I'll do this all on a 386 running DOS. For far more time and effort than you spent on it. If linux can use the sound cards, then I can find the specs. A ISA-PCI bridge can be build by any electrical engineer bored enough to do it. Programing it isn't a big deal.
Time however is a big deal. This entire project was done in one year. Working full time I estimate I could impliment the computer programing parts on a 386 in 2 years. I wouldn't have to impliment many things that linux does, but I would end up re-implimenting a lot of linux in some form. My schedualer would be a lot easier to write, interupts sends an event in the sound queue, and the io queue. Process sound queue, then IO queue, and if any time is left, check for keyboard input. (Note, writting a nice GUI adds 2 years)
The 386 would be io bound more than anything, but given enough memory there should be enough power there.
Fired has very specific meaning, the linked artical says he was dismissed, not fired. Therefore I duopt he was fired. More likely he either was laid off, or "resigned for personal reasons". In either case when asked about it the company will say "He was an employee in good standing until he left." If he was fired they will say in court "He was a bad empolyee." This is a very strong legal statement, and no company wants to say that without all their legal details in order.
It is much harder to get a job if you are fired because checking will get a strong negative. It is very rare for anyone to have a bad reference, so getting fired puts you out of an entire field. It is very hard to not hide who you worked for without sending the different negative of being someone who hasn't worked in 10 years.
That said, the paper he wrote could be considered enoguh to fire him. However I don't think the lawyers (or HR) would fire him if there was any other alternative because of the legal hastles.
I can't spell anything that long, but I think they would not be something to eat unless first processed by something like like a plant eating dinasour. Once you find one, feed it on these (could take a large forest) until fat, the butcher and serve like chicken. Feeds a small city.
Interesting interview. However I personally would have walked out in the middle of part 2. It is obvious the guy has no real interest in MAME, and other than they compete doesn't have anything to add to the subject. Yet most of the questions are strongly related to MAME as if he can add something to the subject.
Sure RS232 has stood the test of time. However do you need it on every system? This one in particular? I have a lot of ideas for a board this size, and none include a serial port. Come to think of it, I haven't used a RS-232 port at home in several years. At work I've used them more often, but there we had terminal servers attaching them to the network, or a dedicated machine (486 laptop with a bad battery) in the lab. Never used them on my desk.
I know of applications that abuse a serial port such that a USB-2-RS232 adaport won't work. If that is your applliation don't buy this board.
For most applications though, RS232 is obsolete and not used. Why spend even 50 cents to add it? I don't need it on my set top box. I don't need it on my MAME arcade box.
Nice ascii art, but the font size is wrong leading me to get a wrong impression of the size. However it is easy to convert. There are by definition 2.54 cm to an inch, so the 12cm board = 4.72 inches - lets round that to the nearest quarter = 4.75. By definition there are 72 point to the inch, so you need to adjust your browser to a 342 point font. Note that I'm assume that your monitor properly scales fonts to actual size, odds are it does not (generally only macs try, and not all of them get it right), but that is implimentation specific.
I rounded the inches measurement up a little because in most fonts [] does not take up all the pixels it could, and thus isn't exact size. I'm hoping this adjustment brings us to a better average. (likely width still a little small, hight a little big)
I played gran Turismo so I could drive all the cars in the world. I was dissapointed that I couldn't drive a Model T. I would have liked to drive some old steam car. Where is the hourse and buggy. (I'd like to try a horse and buggy around that corkscrew that we spend weeks trying to get the Viper around)
I can't afford to buy every car. Even if I could, many are too rare to get the most out of. If I owned a 1 of 10 made care, I would only drive it in parades, which doesn't get a car made for a tight high speed race track to show any abilities.
Sourceforge has a help wanted section. Post in there that you need sound help.
Put simple sounds in your game. If nothing else just record yourself saying "crash" in a mono-tone voice. Something that proves sound can be added, then get someone who knows sound to do sound.
Why do taxes need to be progressive? Sure it helps a few poor people, but is that really the job of government?
I've heard two proposes that I agree with. Taxes are due on election day, no withholding, you better save up for them. (I strongly disagree with withholding, it maskes what taxes really are). This isn't a poll tax, it is due even if you don't vote. The other is sales tax only, but exempt sales of houseing, food, and clothing. (After some though I've decided energy is still taxed, it is cheap anyway, and if you don't like it buy some sweaters)
Note that the two are not compatable, so you can choose either one. The former gets people to think a little more about what their taxes are going for and if it is worth it, on a day when they can make a difference. The latter simplfies things, and allows the poor to get by without paying taxes, while everyone else pays them on the non-esentials.
I've always said "I'm not electable". Once people realiized what true freedom is they wouldn't want it.
That depends also on how often you need new users. If the form is used only by a few staff reporters, training them to use vi isn't particulary hard, it just takes some time. If the form will be used by hundreds or thousands of people, many who only use it once, then teaching vi isn't worth it.
The people who use it over and over again may (or may not) come to love vi once they learn the power features without leaving the keyboard.
Try the bargin isle at home depot. You can get them (slighly damaged, put that side down) for a buck. Often they are on sale for half price, but a buck is the standard price.
I was out of programing for a while, and to pay the bills I went into construction. I had a beatiful office then: outside with fresh air. I got to play with toys all day. (saws and nailers mostly, but once in a while I could attempt to get the 4 wheel drive forklift stuck) I hated it. Oh, I like working with my hands and building things, but I don't like doing it all day. I several times found myself standing on a 2x4 20 feet in the air and wishing I was anywhere else, (preferably the ground) while the other guy ran across the other wall and then teased me for not being at the other end already. I had to listen to the radio station the foreman picked. Then I finially got home after working 10 hours, and was dead tired. Even when I had a moment free, I couldn't pick up my mandolin because my body hurt too much.
I'm now back in programing, and I love it. I get paid to read code all day. I sit inside an office (with a window that I never look out of) that is air conditioned. I write code! They pay me to write code! Once in a while I have to test my code, and that isn't nearly as much fun, but my job is writing code. I work less hours. I can choose my radio station, or bring my own CDs, or work in silence, my choice. When I get home I can play mandolin without pain.
To each his own. I've tried your plan. The work was different, but I didn't like it.
Not the physical building's fault though
on
The Bionic Office
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· Score: 1
Yep, I've worked in places where I just wanted to go home again. Wasn't the fault of the building though. The Cubes were nice enough, and worked. Not as nice as the artical, but good enough. Management was sending signals that my job was doomed, and that didn't motivate me to salvage it. Sure enough, the entire plant was shut down and everyone let go the day the last version was released. If I had known what to think I would have realized that after version 2.1 there was no development, and no plans for development was ever approved. Instead I just saw promises of a roadmap coming soon that were broken. At least everyone saw that broken promise
Did I mention the office I didn't like working in was built on a swamp, and sunk just a little every year, sometimes flooded out, and the plumbing was going bad? It was physically bad place to work, and everyone wanted to move elsewhere. However the physical parts of the building never detracted from my wanting to work there in the pre 2.0 days there there was plenty of interesting work.
Look around. The Super elite that does 10 times as much productive work (that is end result, not lines of code, but bug free features) as me is rare. However the type that does 1/10th as much as me is rather common. Just go to any school and look in the CS department at the students. I had to do many group projects with them, it was a real eye-opener. They were the ones who appeared to be good when you didn't know them. Once you worked with them you saw the difference. In the end I learned to pick my group (when I could pick them...) with care, but I didn't have much school left by then.
Out in the real world I've found that most bosses are rather good at not letting them get to the second interview, much less hired. So most real programers are good. (I'm being charitable to bosses today, perhaps the bad programers just don't apply to the same jobs that a good programer would) I have no idea where the bad ones end up. My guess is doing Visual Basic scripting in an office where people skills are more important than programing skills. (A good fit for many bad programers)
The hard part is positioning the mark byond the end of the audio data, but over the other data, thus preventing your cd player from reading the data portions, while still accessing the audio.
Note, I don't think it will work in the real world even if you could overwrite exactly the right areas. Interesting idea though.
I have car insurance because my state requires I have it, and I would not have it if not required. I have insurance on my truck because it is worth enough that I want it insured lest it is stolen, or I do crash (despite not having done so)
The benifits of insurance for an $800 car to not make sense to me. For a $10,000 truck they make sense.
Unfortunatly we have some liability laws that mean I'd likely have insurance anyway, but it is stupid, and the world would be better off if liability insurance was illegal. (along with tort reform so that only "really bad case" quits were filed, and no "bad, but life is hard" lawsuits. All this while protecting the little guy...)
Last night I had 84 SPAM messages, and 9 legitimate messages. That already works out to 90% SPAM. I'm getting close to dropping email compeltely, much as I like the good stuff, the bad is hardly worth it. (My ISP does catch 90 of the SPAM, but they don't give me a way to delete it automaticly)
I don't know. I think there is a SGI system of a few years back that would be similear, and cost more than $90,000. I'm thinking something like a multi-way MIPS system at 90mhz from 10 years ago, with the specialized sgi graphics hardware.
Unfortunatly I've used the systems, but I have no idea how you would compare specifications to see if there was ever a system of similear power for more than $90,000.
You mis read the artical. They need more data entry people to enter the data so the bugs table is full. Right now they know that there are things that should be in that table, but are not.
I've seen ~300 users on a dual processer box (2 years ago whatever was current). However these were primarly UNIX people who had a unix thin terminals, and only used the windows to check their outlook calander, and once in a while open a word document. All their normal work (including non-calander email, and non-microsoft word processing) was done on a unix machine that only managed ~10 users before lack of CPU slowed it down.
In other words you need to figgure out how much load you will have. If everyone is using 90% of their processor with today's fast machines, then you will loose money. If most people have a windows machine near thier place on the assembly line, but can go hours without doing anything then you can support over 1000 on a single processor machine. Odds are you have some sort of mix that isn't quite as extreem on either end. Try to distribute the load so that heavy users are not all one once machine.
Depends. Linux might be a better market to develop games on. It has a bunch of users are might be interested in a game. The origional Galatic Civilizations was a good game, but wouldn't have gone near as far if they targeted Windows instead of OS/2. By targeting a small system you can get a large percentage of users, while targeting windows means you only get a small percentage of a large number. Depending on how things work our exactly the latter can be much less than the former.
Remember there are few linux games. Those who run linux may be willing to buy a few games, and they only have a few games total to buy, so they can buy most of them. With Windows you have many different games to choose from, so those willing to buy games only buy a small number.
If you are making the next doom or MYST (by which I mean a game that explodes and everyone gets it, not any partular catagory of game) then target windows because you will get more sales. If you are making a standard game you have to set realistic expentations. Why would a windows person buy your ok game vs some other ok game? With linux it is why would someone buy your ok game vs not buying a game at all.
This is a marketing decision. If your expectations are reasonable you can make better decisions than if they are wrong. Of course it goes both way. If you make a game that could explode except it is limited it to linux you just lost a lot of potential sales.
Cross platform development makes a lot of sense. You target one platform, and once the game is out you do market research. Find that something else would make enough sales, and you port to that. In theory it is easy, in practice a little more difficult.
True, but linux is free, so once you have the distribution set up duplication is nothing. They can include linux in every gamecube box, use it or not.
If you have USB ports (PS2 does, but don't know about GC) a cheap keybaord makes kword (free) work, and support a few USB printers. They might even manage to force printer manufactures to go to a standard driver if they define a standard for USB printers that attach to their box, and there is no way to attach them otherwise. (That would be nice, but farfetched) Nothing as good as a real computer, but it is free (as in beer), or so close to free that they don't care. All that, and good enough for most school reports and web browsing.
Depends on the clique. I have plenty of time to wait for someone from my church, but in a different state or country to come around and chat. I have no time at all to wait for some random person to want to chat.
Note though that just because I'm on irc and at my computer that doesn't mean I'm nessicarly interested in gossip. I hang around the channels dedicationed to my church (unofficially dedicated) when I'm doing something else on my computer. Interupt my hacking session with gossip about nothing and I'll be mad. Interupt my hacking session because you need some serious religious help at 3am and don't want to wake a local friend and I'm happy to help. Want a deep conversation on Sampson and I'll be happy to join. Want a "deep" converstation on who is dating who and you will find I'm gone. Part of that is the hacker nature in me, part is objection to gossip in generation.
Once you have all this storage, what are you going to do when it is all lost. Houses burn down, harddrives crash, CDs get scratched, kids take hammers to electronics, and other disasters that I can't even think of.
Answer that question first. If you just want the data, but don't worry too much about losing it, then 5 harddrives in a simple RAID without parity (I can never remember if that is level 0 or 1 - the other is mirror) will do just fine. If you care about losing data, then do you need offsite storage? If you need storage offsite, tape backup looks good. (perhaps cheaper than CD/DVD at the volumn you are looking at, and certinaly takes less space) DVD is nice in that you can write your videos in DVD format, and borrow a copy to anyone who wants to see your kids birthday party. However it is easy enough to burn a custom disk for anyone who wants it.
Have you looked at nearline robots? They are more expensive than harddrives, but the worst case in the case of breakage [that doesn't take the house with it] is you loose just a small fraction of your collection, and nothing gets scratched on handeling. If your dvd drive in the reader breaks you can still use the collection. Some allow you to hook several different drives to different comptuers, if IO bottlenecks are a problem for you this would allow more people to use your collection at a time. May or may not be useful, but you should consider it.
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I'll do this all on a 386 running DOS. For far more time and effort than you spent on it. If linux can use the sound cards, then I can find the specs. A ISA-PCI bridge can be build by any electrical engineer bored enough to do it. Programing it isn't a big deal.
Time however is a big deal. This entire project was done in one year. Working full time I estimate I could impliment the computer programing parts on a 386 in 2 years. I wouldn't have to impliment many things that linux does, but I would end up re-implimenting a lot of linux in some form. My schedualer would be a lot easier to write, interupts sends an event in the sound queue, and the io queue. Process sound queue, then IO queue, and if any time is left, check for keyboard input. (Note, writting a nice GUI adds 2 years)
The 386 would be io bound more than anything, but given enough memory there should be enough power there.
Fired has very specific meaning, the linked artical says he was dismissed, not fired. Therefore I duopt he was fired. More likely he either was laid off, or "resigned for personal reasons". In either case when asked about it the company will say "He was an employee in good standing until he left." If he was fired they will say in court "He was a bad empolyee." This is a very strong legal statement, and no company wants to say that without all their legal details in order.
It is much harder to get a job if you are fired because checking will get a strong negative. It is very rare for anyone to have a bad reference, so getting fired puts you out of an entire field. It is very hard to not hide who you worked for without sending the different negative of being someone who hasn't worked in 10 years.
That said, the paper he wrote could be considered enoguh to fire him. However I don't think the lawyers (or HR) would fire him if there was any other alternative because of the legal hastles.
I can't spell anything that long, but I think they would not be something to eat unless first processed by something like like a plant eating dinasour. Once you find one, feed it on these (could take a large forest) until fat, the butcher and serve like chicken. Feeds a small city.
Interesting interview. However I personally would have walked out in the middle of part 2. It is obvious the guy has no real interest in MAME, and other than they compete doesn't have anything to add to the subject. Yet most of the questions are strongly related to MAME as if he can add something to the subject.
Sure RS232 has stood the test of time. However do you need it on every system? This one in particular? I have a lot of ideas for a board this size, and none include a serial port. Come to think of it, I haven't used a RS-232 port at home in several years. At work I've used them more often, but there we had terminal servers attaching them to the network, or a dedicated machine (486 laptop with a bad battery) in the lab. Never used them on my desk.
I know of applications that abuse a serial port such that a USB-2-RS232 adaport won't work. If that is your applliation don't buy this board.
For most applications though, RS232 is obsolete and not used. Why spend even 50 cents to add it? I don't need it on my set top box. I don't need it on my MAME arcade box.
Nice ascii art, but the font size is wrong leading me to get a wrong impression of the size. However it is easy to convert. There are by definition 2.54 cm to an inch, so the 12cm board = 4.72 inches - lets round that to the nearest quarter = 4.75. By definition there are 72 point to the inch, so you need to adjust your browser to a 342 point font. Note that I'm assume that your monitor properly scales fonts to actual size, odds are it does not (generally only macs try, and not all of them get it right), but that is implimentation specific.
I rounded the inches measurement up a little because in most fonts [] does not take up all the pixels it could, and thus isn't exact size. I'm hoping this adjustment brings us to a better average. (likely width still a little small, hight a little big)
I played gran Turismo so I could drive all the cars in the world. I was dissapointed that I couldn't drive a Model T. I would have liked to drive some old steam car. Where is the hourse and buggy. (I'd like to try a horse and buggy around that corkscrew that we spend weeks trying to get the Viper around)
I can't afford to buy every car. Even if I could, many are too rare to get the most out of. If I owned a 1 of 10 made care, I would only drive it in parades, which doesn't get a car made for a tight high speed race track to show any abilities.
Gran Turismo is not complete without the Prius.
Sourceforge has a help wanted section. Post in there that you need sound help.
Put simple sounds in your game. If nothing else just record yourself saying "crash" in a mono-tone voice. Something that proves sound can be added, then get someone who knows sound to do sound.
Why do taxes need to be progressive? Sure it helps a few poor people, but is that really the job of government?
I've heard two proposes that I agree with. Taxes are due on election day, no withholding, you better save up for them. (I strongly disagree with withholding, it maskes what taxes really are). This isn't a poll tax, it is due even if you don't vote. The other is sales tax only, but exempt sales of houseing, food, and clothing. (After some though I've decided energy is still taxed, it is cheap anyway, and if you don't like it buy some sweaters)
Note that the two are not compatable, so you can choose either one. The former gets people to think a little more about what their taxes are going for and if it is worth it, on a day when they can make a difference. The latter simplfies things, and allows the poor to get by without paying taxes, while everyone else pays them on the non-esentials.
I've always said "I'm not electable". Once people realiized what true freedom is they wouldn't want it.
That depends also on how often you need new users. If the form is used only by a few staff reporters, training them to use vi isn't particulary hard, it just takes some time. If the form will be used by hundreds or thousands of people, many who only use it once, then teaching vi isn't worth it.
The people who use it over and over again may (or may not) come to love vi once they learn the power features without leaving the keyboard.
Try the bargin isle at home depot. You can get them (slighly damaged, put that side down) for a buck. Often they are on sale for half price, but a buck is the standard price.
I was out of programing for a while, and to pay the bills I went into construction. I had a beatiful office then: outside with fresh air. I got to play with toys all day. (saws and nailers mostly, but once in a while I could attempt to get the 4 wheel drive forklift stuck) I hated it. Oh, I like working with my hands and building things, but I don't like doing it all day. I several times found myself standing on a 2x4 20 feet in the air and wishing I was anywhere else, (preferably the ground) while the other guy ran across the other wall and then teased me for not being at the other end already. I had to listen to the radio station the foreman picked. Then I finially got home after working 10 hours, and was dead tired. Even when I had a moment free, I couldn't pick up my mandolin because my body hurt too much.
I'm now back in programing, and I love it. I get paid to read code all day. I sit inside an office (with a window that I never look out of) that is air conditioned. I write code! They pay me to write code! Once in a while I have to test my code, and that isn't nearly as much fun, but my job is writing code. I work less hours. I can choose my radio station, or bring my own CDs, or work in silence, my choice. When I get home I can play mandolin without pain.
To each his own. I've tried your plan. The work was different, but I didn't like it.
Yep, I've worked in places where I just wanted to go home again. Wasn't the fault of the building though. The Cubes were nice enough, and worked. Not as nice as the artical, but good enough. Management was sending signals that my job was doomed, and that didn't motivate me to salvage it. Sure enough, the entire plant was shut down and everyone let go the day the last version was released. If I had known what to think I would have realized that after version 2.1 there was no development, and no plans for development was ever approved. Instead I just saw promises of a roadmap coming soon that were broken. At least everyone saw that broken promise
Did I mention the office I didn't like working in was built on a swamp, and sunk just a little every year, sometimes flooded out, and the plumbing was going bad? It was physically bad place to work, and everyone wanted to move elsewhere. However the physical parts of the building never detracted from my wanting to work there in the pre 2.0 days there there was plenty of interesting work.
Look around. The Super elite that does 10 times as much productive work (that is end result, not lines of code, but bug free features) as me is rare. However the type that does 1/10th as much as me is rather common. Just go to any school and look in the CS department at the students. I had to do many group projects with them, it was a real eye-opener. They were the ones who appeared to be good when you didn't know them. Once you worked with them you saw the difference. In the end I learned to pick my group (when I could pick them...) with care, but I didn't have much school left by then.
Out in the real world I've found that most bosses are rather good at not letting them get to the second interview, much less hired. So most real programers are good. (I'm being charitable to bosses today, perhaps the bad programers just don't apply to the same jobs that a good programer would) I have no idea where the bad ones end up. My guess is doing Visual Basic scripting in an office where people skills are more important than programing skills. (A good fit for many bad programers)
The hard part is positioning the mark byond the end of the audio data, but over the other data, thus preventing your cd player from reading the data portions, while still accessing the audio.
Note, I don't think it will work in the real world even if you could overwrite exactly the right areas. Interesting idea though.
I have car insurance because my state requires I have it, and I would not have it if not required. I have insurance on my truck because it is worth enough that I want it insured lest it is stolen, or I do crash (despite not having done so)
The benifits of insurance for an $800 car to not make sense to me. For a $10,000 truck they make sense.
Unfortunatly we have some liability laws that mean I'd likely have insurance anyway, but it is stupid, and the world would be better off if liability insurance was illegal. (along with tort reform so that only "really bad case" quits were filed, and no "bad, but life is hard" lawsuits. All this while protecting the little guy...)
Opps, I just checked, I can automaticly delete identified spam, I just need to figgure out what score to delete on...
Last night I had 84 SPAM messages, and 9 legitimate messages. That already works out to 90% SPAM. I'm getting close to dropping email compeltely, much as I like the good stuff, the bad is hardly worth it. (My ISP does catch 90 of the SPAM, but they don't give me a way to delete it automaticly)
I don't know. I think there is a SGI system of a few years back that would be similear, and cost more than $90,000. I'm thinking something like a multi-way MIPS system at 90mhz from 10 years ago, with the specialized sgi graphics hardware.
Unfortunatly I've used the systems, but I have no idea how you would compare specifications to see if there was ever a system of similear power for more than $90,000.
You mis read the artical. They need more data entry people to enter the data so the bugs table is full. Right now they know that there are things that should be in that table, but are not.
I've seen ~300 users on a dual processer box (2 years ago whatever was current). However these were primarly UNIX people who had a unix thin terminals, and only used the windows to check their outlook calander, and once in a while open a word document. All their normal work (including non-calander email, and non-microsoft word processing) was done on a unix machine that only managed ~10 users before lack of CPU slowed it down.
In other words you need to figgure out how much load you will have. If everyone is using 90% of their processor with today's fast machines, then you will loose money. If most people have a windows machine near thier place on the assembly line, but can go hours without doing anything then you can support over 1000 on a single processor machine. Odds are you have some sort of mix that isn't quite as extreem on either end. Try to distribute the load so that heavy users are not all one once machine.
Depends. Linux might be a better market to develop games on. It has a bunch of users are might be interested in a game. The origional Galatic Civilizations was a good game, but wouldn't have gone near as far if they targeted Windows instead of OS/2. By targeting a small system you can get a large percentage of users, while targeting windows means you only get a small percentage of a large number. Depending on how things work our exactly the latter can be much less than the former.
Remember there are few linux games. Those who run linux may be willing to buy a few games, and they only have a few games total to buy, so they can buy most of them. With Windows you have many different games to choose from, so those willing to buy games only buy a small number.
If you are making the next doom or MYST (by which I mean a game that explodes and everyone gets it, not any partular catagory of game) then target windows because you will get more sales. If you are making a standard game you have to set realistic expentations. Why would a windows person buy your ok game vs some other ok game? With linux it is why would someone buy your ok game vs not buying a game at all.
This is a marketing decision. If your expectations are reasonable you can make better decisions than if they are wrong. Of course it goes both way. If you make a game that could explode except it is limited it to linux you just lost a lot of potential sales.
Cross platform development makes a lot of sense. You target one platform, and once the game is out you do market research. Find that something else would make enough sales, and you port to that. In theory it is easy, in practice a little more difficult.
True, but linux is free, so once you have the distribution set up duplication is nothing. They can include linux in every gamecube box, use it or not.
If you have USB ports (PS2 does, but don't know about GC) a cheap keybaord makes kword (free) work, and support a few USB printers. They might even manage to force printer manufactures to go to a standard driver if they define a standard for USB printers that attach to their box, and there is no way to attach them otherwise. (That would be nice, but farfetched) Nothing as good as a real computer, but it is free (as in beer), or so close to free that they don't care. All that, and good enough for most school reports and web browsing.
Depends on the clique. I have plenty of time to wait for someone from my church, but in a different state or country to come around and chat. I have no time at all to wait for some random person to want to chat.
Note though that just because I'm on irc and at my computer that doesn't mean I'm nessicarly interested in gossip. I hang around the channels dedicationed to my church (unofficially dedicated) when I'm doing something else on my computer. Interupt my hacking session with gossip about nothing and I'll be mad. Interupt my hacking session because you need some serious religious help at 3am and don't want to wake a local friend and I'm happy to help. Want a deep conversation on Sampson and I'll be happy to join. Want a "deep" converstation on who is dating who and you will find I'm gone. Part of that is the hacker nature in me, part is objection to gossip in generation.
Once you have all this storage, what are you going to do when it is all lost. Houses burn down, harddrives crash, CDs get scratched, kids take hammers to electronics, and other disasters that I can't even think of.
Answer that question first. If you just want the data, but don't worry too much about losing it, then 5 harddrives in a simple RAID without parity (I can never remember if that is level 0 or 1 - the other is mirror) will do just fine. If you care about losing data, then do you need offsite storage? If you need storage offsite, tape backup looks good. (perhaps cheaper than CD/DVD at the volumn you are looking at, and certinaly takes less space) DVD is nice in that you can write your videos in DVD format, and borrow a copy to anyone who wants to see your kids birthday party. However it is easy enough to burn a custom disk for anyone who wants it.
Have you looked at nearline robots? They are more expensive than harddrives, but the worst case in the case of breakage [that doesn't take the house with it] is you loose just a small fraction of your collection, and nothing gets scratched on handeling. If your dvd drive in the reader breaks you can still use the collection. Some allow you to hook several different drives to different comptuers, if IO bottlenecks are a problem for you this would allow more people to use your collection at a time. May or may not be useful, but you should consider it.