Note: I don't know how much this will affect me by reading the article, so that's why I'm asking.
Hrm. Interesting, as I live in Wisconsin (Wauwatosa/Milwaukee) and am about to start ordering the final major parts for my new machine (MB, CPU, RAM, Case).
I was thinking about a Soyo SY K7 Dragon Plus board, and was planning on dual booting Win2K (About 70GB on that partition) and Redhat or Slackware (the remaining 10GB on the disk). The rest of my system will include a GeForce3 or 4 based vid card, (sorry, not sure which brand yet), a DVD-CDRW or DVD-RW drive, a wacom tablet (graphire), and I'll probably use the Dragon Plus's onboard networking and sound features, at least for awhile. I doubt I'd have any IRQ conflicts really, but my question is do you think it's still a good board to order if all works well? (I'd definatly order from some place with at least a 3 year warranty) Also, am I going to run into any real problems with the current setup?
I wasn't really concerned with the CPU's lifetime, but rather other parts, most specifically the harddrive. Although I suppose it wouldn't matter if my hd suddenly stopped working since my files would be backed up on hundreds of other computers. woohoo. I just *love* the idea that someone else has my files on their machine, encrypted or not:P .
Anytime you have moving parts, they will break down over time. They tend to break down more the more they are in use. My biggest issue with control over resources is the sheer number of machines and purposes of the machines spread out over the distributed network. I also never said I would buy a computer to accomodate the distributed applications, it was kind of a rhetorical question- I should have said it more as "Why not get the cheapest computer and let everyone else's do the work?" Also, distributed.net is quite different than a distributed OS, so that analogy doesn't work any better than the car analogy. (Which was admittedly a little weak) Anyway, I guess I'll still stick to my way of doing things, if I get left in the dust, so be it.
I don't care how much or how little wear and tear. I don't like the idea of other people using my computer in any way. Also, think about it, if you used your computer 24 hours a day now, it could have a dramatic effect on the lifetime of your parts.
If I had control over who used my resources, I am sure I would share some of it with some people (or entities rather). I'd rather have SETI using my computer's power rather than someone who wants to watch a movie or play games, etc.
Also, if I buy a top of the line computer, why should I spend more when others can go out and get cheap ones and use my computing power?
Uh, it's not the same thing at all. When I buy hardware, I buy it for ME to use. Not everyone else. Same thing with a car. Would you want people using your car when you're not, and have to still cover all the maintance costs associated with it? Or buy all the gas for it? (Which is the equivalence of paying for the electricity bill)
Extraordinary parallel data transmission is possible with the Internet resource pool. Consider Mary's movie, being uploaded in fragments from perhaps 200 hosts. Each host may be a PC connected to the Internet by an antiquated 56k modem--far too slow to show a high-quality video--but combined they could deliver 10 megabits a second, better than a cable modem.
I suppose that's great and all, but what if Mary is on a 56k modem? Doesn't really help all that much. I do understand the point they're making though.
I personally don't like the idea of my OS being spread across multiple machines, or other people being able to use my computing power. If I'm not using my computer, I don't want others using it, reducing it's lifetime. I like knowing that everything I do is controlled by me, on my system. It's a little unnerving to think that my files would be distributed all around the world on other machines. (can we say security?) No thanks, I'll stick with how I'm setup now.
Well, I can understand it for sites that are laid out with a lot of broken up images in tables (ie: a page made up exclusively of images), but when I'm creating a simple site (which is usually the majority of the time), the extra tags are pointless- especially when the images are so small (file and pixel size) that they load in the blink of an eye. I guess what I really want is just a checkbox to put in that code automatically or remove it. I also guess I just whine too much when software doesn't conform to my every want and need;).
Regarding Flash, it should be used for one thing, and one thing only - Eye Candy. ( I should say that is should be eye candy that isn't forced upon the user) Don't use it to deliver content unless it's extremely well done and gives the user power to navigate through the flash anim to get what/where they want. Using Flash for most things is just a waste of time. It should be saved for creating animations that serve a purpose (such as showing the orbits of the planets on an educational site. There are exceptions of course, but usually the cool flash anims (like that one guys matrix-like animation (sorry, forget who it was and the URL) which are just fun to watch and created for fun.
Make it useable in Lynx or w3m.
I *never* design a site with Lynx in mind. Sorry, but not enough of the userbase that I design sites for uses Lynx, so therefor I don't worry about it.
Use a text editor. The HTML genrated by the fancy programs is abominable, often invalid and more and more seems to confuse browsers into taking long periods on unknown activity to render. Use standard HTML.
I use Dreamweaver 4, and as far as many of the other programs I've used, it generates the least garbage HTML, though it is still a must to go through the code by hand and clean it up. My biggest gripe with extra code seems to be that every HTML generator I've used insisted on placing the image size in the code, even if it's not supposed to be modified by the HTML.
Avoid silly backgrounds (or ANY backgrounds) and silly combinations of foreground and background colors.
Agreed, usually no background or a subtle one is best. If you must have a background, put your content in a table with a plain background and a textured background *outside* of the table. (If that makes sense)
Don't use frames unless you've got a good reason.
Again, agreed. I've never made a site that absolutely needed frames that couldn't be done with tables. It may make the site easier to create sometimes, but frames should rarely be used if at all. Frames can also take longer to render in some (if not all?) browsers.
Most important, pages should without a doubt, conform to W3C. There are a few exceptions, but they are rare. For example, I once worked on a site for a company internally that was to be viewed only on the network, and only from computers within the building. Since everyone used IE, I only had to worry about it conforming with IE. Oh, and let me tell you, that was the easiest designing a site has ever been, especially since everyone ran in one of 2 resolutions; 800x600 and 1024x768 (except for us in the graphics department). And I'm not saying it was easy because it was IE only, but because it only was ONE browser to worry about.
Not to mention... what is the maintenance cost of each? How many launches would it take to equal the cost of putting up a tower? (if it ever would equal out)
Like Caligari's trueSpace. What a shame that'd be though, but I couldn't afford any software for this machine, much less the machine itself.
Anyone see a price for it? I couldn't find it, but didn't look too hard.
I was pretty impressed, but not because this is a revolutionary idea or something that's shocking really, but because I've been looking all over for something like this. I'd probably never really get one, I just always thought having your machine built into your desk would help cut down space.
What about outside air? Like say a burst in the tank, and a nearby source to ignite the hydrogen, would the air surrounding it be enough to allow it to combust, or would the hydrogen simply spread out too quickly to really have any effect?
Nah, I haven't seen one spontaneously combust, and I'm sure with hydrogen it may not be a problem either, but I didn't know if there needed to be vastly different safety measures and the like.
If ignite hydrogen it goes up almost like a puff and then its gone.
What about compressed hydrogen in a can/bottle? If I recall right, doesn't hydrogen burn very quickly and rapidly, which would increase as it's compressed more and more? I'm no chemist, so I'd be very interested to know more.
Interesting idea..
I'm sure a bottle of pure hydrogen would be very explosive, as I assume it is contained under pressure. Not only would you have an explosion on your hands, but also shrapnel, but the very nature of this product could lead to much more substantial damage than losing your power source, such as computer/medical/emergency equipment blown to bits, or at least, shredded with holes.
You bring up a very good point, but I think with the world's (well, the US anyway (and haven't we already switched from the staple foods to chemical products? ie: McDonalds, Fritos/Dorritos, etc)) dependancy on fossil fuels, it would take quite awhile to really disrupt an oil based economy. That time would hopefully give oil-dependant nations time to turn their economies into something more profitable when and if there is a major change in power sources.
Also, is the oil economy really stable and secure? Seems to me, though I could be wrong, the oil producing countries and the respective buyers are quite volitile(sp) in their relations with different governments, especially the US. Or maybe it's just that the oil in the world contributes a stability and security to the global economy as a whole?
"oil first - the world later" Huh? What would G. Dubya Bush care about oil? It's not like he has a stake in the oil industry and would try anything to keep those stakes high in the economy -- oh wait, nevermind.
My dad used to work for a Coleman related company (basically just licensing their products and producing them under a different name.) He had mentioned something like this quite a while ago, it's cool to see it made it farther than the development stage. The image of the Coleman Powermate looks quite familiar, and unchanged from what I had seen quite awhile ago. As the article mentions, the price tag is quite steep, but may prove useful to the medical industry, although I would think at this point it would be a 3rd stage (or 4th, or 5th..) power supply backup. It also seems quite useful for a military use, as it is quite portable, although I'm sure a military version would be a bit more durable and have a better useful life (in terms of backup power and actual physical durability). The fact that it requires pure, bottled hydrogen seems like it's biggest downfall though. I hope Coleman or other manufacturers help to bridge the gap to something more useful for the home consumer.
Wow... weird.... Very rarely, and I mean VERY rarely I catch a Simpson's episode that I have never seen, and what do you know? This one just happened to be on. That's really not the weird part though. The weird part is that I was able to recite it exactly as you just said.... Actually, I don't know if that's weird, scary, or both.
Slashdot Mirror
Note: I don't know how much this will affect me by reading the article, so that's why I'm asking.
Hrm. Interesting, as I live in Wisconsin (Wauwatosa/Milwaukee) and am about to start ordering the final major parts for my new machine (MB, CPU, RAM, Case).
I was thinking about a Soyo SY K7 Dragon Plus board, and was planning on dual booting Win2K (About 70GB on that partition) and Redhat or Slackware (the remaining 10GB on the disk). The rest of my system will include a GeForce3 or 4 based vid card, (sorry, not sure which brand yet), a DVD-CDRW or DVD-RW drive, a wacom tablet (graphire), and I'll probably use the Dragon Plus's onboard networking and sound features, at least for awhile. I doubt I'd have any IRQ conflicts really, but my question is do you think it's still a good board to order if all works well? (I'd definatly order from some place with at least a 3 year warranty) Also, am I going to run into any real problems with the current setup?
I wasn't really concerned with the CPU's lifetime, but rather other parts, most specifically the harddrive. Although I suppose it wouldn't matter if my hd suddenly stopped working since my files would be backed up on hundreds of other computers. woohoo. I just *love* the idea that someone else has my files on their machine, encrypted or not :P .
Anytime you have moving parts, they will break down over time. They tend to break down more the more they are in use. My biggest issue with control over resources is the sheer number of machines and purposes of the machines spread out over the distributed network. I also never said I would buy a computer to accomodate the distributed applications, it was kind of a rhetorical question- I should have said it more as "Why not get the cheapest computer and let everyone else's do the work?"
Also, distributed.net is quite different than a distributed OS, so that analogy doesn't work any better than the car analogy. (Which was admittedly a little weak)
Anyway, I guess I'll still stick to my way of doing things, if I get left in the dust, so be it.
I don't care how much or how little wear and tear. I don't like the idea of other people using my computer in any way. Also, think about it, if you used your computer 24 hours a day now, it could have a dramatic effect on the lifetime of your parts.
If I had control over who used my resources, I am sure I would share some of it with some people (or entities rather). I'd rather have SETI using my computer's power rather than someone who wants to watch a movie or play games, etc.
Also, if I buy a top of the line computer, why should I spend more when others can go out and get cheap ones and use my computing power?
Uh, everyone pays for roads, it's called taxes. Not everyone pays for my car.
Uh, it's not the same thing at all. When I buy hardware, I buy it for ME to use. Not everyone else. Same thing with a car. Would you want people using your car when you're not, and have to still cover all the maintance costs associated with it? Or buy all the gas for it? (Which is the equivalence of paying for the electricity bill)
Extraordinary parallel data transmission is possible with the Internet resource pool. Consider Mary's movie, being uploaded in fragments from perhaps 200 hosts. Each host may be a PC connected to the Internet by an antiquated 56k modem--far too slow to show a high-quality video--but combined they could deliver 10 megabits a second, better than a cable modem.
I suppose that's great and all, but what if Mary is on a 56k modem? Doesn't really help all that much. I do understand the point they're making though.
I personally don't like the idea of my OS being spread across multiple machines, or other people being able to use my computing power. If I'm not using my computer, I don't want others using it, reducing it's lifetime. I like knowing that everything I do is controlled by me, on my system. It's a little unnerving to think that my files would be distributed all around the world on other machines. (can we say security?) No thanks, I'll stick with how I'm setup now.
I agree. Afterall, even I was a little horrified by it. It looks like it's in the matrix with all those cords running in and out of it.
Well, I can understand it for sites that are laid out with a lot of broken up images in tables (ie: a page made up exclusively of images), but when I'm creating a simple site (which is usually the majority of the time), the extra tags are pointless- especially when the images are so small (file and pixel size) that they load in the blink of an eye. I guess what I really want is just a checkbox to put in that code automatically or remove it. I also guess I just whine too much when software doesn't conform to my every want and need ;) .
Regarding Flash, it should be used for one thing, and one thing only - Eye Candy. ( I should say that is should be eye candy that isn't forced upon the user) Don't use it to deliver content unless it's extremely well done and gives the user power to navigate through the flash anim to get what/where they want. Using Flash for most things is just a waste of time. It should be saved for creating animations that serve a purpose (such as showing the orbits of the planets on an educational site. There are exceptions of course, but usually the cool flash anims (like that one guys matrix-like animation (sorry, forget who it was and the URL) which are just fun to watch and created for fun.
Make it useable in Lynx or w3m.
I *never* design a site with Lynx in mind. Sorry, but not enough of the userbase that I design sites for uses Lynx, so therefor I don't worry about it.
Use a text editor. The HTML genrated by the fancy programs is abominable, often invalid and more and more seems to confuse browsers into taking long periods on unknown activity to render. Use standard HTML.
I use Dreamweaver 4, and as far as many of the other programs I've used, it generates the least garbage HTML, though it is still a must to go through the code by hand and clean it up. My biggest gripe with extra code seems to be that every HTML generator I've used insisted on placing the image size in the code, even if it's not supposed to be modified by the HTML.
Avoid silly backgrounds (or ANY backgrounds) and silly combinations of foreground and background colors.
Agreed, usually no background or a subtle one is best. If you must have a background, put your content in a table with a plain background and a textured background *outside* of the table. (If that makes sense)
Don't use frames unless you've got a good reason.
Again, agreed. I've never made a site that absolutely needed frames that couldn't be done with tables. It may make the site easier to create sometimes, but frames should rarely be used if at all. Frames can also take longer to render in some (if not all?) browsers.
Most important, pages should without a doubt, conform to W3C. There are a few exceptions, but they are rare. For example, I once worked on a site for a company internally that was to be viewed only on the network, and only from computers within the building. Since everyone used IE, I only had to worry about it conforming with IE. Oh, and let me tell you, that was the easiest designing a site has ever been, especially since everyone ran in one of 2 resolutions; 800x600 and 1024x768 (except for us in the graphics department). And I'm not saying it was easy because it was IE only, but because it only was ONE browser to worry about.
So if it's illegal to do this, shouldn't the remaining units be turned over to government authorities, and not Nintendo?
Not to mention... what is the maintenance cost of each? How many launches would it take to equal the cost of putting up a tower? (if it ever would equal out)
Good idea, after all, they do have the biggest wall around, and quite a big population.
Like Caligari's trueSpace. What a shame that'd be though, but I couldn't afford any software for this machine, much less the machine itself.
Anyone see a price for it? I couldn't find it, but didn't look too hard.
I was pretty impressed, but not because this is a revolutionary idea or something that's shocking really, but because I've been looking all over for something like this. I'd probably never really get one, I just always thought having your machine built into your desk would help cut down space.
What about outside air? Like say a burst in the tank, and a nearby source to ignite the hydrogen, would the air surrounding it be enough to allow it to combust, or would the hydrogen simply spread out too quickly to really have any effect?
Nah, I haven't seen one spontaneously combust, and I'm sure with hydrogen it may not be a problem either, but I didn't know if there needed to be vastly different safety measures and the like.
If ignite hydrogen it goes up almost like a puff and then its gone.
What about compressed hydrogen in a can/bottle? If I recall right, doesn't hydrogen burn very quickly and rapidly, which would increase as it's compressed more and more? I'm no chemist, so I'd be very interested to know more.
Interesting idea..
I'm sure a bottle of pure hydrogen would be very explosive, as I assume it is contained under pressure. Not only would you have an explosion on your hands, but also shrapnel, but the very nature of this product could lead to much more substantial damage than losing your power source, such as computer/medical/emergency equipment blown to bits, or at least, shredded with holes.
You bring up a very good point, but I think with the world's (well, the US anyway (and haven't we already switched from the staple foods to chemical products? ie: McDonalds, Fritos/Dorritos, etc)) dependancy on fossil fuels, it would take quite awhile to really disrupt an oil based economy. That time would hopefully give oil-dependant nations time to turn their economies into something more profitable when and if there is a major change in power sources.
Also, is the oil economy really stable and secure? Seems to me, though I could be wrong, the oil producing countries and the respective buyers are quite volitile(sp) in their relations with different governments, especially the US. Or maybe it's just that the oil in the world contributes a stability and security to the global economy as a whole?
"oil first - the world later"
Huh? What would G. Dubya Bush care about oil? It's not like he has a stake in the oil industry and would try anything to keep those stakes high in the economy -- oh wait, nevermind.
My dad used to work for a Coleman related company (basically just licensing their products and producing them under a different name.) He had mentioned something like this quite a while ago, it's cool to see it made it farther than the development stage. The image of the Coleman Powermate looks quite familiar, and unchanged from what I had seen quite awhile ago. As the article mentions, the price tag is quite steep, but may prove useful to the medical industry, although I would think at this point it would be a 3rd stage (or 4th, or 5th..) power supply backup. It also seems quite useful for a military use, as it is quite portable, although I'm sure a military version would be a bit more durable and have a better useful life (in terms of backup power and actual physical durability). The fact that it requires pure, bottled hydrogen seems like it's biggest downfall though. I hope Coleman or other manufacturers help to bridge the gap to something more useful for the home consumer.
Bah, this will just turn in to another way for my girlfriend to find me won't it?
Maybe, but what'd be way cooler is if it allowed geeks to find girlfriends.
Wow... weird.... Very rarely, and I mean VERY rarely I catch a Simpson's episode that I have never seen, and what do you know? This one just happened to be on. That's really not the weird part though. The weird part is that I was able to recite it exactly as you just said.... Actually, I don't know if that's weird, scary, or both.