So do I (their website also looks very amateuristic), but it's interesting anyway (to me); it's not just the speed that makes this technology interesting.
I believe Starbridge Systems has already sold a supercomputer with a FPGA processor and is developing what they call "a new personal supercomputer that will change the PC industry forever". This has already been posted on/. before. Still very interesting though. They also say "SBS's Hypercomputer systems can emulate virtually any hardware, including other supercomputers", so running Linux or *BSD on it shouldn't be much of a problem:)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think since the Linux kernel is released under the GPL-license, all patches they make should be available publicly. With this in mind I think there's no way Linux will ever be running "better" on a certain brand of hardware. Even if IBM+Caldera would do something like that, neither of them will have any profit from it; who would buy a non-standard system with an OS that's just a little different from the standard? I wouldn't.
It's just like Compaq+Windows...most Compaq systems come (came) with a slightly altered version of windows98 and with a rescue-cdrom instead of the normal windows-cdrom. I just doesn't work as you'd like.
Just read the Diskless-HOWTO. It should come with your linux-distribution; usually it's located in/usr/doc. btw I have a bootrom-burner, so if you need a custom bootrom, just mail me.
I think most people who use pirated software won't spend money on software anyway; if they can get the software for free, they get it...if they cannot then they simply don't use it. Pirated software is usually not used because people need it, but because they happen to have it. Because of the fact that they won't spend money on it anyway, the company that produced it doesn't suffer from it.
I work at a major ISP in my country, and I can tell that most people connect at a nice 44000-48000 bps. Only the ones with bad telephone lines, long cables (more than 6 meter) and bad connectors connect at a lower speed. Maybe you should just have your phone-line checked; it's a bit lame to just blame 56k-modems in general. I do admit that I've never seen a 56K-modem connect at 56000bps; the highest stable connection that I've ever seen was 54000bps. I still think that is a real nice speed.
I think the prove is here http://uptime.hexon.cx. It's an open project to monitor the uptime of computer systems. Clients are available for various unix-tastes, Windows, BeOS and more. Over 200 boxes are in the list with their current uptime. The list clearly shows which platforms have the highest uptime, and thus are most stable.
Most of my friends disagreed with me, when I said that Melissa is just a macro in a word-document mailed by outlook express, and that it only uses the features that MS Word offers it. Everybody is free to choose to use MS Word, but if you choose to use it, I assume you agree with it's features and shortcomings. Therefore those users should not complain if the program is not doing what they want it to do. If they don't like it, they'd better use other software.
I know that most people aren't aware they have the choice to use other software, and neither are they aware that the software they use has certain flaws. I think that the problem here is not that someone wrote a naughty macro, but the lack of education about computer-security. This education would be rather easy; programs can just tell their users about what they're doing and what the consequenses of those actions are. Not only did the programmers use way too little of such warnings in their software, they also did not think about the consequences of creating such a powerfull macro-language, and therefore the source of the problem (virusses in common) are programmers that don't think about their work.
The fact that programs used by so many people have such a huge impact on society is rather scary. The only reason for this is the fact Microsoft has a monopoly on software that is used by unexperienced users. This problem can easily be solved if the computer-users would be better informed about what choices they have. I think that all the money that was spent by sewing Microsoft had better been spent on educating people about software from different manufacturers, a lot of problems would have been prevented. Maybe a driving-license for the internet would be nice....it would certainly save us from a lot of problems:)
Slashdot Mirror
So do I (their website also looks very amateuristic), but it's interesting anyway (to me); it's not just the speed that makes this technology interesting.
I believe Starbridge Systems has already sold a supercomputer with a FPGA processor and is developing what they call "a new personal supercomputer that will change the PC industry forever". This has already been posted on /. before. Still very interesting though. They also say "SBS's Hypercomputer systems can emulate virtually any hardware, including other supercomputers", so running Linux or *BSD on it shouldn't be much of a problem :)
"(...) yet most Linux/FreeBSD servers keep chugging right along."
Does anybody know how [Net/Open/Free]BSD would perform in such a test?
It's just like Compaq+Windows...most Compaq systems come (came) with a slightly altered version of windows98 and with a rescue-cdrom instead of the normal windows-cdrom. I just doesn't work as you'd like.
Just read the Diskless-HOWTO. It should come with your linux-distribution; usually it's located in /usr/doc. btw I have a bootrom-burner, so if you need a custom bootrom, just mail me.
I think most people who use pirated software won't spend money on software anyway; if they can get the software for free, they get it...if they cannot then they simply don't use it. Pirated software is usually not used because people need it, but because they happen to have it. Because of the fact that they won't spend money on it anyway, the company that produced it doesn't suffer from it.
I work at a major ISP in my country, and I can tell that most people connect at a nice 44000-48000 bps. Only the ones with bad telephone lines, long cables (more than 6 meter) and bad connectors connect at a lower speed. Maybe you should just have your phone-line checked; it's a bit lame to just blame 56k-modems in general. I do admit that I've never seen a 56K-modem connect at 56000bps; the highest stable connection that I've ever seen was 54000bps. I still think that is a real nice speed.
I think the prove is here http://uptime.hexon.cx. It's an open project to monitor the uptime of computer systems. Clients are available for various unix-tastes, Windows, BeOS and more. Over 200 boxes are in the list with their current uptime. The list clearly shows which platforms have the highest uptime, and thus are most stable.
Most of my friends disagreed with me, when I said that Melissa is just a macro in a word-document mailed by outlook express, and that it only uses the features that MS Word offers it. Everybody is free to choose to use MS Word, but if you choose to use it, I assume you agree with it's features and shortcomings. Therefore those users should not complain if the program is not doing what they want it to do. If they don't like it, they'd better use other software.
:)
I know that most people aren't aware they have the choice to use other software, and neither are they aware that the software they use has certain flaws. I think that the problem here is not that someone wrote a naughty macro, but the lack of education about computer-security. This education would be rather easy; programs can just tell their users about what they're doing and what the consequenses of those actions are. Not only did the programmers use way too little of such warnings in their software, they also did not think about the consequences of creating such a powerfull macro-language, and therefore the source of the problem (virusses in common) are programmers that don't think about their work.
The fact that programs used by so many people have such a huge impact on society is rather scary. The only reason for this is the fact Microsoft has a monopoly on software that is used by unexperienced users. This problem can easily be solved if the computer-users would be better informed about what choices they have. I think that all the money that was spent by sewing Microsoft had better been spent on educating people about software from different manufacturers, a lot of problems would have been prevented. Maybe a driving-license for the internet would be nice....it would certainly save us from a lot of problems