It's a $300 SBC board packed inside $1300 of what again?
Honestly, $1600 is a waste for that. I mean, yeah, it'd make a small server, blah blah. Big deal--$1600 can get you a dual-processor 1U rack unit with far more standardized hardware. And you could certainly custom-build a unit of about the same size for far less using an off-the-shelf SBC, many of which have optional onboard LCD controllers, allowing you an easy route to a small display as well (you can find 8" VGA LCDs on eBay for sub-$100). And as a replacement for a laptop... you can buy 2 good laptops for the cost of one of these things.
Who went to college at Mills. And she told me about how she was taking a course on bowling and I was like "Bowling? You're going to college to learn how to bowl? And they're giving you credit for it?" And she didn't really get why I found that so strange, but hey, it just goes to show... uhm... yeah nevermind.
Just create some cable raceways and run Cat5 for now. Use STP if you have interference issues. Fiber isn't worth the cost or the hassle right now, and in 10 years wireless technologies will probably be the way to go anyway.
I've never been too into Andromeda (for the most part because the show seemed like it would be cheesy even without Kevin Sorbo playing lead), but there're decent sci-fi series out there. Farscape, reruns of Babylon 5 (minus the post-Shadow War weirdness), etc. Lexx isn't exactly intelligent, but it's still amusing. DS-9 wasn't too great until it had a storyline that actually persisted through a number of episodes--i.e. during the last season or two with the whole Dominion war, etc. Babylon 5, though, is hands-down the best sci-fi series ever. Farscape is pretty fun and clever too, so it's not like we're totally out of options.
And hey, let's face it--why do we even watch sci-fi? I mean, you get better science and better fiction with a book, so why a TV show or movie? We all know the answer to this... CGI space battles and attractive casts. It's not like the attraction is terribly intellectual--I like to see pretty people in spaceships make other spaceships go boom (this might explain why I like Starship Troopers so much). Right, it's a bit more complex than that, but those are the primary motivations to watch a sci-fi TV show during the time I could be reading a sci-fi book. It's great when you have a show like Babylon 5 with an incredible storyline, incredible visuals, and a really awesome cast (especially Delenn--I used to be so in love with her), but when you don't... well, the guys footing the bills for these shows know what people like to see, and when a show is maybe not bringing in as much money as it could be, you get more space battles and less plot.
We need to bend the rules to get these "hackers" because..?
a) My AOL password is of greater importance than the guy who got shot down by the river.
b) Current courts are too slow in dealing with hackers, who we all know move at incredible speeds, often using 5 keyboards--Matrix-style--to gain access to both secret CIA files and ICBM launch codes in a matter of minutes.
c) Government is in the pocket of corporate America, and corporate America will never be able to convince people to hand over control of their lives and money if there's concern that someone other than the good folks at MS will have access to it.
Well, figure it out for yourself.
Anyway...
The problem with laws like these is that they're pushed as being a response to a specific threat, but once in place, are never limited to dealing with that threat. So this is to protect our national security? How many "hackers" in this country are threats to national security? Wouldn't it be safer to say that the actual threat is the vulnerability in government systems? After all, if someone in America can gain access to classified information, it stands to reason that someone in China or Iraq could do the same. And what constitutes a threat anyway? Someone who gets into systems that are secured tighter than the government's is a potential threat--even though that person has never acted against the government, will they be tried and jailed as a threat to national security simply for what they can do, not what they've done?
And does anyone in a position of power consider these sorts of things?
So here is what's absurd about all of this...
Look at the number of people who have died in terrorist attacks on US soil. And look at the number of people who are murdered each year, or killed by drunk drivers, etc. The numbers just don't compare. Now, if we weren't willing to compromise our freedoms to be safe from murderers--and make no mistake about it, there're more murderers walking than streets of America than ever there will be terrorists--and drunk drivers, who kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, why are we willing to do it to protect ourselves from terrorists?
It's sad, but our government has simply used this situation to increase their powers and diminish our freedoms.
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It's a $300 SBC board packed inside $1300 of what again? Honestly, $1600 is a waste for that. I mean, yeah, it'd make a small server, blah blah. Big deal--$1600 can get you a dual-processor 1U rack unit with far more standardized hardware. And you could certainly custom-build a unit of about the same size for far less using an off-the-shelf SBC, many of which have optional onboard LCD controllers, allowing you an easy route to a small display as well (you can find 8" VGA LCDs on eBay for sub-$100). And as a replacement for a laptop... you can buy 2 good laptops for the cost of one of these things.
Who went to college at Mills. And she told me about how she was taking a course on bowling and I was like "Bowling? You're going to college to learn how to bowl? And they're giving you credit for it?" And she didn't really get why I found that so strange, but hey, it just goes to show... uhm... yeah nevermind.
Just create some cable raceways and run Cat5 for now. Use STP if you have interference issues. Fiber isn't worth the cost or the hassle right now, and in 10 years wireless technologies will probably be the way to go anyway.
And hey, let's face it--why do we even watch sci-fi? I mean, you get better science and better fiction with a book, so why a TV show or movie? We all know the answer to this... CGI space battles and attractive casts. It's not like the attraction is terribly intellectual--I like to see pretty people in spaceships make other spaceships go boom (this might explain why I like Starship Troopers so much). Right, it's a bit more complex than that, but those are the primary motivations to watch a sci-fi TV show during the time I could be reading a sci-fi book. It's great when you have a show like Babylon 5 with an incredible storyline, incredible visuals, and a really awesome cast (especially Delenn--I used to be so in love with her), but when you don't... well, the guys footing the bills for these shows know what people like to see, and when a show is maybe not bringing in as much money as it could be, you get more space battles and less plot.
I'm no expert on the subject, but uhm... shouldn't that be a relatively expensive X Terminal? Cus I've seen X-terms for like $20-$60 before, so...
We need to bend the rules to get these "hackers" because..?
a) My AOL password is of greater importance than the guy who got shot down by the river.
b) Current courts are too slow in dealing with hackers, who we all know move at incredible speeds, often using 5 keyboards--Matrix-style--to gain access to both secret CIA files and ICBM launch codes in a matter of minutes.
c) Government is in the pocket of corporate America, and corporate America will never be able to convince people to hand over control of their lives and money if there's concern that someone other than the good folks at MS will have access to it.
Well, figure it out for yourself.
Anyway...
The problem with laws like these is that they're pushed as being a response to a specific threat, but once in place, are never limited to dealing with that threat. So this is to protect our national security? How many "hackers" in this country are threats to national security? Wouldn't it be safer to say that the actual threat is the vulnerability in government systems? After all, if someone in America can gain access to classified information, it stands to reason that someone in China or Iraq could do the same. And what constitutes a threat anyway? Someone who gets into systems that are secured tighter than the government's is a potential threat--even though that person has never acted against the government, will they be tried and jailed as a threat to national security simply for what they can do, not what they've done?
And does anyone in a position of power consider these sorts of things?
So here is what's absurd about all of this... Look at the number of people who have died in terrorist attacks on US soil. And look at the number of people who are murdered each year, or killed by drunk drivers, etc. The numbers just don't compare. Now, if we weren't willing to compromise our freedoms to be safe from murderers--and make no mistake about it, there're more murderers walking than streets of America than ever there will be terrorists--and drunk drivers, who kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, why are we willing to do it to protect ourselves from terrorists? It's sad, but our government has simply used this situation to increase their powers and diminish our freedoms.
... $50/mo isn't going to get you a 24/7 2MB/s connection to the internet.