Okay, I'm a bit pissy. Even a lot pissy. But if you think that this only merits a 1, well, I'm just glad that I'm shifting my focus to my own site soon.
Enjoy my refs while you can, Malda and co. 'cause in two months or so I'll be gone, gone, gone.
So, how does it feel to wear (Diamond Age)Mr. Stephenson's hat?
Go ahead and flame me. I know that there are lots of folk working on nanotech. I just couldn't resist.
Oh lord. Now you're done it. Somewhere within a year, we're gonna see a new Darwin group calling themselves the Johnny A.'s or the JA Consortium or JohnA L0pht or something.
And it will all be your fault.
I hope that you're sorry.
In very other words, cool metaphor; I like it. Other people probably do too.
OK, in order, Also some of the apps you mentioned are very processor intensive. Which ones? I only mentioned two and I've done heavy work on both on setups much smaller than the ones that I mentioned. (though, then again, I also did tabloid layouts in Quark XPress on an SE so perhaps I'm just insane.) Until Motorola gets off its ass...[blah,blah,blah]I agree that Moto's lost its mojo. That's exactly why Apple is fighting to get control over this AltiVec thing and switch to both multi-CPU standard and IBM as primary chip source. Personally I'ld prefer to see them do a hostile takeover of Motorola and personally DESTROY EVERY EXECUTIVE THERE but that's just me and perhaps I'm a tad vindictive.
[rant that consumers are stupid and fall for this MHz baloney] And where precisely did I disagree with that? Though as it happens I think that that is starting to lose power as a generation of buyers comes in that is far more tech-literate. They have also had a history of sticking it to the dev's. Yes, they do. Including friends of mine and to me as an IT guy who stood up for them and got screwed. Again, where exactly did I say otherwise?
[blah, blah, apple are assholes, their tech is cool, company is untrustworthy, more Apple screws devs, some distorted perception re cloning] Yeah. So what? I'ld rather be with a, what is that, " bussness"?"busness"? that is reliably profitable so they won't go the way of DEC, Amiga, etc., etc., etc.
["I'm a gamer; I NEED power.] Bully for you. I don't know what thread you *think* you're in but this is one about building low-cost, scratch-built boxes and that was what I wrote about. Some of my family will buy a computer [for] wizo bango software [from] best buy.[they make foolish choices and it pisses me off] I'm sorry and I feel your pain. Users suck, especially when they sit at the dinner table and blame *you* for *their* cluelessness. But again, isn't this a thread about purchasing by folks who solder for fun? Thanks for the links though. You're most welcome. I hope that they come in useful.
Rustin
Oh, BTW, I apologize to everybody out there for my universally sour tone these days. Sometimes starting a company on no money really isn't fun at all and I'm afraid that you folks are getting some bleedthrough. I will try to give a little more thought in the future to giving my posts a lower arrogant asshole factor (AAF? perhaps a new mod variable).
Of course the really low budget approach would be to get an LC and run MKLinux. Perhaps go upscale and get a 6100.
I have heard tell of MK gotten running on SE30s and I've seen it on later IIcis so clearly one could build a dual-boot MacOS/*nix box for about $50 if one really had nothing better to do or a truly tiny budget.
Imagine that. Setting up a school in, say, Ghana, with 200 (yep, two HUNDRED!!!!!) running computers for the cost three mid-range G4s with toys(shipping not included). I can only hope.
Rustin
No question the older boxes have serious limits on bus speed. My point was that it's cheaper to buy an 8600 just to get the case, power supply, floppy, mouse, and CD drive then it is to buy the parts separately.
You'll end up with a near-server class case and power supply (complete with flip-open side, anchored cable harness, etc.) and a bunch of devices for the cost of an inferior case bought alone. Of course, getting the guts of a whole other Mac, in effect, for free, is a fun bit of icing on the cake.
As for the used parts pricing and those implications, oh dear. Please don't get me started on that. Let's just say that since the resale value of the Newton IP alone (even given a licence that only allows sales in the developing world) would be worth more to the right buyer than, say, the entire Visor corporation shows that Apple still makes a regular habit of sticking their head WAY up where the sun don't shine.
Rustin
I wholeheartedly agree.
Man oh man.
In the old days/. just simply refused to acknowledge Macs at all so I guess that this sort of thing should be considered progress. Still no grasp of the obvious but better than the previous invisibility. Still . ..
OK, children, gather round for today's bowl of clue.
First of all, if you're gonna talk Apple mods, then start at applefritter. They've built Macs into everything from 1930's radios to LEGO people to ziplock bags.
Next, (I can't believe that I'm doing this twice in one day!), let's get the vendors and refs out of the way:
Mac of All Trades Getcher used macs here! Pretty visuals, delicious prices, detailed info. Selection could be better and there's no old stuff at all but I can deal with that. Have I bought from them yet? Nope. Am I likely to in the future? Yep.
MacResq The best place I've found overall to pick up gear. Even the guys in that article figured that out.
Powermax Cheesy setup, improving selection, good prices.
Shreve Expensive, distracting, but the best place to get weird low-end stuff like Mac Plus manuals and Daystar cards.
Small Dog Shrinking selection, great quality, excellent service, annoying interface. Bottom line, these are the guys to turn to for premium service, support, and savvy. Been around quite a while and, hey, they enclose coupons for Ben and Jerry's.
Guide to Mac CPUsThis is Apple's own site for detailed specs on all their machines ever. I'm starting you off on the page for older machines to remind you that a well-configured 1996 Mac w/ a USB/Firewire card can run OSX just fine, thank you very much.
Focus of Mac Hardware good workaday resource for doing mods. No cool toys. Considerable good data.
Missoula Mac User Group, Yeah, I know that you haven't heard of them; neither has anybody else outside of Montana AFAIK. Best place for overall newbie resources.
ResExcellence In the old days I would have suggested MacFixit, but these guys have taken their place. If you've been in the Mac world for a while you'll recognize them as the old-time source extraordinaire of ResEdit hacks.
Think Secret The only rumor site I like that I forgot to mention yesterday.
Okay, moving right along. CPUs. Those yahoos think that the only option is to start from scratch. Get a clue. The last pre-Jobs big boxes kicked almighty ass. Amelio may not have been a gifted businessman but he was a much better heavy gear guy. As far as I'm concerned your best bet for DIY is to buy an 8600. It'll be $230, tops. You get a great case, big power supply, floppy drive, cables, and so on. Probably also a Zip, for which I will pity you as that model of Zip just LOVED to come down with the Click o' Death. Even if you flat throw out all the electronics you're still way ahead of starting from a place like Tom's.
Next, processor speed. When will those yahoos figure it out? Before you get obsessed with latest and greatest ask yourself, "what exactly will I be DOING with this machine?" If you're running stuff like BBEdit (ah, my one true love!) or Photoshop for still work then any 400MHz box with fast drives and plenty of RAM will be, for all intents and purposes, instantanteous. Buying anything faster just means that you're acting like the small-donged dimwits who buy $20K stereos to get fidelity five times better then they can hear.
Drives. I'm always amazed at how terrified Windoze-damaged (let alone *nix) folks are at the thought of external drives. Get over it, already. On a Mac all that driver clash claptrap is a distant and not very credible folktale. Get a basic little 6 Gig internal and invest your money in external Firewire devices. You think this LAN party stuff is cool? On a Mac pretty much any well configured boot drive will boot any similar recent Mac. Stop carrying your entire box with you; stick to drives. Even better, get two or three smaller ones instead of one big one and, short of FBI seizures and vast fires, you become crash proof. Mac dies? Plug your drive (you did remember to back up your core data, right?) into another Mac and you're up and running again in minutes.
The future. If you're such an almighty techie that you just *need* to build a new cooler world every year or so, then remember, Mach kernel plus gigabit ethernet equals mongo shared resources. Even if you're too lazy to set up a formal Beowolf system, it's pretty damned easy to just keep adding machines and splitting the jobs between them. Instead of buying a whole new box, maybe you should just buy a second one and start spreading load to it.
OSes. Yup. No question, Jaguar is pretty spiffy. But almost every vendor site above (as well as eBay and co.) will sell you older legit disks and serial num.s for about fifty bucks. If you buy from a place like Small Dog you'll even be clearing out some of that famed Apple back inventory.
That's it. You want more? Then go to my site already (though best to wait a few weeks for my next redesign). Want more then that? Then pay me and I'll think about it.
Promising to not ever again use up time posting tutorials on/.,
Rustin
If you watch the Mac sites (MacNN, MacOS Rumors, Macintouch, Apple Insider, MacAddict) you'll find that they usually post info on when a given model is reaching what Apple calls End Of Life, i.e. they're about to discontinue that model. That is reliably a good time to buy as you'll avoid getting the bugs of a 1.0 product and usually get some good toys as Apple tries to clear out their inventory.
Remember, Apple is massively paranoid about excess inventory since they were so imfamous for having it in the bad old pre-Steve days.
Of course, you would be even better advised to buy a used Mac at a site like smalldog, macresq (where I bought mine), PowerMax, or the Powerbook Zone. Keep in mind that the useful life of a well cared for Mac (5300s and such notwithstanding YMMV) is about ten years.
Buy a model about a year old, max out the RAM, get a copy of Virtual PC, and score some two-version-old legit copies of your apps on eBay or the used mac sites, and you'll be stylin' on far less cash then you'ld think.
Speaking as both a former IT director in publishing and somebody who has set up stacks of machines for starving artists, that's what I'ld recommend.
Of course you could always drop by the Computing links section of my site and get even more advice;->
Rustin
Well, Star Trek's third season was the big granddaddy of this sort of thing. There's no question that Desilu would have shut it down sooner without fan reaction.
Other then that, I don't know. I'm somehow under the impression that there are other examples, but none are coming to mind.
Personally I'm waiting to see the first fanbuilt eps of long-running shows. Hmmm.
1.) Take a few hundred stills of each character in various moods, facing assorted ways, in various lighting, use to build synthetic actor. Do the same thing with voices/sounds.
2.) Do the same for the sets.
3.) Supplement with other footage of the same actors/type of sets from other stuff. (the more this happens the more "clip art" will be out there for cut and paste.)
4) Build plot parser to find running themes.
5.) Start building episodes.
Can anybody out there with three or more years of experience in Strata work or equiv. tell me with a straight face that there aren't already a hundred talking Kirk heads out there? Same for Tasha Yar, Seven of Nine, etc., etc., etbloody cetera.
I give it four years before the first homebuilt episodes with the following characteristics come out:
)-( Original plot and dialogue
)-( Visually convincing enough that a non-techie may mistake it for live action.
)-( Is accepted by 10+% of fans within two years as part of the full canon.
and here's the messy one
)-( Fifteen minutes or more of playing time (doesn't include title sequence or other filler)
And when that day comes this MPIAA/RIAA/Napster stuff will seem about as trivial as the Macarena.
Personally I'm glad that I dropped my acting career *early* (one major movie casting call was quite enough, thank you very much).
-Rustin
Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Moslems,
And *everybody* hates the Jews!
But during . . . National Brotherhood Week!
National Brotherhood Week!
George Bush and Hillary are dancing cheek to cheek.
Step up and take the hand
of someone that you can't stand.
You can tolerate him if you try.
Okay, I'll try to keep it brief and to the point.
I'm a fourth generation New Yorker. I went to Stuyvesant and had been coordinating donations to them a few weeks before. I was supposed to be in the WTC when the first plane hit and was late only because we were running behind getting ready for a presentation.
I had a nurse coordinator sleeping on my sofa that night because she couldn't get home and had been working 'til midnight, I watched a friend of mine have a several day long delusional semi-pychotic break starting the 13th and myself spent several days, mostly in the rain, building the on-site logistics for the Salvation Army (was high enough in their rankings to have been offered control of their ground zero headquarters but was told that my work at 14th was more important).
Blah, blah, blah. I could go on for a few more paragraphs. Suffice to say that I was in Manhattan that day and lived through actively troubleshooting throughout the cleanup and am still doing it now.
Insert stuff about issues of helping friends with police/fireman funerals, trashed jobs, etc. Yeah, I've got all the cred, was there, did that, suffered, and so on.
So, that having been said, WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIVES?!?!? 9/11 was terrible. It caused all sorts of awful things and not nearly enough real reform (yet). But this morbid, self-righteous, flag-waving jingoism isn't helping anybody.
If you really want to do something appropriate, take today as one for quiet contemplation of two things, the terribly pernicious effects of fanatical belief (which I guarantee, ties in both cause and effect ways to poverty and totalitarianism), and what you are going to actually do to try to raise a generation of saner, more financially secure children, who will be inculcated with the sort of understanding of rights, rigor, reason, and responsibility that will keep us from this kind of fucked up twisted criminality in the first place.
Still reading? Then go here, get the damned thing (it was certainly enough trouble to create) and sign it.
On my reluctant way down to "ground zero" for the day,
Rustin
Re:Terror Alert and The Posse Comitatus Act of 187
on
Toronto, The Naked City
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
You know, it's a real shame that you posted this here because I've actually found this post quite useful. Right info, very wrong place. Trust me, as both a manager, and a long time political activist, the tone and time do count. Otherwise you just become yet another strident Operation Rescue-type wacko discrediting the very concern that you sought to promulgate,
Too bad you didn't have the self control to find a better discussion. Couldn't you at least have posted this as part of a YRO discussion?
Sadly agreeing with the general judgement of TROLL!!,
Rustin
We are posting to inform you that Mr. Warkentin has taken his medicine and is feeling much better now. We will be taking him to a very quiet place where he will be able to get the rest that he so very badly needs.
To assist him in his recovery we have replaced his Porche with a perfectly good little Kia to help him understand that sometimes quality isn't nice if it makes us impolite to the less fortunate around us.
We hope that you will all send him your best wishes and now return you to your regularly scheduled collection of rants, trolls, and longwinded manifestos.
Have a nice day.
And this got modded to 2? Pathetic. Every low end Mac (iMac,eMac, low end laptop) comes with a monitor, a keyboard, and probably alot of other things you need. That's the point. Open box. Plug in. Turn on. Use. Including, BTW, applications that many home users stick with. (You have no idea how many former Performa buyers out there are *still* insisting on using Appleworks.)
And, BTW, those are premium monitors, keyboards, etc. The proof? Back when I did corporate IT (late eighties to two years ago, on and off) it was assumed that any user with pull got a replacement keyboard as an addtional line item when they got a Windoze box (MultiSync, Panasync, whatever for CRTs. Microsoft, Logitech, etc. for input devices) while the only Mac users who ever wanted different choices were either happy to get another Apple keyboard and just needed things like more/fewer keys or wanted some special thing that Apple didn't sell.
The final proof? Check out the thriving resale market in Apple peripherals, including keyboard, mice, monitors, and even cables on places like eBay. Even if they're over ten years old they're just assumed to work. If you were to ask an IT department how many ten year old Gateway or Dell keyboards they're still hanging on to they'ld just laugh at you.
Oh, as for RAM, if we're talking corporate buyers (which was, after all the point of the article) they buy their RAM from the same vendors (Ingram, xWarehouse, whatever) that they buy their PC RAM from for about the same prices. If we're talking (feh!) CompUSA, then we're mostly talking about adding an install fee but then decent RAM prices. Anyway, I've had to buy *waaaay* too many boxes from Toshiba, Compaq, etc., etc. to be surprised when a CPU vendor overcharges for something like that. Or to think that most people fall for it.
Get a clue, son. Until then, let the big folk speak.
Rustin
Sorry that was I in such a rush this morning. Trust me, if you'ld had to wade through the zoo down by the WTC site (visiting police strutting about, tourists blocking the sidewalks, media types damn near hitting folks with eighty bazillion pound cameras) to, get this, coordinate a move, you'ld want to get in and out ASAP too.
Anyway, the direct Pongsat link is here, most of my other science teacher resources are here (check out SciPlus in particular; they're amazing). The homeschooling discussion is archived here, and the obligatory LEGO link is here.
Good luck,
Rustin
If a kid isn't having fun, he isn't learning.
Have you lost your M I N D ? !
Child puts hand towards fire. It gets warm and then starts to burn. Child learns.
Child cries and cries for no good reason (looking for attention, saw another kid doing it, whatever). Adults refuse to get upset. Child gets frustrated, annoyed, eventually (over the next few years) figures out that tears by themselves aren't a magic passport to candy, etc. and LEARNS.
Child throws toy at sibling. Sibling is finally old enough to fight back. First child finally starts to get that those sorts of actions have consequences. Child learns.
Child gets pet fish. Doesn't feed it/overfeeds it. Fish dies. Child learns.
I dunno. I'm seeing plenty of learning in these (of the hundreds that I could mention), both specific and broad. I'm not seeing any "fun".
As a survivor of "do your own thing" parents *and* a two hundred year old elementary school (they actually taught enunciation) I've seen both ends of the spectrum and I find the idea that every moment of school has to be inherently (woo,hoo!) FUN not just absurd but revolting. Should education be stimulating, relevant, interwoven, etc? Yes. But I'm sorry, addition tables and spelling are not and never will be, in and of themselves, fun. Sometimes learning means just buckling down and getting the work done. In fact, the discipline taught by that is an essential part of what school is for in the first place.
Rustin (not gonna waste your time with my SATs but they're probably better than yours) the data geek.
Ooh baby! You'll love this! (or your money back, heh, heh!)
The folks at JP Aerospace have created a program where students can send a ping pong ball sized package into space for. ..FREE! If it's edumacational, they'll make the room. Something like six hundred packages are expected to be approved.
I've got to get to a client site and I'm too rushed to do the HREF mambo so, just go to my site (reed and wright above) and you'll find all the links. You might also want to check out the/. discussion of home schooling a while back (which you can also find by checking out my posts)
Gotta motor!
Rustin
As I remember it these were both viably on the way to profitability and in both cases their founders hadn't wanted to expand so fast. They knew perfectly well that they should figure things out in suitable cities like New York and San Fran first.
It was the VCs who imposed the condition that they start in so many cities at once to make the revenue numbers *look* good even though the founders made no bones about the fact that the profits would suffer.
Blame the VCs, folks. The founders certainly get their share but primarily I blame a VC culture that was out to scam people from the very beginning.
Here in New York especially, UF had all the characteristics of a good startup. Customers loved the service and they provided it well. They were considered good to work for but weren't too heavy on the money-wasting blowouts. Their customers were increasingly willing to pay premium prices for what they realized was a premium service. If they hadn't been pushed into starting in ridiculous cities like Houston they'ld still be with us today and we'ld all be better off.
Let's face it, folks. The dot com boom was a product of changing pension regulations and a herd of bankers looking for places to park billions of dollars of other people's money. The VCs invested in people they'ld enjoy hanging out with at a bar and left the rest to junior staff. And, AND, the same assholes still control most of the money that is supposed to go to starting businesses in America.
They transferred billions of dollars from (mostly blue collar) pensions to a legion of frat boys and their professionally blonde bar pals. Much of the rest was just window dressing.
Disgusted to admit that I'm shopping my own business plan soon,
Hey swb, I'm curious. Did you check out *anything* on scripting.com or Tara's site or anywhere else at all? Or did you just smugly draw your conclusions a priori and leave silly things like facts out of it?
So I ask again, what do you know about this race? What do you know about Coble? What do you know about Tara Grubb?
wanting to move to a city with a clue requirement,
Rustin
Check out scripting.com, where Dave Winer and his friends have figured out a good response to this. Don't sit around bitching, learn how to game the legislative process and get good people elected.
They've started backing the Libertarian candidate to replace one of the Congress critters backing this nonsense and now she's getting real media coverage and is given a chance to win.
We don't need to put up with these yahoos in DC. God knows they need us more than we need them, so let's get moving on replacing their bought and paid for asses.
I'm certainly doing my partto spread the word.
Rustin
apple is using the dmca to make sure its itools software does not work with any other dvd player but there[sic] own internal ones.
Man, this is starting to get on my nerves. Okay, let's remember who we're talking about here. Apple turns to lawyers faster than Bush does to Cheney; they've been suing everybody who pissed them off even a little since the days of eight inch drives.
So, hmm. Look at the current situation again. Apple has stopped their own developer from getting involved in the process of violating DMCA and, now think about this, STOPPED THERE. Apple is doing one thing and one thing only, covering their butt. Am I proud of them for doing this? No. Is this the same as crippling itools? Also no. If they were doing that they would be going after MacAddict, macnn, and the many other places that will continue to give users the means to do workarounds.
Yet another example of the new, Jobs-era Apple doing a wimpy-looking thing that in truth is part of choosing their fights for when they *do* have a shot of winning.
Sucks to be a responsible adult sometimes, doesn't it?
I know that I shouldn't succumb to temptation but. . ..
Oh, you must mean reliable ethernet on the motherboard?. No, you still don't have that.
Oh, I know, you must mean Firewire. Nope. Apple invented, SONY implemented, still flaky elsewhere.
Oh, then you must mean native support for multiple monitor systems? Hmm, guess not.
Oh, then you must mean uniform type usage standards. Oh, dear; I guess not.
Well, maybe you were referring to an OS-level implementation of Postscript? No, not that either.
Ooohhh! I get it! You were talking about uniform and reliable cut and paste across applications. No, not that either.
Wait! maybe you meant audio and later video-editing systems that are usable, inexpensive, and that creatives actually want to use. Hmph. Nope. Another one down.
Ah, now I remember, it's HTML and hypertext that you're talking about. Oh dear, HTML=Berners-Lee=NeXT, widespread hypertext=Hypercard. So not that either.
It must be that great out of the box security and resistance to cracking. Hrm; it certainly can't be that.
Maybe I just misunderstood the question. Must be my mistake.
It'd be really cool if we had a beowulf cluster of baked beans.
It would, of course, be gas powered.
lessee, black beans for SETI@home and secret stuff. Red beans for political/demographics. Mungbeans for grotty code. Kidney beans for repeating processes. Black-eye peas for tracking violence statistics. Government projects would work on pork and beans.
Massively iterative jobs would create refried beans.
Christian attempts to analyze word patterns in the Torah would use GOYa beans.
MIT would resent the assumption that they used Boston beans (Cambridge, dammit!)
And, of course, the Genome Project would use Human Beans.
Aaaggh! Stop me before I free associate again!
Thank you, Lommer for bringing a little perspective to this whole "ooh, we've got another excuse to get ourselves worked up about all those unfair people out there" foolishness. I hadn't checked to original proposal and will now do so.
To the rest of you, RTFuckingM!!!!!
Rustin
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, I'm a bit pissy. Even a lot pissy. But if you think that this only merits a 1, well, I'm just glad that I'm shifting my focus to my own site soon.
Enjoy my refs while you can, Malda and co. 'cause in two months or so I'll be gone, gone, gone.
Quick question. Are you perhaps under the impression that Apple is still selling the disk-shaped mouse? That's been gone for years.
So, how does it feel to wear (Diamond Age)Mr. Stephenson's hat?
Go ahead and flame me. I know that there are lots of folk working on nanotech. I just couldn't resist.
Oh lord. Now you're done it. Somewhere within a year, we're gonna see a new Darwin group calling themselves the Johnny A.'s or the JA Consortium or JohnA L0pht or something.
And it will all be your fault.
I hope that you're sorry.
In very other words, cool metaphor; I like it. Other people probably do too.
My. Bitter much?
OK, in order,
Also some of the apps you mentioned are very processor intensive. Which ones? I only mentioned two and I've done heavy work on both on setups much smaller than the ones that I mentioned. (though, then again, I also did tabloid layouts in Quark XPress on an SE so perhaps I'm just insane.)
Until Motorola gets off its ass...[blah,blah,blah]I agree that Moto's lost its mojo. That's exactly why Apple is fighting to get control over this AltiVec thing and switch to both multi-CPU standard and IBM as primary chip source. Personally I'ld prefer to see them do a hostile takeover of Motorola and personally DESTROY EVERY EXECUTIVE THERE but that's just me and perhaps I'm a tad vindictive.
[rant that consumers are stupid and fall for this MHz baloney] And where precisely did I disagree with that? Though as it happens I think that that is starting to lose power as a generation of buyers comes in that is far more tech-literate.
They have also had a history of sticking it to the dev's. Yes, they do. Including friends of mine and to me as an IT guy who stood up for them and got screwed. Again, where exactly did I say otherwise?
[blah, blah, apple are assholes, their tech is cool, company is untrustworthy, more Apple screws devs, some distorted perception re cloning] Yeah. So what? I'ld rather be with a, what is that, " bussness"?"busness"? that is reliably profitable so they won't go the way of DEC, Amiga, etc., etc., etc.
["I'm a gamer; I NEED power.] Bully for you. I don't know what thread you *think* you're in but this is one about building low-cost, scratch-built boxes and that was what I wrote about.
Some of my family will buy a computer [for] wizo bango software [from] best buy.[they make foolish choices and it pisses me off] I'm sorry and I feel your pain. Users suck, especially when they sit at the dinner table and blame *you* for *their* cluelessness. But again, isn't this a thread about purchasing by folks who solder for fun?
Thanks for the links though. You're most welcome. I hope that they come in useful.
Rustin
Oh, BTW, I apologize to everybody out there for my universally sour tone these days. Sometimes starting a company on no money really isn't fun at all and I'm afraid that you folks are getting some bleedthrough. I will try to give a little more thought in the future to giving my posts a lower arrogant asshole factor (AAF? perhaps a new mod variable).
Of course the really low budget approach would be to get an LC and run MKLinux. Perhaps go upscale and get a 6100.
I have heard tell of MK gotten running on SE30s and I've seen it on later IIcis so clearly one could build a dual-boot MacOS/*nix box for about $50 if one really had nothing better to do or a truly tiny budget.
Imagine that. Setting up a school in, say, Ghana, with 200 (yep, two HUNDRED!!!!!) running computers for the cost three mid-range G4s with toys(shipping not included). I can only hope.
Rustin
No question the older boxes have serious limits on bus speed. My point was that it's cheaper to buy an 8600 just to get the case, power supply, floppy, mouse, and CD drive then it is to buy the parts separately.
You'll end up with a near-server class case and power supply (complete with flip-open side, anchored cable harness, etc.) and a bunch of devices for the cost of an inferior case bought alone. Of course, getting the guts of a whole other Mac, in effect, for free, is a fun bit of icing on the cake.
As for the used parts pricing and those implications, oh dear. Please don't get me started on that. Let's just say that since the resale value of the Newton IP alone (even given a licence that only allows sales in the developing world) would be worth more to the right buyer than, say, the entire Visor corporation shows that Apple still makes a regular habit of sticking their head WAY up where the sun don't shine.
Rustin
Man oh man.
In the old days
OK, children, gather round for today's bowl of clue.
First of all, if you're gonna talk Apple mods, then start at applefritter. They've built Macs into everything from 1930's radios to LEGO people to ziplock bags.
Next, (I can't believe that I'm doing this twice in one day!), let's get the vendors and refs out of the way:
Mac of All Trades Getcher used macs here! Pretty visuals, delicious prices, detailed info. Selection could be better and there's no old stuff at all but I can deal with that. Have I bought from them yet? Nope. Am I likely to in the future? Yep.
MacResq The best place I've found overall to pick up gear. Even the guys in that article figured that out.
Powermax Cheesy setup, improving selection, good prices.
Shreve Expensive, distracting, but the best place to get weird low-end stuff like Mac Plus manuals and Daystar cards.
Small Dog Shrinking selection, great quality, excellent service, annoying interface. Bottom line, these are the guys to turn to for premium service, support, and savvy. Been around quite a while and, hey, they enclose coupons for Ben and Jerry's.
Guide to Mac CPUsThis is Apple's own site for detailed specs on all their machines ever. I'm starting you off on the page for older machines to remind you that a well-configured 1996 Mac w/ a USB/Firewire card can run OSX just fine, thank you very much.
Focus of Mac Hardware good workaday resource for doing mods. No cool toys. Considerable good data.
Missoula Mac User Group, Yeah, I know that you haven't heard of them; neither has anybody else outside of Montana AFAIK. Best place for overall newbie resources.
ResExcellence In the old days I would have suggested MacFixit, but these guys have taken their place. If you've been in the Mac world for a while you'll recognize them as the old-time source extraordinaire of ResEdit hacks.
Think Secret The only rumor site I like that I forgot to mention yesterday.
/.,
Okay, moving right along. CPUs. Those yahoos think that the only option is to start from scratch. Get a clue. The last pre-Jobs big boxes kicked almighty ass. Amelio may not have been a gifted businessman but he was a much better heavy gear guy. As far as I'm concerned your best bet for DIY is to buy an 8600. It'll be $230, tops. You get a great case, big power supply, floppy drive, cables, and so on. Probably also a Zip, for which I will pity you as that model of Zip just LOVED to come down with the Click o' Death. Even if you flat throw out all the electronics you're still way ahead of starting from a place like Tom's.
Next, processor speed. When will those yahoos figure it out? Before you get obsessed with latest and greatest ask yourself, "what exactly will I be DOING with this machine?" If you're running stuff like BBEdit (ah, my one true love!) or Photoshop for still work then any 400MHz box with fast drives and plenty of RAM will be, for all intents and purposes, instantanteous. Buying anything faster just means that you're acting like the small-donged dimwits who buy $20K stereos to get fidelity five times better then they can hear.
Drives. I'm always amazed at how terrified Windoze-damaged (let alone *nix) folks are at the thought of external drives. Get over it, already. On a Mac all that driver clash claptrap is a distant and not very credible folktale. Get a basic little 6 Gig internal and invest your money in external Firewire devices. You think this LAN party stuff is cool? On a Mac pretty much any well configured boot drive will boot any similar recent Mac. Stop carrying your entire box with you; stick to drives. Even better, get two or three smaller ones instead of one big one and, short of FBI seizures and vast fires, you become crash proof. Mac dies? Plug your drive (you did remember to back up your core data, right?) into another Mac and you're up and running again in minutes.
The future. If you're such an almighty techie that you just *need* to build a new cooler world every year or so, then remember, Mach kernel plus gigabit ethernet equals mongo shared resources. Even if you're too lazy to set up a formal Beowolf system, it's pretty damned easy to just keep adding machines and splitting the jobs between them. Instead of buying a whole new box, maybe you should just buy a second one and start spreading load to it.
OSes. Yup. No question, Jaguar is pretty spiffy. But almost every vendor site above (as well as eBay and co.) will sell you older legit disks and serial num.s for about fifty bucks. If you buy from a place like Small Dog you'll even be clearing out some of that famed Apple back inventory.
That's it. You want more? Then go to my site already (though best to wait a few weeks for my next redesign). Want more then that? Then pay me and I'll think about it.
Promising to not ever again use up time posting tutorials on
Rustin
If you watch the Mac sites (MacNN, MacOS Rumors, Macintouch, Apple Insider, MacAddict) you'll find that they usually post info on when a given model is reaching what Apple calls End Of Life, i.e. they're about to discontinue that model. That is reliably a good time to buy as you'll avoid getting the bugs of a 1.0 product and usually get some good toys as Apple tries to clear out their inventory. ;->
Remember, Apple is massively paranoid about excess inventory since they were so imfamous for having it in the bad old pre-Steve days.
Of course, you would be even better advised to buy a used Mac at a site like smalldog, macresq (where I bought mine), PowerMax, or the Powerbook Zone. Keep in mind that the useful life of a well cared for Mac (5300s and such notwithstanding YMMV) is about ten years.
Buy a model about a year old, max out the RAM, get a copy of Virtual PC, and score some two-version-old legit copies of your apps on eBay or the used mac sites, and you'll be stylin' on far less cash then you'ld think.
Speaking as both a former IT director in publishing and somebody who has set up stacks of machines for starving artists, that's what I'ld recommend.
Of course you could always drop by the Computing links section of my site and get even more advice
Rustin
Well, Star Trek's third season was the big granddaddy of this sort of thing. There's no question that Desilu would have shut it down sooner without fan reaction.
Other then that, I don't know. I'm somehow under the impression that there are other examples, but none are coming to mind.
Personally I'm waiting to see the first fanbuilt eps of long-running shows. Hmmm.
1.) Take a few hundred stills of each character in various moods, facing assorted ways, in various lighting, use to build synthetic actor. Do the same thing with voices/sounds.
2.) Do the same for the sets.
3.) Supplement with other footage of the same actors/type of sets from other stuff. (the more this happens the more "clip art" will be out there for cut and paste.)
4) Build plot parser to find running themes.
5.) Start building episodes.
Can anybody out there with three or more years of experience in Strata work or equiv. tell me with a straight face that there aren't already a hundred talking Kirk heads out there? Same for Tasha Yar, Seven of Nine, etc., etc., etbloody cetera.
I give it four years before the first homebuilt episodes with the following characteristics come out:
)-( Original plot and dialogue
)-( Visually convincing enough that a non-techie may mistake it for live action.
)-( Is accepted by 10+% of fans within two years as part of the full canon.
and here's the messy one
)-( Fifteen minutes or more of playing time (doesn't include title sequence or other filler)
And when that day comes this MPIAA/RIAA/Napster stuff will seem about as trivial as the Macarena.
Personally I'm glad that I dropped my acting career *early* (one major movie casting call was quite enough, thank you very much).
-Rustin
Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Moslems,
And *everybody* hates the Jews!
But during . . . National Brotherhood Week!
National Brotherhood Week!
George Bush and Hillary are dancing cheek to cheek.
Step up and take the hand
of someone that you can't stand.
You can tolerate him if you try.
Ah, Tom Lehrer. The Master reigns still.
Okay, I'll try to keep it brief and to the point.
I'm a fourth generation New Yorker. I went to Stuyvesant and had been coordinating donations to them a few weeks before. I was supposed to be in the WTC when the first plane hit and was late only because we were running behind getting ready for a presentation. I had a nurse coordinator sleeping on my sofa that night because she couldn't get home and had been working 'til midnight, I watched a friend of mine have a several day long delusional semi-pychotic break starting the 13th and myself spent several days, mostly in the rain, building the on-site logistics for the Salvation Army (was high enough in their rankings to have been offered control of their ground zero headquarters but was told that my work at 14th was more important).
Blah, blah, blah. I could go on for a few more paragraphs. Suffice to say that I was in Manhattan that day and lived through actively troubleshooting throughout the cleanup and am still doing it now.
Insert stuff about issues of helping friends with police/fireman funerals, trashed jobs, etc. Yeah, I've got all the cred, was there, did that, suffered, and so on.
So, that having been said, WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIVES?!?!? 9/11 was terrible. It caused all sorts of awful things and not nearly enough real reform (yet). But this morbid, self-righteous, flag-waving jingoism isn't helping anybody.
If you really want to do something appropriate, take today as one for quiet contemplation of two things, the terribly pernicious effects of fanatical belief (which I guarantee, ties in both cause and effect ways to poverty and totalitarianism), and what you are going to actually do to try to raise a generation of saner, more financially secure children, who will be inculcated with the sort of understanding of rights, rigor, reason, and responsibility that will keep us from this kind of fucked up twisted criminality in the first place.
Still reading? Then go here, get the damned thing (it was certainly enough trouble to create) and sign it.
On my reluctant way down to "ground zero" for the day,
Rustin
You know, it's a real shame that you posted this here because I've actually found this post quite useful. Right info, very wrong place. Trust me, as both a manager, and a long time political activist, the tone and time do count. Otherwise you just become yet another strident Operation Rescue-type wacko discrediting the very concern that you sought to promulgate,
Too bad you didn't have the self control to find a better discussion. Couldn't you at least have posted this as part of a YRO discussion?
Sadly agreeing with the general judgement of TROLL!!,
Rustin
Hello, slashdot citizens,
We are posting to inform you that Mr. Warkentin has taken his medicine and is feeling much better now. We will be taking him to a very quiet place where he will be able to get the rest that he so very badly needs.
To assist him in his recovery we have replaced his Porche with a perfectly good little Kia to help him understand that sometimes quality isn't nice if it makes us impolite to the less fortunate around us.
We hope that you will all send him your best wishes and now return you to your regularly scheduled collection of rants, trolls, and longwinded manifestos.
Have a nice day.
heh, heh, heh.
And this got modded to 2? Pathetic. Every low end Mac (iMac,eMac, low end laptop) comes with a monitor, a keyboard, and probably alot of other things you need. That's the point. Open box. Plug in. Turn on. Use. Including, BTW, applications that many home users stick with. (You have no idea how many former Performa buyers out there are *still* insisting on using Appleworks.)
And, BTW, those are premium monitors, keyboards, etc. The proof? Back when I did corporate IT (late eighties to two years ago, on and off) it was assumed that any user with pull got a replacement keyboard as an addtional line item when they got a Windoze box (MultiSync, Panasync, whatever for CRTs. Microsoft, Logitech, etc. for input devices) while the only Mac users who ever wanted different choices were either happy to get another Apple keyboard and just needed things like more/fewer keys or wanted some special thing that Apple didn't sell.
The final proof? Check out the thriving resale market in Apple peripherals, including keyboard, mice, monitors, and even cables on places like eBay. Even if they're over ten years old they're just assumed to work. If you were to ask an IT department how many ten year old Gateway or Dell keyboards they're still hanging on to they'ld just laugh at you.
Oh, as for RAM, if we're talking corporate buyers (which was, after all the point of the article) they buy their RAM from the same vendors (Ingram, xWarehouse, whatever) that they buy their PC RAM from for about the same prices. If we're talking (feh!) CompUSA, then we're mostly talking about adding an install fee but then decent RAM prices. Anyway, I've had to buy *waaaay* too many boxes from Toshiba, Compaq, etc., etc. to be surprised when a CPU vendor overcharges for something like that. Or to think that most people fall for it.
Get a clue, son. Until then, let the big folk speak.
Rustin
Sorry that was I in such a rush this morning. Trust me, if you'ld had to wade through the zoo down by the WTC site (visiting police strutting about, tourists blocking the sidewalks, media types damn near hitting folks with eighty bazillion pound cameras) to, get this, coordinate a move, you'ld want to get in and out ASAP too.
Anyway, the direct Pongsat link is here, most of my other science teacher resources are here (check out SciPlus in particular; they're amazing). The homeschooling discussion is archived here, and the obligatory LEGO link is here.
Good luck,
Rustin
If a kid isn't having fun, he isn't learning.
Have you lost your M I N D ? !
Child puts hand towards fire. It gets warm and then starts to burn. Child learns.
Child cries and cries for no good reason (looking for attention, saw another kid doing it, whatever). Adults refuse to get upset. Child gets frustrated, annoyed, eventually (over the next few years) figures out that tears by themselves aren't a magic passport to candy, etc. and LEARNS.
Child throws toy at sibling. Sibling is finally old enough to fight back. First child finally starts to get that those sorts of actions have consequences. Child learns.
Child gets pet fish. Doesn't feed it/overfeeds it. Fish dies. Child learns.
I dunno. I'm seeing plenty of learning in these (of the hundreds that I could mention), both specific and broad. I'm not seeing any "fun".
As a survivor of "do your own thing" parents *and* a two hundred year old elementary school (they actually taught enunciation) I've seen both ends of the spectrum and I find the idea that every moment of school has to be inherently (woo,hoo!) FUN not just absurd but revolting. Should education be stimulating, relevant, interwoven, etc? Yes. But I'm sorry, addition tables and spelling are not and never will be, in and of themselves, fun. Sometimes learning means just buckling down and getting the work done. In fact, the discipline taught by that is an essential part of what school is for in the first place.
Rustin (not gonna waste your time with my SATs but they're probably better than yours) the data geek.
Ooh baby! You'll love this! (or your money back, heh, heh!) .FREE! If it's edumacational, they'll make the room. Something like six hundred packages are expected to be approved. /. discussion of home schooling a while back (which you can also find by checking out my posts)
The folks at JP Aerospace have created a program where students can send a ping pong ball sized package into space for. .
I've got to get to a client site and I'm too rushed to do the HREF mambo so, just go to my site (reed and wright above) and you'll find all the links. You might also want to check out the
Gotta motor!
Rustin
As I remember it these were both viably on the way to profitability and in both cases their founders hadn't wanted to expand so fast. They knew perfectly well that they should figure things out in suitable cities like New York and San Fran first.
It was the VCs who imposed the condition that they start in so many cities at once to make the revenue numbers *look* good even though the founders made no bones about the fact that the profits would suffer.
Blame the VCs, folks. The founders certainly get their share but primarily I blame a VC culture that was out to scam people from the very beginning.
Here in New York especially, UF had all the characteristics of a good startup. Customers loved the service and they provided it well. They were considered good to work for but weren't too heavy on the money-wasting blowouts. Their customers were increasingly willing to pay premium prices for what they realized was a premium service. If they hadn't been pushed into starting in ridiculous cities like Houston they'ld still be with us today and we'ld all be better off.
Let's face it, folks. The dot com boom was a product of changing pension regulations and a herd of bankers looking for places to park billions of dollars of other people's money. The VCs invested in people they'ld enjoy hanging out with at a bar and left the rest to junior staff. And, AND, the same assholes still control most of the money that is supposed to go to starting businesses in America.
They transferred billions of dollars from (mostly blue collar) pensions to a legion of frat boys and their professionally blonde bar pals. Much of the rest was just window dressing.
Disgusted to admit that I'm shopping my own business plan soon,
Rustin
Hey swb, I'm curious. Did you check out *anything* on scripting.com or Tara's site or anywhere else at all? Or did you just smugly draw your conclusions a priori and leave silly things like facts out of it?
So I ask again, what do you know about this race? What do you know about Coble? What do you know about Tara Grubb?
wanting to move to a city with a clue requirement,
Rustin
Check out scripting.com, where Dave Winer and his friends have figured out a good response to this. Don't sit around bitching, learn how to game the legislative process and get good people elected.
They've started backing the Libertarian candidate to replace one of the Congress critters backing this nonsense and now she's getting real media coverage and is given a chance to win.
We don't need to put up with these yahoos in DC. God knows they need us more than we need them, so let's get moving on replacing their bought and paid for asses.
I'm certainly doing my partto spread the word.
Rustin
apple is using the dmca to make sure its itools software does not work with any other dvd player but there[sic] own internal ones.
Man, this is starting to get on my nerves. Okay, let's remember who we're talking about here. Apple turns to lawyers faster than Bush does to Cheney; they've been suing everybody who pissed them off even a little since the days of eight inch drives.
So, hmm. Look at the current situation again. Apple has stopped their own developer from getting involved in the process of violating DMCA and, now think about this, STOPPED THERE. Apple is doing one thing and one thing only, covering their butt. Am I proud of them for doing this? No. Is this the same as crippling itools? Also no. If they were doing that they would be going after MacAddict, macnn, and the many other places that will continue to give users the means to do workarounds.
Yet another example of the new, Jobs-era Apple doing a wimpy-looking thing that in truth is part of choosing their fights for when they *do* have a shot of winning.
Sucks to be a responsible adult sometimes, doesn't it?
I know that I shouldn't succumb to temptation but. . . .
Oh, you must mean reliable ethernet on the motherboard?. No, you still don't have that.
Oh, I know, you must mean Firewire. Nope. Apple invented, SONY implemented, still flaky elsewhere.
Oh, then you must mean native support for multiple monitor systems? Hmm, guess not.
Oh, then you must mean uniform type usage standards. Oh, dear; I guess not.
Well, maybe you were referring to an OS-level implementation of Postscript? No, not that either.
Ooohhh! I get it! You were talking about uniform and reliable cut and paste across applications. No, not that either.
Wait! maybe you meant audio and later video-editing systems that are usable, inexpensive, and that creatives actually want to use. Hmph. Nope. Another one down.
Ah, now I remember, it's HTML and hypertext that you're talking about. Oh dear, HTML=Berners-Lee=NeXT, widespread hypertext=Hypercard. So not that either.
It must be that great out of the box security and resistance to cracking. Hrm; it certainly can't be that.
Maybe I just misunderstood the question.
Must be my mistake.
It'd be really cool if we had a beowulf cluster of baked beans.
It would, of course, be gas powered.
lessee, black beans for SETI@home and secret stuff. Red beans for political/demographics. Mungbeans for grotty code. Kidney beans for repeating processes. Black-eye peas for tracking violence statistics.
Government projects would work on pork and beans.
Massively iterative jobs would create refried beans.
Christian attempts to analyze word patterns in the Torah would use GOYa beans.
MIT would resent the assumption that they used Boston beans (Cambridge, dammit!)
And, of course, the Genome Project would use Human Beans.
Aaaggh! Stop me before I free associate again!
Rustin
Thank you, Lommer for bringing a little perspective to this whole "ooh, we've got another excuse to get ourselves worked up about all those unfair people out there" foolishness. I hadn't checked to original proposal and will now do so.
To the rest of you, RTFuckingM!!!!!
Rustin