I've got about 60 3GHz small form desktop PCs with 512MB of RAM and gigabit Ethernet sitting on a couple pallets. Since I already have a few DRBL servers set up for netbooting compute nodes, setting them up as a render or compute cluster would only take a couple days. I've done a few pilots of this in my basement with 4 nodes and the system is said to scale fairly linearly. If I had the watts I could probably get a pretty respectable cluster going with little trouble, and the experience would probably come in handy. But I can't afford the time and I don't have the watts.
It's a shame, too, because I could probably come up with a few hundred of these machines a year at negative cost. Companies are actually paying to be rid of them. Writing apps for this type of cluster would be... educational.
There are a good number of brilliant young people coming up right now who would really love to do some indoor work with no heavy lifting. Not all of them are going to get the chance. It's a horrid waste that many of them are going to go intellectually numb bagging groceries or ruin their backs hanging drywall. They can be had for cheap, at first, and grow into productive and loyal members of your team. If you can find them.
Rules are set. Rules are changed. People game the system anyway. Making the management, inspection and auditing of the system complex and incomprehensible is part of the game but really there's no hope for a cure. The game is designed by people and people play the game. Both sides seek dominance and alternately get it to varying degrees until the inevitable loss of control that turns the pendulum yet again. Regulation is needed, but there's no such thing as a permanent regulation in the dynamic finance system that we have - the game changes and getting the regulations turned to your advantage is why people contribute to campaigns.
I don't think we'll ever be quit of it. The trick is to adapt to it and turn it to your advantage.
Inflation has not been a cumulative 400% in the last 10 years
And deflation in general won't be 75% as home prices come down over the next three years. That's why it's called a bubble.
The value that your home has is that it keeps the rain off of you, and keeps you from being arrested for sleeping in the park. It also makes a handy place to store the stuff with sentimental value you accumulate over time, like offspring.
There will be some interesting side effects from this boom and crash. Right now home prices are crashing at the same time interest rates hit unsustainable historic lows. Generally that's a good time to buy a home if you don't have one -- but get a fixed rate with a payment you can afford. If you don't, the inevitable inflationary spiral that follows will break you. With a fixed rate, inflation actually works for you by raising your income and reducing the real value of your debt. In the 80's I heard SO many stories about older people who had a nice home that cost $20,000 on a 30 year fixed 6% rate loan at the same time my parent's variable rate swelled to over 18% that the idea stuck. As soon as the market starts showing signs of life the rates will start going up again so don't miss your shot. The opportunity time is coming around again as it does for every generation -- it's almost time to fire your landlord. When it's time many will make the deal of a lifetime. Everybody else gets to spend the next 20 years kicking themselves for missing it, while they do it the hard way.
In short, GP was exactly right. In a perfect market the average home costs exactly as much as the average buyer can afford to pay. The games they've been playing with finance drove the prices up and make getting loans easy for a while and it will be followed by a time when the prices are driven down and loans are difficult to get because the market is not perfect: People always try to game the system and all systems can be gamed and so buyability swings wildly from completely impossible to ridiculously easy and most folks have to take care to get in when the time is right. The minor cycle seems to be roughly 20 years and the major cycle 80.
If inflation gets totally ridiculous, everybody with a fixed rate home loan gets to pay off the loan very easily, though other stuff starts to get harder to get. That's why it's smart to own some gold and silver too - not certificates or shares in mining companies that can be shams or go bust; real soft metal coins and bars. You don't need too much of it because the crisis can't last longer than a few years before things straighten out. Only once you've taken care of these things should you start to think about putting your extra money to work at interest.
I have always believed that the vast majority of today's financial instruments have been invented out of thin air for no reason other than to ultimately ensure the employment of bankers and brokers.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. Congratulations: You got it in one. The complexity serves no purpose other than to confuse, which only to the benefit of the more experienced person running the game and to the detriment of the rookie customers. Unfortunately they've rigged the game so that you almost have to play.
For what it's worth there are cultures where loans at interest are not permitted. The workarounds they use to allow savers to take advantage of spenders are even more complex and vicious.
You need a little zest to your Internet experience. A little edge. That's what IE gives you... it brings back that intrepid day you first browsed the 'net when you clicked with trembling finger, alert to the fact that this was so new, anything could happen.
Pfft on Firefox and noscript. You're not hanging it all out there surfing with the big boys and earning your mad dog network security wizard chops until you're surfing with IE without even a firewall!
Especially since it happens nearly every day. Oh noes!!!! Everybody panic!!! Another exploit in Windows/Office/Explorer. WOE is us!!!
Perhaps if we phrased it like a sponsored ad: "Todays exploit brought to you by yet another buffer overflow error!" "This morning's gaping security hole sponsored by Stormworm. Stormworm: The worm of choice for the discerning mailbot."
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times
to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
(U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8) - US Copyright Office
A musical or video recording is neither a writing nor a discovery. It was never the intent of the framers to extend copyright to these things and the practice should be abolished by law.
Not only does HP not charge extra to pre-upgrade you to XP, on HP workstations Vista installed is not even an option. This is not a new development - it's always been this way.
So... does the Add or remove programs gadget actually add programs yet? That's a feature I like from Linux they're going to have to add before they get me to switch back.
And you think when a general consumer wants some software to do XYZ, the first thing they're going to do is fire up apt?
You're probably thinking about the apt command line tool. That's cool and all, but you should really get current. For years most linux distributions have had a nice GUI tool in the Applications menu called "Add/Remove". It's like the Add / Remove programs in the Windows control panel except that it actually does Add programs, has a search engine for that, and checks for updates too. It's really cool.
When I see Linux software being sold in my local retailer....
You still go to brick and mortar stores to buy computer stuff? That's so... retro. Tell me - do they still close? Do you still have to choose from a limited array of stuff they happen to have on hand? Do they still not have any useful tools for comparing prices with other vendors, reviews from credible sources or actual benchmarks? I suppose the boxes still have limited and often misleading information about the box contents like "Vista Capable". Is the staff as knowledgeable and helpful as they were back in the day? How... quaint.
I'm sure it's an interesting personal choice that expresses your individual character, but you might try this new online shopping thing. I hear many folks find it convenient, efficient and economical.
and there is really nothing in F/OSS of interest to the general consumer market that isn't available for Windows.
Your insight into the needs of the general consumer are what make you so popular among twitter's sockpuppets.
For one, let's consider the built in software system that allows you to install any of many thousands of apps easily and quickly. It doesn't suffer from the risks associated with browsing the internet in search of the executable installer for the app that does what you need. It has its own search engine and consolidated update system.
Which leads us to the reverse of your supposition... what Linux lacks that's not of interest to the general consumer but that under Windows he can't resist or avoid: the malware ecosystem.
Here's the US one. At $378 it's only $9 more than the Windows XP version. There doesn't seem to be a Vista version. Hey, that's a heck of a deal!
The days of Microsoft coming in and telling a big OEM what to do are long gone.
If only that were so... They are getting pushback now and then, and that's a new thing for them, but they're still the 800lb gorilla they've always been.
The further the nonsense in TFA goes, the more the moral question of copyright infringement becomes clear. If our governments see fit to steal from the people the cultural commons that is our right and heritage with laws like this they are making unjust law that will not just be ignored, but will be actively disobeyed. This is a taking and the right thing to do is to take back.
A real PM could get the unit cost down to $300, and use the other $200 for labor cost for the related services and servers.
Windows wins here because they can afford to drive their unit cost into negative numbers. There's no credible antitrust agency that would prevent that.
Which leads credence to the growing opinion that Windows adds negative value. Another word for negative value is 'cost'.
Since they're learning the consistent and creative application and extension of abstractions, the less "real" it is at first, the better. Imaginary machine code makes a nice beginning because from there they'll be glad to have structured programming, and if the go the electronics route instead they won't have the mental crutch of a "magical black box".
None. Death is the debt all men owe. You get only one life and one death. The life can be spent once only, the death can be deferred, but the life cannot be "saved" and the death cannot be prevented.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got about 60 3GHz small form desktop PCs with 512MB of RAM and gigabit Ethernet sitting on a couple pallets. Since I already have a few DRBL servers set up for netbooting compute nodes, setting them up as a render or compute cluster would only take a couple days. I've done a few pilots of this in my basement with 4 nodes and the system is said to scale fairly linearly. If I had the watts I could probably get a pretty respectable cluster going with little trouble, and the experience would probably come in handy. But I can't afford the time and I don't have the watts.
It's a shame, too, because I could probably come up with a few hundred of these machines a year at negative cost. Companies are actually paying to be rid of them. Writing apps for this type of cluster would be... educational.
There are a good number of brilliant young people coming up right now who would really love to do some indoor work with no heavy lifting. Not all of them are going to get the chance. It's a horrid waste that many of them are going to go intellectually numb bagging groceries or ruin their backs hanging drywall. They can be had for cheap, at first, and grow into productive and loyal members of your team. If you can find them.
Rules are set. Rules are changed. People game the system anyway. Making the management, inspection and auditing of the system complex and incomprehensible is part of the game but really there's no hope for a cure. The game is designed by people and people play the game. Both sides seek dominance and alternately get it to varying degrees until the inevitable loss of control that turns the pendulum yet again. Regulation is needed, but there's no such thing as a permanent regulation in the dynamic finance system that we have - the game changes and getting the regulations turned to your advantage is why people contribute to campaigns.
I don't think we'll ever be quit of it. The trick is to adapt to it and turn it to your advantage.
Inflation has not been a cumulative 400% in the last 10 years
And deflation in general won't be 75% as home prices come down over the next three years. That's why it's called a bubble.
The value that your home has is that it keeps the rain off of you, and keeps you from being arrested for sleeping in the park. It also makes a handy place to store the stuff with sentimental value you accumulate over time, like offspring.
There will be some interesting side effects from this boom and crash. Right now home prices are crashing at the same time interest rates hit unsustainable historic lows. Generally that's a good time to buy a home if you don't have one -- but get a fixed rate with a payment you can afford. If you don't, the inevitable inflationary spiral that follows will break you. With a fixed rate, inflation actually works for you by raising your income and reducing the real value of your debt. In the 80's I heard SO many stories about older people who had a nice home that cost $20,000 on a 30 year fixed 6% rate loan at the same time my parent's variable rate swelled to over 18% that the idea stuck. As soon as the market starts showing signs of life the rates will start going up again so don't miss your shot. The opportunity time is coming around again as it does for every generation -- it's almost time to fire your landlord. When it's time many will make the deal of a lifetime. Everybody else gets to spend the next 20 years kicking themselves for missing it, while they do it the hard way.
In short, GP was exactly right. In a perfect market the average home costs exactly as much as the average buyer can afford to pay. The games they've been playing with finance drove the prices up and make getting loans easy for a while and it will be followed by a time when the prices are driven down and loans are difficult to get because the market is not perfect: People always try to game the system and all systems can be gamed and so buyability swings wildly from completely impossible to ridiculously easy and most folks have to take care to get in when the time is right. The minor cycle seems to be roughly 20 years and the major cycle 80.
If inflation gets totally ridiculous, everybody with a fixed rate home loan gets to pay off the loan very easily, though other stuff starts to get harder to get. That's why it's smart to own some gold and silver too - not certificates or shares in mining companies that can be shams or go bust; real soft metal coins and bars. You don't need too much of it because the crisis can't last longer than a few years before things straighten out. Only once you've taken care of these things should you start to think about putting your extra money to work at interest.
I have always believed that the vast majority of today's financial instruments have been invented out of thin air for no reason other than to ultimately ensure the employment of bankers and brokers.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. Congratulations: You got it in one. The complexity serves no purpose other than to confuse, which only to the benefit of the more experienced person running the game and to the detriment of the rookie customers. Unfortunately they've rigged the game so that you almost have to play.
For what it's worth there are cultures where loans at interest are not permitted. The workarounds they use to allow savers to take advantage of spenders are even more complex and vicious.
You need a little zest to your Internet experience. A little edge. That's what IE gives you... it brings back that intrepid day you first browsed the 'net when you clicked with trembling finger, alert to the fact that this was so new, anything could happen.
Pfft on Firefox and noscript. You're not hanging it all out there surfing with the big boys and earning your mad dog network security wizard chops until you're surfing with IE without even a firewall!
Especially since it happens nearly every day. Oh noes!!!! Everybody panic!!! Another exploit in Windows/Office/Explorer. WOE is us!!!
Perhaps if we phrased it like a sponsored ad: "Todays exploit brought to you by yet another buffer overflow error!" "This morning's gaping security hole sponsored by Stormworm. Stormworm: The worm of choice for the discerning mailbot."
Look, we can argue all night about the right to arm bears, or we can put a spike in these bastards. What's your wish?
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8) - US Copyright Office
A musical or video recording is neither a writing nor a discovery. It was never the intent of the framers to extend copyright to these things and the practice should be abolished by law.
HP might call it an opportunity.
Not only does HP not charge extra to pre-upgrade you to XP, on HP workstations Vista installed is not even an option. This is not a new development - it's always been this way.
Maybe he's trying to reform. It doesn't seem likely, but it could happen.
click in "Add or remove programs"
So... does the Add or remove programs gadget actually add programs yet? That's a feature I like from Linux they're going to have to add before they get me to switch back.
And you think when a general consumer wants some software to do XYZ, the first thing they're going to do is fire up apt?
You're probably thinking about the apt command line tool. That's cool and all, but you should really get current . For years most linux distributions have had a nice GUI tool in the Applications menu called "Add/Remove". It's like the Add / Remove programs in the Windows control panel except that it actually does Add programs, has a search engine for that, and checks for updates too. It's really cool.
When I see Linux software being sold in my local retailer....
You still go to brick and mortar stores to buy computer stuff? That's so... retro. Tell me - do they still close? Do you still have to choose from a limited array of stuff they happen to have on hand? Do they still not have any useful tools for comparing prices with other vendors, reviews from credible sources or actual benchmarks? I suppose the boxes still have limited and often misleading information about the box contents like "Vista Capable". Is the staff as knowledgeable and helpful as they were back in the day? How... quaint.
I'm sure it's an interesting personal choice that expresses your individual character, but you might try this new online shopping thing. I hear many folks find it convenient, efficient and economical.
and there is really nothing in F/OSS of interest to the general consumer market that isn't available for Windows.
Your insight into the needs of the general consumer are what make you so popular among twitter's sockpuppets.
For one, let's consider the built in software system that allows you to install any of many thousands of apps easily and quickly. It doesn't suffer from the risks associated with browsing the internet in search of the executable installer for the app that does what you need. It has its own search engine and consolidated update system.
Which leads us to the reverse of your supposition... what Linux lacks that's not of interest to the general consumer but that under Windows he can't resist or avoid: the malware ecosystem.
Here's the US one. At $378 it's only $9 more than the Windows XP version. There doesn't seem to be a Vista version. Hey, that's a heck of a deal!
The days of Microsoft coming in and telling a big OEM what to do are long gone.
If only that were so... They are getting pushback now and then, and that's a new thing for them, but they're still the 800lb gorilla they've always been.
The further the nonsense in TFA goes, the more the moral question of copyright infringement becomes clear. If our governments see fit to steal from the people the cultural commons that is our right and heritage with laws like this they are making unjust law that will not just be ignored, but will be actively disobeyed. This is a taking and the right thing to do is to take back.
is nuclear power. We're arguing about storage technologies.
Imagine if you will, a national government in which the inappropriate law enforcement concerns were promoted across a national network.
Now imagine that Cletus the LEO volunteer in North Georgia were able to broadcast his tinfoil hat aryan fantasies.
Now imagine that you were part of the problem.
That's enough imagining. Sleep well.
A real PM could get the unit cost down to $300, and use the other $200 for labor cost for the related services and servers.
Windows wins here because they can afford to drive their unit cost into negative numbers. There's no credible antitrust agency that would prevent that.
Which leads credence to the growing opinion that Windows adds negative value. Another word for negative value is 'cost'.
What an effective government could do with the resources given them is not to be wished. It were better if government were divided and ineffective.
Since they're learning the consistent and creative application and extension of abstractions, the less "real" it is at first, the better. Imaginary machine code makes a nice beginning because from there they'll be glad to have structured programming, and if the go the electronics route instead they won't have the mental crutch of a "magical black box".
Simplified Imaginary Machine Programming Language for Everyone
but you wonder how many lives it would save
None. Death is the debt all men owe. You get only one life and one death. The life can be spent once only, the death can be deferred, but the life cannot be "saved" and the death cannot be prevented.
Note to self: no posting on slashdot on party night.
Good lord I'm a dumbass sometimes. I needed that.