DIRECT mirror and then sync in with the rest of the 50 disks in the RAID 0 group?
In real world, nothing beats a RAID 1/0 Plaid stripe monster. And nothing beats running 'ls' and seeing 112 disks light up.
-- My personal bias, YMMV --
Having used both IBM's TSM/ADSM (Tivoli Storage Manager) and Legato's Networker application, I FULLY recommend Legato for this purpose (or any environment with more than 5 servers). Remember, unless stated otherwise, this is IMHO.
PROs:
1) scheduled full backups (TSM uses a full incremental package, only "full" is your first run)
2) Better user interface (layout) (TYPES -- Legato: Unix-X/cli, Win32-gui/cli TSM: Unix-cli, Any-http)
3) Better/more complete client/group/schedule configuration
4) Interwoven, multi-session push to device (not single threaded)
5) Can get site license (maybe w/TSM too?)
6) GREAT spin up time for even moderately tech person ('tier 1' (gen. operational support) in 1week, 'tier 2' (installs/restores/basic troubleshooting) in ~1-3 months, YMMV)
7) Others I'm not thinking of
CONs:
1) BOTH: Complete lack of metrics/reporting characteristics (Legato allows for a '@completionDO' script execution, so think DB....)
2) TSM has a more complete Table of Contents/Index while viewing Volumes in GUI(Legato needs restore initiation to read TOC)
3) LEGATO: Client interface is a "canary in a coal mine". If there are issues causing slowdowns, you often see it first in the interfaces.
4) BOTH: Media management for offsite. TSM has DRM (Disaster Recovery Manager) which apparently makes it easier to deal with, but Legato (I think) has a media management program called AlphaStor(?) that is supposed to be end-all/be-all (nothing like marketing, ehhh?).
5) Others I'm not thinking of
Overall, I have not have as 'happy' a time working with TSM as I have had with Legato. I'm sure that someone who is more comfortable with TSM could/would have counters to some of the TSM apparent shortcomings, and I welcome hearing about them. But having been pitched in the deep end in an environment of Legato and TSM, and mostly learning as I go, Legato is working out better for me.
Lastly, having NOT worked with Veritas NetBackup, but having talked to some who have, the biggest complaint I have heard involved convoluted, non-intuitive user interface and assumed Looooooong spin-up times to reach operational support levels. In this particular case, I was told by someone with 2 backup products under their belt that it would take them at least one month to reach the point of being able to do general operational support.......and 37 different active views/interfaces to the application.
I do not speak for my team, my company, my government, my race, or, sometimes, myself. Please insert 'Large Grain o'Salt'(TM) in mouth at this time.
Still run it. Still build new, harder, better tracks with the track editor. The most 'deadly' track so far I have only managed to actually finish (>8minutes) twice. And the computer player crashes in the first jump...it's wicked.
"It's like saying Marijuana is the same thing as Heroin. It doesn't make marijuana "worse", it implies that heroin is somehow no more or less acceptable." /. main thread, talk about hacking == coding hack tools == posting hack discussions == find hack vulnerabilities == using hack vulnerabilities == hack to own == hack to steal == hack to FUBAR. Is there any difference in this Brave New "War-on-the" World?
But isn't that exactly what the War on Drugs and DARE and the rest say... Weed == Heroin == Ecstacy == Crack == evil and addicting and bad for you and nasty nasty nasty. IF Weed == Heroin THEN "Well," says the experimenting 14-year old, "I've smoked pot and I'm just fine and I'm not addicted or anything and it was fine and I had fun. Therefore, 'They' lied to me and 'Their' position is weakened. So, let's try some Heroin...it's probably about the same as Weed right? I mean, 'They' say Weed == Heroin."
Now, some people will say "See, Marijuana is a Gateway drug" from this arguement. And they are right. But for all the wrong reasons. Marijuana is NOT a gateway drug because it "leads to harder drug use." It is a gateway drug because we LIE to children about it and they KNOW it. And if we lie about weed, how do they know we aren't lying about Heroin? How can ANYTHING be taken with the same level of trust once the lies begin to be revealed? "Did they lie about sex? AIDS? Hackers? Terrorists? Santa Claus?......Well, I choose not to believe any of it."
Is it any wonder the logic chain we depend on results in an increase in the worst elements when we make them equivalent to the most minor? In line with the
I don't know if a commentator actually made these comments in a recent broadcast or not....But the fact is, Gordan Sinclair has been dead for a while, the speech is almost 30 years old (1973), and was in regards to the Vietnam war (see the "draft-dodger" comments). I still agree with the sentiment, but it's better to know your facts.
http://www.snopes2.com/quotes/sinclair.htm
DG (Data General) doesn't much matter any more anyway. Since EMC bought them out, they have elected to move away from the OS field and focus on hardware. Therfore, no more DG/UX. They are doing bug fixes and the like still, but they have no intention of going past the current 4.20 interation. .5TB setup in 2x28 disksets (2x14x2clariions) that are RAID 1/0 + plaid striping, are the real monsters of this server. I tell you, there's nothing like doing an 'cat /etc/passwd" in single user and seeing all disk lights hit "simultaneously". Ooooh baby.
Speaking as a DG/UX admin with a MAJOR app at a big telco, I have to say I like the current crop (AV25000) of servers. The AV20k melted down on us during the testing phase(speaking of scale issues) and the 5900's we had just weren't juicy enuff (4x200 PPro vs AV25k's 8x550 P3). We went from 100% utilized boxen to a load == 1 machine set. Quite a difference, really. Of course, the
Athalon 500 o/c to 650 from StepThermodynamics. Asus K7M MB, 256M (2x128) Kingston PC100 ECC
There were problems when we mixed and matched 128M of PC133 non-ECC w/ the 256ECC.....it didn't seem to like it. But there have never been any problems with the ECC and the Asus board for me.
Does anyone else here see a connection to the Pinkertons? They are supporting the powers that be (RIAA/MPAA/etc ~= "The Company"), or will be as soon as they are asked to. And who are they against, the masses (Napster clients ~= organized labor). And I'm guessing it is all about selling out to the highest bidder (not that THAT is a bad thing), not even the supposedly "lofty morals" of the original Pinkertons. It's nice to know that the investigative quality remains the same through the ages....get what you need to shut them down by any means neccessary.
BTW, I fully agree with all comments thus posted concerning NetPD (public dicks) and their violation of the Napster liscense agreements. May they rot.
NetPD.....I'd hate to see the Gross.
http://www.computersdivine.com
They may want a touch more than I want to spend for their paint jobs (~$100USD)....but they also set up great custom fan/cooling systems for your system.
WARNING: the website just kinda ugly, but the cooling system is great (thinking of sending my box in) and they have some of the cooler paint schemes I have seen yet.
Hell yes. I can live with the extra monsters dubbed in. I can live w/ Jabba (one of the most foul creatures eve) turned into a skinny cutesy reject from "A Bug's Life." But I absolutely can NOT handle Greedo firing and missing at 3 feet and Han "defending" himself after the fact. SCREW THAT!! Han shot first. It is the only way it can be. Now...is TPM a 'shot first' kinda movie or not? I fear the answer.
While the article was a well thought out and interesting look at Open Source/Free Software/et al, I can't help but get the Jonny-come-lately feeling about H2O. "Hi, we'd like to set up shop as your leaders and spiritual guidance counselors, which way to the podium?"
Not that I think the article is without merits. Oh no, it struck the head with the nail on many a point. The lack of future feature insight, our chaotic nature of development (benefits and penalties), the potential traps of "almost-open" licenses......none of which is exactly new news, but is here treated in a competent and clear cut overview.
Actually, of all of the ideas presented by this paper, only one really jumped out and grabbed me by the jugular. The creation of a repository for all once proprietary and now discarded software, which is growing almost as fast as the internet.
"Popular programs such as Sidekick, Xtree, EchoPro and soon, it is predicted, Eudora, are being thrown on the dustbin, forcing satisfied users to buy new software. H20 proposes becoming a standing repository for these programs by becoming the legal owner of the source code and, where possible, helping interested user groups to organize themselves to sustain legacy products."
Again, I think this is a great idea, and one that I feel could even be feasible(Hell, I'd LOVE to see this happening). However, to add this on top of the shaky pyramid of power that H2O is trying to build is overkill. "Not only do we want to influence you, but we want to posess all you used to hold near and dear." Say yes to legacy apps, but I'd have to say no to H2O.