Yeah, I'm running a full-on fanless system with a Via Epia MS-1000 (1 Ghz) motherboard, PVR-250 tv card, and silverstone powersupply (I forget which one). Like the other guy said, you need to have the hardware mpeg acceleration stuff enabled - I ended up using the openchrome project patch for Fedora Core 4. I also had many problems getting a distribution with working ALSA support for my spdif sound, and let me be the first to tell you that there is no tech support from Via. Zip. Nada. The link on the webpage sends you to a forum of other people that are struggling with the lack of tech support. Oh yeah, and the MS series boards lack many of the connectors that you would normally expect on the back of your PC, so the TV out, spdif, keyboard, usb - it's all provided as header pins. Yippy!
But it's a pretty cool setup. The only noise is from the harddrive right now, and that's an improvement.
Is $1.7 million a fair price for these properties? Obviously the people being evicted didn't seem to think so, either because:
a) That price did not fairly reflect market value.
b) That price was below the potential future value of the property.
c) That price did not adequately reflect the "sentimental value" of the property.
Finally, this project is ONLY profitable because people are being evicted by the state. If people were really paid what they felt the property was worth (which according to a,b and c could be enormous), then this would be a non-issue. Either it would be an acceptable cost (and everyone leaves happy), or not acceptable and the developers would have to look elsewhere.
My microwave is also useless for truly critical data, but that's not it's intended use either. The machine in the article is meant for massive amounts of storage, not the backbone of corporate network. Obviously slashdotters could build something better, like a tasty blueberry pie, but we're talking about mass storage, not pie.
Good point, astronomy is joining many other sciences in becoming more and more abstract. In engineering, when we add variables to fit a theoretical equation to observed data, it's a "fudge-factor". In astronomy, it's a "discovery".
However, the way I read the article, they made the hypothesis of a 3rd planet some time ago, and they waited until it could be proven with adequate data from an upgraded telescope to announce it. And one of the dudes designed at built the telescope, so I've got to believe this is a pretty sharp group.
Finally, parent has an excellent point about the importance (or lack thereof) of discovery-through-modeling. I could not have said it better myself.
Hey, how about VIA? I don't see them on this list:
https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/about/member s/members
Maybe they're not a gaming platform, but at least they're not DRM nazis. Plus it's nice to see modern CPUs that aren't a fire hazard.
The problem with slashdot is there are far too many programmers with tunnel vision. I was in a UAV club in college, and the operating system was the least of our problems. It takes an enormous amount of time just to keep the aircraft flight-worthy (especially after botched landings), and fiddling around with the mechanics enough to fit your processor, GPS, radio modems, flight sensors, cameras, and 9 tons of NiMH batteries on the tiny-assed vehicle. Finally, since you're just college students, you spend absurd amounts of time begging for "test" parts that you never intend to give back to the manufacturers.
Damn right they're going to use an off-the-shelf OS, especially if they didn't even have to beg.
Hell, who's to say that Microsoft couldn't release an emulation program that runs on a PC in a couple years? Just stick the game in your DVD drive, reboot a couple dozen times, and presto - no lost games.
Worst case, Xbox Next might be tweaked down the road with a "hotfix" that allows to you play 1st gen Xbox games on it. MS could even sell it as an upgrade. Cha-ching!
Although I consider myself more of a car-person than a computer person, I see a striking similarity to OS problems. I dual boot win2k and linux, and there is a similar problem solving strategy:
Windows - something's not working. Uninstall the program and reinstall it. Failing that, reinstall windows. Problem solved.
Linux - something's not working. Begin a massive search for device drivers and start downloading fresh rpms. Since everything is interdependant, it may take hours to locate the correct builds. At some point you will likely be compiling something. In the end, it works, and immense satisfaction rolls over you like a tidalwave. Payoff!
Last year I fought a similar battle. As one of the 6 remaining engineers, we each take turns on the "help-desk" rotation - meaning we are required to take calls from angry customers at all hours for a week at a time. We leave a modem with the customer that they can turn on when they need us to dial in, provided we have access to an analog line to dial out from.
After years of hanging up on telemarketers, I had finally (happily) rid myself of a phone line only to have my company turn around and require me to have one. I'm quite happy with my personal cell phone, and my employer provides me with a work cell phone with which I must take incoming calls. On top of that, the meager pay that we had been recieving for support was basically terminated (although we were still charging customers, go figure). I mentioned several time to my boss, and his boss, that I was in violation of their policy - but I was as likely to pay for a phone line as I was to write the company a check for $20 a month. Eventually, they decided that 20 bucks was a small price to pay for me to shut the hell up, especially when we're routinely charging customers $100/hour for phone support.
So I expensed the first few payments to prove that I had won, and dropped it after that.
After all, it's not really worth our time to fill out those expense reports. It [i]is[/i] worth our time to make sure that management thinks twice before trying to "save money" at your expense. Remember: Your loss is their gain.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I'm running a full-on fanless system with a Via Epia MS-1000 (1 Ghz) motherboard, PVR-250 tv card, and silverstone powersupply (I forget which one). Like the other guy said, you need to have the hardware mpeg acceleration stuff enabled - I ended up using the openchrome project patch for Fedora Core 4. I also had many problems getting a distribution with working ALSA support for my spdif sound, and let me be the first to tell you that there is no tech support from Via. Zip. Nada. The link on the webpage sends you to a forum of other people that are struggling with the lack of tech support. Oh yeah, and the MS series boards lack many of the connectors that you would normally expect on the back of your PC, so the TV out, spdif, keyboard, usb - it's all provided as header pins. Yippy!
But it's a pretty cool setup. The only noise is from the harddrive right now, and that's an improvement.
Yeah, I paid about that much for a Zaurus, and it was dead after 3 or 4 months. I'm still pissed. On the other hand, it was fun while it worked.
Is $1.7 million a fair price for these properties? Obviously the people being evicted didn't seem to think so, either because: a) That price did not fairly reflect market value. b) That price was below the potential future value of the property. c) That price did not adequately reflect the "sentimental value" of the property. Finally, this project is ONLY profitable because people are being evicted by the state. If people were really paid what they felt the property was worth (which according to a,b and c could be enormous), then this would be a non-issue. Either it would be an acceptable cost (and everyone leaves happy), or not acceptable and the developers would have to look elsewhere.
My microwave is also useless for truly critical data, but that's not it's intended use either. The machine in the article is meant for massive amounts of storage, not the backbone of corporate network. Obviously slashdotters could build something better, like a tasty blueberry pie, but we're talking about mass storage, not pie.
Good point, astronomy is joining many other sciences in becoming more and more abstract. In engineering, when we add variables to fit a theoretical equation to observed data, it's a "fudge-factor". In astronomy, it's a "discovery". However, the way I read the article, they made the hypothesis of a 3rd planet some time ago, and they waited until it could be proven with adequate data from an upgraded telescope to announce it. And one of the dudes designed at built the telescope, so I've got to believe this is a pretty sharp group. Finally, parent has an excellent point about the importance (or lack thereof) of discovery-through-modeling. I could not have said it better myself.
Hey, how about VIA? I don't see them on this list: https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/about/member s/members
Maybe they're not a gaming platform, but at least they're not DRM nazis. Plus it's nice to see modern CPUs that aren't a fire hazard.
The problem with slashdot is there are far too many programmers with tunnel vision. I was in a UAV club in college, and the operating system was the least of our problems. It takes an enormous amount of time just to keep the aircraft flight-worthy (especially after botched landings), and fiddling around with the mechanics enough to fit your processor, GPS, radio modems, flight sensors, cameras, and 9 tons of NiMH batteries on the tiny-assed vehicle. Finally, since you're just college students, you spend absurd amounts of time begging for "test" parts that you never intend to give back to the manufacturers. Damn right they're going to use an off-the-shelf OS, especially if they didn't even have to beg.
Hell, who's to say that Microsoft couldn't release an emulation program that runs on a PC in a couple years? Just stick the game in your DVD drive, reboot a couple dozen times, and presto - no lost games. Worst case, Xbox Next might be tweaked down the road with a "hotfix" that allows to you play 1st gen Xbox games on it. MS could even sell it as an upgrade. Cha-ching!
Although I consider myself more of a car-person than a computer person, I see a striking similarity to OS problems. I dual boot win2k and linux, and there is a similar problem solving strategy:
Windows - something's not working. Uninstall the program and reinstall it. Failing that, reinstall windows. Problem solved.
Linux - something's not working. Begin a massive search for device drivers and start downloading fresh rpms. Since everything is interdependant, it may take hours to locate the correct builds. At some point you will likely be compiling something. In the end, it works, and immense satisfaction rolls over you like a tidalwave. Payoff!
Last year I fought a similar battle. As one of the 6 remaining engineers, we each take turns on the "help-desk" rotation - meaning we are required to take calls from angry customers at all hours for a week at a time. We leave a modem with the customer that they can turn on when they need us to dial in, provided we have access to an analog line to dial out from. After years of hanging up on telemarketers, I had finally (happily) rid myself of a phone line only to have my company turn around and require me to have one. I'm quite happy with my personal cell phone, and my employer provides me with a work cell phone with which I must take incoming calls. On top of that, the meager pay that we had been recieving for support was basically terminated (although we were still charging customers, go figure). I mentioned several time to my boss, and his boss, that I was in violation of their policy - but I was as likely to pay for a phone line as I was to write the company a check for $20 a month. Eventually, they decided that 20 bucks was a small price to pay for me to shut the hell up, especially when we're routinely charging customers $100/hour for phone support. So I expensed the first few payments to prove that I had won, and dropped it after that. After all, it's not really worth our time to fill out those expense reports. It [i]is[/i] worth our time to make sure that management thinks twice before trying to "save money" at your expense. Remember: Your loss is their gain.