I hope I am not the only one, but whenever I see a blue LED shining in my eye, my stomach turns and I feel slightly queezy and nauseous. I despise the recent fad of putting BRIGHT blue LEDs on every consumer electronic product.
I have had to cover them all in my home and car with a dot of black electrical tape.
I hate to burst you bubble, but the "bible-belt" reaches much farther north then you think.
I am a Semi-Truck driver, and I live in Ontario, Canada. I routinely drive through Michigan and goto Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Indiana. While driving through these 'Northern' States I often experience first-hand the gross ignorance that has a strangle-hold on these 'unwashed-masses'.
-try scanning your radio and listen to all the church stations that exist. They easily outnumber normal 'music' stations by 4:1.
-fear mongering and hate speak that they allow on these 'Praise The Lord' bible stations is outrageous some times, and brings to mind Nazi propaganda.
-speaking to 'The Average Joe' is scary too. From factory workers, office staff, to truck stop patrons (admittedly the lower rungs of the evolution ladder), I hear such ignorance to make my heart weep for humanity.
Sample conversations: On politics; "Barack Obama, I can't vote for him, hes got a funny name." On science; "I can't wait for Global Warming, it's too cold here in the winter."
I'm sorry but it's too late. I stopped using MS Server just as 2003 was released. W2k was a fine OS for small and local LAN admin, but by that time I was very fluent with Debian. My needs grew, as did the # of boxes that I needed to support & secure. The ease of remote CLI via SSH + painfully slow 14.4 access damned MS's GUI's to the gutter.
I started with DOSv5 and am not afraid of the CLI, but there was too much stuff that w2k needed a mouse & GUI for. Microsoft; good for you for finally listening, it's a shame that it's too little too late.
As long as IT is considered a mystic black-art that anybody who 'knows-computers' can do then it will never receive the respect that it deserves. All IT jobs should be considered on the same "Skilled Trade" tier as plumbers, welders, electricians, etc. As long as the PHB thinks that his son Johnny has a computer so anybody can do this job, then it will always be a dead-end position.
There should be a registered apprenticeship, and it should take years to finish. The Certification schools should all be closed down and only true colleges and universities be registered to offer the courses.
If any boss thinks that you could be replaced by a student for $10.00/hr, then there is no respect.
Do we really want EFF to win these types of cases? What better way exists to reboot the entire system then waiting for it to grind to a stop. Let them choke on their own stink. I'll file a patent on "method of filing a patent".
Its the same argument as all the DRM crap we see. Let everyone become annoyed with it.
Look no further then Tyan. The Tempest line (Intel CPUs) can hold 32GB of ram and the Thunder line (AMD CPUs) can hold 64GB of ram.
Now I am curious about one thing you said about Intel mobos:
and their server motherboards are too expensive If you are too cheap to buy a mobo that in your own words was "reliable, and solid", how the heck are you going to pay for the 32GB of ECC RAM?
I run a Tyan Thunder with two Opteron 270's (and 4GB of RAM) as my primary workstation, and I have never been happier. I can honestly say that this is the last workstation I will buy until it dies, I no longer need to worry about "but my computer can't run X".
With the memory sizes and data sets that you are talking about I wouldn't consider anything other then AMD CPU's. The bandwidth that the CPU and memory are shared on Intel boards, and each AMD cpu has a dedicated memory controller and dedicated RAM slots.
You posted this on/. so you know that Linux will be the preferred OS.
How do these SSD compare to a real high-end disk like a 15k rpm Ultra320 SCSI drive? Of course SSD will beat an IDE disk hands-down, but that is not why you buy IDE drives. I have always used SCSI for my OS/system and IDE for my storage, this combination (in addition to SMP rigs when available) has allowed me to out-live 3 generations of processors. Therefore saving me money on upgrades.
SSD seems best marketed to 'gamers' so why is it always connected to a very limited IO bus?
This is what we know about Google so far. They.. -bought lots of dark-fiber (is it still dark?) -have portable data centers (you can disprove this with facts all you want, but I think they got the idea from Die Hard4) -want to buy an extremely usefull chunk of the radio spectrum (that can handle high-bandwidth data)
Looks like a game of chess to me. All pawns are in place, just waiting for the Queen.
I love the KDE backend (dcop, kio-slaves, et al.); {I am a little worried that it might provide an avenue for malware in the future a-la Windows}.
Good news: the memory footprint of 'Strigi' is supposed to be lower then Beagle Great news: You can install/use KDE4 without 'Plasma' (KDE 4 eyecandy) Awesome news: KDE-based apps should work on Mac & Windows (properly ported)
Firefox has done an awesome job of weening people off Internet Explorer as "The Internet", as more killer-apps (Amarok I am looking at you) become available on Windows it will be easier to get folks to switch.
I use Fluxbox as my WM with KDE-base and KDElibs for my backend. Conky is as fancy as it gets for my eyecandy. I look forward to KDE4 because of all the good stuff that I can make use of. I just hope to $deity that they keep the eye-candy as optional. I am not looking forward to their whole concept of active-desktop/"its where you work dude"/make it an experience that people can interact with.
Rule #1) The DE/WM is HOW you access your programs, and should be invisible to the process. Rule #2) Just because the median processor/ram is 42-times more powerfull then it was x-years ago does not mean that your programs can be 42-times more bloated. Rule #3) Keep everything optional. Just because you think that everybody on the planet is stupid for not wanting something, does not mean everybody actually does want it.
I see the biggest limiting factor that prevents us from experiencing computing nirvana (a la Star Trek; "computer do this..") is artificial limits placed on us by corporations trying to gouge us for more profit.
Cell phone companies: Imagine how much more pervasive internet access would be if data access didn't cost more then a mortgage payment. I can accept a certain degree of slowness based on technical limitations.
ISP's: Offer the moon, and then restrict your access if you try to leave the driveway. "UNLIMITED INTERNET FOR $20/MONTH*" *If you exceed whatever usage we deem is to expensive for us, we will charge you hundreds of dollars and give you a bad credit rating.
Media Companies & DRM: Wake up and drink the kool-aid. Your business model has changed and it all started with the VCR. People do not like being forced to jump through hoops. There are multiple options that are available that will allow you to thrive in this digital age but like buggy-whip manufacturers you refuse to adapt.
One of the places that I worked as a contractor was rife with this type of abuse. I mentioned to one of the users that they were the cause of the problems; the response staggered me;
"Its your job to keep the computers safe, not mine."
Slashdot Mirror
I hope I am not the only one, but whenever I see a blue LED shining in my eye, my stomach turns and I feel slightly queezy and nauseous. I despise the recent fad of putting BRIGHT blue LEDs on every consumer electronic product.
I have had to cover them all in my home and car with a dot of black electrical tape.
It is located here:
39 7'2.78"N x 7646'7.85"W
Or as a link: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.118071,-76.76737&z=16&t=h&hl=en
I hate to burst you bubble, but the "bible-belt" reaches much farther north then you think.
I am a Semi-Truck driver, and I live in Ontario, Canada. I routinely drive through Michigan and goto Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Indiana. While driving through these 'Northern' States I often experience first-hand the gross ignorance that has a strangle-hold on these 'unwashed-masses'.
-try scanning your radio and listen to all the church stations that exist. They easily outnumber normal 'music' stations by 4:1.
-fear mongering and hate speak that they allow on these 'Praise The Lord' bible stations is outrageous some times, and brings to mind Nazi propaganda.
-speaking to 'The Average Joe' is scary too. From factory workers, office staff, to truck stop patrons (admittedly the lower rungs of the evolution ladder), I hear such ignorance to make my heart weep for humanity.
Sample conversations:
On politics; "Barack Obama, I can't vote for him, hes got a funny name."
On science; "I can't wait for Global Warming, it's too cold here in the winter."
After a few crappy/corrupt (non apt-get) installs + a full HD + a new bigger/faster HD my system needs to be nuked and reinstalled.
I LOVE apt. I love the breadth of software that is available for it. But I'm a geek and I want to try something new.
How does one install new software on BSD? (do you compile everything from source?)
Or are there repos available?
I run debian on my main workstation (have for a long time).
These are my requirements before I switch:
fluxbox as wm.
various KDE apps, esp. Amarok.
NFS support
Nvidia binary video drivers. so that I can play: Never Winter nights & Enemy Territory.
Can/Will FreeBSD work for me?
(I run dual Opteron 270's with 2GB of ram so SMP is important but AMD64 is not).
I'm sorry but it's too late. I stopped using MS Server just as 2003 was released. W2k was a fine OS for small and local LAN admin, but by that time I was very fluent with Debian.
My needs grew, as did the # of boxes that I needed to support & secure. The ease of remote CLI via SSH + painfully slow 14.4 access damned MS's GUI's to the gutter.
I started with DOSv5 and am not afraid of the CLI, but there was too much stuff that w2k needed a mouse & GUI for.
Microsoft; good for you for finally listening, it's a shame that it's too little too late.
Finally we have proof that (all) Government(s) fear the education of the populace. As if there was any doubt before.
As long as IT is considered a mystic black-art that anybody who 'knows-computers' can do then it will never receive the respect that it deserves. All IT jobs should be considered on the same "Skilled Trade" tier as plumbers, welders, electricians, etc. As long as the PHB thinks that his son Johnny has a computer so anybody can do this job, then it will always be a dead-end position.
There should be a registered apprenticeship, and it should take years to finish. The Certification schools should all be closed down and only true colleges and universities be registered to offer the courses.
If any boss thinks that you could be replaced by a student for $10.00/hr, then there is no respect.
Is that in Earth years or Mars years?
It's about time NASA and all other space agencies adopt 10-base time systems.
Or hell even StarDates a la StarTrek.
Do we really want EFF to win these types of cases? What better way exists to reboot the entire system then waiting for it to grind to a stop.
Let them choke on their own stink.
I'll file a patent on "method of filing a patent".
Its the same argument as all the DRM crap we see. Let everyone become annoyed with it.
Now I am curious about one thing you said about Intel mobos: and their server motherboards are too expensive If you are too cheap to buy a mobo that in your own words was "reliable, and solid", how the heck are you going to pay for the 32GB of ECC RAM?
I run a Tyan Thunder with two Opteron 270's (and 4GB of RAM) as my primary workstation, and I have never been happier. I can honestly say that this is the last workstation I will buy until it dies, I no longer need to worry about "but my computer can't run X".
With the memory sizes and data sets that you are talking about I wouldn't consider anything other then AMD CPU's. The bandwidth that the CPU and memory are shared on Intel boards, and each AMD cpu has a dedicated memory controller and dedicated RAM slots.
You posted this on
Go with AMD, you won't be disappointed.
As long as it uses RPM, it will never be a threat.
How do these SSD compare to a real high-end disk like a 15k rpm Ultra320 SCSI drive?
Of course SSD will beat an IDE disk hands-down, but that is not why you buy IDE drives.
I have always used SCSI for my OS/system and IDE for my storage, this combination (in addition to SMP rigs when available) has allowed me to out-live 3 generations of processors. Therefore saving me money on upgrades.
SSD seems best marketed to 'gamers' so why is it always connected to a very limited IO bus?
This is what we know about Google so far.
They..
-bought lots of dark-fiber (is it still dark?)
-have portable data centers (you can disprove this with facts all you want, but I think they got the idea from Die Hard4)
-want to buy an extremely usefull chunk of the radio spectrum (that can handle high-bandwidth data)
Looks like a game of chess to me. All pawns are in place, just waiting for the Queen.
My finest gaming moment of 2007, was when I finally finished Freecell.
About 2 years ago I started playing all the freecell games in order, in an attempt to beat/win every possible combination.
It wasn't pretty, and there was no 5.1 audio announcing to the office that I had completed this monumental task, but I felt it was a moral victory.
Time to goto the library. I am completely fed-up with all these media companies.
This is my New-Years resolution, starting now;
No paid TV subscriptions. Bell ExpressVu you are history.
No paid radio subscriptions. Sirius good-bye.
TV will be limited to OTA access only.
Media center linux-box will serve-up my movies.
That should save me ~$90/month. That can offset the cost of a very fat internet pipe.
I love the KDE backend (dcop, kio-slaves, et al.); {I am a little worried that it might provide an avenue for malware in the future a-la Windows}.
Good news: the memory footprint of 'Strigi' is supposed to be lower then Beagle
Great news: You can install/use KDE4 without 'Plasma' (KDE 4 eyecandy)
Awesome news: KDE-based apps should work on Mac & Windows (properly ported)
Firefox has done an awesome job of weening people off Internet Explorer as "The Internet", as more killer-apps (Amarok I am looking at you) become available on Windows it will be easier to get folks to switch.
I use Fluxbox as my WM with KDE-base and KDElibs for my backend. Conky is as fancy as it gets for my eyecandy. I look forward to KDE4 because of all the good stuff that I can make use of. I just hope to $deity that they keep the eye-candy as optional. I am not looking forward to their whole concept of active-desktop/"its where you work dude"/make it an experience that people can interact with.
Rule #1) The DE/WM is HOW you access your programs, and should be invisible to the process.
Rule #2) Just because the median processor/ram is 42-times more powerfull then it was x-years ago does not mean that your programs can be 42-times more bloated.
Rule #3) Keep everything optional. Just because you think that everybody on the planet is stupid for not wanting something, does not mean everybody actually does want it.
I see the biggest limiting factor that prevents us from experiencing computing nirvana (a la Star Trek; "computer do this..") is artificial limits placed on us by corporations trying to gouge us for more profit.
Cell phone companies: Imagine how much more pervasive internet access would be if data access didn't cost more then a mortgage payment. I can accept a certain degree of slowness based on technical limitations.
ISP's: Offer the moon, and then restrict your access if you try to leave the driveway. "UNLIMITED INTERNET FOR $20/MONTH*" *If you exceed whatever usage we deem is to expensive for us, we will charge you hundreds of dollars and give you a bad credit rating.
Media Companies & DRM: Wake up and drink the kool-aid. Your business model has changed and it all started with the VCR. People do not like being forced to jump through hoops. There are multiple options that are available that will allow you to thrive in this digital age but like buggy-whip manufacturers you refuse to adapt.
Progess I suppose, it wasn't long ago that Royal Bank finally gave up on OS/2 Warp.
A company I was recently worked for was still using Windows95. As the workstations died they upgraded them to 2000.
/month on a 64k ISDN line used for a VPN (yes I know)
Novell 4 (check)
Windows 95 (check)
$2000.00
Glad I don't work there anymore
Open it up and save those magnets!
(a) the magnets are actually worth something
(b) they are FUN as hell
(c) donate them to local elementary school science class
One of the places that I worked as a contractor was rife with this type of abuse. I mentioned to one of the users that they were the cause of the problems; the response staggered me;
"Its your job to keep the computers safe, not mine."
Alas logic held no sway on their minds.
I will buy this on one condition.
Does anybody know if it has a glossy screen or a matte finish?
Speaking as a truck driver I can tell you that CB-Radios already do this.
"Hey North-bound, you better get your ass off that road and find a detour, there's a 3 mile parking lot ahead of you."
"10-4 South-bound, thank-you. There's a Bear with a radar-gun at mile-marker 127."
Just add more profanity and you get the general idea.
Just get a front-projector with DVI and/or VGA input.
Connect to your PC and love your media once again.