I just installed my first Linux system, Mandrake 8.1 on a Compaq Athlon and after fighting different hardware issues, finaly got it running (although not shutting down properly).
"Cool" I thought, now let's get Seti@Home running. Boom. There's no evident way of installing apps. No error messages, it just. doesn't. run.
My Microsoft worshiping brother is looking over my shoulder chuckling madly. His opinion of Linux after watching me for an evening: "It's... quaint."
The problem is "most people don't care". Add to that, that I care, but I've got all these PCs with Windows already running fine (well as good as we all know it does), and to make the jump to Linux, I've got this huge f'in unknown facing me. I need to repartition my drive, I've got to run this installer, I've got to f'in dig around in different mysterious software packages. Sorry. I've got a copy of Red Hat gathering dust. And pleeze don't tell me "Oh it's not that bad." I can same the same about the major abdominal surgery I had six weeks ago... because it's all behind me.
If I saw a comercial distribution that said "We make it easy to switch. Put our disk in and in 30 minutes you'll have Linux running and optimized, without disturbing your Windows environment." I'd be on that like a buzzard on a gut wagon.
Looks to my math addled mind that with the company specs "This device operates at 350mA and 3.2Vf" you're looking at 1,000 lumens for about 60 watts of input power.
Even assuming that all it was putting out was 60 watts worth of heat (and no light), it seems pretty sweet compared to halogen solutions.
The problem I had with dotcomscoop.com was they started off with an informative article then slid off into a conspiracy story with lots of allegations of evil done by AT&T. Frankly I thought it was horse puckey.
I used it for five months before those cretins at Wireless Web Connect seriously ticked me off and I cancelled my account.
The data transfer rate was bursty, latency was around 300ms, there were only a few sweet spots around the neighborhood that it worked well in, and logging in was a slow pain in the ass.
But it was so unutterably cool to be tooling down the road with my brother in his car, have a question requiring web access to answer, and whipping out a Compaq iPAQ and getting the answer in a minutes time.
I can't believe cities wouldn't kill for the capacity to install wireless security cameras just about any place they choose, and have live police and fire video feeds available for each fire truck/police car in the fleet, as well as having internet access for disaster recovery personnel.
It just breaks my heart seeing those lonely little Ricochet boxes sitting up on light poles with no one to talk to. This is a case where I think the feds should have stepped up to the plate and bought the damned thing to keep it running, and expanded the system for all major urban areas.
What I really hope and pray for now is Teledesic. I have no idea how viable they are as a company at the moment, but a constellation of low Earth orbiting high speed Internet satellites is just too sweet to not lust for.
I bet there's a whole bunch of people overseas in the armed forces that wishes it were operational too.
I'd be surprised if you *have* to run it at full power. It sounds interesting for keeping the coach batteries charged, running the satellite dish and TV, internal and external lights, plus laptop. Not to mention running the furnace fan, as well as suplying fresh, hot water. If you could get 150 watts 24 hours a day, I'd be a really happy camper.
I really want to know what they're using for the hydrogen source. Conventional pressure tanks don't hold enough hydrogen gas to provide very much power.
I've wanted a computer that can speak with HAL's voice like, well since 1968.
I hope hope hope whomever holds the rights to 2001 allows a HAL voice to be sold.
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I just installed my first Linux system, Mandrake 8.1 on a Compaq Athlon and after fighting different hardware issues, finaly got it running (although not shutting down properly).
"Cool" I thought, now let's get Seti@Home running. Boom. There's no evident way of installing apps. No error messages, it just. doesn't. run.
My Microsoft worshiping brother is looking over my shoulder chuckling madly. His opinion of Linux after watching me for an evening: "It's... quaint."
The problem is "most people don't care". Add to that, that I care, but I've got all these PCs with Windows already running fine (well as good as we all know it does), and to make the jump to Linux, I've got this huge f'in unknown facing me. I need to repartition my drive, I've got to run this installer, I've got to f'in dig around in different mysterious software packages. Sorry. I've got a copy of Red Hat gathering dust. And pleeze don't tell me "Oh it's not that bad." I can same the same about the major abdominal surgery I had six weeks ago... because it's all behind me.
If I saw a comercial distribution that said "We make it easy to switch. Put our disk in and in 30 minutes you'll have Linux running and optimized, without disturbing your Windows environment." I'd be on that like a buzzard on a gut wagon.
Looks to my math addled mind that with the company specs "This device operates at 350mA and 3.2Vf" you're looking at 1,000 lumens for about 60 watts of input power.
Even assuming that all it was putting out was 60 watts worth of heat (and no light), it seems pretty sweet compared to halogen solutions.
It's because you gentle folk are too civilized to riot from being bent over and rogered by, what is it, BT?
The problem I had with dotcomscoop.com was they started off with an informative article then slid off into a conspiracy story with lots of allegations of evil done by AT&T. Frankly I thought it was horse puckey.
I used it for five months before those cretins at Wireless Web Connect seriously ticked me off and I cancelled my account.
The data transfer rate was bursty, latency was around 300ms, there were only a few sweet spots around the neighborhood that it worked well in, and logging in was a slow pain in the ass.
But it was so unutterably cool to be tooling down the road with my brother in his car, have a question requiring web access to answer, and whipping out a Compaq iPAQ and getting the answer in a minutes time.
I can't believe cities wouldn't kill for the capacity to install wireless security cameras just about any place they choose, and have live police and fire video feeds available for each fire truck/police car in the fleet, as well as having internet access for disaster recovery personnel.
It just breaks my heart seeing those lonely little Ricochet boxes sitting up on light poles with no one to talk to. This is a case where I think the feds should have stepped up to the plate and bought the damned thing to keep it running, and expanded the system for all major urban areas.
What I really hope and pray for now is Teledesic. I have no idea how viable they are as a company at the moment, but a constellation of low Earth orbiting high speed Internet satellites is just too sweet to not lust for.
I bet there's a whole bunch of people overseas in the armed forces that wishes it were operational too.
I'd be surprised if you *have* to run it at full power. It sounds interesting for keeping the coach batteries charged, running the satellite dish and TV, internal and external lights, plus laptop. Not to mention running the furnace fan, as well as suplying fresh, hot water. If you could get 150 watts 24 hours a day, I'd be a really happy camper.
I really want to know what they're using for the hydrogen source. Conventional pressure tanks don't hold enough hydrogen gas to provide very much power.
I haven't bought from Amazon since they changed their privacy policy and looks like I won't be buying from Borders either.
I've wanted a computer that can speak with HAL's voice like, well since 1968. I hope hope hope whomever holds the rights to 2001 allows a HAL voice to be sold.