Having read the article, I went over to Sun to search for more info since its the first time I heard about N1. Doh! Its on their frontpage! And still, both the article and the Sun website only offer vague conceptual information being more attractive to the suity manager than to the sysadmins in question... Sounds all very point-and-clicky, or like some other form of wizard-driven (the software wizards about to replace the admins) stuff, besides some plug-and-play service clustering or p2p components...
Although I really would like to see more technical information, I bet this will see the same fate as other "simple" "solutions": It's the managers' (and users') darling system as long as they only request simple features, but they will cry for the admin if they need advanced stuff which goes beyond the first three pages of the fancy product overview paper...
And it also demonstrated that those 2-3 hours a day aren't enough for even the environmental hippies. In other words, it demonstrated that solar power is simply not sufficient (for even those professing to care the most about the environment).
You asked me before what this was demonstrating. Its a technology demonstration with a fun moment included, and saying that this project has proven that solar energy is insufficient since it didnt supply enough energy is like telling Mrs. Curie she could have stopped exploring radioactivity since her gramm of radium will never be enough to produce energy for cities, and since I suppose you support nuclear energy you might understand this example. Solar energy is an alternative, that has been practically proven in many areas, even in northern hemisphere areas which do not have aquatorial sun light. It might not be the full answer, but it can contribute significantly.
Again, keeping your 'environmental hippies' stereotype suggests me you will not take some people seriously whatsoever...
And there can hardly be any doubt that solar power produces less pollution in operation than burning any fuel, whether its soy bean oil or coal or whatever...
I sure hope not, because it's a step backward.
Now that even those who liked that projects have agreed that this is not the ultimate step forward, what's exactly the mighty step backwards?
What, that the environmentalists are hypocrites who waste just as much energy as the rest of us?
Well, and I was just given a -1 for flamebaiting? I can live with that, but besides the hypocrits there are people who do think about reducing power usage. Living in an industrialized country, its hard to live an everyday's life (not becoming a treehugger that is) and not waste energy. This fact can be used as a hypocrit's excuse, it can as well be part of the struggle to find alternatives within sensible borders of a given lifestyle.
Pedaling a bike for power? That's neither valuable nor green.
No, but its a demonstration, and valuable as a green one.
What's the proportion of energy used to *make* all the comms gear they have vs. the energy it actually takes to power it? 100:1?
Yep, you are right. That's one reason I said they address, yet do not solve the problem, because its not solved in an efficent way, plus its not very convenient... Alone considering the amount of energy and resources put into the production of their AirBases and notebooks outnumbers what they save through bike power by far. IMHO their approach does not qualify as a solution, but more as a hackish project, which can function as a reminder, maybe even as kinda proof-of-concept, and that's it.
On the other hand, if somebody would try to develop some environmental-friendly way of powering outdoor notebooks or whatever, this development would initially waste far more energy than it would save, hopefully paying off in the long run. I see that their project is no research effort or something similar serious, but asking for 'greener' solutions and at the same time rejecting the trade-off of initially higher resource usage for the sake of resource-friendly solutions would end up in dumping all technology and doing LANs and WANs with drums, becoming the infamous treehugger person.
Sure, maybe many people do not consider this interesting, which is fine to me. But although its thrilling US TV prime time, they find time to comment on a boring story..? (Which is fine to me as well) Maybe they comment on a what they consider boring since the TV is even more boring?
Maybe we can agree on 50% bored people, and 50% smart asses?;)
25 comments, and everybody besides the valuable mirror people (thx!) is trying to be funny... I cannot refrain from the idea this must have to do with the/. community perception of these people as just being wierd treehuggers, but a) how is this less hackish or nerdish than other fringe hardware hacking, like setting up overclocked boards in fridges or similar stuff which always gets applauded here, and b) this in fact isn't useless, not because it actually solves energy problems, but it rather points to environmental issues someone needs to address...
Maybe its too bad for their/. appreciation that its called the Big Green Gathering and not HAL or Chaos Communication Camp.. Nonetheless they have done a nice and valuable hack, and a green one too...
Well, maybe instead of doing a new movie, they should reshow the original BBC series in cinemas... Everywhere, especially in my city! They were awesome and maybe way more appropriate since they were so british...:) I don't wanna see Hugh Grant as Ford Prefect and Mel Gibson as Arthur Dent, Vogons from ILM??? Alec Guiness would be okay as Slartibartfast, but unfortunately he now lives in the appartment close to Douglas Adams'... How many people here actually know the BBC TV series?
The only hope is in the idea that the Chicken Run author will be responsible for the script... Will we see Dent and Prefect in clay now?
After browsing your/. comments I actually read her article, which Eugenia considers "NOT a review article, it is a commentary", which sounds to me like an excuse for flaming.. Anyway, from my experience Yast2 improved a lot with SuSE 8.0, lets see what 8.1 will do, and I think it is one of the fastest-to-install distros for the average user... Although I personally prefer the apt-* stuff for upgradebility and dependencies. (Distro wars please stop here..)
While E. starts with hitting on Yast2, she later gets deeply into critizing package management and the free software community distributing process, and she is pretty much having the same points as the so-called other "excellent article"" on OSNews: Linux installations are much heavier to handle for "the user" because there is no intuitive way to install new packages, and again, the new Yast2 fails to offer a plain and simple way.
But:
When she is refering to "the user", she always means someone used to a Microsoft Windows system. So she is preoccupied with MD Windows, and the intuity she wants basically sums up to resemblance of Windows systems. And in fact, 80% of the plain Windows users I know are incapable of installing new programs simply because the whole system is not intuitive to them.
Saying a user should be able to work with a system without knowledge of the system is continuing the myth that mastering new technologies can be done without any education on these technologies, as long as these technologies stay "intuitive". There is no intuitive technology I know of, and to handle devices, you need some knowledge on how they work or at least how they are operated. This is the case with cars, microwave ovens, vcrs, telephones, even pdas (ever seen a computer illiterate trying to retrieve an address from a Palm?) and these devices are way less complex than full-featured computer systems. You need to learn to operate a system, and that's the painful truth both with MS Windows and Linux. The fact that MS products are more widely deployed on desktops and some people (esp. MS itself) refer to them as almost 'culture techniques' does not void the need for learning how they work.
While MS Windows systems come with a handful of applications and usually will have maybe two dozens applications installed, Linux distros come with thousands of application. No wonder that these are harder to manage and oversee than the small number of Windows killer apps. This is the trade off between freedom of choice and simplicity. Linux install managers most often offer profiles which choose the packages for you based on a given profile, which tries to make the abundancy of applications more manageable. In the end, awhen a user (which, as above said, I require from any user) has become aquianted with how the system works, the user will profit from that freedom...
Dependancy hell on Linux resembles DLL hell on MS Windows, at least if you are going to run newer Windows apps which require specific patches and service packs. The concept that one program might need some components of another program is easily understandable even to the newbie user (though not intuitive because you have to grasp the concept of programs, applications and installation in the first place), and in fact providing thousands of packages, providing shared resources is mandatory. (For example, think ELF)
I know Linux (or any other free software system) sometimes is more demanding to the user than other systems in terms of a steeper learning curve, but pretending that other systems do not have a learning curve at all is unfair and ridiculous.
This whole article - as well as the other OSNews article she refers to - looks to me like being written on a morning with a bad mood and/or a bad hangover. And believe me, I am a hangover specialist...
Now here's the *really* great idea(tm): (Ab)using some P2P network to have/.ers and/.ettes share the content they usually are about to collectively slashdot... Will need some client thing to become automatic... Or something like BitTorrent?
Slashdot Mirror
Although I really would like to see more technical information, I bet this will see the same fate as other "simple" "solutions": It's the managers' (and users') darling system as long as they only request simple features, but they will cry for the admin if they need advanced stuff which goes beyond the first three pages of the fancy product overview paper...
You asked me before what this was demonstrating. Its a technology demonstration with a fun moment included, and saying that this project has proven that solar energy is insufficient since it didnt supply enough energy is like telling Mrs. Curie she could have stopped exploring radioactivity since her gramm of radium will never be enough to produce energy for cities, and since I suppose you support nuclear energy you might understand this example. Solar energy is an alternative, that has been practically proven in many areas, even in northern hemisphere areas which do not have aquatorial sun light. It might not be the full answer, but it can contribute significantly.
Again, keeping your 'environmental hippies' stereotype suggests me you will not take some people seriously whatsoever...
And there can hardly be any doubt that solar power produces less pollution in operation than burning any fuel, whether its soy bean oil or coal or whatever...
I sure hope not, because it's a step backward.
Now that even those who liked that projects have agreed that this is not the ultimate step forward, what's exactly the mighty step backwards?
Well, and I was just given a -1 for flamebaiting? I can live with that, but besides the hypocrits there are people who do think about reducing power usage. Living in an industrialized country, its hard to live an everyday's life (not becoming a treehugger that is) and not waste energy. This fact can be used as a hypocrit's excuse, it can as well be part of the struggle to find alternatives within sensible borders of a given lifestyle.
Pedaling a bike for power? That's neither valuable nor green.
No, but its a demonstration, and valuable as a green one.
Yep, you are right. That's one reason I said they address, yet do not solve the problem, because its not solved in an efficent way, plus its not very convenient... Alone considering the amount of energy and resources put into the production of their AirBases and notebooks outnumbers what they save through bike power by far. IMHO their approach does not qualify as a solution, but more as a hackish project, which can function as a reminder, maybe even as kinda proof-of-concept, and that's it.
On the other hand, if somebody would try to develop some environmental-friendly way of powering outdoor notebooks or whatever, this development would initially waste far more energy than it would save, hopefully paying off in the long run. I see that their project is no research effort or something similar serious, but asking for 'greener' solutions and at the same time rejecting the trade-off of initially higher resource usage for the sake of resource-friendly solutions would end up in dumping all technology and doing LANs and WANs with drums, becoming the infamous treehugger person.
That's my two Eurocent at least...
Maybe we can agree on 50% bored people, and 50% smart asses? ;)
Maybe its too bad for their /. appreciation that its called the Big Green Gathering and not HAL or Chaos Communication Camp.. Nonetheless they have done a nice and valuable hack, and a green one too...
The only hope is in the idea that the Chicken Run author will be responsible for the script... Will we see Dent and Prefect in clay now?
After browsing your /. comments I actually read her article, which Eugenia considers "NOT a review article, it is a commentary", which sounds to me like an excuse for flaming.. Anyway, from my experience Yast2 improved a lot with SuSE 8.0, lets see what 8.1 will do, and I think it is one of the fastest-to-install distros for the average user... Although I personally prefer the apt-* stuff for upgradebility and dependencies. (Distro wars please stop here..)
While E. starts with hitting on Yast2, she later gets deeply into critizing package management and the free software community distributing process, and she is pretty much having the same points as the so-called other " excellent article" " on OSNews: Linux installations are much heavier to handle for "the user" because there is no intuitive way to install new packages, and again, the new Yast2 fails to offer a plain and simple way.
But:
I know Linux (or any other free software system) sometimes is more demanding to the user than other systems in terms of a steeper learning curve, but pretending that other systems do not have a learning curve at all is unfair and ridiculous.
This whole article - as well as the other OSNews article she refers to - looks to me like being written on a morning with a bad mood and/or a bad hangover. And believe me, I am a hangover specialist...
Anybody wanting start coding such a thing? :)