Is less of the intellectual realestate being dedicated solely to programming? Probably.
But this may have nothing to do with line programming (or lack thereof) on personal pc's today.
I'm "the computer geek" research assistant at a neurology lab. Though I have more expansive knowledge of computers themselves, not a single researcher in my lab can't knock out a quick and dirty script. Many of them have written entire suites of tools to accomplish the tasks they require in languages as varied as bash, perl, C, C++, java, tcl, gtk, Obj-C, etc.
I'd ask when you were hacking away at line programming, was there a significant number of young kids doing [url=http://www.deviantart.com/[/url] with their computers? No, because the capability didn't even exist.
The fact is, there may be less "programmers" per se. But programming [i]isn't that hard[/i]. In fact, just about any language is easy enough for anyone with intelligence to pick it up with little effort if the need arises. We may be seeing less folks dedicate their learning, hobbies, etc. exclusively to programming....but that simply isn't necessary anymore. Programming is becoming an aside, a secondary skill to the more primary skills of medicine, research, mathematics, biology, physics, art, and design.
And you know? I have a feeling that's probably the way it should be.
You can transfer music with just as much ease to and from your iPod as you can from your Zen.
If by "locked" into iTunes you mean "must use iTunes music store". Your full of FUD
If by "locked into iTunes" you mean you must use iTunes to transfer music. Not quite right, but then virtually all devices of this kind come with some sort of transfer utility.
iPod is just a player. iTunes is just a player. iTunes music store DRM's their music like any other online seller of music like them. If you don't want to DRM, don't buy the music. It's not like your iPod won't work. Sheesh.
It really grinds my gears when industry lobbyists and shills use inflammatory rhetoric to exaggerate the impact of mundane, victimless crimes.
First a little definition for you: victim |?vikt?m| noun a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action. a person who is tricked or duped : the victim of a hoax.
a living creature killed as a religious sacrifice.
It would seem these folks are most definately victims even if you don't consider having to clean your credit record up, dispute charges, and the general headache of canceling cards and waiting for new ones a "harm".
Just because something is stolen doesn't require tht the person no longer has access to it. A number isn't some physical thing to be stolen and never returned to the world. . . "I'm sorry but all mathematics have halted, '2' was stolen years ago and no one ever caught the perpetrator". But don't be an idiot by somehow making a direct correlation between physical theft and the theft of a unique sequence of numbers allowing access to certain private information. Identity theft is the same concept, someone has stolen the necessary information to pretend to be someoen they are not.
It's 1980 and the new model "portable" tape cassettes have come out. Oddly enough, record sales have dropped by.0001%. This heinous drop in profits has bee attributed by music business pundets everywhere as directly due to "tape swapping". A practice where teens record each other's tape collections for personal use.
The music industry predicts that if tape cassette players are not completely banned, the industy could collapse in just a few years.
A repeat of the "Religion - Opiate of the Masses" bumper sticker slogan is +5 Insightful?
A belief or world view that includes beings of non-earthly origin, transcending the self-centeredness of secular humanism and corresponding to reality doesn't necessarily contain or lead to qualities of addiction.
Granted we've all seen so-called Christian churches do bizarre things to seek the Lord on high through emotional states of quasi-consciousness in the name of new testament worship.
1) Karl Marx
2) You have completely and utterly missed the meaning of this statement. Congratulations.
I've worked in the blue collar industry, mostly in petro-chem plants. I've also attended Vocational School courses in programming which interested me enough in the subject to return to a Uni as a Computer Engineer.
As such, I'd like to make analogy that I find particularly pertinent:
In petro-chem plants you have two roles that are played. The first is a pipe-fitter. The pipe fitter's job entails taking various pipe and putting it together according to the specifications given him.
The specifications are usually put together by Engineers.
Now to do his job well, the pipe-fitter may need to know things like the ability of certain materials to withstand pressure given a particular thickness of the material. Usually, to acquire this info it is looked up in charts or tables containing the info. Again, these charts and tables are usually made/published by Material's engineers.
In this analogy, the programmer that went to vocational school would be the pipe-fitter. He is a skilled laborer, he knows his craft and how to perform a specific task and does it well.
The Computer Science major would be the Engineer that understands the underpinings of the job. If something tricky came up like a vessel thickness that was in between those given in the charts or perhaps a estimate of wall pressure as a function of flow into the vessel was required, the pipe fitter would not know how to derive this whereas the engineer would be right at home.
Some will like to point to unique examples of vocational programmers that are every bit as skilled at the finer points of programming as those that went to fancy colleges. The High School dropout 1337 hacker is a favorite anecdote. But like the pipe fitter that has all the skill of a Materials Engineer, this is the exception not the rule.
In short, if you just want to code and pick up the basics programming and then get to work learning as you go and maybe on your own initiative becoming one of the top tier CS Engineers...then just go to vocational school and get to work.
If you want to come out of school with the tools needed to address those really sticky issues that aren't covered in the books and the ability to solve them based on a deeper understanding of the principles involved...stick with College.
When programmers graduate from a vocational school, they actually know more about churning out code and are more practiced at doing just that. College CS Eng. know more of the principles and theory, but are less practiced in actual programming. However, with practice every good CS Eng. can become a good programmer. The same cannot be said for every programmer.
I've been trying to register by phone for a week now and get nothing but busy signals. My friend just got in by getting up at 4:45 every day and repeat dialing. (my phone doesn't have that function).
I still haven't registered for FEMA. I got ahold of an XP machine for a brief period and the javascript errored out right at the submit page.
So, if you want to register for FEMA relief in a timely manner, yes you DO HAVE to have IE 6 with JS enabled.
And let's not forget that registering in a timely manner is what it's all about when we're talking disaster relief.
Employers give drug tests because employees take drugs on the job.
The problem with this notion is that a man who smokes a joint on Sunday evening will flunk his drug test, whereas a man who gets stupid drunk Sunday night and shows up with a hangoever on Monday morning will not.
Considering that the man who smokes the joint probably just got a good nights sleep and the one who is severly hung over is putting himself and his coworkers at a much greater risk, you don't think this is a slightly fubarred policy with unnecessary infringement of the pot smokers rights to do whatever he wishes with his weekend?
Also of note: the Sunday joint smoker will fail his analysis on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurs, Fri and possibly the next monday as well. . . even if he doesn't injest any more during that period. Whereas the drunkard can get tanked every single night and be constantly hung over at work.
Hehe, actually I did think it was quite humerous that I got modded flamebait. I could care less about mod points. It's not that I take this game too seriously, it wouldn't matter which game it was referrring too. It is simply in poor taste to cover exploits and encourage their use.
As far as slashdot being a community of engineers, there is nothing about the methodology of this exploit that an engineer would find remotely intresting above and beyond someone pointing out a blind spot in a security camera's view. (yes, they sometimes have blind spots, they shoudl be tested for and sometimes they are missed.) It's not like a discussion of testing methodology to prevent this particular bug exploit from occurring. It's a blatant promotion of cheating.
Yay! My first flame bait! My karma is off the hook right now and I was wondering when I'd actually get one of these.
How's this for spelling out what my post meant:
It is unethical to post threads that not only reveal exploits/cheating methods, but also post links to details on how to perform the exploit and actively promote the use of that exploit in the story itself. That such a story passed the slashdot editors and was chosen for a front page position effectively makes Slashdot an exploit source. Though I've never regarded Slashdot as much more then a tabloid for nerds, this certainly lowers my estimation quite a bit.
I guess I gave certain mods too much credit when I assumed the above was implicit in my tart summary of: What an asswipe! (which I would like to reiterate)
"Some distributions of linux require nothing more than putting a CD in a CD tray."
Not true. I used linux as my primary desktop for quite a while and even though I've switched to OSX on my desktop, I still use OS for my server. About every six months or so, I also install several of the old stand-by distro's and whatever new kid distros that are being talked about.
The reason I do this is because I love seeing linux and other OS projects (*bsd's) grow and improve and I am very hopeful that one day what you say will be true and those who can't afford even the el cheapo Dell's and such will have a nice easy, free desktop to use.
The fact is as of my last round of "newbie tests" as I like to call them, there is not a single Linux distro in existence capable of filling this need. Every single one had something wrong that the average joe would just throw his hands up in disgust at and give up.
FYI audio/video was a common culprit as was networking.
I've done both industry work (in petroleum plants) and IT work. I'm currently working toward a Comp. Eng. degree. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but when you hear of the blue collar industry complaining of jobs leaving the country they're not just talking about "coal mining" and assembly line jobs.
If I gave an honest assessment of the mental acuity required to excel in either field (skilled blue collar labor or IT), I would put them as roughly equal. The most glaring difference between the two is not intellectual, but the fact that most work within the blue collar area involve a fair amount of physical exertion, are outdoors, and carry a significant chance of physical injury or death.
For these reasons, I'd expect the skilled blue collar worker to be paid more not less. The tech boom created an inflated demand for those skilled in IT resulting in high wages compared to other areas requiring comaparable raw skill.
In short, the analogy between the outsourcing of blue collar and industry work and the resultant decline in wages to that of the emerging IT situation is completely and perfectly applicable.
Actually, that is the party line and you did well conveying it. I worked for quite a while on initiatives to get out public information on The Healthy Forests Initiative.
The few main issues are:
It allows for large to be clear cut under the "Goods for Services" provision
Allows salvage logging which is based upon a subjective assessment of the trees vitality. Often times scorched trees which are in no danger of dying are labeled for salvage.
Targets many areas which are not historically pose a fire threat to people (though are highly prized among logges for their potential)
Allows for the building of roads into virgin forests (how else to get the logs out?). Our virgin forests are one of the few untouched areas that serve as filters for our drinking water and air....if you've ever seen what a logging road looks like after a company is done, you'd know they'd hardly be suitable for this function after they were done
Now here's the big one and the one that makes it not so far off topic after all: It exempts companys from environmental and public review and limits public commentary on the law. In effect taking the people out of the process of managing their public lands.
So to bring it back around to the issue of secret laws and double speak, the Healthy Forest Initiative is yet another example of this administrations consistent attack on the publics ability to hold their government accountable.
One of the recurring themes that Microsoft representatives focus on is that of accountability.
Could you please expound upon how exactly Microsoft's accountability differs from that of Redhat or Suse?
Furthermore, how is Microsoft's campaign of accountability consistent when its EULA explicitly absolves Microsoft from said accountability?
From the EULA:
"Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Product and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, either express, implied or statutory, including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose, of reliability or availability, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the Product, and the provision of or failure to provide support or other services, information, software, and related content through the Product or otherwise arising out of the use of the Product."
Than you haven't played on a powerful gaming machine. I have several friends with Gamecubes, Xbox's, etc. and have sat down to play games....compared to a moderate gaming comptuer the graphics are substandard, the level of control is less, and it's an all around poorer gaming experience except for the fun of hanging around with your friends (which I have with my computer since my roommates and neighbors also play).
As far as "consoles...becoming so much more powerful than Gaming PC's" sorry you couldn't be further off base. Consoles aren't even in the same league yet, though the gap has closed. Compare texture rendering capablities, possible resolutions, etc for reference.
um... let's see. it's not released under a bsd license. it's not a bsd kernel, it's a mach kernel...
Actually, this is one of the most frequently mentioned myths which float around. There are several reason's why it is completely wrong:
The Mach micro kernel itself is based on bsd 4.2BSD and 4.3BSD. Though it has evolved into something different than the original bsd kernels, so has NET, Open, and others.
The Mach micro kernel only handles very low level functions and does not handle all the functions most think of when they name "what an OS does?" such as I/O, networking, file system support, and high level API's. In osx all this is done by a FreeBSD derived kernel (10.4 will be fbsd 5.2 based iirc).
In order to clarify a bit, you can refer to this Ars Technica brief cover of this FAQ.
Really? That's odd, I used linux for many years and I often had to do some mouse configuration, especially for multi-button mice or USB.
Now recently, many of the distros were pretty good about auto detecting your basic 3-button mice but it was never a guarantee.
I assure you with 100% certainty that it is as far from a pain as could possibly be conceived. . . unless you consider plugging in the USB cable a pain (something which you must do with any new computer). No driver install, no configuration, nothing, nada, nicht. Just plug it in and it workd exactly as it would for a PC. done.
If this is the last barrier, hesitate no more. Order a Mac, plug in the exact same mouse you've been using....and voila! It works exactly like it's always worked. No driver install or reboot required.
I currently run a freebsd server, used to run a linux server. So this is what it boils down to for me:
First, the size of the mac mini is perfect.
Second, seemless integration with the rest of my network, regardless of whether it's a mac, windows, or linux box. . . . did I mention "with the click of a button". With linux/bsd if your intersted in trying a new method of sharing files, authentication, etc, it's a project. You must either hunt down the documentation that exactly describes what you want to do or you must read all the various documentations and write your own documentation of the process (which I've done).... not to mention all the hurdles you must overcome along the way. With OS X server, all you must do is click a button with maybe a minimal of doc reading. That means saved time.
Third, it has a really nice gui interface.
Fourth, AirTunes
Fifth, AirTunes
Now I am one of those freaks that actually enjoys writing documentation and learning the nuts and bolts of how something works, so I'll always have a bsd/linux box around if I need to scratch an itch. But sometimes you just want to get it done as quickly as possible and your not looking for a project.
Slashdot Mirror
Is less of the intellectual realestate being dedicated solely to programming? Probably.
But this may have nothing to do with line programming (or lack thereof) on personal pc's today.
I'm "the computer geek" research assistant at a neurology lab. Though I have more expansive knowledge of computers themselves, not a single researcher in my lab can't knock out a quick and dirty script. Many of them have written entire suites of tools to accomplish the tasks they require in languages as varied as bash, perl, C, C++, java, tcl, gtk, Obj-C, etc.
I'd ask when you were hacking away at line programming, was there a significant number of young kids doing [url=http://www.deviantart.com/[/url] with their computers? No, because the capability didn't even exist.
The fact is, there may be less "programmers" per se. But programming [i]isn't that hard[/i]. In fact, just about any language is easy enough for anyone with intelligence to pick it up with little effort if the need arises. We may be seeing less folks dedicate their learning, hobbies, etc. exclusively to programming....but that simply isn't necessary anymore. Programming is becoming an aside, a secondary skill to the more primary skills of medicine, research, mathematics, biology, physics, art, and design.
And you know? I have a feeling that's probably the way it should be.
iPod is just a player. iTunes is just a player. iTunes music store DRM's their music like any other online seller of music like them. If you don't want to DRM, don't buy the music. It's not like your iPod won't work. Sheesh.
I guess that makes you a dope smoking, heroin shooting, crack smoking, moonshine drinking, gay polygamist.....if your from the U.S. anyway.
First a little definition for you:
victim |?vikt?m| noun a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.
a person who is tricked or duped : the victim of a hoax. a living creature killed as a religious sacrifice.
It would seem these folks are most definately victims even if you don't consider having to clean your credit record up, dispute charges, and the general headache of canceling cards and waiting for new ones a "harm".
Just because something is stolen doesn't require tht the person no longer has access to it. A number isn't some physical thing to be stolen and never returned to the world. . . "I'm sorry but all mathematics have halted, '2' was stolen years ago and no one ever caught the perpetrator". But don't be an idiot by somehow making a direct correlation between physical theft and the theft of a unique sequence of numbers allowing access to certain private information. Identity theft is the same concept, someone has stolen the necessary information to pretend to be someoen they are not.
It's 1980 and the new model "portable" tape cassettes have come out. Oddly enough, record sales have dropped by .0001%. This heinous drop in profits has bee attributed by music business pundets everywhere as directly due to "tape swapping". A practice where teens record each other's tape collections for personal use.
The music industry predicts that if tape cassette players are not completely banned, the industy could collapse in just a few years.
A repeat of the "Religion - Opiate of the Masses" bumper sticker slogan is +5 Insightful? A belief or world view that includes beings of non-earthly origin, transcending the self-centeredness of secular humanism and corresponding to reality doesn't necessarily contain or lead to qualities of addiction. Granted we've all seen so-called Christian churches do bizarre things to seek the Lord on high through emotional states of quasi-consciousness in the name of new testament worship.
1) Karl Marx
2) You have completely and utterly missed the meaning of this statement. Congratulations.
I've worked in the blue collar industry, mostly in petro-chem plants. I've also attended Vocational School courses in programming which interested me enough in the subject to return to a Uni as a Computer Engineer.
As such, I'd like to make analogy that I find particularly pertinent:
In petro-chem plants you have two roles that are played. The first is a pipe-fitter. The pipe fitter's job entails taking various pipe and putting it together according to the specifications given him.
The specifications are usually put together by Engineers.
Now to do his job well, the pipe-fitter may need to know things like the ability of certain materials to withstand pressure given a particular thickness of the material. Usually, to acquire this info it is looked up in charts or tables containing the info. Again, these charts and tables are usually made/published by Material's engineers.
In this analogy, the programmer that went to vocational school would be the pipe-fitter. He is a skilled laborer, he knows his craft and how to perform a specific task and does it well.
The Computer Science major would be the Engineer that understands the underpinings of the job. If something tricky came up like a vessel thickness that was in between those given in the charts or perhaps a estimate of wall pressure as a function of flow into the vessel was required, the pipe fitter would not know how to derive this whereas the engineer would be right at home.
Some will like to point to unique examples of vocational programmers that are every bit as skilled at the finer points of programming as those that went to fancy colleges. The High School dropout 1337 hacker is a favorite anecdote. But like the pipe fitter that has all the skill of a Materials Engineer, this is the exception not the rule.
In short, if you just want to code and pick up the basics programming and then get to work learning as you go and maybe on your own initiative becoming one of the top tier CS Engineers...then just go to vocational school and get to work.
If you want to come out of school with the tools needed to address those really sticky issues that aren't covered in the books and the ability to solve them based on a deeper understanding of the principles involved...stick with College.
When programmers graduate from a vocational school, they actually know more about churning out code and are more practiced at doing just that. College CS Eng. know more of the principles and theory, but are less practiced in actual programming. However, with practice every good CS Eng. can become a good programmer. The same cannot be said for every programmer.
Just my 2 cents.
I've been trying to register by phone for a week now and get nothing but busy signals. My friend just got in by getting up at 4:45 every day and repeat dialing. (my phone doesn't have that function).
I still haven't registered for FEMA. I got ahold of an XP machine for a brief period and the javascript errored out right at the submit page.
So, if you want to register for FEMA relief in a timely manner, yes you DO HAVE to have IE 6 with JS enabled.
And let's not forget that registering in a timely manner is what it's all about when we're talking disaster relief.
Employers give drug tests because employees take drugs on the job.
The problem with this notion is that a man who smokes a joint on Sunday evening will flunk his drug test, whereas a man who gets stupid drunk Sunday night and shows up with a hangoever on Monday morning will not.
Considering that the man who smokes the joint probably just got a good nights sleep and the one who is severly hung over is putting himself and his coworkers at a much greater risk, you don't think this is a slightly fubarred policy with unnecessary infringement of the pot smokers rights to do whatever he wishes with his weekend?
Also of note: the Sunday joint smoker will fail his analysis on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurs, Fri and possibly the next monday as well. . . even if he doesn't injest any more during that period. Whereas the drunkard can get tanked every single night and be constantly hung over at work.
As far as slashdot being a community of engineers, there is nothing about the methodology of this exploit that an engineer would find remotely intresting above and beyond someone pointing out a blind spot in a security camera's view. (yes, they sometimes have blind spots, they shoudl be tested for and sometimes they are missed.) It's not like a discussion of testing methodology to prevent this particular bug exploit from occurring. It's a blatant promotion of cheating.
How's this for spelling out what my post meant: It is unethical to post threads that not only reveal exploits/cheating methods, but also post links to details on how to perform the exploit and actively promote the use of that exploit in the story itself. That such a story passed the slashdot editors and was chosen for a front page position effectively makes Slashdot an exploit source. Though I've never regarded Slashdot as much more then a tabloid for nerds, this certainly lowers my estimation quite a bit.
I guess I gave certain mods too much credit when I assumed the above was implicit in my tart summary of:
What an asswipe! (which I would like to reiterate)
Hey, everyone! I cheat at online games and wanted to share links on how you can do it too! Quick before they fix it!
What an asswipe. (included in that is the editors that decided slashdot would be an exploit source today)
Not true. I used linux as my primary desktop for quite a while and even though I've switched to OSX on my desktop, I still use OS for my server. About every six months or so, I also install several of the old stand-by distro's and whatever new kid distros that are being talked about.
The reason I do this is because I love seeing linux and other OS projects (*bsd's) grow and improve and I am very hopeful that one day what you say will be true and those who can't afford even the el cheapo Dell's and such will have a nice easy, free desktop to use.
The fact is as of my last round of "newbie tests" as I like to call them, there is not a single Linux distro in existence capable of filling this need. Every single one had something wrong that the average joe would just throw his hands up in disgust at and give up.
FYI audio/video was a common culprit as was networking.
Newegg.com
If I gave an honest assessment of the mental acuity required to excel in either field (skilled blue collar labor or IT), I would put them as roughly equal. The most glaring difference between the two is not intellectual, but the fact that most work within the blue collar area involve a fair amount of physical exertion, are outdoors, and carry a significant chance of physical injury or death.
For these reasons, I'd expect the skilled blue collar worker to be paid more not less. The tech boom created an inflated demand for those skilled in IT resulting in high wages compared to other areas requiring comaparable raw skill.
In short, the analogy between the outsourcing of blue collar and industry work and the resultant decline in wages to that of the emerging IT situation is completely and perfectly applicable.
Not if they're spanish they didn't:
Spanish Dictionary
The few main issues are:
So to bring it back around to the issue of secret laws and double speak, the Healthy Forest Initiative is yet another example of this administrations consistent attack on the publics ability to hold their government accountable.
One of the recurring themes that Microsoft representatives focus on is that of accountability.
Could you please expound upon how exactly Microsoft's accountability differs from that of Redhat or Suse?
Furthermore, how is Microsoft's campaign of accountability consistent when its EULA explicitly absolves Microsoft from said accountability?
From the EULA:
"Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Product and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, either express, implied or statutory, including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose, of reliability or availability, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the Product, and the provision of or failure to provide support or other services, information, software, and related content through the Product or otherwise arising out of the use of the Product."
(bold formatting added by me)
As far as "consoles...becoming so much more powerful than Gaming PC's" sorry you couldn't be further off base. Consoles aren't even in the same league yet, though the gap has closed. Compare texture rendering capablities, possible resolutions, etc for reference.
(and yes, I'm too lazy to do it for you :) )
Actually, this is one of the most frequently mentioned myths which float around. There are several reason's why it is completely wrong:
In order to clarify a bit, you can refer to this Ars Technica brief cover of this FAQ.
Really? That's odd, I used linux for many years and I often had to do some mouse configuration, especially for multi-button mice or USB.
Now recently, many of the distros were pretty good about auto detecting your basic 3-button mice but it was never a guarantee.
I assure you with 100% certainty that it is as far from a pain as could possibly be conceived. . . unless you consider plugging in the USB cable a pain (something which you must do with any new computer). No driver install, no configuration, nothing, nada, nicht. Just plug it in and it workd exactly as it would for a PC. done.
If this is the last barrier, hesitate no more. Order a Mac, plug in the exact same mouse you've been using....and voila! It works exactly like it's always worked. No driver install or reboot required.
First, the size of the mac mini is perfect.
Second, seemless integration with the rest of my network, regardless of whether it's a mac, windows, or linux box. . . . did I mention "with the click of a button". With linux/bsd if your intersted in trying a new method of sharing files, authentication, etc, it's a project. You must either hunt down the documentation that exactly describes what you want to do or you must read all the various documentations and write your own documentation of the process (which I've done).... not to mention all the hurdles you must overcome along the way. With OS X server, all you must do is click a button with maybe a minimal of doc reading. That means saved time.
Third, it has a really nice gui interface.
Fourth, AirTunes
Fifth, AirTunes
Now I am one of those freaks that actually enjoys writing documentation and learning the nuts and bolts of how something works, so I'll always have a bsd/linux box around if I need to scratch an itch. But sometimes you just want to get it done as quickly as possible and your not looking for a project.
That's exactly what popped into my head the second I saw it: mac mini server.