I don't know anything special about this particular situation here, but I'd say that they are worried that a new part they are _about_ to ship for way less money is going to make the 7800GTX look slow.
You speak the truth here. As long as the Mini can drive an HD set @ 1080i through a DVI _AND_ component out, I will be happy. Unfortunately I got bit by the HD bug a bit early and bought a mitsubishi HD set before DVI was commonplace. I only have component inputs for HD. Well, and FireWire, but I am not too sure how well that would work for this use.
If Apple gets a mini out with those specs, I'll be first in line. I've bought several of today's minis, and would not bother buying one to use as a HTPC if it has the right horsepower and connectivity.
Numerical computing can deal with the 32-bit floating point issue pretty easily. Do you think no one did high precision mathematics on 16-bit CPUs? The techniques are old and well understood. Sure it costs some extra cycles, but when you have 8x4ghz going for you, you can easily afford it.
Personally I think that anyone who does similar operations on a large set of data will LOVE the cell. If you can get a pipeline going where each SPU does one step of a larger algorithm, you can stream the data right through.
And I KNOW that security folks are going to love the Cell. Each of the SPUs can be made into encryption/decryption units, all working at the same time. I bet John the Ripper would really chew through some DES password hashes pretty damn quickly.
So, I believe that the Cell will find wider and wider popularity as people get around to thinking about their problems a bit differently, and as the tools begin to automate that process.
You know, I could write the exact same thing about just about any OS.
While you may think of niche's as chump change, I hate to tell you that some vendors are getting $xx Million a year for licensing on software that only runs on HP-UX. And licensing is from a company that isn't even on the Fortune 400. There are other larger companies that are surely paying several times that amount for this same software.
Products that fill a niche can gather very large amounts of money, depending on the niche.
You mean starting new threads is expensive. Even with multiple cores, I don't see a standard usage pattern for a single user that would be generating more than 10 threads a second, which even the appallingly slow OS X can handle.
I don't really follow what you are saying. Sure, when there was one model, there was one case. That was in 1984.
For a long time (even to the mac II days) Apple has had a variety of products, with a variety of features to match the needs of their customers.
Surely you aren't making the argument that the only difference between the PowerMac G5 and the iMac G5 is a 'different color plastic bit'.
Maybe you are saying that all of the PowerMacs look identical from the outside? This is true, and is probably because Apple ships less than 500,000 PowerMacs a year, so there is no economic advantage to differentiating the case on a model by model basis within a single product line.
Come to think of it, I can think of any time after 1986 when apple was producing less than three separate case designs for the Macintosh family.
Maybe your views are based on an extremely out of date idea of what Apple is about. Have you even looked at OS X?
Without the raised floor, you have to put your rats nest of cabling somewhere else, which almost certainly mean vertical.
I don't believe that there should be a rats nest of cabling _anywhere_ in a datacenter. I hate raised floors because they allow techs to get sloppy. Vertical wiring trays eliminate that possibility by showing their hackish wiring job to everyone.
When your datacenter is new, you should pre-wire patch panels in each cabinet for SAN and Ethernet. Each cabinet should have a PDU.
Run all of the cables from all of the patch panels back to your main SAN and Network patch panels.
If you do that work ahead of time, all you will ever have to do is plug a server into a patch panel in the same cabinet.
For larger equipment (Disk arrays, Tape Libraries, etc) you place the equipment and carefully measure the cable runs. Make sure you only have 3 feet of 'slack' and run the cables cleanly.
Its a lot of work to keep a datacenter in order, but it is worth it in the long run. For one, you'll never have to spend two weeks tracing an ethernet cable around the datacenter to locate a phantom server.
Umm, I really doubt that HDR is going to actually make anything on your screen 'whiter'. No really. At the end of it all, a 24bit image is sent to the monitor, exactly like before. Hence, no additional phosphor burn.
Your monitor probably dimmed quickly after your adjustment because it was really starting to fail. If you have to boost the brightness just to see an image, your tube is already dead. It will get darker at an exponential rate.
Re:What will it be for early downloaders...
on
Mac OS X 10.4.3 Released
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
You say this in jest no doubt. Or at least I hope you are joking.
Unfortunately there are more than a few stories about OS X updates that broke peoples machines around the internet.
Usually nothing major mind you, and typically easy to resolve. The bad thing is that there are many people who don't have other machines around or are missing the original install disks, and a non-booting computer presents a problem.
On the whole though, I would say Apple does a better than average job with these upgrades. It damn near impossible to be perfect every time given the differences from install to install and the wide range of uses people put the machines too.
To directly answer your query, I've never personally had an OS X update go bad on me, but a data set of one is no data set at all.
I think there are really good things to say about management that has risen up through the company. You think that some fancy business school is going to teach you what you really need to know about the telecom industry? I'm certainly not under that illusion.
Companies that promote from within are routinely shown to have more adaptive and successful management.
Experience, not theory is what should be manning the helm of these large corporations.
Even better, this guy is/was an engineer.
What he is really saying in this interview is that SBC owns the cable to the premises and won't be giving that away. SBC isn't talking about blocking their subscribers from seeing google.com. Makes sense to me.
I don't think that thew CPU is the main current draw in laptops. It used to be the LCD display (+ backlight) ate the huge majority of juice, but the new GPUs are proficient power eaters as well.
With the direction OS X is heading, the GPUs are going to be seeing more use than processors in the future.
I.E. I still think Apple is headed the right direction with OS X on Intel. Intel has the best chance for developing a chipset (including graphics) that provides the horsepower Apple needs along with the the ability to scale power requirements down.
Assuming a few things about your setup, this is the solution that I would use (and have in the past).
Get an extra ATX power supply. Doesn't need to be real powerful or anything. Then purchase a couple of computer case fans. I'd get the 5.25" kind, because they spin slower and will last longer while still putting out a decent CFM rating.
Cut a hole about 1' from the bottom of the closet door. Mount a fan so that it blows the air in here. This is your intake. Put a filter on it if it makes you happy.
Cut another hole about 1' above the higest piece of equipment in the closet. Mount a fan so that it exhausts the hot air from the closet.
Connect both of the fans to your power supply and then set the power supply on a nice wood shelf. Connect power supply to the UPS that your equipment is running on.
Given the small load that you discussed, I would think that this setup would have you totally covered. You _MAY_ need to go to two sets of intake fans, but you should never need more than one exhaust.
Don't just set an AC in the closet, as that will actually raise the temperature.
I guess I do not see positive in "think twice before pressing the shutter, and you will kick yourself for every wasted frame."
In todays digital world, there is no downside to taking a less than perfect shot. Sure, you use up a bit of memory, but you can immediately delete it if desired.
You may be missing the 'decisive moment' because you are thinking about whether to pull the trigger or not. With digital you can grab everything. The power of Aperture is that you can now quickly and easily sort through these hundreds of shots to get your 'decisive moments'. And you can compare to the many other shots you have.
All of this is an improvement over the shoot now, look later, maybe regret it, model of film photography. I don't think that it is anything to be afraid of.
I appreciate the kind tone of your message. It represents a level of discourse not commonly seen on/. to be sure.
But all your points are rubbish:)
Just kidding about that. While I may come across as somewhat undereducated in the ways of the world, I have done my homework. I'm aware of many of the things pointed out in your message, but feel that they don't totally match my own perceptions (the Big Picture) about what is going on.
Also, I was referring to the way that Americans as a populous responded to the Tsunami with individual donations and whatnot, not in reference to what our government did. Sorry if I was not clear on that point. I totally believe that we were not alone, or special in this regard, but does point to the generosity of the American _People_ as a whole.
I also think that while what certain individual members of the government may be money-grubbing, I don't believe they are (all) corrupt. To me corrupt isn't taking a few campaign donations in exchange for trying to run down a couple $M in pork projects. That is government and always has been. Corrupt is the ruthless persecution of people, to death and/or dismemberment and other heinous crimes.
I believe that the government acts in large part for the betterment of the people. No government has been 100% successful at this task, and we are certainly far from perfect. But I think our system is pretty damn good overall. Proof of this will be the change that this country is likely to see over the next 10 years. The people have a way of correcting their government when it goes awry.
Anyways, this probably totally deserves an Off-Topic moderation, so I'll shut up now.
I'll not respond to a bunch of your post because it is obvious that our viewpoints differ, and I doubt that you will be able to change my opinions, as I won't be able to change yours. But I did want to respond to this:
Seriously. Things like invading Iraq is why people fly planes into buildings. You can't make them go away through overthrowing governments that had nothing to do with the original 9-11 attack in the first place. Terrorism has never been solved by those methods, only made worse. You've vastly increased the terrorists ranks with this action. You've inspired generations of hatred among some communities.
While many people make a (incorrect in my view) connection between Iraq and 9/11, I do not. I don't think for a second that we invaded Iraq in retribution for 9/11. We invaded Iraq because of all the countries that sponsor hate and terror, they were the easiest. We've been there before, we had lots of intel and we knew that the crazed leader would fold.
Now, terror is deeper than just the 9/11 attack. The only way to stomp out terror is to remove the reasons that it exists. I believe that governments that oppress the people are the ultimate cause of terror. Right know I bet you want to make the argument that the US is the biggest oppressor on the planet. You are wrong. No one in Iraq today are being oppressed by the US, the own population of the region are the ones causing all of the trouble. The vast majority of Iraqi citizens want to get the constitution finished and get on with living life. A few radicals are still trying to slow the progress by blowing up Iraqi citizens by the thousands.
You'll notice that the radicals have stopped primarily targeting US soldiers, and instead are killing their own countrymen. They are doing this because they want to stop the tide of freedom that is sweeping the country. Killing more soldiers doesn't do anything for their goals. And killing civilians won't either.
Once Iraq has transitioned to a democratic government, I'll bet that they (without our help) begin the process of ruthlessly eliminating these radicals. This is the whole point. We shift the load of managing the radicals from the US to the people of the democracy of Iraq. Then we move to the next country.
Sure it sounds awful, all of this invading and war making, but I believe that the ends justify the means. We come, we remove the existing leaders (with the bare minimum of civilian casualties) and then leave behind a nicely functioning democracy, which will also begin to spread the meme of freedom.
No doubt we have many people who do not like us right now (or me for that matter), but none of them are our _enemies_ and over time, the relationship will grow stronger as the effects of our actions are made clear to those who can not see past tomorrow.
You might dislike my views, and think me a complete loon, but I love this country because I can say whatever I want, and that is my right. Other people around this world want that same right, and they are entitled to it. Sometimes their leaders don't want the people to have this right. In my view, those leaders do not have the right to deny that to their citizens.
The US is a democracy of the people. The people of the US don't like seeing other people hurting and oppressed. Witness the outpouring of support for those effected by the Tsunami and hundreds of other cases where the people of this country have opened their wallets and hearts to help others in need. Sometimes you have to open the armory to help others.
People who are willing to start wars for their own direct strategic and financial gain.
Yes, I can see how the war in Iraq has directly benefited us. NOT! Do you realize the costs. So far we have not realized any strategic gain either.
The war was started because the people of this country like to spread democracy. Iraq was one place where democracy could work.
In the long-term (20+ years) this war will pay dividends in peace all across the world as the citizens of corrupt religion-driven monarachys and dictatorships realize that they don't have to be opressed. Once the people (esp women) see freedom and democracy at work, it will spread. This is what we are fighting this war for.
Of course to achieve this long term objective, we had a ruffle a few feathers. Most people don't look at the long term when evaluating a situation. Right now it is easy to see the bad things, and hard to see the long term plusses. That is why I think Bush is a great president. He has made the un-popular and painful decision, not because it had a short term payoff, but because of the long term.
Personally, I don't think that my personal blog needs an unbreakable database back-end. I only have 64MB of RAM on my server which has to hold the kernel and the entire LAMP stack. I can tweak and tune MySQL to run very, very quickly on less than 12MB of RAM.
In my case, lightweight and functional outweigh any feature or reliability constraints. If you plan for failure, it doesn't hurt nearly so bad. That is why I perform regular backups, and gasp, even practiced a recovery scenario a few times.
I certainly don't doubt that there are many cases where having 100% data reliability is the most important thing. My blog and personal websites don't fall into that category though.
Unfortunately, for many reasons, Open Source does not end the cost of licensing for many organizations. Most of the good clustering solutions that I have seen recently involve breaking every application and service into a 'package' that can run on many different physical servers. Each package has a virtual IP address associated with it.
When hardware fails, you bring up the required packages on a different physical host, and other applications access it using the virtual IP. Going this route allows you to do N+1 style clustering where say 3 servers are hosting 2 applications. This is a big win over the older model where each box had a physical duplicate that would step in when failure occurred.
To use this style of clustering, you need to have excellent shared storage support, which has come in the form of SAN based disk arrays in all cases I have seen. The cost of software licensing aside, SAN equipment can case an arm and a leg.
For real, enterprise, supported applications you pay through the nose for the software, the hardware and then again for the support systems (HVAC, Power Conditioning and UPS, fault tollerant networking, SAN gear, Backup infrastructure, etc). It all costs, and it all has to be supported. Adding more machines (in the case of these clusters) increases the base overhead cost even before you get to the licensing.
Providing reliable and functional enterprise services (the type that require clustering) is expensive, plain and simple.
Well, if terrorist destroyed the elevator, we've lost the capital cost invested in that single device.
We would not have lost the intellectual (and manufacturing) capital developed creating the first device though.
Once you make one of something, it becomes nearly trivial to retrace your steps and make another one.
If the space elevator does become a reality, I'd expect to see more built in a matter of years following the construction of the first. Mainly because the first one will be a monumental commercial success. Things that spew off money like a fire hose get duplicated quickly.
At this point, space elevators become roughly equivalent to airports. I don't see anyone worrying about the possibility of terrorist destroying all of the airports in existence.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know anything special about this particular situation here, but I'd say that they are worried that a new part they are _about_ to ship for way less money is going to make the 7800GTX look slow.
If Apple gets a mini out with those specs, I'll be first in line. I've bought several of today's minis, and would not bother buying one to use as a HTPC if it has the right horsepower and connectivity.
Numerical computing can deal with the 32-bit floating point issue pretty easily. Do you think no one did high precision mathematics on 16-bit CPUs? The techniques are old and well understood. Sure it costs some extra cycles, but when you have 8x4ghz going for you, you can easily afford it.
Personally I think that anyone who does similar operations on a large set of data will LOVE the cell. If you can get a pipeline going where each SPU does one step of a larger algorithm, you can stream the data right through.
And I KNOW that security folks are going to love the Cell. Each of the SPUs can be made into encryption/decryption units, all working at the same time. I bet John the Ripper would really chew through some DES password hashes pretty damn quickly.
So, I believe that the Cell will find wider and wider popularity as people get around to thinking about their problems a bit differently, and as the tools begin to automate that process.
While you may think of niche's as chump change, I hate to tell you that some vendors are getting $xx Million a year for licensing on software that only runs on HP-UX. And licensing is from a company that isn't even on the Fortune 400. There are other larger companies that are surely paying several times that amount for this same software.
Products that fill a niche can gather very large amounts of money, depending on the niche.
BTW, MS does give you the code if you're a big enough customer. Trust me when I say, you do not ever want to sign the NDA to get it though.
You mean starting new threads is expensive. Even with multiple cores, I don't see a standard usage pattern for a single user that would be generating more than 10 threads a second, which even the appallingly slow OS X can handle.
This is not true any more. Find a single study in the last five years that supports your claim.
For a long time (even to the mac II days) Apple has had a variety of products, with a variety of features to match the needs of their customers.
Surely you aren't making the argument that the only difference between the PowerMac G5 and the iMac G5 is a 'different color plastic bit'.
Maybe you are saying that all of the PowerMacs look identical from the outside? This is true, and is probably because Apple ships less than 500,000 PowerMacs a year, so there is no economic advantage to differentiating the case on a model by model basis within a single product line.
Come to think of it, I can think of any time after 1986 when apple was producing less than three separate case designs for the Macintosh family.
Maybe your views are based on an extremely out of date idea of what Apple is about. Have you even looked at OS X?
I don't believe that there should be a rats nest of cabling _anywhere_ in a datacenter. I hate raised floors because they allow techs to get sloppy. Vertical wiring trays eliminate that possibility by showing their hackish wiring job to everyone.
When your datacenter is new, you should pre-wire patch panels in each cabinet for SAN and Ethernet. Each cabinet should have a PDU.
Run all of the cables from all of the patch panels back to your main SAN and Network patch panels.
If you do that work ahead of time, all you will ever have to do is plug a server into a patch panel in the same cabinet.
For larger equipment (Disk arrays, Tape Libraries, etc) you place the equipment and carefully measure the cable runs. Make sure you only have 3 feet of 'slack' and run the cables cleanly.
Its a lot of work to keep a datacenter in order, but it is worth it in the long run. For one, you'll never have to spend two weeks tracing an ethernet cable around the datacenter to locate a phantom server.
Your monitor probably dimmed quickly after your adjustment because it was really starting to fail. If you have to boost the brightness just to see an image, your tube is already dead. It will get darker at an exponential rate.
Unfortunately there are more than a few stories about OS X updates that broke peoples machines around the internet.
Usually nothing major mind you, and typically easy to resolve. The bad thing is that there are many people who don't have other machines around or are missing the original install disks, and a non-booting computer presents a problem.
On the whole though, I would say Apple does a better than average job with these upgrades. It damn near impossible to be perfect every time given the differences from install to install and the wide range of uses people put the machines too.
To directly answer your query, I've never personally had an OS X update go bad on me, but a data set of one is no data set at all.
Companies that promote from within are routinely shown to have more adaptive and successful management.
Experience, not theory is what should be manning the helm of these large corporations.
Even better, this guy is/was an engineer.
What he is really saying in this interview is that SBC owns the cable to the premises and won't be giving that away. SBC isn't talking about blocking their subscribers from seeing google.com. Makes sense to me.
My $0.02
Sounds like we've finally met Teela Brown's exact opposite.
By displays pages correctly you mean "Is broken in the same ways IE is."
With the direction OS X is heading, the GPUs are going to be seeing more use than processors in the future.
I.E. I still think Apple is headed the right direction with OS X on Intel. Intel has the best chance for developing a chipset (including graphics) that provides the horsepower Apple needs along with the the ability to scale power requirements down.
Assuming a few things about your setup, this is the solution that I would use (and have in the past).
Get an extra ATX power supply. Doesn't need to be real powerful or anything. Then purchase a couple of computer case fans. I'd get the 5.25" kind, because they spin slower and will last longer while still putting out a decent CFM rating.
Cut a hole about 1' from the bottom of the closet door. Mount a fan so that it blows the air in here. This is your intake. Put a filter on it if it makes you happy.
Cut another hole about 1' above the higest piece of equipment in the closet. Mount a fan so that it exhausts the hot air from the closet.
Connect both of the fans to your power supply and then set the power supply on a nice wood shelf. Connect power supply to the UPS that your equipment is running on.
Given the small load that you discussed, I would think that this setup would have you totally covered. You _MAY_ need to go to two sets of intake fans, but you should never need more than one exhaust.
Don't just set an AC in the closet, as that will actually raise the temperature.
I guess I do not see positive in "think twice before pressing the shutter, and you will kick yourself for every wasted frame."
In todays digital world, there is no downside to taking a less than perfect shot. Sure, you use up a bit of memory, but you can immediately delete it if desired.
You may be missing the 'decisive moment' because you are thinking about whether to pull the trigger or not. With digital you can grab everything. The power of Aperture is that you can now quickly and easily sort through these hundreds of shots to get your 'decisive moments'. And you can compare to the many other shots you have.
All of this is an improvement over the shoot now, look later, maybe regret it, model of film photography. I don't think that it is anything to be afraid of.
But all your points are rubbish :)
Just kidding about that. While I may come across as somewhat undereducated in the ways of the world, I have done my homework. I'm aware of many of the things pointed out in your message, but feel that they don't totally match my own perceptions (the Big Picture) about what is going on.
Also, I was referring to the way that Americans as a populous responded to the Tsunami with individual donations and whatnot, not in reference to what our government did. Sorry if I was not clear on that point. I totally believe that we were not alone, or special in this regard, but does point to the generosity of the American _People_ as a whole.
I also think that while what certain individual members of the government may be money-grubbing, I don't believe they are (all) corrupt. To me corrupt isn't taking a few campaign donations in exchange for trying to run down a couple $M in pork projects. That is government and always has been. Corrupt is the ruthless persecution of people, to death and/or dismemberment and other heinous crimes.
I believe that the government acts in large part for the betterment of the people. No government has been 100% successful at this task, and we are certainly far from perfect. But I think our system is pretty damn good overall. Proof of this will be the change that this country is likely to see over the next 10 years. The people have a way of correcting their government when it goes awry.
Anyways, this probably totally deserves an Off-Topic moderation, so I'll shut up now.
Seriously. Things like invading Iraq is why people fly planes into buildings. You can't make them go away through overthrowing governments that had nothing to do with the original 9-11 attack in the first place. Terrorism has never been solved by those methods, only made worse. You've vastly increased the terrorists ranks with this action. You've inspired generations of hatred among some communities.
While many people make a (incorrect in my view) connection between Iraq and 9/11, I do not. I don't think for a second that we invaded Iraq in retribution for 9/11. We invaded Iraq because of all the countries that sponsor hate and terror, they were the easiest. We've been there before, we had lots of intel and we knew that the crazed leader would fold.
Now, terror is deeper than just the 9/11 attack. The only way to stomp out terror is to remove the reasons that it exists. I believe that governments that oppress the people are the ultimate cause of terror. Right know I bet you want to make the argument that the US is the biggest oppressor on the planet. You are wrong. No one in Iraq today are being oppressed by the US, the own population of the region are the ones causing all of the trouble. The vast majority of Iraqi citizens want to get the constitution finished and get on with living life. A few radicals are still trying to slow the progress by blowing up Iraqi citizens by the thousands.
You'll notice that the radicals have stopped primarily targeting US soldiers, and instead are killing their own countrymen. They are doing this because they want to stop the tide of freedom that is sweeping the country. Killing more soldiers doesn't do anything for their goals. And killing civilians won't either.
Once Iraq has transitioned to a democratic government, I'll bet that they (without our help) begin the process of ruthlessly eliminating these radicals. This is the whole point. We shift the load of managing the radicals from the US to the people of the democracy of Iraq. Then we move to the next country.
Sure it sounds awful, all of this invading and war making, but I believe that the ends justify the means. We come, we remove the existing leaders (with the bare minimum of civilian casualties) and then leave behind a nicely functioning democracy, which will also begin to spread the meme of freedom.
No doubt we have many people who do not like us right now (or me for that matter), but none of them are our _enemies_ and over time, the relationship will grow stronger as the effects of our actions are made clear to those who can not see past tomorrow.
You might dislike my views, and think me a complete loon, but I love this country because I can say whatever I want, and that is my right. Other people around this world want that same right, and they are entitled to it. Sometimes their leaders don't want the people to have this right. In my view, those leaders do not have the right to deny that to their citizens.
The US is a democracy of the people. The people of the US don't like seeing other people hurting and oppressed. Witness the outpouring of support for those effected by the Tsunami and hundreds of other cases where the people of this country have opened their wallets and hearts to help others in need. Sometimes you have to open the armory to help others.
Yes, I can see how the war in Iraq has directly benefited us. NOT! Do you realize the costs. So far we have not realized any strategic gain either.
The war was started because the people of this country like to spread democracy. Iraq was one place where democracy could work.
In the long-term (20+ years) this war will pay dividends in peace all across the world as the citizens of corrupt religion-driven monarachys and dictatorships realize that they don't have to be opressed. Once the people (esp women) see freedom and democracy at work, it will spread. This is what we are fighting this war for.
Of course to achieve this long term objective, we had a ruffle a few feathers. Most people don't look at the long term when evaluating a situation. Right now it is easy to see the bad things, and hard to see the long term plusses. That is why I think Bush is a great president. He has made the un-popular and painful decision, not because it had a short term payoff, but because of the long term.
Personally, I don't think that my personal blog needs an unbreakable database back-end. I only have 64MB of RAM on my server which has to hold the kernel and the entire LAMP stack. I can tweak and tune MySQL to run very, very quickly on less than 12MB of RAM. In my case, lightweight and functional outweigh any feature or reliability constraints. If you plan for failure, it doesn't hurt nearly so bad. That is why I perform regular backups, and gasp, even practiced a recovery scenario a few times. I certainly don't doubt that there are many cases where having 100% data reliability is the most important thing. My blog and personal websites don't fall into that category though.
Not everyone needs the same set of features in their database product. Some people want something that is very lightweight and fast.
Other people want bulletproof "unbreakable" databases with thousands of features. Some people want something right in the middle.
Having a variety of solid choices is not a bad thing. You should't be affraid of a little competition, as it is good for the entire market.
Unfortunately, for many reasons, Open Source does not end the cost of licensing for many organizations. Most of the good clustering solutions that I have seen recently involve breaking every application and service into a 'package' that can run on many different physical servers. Each package has a virtual IP address associated with it.
When hardware fails, you bring up the required packages on a different physical host, and other applications access it using the virtual IP. Going this route allows you to do N+1 style clustering where say 3 servers are hosting 2 applications. This is a big win over the older model where each box had a physical duplicate that would step in when failure occurred.
To use this style of clustering, you need to have excellent shared storage support, which has come in the form of SAN based disk arrays in all cases I have seen. The cost of software licensing aside, SAN equipment can case an arm and a leg.
For real, enterprise, supported applications you pay through the nose for the software, the hardware and then again for the support systems (HVAC, Power Conditioning and UPS, fault tollerant networking, SAN gear, Backup infrastructure, etc). It all costs, and it all has to be supported. Adding more machines (in the case of these clusters) increases the base overhead cost even before you get to the licensing.
Providing reliable and functional enterprise services (the type that require clustering) is expensive, plain and simple.
I wonder if this device is going to bring a new meaning to BlueTooth.
Well, if terrorist destroyed the elevator, we've lost the capital cost invested in that single device.
We would not have lost the intellectual (and manufacturing) capital developed creating the first device though.
Once you make one of something, it becomes nearly trivial to retrace your steps and make another one.
If the space elevator does become a reality, I'd expect to see more built in a matter of years following the construction of the first. Mainly because the first one will be a monumental commercial success. Things that spew off money like a fire hose get duplicated quickly.
At this point, space elevators become roughly equivalent to airports. I don't see anyone worrying about the possibility of terrorist destroying all of the airports in existence.
This is a non-issue.